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Recently, a Voice staffer discovered two suspicious-looking cameras peeping out of a house on the corner of 34th and N Street, about three blocks from campus. Careful where you stop to surreptitiously kiss your loved ones or relieve yourself after a night of drinking, because there’s a good chance a neighbor is watching.

The products were identified as Linksys and Wansview surveillance cameras. The smaller, Wansview camera faces the intersection, while the Linksys camera faces N Street.
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Campus news has been slow these past few weeks, but that hasn’t stopped commenters from finding something to be angry about. Since our last comments of the week, Vox reported on the extended GUTS bus route and let you know how a Georgetown alumna was doing. Here is the finest of what showed up in the comments section.

In response to the possible rerouting of GUTS buses, d00$h had this suggestion:

maybe we could just have the guts bus drive to dulles, then everyone gets on a plane which flies to Reagan, making sure not to pass over Georgetown of course, and then from there we can take the metro to dupont or wherever.

Some of the responses were slightly angrier. This, by Broya Saxa:

If I ever grow up to be like these neighbors, any and all of you can slap me in the face and tell me to grow a pair. Seriously this is the stupidest shit I have ever heard. If neighbors can’t deal with a bus driving by their house or college kids having fun, then they need move out to the middle of the forest somewhere where they can live and die alone and no one needs to deal with their ugly ass. This is America, and no one will ever be able to take my right away to shotgun a Natty, yell “FUCK YEAH” at the top of my lungs, and slam it to the ground.

Conspiracy!, I believe it.

OR, they don’t want the buses in order to force more people to drive to the neighborhood to get to work on campus. That way, they can charge even more to rent out their parking spots….

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Late Wednesday night, according to the Georgetown Dish, several Georgetown residents in the 1400 block of 33rd Street heard loud smashing sounds from the street, and, going outside, discovered that one car’s window was smashed in completely and an adjacent car’s windshield was cracked.

A young, apparently inebriated male, who was later identified as a Georgetown University student, was standing near the damaged vehicles. Confronted, the student fled toward Wisconsin Avenue. There is a large quantity of loose bricks in the vicinity because of the construction taking place on O and P Streets.

John Bradshaw, whose car received the most damage in the incident, pursued the fleeing student while his wife called police. After he caught up to him in the CVS Pharmacy on Wisconsin, Bradshaw said to Dish, “I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him back” to 33rd Street. While he was being dragged back, the kid reportedly asked Bradshaw, “Is there any way we can settle this without the police being involved?”

MPD responded to the scene of the incident, and took the student into custody. After the police learned that the young man was a Georgetown student, the Department of Public Safety also responded to the scene. The incident has not appeared in the crime logs of either MPD or DPS, suggesting that the University may be handling it internally.

University spokesperson Stacy Kerr wrote in an e-mail to Vox: ”We take these incidents very seriously and we are following up through our student conduct process on the report that a Georgetown student was involved in an incident early Thursday morning in West Georgetown. If a student is found to be responsible, we will handle this in a very serious way. This behavior is unacceptable.”

Bradshaw also told Dish that a University dean personally called him to apologize for the student’s alleged behavior. “She was very, very nice, very apologetic,” Bradshaw said.

Photo: Lucia He

Last night in Healy Hall, administrators, neighborhood residents and community leaders gathered for the university’s twelfth annual holiday reception with Georgetown’s neighbors. Notable attendees this year were University President John J. DeGioia, D.C. Assistant Police Chief Patrick Burke, ANC commissioner Ron Lewis, City Councilmember Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), and after an hour filled with anticipation and regular updates on his progress down the Whitehurst Freeway, the real star, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray.

With the 2010 campus plan still up in the air, the reception was held with the hopes of a more productive future for University-neighborhood relations. DeGioia kicked off the gathering, deeming it “one of the great events of the holiday season.” He thanked the many community leaders for their presence at the reception.

“I know there are many challenges that we’ve faced together,” DeGioia said. “I am grateful for the fact that we can all come together like this…and work together to ensure a better future for our neighborhood and for this city.”

Mayor Gray’s late arrival lent more holiday cheer to the evening.

Though realistic, the Mayor’s assessment of the campus plan negotiations remained hopeful. “It’s been—I don’t know if I want to say delightful—it’s been interesting working with the University on the campus plan,” Gray said, as the audience laughed. “But I think we’re going to get there. It’s wonderful to be able to walk in this room during the holiday season and see members of the ANC and members of the community here as part of the Georgetown community. That shows me that we are really going to get to a conclusion.”

Gray pointed to the significant progress made so far (“I think we’ve already had 723 hearings,” he quipped to laughter) and said a successful conclusion was in sight.

Gray ended his speech with a call to action. “There are so many problems that are insoluble, and many times the government, despite how many employees we have, just doesn’t have the resources to be able to address those issues….I ask you to work together in the spirit of one city to continue to make this the absolute greatest city in the United States and in the world.”

Photo: Tim Markatos

Are they serious? makes a comparison I can’t particularly disagree with:

Admirable post from JA, but there is no point in being thoughtful and constructive at this point. Waste of time. Neighbors will stake our most extreme position possible and then refuse to retreat. They are like congressional republicans.

C.H. responds to some Occupy D.C. haters in the comments section:

Some of these comments make me ashamed to be a Georgetown student. Many of you are proof of that our country’s leaders and (unfortunately) future leaders are totally morally bankrupt. Work hard! Get that internship! But whatever you do, don’t think about all those poor and unemployed people protesting around you.

And UNDERGOD is ready to tango with our new editor:

ONE NATION ABOVE UNDERGOD.

I AM YOUR NEW VOX-TROLLING UNDERLORD.

