No.29 December 26, 2007 - The Current Newspapers

Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Vol. XL, No. 52
Serving Communities in Northwest Washington Since 1967
THE NORTHWEST CURRENT
JOURNEY TO BETHLEHEM
Funds will benefit schools, housing
■ Budget: Council members
tout money for area projects
By VICTORIA SOLOMON
Current Staff Writer
Several major community projects in wards 3 and 4 will move forward, with funding secured in a
$150 million-plus citywide supplemental budget the D.C. Council
approved last week.
The extra funds became available when the city increased revenue projections for the fiscal year
that began Oct. 1.
Some of the big-ticket items are
D.C. Public Schools, $81 million;
affordable-housing initiatives, $50
million; and the District Department
of Transportation, $12 million.
But neighborhood projects are
also included in the budget list. In
Ward 3, the Palisades will get thousands of dollars for several items,
and in Ward 4, money will go to a
new business improvement district,
summer youth programs and crime
cameras.
The council members representing the two wards are extremely
pleased with the allocations.
“We listened to the Ward 4 community and demanded additional
resources,” Ward 4 Council member
Muriel Bowser said in a statement
following the Dec. 18 vote. “I’m
See Budget/Page 28
Market’s turn delays Tenley project
By IAN THOMS
Current Staff Writer
Bill Petros/The Current
A Joseph and pregnant Mary, portrayed by Waleed Khoury and
Tanya Saleh, led a procession with a donkey after a simulcast
service on Saturday morning between the Washington National
Cathedral and Christians in Bethlehem.
The cooled condo market has delayed for more than
two years an approved project for the former Babe’s
Billiards site in Tenleytown, leaving a blacked-out and
shuttered building on the prominent parcel.
And now the developer is asking for more time.
In 2005, the D.C. Zoning Commission approved
plans to build a 42-unit residential building with
ground-floor retail at 4600 Wisconsin Ave.
Last month, the site’s owner, Clemens 4600 Partners
LLC, applied to extend the project’s approval for two
years. The commission will vote in mid-January, and the
project is extended while the application is pending. If
Clemens had not applied for the extension, the approval
would have expired last month.
“We just got stuck in the bad timing that our market
has experienced, which has created a little bit of diffiSee Babe’s/Page 20
Bill Petros/The Current
Clemens 4600 Partners LLC had trouble securing
financing for a condo building on the site formerly
occupied by Babe’s Billiards.
Rethink project’s height,
preservation board says
City’s regulatory delay irks
affordable-housing groups
By ELIZABETH WIENER
■ Policy: One year later, rules
Current Staff Writer
The D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board has
asked the would-be developers of the southwest corner
of 14th and U streets to “rethink” a major redevelopment project and scale down its height.
“The building is simply too tall,” board member
Anne Lewis told Robert Moore of Georgetown
Strategic Capital and his architect, Eric Colbert, at a
hearing last Thursday.
“It’s too aggressive,” said chair Tersh Boasberg.
Moore and Colbert promised to return in February
with revised plans for what the company is calling “a
mixed-use apartment community” that will incorporate
some historic buildings and occupy a significant portion
of the prominent block.
NEWS
Dixie Liquors reopens
in Georgetown after a
year in the dark. Page 5.
■ DDOT decides bank’s
alley access is outside
its authority. Page 3.
■
to implement law unfinished
By VICTORIA SOLOMON
Current Staff Writer
Bill Petros/The Current
City Historic Preservation Review Board members
suggested Georgetown Strategic Capital consider a
split building, with a shorter height, on 14th Street.
Their original proposal includes new residential units
built above and set back from 11 historic buildings on U
Street. Some less historic buildings on 14th Street would
be demolished and replaced with retail frontage and
See U Street/Page 7
SPORTS
■ Max Kenyi’s 23 points
lift Gonzaga to victory
over St. John’s. Page 11.
■ Darian Bridgers sets
school career mark in
GDS win. Page 11.
Though approved by the Zoning
Commission after months of debate,
enacted by the D.C. Council, and
signed into law around this time last
year, a key element in the city’s new
affordable-housing policy is not in
effect because the deputy mayor’s
office has not yet written the rules.
Now, a year after the “inclusionary zoning” policy became law, the
PA S S A G E S
■ Ring in the new year
at local establishments.
Page 13.
