Last night’s marathon Advisory Neighborhood Commission meeting covered everything from crime to tree boxes. As always, we’ve picked out the meeting’s highlights just for you. Let’s get to the recap.

The name is Bond. Revenue Bond.

Linda Greenan, associate vice president for external relations, presented the University’s application for tax-exempt revenue bonds incited an onslaught of heated reactions from audience members. A proposed $60 million of the bonds, a majority, will go toward funding the new science center. The rest will cover the cost of maintaining on-campus residences, including $12 million to outfit all residential halls with wireless Internet access.

Despite Greenan’s insistence that bonds bear no relation to the 2010 Campus Plan, that they would not place any constraints on further bond requests, and that the upgrades would in fact promote Georgetown’s residential nature, CAG and BCA both opposed the application “until or unless GU takes care of its students by providing on-campus housing.”

In the end, Commissioner Ron Lewis announced that there was no reason to pass a resolution, as the opinion of the neighbors and of the ANC has no effect on the administrative nature of the issue. The University’s application will go before the D.C. Council later this week.

Georgetown’s crime-wave

Metropolitan Police Department Lieutenant John Hedgecock kicked off the meeting with a Hollywood-worthy list of robberies and burglaries. The recent spike in robberies in Georgetown and Dupont included the theft of several iPhones, iPads, and even a laptop stolen directly the victim was typing a paper in a restaurant on M Street.

Think that’s crazy? Hedgecock went on to describe the September 30th armored car bank robbery, which took place at 2:30 in the afternoon in full view of pedestrians and within 100 yards of a policeman. In response to these brazen crimes, MPD has increased its efforts, is testing different patrol strategies, and put out the Bat-Signal.

Talkin’ permits

On the permit-front, commissioners unanimously approved liquor licenses, voluntary agreements, amendments, and the like from Hu’s Wear, Zenobia, Brush and Blush, and Lapis. Healthy Wisey’s lost its bid to expand, thanks to neighbors’ concerns about noise and trash.

The ANC’s prior wariness about crêpes reared its ugly head yet again after commissioners protested a business application for Malmaison, a desert and pastry establishment. Lewis and the other commissioners, who protested to give the owners more time to create a business plan, joked about the likelihood of another Georogetown reality show, à la Georgetown Cupcake. (For everyone’s sake, let’s hope Malmaison is more Duff and less Katherine and Sophie.)

Fred Moosally, Alcohol Beverage Regulation Administration director, also issued notice about a pending liquor license for a restaurant called “International House of Pong.” The restaurant, described as a place to eat Chinese food and play table tennis, will be located at 1010 Wisconsin Avenue.

Photo: Flickr user “zimpenfish“

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 5th, 2010 at 1:00 pm and is filed under News, Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.