The city’s Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) is looking into whether lifeguards manning Dupont Circle’s Francis Pool improperly collected parking fees from patrons. Over the last couple of weekends of DPR’s pool season, staffers at the facility, at 25th and N Streets NW, opened a dusty stretch of land on the western edge of the complex. When incoming pool users parked there, the lifeguards extracted a $5 parking fee.

I was one of their victims. Two weekends ago, I spotted an opening in this parking area. There was no sign indicating a fee, but a lifeguard hit me up for payment just after I’d parked. He dropped my fiver into a big wad of bills.

I later asked for a receipt. No go. I asked to see a sign. The lifeguard said they’d had a sign up the weekend before, but that someone must have taken it down. I then questioned him about the system: If there are no receipts, how does DPR know how much cash was collected? He replied that DPR has precise notions of how many people patronize the pool on a given day, and how much cash should be handed over by the lifeguards. (The pool charges $7 for non-D.C. residents).

The fishiness in this setup was also apparent to Brian O’Connor. He and his family showed up last weekend, parked in the “pay” space, and faced an immediate request for payment. He blew it off and proceeded to enjoy the pool. Then a lifeguard threatened to call the police on him. At first, he said he’d welcome the intervention of the cops, but ultimately just moved his vehicle.

O’Connor was suspicious of the scheme in part because a friend had previously handed over $5 for parking, only to watch the attendant/lifeguard slide the bill right into her wallet. O’Connor said he’d likely report the activity to DPR, “though we doubt it will do any good at this point.” (The pool closed for the year on Sept. 1).

Yesterday, I spoke with DPR spokesperson John Stokes about these parking “policies” at the Francis pool. He responded unequivocally: “We do not charge for parking at our facilities,” he said, positing that perhaps the folks who were collecting the fees weren’t DPR employees.

When I told him that they were dressed in white tanktops, red shorts, carried lifeguard equipment, and supervised the pool, he said, “We will be seriously looking into the situation.”

“That was a scam,” said Stokes.

“The only thing I can say is that calls are being made right now,” continued Stokes. “We really appreciate it when constituents note any type of illegal behavior at any DPR facility or location.”

Last Spring we tracked Positive Nature’s struggle to keep its doors open. The non-profit, which provides tons of services for at-risk kids, was renting a building just blocks from the new Nationals Park. Within the last few years, it had become clear that Positive Nature was being priced out of the neighborhood. The area used to include a housing project. Now it has a Courtyard Marriott. You can read our previous reportage here, here, here, here, and here. If you feel like skipping all those links, here’s a quick summary: the non-profit owed thousands of dollars in property taxes, they held a rally and reached out for support, legislation was introduced before the D.C. Council, nothing much happened with the legislation, the non-profit sought out a new location.

Now comes the news that Positive Nature has found a new space through the Department of Parks And Recreation in what looks like a new partnership.

“We are so appreciative of all of the outpouring of care and support that so many people have extended to us in recent months, and we are privileged to have the opportunity to continue to provide services to the District’s children and families,” wrote Jennifer Murphy, the non-profit’s co-founder and co-executive director.

The new location: The TR Center at 3030 G Street SE.

We will of course be following up with a visit to the TR Center. Stay tuned.

In recent weeks, softball games at Walter Pierce Park have been on the outs.

First, residents were concerned that errant fly balls would end up hitting passersby or kids playing basketball at the adjacent court. After the softball players altered the field, balls started flying into the parking lot behind right field.

On a recent Wednesday evening, Edan Lichtenstein, 30, got a phone call from a neighbor telling him that his Jetta’s hood had been struck by a ball. None of the players bothered to leave a note, he says. “It’s a pain in the ass more than anything,” he explains. “They should not be hitting [balls] toward buildings.”

ANC Commissioner Mindy Moretti says she’s received two other complaints from citizens whose cars have been dinged by softballs. “I know for sure three cars have been hit,” she says. “I’ve seen people back in the alley looking for softballs as well. I just think it’s a safety issue.”

This week, Moretti e-mailed the director of the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) writing that softball in the park should be reviewed. “It’s something that you wouldn’t normally expect,” she says. There’s no backstop there. It’s just not suitable for adult softball.”

DPR agreed. John Stokes, the department’s spokesperson, says that no permits are currently issued for softball there. “We’re putting up signs on the field that will say that baseball and softball are strictly prohibited and violators will be asked to leave. In addition, the DC Park Rangers will be monitoring the field to ensure that the baseball and the softball are not being played.” Stokes adds, however, that “playing catch is permitted.”

