DCPS students shafted again - sign petition to keep Jelleff field public

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a parent of a Hardy 6th grader, but a resident of Ward 3. I just sent Mary Cheh an e-mail about this, and she responded very quickly:

"I’m looking into how we can rescind this deal and if not how we can get better use for Hardy and the community.
Thanks for your note
Mary"

The way I interpret this is by reading in between the lines.
She is looking into it, not working on it
If not: she is telling you what the outcome is, as it has been already descended

Politicians are corrupt

Disagree. There's been a ton of bad press, and I think that's a very positive response from Mary Cheh. I on the other hand am a resident of Ward 2, and got no response from Jack Evans, author of the original Maret deal in advance of his son's attendance there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can understand why some might be frustrated by then jellef/maret issue, but DC should have invested in turf fields some time ago such as at the Hearst field, next to the lab school and at Duke Ellington. Neighbors of these areas object because they want their dog park or don’t want parking issues. The fact that DC did not do so makes the jelled filed issue more acute. Seems easy to want to reclaim the jellef field now that a private entity has fixed it up and maintained it for ten years but no effort has been made by Hardy parents or other dcps groups to get these other fields done.

Yes that is true. There are a number of fields in NW both public and private that the neighborhood restrict access. Jelleff has lights, also. That’s a big deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can understand why some might be frustrated by then jellef/maret issue, but DC should have invested in turf fields some time ago such as at the Hearst field, next to the lab school and at Duke Ellington. Neighbors of these areas object because they want their dog park or don’t want parking issues. The fact that DC did not do so makes the jelled filed issue more acute. Seems easy to want to reclaim the jellef field now that a private entity has fixed it up and maintained it for ten years but no effort has been made by Hardy parents or other dcps groups to get these other fields done.

Yes that is true. There are a number of fields in NW both public and private that the neighborhood restrict access. Jelleff has lights, also. That’s a big deal.

DPR has already allocated $7 million to fix up the rec center. Maret paid to fix up the field as the price of using it exclusively for 10 years. Now that deal is over, and there was no committment in the original agreement that Maret would get the contract renewed (which is why they pushed it through a backroom nontransparent contracting process.)

[Anonymous]

Maret is making chumps of everyone in the city. If they continue to push, the risk fueling a populism that will hurt them. The city should think about taxing the real property of the privates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a parent of a Hardy 6th grader, but a resident of Ward 3. I just sent Mary Cheh an e-mail about this, and she responded very quickly:

"I’m looking into how we can rescind this deal and if not how we can get better use for Hardy and the community.
Thanks for your note
Mary"

The way I interpret this is by reading in between the lines.
She is looking into it, not working on it
If not: she is telling you what the outcome is, as it has been already descended

Politicians are corrupt

Disagree. There's been a ton of bad press, and I think that's a very positive response from Mary Cheh. I on the other hand am a resident of Ward 2, and got no response from Jack Evans, author of the original Maret deal in advance of his son's attendance there.

Perhaps Mary Cheh is inexperienced
Jack Evans wants to keep his reputation intact, Mary Cheh is making a mistake by promising, obviously not delivering, pretending to care

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps Mary Cheh is inexperienced
Jack Evans wants to keep his reputation intact, Mary Cheh is making a mistake by promising, obviously not delivering, pretending to care

In her relatively short political career, Mary Cheh has acquired a reputation as an expert politician. She will play both sides of an issue in private communications and then vacillate like crazy when she is in a forum with people representing both sides. All the while she doesn’t actually do anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps Mary Cheh is inexperienced
Jack Evans wants to keep his reputation intact, Mary Cheh is making a mistake by promising, obviously not delivering, pretending to care

In her relatively short political career, Mary Cheh has acquired a reputation as an expert politician. She will play both sides of an issue in private communications and then vacillate like crazy when she is in a forum with people representing both sides. All the while she doesn’t actually do anything.

