Fiona Greig, D.C. Council candidate for Ward 2, has announced that she is dropping out of the race. Greig cited the alleged intimidation campaign run by opposition Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) and his supporters as her reason for dropping out.

“At home, I received muffled phone calls telling me about the ‘dirt’ my opponent had on me,” Greig wrote in her statement. “Someone wanting to hold a ‘Meet and Greet’ for me received nasty emails from the opposing campaign. And I learned from a city agency that a well-known private investigator whose firm does ‘surveillance’ and ‘domestic investigations’ had requested my records. Maybe that explains the man who repeatedly walked past my house one night, looking in the windows.”

Whether these actions constitute an intimidation campaign or are just normal tactics (or whether they were even instituted by Evans) is unclear. But this does show that Greig, who received a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard and works at consulting firm McKinsey & Co., was not ready for the D.C. political scene.

From the start, Greig faced an uphill battle against Evans. She emphasized smart growth and retaining young families in Ward 2 as much instituting Council ethics reform, but she was seen by many as the  ”Not Jack Evans” candidate (which is, in this blogger’s mind, a legitimate platform).

Although she may not have had much of a chance against Evans’s fundraising and political prowess (especially when she has her own fundraising issues), Greig’s candidacy can hopefully serve as a stepping stone for others who are fed up with the Council.

Greig, who may have been recruited by David Alpert and Ken Archer, was willing to challenge the the norm of D.C. politics. She was also enthusiastic about including students in her campaign, which she demonstrated by working with DC Students Speak and appointing campus captains.

[Editor’s note: Kara Brandeisky is the head of business for the Voice.]

Kara Brandeisky (COL ’13) has come to the defense of the Campus Plan following the recent post on Greater Greater Washington by Georgetown resident Ken Archer that referred to the area around Georgetown University as a “student ghetto.”

In her post, Brandeisky takes a look back at the history of student housing, both on and off campus, exposing the flaws in the 2010 Campus Plan opponents’ logic and the repetition of arguments that have been used against a number of plans.

In his post, Archer claimed that the neighborhood has become a student ghetto that did not exist in 1980. However, Brandeisky notes, “a 1979 Hoya student newspaper article reported that only 3,058 students were offered on-campus housing in 1980, or 58 percent of Georgetown’s 5,293 undergraduates. Today, the University houses 84 percent of its undergraduates. In 1980, 2,235 students lived off-campus. Last semester 1,077 students lived off-campus, not including those studying abroad.”

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Did you know that if you live off-campus in West Georgetown you are part of a ghetto?

Although most people who are familiar with Georgetown would have a hard time connecting the concepts of Georgetown and a ghetto, local resident Ken Archer made the claim in a post yesterday on Greater Greater Washington.

Archer writes that if you walk around West Georgetown, “you will find a student ghetto that simply wasn’t there in 1980. The area is becoming characterized by dilapidated houses and unbagged trash strewn across lawns.” However, in the comments section, Archer notes that he moved in to the neighborhood only eight years ago.

In his post, Archer also claimed the 27 percent of student houses have had run-ins with the police and the University is proud of this number, however, he fails to cite any source. (One commenter suggested that the figure accounts for “community calls.”) Last year, Burleith Citizens’ Association President Lenore Rubino encouraged residents to call 911 when they feel student gatherings are too loud, which explains the potential amount of run-ins.

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