Parks - Greater Greater Washington

A 1920s plan to widen K Street included an idea to make all of Franklin Square a parking lot. A Washington Post op-ed condemned the idea and pushed underground garages instead. (Ghosts of DC)

No-no go-go for park?

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 08:27:00 EDT

Mayor Gray wanted a lively park with music to honor Chuck Brown. Nearby residents are happy to honor Brown, but not so sure about the people and noise (and maybe crime) an outdoor amphitheater would bring. (Post)

Streetcars, parks, and libraries get boost in Gray budget

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 09:58:00 EDT

Bike lanes, parks in NoMA and around the city, streetcars, libraries 7 days a week, new trash cans for free, school modernizations, and many more programs get funding under the operating and capital budgets Mayor Gray is unveiling this morning.

Photo by EnvironmentBlog on Flickr.

Streetcars: In the 6-year capital plan, streetcars get $400 million, which should fund completing the first line from Minnesota Avenue to Georgetown, engineering the Anacostia line, and studies for north-south lines such as Georgia Avenue.

The operating budget contains $6.2 million to start running the streetcar, which Gray continues to promise will roll by the end of the calendar year.

Bike infrastructure: There is a pot of $10.7 million for bike lanes and trails, which appears to be entirely new; formerly, there was no dedicated local bike money. The budget staff have promised to follow up to confirm this. Another $5.1 million will go to "bike-friendly streetscapes," which will be interesting to see in more detail.

Capital Bikeshare: The mayor is funding 10 more Capital Bikeshare stations beyond the ones that area already supposed to be going in. In December, DDOT announced 78 locations, of which it had funding for 54 and was going to install those by March. Unfortunately, it's late in installing most of those. That list also identified 24 future locations, so this budget funds 10.

Buses: The budget office's presentation did not discuss the Circulator or other bus projects. I will follow up to find out whether any Circulator expansion in that master plan have funding. Streetcars are important, but they are one of several modes we need, and for many neighborhoods, better bus service is the better way to help people get around.

Bridges: The South Capitol "racetrack" project and new Frederick Douglass Bridge gets $622.5 million, which would fully fund the project.

Taxes: The budget imposes no new taxes or fees, maintains DC's fund balance, and keeps the debt cap at 12%. The administration also wants to get rid of the tax on out-of-state bonds, which they say primarily impacts seniors and is far and away the biggest complaint they get about taxes. Gray chief of staff Chris Murphy said they "always felt it was ill-conceived."

Affordable housing: As promised, the administration is putting a one-time $100 million into affordable housing. $86.9 million goes into the Housing Production Trust Fund, ($20M in FY 2014 and the rest in FY 2013). The rest, $13.1 million, goes to other smaller initiatives that the recent Comprehensive Housing Strategy Task Force recommended. He is also promising to keep the 15% of the Deed Recordation and Transfer Tax, which is supposed to go to the HPTF, in there; previous budgets raided that to fund other programs.

Parks: The capital budget provides $50 million for parks (likely a few different small parks) in NoMA: $25 million to acquire land, and $25 million for development. DC made a mistake when it upzoned NoMA without any plan for parks, which is why this is going to be expensive. However, NoMA is generating a lot of tax revenue.

Other parks capital spending includes $20 million fro the Fort Dupont ice arena, $26.4 million for Barry Farm, $2M to renovate and improve athletic fields and parks, $18M for the Southeast tennis & learning center, and funding to modernize 32 play spaces in 8 wards including Fort Greble, Palisades, Macomb, and Takoma which will start in April as well as already-underway work at Noyes, Raymond, and Rosedale.

Libraries: Gray is expanding funding for DC Public Libraries so that every library can be open 7 days a week. Most will be open until 9 pm Monday to Thursday as well as afternoons on Saturday and Sunday. They also get $2 million for books and e-books.

Further, the budget provides $103 million to renovate and, as part of a public-private partnership, expand the MLK Library. There is $15.2 million to renovate the Cleveland Park library, $21.7 for the Palisades library, and $4.8 million for Woodridge's library.

Trash: Residents who want to replace their trash cans are in luck: the administration wants to replace everyone's trash cans over 5 years, for free. If there is money available, they also hope to let people replace stolen or damaged cans without the fee residents have to pay today.

