Party At Ground Zero: It's holiday party season for everyone, the D.C. Council included. Ethics controversies notwithstanding, the council will throw a $5,000 party for members and aides tomorrow night at the Washington Court Hotel; the money comes from donations of up to $380 per member from constituent service funds. Which, every councilmember would hasten to add, are not slush funds. The good news: At least they're not spending tax money on this shindig. The bad news: The party conflicts with a Washington City Paper party, which means we probably won't see any councilmembers at our event. Or maybe that's the good news. -2

Taxation Without Sanitation, Again?: Get ready for more angst over what parts of the D.C. government can and can't operate if the feds shut down. The Obama administration is ordering agencies to prepare contingency plans in case Congress can't suddenly, at the end of the year, remember how to do its job and pass the laws that allow the government to remain in business. (A feat which, to be honest, would be something of a surprise.) A federal shutdown would mean D.C. can't spend local tax revenue, either, because technically all our local taxes are collected, then given to the feds, then appropriated back. Officials said in April, when this possibility first came up, that a shutdown would cost about $1 million a week. So remember, call up D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and urge her to vote in favor of a spending bill. Wait, what? Oh. Never mind. -4

Skinny Jeans And All: Picture Georgetown in your head, and what comes to mind? Sweater vests, maybe? BMWs? Bros (or chads)? According to the folks at CollegeMagazine.com, though, those stereotypes are way out of date, and the neighborhood actually more closely resembles Williamsburg. Because they listed the university that resides there as the 10th "most hipster campus" in America, whatever that means; the list was topped by New York University and the Fashion Institute of Technology. No word on what this means for the Hoyas' basketball uniform design next season. +1

National Disaster: Anyone who sat through some of the low points of the Washington Nationals' last few seasons would not be surprised to learn that Nationals Park is hosting a disaster drill tomorrow. The surprise, however, is that the exercise has nothing to do with the team. Marines and D.C. emergency response crews will drill at the stadium; the event, as the Associated Press helpfully noted "is not open to the public." +1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 41 Today's score: -4 Today's Needle rating: 37

Today, the Georgetown Dish posted a response from the Citizen's Association of Georgetown:

The result of students living in the residential areas is an unacceptable level of noise, poorly maintained homes and yards, unchecked trash violations, and a lack of adequate parking. None of the university's attempts to address these accelerating problems has succeeded. The 2010-2020 campus plan exacerbates the negative consequences of the previous expansions to the surrounding communities.

There's a lot more in the letter, but that graf was pretty ridiculous. I'd guess that in Georgetown, one of the most expensive zip codes in the District, any noise (well, above the clink of martini glasses at a cocktail party) is probably considered unacceptable. It just seems like some people in the neighborhood are being unrealistic about what it's like to live near a large university. And instead of engaging their younger neighbors like, say, the LeDroit Park Civic Association does with Howard students, they're just trying to beat them back.

The complaints aren't just selfish, they're also rather shortsighted. Like all neighborhoods that have good schools, Georgetown currently enjoys the prestige it has in large part because of the presence of the university. And while this tension between college and college town can be found all over the country, it's especially striking in Georgetown since, as the Post pointed out, the university actually houses a larger percentage of its students on campus than any of the other universities in the District.

All is not negative, however. The Dish posted a letter from a different group of nearby residents who praised the campus plan, noting money the university has poured into the community and resources it provides that benefit all residents.

Photo by Kevin H. via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution Generic 2.0 License

The Georgetown Voice offices are being downsized after three students caused damage to the ceiling of their on-campus space.

Last month, during Hurricane Irene, the students were in an area closed off due to the threat of flying debris. The students ignored "repeated, reasonable requests" from campus police officers to vacate the space, says the university's Director of Media Relations, Rachel Pugh, then fled the officers by breaking into the ceiling of the Leavey Center.

"In the process of crawling in the ceiling between offices on the fourth floor of the Leavey Center, the students caused significant damage to multiple offices, while continuing to ignore repeated requests to comply with DPS officers," Pugh wrote in an email. "MPD responded, and all three students are being charged with violations of D.C. law."

As a consequence, the paper is being evicted (they're supposed to pack up and move out by Monday, Oct. 3) and moved to what Pugh says is "a smaller office on the same floor."

