Yes: Robert Parker, NPS Site Manager, stresses the need for planning, management, planning, resources, and...planning: "There is a process. It takes time, resources and planning. We're currently working out a general management plan with a directional format for...how we plan to manage the resources."

He anticipates that work on the site will start around 2012.

Brian Smith sets out his own time frame in the listserv debate: "...this will continue until Malia Obama is 40 years old."

Next step: A general update of the vacant properties question will be presented at the ANC2C meeting tonight.

"We will have Screen on the Green this summer," Rauch said in an interview with Washington City Paper. "And if we don’t, we’re gonna have 16,000 people with DVD players and iPhones sitting on the mall, in a flash mob or something. We’ll find a way."

Inspired by President Obama's successful grass roots campaigning, Rauch started the Facebook group "Save Screen on the Green!" in May, shortly after HBO announced it was pulling the plug due to lack of co-sponsorship.

Obama haters and skeptics of new media organizing take note. The Facebook group has picked up nearly 2,500 members and launched a letter writing campaign. All of which, says Rauch, have made him HBO's go-to D.C. contact.

“I’ve been in direct communication with their Screen on the Green coordinator," he says. "I’m, in a way, the local connection for them on this."

Rauch has been checking in with HBO and referring interested local sponsors to the company's Screen on the Green representative for negotiations. Surprisingly or not, HBO is just as intent on keeping SOTG alive as Rauch and his contacts. So far, HBO still needs a co-sponsor to put up the remaining $150,000 for SOTG.

“It seems like HBO has been working with some people," Rauch says.

"They’re working with the National Park Service to make sure that they can find dates that are in a series of times that are good for showing—I think they wanna get five movies in at the minimum. It’s a lot of logistics that HBO is working on with Park Service."

Now it's just a matter of finding that co-sponsorship.

After a fruitless e-mail blitz on everyone from Lockheed Martin to AT&T (“Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were pretty quick to tell us to stop e-mailing them"), Rauch turned to Facebook group members for help. Peppering his pleas with Obama-like buzz-words "community," "initiative," and "advocacy," Rauch see's direct appeals to members' own companies and employers as the best bet to save SOTG.

"Someone that worked for Booz Allen Hamilton got a meeting with some of their head honchos to try to promote this in addition to our e-mails," Rauch said. "Unfortunately, they couldn’t commit to it."

Currently, Rauch has no local committed investors. But, in addition to HBO's SOTG rep, he is working with the D.C. Film Alliance. Rauch's latest initiative, designing and selling "Save Screen on the Green!" T-shirts to raise money and awareness, is in the works. He's hoping the Film Alliance will help.

"I’m just a regular citizen," Rauch said. "I don’t have a corporate bank account where I can protect people's money when they buy something from me, like a T-shirt. But the film alliance would be able to do something like that."

Selling shirts and writing letters may seem ineffectual to some, but, according to Rauch, maintaining a presence and building a community of SOTG advocates is most effectual.

"We’re not going to start seeing a protest and a march down the street of our Facebook group," Rauch said. "In fact, I think what makes the Facebook group effective is we have almost 2500 in just our Facebook group alone--strength in numbers."

Rauch said he is expecting a phone call from HBO early next week with "news." He urges people to join the SOTG Facebook community for updates about the T-shirt initiative and the status of SOTG.

"I think it's patriotic for people to get involved and support SOTG," Rauch said. "It’s the only film festival that is in the nation’s back yard. It’s just important—it's free, and in a place that’s just inspiring."

In the meantime, keep practicing the HBO dance.

I lived in Mount Pleasant for 15 years, and used to bring doughnuts and bread and coffee and the newspaper there on weekends, because it was nearby and because in the spring Meridian Hill is by a far sight the most beautiful DC park I've ever been to.

But I pretty much stopped visiting since moving to Petworth in 2002.

Yet Sunday's visit confirmed all my happy memories of the park's fabulousity, and then some. The big revelation: All over the place on the top level, all sorts of wannabe circus performers were practicing their off-beat tricks.

Unicyclists. Acrobats. Even tightrope walkers!

Tightrope walkers? How long has this been going on at Meridian Hill?

And what does that say about DC? (True story: I didn't see ANYBODY in the park reading a legal brief or lobbying on behalf of military contractors.)

Eventually, somebody will speak up and say: Stop Messing With The National Mall. In recent years, we've had to endure the WWII memorial monstrosity (it's memorial as clip art!). Now comes the news that the National Park Service has issued a planning document which calls for the removal of the U.S. Capitol's reflecting pool and the obliteration of the Sylvan Theater. These are not pieces on a game board!

The reflecting pool would be replaced by some other kind of water entertainment. I'm guess a fountain. What else could it be? A Michael Phelps Memorial Bong? The Sylvan would be replaced with a bigger entertainment center or something. You know the new one will be tagged with all manner of corporate crap. Red Bull will finally get a presence on the National Mall. Thank G-d.

The full plan is available online. The plan does call for more bathrooms. There will be public meetings to vet the plan. The Post writes:

"Public meetings on the plan are scheduled for 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday and noon to 2 p.m. March 14. The meetings will be at the Old Post Office, 12th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Room 107."

We got a while to yell about this as the final plan isn't expected until next year.

"A bond has been set aside for the National Park Service to refurbish the National Mall. The National Park Service will determine how much it will take from the bond once it assesses the condition of the Mall.

Once the turf itself is inspected, officials say it's likely some portions of the Mall will be sectioned off for months.

'The point will be to fence it off with snow fencing for three, four, five months, to allow that turf to regenerate, to regrow, to water it, to reseed it and to make it look as good as we possibly can,' Line says.

One saving grace for the Mall is that the inauguration took place in the middle of the winter - when the grass really isn't growing at all.

'We have to look at what damage there could be into the spring and the summer, when people are going to expect it to look green,' Line says"

It seems like a lot of the Mall will be closed off until summer. Just a guess. The Mall looked pretty trashed in certain sections. At least that's what I saw.

According to an MSNBC.com article posted this morning, a turtle fitted with a GPS device meandered into a remote area of Rock Creek Park and led a National Park Service employee to a marijuana-growing operation.

A National Park Service employee was tracking a turtle with the gadget for research when the turtle wandered into a small marijuana field in a remote part of Rock Creek Park.

U.S. Park police were called and surveillance was set up to monitor the area. Police discovered a man taking care of about 10 marijuana plants in the field.

U.S. Park police and Montgomery County police arrested Isiah Johnson, 19, in Chevy Chase Wednesday.

Nice work, little turtle. I bet Mr. Johnson wasn't expecting to be caught like that.