Flooding: Bloomingdale residents hopefully will see some relief from their flooding problems with $1.5 million in the budget to pay for recommendations from the task force studying those problems.

Police and fire: The public safety budget pays for 4,000 sworn officers, replacing police and fire vehicles, cadet training programs and maintaining domestic violence programs that are seeing federal cuts. In general, the budget officials say, they are replacing all federal from sequestration across the board, even assuming sequestration will continue throughout the year.

Raises: DC employees will get their first pay raise in 4-7 years, spanning both union and non-union employees, and DC will fully fund its pension obligations.

We'll have more analysis and further details in upcoming posts.

42 comments

And...

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 08:26:00 EDT

There's a new design for the Chuck Brown Park. (RIA Insider) ... Conservative bloggers flipped out over Matthew Yglesias buying a pricey condo. (Atlantic Wire) ... Serena Williams rode a bike to a match, and it was faster than driving in traffic. (Post)

Long Bridge getting pool

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 08:47:00 EDT

Arlington will build a new aquatic center at Long Bridge Park. The county Republicans and Greens ironically both dislike the plan. (Examiner)

Transform Franklin

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 08:41:00 EDT

Franklin Square could get a complete makeover to be a more inviting, "thriving" place like New York's Union Square. Local and federal officials put out an RFP for a landscape designer to devise a few possibilities. (WBJ)

KIPP wants to build at Randall

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 08:37:00 EDT

KIPP wants to build a new school at the Randall Recreation Center in Southwest. They would pay to renovate the center's pool, fields and building, but the school would then get priority to use the center. The developer of nearby condos also opposes a KIPP school nearby. (Post)

Appreciate our furry ecosystem engineers

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 14:48:00 EDT

by Malcolm Kenton

The DC area's beaver population has boomed in the past 20 years, and that's a great thing.

Beaver at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. Photo by Glyn Lowe Photoworks on Flickr.

It's a sign that our region's waterways, having suffered from decades of channelization, pollution, neglect and mismanagement, are starting to regain their ecological health, though much work remains to be done.

The industrious creatures' presence brings challenges when their work conflicts with human activity, but beavers, which biologists recognize as a keystone species, benefit the environment far more than many people realize.

There are many tools for coexisting with beavers and the other creatures their ponds attract, even in highly developed areas. The alternatives to coexistence tend to be inhumane, ineffectual and shortsighted.

The beaver, North America's largest native semiaquatic rodent, is often misunderstood and greatly under-appreciated. Yes, they do cut down trees and build dams that can flood parts of low-lying areas. But these activities bring a host of benefits for ecosystem health, biodiversity, other wildlife, and for water quality, erosion abatement, flood control, and even act as carbon sinks that take greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.

Beavers abounded throughout North America prior to Europeans' arrival, and they were almost certainly abundant in our region, which boasted a great deal of marshland and a plethora of streams, some of which humans have built over or removed by human activity.

Beavers were hunted and trapped nearly to extinction by the turn of the 20th century, mainly for their fur. But one of the greatest success stories of the modern wildlife conservation ethic has seen the industrious rodents return to almost all of their historic range.

At the same time, efforts to allow native vegetation to grow along stream beds in urban and suburban areas to improve water quality has recreated attractive habitat for beavers. They have come to inhabit creeks and streams in urban and suburban areas across the US, where their activity has at times come into conflict with human desires.

Sign at Lake Artemesia in College Park. Photos by the author.

Nature's engineers now inhabit a number of waterways in our region, including Rock Creek, the Anacostia River and its tributaries (including Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens), Lake Artemesia in College Park, Roaches Run Pond in Arlington, and Lake Accotink in Springfield, just to name a few.

Stories of trouble stemming from beavers' handiwork have appeared with regularity in the Washington-area press in the past two decades. In some cases, such as when beavers felled some of the beloved cherry trees along the Tidal Basin in 1999, trapping and removal of the beavers is unavoidable (luckily, this particular colony was able to be relocated to a more favorable site in the area). But in others, humans have harassed or killed beavers and destroyed their dams for no good reason.