Alumni far and wide signed onto a letter (which they shared with media) to the university asking that the students not be kicked out of the offices, arguing that "taking away that space cripples the paper’s ability to do the reporting that makes it an integral part of life on campus."

Shaun Tandon, editor-in-chief of the Voice during the 1997-98 school year, says his "main concern is for the long-term future of the newspaper. A tiny office inevitably implies a tiny staff, and the biggest fear would be that the newspaper, a vibrant institution for so many years, would wither away and die in a few years' time due to marginalization."

The alumni also argue that the decision unfairly punishes staffers who weren't involved in the incident. "This wasn't some grand Voice conspiracy that requires a collegiate version of creative destruction," adds Tandon.

It should be noted the alumni do believe that the Voice should pay for the damage and repairs—which total about $4,000. But that seems to be beside the point for the university.

Pugh says, "As an organization, the Georgetown Voice violated the student organization office space use agreement and as a result must give up their current location. The sanctions are commensurate with the violations." She noted that no other student organizations have broken that agreement in recent years.

I certainly understand why alumni are reaching out to support the Voice. As a former college (and high school!) newspaper staffer myself, I know that working until the wee hours until you can't see straight builds a bond and fondness for one's office and colleagues that can't be erased.

But before we get too sentimental, the facts of the case make me skeptical that the punishment is out of line. Three students did something really reckless and their affiliation with the paper actually led to them damaging their own and other organizations' offices. The Voice isn't losing its funding. It's not even going to a different building—it's being moved down the hall! Not to mention, Pugh says the paper will be able to request new or different space in April, as part of the university's budget request process.

Sure, the Voice's new digs will be smaller, and that sucks for the students who had nothing to do with the incident. But the students involved only had access to the locked office through the paper, which means that the paper as a whole didn't hold up its end of the bargain.

Eleven top administrators earned an average of 202 percent more than the national median salary, according to analysis of the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources Administrative Compensation Survey and university financial disclosure documents.

The CUPA-HR survey includes data from fiscal year 2010 for 225 public and private institutions across the country that award Ph.D. degrees. Georgetown, as well as many other top-25 ranked institutions, participated in the survey.

President John J. DeGioia earned $756,219 (two times the median), while Chief Investment Officer Larry Kochard pulled in $604,317 (three times the median), and former Vice President for Advancement James Langley, earned $423,011 (four times the median) in 2010.

Unsurprisingly, Georgetown's spokesperson is on the defensive, arguing that the survey participants are not "representative" of the school's peers. "It's like comparing apples to oranges," Stacy Kerr told the Hoya. Sure, some of the institutions surveyed are public universities, but the list is an even mix of public, private, and religious schools that grant doctorates. It's a pretty fair average of a certain class of schools, even if it isn't the class that Georgetown thinks it should be measured against.

Anyway, own it, Georgetown. Considering undergraduates at the university pony up nearly $40,000 a year in tuition alone, it's no surprise administrators are paid handsomely. Dining services workers, on the other hand, are a different story.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to talk publicly about the case, says that's the day cops intercepted a package containing about 8 gallons of GHB addressed to a former Georgetown student who once lived near campus. The student graduated a year ago, according to the source. The graduate insists to police he knows nothing about the package, the source says. Police haven't arrested him. Cops watched the package for awhile, but no one ever came for it.

The source says dealers often send drug shipments to addresses that don't belong to them: "They track it online and they know when it's going to arrive." Once the package is delivered they scoop it up before anyone catches on. But what's odd about the GU case is that the dealers "usually use fictitious names."

GHB, which has a legal use as a prescribed sleep-aid, can be made by amateur chemists. Though it has a reputation as a "predatory drug", it's also used recreationally, traditionally by clubbers. The Drug Enforcement Agency says liquid GHB "sells for $5 to $25 per cap." Though that's a vague quantity, eight gallons of GHB would obviously turn a tidy profit.

Georgetown University spokesperson Rob Mathis emails that campus officials have "no knowledge of the incident." A call to the director of the university's Department of Public Safety wasn't returned. We've put in a request to MPD command for more information.

This wouldn't be the first time Georgetown has had a run-in with illicit chemicals, though. In October, two students (one from Georgetown and one from the University of Richmond) were arrested for manufacturing the hallucinogen DMT in a dorm room. The two freshmen admitted to concocting the drug, but told a judge that it was just an experiment and that they had no intention of  becoming traffickers. They were given probation.

