From: amglassart@yahoo.com
Subject: Fw: Written testimony to HPRB Case HP-15-133
please post my testimony on Edgewood List serve(where i have been blocked in the past), Brookland Listserv and Bloomingdale Blog
McMillan is the only park where your kids can safely play, bike in a large outdoor open green space. send in testimony to HPRB
Save McMillan Park
Written testimony to HPRB Case HP-15-133
Proposed Subdivision of McMillan Site
Daniel Goldon Wolkoff
McMillan coalition for Sustainable Agriculture
1231 Randolph Street NE
Washington, DC 20017
202-232-8391
amglassart@yahoo.com
The real issue is the theft from the people of the city and the nation of a significant work of landscape architecture and industrial design by turn-of-the-20th century master designers, brought to Washington by Senator McMillan, an important historic site, a critical public amenity, and a potentially important backup system for clean water.
Senator McMillan and Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. must be turning in their graves, to see the dereliction of Historic Preservation perpetrated by the DC HPRB, the HPRB Staff, and it's collusion with DC govt. agencies, OP, DMPED, DC Zoning Commission, the Mayor's Agent , DC City Council and Mayor Vincent Gray(still un-indicted).
The HPRB and it's Staff, and all these so-called officials, need to read YOUR own Nomination to the National Register, as the Vision McMillan Partners Billion dollar theft of public assets slides along on institutional government corruption.
please read YOUR OWN nomination to understand the loss to our city and nation:
National Register of Historic Places nomination (http://www.nps.gov/nr/feature/places/13000022.htm ) by DC Office of Historic Preservation architect Kim Williams.
She describes a remarkably intact, fascinating, even charming engineering marvel. Our heratige, that you, the worshipers of corporate profits, are asking to demolish and over build with 50 hideous brutalist structures, 6 asphalt paved "private" streets, 3000 asphalt paved parking spaces and 20,000 additional choking automobile congestion in this neighborhood each day.. To super urbanize the last large green space in DC, as crass suburban office and condo park on our publicly owned land.
Most disgusting and offensive, is the corruption and malfeasance surrounding this theft. How can all the evaluations, oversight, Zoning, Mayor's Agent, City Council and Mayor's " Surplus and Land Disposition" and all DC agencies charged with protecting the commons, be RUNNING concurrently, and not be declared COERCIVE and be rejected as corrupt?
Do you, HPRB et al., expect us to believe that these agencies have evaluated this humongous multi-billion dollar development plan, objectively? While simultaneously, the City Council is perpetrating the "public to corporate GIVE-AWAY" of the McMillan, 25 acres of prime central DC land to the powerful development conglomerate, and as of today, paying them over $150 million in public money, for still un-estimated engineering costs. All happening in the hottest real estate market in DC history, and smack on top of a disastrous infrastructure failure, of storm water runoff and human sewage flooding into area homes? Do you really expect us to believe you?
Not everyone in this city is that naive, and we will see you in court!
Is this not corrupt COLLUSION as the Deputy Mayor is both applicant and regulator at the same time, and all evaluative agencies are under the same DC office? Do you really expect us to believe the Mayor's Agent can carry out the DC Historic Preservation Laws, and be objective in protecting our public interest, when he had not even heard the community opposition, while the DC Zoning Commission approved the "Monstrosity on Michigan Avenue" and City Council voted unanimously to "give away" McMillan in a 30 second Council vote with no questions asked and no comments at all!
Where is all this "protection of DC historic laws, and the public interest, when in December 2013, Deputy Mayor at DMPED M. Jeffrey Miller hired the Jamie Fontaine PR firm to "neutralize opposition", "create the impression of community support for the development plan" and "muzzle the media"? When does the HPRB and it's staff do the job you are paid for, enforcing the DC and Federal Historic Preservation laws, to protect DC public wealth, the commons, by the people of DC for the people!
Long time activist for McMillan Park, landscape architect Mary Pat Rowan reveals the PR firm “astroturf campaign” in this City Council Committee Oversight hearing with Muriel Bowser. In this "oversight" hearing Jeff Miller lies to Chairperson Bowser's face, that the government did not pay for the "sleaze campaign", she says it doesn't look good to the public, and odes nothing at all.
The DC government is an international embarrassment, and so are all these collusive, manipulative, deceptive, dishonest and corrupt agencies, departments and review boards!
Our city could be a world leader in culture, and art, and provide the long term planning that requires, but for the destructiveness, mediocrity and hypocrisy of your work!
For our children and the future of our city, you can be ashamed, because,
stolen is the possibility for a badly needed world-class cultural and recreational facility, a Glen Echo type historic educational/arts campus for our families and young, a Wolf Trap in DC outdoor concert stage, skating rinks, libraries, and community building activities demanded by the people of DC since 1945.
The HPRB participation in the demolition of the site's underground water filtration vaults is a crime against our clean water security and violates the international movement of sustainable adaptive-reuse, the most green building is the one "already built"!
The critical preservation, NOT DEMOLITION, of the 20 acres underground, allows for saving the entire 25 acre surface park for our children, and provides for "vertical indoor agriculture", the future of local food production. Fresh produce food , a nutrition and exercise hub, creates the exciting potential for Sustainable large scale "indoor agriculture" and Family Fish Network. With proven vertical indoor growing technology we could convert the McMillan/Olmsted Park caverns to a fully functional, local food production facility, making it a truly sustainable site. Imagine superior organic fresh fruit, vegetables and Family Farmed Fish freshly produced right here in DC , no longer trucked from California, Florida and Mexico. Thirty five percent of trucks on the road are transporting food!
Please see this fascinating video on our exciting future in urban agriculture
http://youtu.be/ILzWmw53Wwo
http://youtu.be/ILzWmw53Wwo
This special site needs to be preserved for public use. The declaration by Mayor Gray that “there is no longer any public use for the land”, is an insulting lie and abuse of power. This tiny group of arrogant, self important, appointed and barely elected DC officials must not be in charge of $18 billion in development investment. We have no checks or balances!
The lack of such amenities, especially open green space, in this part of the city and the contrast with the number and quality of parks in the NW quadrant is another important aspect of the scandal.
This staff report below, is offensive double speak and must be rejected. The staff and HPRB are violating their legally required protection of DC historic site at McMillan. They failed in their role since 1987, and now this final obnoxious indignity to our heritage is being committed to move our wealth , $billions and our land, and park space, to mediocre development conglomerate VMP.. HPRB and Staff are participating in a massive theft of public wealth. David Maloney "State Historic Preservation Officer" wrote a letter to DC Zoning to bypass the Federal Historic Covenants placed on the site, that letter was absurd double speak, and David Maloney should be fired, along with any staff that participated in this THEFT OF PUBLIC LAND.
"The HPO recommends that the Board find that the subdivision
of the McMillan Sand Filtration Site is incompatible with the character
of the landmark but reconfirm to the Mayor’s Agent that the master
plan has been developed to mitigate many of the adverse effects
of the subdivision in the event that the project is found to be one of
special merit."
HPRB staff and review board, do you really believe it was worth this treason against the public interest to keep your jobs? Are you going to VMP, EYA, Jair Lynch or Trammel Crow or Holland And Knight next, a lucrative job offer possibly?
Your profession is diminished by this insult to it's integrity.
Daniel Goldon Wolkoff
McMillan Coalition for Sustainable Agriculture
1231 Randolph Street, NE
Washington, DC 20017
Tel: 202-232-8391
McMillan Coalition for Sustainable Agriculture
1231 Randolph Street, NE
Washington, DC 20017
Tel: 202-232-8391
No comments:
Post a Comment