One such incident occurred in Hyattsville's Magruder Park (located, aptly enough, on Beaver Dam Park Road) in the spring of 2011. One or more beavers dammed up the small stream draining into the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia on the park's west end, creating a small pond, which also covered a small portion of the adjacent parking lot. This did not seem to present a significant inconvenience to park visitors, and park managers cut a hole in the dam in attempt to let some water drain while retaining the beavers. But sadly, the dam was found broken up one morning in April along with the carcass of its architect.

This beaver-created pond still stands at Magruder Park in Hyattsville. Photo by the author.

The trouble with exterminating beavers is that, as long as the habitat in question remains reasonably healthy, other beavers are likely to come to the same spot. Each year, beaver parents evict their one or two-year-old offspring from their lodge and they go in search of new homes. And no matter how many times humans destroy a beaver dam, beavers will keep rebuilding it.

So in places like Magruder Park, unless park managers were to remove all the vegetation around the stream and keep the area clear—which would be undesirable—to keep removing beavers each time they show up is to fight a losing, and ecologically foolish, battle.

It is far better for people to learn to coexist with their wild neighbors. In cases where flooding or high water levels are the issue, several devices exist to regulate water levels while leaving beaver dams intact and tricking beavers so that they do not seek to raise the water level.

Trees can be protected by wrapping their trunks in cylindrical cages, and a low fence will keep beavers away from a particular group of trees. Beavers tend to fell fast-growing tree species that have little commercial value, and this culling makes room for more, bushier growth the next spring, restoring a more diverse mix of flora to the wetland area over time. Beavers largely subsist on seaweed, clover, and land and aquatic plants other than trees.

Beaver ponds attract and sustain other wetland-dependent creatures—such as turtles, herons, otters, ducks, and many types of birds and fish. They also do a good job of retaining stormwater runoff, allowing pollutants to settle out before the water moves downstream. Beavers have also become a unique cultural asset to cities and towns: they are local celebrities in places like the Bronx River in New York and Chicago's Lincoln Park.

But perhaps the best-known "downtown beaver" success story comes from Martinez, California, a Bay Area city that rehabilitated part of the creek that runs through the center of town. When a beaver colony established itself there in 2008, the local government threatened to have them removed. But citizens' organization Worth a Dam rose to the creatures' defense, and the city has come to celebrate its newfound furry, feathered and finned denizens, which have even attracted visitors from around the country and overseas (many of whom arrive on Amtrak).

The challenge of coming to terms with beavers in urban areas is a microcosm for the necessary large-scale work of reconciling human needs and desires with the natural systems that sustain all life. In our region, we can and should find ways to allow, and even help, beavers to do what they do best: maintain healthy wetlands. In return, we will enjoy cleaner water, better regulated stream flows, less severe flash floods, and the chance to interact with a wide array of wild creatures.

30 comments

Bigger park, taller buildings on tap for McMillan site

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 13:41:00 EDT

by Malcolm Kenton

DC Water will temporarily use two former water filtration cells in the McMillan Sand Filtration Site to store excess rainwater and mitigate flooding in neighborhoods like Bloomingdale beginning in spring 2014. That decision forces Vision McMillan Partners (VMP) to redraw its plans to transform the site into a mixed-use neighborhood.

Rendering of redesigned park space at the south end of McMillan. Image from Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects.

The previous plan called for new rowhouses on the south end of the site to extend the character of the existing neighborhoods. A park in the middle would have separated the townhouses from denser mixed-use towers on the north end.

Instead, VMP will now construct a larger park on the south end, build new rowhouses in the middle, make the buildings on the north end a bit taller, and construct more roads through the development.

VMP's next step is to design the buildings themselves. They will hold a community meeting about preliminary building designs on Saturday, April 20, 10 am-noon at a location to be announced.

Under the Northeast Boundary Neighborhood Protection Project, developed by the Mayor's Task Force on the Prevention of Flooding, DC Water will store excess rainwater runoff in the two cells as a temporary remedy for flooding. In the long run, DC Water's Clean Rivers Project will build large underground sewers to store water by around 2022. When that is done, the two cells will be drained and will become available for use, potentially as unique public spaces.

The now larger park along Channing Street NW will feature an open grassy lawn. One of the filtration cells to store excess runoff will be underneath part of the park. The other cell lies at the site's northeast corner, and the original development plans already called for retaining it.