Mathis says the "use, production and transfer/distribution of illegal drugs are issues we take very seriously. University policy strictly forbids the possession, use, transfer and/or sale of illegal drugs, which are violations of the student code of conduct, as well as local and federal laws."

Photo by Kyle Rush via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Spell check has doubled its lead over Georgetown.

At the school's commencement this weekend, programs were distributed with "Georgetown University" spelled "Georgetown Univeristy" on the cover. To fix the problem, Georgetown told disappointed grads, families, and friends to contact the registrar, who will provide corrected copies of the program to anyone requesting one.

Alas, the bottom of the letter apologizing for the spelling mistake listed the "facsimilie" number of the registrar's office.

We're still waiting to hear back from the university about the printing costs for the new program and the number of requests they've received. No word yet on whether anyone else complained about the new typo. UPDATE: Georgetown spokeswoman Rachel Pugh says fewer than 100 people have called to request a corrected program.

Hine Times: The Eastern Market Metro Community Association has deigned several elements critical to the redevelopment of Hine Elementary School, as Stanton-EastBanc seeks the approval of the Historic Preservation Review Board. The five priorities of the neighborhood are: "1) Keep 8th Street free of retail, 2) limit residential buildings to R4 zoning and 40 foot heights, 3) limit the north building to residential use only, 4) protect resident’s National Environment Policy Act compliance rights regarding noise studies and other environmental impacts, and 5) provide an opportunity for wider community engagement, including construction of a three-dimensional model (in community context) that can be put on public view for comment and questions." The third point is the stickiest; one commenter declares, "This is NIMBYISM. This is on a six lane thoroughfare across from the metro. There is no reason to keep this small or to micromanage the hell out of this project. If you want retail on Barracks Row and in this area you need more people – you need density."

Don't Fill It Up: A member of the MPD-1D email list, which serves downtown, Southwest, and parts of Capitol Hill, asks, "This morning, I found the gas cap cover on my car open and the lock mechanism broken. I'm wondering if you had any thoughts on whether this was just a random act of vandalism? or have gas prices brought gas siphoning back into fashion, i.e. has gas become a "valuable" that it's no longer safe to leave in one's parked car?" An MPD official responded, "While I cannot say for certain that this was a random act of vandalism, I can say that there have been no reported cases of gas siphoning," while another list member thinks that "gas siphoning go on the uprise everytime gas prices go above $3.50 a gallon."

The Angry Neighbors: The Georgetown Metropolitan goes long on the changes made to the Georgetown University campus plan. But the biggest change of all might be that GU is totally over pandering to the neighborhood and has decided to appeal to a higher power: "GM doesn’t believe these changes have anything to do with trying to appease the neighbors. That’s not going to happen. GM believes, however, that these changes are about appeasing the Office of Planning. From what GM hears, if OP comes down on the side of the neighbors, GU will be facing a steep uphill climb to get a plan anything like what they proposed." There's a lot stacked against GU, and it seems as if the town-gown battle will only get uglier.

Jazz Hands: HR-57, the venerable jazz institution formerly located in the U Street NW corridor, is making its debut on H Street NE this weekend. The club's soft opening is tonight at 9 p.m., reports Frozen Tropics. Capitol Bop has more details. The best news of all? It's still BYOB.

Meth labs are extremely combustible. But as it turns out, the process for manufacturing Dimethyltryptamine [DMT] is not nearly as dangerous. And though the dorm room that contained supplies like mason jars and ammonia, dry ice and paint thinner, might have looked like the former, it was the latter. According to prosecutor B. Patrick Costello, DMT labs don't "contain the same risk of explosion."

On Friday, that was one thing the two college freshmen had going for them as they stood before a U.S. District Court judge. Charles Smith and John Perrone hadn't almost incinerated their classmates. They had, however, decided to go after a DIY high, extracting a hallucinogen that can be found in Mimosa root-bark.

As their parents watched from the long wood benches of a U.S. Courthouse courtroom, the two slender students, clad in dark suits and striped ties, took turns loping up to the microphoned podium where they both plead guilty to one count of "unlawful manufacturing of a controlled substance" and explained what they'd planned.

