December 18 ANC 5A meeting wrapup

ANC 5A held its holiday celebration on December 18 with a few items on the agenda:

• ANC 5A plans to draft a resolution opposing the selection of Bridges and Briya Public Charter School for the Mamie D. Lee school building.  ANC 5A sent a letter in support of a different school before the selection was announced. Commissioner Sandi Washington, in whose SMD the school sits, cited a few reasons for opposing the selection.  (1) The new school will serve 400 students.  The school also plans to partner with Mary’s Center to offer medical services. As a result, the commissioner believes there factors will be an increase in traffic and congestion.  (2) The operating hours for the new school will be 7:00 am – 10:00 pm because the school plans to offer nighttime GED classes. These hours raise public safety concerns for the commissioner. (3) It is unclear if Bridges and Briya plan to simply add on to the current school building or if they plan to tear down part or all of the building to build what Commissioner Washington says will be a five story building. In either case, the building will not look the same and the community expressed concern about how large the new building will be. (4) The school the ANC supported planned to serve special needs students, as Mamie D. Lee currently does. Bridges and Briya will not exclusively serve special needs students.

• Commissioner Angel Alston announced that she received the PUD documents from Comstock to build an additional 47 townhomes in North Michigan Park near Capital Area Food Bank.

• A board member of Potomac Lighthouse Public Charter School (4401 8th Street NE) reported on the management and personnel changes at the school.  He stated the changes resulted in the school going from a Tier 4 school to a Tier 2 school.