In effort to improve town-gown relations and to provide information for students sub-letting houses and apartments in surrounding neighborhoods, Georgetown University will be publishing two lists, naming the landlords that they would recommend students to sublet from, and the landlords they would not recommend.

“We’re promoting good landlords to [students] and provide resources to them so they know the rights they have as a tenant and the expectations they should seek,” Vice President of Communications Stacy Kerr said.

Letters are being sent to landlords around the area, encouraging them to pledge their commitment to “maintaining the quality of life in our community to your neighbors publicly.” In return, the University would promote these landlords to students by publishing the names of landlords who sign the pledge on their website.

On the other hand, landlords and properties that receive multiple and unresolved “credible complaints” would be published on the a “List of Properties of Concern.” Credible complaints would include shoveling sidewalks or trash issues, said Kerr, but would not include complaints that a house is too noisy.

The letter to the landlords and pledge are included after the jump!

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It’s no news that Georgetown University students have a somewhat contentious relationship with our neighbors to the North. Read: Burleithers hate us.

So it’s no wonder that most of us probably didn’t receive invites to the Burleith Annual Summer Picnic in the Park, which takes place this Saturday, June 11, from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Green Lot on Whitehaven Parkway and 37th Street. The picnic looks like loads of fun: Activities on the website include a nature walk (you know, through all the wilderness there is out there on R Street) and the mysteriously labeled “new and fun kids’ activities.”

But get this—nobody ever said this was an invite-only picnic. So we here at Vox are encouraging any and every one of our dear, loyal readers who are still in D.C. (particularly those of you who are both students and Burleith residents), to turn this picnic into a Georgetown affair. Show up, introduce yourselves to Lenore Rubino, snap a picture with resident photographer Stephen Brown, and maybe you’ll even get a chance to throw this guy’s lawn sign on the barbecue.

Basically, make Burleithers realize just how bored they’d be without us in their communities to complain about.

Photo from Mentalfloss.com.

Good Morning America‘s new anchor is starting life in a new house in New York, which means that the Georgetown neighborhood is now short one short celebrity. George Stephanopoulos has just sold his Georgetown home for $5.45 million dollars, a sum which, at 14 percent under the asking price of $6.35 million, sounds like a real steal.

The Wall Street Journal writes that the house he sold is four stories, measures about 5,600 square feet, and has a terrace and elevator. Stephanopoulos and his wife, actress Alexandra Wentworth, bought it for $5.2 million in 2006.

The couple bought a home in East Hampton for Stephanopoulos’s new job—a slightly smaller, 4,500 resort-town home that they got at the bargain basement price of $3.5 million. We’ll miss George, but don’t worry, there are still plenty more famous folks where he came from.

University administrators held the first of five November meetings with neighbors about their new draft of the 2010 Campus Plan last week. There seemed to be a fair amount for neighbors to be excited about at the meeting (whcich covered enrollment, student housing and off-campus life), such as the University not increasing undergraduate enrollment and the creation of “Community Advisers” to live in West Georgetown and Burleith.

But it seems the Burleith Citizens Association is less than enthused by the plan.  Yesterday BCA President Lenore Rubino sent an e-mail out to the Burleith listserv detailing the organization’s objections, which mostly focus on the proposed increase of graduate student enrollment:

There is no proposed new housing planned except for possible a small dorm for grad students on the “1789″ block which is opposed by the Georgetown community.

The possible 58% increase in grad students could have a significant effect on housing, parking, traffic and transportation.

The e-mail exhorts Burleith residents to attend the rest of the meetings (the next of which, incidentally, is tonight at 6:30 p.m. at Georgetown Visitation) and “go on the public record” about the plan.

During the last ten-year plan process, neighbors caused trouble for GU by raising objections with the Board of Zoning and Adjustment, the body that reviews campus plans, and the e-mail hints that the BCA will be going down the same route again this time around.

While the BCA is working to formulate a plan of action, please make best efforts to attend the GU upcoming meetings as we need to go on public record that we oppose their plan.

GU’s campus plan is subject to review by the Board of Zoning and there will be a period of public comment and testimony. This process will most likely take us well into 2010.

You can read the full e-mail after the jump.  Make sure you check back later today for Vox’s reporting on tonight’s 2010 Campus Plan, which will deal with transportation.

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When Georgetown announced plans to establish Magis Row, the block of 16 townhouses designated for living and learning communities that sit on the only strip of University property facing residential homes, the Voice editorial board and many students instantly suspected that Magis Row was appeasement for neighbors frustrated by student trash and noise.

A set of e-mails that the Voice obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that Magis Row’s establishment followed months of meetings between University administrators and community leaders in which the leaders tried to effect changes in student housing.  They also show that neighbors hope the University will turn more student housing outside the front gates into LLCs, too.

The FOIA request, which the Voice filed in March, obtained e-mails sent between Citizens’ Association of Georgetown directors and officers and members of Georgetown’s Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E. Before submitting the results, the ANC redacted some street names and the names of the CAG members and ANC commissioners who sent and received the e-mails. Ron Lewis, the chair of ANC 2E, wrote in a letter accompanying the FOIA requests that redactions were made according to advice from the D.C. government.

Although it is unclear when the University or neighbors conceived of Magis Row, a September 1 e-mail indicates that neighborhood had long been trying to influence the makeup of student housing outside Georgetown’s gates, and the Georgetown had been attentive to their complaints.

“We have been in monthly meetings to discuss numerous student issues that effect the whole of Georgetown,” the sender wrote. The sender added that with regards to an unspecified block of academic housing which had been designated as normal student housing for that year, “We have solid commitments that that will change in the 2009 academic year.”

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