According to their testimony, given as they were questioned by a judge in connection to a plea deal that should allow them to serve zero jail time, they aren't drug dealers, just hobbyists. The scheme to make a batch of DMT was just "in the air" when Perrone and Smith were high school buddies back in Andover, Mass. The two, and some of their other friends, talked about it from time to time. There were instructions on how to make DMT  on the internet, and the process seemed relatively easy.

They just needed a place to do it. When the two went off to college, Perrone to University of Richmond and Smith to Georgetown University, they saw their chance. About a week before the bust, Perrone bought most of the supplies they would need at a Home Depot. On a free weekend he loaded up his car and drove to Georgetown.

When Perrone arrived with the equipment and stinky chemicals, Smith's dorm room had already been smell-proofed. Smith had tacked weatherstripping around the door, though he says it wasn't in preparation for the lab. His lawyer, Danny Onorato, suggested  the installation was done weeks earlier to keep "smoke" from wafting out. It wasn't clear whether he meant nicotine smoke.

Perrone, who stopped testifying to consult with his lawyer, G. Allen Dale, several times during the proceeding, still remembers the basics of the process for making DMT. He rattled off that knowledge to the judge with somewhat disconcerting familiarity. He also said he did most of the mixing. Smith, for his part, promised to pay for half the supplies.

The experiment was a success. In mason jars sealed in a Styrofoam cooler full of dry ice, the mixture Perrone put together began to form crystals. At the end of the process, the crystals could be smoked or snorted. The two didn't plan to sell the stuff, they said. "I might have shared it with others, but that was not the plan. The plan was not to manufacture a bunch and sell it, " said Perrone. Either way, they wouldn't get the chance.

Police sources said that the mistake someone in the dorm room made that day was selling a bit of the synthetic marijuana known as K2. Smoking the legal substance outside, the supposed customer was questioned by GU public safety officers. They wanted to know where the fake pot had come from. Soon, they were searching the dorm room the smoker pointed to. They were free to do so without probable cause because GU is a private institution.

In the end, cops only found a gram of DMT in the dorm. But that was enough, according to Perrone, to provide ten doses. Considering the alleged K2 sale, and the fact that the two planned on producing a lot more DMT, whether they intended to peddle the stuff may still be an open question. As we learned from a certain Columbia University drug ring, such enterprises can be lucrative.

Still, whatever their long-term DMT ambitions may have been, three years' probation is probably an appropriate sentence for a criminal endeavor that never quite got off the ground.

At the time of the arrests, Smith was a GU freshman and Perrone a freshman at University of Richmond. On October 23, Perrone was visiting Smith, his pal from high school in Andover, Mass. Cops got a tip there might be something shady going on inside the dorm room. They searched the place and found chemicals and equipment used in the preparation of DMT. The equipment was linked to Smith and Perrone, but not to Smith's roommate, who was also present.

Word is the students may not need to worry about doing hard time . According to a source close to the case, prosecutors have accepted a plea deal that, as long as the judge signs off on it, should equal probation for the errant chemists.

For the rest of us, the deal may also mean the chance to clear up some questions about one of the odder D.C. drug stories of recent years—like, say, whether the dorm-room lab was a serious operation or just an ill-conceived hobby. Stay tuned for more information.

UPDATE: At the conclusion of a three hour hearing, the judge accepted guilty pleas from the two defendants. Lawyers for the two men and prosecutors have hammered out a deal in which they propose the defendants serve a six-month suspended jail sentence, three years of probation, and 200 hours of community service, 30 of which would need to be completed in the District. The judge, who can decline to abide by that agreement, has set a March 18 sentencing date.

During the proceeding, Perrone and Smith contended that making DMT was a "foolish" experiment, and that they were arrested before they could complete their first batch. Authorities found a gram of the drug spread out among six mason jars. Asked by the judge if he'd consumed any of the DMT, Perrone was emphatic: "No, your honor, I've never consumed DMT in my life. I didn't get that far."

For most college freshmen, being enterprising means setting your sights on a study abroad program, or maybe throwing in with the Future Business Leaders of America. For first-year Georgetown University student Charles Smith, and his buddy, first-year University of Richmond student John Perrone, it allegedly meant converting a GU dorm room into a drug lab.

According to cops, the duo had garnered the chemicals necessary to manufacture an illegal hallucinogen known as DMT. One early morning drug bust later, they were in cuffs. The most recent development in their saga? According to court papers, they've struck a deal with prosecutors regarding the October arrest. Likely in hopes of staying out of prison, the two will plead guilty to some agreed-upon charges. The U.S. Attorney's office and lawyers for the men declined comment.