So that is what you need to do to get a reputation and be known and get votes
An old politician already has his supporters, new ones have to play this game until they have the trust of the big donors

I had high hopes for democracy and the will of the people

[Anonymous]

For those Hardy people that don’t hate Maret, I would t even apply.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can understand why some might be frustrated by then jellef/maret issue, but DC should have invested in turf fields some time ago such as at the Hearst field, next to the lab school and at Duke Ellington. Neighbors of these areas object because they want their dog park or don’t want parking issues. The fact that DC did not do so makes the jelled filed issue more acute. Seems easy to want to reclaim the jellef field now that a private entity has fixed it up and maintained it for ten years but no effort has been made by Hardy parents or other dcps groups to get these other fields done.

Yes that is true. There are a number of fields in NW both public and private that the neighborhood restrict access. Jelleff has lights, also. That’s a big deal.

DPR has already allocated $7 million to fix up the rec center. Maret paid to fix up the field as the price of using it exclusively for 10 years. Now that deal is over, and there was no committment in the original agreement that Maret would get the contract renewed (which is why they pushed it through a backroom nontransparent contracting process.)

Maret doesn’t run the contract process. So stop saying maret pushed it through non transparent process. They did what was allowed by their existing contract. No, am not a maret parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can understand why some might be frustrated by then jellef/maret issue, but DC should have invested in turf fields some time ago such as at the Hearst field, next to the lab school and at Duke Ellington. Neighbors of these areas object because they want their dog park or don’t want parking issues. The fact that DC did not do so makes the jelled filed issue more acute. Seems easy to want to reclaim the jellef field now that a private entity has fixed it up and maintained it for ten years but no effort has been made by Hardy parents or other dcps groups to get these other fields done.

Yes that is true. There are a number of fields in NW both public and private that the neighborhood restrict access. Jelleff has lights, also. That’s a big deal.

DPR has already allocated $7 million to fix up the rec center. Maret paid to fix up the field as the price of using it exclusively for 10 years. Now that deal is over, and there was no committment in the original agreement that Maret would get the contract renewed (which is why they pushed it through a backroom nontransparent contracting process.)

Maret doesn’t run the contract process. So stop saying maret pushed it through non transparent process. They did what was allowed by their existing contract. No, am not a maret parent.

Are you saying that the existing system is set up this way?
A contract for 10 years becomes impossible to get out of because 10 years is always much longer than 10 years

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Maret doesn’t run the contract process. So stop saying maret pushed it through non transparent process. They did what was allowed by their existing contract. No, am not a maret parent.

Sorry, but that’s crap. It’s like someone who knowingly bought stolen goods claiming they did nothing wrong. The administrators at Maret are smart enough (by which I mean they are functioning adults) to know the deal they were doing had not been endorsed by the community and would deprive local schools of the ability to use it for after-school games.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Maret doesn’t run the contract process. So stop saying maret pushed it through non transparent process. They did what was allowed by their existing contract. No, am not a maret parent.

Sorry, but that’s crap. It’s like someone who knowingly bought stolen goods claiming they did nothing wrong. The administrators at Maret are smart enough (by which I mean they are functioning adults) to know the deal they were doing had not been endorsed by the community and would deprive local schools of the ability to use it for after-school games.

+1 The existing contract didn't give Maret any guarantee of getting the field for a second decade. The community outcry against Maret getting a second decade of exclusivity on Jelleff was vocal (see the articles in the Georgetowner). Yet Maret pushed the contract through in a way that was entirely untransparent (perhaps they can use it as a case study of what not to do in their civics education class).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those Hardy people that don’t hate Maret, I would t even apply.

Thanks but Maret isn't that popular-it's definitely not in the Sidwell Friends/GDS tier that most public school parents would prefer. We don't want to spend 40K to go to a school too cheap to acquire and maintain its own playing fields.

[Anonymous]

Washingtonian did a nice summary article on Jack Evans investigation. Maybe we could add a pay to play deal with Maret Exclusive access to popular field in exchange for his son's admission to Maret.

Can't believe Evans hasn't had the decency to resign!

https://www.washingtonian.com/2019/07/09/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-jack-evans-investigations/

[Anonymous]

Any update from the Gtown ANC meeting last night?