■ Longtime Asia Nora
chef keeps it organic at
Proof. Page 15 .
same affordable-housing advocates
who helped usher it through the city
ranks are saying they have waited
long enough. They are calling on
Mayor Adrian Fenty to press Neil
Albert, his deputy mayor for planning and economic development, to
draft the rules and enact the legislation.
“We are, to say the least, disappointed,” said Cheryl Cort, policy
director for the Coalition for
Smarter Growth. “We’re shocked
because Mayor Fenty was always
our strongest supporter, and we’re
shocked that the Fenty administraSee Housing/Page 19
INDEX
Business/10
Calendar/24
Classifieds/37
District Digest/4
Exhibits/27
In Your Neighborhood/18
Opinion/8
Passages/13
Police Report/6
Real Estate/17
Restaurants/15
School Dispatches/22
Service Directory/32
Sports/11
N
Gonzaga stays perfect; No.
23 scores 23 in 50-38 win
Gonzaga 50, St. John’s 38
By DAVE O’CONNELL
Current Staff Writer
You can add St. John’s to the
ever-growing list of teams that have
tried to conquer Mount Kenyi and
failed — Max Kenyi, that is.
The Gonzaga forward sliced and
diced the Cadets defense for 23
points Friday night, leading the
Eagles to a 50-38 win over St.
John’s in a matchup of Washington
Catholic Athletic Conference powerhouses. The victory keeps
Gonzaga, the No. 2 team in The
Washington Post’s rankings, undefeated as it heads into Christmas
break, moving it to 9-0 overall and
3-0 in WCAC play.
The towering performance came
one game after a 22-point effort that
helped the Eagles to a 73-62 win
over Bishop Loughlin in the championship game of the Gonzaga D.C.
Classic tournament. While that
game was still close in the early
stages of the fourth quarter, this one
was well in hand much earlier,
thanks to an 18-2 run coming mostly in the first four minutes of the
third.
“He brought us a lot of energy in
the second half with his defense,
and he made some big shots for us,”
said Gonzaga coach Steve Turner.
No shot was bigger during that
run — at least in terms of reaction
from the packed Gonzaga gymnasium — than the steal/slam-dunk
combo that made the score 31-20
with 4:42 left in the third. But
Kenyi was sinking shots from the
get-go, scoring seven of the Eagles’
14 first-quarter points. Thanks to
his quick start, the Eagles never
trailed.
“He’s a senior, so he’s got to be
our team leader,” said Turner.
“Tonight he did that.”
He also got some help from
teammate Rodney Gould. The senior point guard may have scored
only three points, but he was a big
factor in that critical 18-2 run, setting it in motion with a steal at the
end of the first half that resulted in
a Kenyi basket. Midway through
the third, he nabbed two more steals
in a 45-second span that accounted
for five points.
“He’s the heart and soul of this
team,” said Turner. “A lot of the
stuff that he does doesn’t show up
in the stats or the columns, but he
makes big plays for us. He definitely stepped up tonight.”
In the first period, it was a St.
John’s player looming large on the
stat sheet: Chris Martin. He scored
the Cadets’ first 11 points and was a
big reason St. John’s (7-2, 1-1) was
down only 20-18 at halftime. But
Mashore
scores 30 in
NCS rout
■ ISL girls basketball:
NCS 65, Sidwell 51
By DAVE O’CONNELL
Current Staff Writer
Matt Petros/The Current
Air Kenyi — Gonzaga’s Max Kenyi — takes flight as he prepares to
slam it home against St. John’s Friday night. He ended with 23 points.
the Eagles clamped down on the
freshman guard, and he went
through a stretch of 21 minutes, 58
seconds without a score. Martin finished with 17 points.
“I told our guys that we couldn’t
keep letting him get easy buckets
like that,” said Turner. “We needed
to stop him and gamble for some
steals, and our guys did a better job
with that in the second half.”
Ian Hummer, the Eagles power
forward, wasn’t quite the factor in
See Gonzaga/Page 12
Sophomore ties record as GDS coasts
■ Girls basketball:
Georgetown Day School 57, Flint Hill 46
By DAVE O’CONNELL
Current Staff Writer
Matt Petros/The Current
GDS sophomore Darian Bridgers now has a
school-record 788 career points.
G
December 26, 2007 ■ Page 11
ATHLETICS IN NORTHWEST WASHINGTON
■ WCAC boys basketball:
CH
It wasn’t the sort of free throw that stands out
from the stat sheet — just one that gave the
Georgetown Day a 12-point early-fourth-quarter
lead in what ended up a 57-46 win over Flint Hill
on Thursday night.
