He’s back. And he’s calling us pigs.

This past Sunday, Georgetown resident, former American University professor, and founder of the website “Drunken Georgetown Students” Stephen R. Brown posted a minute-long video with an aerial view of a daytime house party on 37th Street in Burleith. The video scans over a view of a beer can in the driveway, the fence surrounding the yard, and a group of 20 to 30 students shmoozin’ and boozin’ on their own property.

“They don’t get much ruder than this bunch who seems to feel the need to host a party anytime they can,” Brown wrote in the post.

Back in April of 2010, Brown launched the website, taking pictures of Georgetown students partying around the neighborhood without obscuring their identities by blurring the photographs. “I don’t consult with [the students who I photograph.] I’m doing what I’m doing … I have the First Amendment right to photograph whatever is going on,” he said to Vox at the time.

Read the rest of this entry »

This week, the Advisory Neighborhood Commission[PDF] and the Burleith Citizens Association/Citizen’s Association of Georgetown[PDF] filed their final responses to the University’s latest appeasement efforts with the Zoning Commission. And nothing’s changed. All three organizations want all students on campus, and all of the University’s actions have been nothing but ineffective posturing. But let’s jump into the interesting parts of their monstrous filings.

• First Vox is going to question the legality of the ANC’s filing. A resolution affirming this filing on behalf of the ANC 2E was not adopted at a public meeting, and Commissioner Jake Sticka (COL ’13) told Vox that Georgetown Metropolitan’s post was the first he saw of this. This was probably written by Commissioners Jeff Jones, Ron Lewis, and Ed Solomon (who included personal testimonies at the end). This wouldn’t be the first time certain ANC2E commissioners engaged in some misrepresentation of authorship.

• The BCA/CAG filing has multimedia by our favorite wanna-be paparazzi Stephen R. Brown, who included a youtube video of a student house in Burleith. Although still creepy as ever, Vox is happy he is expanding his artistic horizons. Maybe next he’ll shoot in 3D. Surroundsound? 60FPS?

• Not only have Georgetown’s efforts been ineffective, but they’ve actually made the problem worse! “The GU trash collection efforts (1.5 tons of trash per day, according to GU!) has [sic] perversely lead to even greater student disregard for trash collection times and container requirements.”

Also, those reimbursable details the University is paying for? They don’t just ignore the problem houses, but their very employment by the University means they can’t be hired by BCA/CAG. “This situation recently lead CAG to terminate its own reimbursable detail and rely instead on patrols by private security officers.” The ANC adds on that “moreover, the officers know they are sponsored and paid by GU, an institution that has demonstrated a disturbing lack of enthusiasm for effective MPD enforcement against student misconduct and noise.”

Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday night, the D.C. Zoning Commission voted 5-0 to allow the University until November 17 to bargain with the D.C. Department of Transportation and neighborhood groups on the details of its 2010 Campus Plan.

This move would push back final ruling on the University’s ten-year land-use plan – which it must get approved to continue lawful operation – to December or even next year.

“I think that I will be moving by that time,” Burleith resident Stephen R. Brown complained.

The Advisory Neighborhood Commission, the Burleith Citizen’s Association, and the Citizen’s Association of Georgetown opposed the continuance on the grounds that it would allow the University to continue increasing enrollment and thereby exacerbate the adverse impacts to their community. The University countered that enrollment was already set for the fall semester.

Read the rest of this entry »

No Stephen R. Brown blog is complete without his camera skillz

How does Burleith resident Stephen R. Brown follow up his instant hit of a blog “Drunken Georgetown Students“? By calling for the removal of Georgetown President Jack DeGioia and Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans on of course!

Blogging at RemoveJack.com and RemoveJackEvans.com, two blogs largely dedicated to 2010 Campus Plan news/bashing, Brown demands that Evans “give up his post as Councilman and either teach at the University or return full-time to law” and that DeGioia to “GO BACK TO TEACHING.”

Here’s a glimpse at his open letter to DeGioia:

“We just gave you the ability to raise 211 million dollars at very favorable interest rates and you spent it on a science center and not dormitories. And yes… we have tried negotiating with you for a year. You haven’t changed your demands a bit. If you can’t moderate your business practices, I suspect that your reputation as a first class University which produces world leaders, scholars and diplomats will soon be on par with the likes of Kaplan, DeVry and the University of Phoenix.”