Rendering of the newly-designed park space, seen from North Capitol Street at Channing Street NW. Image from Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects.

At the east end, next to the park's main entrance on North Capitol Street, will be a small pond that echoes the now-underground Tiber Creek which once flowed across the site. The pond will also serve as a reservoir for the site's stormwater runoff, allowing pollutants to settle out of it before it enters the combined sewer system.

Next to the pond will be an amphitheater and a community center with a green roof. The west end will feature a sculpture garden and plaza, with a spray jet fountain and smaller park spaces between the two, alongside the open grassy area. A tree-lined "Olmstead Walk" will surround the entire development, including the park.

Vision McMillan Partners' new planned layout for the site.

The office and residential buildings with ground-floor retail on the north end will be fewer than under the original plan (5 instead of 9), but taller. Instead of being in a stand-alone building, the "premium" grocery store will be on the ground floor of a 6-story apartment building.

The plan won't set back the buildings along North Capitol Street as far as under the original plan. Much of the office space will remain devoted to medical offices.

There will be less public space in the non-park areas of the site. The North Service Court (one of the two rows of original sand towers and regulator houses that sit on the site today) will feature wider sidewalks, but there will also be more through roads. Douglas and Evarts Streets will extend across the site (Douglas using the South Service Court as its median), a new Middle Street NW will use the North Service Court as its median, and a new Half Street NW will run north-south from Michigan Avenue down to Douglas Street.

The new plan integrates affordable housing throughout the development, instead of having a particular apartment building dedicated to affordable senior housing.

6 comments

Georgetown waterfront isn't NPS?

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 08:26:00 EDT

The owner of Jack's Boathouse thinks the National Park Service might not even own the land the boathouse sits on. If his legal interpretation holds, then DC would also get back control of the Georgetown Waterfront Park, which it transferred to the federal government in 1985. (City Paper)

Give DC residents access to Roosevelt Island with a ferry (Sep 23, 2011)
Local parks need local government (Jan 2, 2008)
Parking minimums irrelevant to Georgetown waterfront (Aug 27, 2008)
Don't call it a park (Apr 28, 2008)
Old survey maps show Georgetown around 1903 (Feb 29, 2012)

Park bustin' loose

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 08:34:00 EDT

In a city full of memorials to national and foreign figures, DC will get a memorial to a local: Chuck Brown. It will be an amphitheater with a bandshell and "timeline tower" in Langdon Park. (Post)

Parking solves congestion?

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 08:34:00 EDT

A congestion management plan in Yosemite eliminates bicycle rentals, but adds more parking served by shuttle buses. (LA Times, David E.)

From parking to park

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 08:20:00 EDT

A group has a plan for sports fields, walking paths and more on the 40 acres of "parkland" now covered with RFK's north parking lots. (DCist)

Silver Spring strip mall could become new urban park

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:59:00 EDT

by Dan Reed

Downtown Silver Spring could get a big new park in an unlikely place: the parking lot of the Blair Shops, a 1960's-era strip mall across from the Silver Spring Metro station.

The Blairs today. Photo by the author.

According to a tweet from Evan Glass, chair of the Silver Spring Citizens Advisory Board, the Blair Apartments at East-West Highway and Colesville Road in downtown Silver Spring will get a new urban park as part of a future redevelopment project.

The announcement came at a meeting of the advisory board's Tree and Neighborhoods committees, where staff from Montgomery Parks and the Montgomery County Planning Department led a conversation about open space in the area.

The Blairs were built in the early 1960's on the former site of Falkland, the mansion of Montgomery Blair, postmaster general under President Abraham Lincoln. A series of additions and renovations by owner Tower Companies followed in the early 2000's. Today, the 27-acre complex contains over 1400 apartments in 10 buildings, the Blair Shops, a 100,000 square foot strip mall, and a 67,000 square-foot office building.

A few years ago, county planners did a study of potential sites for new, large parks in the area, identifying the Blairs as a possibility. Their drawings of the site show how the site could be redeveloped, with a park measuring several acres in place of the Blair Shops parking lot and high-rise apartments above the shopping center. A street grid would connect the site to the surrounding area, while structured parking garages would make up for the lost parking lot.