But not all free throws are alike, especially
when they allow a sophomore to tie her school’s
record for career points.
Darian Bridgers’ 18 points on the night moved
her career total to 788 points, tying 2005 grad
Cecilia Ekperi’s mark, and gave the lower-division Independent School League team a win over
its upper-division rivals.
As modest as the record-setting shot’s impact
was, it was nothing compared with Bridgers’
unassuming postgame comments, in which she
talked about everyone except herself.
“I think everybody really stepped up, and I
think Sally [Marx] did a really good job leading
the team in the second half, and so did Moni
[Fabunmi],” said Bridgers.
So it was left to Georgetown Day coach
Bobby Asher to talk up her accomplishments.
“The moment she came in here, she made it clear
that she was going to be one of the best basketball players we’ve ever seen,” said Asher. “She
was brilliant last year, and she’s gotten even better this year.”
Fortunately for the Huskies, Bridgers didn’t
get her second basket until the 2:14 mark of the
second quarter; otherwise, the final score might
have been more lopsided. She added two baskets
more before intermission, including a pull-up 3pointer off Marx’s feed pass, boosting the
Hoppers (9-1) to a 26-18 halftime lead.
Then, midway through the third quarter, when
it looked as though Flint Hill (3-4) was going to
pull even, Bridgers came up big again with a 3
with 4:18 remaining. This put an end to an 8-0
run that had narrowed the Hoppers’ lead to 30-26.
“Darian did a really good job,” said Marx.
“She scored so many points and made everything
go. We couldn’t have done it without her.”
Nor could they have done it without Marx,
who reeled off seven straight points in the first
quarter to turn an 11-6 deficit into a 13-11
See GDS/Page 12
Grace Mashore is to Sidwell
Friends School what the Dallas
Cowboys are to the Washington
Redskins.
It’s an analogy you won’t find on
any SAT test, but according to
National Cathedral coach Jodi
Jackson, it’s the ideal way to
describe the senior point guard’s
performance Friday afternoon in the
Eagles’ 65-51 win over Sidwell in
Independent School League play.
“She’s a former Sidwell Friends
student, so I think it’s a little personal for Grace,” said Jackson. “I
use that analogy because it
describes her motivation and drive
to have a great game.”
In Cowboys-Redskins terms,
Mashore’s performance Friday was
akin to, say, Terrell Owens’ fourtouchdown effort against the ‘Skins
last month. Mashore scored
National Cathedral’s first 12 points,
25 total in the first half, and finished
with a season-high 30 as the Eagles
jumped out to a double-digit lead in
the first quarter and maintained it
throughout.
Normally, turning points come
while the game is in progress, but
this game’s momentum-shifter
came before the opening tipoff,
when Sidwell (3-7) settled on its initial defensive alignment.
“A lot of teams have been double- or triple-teaming me, but
Sidwell didn’t do that,” said
Mashore, who attended Sidwell
prior to high school. “They were in
a zone — it was the first time I had
played against the zone in a while
— and it was pretty simple to
exploit.”
So simple, in fact, that it took
just six seconds for Mashore to get
on the scoreboard, as she took the
tipoff and promptly sank a long
jumper. A minute later, she drained
a 3-pointer to make it 5-0. Two minutes later, her driving layup gave
National Cathedral (2-4) a 7-0
advantage. And so it went, until the
Eagles were in front 12-5 at the 3:43
mark. Sidwell coach Anne
Renninger realized the Quakers
were not really in the zone when
they were in the zone and made
some defensive adjustments, but it
See NCS/Page 12
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Northwest Sports
NCS
From Page 11
was too late.
“We’re not the most aggressive
in the zone,” said Renninger. “So
we switched up our defense and got
our people moving, and then it was
lot harder for [Grace] to get her
shots off.”
National Cathedral’s lead
reached 53-28 with 2:16 to go in the
third quarter before Renninger’s
adjustments took full effect. Then it
was junior Taylor Stewart and freshman Kendall Bianchi’s turn to be
Grace Mashore and get their shots
off. The two Quakers combined for
14 points in a 17-2 Sidwell run that
closed the gap to 55-45 with 3:43
left in regulation.
Bianchi impressed Renninger
with her 10-point effort, the sort of
performance the team needs with
junior forward Taylor Hilton, an allISL standout last season, out indefinitely with the ankle injury she suffered in the team’s Dec. 7 loss to
Flint Hill.
“We’re getting some great minutes out of her,” said Renninger.