Considering Perrone and Smith were able to swing big-time representation in the form of lawyers G. Allen Dale and Danny Onorato, the deal is likely to be sweet. And dealing (pun intended) is the way to go for the would-be kingpins, as they were caught red-handed. Smith had chemicals in his dorm room and Perrone in his car.

It probably helps that neither Smith nor Perrone seems to have a record, and that their status as students makes it easier to make a folly-of-youth argument.

According to a Jan. 20 filing by prosecutors, the two faced two counts of unlawful manufacturing of a controlled substance. One charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, and another a maximum penalty of 30. But sentencing guidelines suggest 18 months is a far more likely maximum sentence. Though a police source says drug manufacturing usually earns a suspect prison time, City Desk is betting Perrone and Smith will get probation.

CBS journalist and Georgetown resident Howard Arenstein stands as a good reference point for making a prediction. Also busted in October, the reporter had several pounds of marijuana and 11 mammoth marijuana plants in his backyard when police raided his home. He was slapped with a possession with intent to distribute charge.

Sitting with lawyer John Zucker at a November hearing, a silver-haired Arenstein, dressed in a charcoal suit, looked at ease and even cracked a bright white smile now and then. Zucker, who's made a career of representing journalists, was evidently able to do some maneuvering on Arenstein's behalf. Arenstein pleaded guilty to a reduced charge and got off with probation.

Arenstein can consider himself privileged; in 2010, the District had the highest incarceration rate in the country. Of course, white and of means, he's on the happier end of a couple of statistical disparities. "Poverty does not create crime, nor is wealth and income necessarily a predictor of involvement in the justice system," says a report put out by the Justice Policy Institute on D.C.'s justice system, "however, evidence shows that people with the fewest financial resources are more likely to end up in prison or jail."

The other personal detail that might increase your chances of landing behind bars in D.C. won't surprise in the least: Skin color. Nine out of ten people incarcerated by the District are African American, says the report, despite the fact that African Americans only make up 54 percent of the city's population.

That kind of disparity has inspired the socially conscious among us to support various good-intentioned programs aimed at helping people make better choices. While that's good, if we really want to keep poor black people out of the jaws of the criminal justice system, we might consider hiring an army of high-priced lawyers instead. They'd get the incarceration rate down forthwith.

When his client was in lock-up, Dale told City Desk his young and slight client was in "criminal hell." Many of those the young man spent time behind bars with were likely in the same Hades. They just won't be leaving quite as soon.

Photo by walknboston via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

Later today, at a detention hearing, Dale will try to do just that. He'll argue that his client, denied bail at an earlier hearing, should be released. "Get him home," Dale says. "Let him get his head straight." Pointing out Perrone's youth and small size, he calls his current incarceration a "criminal hell."

Dale is pretty confident Perrone will be released following the hearing. As for what he'll do on his client's behalf afterward, that hasn't been decided yet. "We're not certain that a crime has been committed," Dale says. Media reports say cops searched the Georgetown University dorm room where his clients were found because they suspected synthetic marijuana was being sold there. Dale says that might be significant, if the reports are true: "How do you have probable cause to search the room if it wasn't an illegal substance?"

D.C. attorney David Schertler will represent Perrone's co-defendant, Georgetown University freshman Charles Smith. Schertler also believes the arrested aren't exactly hardened criminals: "They're just terrific kids." Schertler says he'll be handling his client's defense "one step at a time." As for the probable cause issue, Schertler says he needs more information about what happened before he can speculate.

Whatever happens going forward, the "good families" Smith and Perrone come from are playing hardball. Both Dale and Schertler are  big guns. Schertler, for one, is used to pulling off the impossible. You might remember him from a certain high-profile murder case.

UPDATE: The students have been released under the condition that they live with their parents in Massachusetts, submit to electronic monitoring, and keep an 8 p.m. curfew. They'll need to report to U.S. Pretrial Services in Boston, and surrender their passports.

But the two GU freshmen and campus visitor who were arrested Saturday for setting up a DMT lab in a dorm may have also had something a little lamer than a mind-blowing hallucinogen on hand: Fake pot.

