Citizen Forester
At first I thought she was the dirt lady. That’s not a kind way to describe anyone and I realize that. But that’s a name I gave this hapless soul who I saw sweeping dirt about in tree boxes on the Hill. In my lone conversation with her, she blistered me for having dead leaves under my overgrown ivy. And of course she was right.

But the woman who stood in my tree box cutting branches from my young tree is not the dirt lady. She is the tree lady. Margaret Missiaen, it turns out, is a peach tree of a person along with her fellow Trees for Capitol Hill colleagues. Missiaen loves gardening and since the early ‘90s has taken on a task that you might suspect belongs to our city government. Missiaen’s passion is pruning the 400 newly planted trees in the Hill’s tree boxes. This seemingly thankless task is one she genuinely cherishes.

So there we were on a cold February day with Margaret standing in my tree box multi- tasking as she both pruned and told me how the District’s Department of Urban Forestry had failed to follow through after replacing the aging and dying maple with my newly planted Chinese Elm. After repeated calls to that agency, she was taking matters into her own hands.

I peppered Margaret with dozens of questions and learned, among other things, that it is important that this pruning be done in the winter while the trees are still dormant. Missiaen expressed a mild concern that the easier winter weather might have leaves sprouting before their anointed time (March) and throw off the rhythm of tree growth, adding that Hill trees are approximately 40% maples and 20% oaks with the zelkova being the replacement for all the dying elm trees. And those gems on East Capitol St are Princeton Elms. And if you live in the 200 block of 7th St SE you likely have the oldest red oaks on the Hill.

I also asked her how other people responded when they saw her outside their houses on “their” treebox trees. “You approached silently” she replied, but added that more than a few times Hill residents have flown from their homes to confront her. Missiaen added, “People get very upset. Once a woman rushed from her house yelling at me because she thought I was damaging the branches of her tree. She was still angry when I left because I was not able to convince her of what I was doing.”

And there is the odd request like the resident who asked Missiaen how his tree could be removed so he wouldn’t have to rake leaves in the fall,

And the most satisfactory part of her job? Margaret said she’d have to think about it there were so many. Later she called me and said, “Walking along Pennsylvania Ave. from Second St. to the River. I have cared for every one of those new trees.”

And why only 400 trees I ask her? Missiaen laughs and says she would tackle even more but “that’s all I can manage.” She wraps the branches cut perfectly into lengths of 10 inches as the District requires, drops them into a trash container, picks up her wheelbarrow and continues on her rounds.

Any questions about Trees for Capitol Hill or its upcoming newsletter, contact Missiaen@verizon.net. Or better yet, keep a sharp eye out your window for when she comes calling on your tree, and take the opportunity to thank her for doing a terrific and important job.

Parking Performance Plan
For a huge number of residents in Ward 6, there is less than a month of what little parking peace we have in our lives. If you live within the “parking impact zone” of the newly built taxpayer funded $611 million Nationals Stadium, you (and 15,112 other registered voters) are about to suffer some real strains in the promised ‘quiet enjoyment’ of your life.

From the weekend before Opening Day on March 30 through the end of the season, there are 82 home games and one visit from Pope Benedict scheduled at the 41,000 capacity stadium, with parking available for just over 4000 cars. 66 games are at night with another 16 day games on weekends. Come spring many of us will have a baseball schedule taped to the refrigerator not because we have tickets to a National’s game, but in order to make decisions as to when we can use our cars.

To his credit, Tommy Wells, Ward 6 Councilmember, is trying to out swim the tsunami. that most agree is coming. None of this was his doing, and all this disruption could have been avoided if the District government and City Council had shown some spine and insisted that there be adequate parking as part of the deal.

However, Well’s proposed legislation, (www.tommywells.org) B17-580, “The Performance Parking Pilot Zone Act of 2008,” appears as of its current drafting to not only be insufficient, but to potentially exacerbate the coming parking disaster.

The proposed legislation lists among its key features the “protection of resident parking.” I attended two briefings and was disappointed to read the ambiguously worded language of this legislation. Few of the issues raised at these meetings are addressed concretely.

Wells’ web site promises that there will be “strict restriction on where and when non Ward 6 vehicles can park.“ But nowhere are restrictions or hours mentioned with any specificity in the legislation. Too much is left to Mayoral authorization.  

By contrast is Chicago’s Wrigley Field Neighborhood Protection Act
(www. 44ward.com) which quite specifically incorporates detailed obligations between the parties (the city of Chicago and the Cubs) to the residential community, taking into consideration every issue imaginable from parking to traffic flow to alcoholic sales to police and traffic presence to trash pick up in the community. What distinguishes the Chicago Wrigley community plan is resident-only parking and towing enforcement.

Charles Allen, Wells chief of staff, refers to the Wrigley plan as “in many ways a model” for what Wells is trying to do.

I called the Lakeview Citizen Council (LVCC) in Chicago. President David Winner said that the Wrigley community is very well organized and there is a Cub’s liaison with the community who has made a significant difference. “Read the legislation” he says.

Jan Grayson, a life-long Chicago resident, points out that the parking situation at Wrigley with its 1000 space lot is manageable because everyone uses public transportation. Grayson says the number one preventive measure is towing and all the imaginable inconvenience. Towing from the Wrigley Field ballpark district is $150. “It is vicious.” Grayson adds, “There is a 100% chance you will get towed if you park in the residential neighborhood near the ballpark.” The Wrigley plan is simple. Anyone who does not have a residential sticker gets towed.

Wells proposed legislation sets a ticket at $50.Nothing is mentioned of towing in the legislation.

According to Donald Shoup, nationally known parking guru, meter parking will not dissuade those looking for low-cost spaces unless priced high enough to reflect demand in the market. Residents are likely to find that where there once was parking on resident-only streets that the Trojan Horse of sophisticated metered parking leaves them, not non-Ward 6 residents, driving around looking in vain for a parking space.

I asked Wells at a community meeting if the political will really existed in the Council and Fenty Administration to price meter costs so that we really have market priced parking. Forget Fenty and the Council, he said. What about Congress?

I can already see a rare coalescence of political will in our Congress as it brushes aside any provisions that affect parking near the Capitol. Don’t count on members and their staff having a high tolerance for being ticketed and towed. So much for enforcement.