Forget knitting. Forget Oprah and Bingo and watching sports. This week, D.C. seniors are competing in track and field, bowling, tennis, and archery.

D.C. Parks and Rec and the Office on Aging today kicked off the 25th annual D.C. Golden Olympics for District residents over 50. This year is also a qualifying year for the 2009 Summer National Senior Games in San Francisco, so those who place first, second, or third will get to compete against other overly athletic seniors from around the country.

At this morning’s opening ceremony, Bradford Tatum, 87, and his 89-year-old brother, John, said they have been preparing all year for the Golden Olympics. Both residents of Northeast, they grew up in Georgetown and started swimming almost 80 years ago in their neighborhood pool.

Younger brother Bradford, who is competing in the 500-yard freestyle swim, had the honor of carrying the sort-of golden, possibly plastic torch at this morning’s ceremony in recognition of the six medals he won last year.

So, OK, the paper flames actually fell out of the golden/plastic torch as he made his way around the Emory Recreation Center auditorium. But no matter.

After the pomp and circumstance, wellwishers with mechanical wheelchairs, walking canes, and baggy T-shirts loaded up on private charter buses and made their way to Takoma Aquatic Center for the 500 freestyle.

Tomorrow: track, long jump, softball, tennis, football, archery, and shot put. Thursday: golf, basketball, swimming, and bowling. Friday: pool, table tennis, and the big closing ceremony at Fort Stevens Recreation Center.

Robert King, special assistant for DPR said the Golden Olympics have been so successful because D.C. residents are living longer. “With the senior population at 16 percent and growing, it is important that seniors participate in these games and practice throughout the year,” King said. “It’s never too late to start.”

He doesn’t have to tell it to Sue Barns, 80. A Brookland resident, she started running at the age of 60 and won the gold medal in the Penna Relays Master in 2000 as the oldest female participant.

She’s got some advice for the rest of us: “There is no excuse for young people to be sittin’ around.”

—Whitney Boyd

Summer’s coming. The days are lengthening. The weather’s warming up. And police are reminding us that bad kids are going to be everywhere. Hey, that’s our language–not theirs, according to Yvonne Smith, MPD Community Services and Youth Outreach organizer.

This message is circulating around the MPD listservs:

“Some of you believe that you have bad kids in your neighborhood. Particularly during the summer months, we get phone calls from people saying, ‘I wish you can drive a van around here and pick up these bad kids.’ I read email messages from people who want “bad kids” to stop throwing rocks, stop hanging outside, stop terrorizing the community, stop playing in the streets, stop bringing firecrackers into the neighborhood, etc…To avoid feeling like you have uncontrollable “bad kids” in your neighborhoods, show them love by directing their families to the information below.”

What follows Smith’s introduction is a list of suggestions, resources, and programs for youth. But, the best part of this message is the way Smith just puts it out there–and I’m being completely serious about this–that residents should stop just whining and calling the police and be more proactive in their neighborhoods.

Not complete nonsense, though it’s not always easy to show people “love” by telling them what to do. Still, I’m wondering how the neighborhood folks are going to react. The tone of Smith’s message is reminiscent of a brief e-mail former Third District Lt. Ralph Neal sent back in January. He urged community members to come to his monthly meetings only to receive a barrage of angry responses from people saying:

-”The fact is PSA 308 leadership is a failure no matter how many times the enablers come to the rescue.” Read the rest of this entry »

If, like the “alleged military wife from Fort Belvoir,” you were unable to get in to the White House egg roll, here’s another option: Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr. is hosting an egg hunt at the Fort Lincoln Gazebo, 3100 Fort Lincoln Drive. According to a press release, there will be face painting, Simon Says, and sack races, as well as a “picnic-style lunch of grilled hot dogs.” Parks and Rec Director Clark Ray is rumored to be coming!!! —Mike DeBonis

The infamous green/brown space behind Garrison Elementary is once again in the news. We’re talking about the field at the northwest corner of R Street and Vermont Avenue in Shaw. You remember–that’s where all those parishioners from Metropolitan Baptist Church used to park back in the day, before their parking became a huge civic issue in the late ’90s.

Every Sunday, the faithful would drive their big, shiny cars with Maryland tags onto this patch of land and leave them there for the service. Over time, the traffic essentially ruined what was supposed to be a baseball field for the neighborhood. The neighborhood started making noises about the injustice–how can all these out-of-towners trample precious play space for city kids.

Metropolitan Baptist preacher H. Beecher Hicks went divisive in response. Here’s what he said from the pulpit: “This conflict has to do with whites who come into black communities and who desire to take over. If the arrangement doesn’t suit white folks, it has to go.” The pews went wild.