According to a police source, though Charles Smith, John Romano, and campus visitor John Perrone were arrested in connection with DMT, what cops found along with chemicals like acetone and naphtha were several ounces of K2, a synthetic cannabinoid.

Legal for now, K2 is basically an herb sprayed with a chemical that mimics the effect of all-time-funnest chemical THC, which is found in marijuana. DMT and marijuana are sometimes mixed.

Originally, rumors flew that the secret lab was meant to produce meth. That might have been because some of the chemicals discovered could be used to manufacture the notorious drug. But that was before one of the three arrested admitted to cops that the lab, some of the parts of which were kept hidden in a suitcase, was meant to produce DMT.

The lab was discovered when campus police got a tip that drugs were being sold from room 926 in Harbin Hall. Besides chemicals, dry ice, mason jars,  and what might be DMT, they found about $1,300 in an envelope, according to the source. The source adds that Perrone, whose car yielded more evidence, is suspected of being the chemical mastermind behind the operation. (Which is to say, Georgetown's chemistry department may need to step it up.)

The drug case has been transferred to federal court. That essentially implies that Smith and Perrone (prosecutors aren't pursuing a case against Romano) are in serious trouble, and are unlikely to get a mere slap on the wrist.

If it turns out GU had its very own drug kingpins, maybe that has something to do with our current economic slump—the school is ranked the 15th most expensive in the country.

Now joining the fray: AOL's Patch, part of a growing national family of online-only news sites covering small and mid-size neighborhoods, mainly in suburban communities. (They've been multiplying like "Gremlins," according to the Business Insider.) AOL has been gearing up to launch Patch sites in D.C.'s suburbs, but Georgetown Patch is the first such site in the District. Beyond neighborhood news, Patch is building non-news components, including directory and listings.

Its already-established competition: The online-only Georgetown Dish and Georgetown Metropolitan, the print-only Georgetown Current, the print and online Georgetowner, and Georgetown University's Hoya, Voice, and Independent, among others.

The big question: Can Georgetown support such a vibrant media scene? Business-wise, will there be enough people clicking to generate the necessary pageviews to create a sustainable operation? Will there be a media bloodbath in the wake of the coming Georgetown media war?

Most crucial: Which news operation will win over the loyalty of Sally Quinn? Our bet is on the TBD-affiliated Dish, whose party at Billy Martin's Tavern was recently graced by the fabled Georgetown hostess.

(One tiny point of disclosure: Back in January, AOL's corporate recruiters approached me about interviewing for a position with the Patch family.)

A damaged gravesite at Holy Rood Cemetery in Glover Park. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

While the recent grave mismanagement scandal at Arlington National Cemetery may dampen local enthusiasm for the national trend of finding creative new uses for cemeteries, in a backwards-kinda-way, it does spark questions about whether D.C. could taking better advantage of its cemetery spaces for the public good.

As The Wall Street Journal reports, cemeteries across the nation are trying to inject new life into places filled with dead people by having sock hops, fireworks, scavenger hunts, and events involving clowns. It’s in part a long-term survival mechanism: attracting the living before they’re dead, to keep the money coming in.

Hell, even in an emptying Detroit, people think the city "should go into the cemetery business." ("When someone dies it would generate city revenue.")

There’s a future in death, but how do the District’s cemeteries stack up?

Holy Rood Cemetery, maintained by Georgetown University, is in a pretty awful state of disrepair (but a great place to watch July 4 fireworks!). Across town on Capitol Hill's eastern end, Congressional Cemetery was once a scary place. But thanks to neighborhood dogwalkers, the historic resting place is largely a safe, clean and maintained final resting place. So sayeth the cemetery’s website: “The presence of dogwalkers at almost every hour of the day constitutes a de facto on site patrol all day long. With watch dog eyes and ears on duty, Congressional is mostly free and clear of riff raff and vandals.” Somebody needs to keep watch over J. Edgar Hoover and John Phillips Sousa!

A grave at Rock Creek Cemetery near Petworth. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

Rock Creek Cemetery, which borders Petworth, isn’t necessarily hidden, but is unfortunately overlooked as a D.C. attraction. Not only is it a beautiful landscape—and home to a famous Augustus Saint-Gaudens sculpture—but it's the final resting place for a number of famous-for-Washington types, including presidential daughter and socialite Alice Roosevelt Longworth, writer Henry Adams, master brewer Christian Heurich, Riggs Bank founder George Washington Riggs, U.S. Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, Supreme Court Associate Justice John Harlan, and Hope diamond owner and Father Struck It Rich author Evalyn Walsh McLean to name a few. (Writer Gore Vidal plans to be laid to rest at Rock Creek Cemetery, as well.)