Top: Rendering of a potential park at the Blairs. Bottom: Rendering of how the Blairs could be redeveloped. Images from the Montgomery County Planning Department.

While there are currently no firm details about how and when the Blairs will be redeveloped, the Tower Companies' website suggests that they eventually plan to have 2800 apartments and 450,000 square feet of total development, nearly double the amount of space there today. It's also unclear whether the park will be publicly or privately owned, though ideally it would be owned by the county.

Glass's tweet says that public meetings on the project will be held early next year. Until then, the potential for a big new park in downtown Silver Spring is exciting. The availability of and access to open space has been a growing issue in the Downcounty in recent months, particularly with residents concerned about new development.

A few blocks from the Blairs, a group of South Silver Spring residents upset that a proposed apartment building on Newell Street will block their views are lobbying to have that property turned into a park. Meanwhile, residents in Wheaton successfully persuaded the county to buy a former art school for parkland instead of letting townhouses be built there.

Montgomery County will continue to grow, and new residents will need places to live, work and shop. They'll also need parks for gathering, recreation and enjoying nature. However, we've seen how poorly-designed, poorly-located parks can be underused, dampen foot traffic and even hurt nearby shops and restaurants.

We can't let that happen again, and the best way to do that is to plan for new parks, not just put them wherever someone doesn't want something built in their backyard. Building a park as part of redeveloping the Blairs means it can be designed as a part of the neighborhood as opposed to an afterthought or leftover space. And since the redevelopment will have to be reviewed and approved by the Planning Board, there will be many opportunities for community input as well.

A well-designed urban park can be a great asset for residents and businesses alike. Hopefully, a new park at the Blairs will do that for downtown Silver Spring.

23 comments

South Silver Spring needs better parks, not just more (Aug 14, 2012)
Wells, Catania organize Park(ing) Day on Pennsylvania Ave (Sep 15, 2011)
How Silver Spring Park could be a good neighbor (Feb 23, 2010)
Wheaton town square will stay public, emulate Bethesda (Mar 30, 2011)
South Silver Spring residents split over proposed apartments (Aug 21, 2012)

Townhouse opponents get MoCo to build unneeded park

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 13:57:00 EDT

by Dan Reed

After years of fighting between residents, a developer, and Montgomery College, Montgomery County's parks department will will turn an abandoned art school in Wheaton into a park. While it's good for neighbors who didn't want houses built there instead, it shows how indifferent the county can be to its own goals for walkable communities, providing more housing, and land preservation.

Soon to be Montgomery's newest park. Photo by the author.

Montgomery Parks recently acquired the former Maryland College of Art and Design at Georgia Avenue and Evans Drive in Carroll Knolls, a community of modest post-war homes less than a mile from the Wheaton and Forest Glen Metro stations.

They bought the 2.47-acre property for $1.14 million, well below its original asking price of $2 million, with plans to demolish the building and add 1.2 acres the county already owns to form the future Carroll Knolls Local Park, a construction date for which hasn't been set.

Neighbors acknowledge that the area already has a number of parks, but argue that they're either too far or require crossing busy Georgia Avenue. "We are relieved that we will not have to cross Georgia Avenue, a six-lane state highway, without a pedestrian bridge, a crosswalk, nor an intersection light to access nearby parkland," said Beverly Sobel, head of community group Green Space on Georgia, in a press release from Montgomery Parks.

Residents say Georgia Avenue is too dangerous to cross on foot.

The new park is across Georgia Avenue from Evans Parkway Park, a four-block-long
green space that's currently being renovated and expanded, but to some that's not enough.

It's "not realistic for parents to ask their kids to cross Georgia Avenue to go to a park," said County Councilmember Marc Elrich at a community meeting in 2009.

Montgomery Parks staff agreed, calling Georgia Avenue a "de facto river of traffic that blocks pedestrian access" in their recommendations to turn the MCAD site into a park. They drew a map of the area with 1/4-mile circles around each park to show what was within a short walk, but cut them off at Georgia Avenue, rendering Carroll Knolls parkless.

Montgomery Parks map showing areas within walking distance to parks.
MCAD site is outlined in red.