More gems like this after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Thursday night’s Burleith Citizens Association meeting featured an appearance by Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans, who answered residents’ concerns about Georgetown’s 2010 campus plan.

While standing between two of the BCA’s ubiquitous “Our Homes, Not GU’s Dorm” lawn signs, Evans voiced his support for Burleith residents. However, he also told the crowd that he has little control over the D.C. Zoning Commission, the judicial body that will rule on the plan.

“It’s not something I can make happen for you, or make happen for anybody,” he said. “I wish I could solve your problem with a magic wand, but I can’t.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Just like last year, Vox has compiled a guide to “news you can use”, or in other words, an excessively comprehensive review of last year’s important news stories. Today, we cover the off-campus issues that made headlines.

Georgetown’s 2010 Campus Plan

Every ten years, the University has to submit a campus plan to the D.C. Zoning Commission, detailing its construction plans for the next decade. University administrators hosted a series of meetings to present the plan to the neighborhood and ask for feedback, but Georgetown residents have been unsupportive, to say the least.

Their main complaint: the University has no plans to add new undergraduate housing on campus, which means upperclassmen will continue to live in West Georgetown (the neighborhood east of the front gates) and Burleith (the neighborhood northwest of the hospital). The neighborhood associations have launched fundraising campaigns, circulated a petition, and put up lawn signs to oppose the 2010 Campus Plan.

While the plan has some initiatives to benefit undergraduates, such as a New South student center, Voice writers have expressed concern about circuitous free shuttle bus routes and overcrowding from increased graduate student enrollment.

But, you still might ask—why should you care?

Read the rest of this entry »

Well, what do you know—Foxhall residents have a few reasons hate the 2010 Campus Plan, too!

At last night’s mayoral candidate debate, an audience member from Foxhall, an affluent neighborhood north of both the University and Burleith, asked the three candidates what they thought of a few elements of the 2010 Campus Plan—specifically, its plans to “build a 30-foot roof over Yates [Editor's note: they mean Kehoe], which already towers above the forest behind Georgetown,” erect an 83-foot smokestack over its power plant, and build a service road on an “already fragile embankment.”

So, what do D.C. mayoral candidates think (and know) about Georgetown’s 2010 Campus Plan?

We’ll start with former TV news reporter Leo Alexander‘s answer, which was ludicrous. He began by laying out his in-touch-with-the-community creds, telling the audience that he’d actually attended a meeting about Georgetown University, where he “heard all about Georgetown and its students and all the nuisances they’ve caused returning home from bars and parties at night.” Cheap shot, Leo. Then his answer got weird.

“Georgetown University is not going anywhere. They can threaten all they want,” he concluded. “They may say, ‘If you don’t let us do whatever we want, we’re packing up,’ but they’re not going anywhere.” As a final note, he added that he wanted Georgetown to build more on-campus housing and establish a board that enlists the opinions of neighbors.

Umm … what? We’re kind of curious to know what gave Alexander the idea that (1) the oldest university in the city, which has invested its image, millions of dollars, and hundreds of jobs in three major D.C. campuses has ever threatened to leave D.C. (and go where? Rosslyn?) if the city doesn’t allow it to build a minor service road for its food delivery trucks and buses, and (2) that neighbors would be real broken up if Georgetown did leave, and need reassurance that Georgetown is here to stay.

We’re just wondering. Because Alexander’s ridiculous musings about the 2010 Campus Plan have officially made him the awardee of Vox‘s Craziest Theories About Georgetown title—usurping it from Stephen R. Brown, who thinks that a cabal of Georgetown Jesuits are planning to build an entirely new hospital facility in Burleith (and who takes secret photos of students from bushes).

Read the rest of this entry »

Although nothing agitates the blood of a Vox reader quite like a post about a Citizens Association of Georgetown meeting about the 2010 Campus Plan, you’ve got to hand it to our neighbors in West Georgetown—they know that plan backwards and forwards. CAG seems to have a clear idea about what exactly in the plan they don’t like and why it threatens their neighborhood.

Don’t believe me? Then you should go to the next Burleith Citizens Association meeting about the 2010 Campus Plan, where their take on the plan is unfortunately beset by speculation and half-truths.