That was the grace with which Metropolitan agreed to stop parking at the ballfield. Divisions notwithstanding, the hope was that the field would become a place where children would come and play ball, or something.

But no. It’s been taken over by the dog people, and according to this week’s issue of the Current, there’s pressure to make it an official dog park. Count me as an opponent.

Now I have a new excuse not to go swimming.

From Park and Rec:

“On February 4, 2008, the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) will temporarily close the William H. Rumsey Aquatic Center, 635 North Carolina Avenue, SE, to perform preventive maintenance work and repairs that will ensure proper upkeep of the Rumsey Aquatic Center and provide DPR patrons with an improved swimming experience. The temporary closure is currently scheduled for a minimum of 45 business days.

Preventive maintenance work and repairs will take place throughout the center, including the renovation of the men’s and women’s locker rooms. Locker room work will include replacement of the floors, lockers, showers, painting, and other repairs. Repairs will be made to the center’s electrical, heating, ventilation and air conditioning, and plumbing systems. Additional work will be performed throughout the center, including interior painting and general repairs, and exterior repairs and landscaping work.”

I truly love that pool. The lifeguards are friendly. It’s generally not overwhelmingly crowded at night. And there’s free kickboards. Kickboards are awesome! But since Park and Rec is aiming to improve the “swimming experience,” may I suggest:

1) Excluding grumpy old men from my lane. Or if that is not feasible, mandating that these men can only swim during off peak hours.

2) Augmenting the stereo system with better speakers. I’d like to be able to hear some slow jams even out in the deep end.

3) Installing a bathing suit dryer machine in the locker rooms. I know this a real yuppie request. But it’s just nice.

4) Hosting weekly BBQs during the summer. There’s patio space that can be accessed. I’d really like a tofu dog after some serious lap swimming.

You’ve seen this guy. You’ve watched him do his thing. He’s out there any time the weather’s OK. He stands at the free-throw line of the half-court at Stead Park on the 1600 block of P Street NW. And he just shoots, nonstop. Actually, he does stop every so often to update his book of stats. His routine was brilliantly chronicled by none other than our own sports/games/competition columnist Dave McKenna.

Sometime in the next year or so, Robert Triolo will lose his hoop. Renovation plans for Stead call for eliminating the half-court and replacing it with a small field for kids to play on. Triolo will likely have to take his game to the adjacent full court, but that’s often busy with five-on-five games.

There are fewer smells better than a crackling campfire in the woods, fewer pleasures more distinct than a pitched tent, a cold beer, and conversation. And there are even fewer inventions as genius as the humble pie iron.

Although my fiance and I recently acquired as a gift a fancy camping stove, I’m not entirely convinced we need it. The possibilities with a pie iron—two cast-iron squares, roughly the size of a piece of bread, hinged at the top and attached to long handles—are awesome to contemplate. With this one primitive piece of equipment, some wood, a couple of ingredients, and a little patience, you’ve got every meal covered: breakfast (try store-bought biscuit dough with cheese and a slice of turkey stuffed in the middle), lunch (some nutty bread, a slice of Swiss and a marinated Portobello) and dinner, the always-reliable pizza pocket (bread, sauce, cheese, and whatever else you like). Apply cooking spray to your iron, stack your ingredients, close it up, and stick it in the fire. That’s it. A few minutes later, you can flip out a neat, toasty package encasing simple ingredients, made melty and smoky from open-fire cooking.

Pie irons are sold in most camping stores, although I’ve never bought one. Pizza pockets were, I think, my first solid food as a child and the pie iron (a Tonka toaster) I inherited has been in my family for 30 years or more.

But if you don’t have one, don’t sweat it. Just get outdoors. Three-day weekends with near-perfect weather are too rare to sit inside your air-conditioned apartment. Camping in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania is super fun…and close!

Last month, Mayor Adrian Fenty and Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham held a special ceremony heralding the reopening of the Banneker Recreation Center. Prior to the ceremony, neighbors complained that the Georgia Avenue center, which had been closed over a year for repairs, was contributing to an uptick in juvenile delinquency in the neighborhood. They complained that the kids who might normally find themselves at the rec center were finding themselves in trouble instead.

After only a few weeks of operation, the rec center’s doors are closed again.

Two weeks ago, Darren Jones, president of the Pleasant Plains Civic Association, says he noticed a sign on the front door of the rec center indicating that it was closed again until further notice. Before, the Department of Parks and Recreation blamed their failure to get the building open on an unfinished wheelchair ramp. This time, it’s the air-conditioning system.