Rock Creek Cemetery has hosted larger festivals to draw new people in. But that’s the exception to the rule. Most cemeteries in the District are closed off, precincts for the dead, not the living. But in a crowded city, that’s underutilized open space.

If the cemetery stewards are looking at the Journal article for inspiration, there are ideas aplenty. However, since there are many gravestones at Holy Rood that have fallen over, a community sock-hop competition might not be the best idea.

The Issue: Neighbors expressed frustration and concern over Georgetown University’s 2010 Campus Plan at a meeting last night. “It’s possible there’ll be changes as a result of tonight­–but some of the big issues–on-campus housing–I don’t expect change,” says Linda Greenan, assistant vice president for external relations at Georgetown. Noisy, late-night partyin’ students already plague life in Burleith and West Georgetown. And with an expected enrollment increase of 2,475 over the next decade, a 10 percent growth in staff and faculty, and 8,500 square feet of retail planned, residents may never sleep.

Stop, Drop and Enroll: Although the 2010 plan intends on boosting graduate enrollment, a majority of those will be “continuing studies” students, many of whom already reside in the District, says GU Provost James O’Donnell. The majority of students residing in Burleith and West Georgetown are undergraduates­–where enrollment will be capped at the current 6,016.

In response to on-campus growth, parking will increase from 700 to 1,000 new spots and there’ll be an additional 120 beds. Off-campus, GU expects to ramp up SNAP to two cars to cover the community, with an additional third on patrol in the summer. In May, a detail of off-duty MPD officers will also be on patrol in response to student safety and noise issues.

In response to resident concerns, the original 26,000 square feet of retail planned for the so-called 1789 Block was reduced to 8,500. “I’m a neighbor, and I think that retail would be great–it gives people a place to walk, they don’t have to drive, and it gives students a place to get their things without cars,” one resident in the audience chimes in. “There may be things that change in that process [Zoning Commission], so the community will have lots of time…this doesn’t close out the process,” says Alan Brangman, university architect at GU. Greenan adds, “This whole plan is a concept. Every single thing that’s proposed in here, we’ll have to go through another process of zoning…we’re nowhere ready to do this. When we are ready, we’ll come back to the community and talk about it.”

A Cap On Gowns!: Some residents say it's a myth that graduate students don’t live in Burleith and West Georgetown. An increase of over 1,300 students, whether they reside in the area or not, still means “we’re going to have that many people coming in and out of the neighborhood–in addition to the traffic problems,” chirps one neighbor. An increase in graduate students in Burleith “threatens the diversity of the community,” says Lenore Rubino, president of the Burleith Citizens Association.

“Whatever the reasons for not putting a cap down, I think we should look now to putting an overall cap on the student community,” says Ron Lewis, chair of the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission. Some suggest a cap simply on undergraduates is inadequate in controlling the overall growth problem at hand. “I remember, it was a modest [population] increase of 15 percent," recalls one resident, citing the 2000 Campus Plan, "while we actually saw an increase of more like 75 percent. How can we put any faith in these projects if the last projects were so dramatically wrong?”

Some residents argued additional retail was unnecessary when neighboring Georgetown Park is mired in turmoil. Others add that SNAP was useless in combating profanity: “…college renters…are always saying, ‘fuck this,’ and ‘fuck that.’ I don’t want that to be my kids’ first words.”

“If the students were under control, I don’t think we would be here…I don’t know when a toga party is going to erupt on my block,” says nearby resident Ann Kenkel. "I feel like you're just here to check off a box for the city, to say that you had a community meeting and nothing else," adds another neighbor.

What’s Next: Georgetown University expects to file its 2010 Campus Plan with the Zoning Commission in May or June. After, the commision will schedule a series of hearings–expected in the fall–when student leaders, members of the community, witnesses and university officials are able to voice their concerns. The current campus plan expires on Dec. 31.

Additional reporting by Chris Heller.

Photo by rachaelvoorhees. Creative Commons Attribution License.