If you read our coverage of the first meeting the BCA held about the final plan draft in April, you’re already familiar with Burleith residents’ main gripes with the 2010 Campus Plan. And if you didn’t, I’m sure you can guess the usual suspects. The plan doesn’t add new on-campus housing for undergraduates; it adds over 2,400 graduate students to the school in the next ten years; it threatens to increase traffic in the neighborhood; and in general, it gets residents talking about how awful it is to live near students. With a few adjustments, the slides at the two meetings that the BCA held this past Saturday and Sunday to talk about the 2010 Campus Plan were more or less the same as the last meeting.

So I’ll spare you another rundown of what Burleith hates about the plan. What’s more interesting is what they just don’t get about it.

Let’s start with the portion of the presentation led by Candith Pallandre, the BCA’s treasurer, which consisted almost entirely of assumptions and misunderstandings. Pallandre zeroed in on the road that will run the length of campus between the woods and Kehoe Field, the tennis courts, and the power plant.

“This was supposed to be a service road, and now they’re saying that buses are service vehicles,” she said. With a knowing smile, she continued, “Buses carrying students are not really service vehicles.”

Pallandre didn’t give any clues as to why it would be a problem for GUTS buses to drive along a road that is bordered by woods and Georgetown University property. But it’s clear that she assumed the University thought it was being sneaky by classifying GUTS buses as service vehicles, and that this would have sneaky consequences.

In reality, the road will allow Georgetown University to pick up passengers from the north end of campus and then exit out Canal Road—which is what Burleith residents have been demanding for years.

After the jump, we recap the rest of the gripes from last weekend’s BCA meeting.

Read the rest of this entry »

With everyone’s favorite amateur photog soliciting ANC support, a bi-decennial liquor license moratorium discussion, a Late Night Shots founder pushing for greater leeway for his new restaurant, and a debate about the relative merits of pizza and crepes as drunk food, May’s ANC meeting was about as exciting as they come.

Stalker Becomes Stalkee? DrunkenGeorgetownStudents.com founder Stephen R. Brown made an appearance yesterday’s meeting, donning a Canadian Tuxedo and asking the ANC to make a statement against students threatening residents. Brown claimed he has been stalked and threatened by students because of his website. Burleith Citizens Association President Lenore Rubino chimed in her support, saying that she knows of other residents who have been threatened and intimidated by students.

The ANC did not make an official motion on the issue, but they did do some speechifying against harassment. ANC Chair Ron Lewis declared, “We abhor threats to our residents” and encouraged Brown to work with the Metropolitan Police Department to address the issue. Lt. John Hedgcock said he was aware of one incident of threatening behavior towards Brown and that MPD is “actively investigating” it.

Crêpe Amour: The Next Philly P? When campus media was looking to anoint the heir to Philly P, they largely left out Crêpe Amour, the new M Street creperie. But the ANC has their suspicions about the restaurant, which is petitioning to extend its operating hours. The restaurant went into yesterday’s meeting hoping to secure permission to operate 24 hours a day. But the ANC, still healing its Philly P-induced wounds, was not having it.

“We’ve been through such incredible brain damage right around the corner,” Commissioner Bill Skelsey said. “What’s the difference between crepes and pizza?”

Crêpe Amour’s representative tried to back away from the 24-hour request, floating a 2 a.m. closing time instead, and the ANC’s Student Representative Aaron Golds testified that drunk college students actually are not equally fond of crepes and jumbo slices, but in the end the ANC agreed that further meetings would be necessary to hammer out an agreement.

After the jump, read about the exciting world of Voluntary Agreements and liquor license moratoriums!

Read the rest of this entry »

So, maybe Georgetown students aren’t drunk all of the time.

In recent days, both the University and students have responded to “Drunken Georgetown Students,” the website that’s fueled rampant procrastination all week long.

In an e-mail statement, Director of Media Relations Andy Pino wrote, “[The University does] not believe the site is a constructive attempt  to improve safety or quality of life issues in our community, and we believe it runs contrary to the collaborative efforts we’ve engaged in with many of our neighbors.”

Meanwhile, students have launched websites and Facebook groups that lampoon Stephen R. Brown, the Burleith resident who runs “Drunken Georgetown Students.”

One student, who declined to be named, even made a video titled “Fun with Stephen Brown.”

“I just wanted to comment on Mr. Brown’s godawful blog while standing up for my fellow constantly intoxicated Georgetown students,” the student said in an e-mail.

Vox has also learned that Brown has been photographing student parties since last summer.

After the jump, hear from some of the students who Brown has photographed.

Read the rest of this entry »