“She’s young, she has a lot of talent,
and she’s learning to play at this
level. As long as she keeps moving
forward as fast as she is, she’s going
to be a good little player.”
Unfortunately for Sidwell, it was
at this point in the game that a different Cowboys-Redskins comparison surfaced, much to the Quakers’
chagrin. Instead of those Redskintormenting Triplets of Cowboys
fame, it was National Cathedral’s
own version that showed up to halt
Sidwell’s momentum: Mashore,
Taylor Baskin and Cara Hampton.
Mashore saved a ball that was
going out of bounds, and it found its
way to Cara Hampton, who hit a
layup and drew the foul. Hampton
missed the free throw, but Baskin
was there with the putback layup to
put the Eagles up 57-45 and lay to
rest Sidwell’s miracle comeback
bid. Hampton had 9 points; Baskin
contributed 12.
“She attacked the basket more
freely than she had been doing,”
said Jackson of Hampton. “I think
she had a solid game.”
As for Baskin, Jackson thought
she played with confidence. “I felt
that she had the knowledge to attack
the basket and finish her shots,” said
the coach. “She had a good day
rebounding, and she put out a 150
percent effort.”
So did the rest of the team,
according to Mashore. “Our hard
work is finally paying off, and we’re
coming together as a team.”
GDS
From Page 11
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Hoppers lead. Flint Hill did its best to help out, committing turnovers on four straight possessions. Fabunmi
then ramped up her game, hitting a 3-pointer off another Marx pass and banking in a pull-up jumper to make
it 18-11. Marx led all scorers with 23 points; Fabunmi
finished with 11.
“Our defense is one of the stronger points of our
game,” said Fabunmi. “We just stepped it up and told
ourselves that it was just the first quarter — we’re not
out of it.”
By the time Bridgers hit her record-tying free throw,
it was Flint Hall that was out of it. But just to be on the
safe side, Marx continued to dog the Huskies, scoring
12 fourth-quarter points, including a four-point play
that came after a Flint Hill surge in the final two minutes had cut the lead from 16 to seven.
“There are players who you tell not to shoot when
you’re trying to run the clock down, and there are players who you let play,” Asher said of Marx, also a sophomore. “We let her play. She was certainly in the zone.”
Just like Bridgers, Marx was quick afterward to
deflect attention from her individual accomplishments.
“We’re a pretty nonselfish team,” said Marx. “Darian
passed the ball, Moni passes the ball — we try to get
each other shots.”
GONZAGA
From Page 11
this game that he was in the D.C.
Classic, where he scored 63 points
in three games, including 26 in the
title contest. But he did score
Gonzaga’s first points in each half
and wound up with 11 points.
“He’s a bruiser down low,” said
Turner. “He did a great job of
rebounding, not allowing them to
get easy baskets. He didn’t score as
much as he normally does, but hey,
he found a different way to help
out tonight.”
A third Eagle, senior forward
Cameron Johnson, also hit doubledigits. He notched 10 points, six of
them coming in that game-clinching run.
Both teams will take part in outof-town tournaments this weekend.
Matt Petros/The Current
Sally Marx certainly had something to shout about
Friday afternoon — her 23 points.
In addition to passing the ball, Bridgers will try to
pass Ekperi’s career mark on Jan. 8 when the Hoppers
host Madeira. Game time is 5:45 p.m.
Sports Desk
Visitation athletes
make future plans
Several
Georgetown
Visitation athletes signed letters
of intent or committed during
the November signing period.
Mary
Lacey
Gilbride
(UNC-Chapel Hill), Katie
Oliverio (Louisville) and Cami
Thompson (College of the
Holy Cross) comprise the
largest number of Visitation
lacrosse players to commit to
the next level at one time. Said
Visitation coach McNevin
Molloy Morris, “We’ve had so
many girls go on to play collegiate lacrosse, but to have this
number from one class is exciting for everyone.”
Soccer co-captain Kelsey
MacDonald committed to
Cornell, where she will be the
first Visitation athlete in a
decade to play for the Big Red.
And first-boat member Jennifer
Schultz will row for Indiana
University. She will be the 12th
member of the crew team in the
last four years to compete at the
collegiate level.
Sidwell wrestling on a
roll
Sidwell wrestling won its
third match in a row on Dec.
19, defeating St. James 60-19.
This followed lopsided wins
over St. Andrew’s and Maret.
The Quakers have now won
eight of their last nine and are
10-3.