Oppose Field Transfer

/
2020.01-Ellington-petition-crop.jpg

Dear Neighbors,

Do you enjoy using Ellington Field? Are you concerned with traffic, trash, noise, and parking in our neighborhood? Do you care about ensuring the equitable access of public school kids to athletic facilities? Or do you simply want to make sure that the District upholds basic principles of fairness, good governance, and transparency in managing a community resource? If the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” please read on.

The District is trying to transfer control of Ellington Field from the DC Department of Public Schools (DCPS) to the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR)—for the purpose of greatly expanding Ellington Field and using it much more intensively for practices and athletic events by public schools, private schools, and sports leagues from around the District. 

No study has been done of the likely dramatic increase in traffic, noise, trash, and parking in our neighborhood. Burleith is a small community already burdened by pedestrian and vehicular traffic from Georgetown University, MedStar Hospital, the Washington International School, and Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Opening up the field to use by soccer and sports leagues around the city could well turn our community into a gridlocked parking lot on evenings and weekends, with no place to park. 

The change will not benefit local public schools—like Hardy and Duke Ellington—because they already have priority access to the field. Indeed, at a recent community meeting, not a single local resident (including parents of students in both those schools) spoke in favor of this transfer and expansion! 

So what is driving this plan? We have recently learned that the project is apparently a hasty effort by Mary Cheh of Ward 3 (along with various Council allies she has recruited) to compensate for DPR’s misguided decision to grant exclusive use of Jelleff Recreational Center in prime time to the Maret School, a private academy with large playing fields of its own. As a result, a small private school will monopolize the fields of Jelleff during prime time after-school hours, while many more students in local public schools are excluded. As a result, our public schools will be forced to compete with each other and with sports leagues around the District for access to an expanded Ellington Field. 

This is just plain wrong, and it underscores why DPR cannot be trusted to manage Ellington Field wisely or fairly without careful planning and community input. Yet DPR is grabbing control of the field while refusing to commit to any use plan or studies of impacts on our neighborhood. 

No final decisions about the future of Ellington Field should be taken until (1) a use plan for the field has been developed and published, (2) impacts have been properly considered, (3) the community has  been meaningfully consulted, and (4) Ward 2 has regained representation on the City Council. The last point is worth emphasizing—this proposal is being forced through at a time when our community is without proper representation!

If you would like to support this cause, you can take three easy steps:

1.    Sign the petition at www.change.org/stopellingtontransfer.

2.    Email Mayor Bowser and City Council members. See contact information below.

3.    Attend these upcoming meetings:

  • ANC2E meeting on Monday, February 3, 6:30 pm, at Georgetown Visitation

  • Burleith Citizens Association meeting on Wednesday, February 5, 7 pm, at Washington International School.

Thank you for your support of our neighborhood, its kids, and good government in DC!  

Email Contacts

Mayor Muriel Bowser, eom@dc.gov

DC Council
Chair Phil Mendelson, pmendelson@dccouncil.us
Kenyan McDuffie, kmcduffie@dccouncil.us
Anita Bonds, abonds@dccouncil.us
David Grosso, dgrosso@dccouncil.us
Elissa Silverman, esilverman@dccouncil.us
Robert C. White, Jr., rwhite@dccouncil.us
Brianne Nadeau, bnadeau@dccouncil.us
Mary Cheh, mcheh@dccouncil.us
Brandon Todd, btodd@dccouncil.us
Charles Allen,  callen@dccouncil.us
Vincent Gray, vgray@dccouncil.us
Trayon White, twhite@dccouncil.us

ANC2E
Chair Rick Murphy, 2E03@anc.dc.gov
Kishan Putta, 2E01@anc.dc.gov
Joe Gibbons, 2E02@anc.dc.gov
Anna Landre, 2E04@anc.dc.gov
Lisa Palmer, 2E05@anc.dc.gov
Gwendolyn Lohse, 2E06@anc.dc.gov
Elizabeth Miller, 2E07@anc.dc.gov
Matias Burdman, 2E08@anc.dc.gov

Related Reading