“The air conditioner has been out, that’s my understanding,” says department spokesperson Regina Williams. The agency, she says, is waiting for a special part to come in for the HVAC unit. Williams says she doesn’t know for sure when the center will be open again.

Jones says that after such a lengthy prior closure, having the recreation center closed again is unacceptable.

“It’s offensive that…a year and a half after they started [doing] almost $4.8 million in renovation, they’re still having problems with the AC system,” Jones says. “It’s outrageous.”

The Department of Parks and Recreation held a special ceremony today to reopen the Banneker Recreation Center on Georgia Avenue. The rec center had been closed for repairs for over a year, and some neighbors had started to get restless, as it looked like it was to remain closed for the second crucial summer season in a row.

I have no idea what the rec center looked like beforehand, but I must say that today it looked great. The highlight of the facility is clearly the huge swimming pool out back, but when it’s too cold to swim, the center will make a nice place to hang out and play some table games. It boasts a light-filled computer lab and a multipurpose-looking room that will probably make a good spot for community meetings. There’s a game room that has a pool table, a pingpong table, and some other kind of table that I couldn’t identify. Downstairs, I spied a weight room full of free weights and a mirrored cardio room which, to my disappointment, contained only two measley machines: a stepper and a treadmill. All in all, though, it’s a great addition to the community. My only hope is that DPR will keep the center in the immaculate shape it was in today. (And get an elliptical machine for that cardio room!)

It’s hotter than hell, right? My neighborhood pool isn’t supposed to be open on weekdays for a few more weeks. But I just called up and was told that the guards here and at other D.C. pools have been called into work this evening because of the heat wave.

I don’t think I’ve ever written anything nice about our government, but here goes: Thanks, D.C.

That wasn’t so bad.

When the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation released new rules [PDF] for establishing dog parks earlier this month, one provision struck dog lovers as absurd: Before a site can be approved for a dog park, the sponsoring group must get the Department of Health’s certification that the area is rat-free “for a distance of five (5) blocks.”

The rules were written by a task force consisting of several city agencies; according to Parks and Rec spokesperson Regina Williams, the rat rule was included at the behest of the Department of Health. “That was one of the guidelines that they wanted to have,” Williams says.

Now, however, the rule is being called impractical by…the Department of Health.

An agency attorney and rodent-control honcho consulted about the proposal both “agree that it would be nearly impossible for [the health department] to verify that a five-block area was rodent-free,” concedes Peggy Keller, chief of the Bureau of Community Hygiene, in an e-mail.

That bit of common sense comes as no surprise to dog advocates. Mindy Moretti, an Adams Morgan advisory neighborhood commissioner and president of Friends of Walter Pierce Park—which has a designated dog area—says the rule is poop.

“As that regulation is written, it will be next to impossible to have dog parks anywhere in the District of Columbia, let alone Ward 1,” Moretti says. “Rock Creek Park is full of rats. It’s a city, there’s rats….It’s absolutely impossible.”

Due to the uproar over the new rules, Parks and Rec has extended the public comment period to May 1.

Every Tuesday and Thursday Friday, we run down what’s going on in local Internet discussion groups.

CSNA U Street
CCDogpark suggests that, rather than letting kiddies have the final dip in municipal pools, the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation should close out the pool season with a dog swim. “Other towns are generating large sums of money every fall with season ending canine swim events on the weekend before the pools are closed and drained for the season,” the dog lover writes. “You need to have an outdoor, municipal, fenced, pool with a zero-depth end and/or a baby pool for small breeds.” CCDogPark says the event should be a fundraiser to benefit a cause important to the city and dog owners alike—which automatically excludes anything benefiting children, right?

TakomaDC
For almost a week, Takoma DC residents have been trying to help Carolivia figure out how to crack open the delicious black walnuts that are apparently plentiful up near the D.C./MD line. Suggestions have ranged from expensive, specialized crackers to a vise. On Sunday, Carolivia thanked her neighbors for their suggestions and announced that she was attempting to do some online shopping for a nutcracker designed specifically to smash tough nuts. But she hadn’t yet heard the simple solution offered up by Lea. “I don’t know if this alternative has been mentioned: placing the black walnuts in the street or your driveway and running over them with the tires of your car. I was told about this option when I was living in the mountains of Virginia.”

Shepherd Park
Instead of using a cutesy pseudonym, Washington Post reporter Henri Cauvin adds his byline to a listserv post that reveals he is looking for a framer to fancy up a very special piece of work. For, um, a friend, maybe? “Looking for suggestions for reasonably priced places in the area to re-frame a couple of posters and to do a commemorative engraving of newspaper article,” Cauvin writes.