June 6, 2019

 

Dear Members and Friends,

 

For those of you who missed the April meeting, you missed a great opportunity to interact with Andrew Trueblood, Director Office of Planning. Director Trueblood answered questions on the amendments to the Comp Plan and his plan on rolling out them out for public comment.

On June 4, the Federation hosted our first member association president’s reception. The event was held at the Arts Club of DC. The purpose of the reception was to connect our member associations. Many presidents had never had the opportunity to meet and interact with other community organizations like theirs. It was a great success. Our Board members and the presidents talked, laughed and enjoyed the food and setting. Several connections were made, and information exchanged. Replacing the word citizens in our name with community and occasionally holding joint meetings with a member association on a citywide issue were two of the topics we discussed.

The Federation does not fund raise and we rely on dues payments to fund our activities. So please if you have not already paid your 2019 dues, please pay them now.

I’m sure none of you has ever gotten a traffic ticket. However, you may know someone who has received one and they may want to attend our June 25, 2019 general meeting. Our guest will be Tony Dugger, Adjudication Ombudsman, Department of Motor Vehicles. Mr. Dugger will be able to answer questions on speed cameras, parking issues and other subjects. Our meetings are open to the public. The meeting will be held at 441 4^th Street NW from 6:30 PM until 8:30 PM. This will be our last meeting until September.

As always, we are open to suggestions on topics for future meetings and questions or comments about the federation. We ask that you spread this widely and we encourage everyone to visit our website, dccitizensfederation.org.

 

Best Regards,

Earl Williams

President

May 8, 2019

Dear Members and Friends,

I hope this message finds you well. The report on the Comprehensive Plan will be issued shortly. Our guest for our May meeting is Andrew Trueblood, Director of the Office of Planning (OP). For many, it may be the first time to meet and question Mr. Trueblood on his plans on changing the culture of OP and the rollout of the Comprehensive Plan’s amendments. Please join us on May 21, 2019 from 6:30 PM until 8:30 PM at Judiciary Square 441 4^th Street NW. Our meetings are open to the public and we encourage you to send this meeting notification to anyone who may be interested.

The Citizens Federation will hold a reception for the presidents of our member associations at the Arts Club of Washington in June. This will be the first time the Citizens Federation has met solely with the leaders of our member associations for many years. We will be discussing several initiatives the Citizens Federation plans on rolling out in the Fall of 2019.

We want to increase the number of people on our listserv. If you know of anyone who may be interested in the activities of the Federation, please ask them to go to our website, dccitizens federation.org and add their email to our list.

I hope to see you on May 21. If you have any questions or would like to discuss any issues, please contact me.

Warm Regards,

Earl Williams

President

Dear Members and Friends,

My letter is late this month because a lot has happened, and I wanted to include all of it. For those who missed our March meeting, the information we received on Health Link and the panel discussion on DC Statehood was enlightening.

We have a new feature on our website, dccitizensfederation.org, for our members only. Click on news and two boxes drop down. One for events and one for issues. Our members now can list events in their neighborhood and list issues that are important to them for anyone visiting our website to see.

Our Federation continues to grow with the addition of the Brookland Neighborhood Civic Association, brooklandcivic.org. I know they will be an active member. Our motto has always been “We are stronger together”

On April 13 for the first time in both our histories, members of the Federation of Civic Association’s Board and members of the Citizens Federation Board met at my home for a meal and conversation. We had a facilitator to help us with our discussion. The history of our interaction has not been good. Eighty years ago, when the negro associations applied for membership in the segregated Citizens Federation, they were refused and formed their own Federation. That act has haunted both our organizations to this day. We acknowledge our role in the despicable era of segregation in our city. However, we have not been that organization for many years. Our discussions showed we all have much in common. The Board of the Citizens Federation voted several years ago to pursue a merger with the Civic Federation. We understand that they are not ready to take that step, but we stand ready when and if they are. We hope to have more opportunities to interact with the Civic Board members. We welcome your comments and thoughts on this initiative at president@dccitizensfederation.org.

Earl Williams

President

 

 

Dear Members and Friends,

Last week, a bill was introduced in the Senate to grant DC Statehood. We had a record 30 Senators supporting Statehood last session. Eleanor Holmes Norton introduced a new statehood bill on the first day of the new Congress (H.R. 51) with a record 155 cosponsors, representing 38 States and 3 territories. This is the largest number of House members who have ever cosponsored a statehood bill. On January 4, 2019, Speaker Pelosi issued a statement in support od statehood. Support for statehood was also included in H.R. 1, the Democratic caucus’s landmark democracy reform bill.

If the Democrats take the Senate in November 2020, there is a very good chance Congress might approve statehood for the residential and commercial parts of the District with the federal enclave in the center remaining the District of Columbia, the seat of government of the United States.

The Citizens Federation in collaboration with the Civic Federation will hold a panel discussion on the issues statehood will pose for the residents of our city. We believe the pros and cons of statehood should be discussed. The panel will be held on March 26 at 441 4^th Street NW from 6:30 PM till 8:30 PM. The meeting is open to the public. Please distribute this invitation widely.

 

Best Regards,

Earl Williams

President

dccitizensfederation.org

Dear Members and Friends,

The Citizens Federation is off to a great start in 2019. Two associations are applying for membership. They are the Belleview Neighborhood Citizens Association and the Spring Valley Neighborhood Citizens Association. If you have not remitted your 2019 dues payment, please do so. We are stronger together. We are pleased to announce Malissa Freese, President of the River Terrace Community Organization has joined our Board.

The Federation had an eventful year in 2018! To name a few of our accomplishments: We held two panel discussions on DC Comprehensive Plan (Comp Plan). We held the first Council candidates forum that included every candidate. We held meetings on the Capital Grid Project; 5G towers coming to our neighborhoods; and had the newly appointed Deputy Mayor for Education as our guest speaker at our December luncheon. Sandra Mattavous-Frye, Chair of the Peoples Council was the recipient of our Outstanding Citizen Award (Click here for pictures). We sent letters to the Council objecting to the Mayor’s proposed changes to the framework language to the Comp Plan and in support of the Clean Energy Bill. We encourage everyone to add their email address in our website, dccitizensfederation.org to keep abreast of our activities.

We do not meet in January or February due to the unpredictable weather.  However, we will meet in March. If there is an issue that affects our neighborhoods and you would like for us discuss at our future meeting, please let us know! Happy New Year and thank you for the continued support.

 

Regards,

W. Earl Williams
President
president@dccitizensfederation.org