However, one could argue that this conclusion was premature. There are already stoplights and crosswalks a block north and two blocks south of Evans Parkway Park. Making those crossings safer, expanding the sidewalks on Georgia Avenue, and building new sidewalks on the side streets could have provided a nicer and safer not only to the park, but to other amenities in the area.

So why didn't neighbors push for those improvements instead? Green Space on Georgia's homepage makes it clear: "Our current efforts are in opposition to the proposed development of townhouses on the current site of The School of Art + Design at Montgomery College."

After absorbing MCAD in 2005, Montgomery College gave the property to the Montgomery College Foundation, which raises money for the school. In 2007, they had a contract to sell it to developer Kaz Brothers, who successfully petitioned the County Council to rezone the property to allow townhouses.

Townhouses adjacent to the future Carroll Knolls Local Park.

Residents balked, arguing that townhouses violated Carroll Knolls' 1948 covenants, which allowed only single-family homes in the neighborhood. They formed Green Space on Georgia and applied to have the property become a park through Legacy Open Space, a county program that preserves places with historic, cultural and natural significance. The Planning Board rejected it, saying that the cost would be too high.

Kaz Development sued the neighbors, arguing that the now-derelict school already invalidated the covenant; though the Montgomery County Circuit Court ruled in their favor, the neighbors appealed and the decision was reversed in the Maryland Court of Appeals. A second application to Legacy Open Space was approved last year.

The creation of Carroll Knolls Park is a triumph of grassroots campaigning, but it contradicts many of Montgomery County's stated goals and policies. The county wants to promote walking in and around downtown Wheaton but missed an opportunity make it easier to cross its main street. County Executive Ike Leggett talks about facing "unprecedented budget challenges," but nixed an opportunity for needed tax revenue.

Montgomery Parks' strategic vision for the county's park system calls for prioritizing existing facilities, but spent millions of dollars to build a new park across from a park they're already expanding. The county placed a third of its land in an Agricultural Reserve, but creates more pressure to develop it by not building in the rest of the county.

And Carroll Knolls isn't the only neighborhood doing this. White Oak residents opposed to an affordable housing development asked the county to create a nature preserve instead. In South Silver Spring, neighbors who don't want their views blocked by a proposed apartment building are calling for a park as well. And residents in East Silver Spring are preemptively fighting the redevelopment of the old police station, saying it should become a community garden and arts center.

That's not to say that parks aren't necessary, or that the best solution for every vacant lot is private development. But Montgomery County is faced with a significant housing shortage, with a need for as many as 108,000 new homes in the next 20 years. We simply can't afford to turn every unwanted development site, especially those in close-in communities, into a park.

21 comments

Affordable housing clashes with the suburban mindset in Wheaton/Kensington (Dec 1, 2008)
The Wheaton library should be in downtown Wheaton (Apr 20, 2009)
South Silver Spring needs better parks, not just more (Aug 14, 2012)
Silver Spring townhouses pass one hurdle, face another (May 23, 2012)
Smart growth with more affordable housing in Wheaton, take 2 (Jul 29, 2009)

Structured vs. informal on sports fields

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 08:12:00 EDT

Organized sports leagues, often mostly white residents displace informal pick-up games, often with mostly Latino residents. Should DPR schedule pick-up times or just have more fields? (Post, RPUS)

DC is better off without Redskins stadium or practice fields (Nov 4, 2011)
Amateur baseball in DC: The Suburban League, 1908-1914 (Apr 9, 2010)
Popular parking at the Poplar park? (Feb 17, 2008)
It's parks AND recreation, not just recreation (Aug 30, 2011)
Reforest underused Fort Circle fields to focus on active areas (Oct 6, 2010)

And...

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 08:23:00 EDT

DDOT got lots of interest from companies looking to run DC's streetcars. (Railway Age) ... Receding waters reveal still lots to be done to bring New York's subway all the way back from Sandy. (Atlantic Cities)

Spend it all

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 08:57:00 EDT

DC suddenly discovered a surplus at the end of its fiscal year. The money, which had to be spent right away, will go to schools, Metro, and parks. (DCFPI)

Funding, partnerships, and rules hamper DC federal parks

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 14:04:00 EDT