Debbie Yorgey and her son Michael were walking their dog, Milkshake, around the block when 91���� asked them about the last time they stepped in dog waste.

It was literally only seconds.

“I stepped in some poop, I mean he picks his poop up all the time. He has the bag and everything and I just don’t know why some people don’t pick up their dog poop,” Mrs. Yorgey told 91����. “I stepped in someone else’s it got all over my shoe and it irritates me to no end.”

The city has acknowledged that pet waste is not a priority, but they are working on solutions to address complaints. 3-1-1 data showed more than 31 complaints in the last 30 days, an average estimate seen throughout the year.

Last summer, Clean City started the social campaign “Pride in Picking Up.” They increased awareness for that message by using the money previously invested in old ‘warning signs.’

Now new doggy bag stations are going up around the city. Nine stations are already installed with plans of deploying nine more this month.

The new campaign also involves multiple pet agencies, and asks them to supply doggy bags to surrounding neighbors outside of their businesses.

Clean City Director, Julie Lawson, told the Wash the pet waste issue is tricky because it’s so hard to enforce. Pet waste falls under the litter act in the district and has become a legal violation.

The city stopped hanging pet waste enforcement signs saying “It’s the law” over a year ago once they realized that people didn’t start picking up animal waste because of these new street decorations. Instead they just started changing walking routes.

“We don’t need to catch someone in the act to know there is a pet waste issue. We collect the evidence by looking at places with the most waste in their city trash cans and by the 311 complaints filed in certain areas,” Lawson said, “DPW can issue a citation, if someone captures a video, correctly identifies the neighbor and the dog, files an affidavit and attends a hearing, but no one wants to go through all of that.”

The city hopes the stations encourage people to pick up their animal’s waste, by being bright and riddled with encouraging messages.

They post statements regularly reminding the public of the dangers of left over fecal matter, like this one:

“Leaving dog waste behind is not just unsightly and irresponsible. It’s a health hazard. Rain can wash fecal matter into storm water drains, and contaminate our drinking water and marine life with such bacteria as E. coli, Salmonella, and Tapeworm. Excrement left behind on the ground also can pass diseases, intestinal parasites, and infections on to dogs, adults, and children. And, you or your dog can step into the waste then track it into your home or car.”

Petworth resident, Ron Stuart, is no stranger to seeing other dog’s waste during his walks.

“If I see other poop around usually I’ll just pick it up when I’m down there, I mean I’m already there and have my hand full of poop anyway,” Stuart said.

Stuart believes it’s the right thing to do in order to be a socially responsible neighbor.

When the city was recently asked for a solution they replied “they were still working on finding it.” Now they are hoping the bag stations are going to become a huge part of the solution.

“I definitely like that idea better than threatening people with fining them because that just feels bad. Any use of the legal system to financially penalize someone is just problematic and also if they aren’t enforcing it they are just sending a message that we have unenforceable laws which is also kinda not a good message,” Stewart said.

Before this idea was raised, there were already doggy station bags in city dog parks, but not as many. That didn’t mean they were useful, however.

Dog sitter, Stephanie Oldano, said she notices that the dog park doggy bag stations are usually empty.

“Well, I think this dog park in Petworth is frequented a lot and maybe that’s why they are often not refilling them consistently enough,” Oldano said. “So unfortunately I think that causes people not to pick up after their dogs as much as they would want to so I usually just bring my own bags.”

Her own bags are biodegradable the type she hopes the city will invest in.

“It can be expensive but it’s better than just having waste on the ground,” Oldano said.

91���� checked and the City, in fact, said it is purchasing biodegradable bags.

The Clean City staff does not personally install the boxes. They have government facilities staff performing that role. But they did tell us the new stations will be going up before November ends.

Until the extra bags are deployed and the city can study the results to see if the stations are encouraging cleaner behavior just remember to watch where you step.

Hear some of the neighbors comments here!

The post The city expands pet waste ‘doggy bag’ stations. first appeared on 91����.

Michael Odle, who just moved to Petworth in January, serves as the first real competitor to a famously well-decorated Halloween house on the same street a few blocks down.

Odle’s inspiration began years ago while he was growing up in Seattle, Washington. As a child, he was unhappy with the low number of trick-or-treaters who visited the family home.

“We had a 100-yard driveway and so no one would ever come to our house and I was so disappointed that we never got trick-or-treaters,” Odle said. “So, what I would do is I started making these tombstones and I would line them down the driveway to entice people to want to come and trick-or-treat at our house.”

Now at his residence along Illinois Street, he has a yard full of hand-made tombstones made from plywood he purchased at a local hardwood store. His theme: a personal graveyard, where every fake stone inside is inspired by either a family member or a friend.

With this being his first Halloween at his new house, he spent hundreds of dollars on animatronics which are both sound and touch-activated.

“We have three or four people here every night taking photos. We got a crowd here when we turned everything on the other day. The only other house I keep hearing about is one down the street with like this ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ theme and it’s pretty great.”

That comment sent 91���� to visit what residents simply call ‘the decoration house,’ a large blue residence on the corner of Sherman Park, with a huge yard owned by Curtis Gilbert and his partner.��

Gilbert told 91���� that even though they decorate every holiday, the big ones are always Halloween and Christmas.

“We started decorating for Halloween with just a ship mast, then the next year we had extra wood leftover from a project we were going to throw it away, I said don’t throw it away. Let’s build a ship!”

The Sunday before Halloween, Ward 4 Councilmember Brandon Todd, does a Halloween parade at Sherman circle for the neighborhood kids. Usually, they all end up gathered by ‘the decoration house’ and play in the front yard.��

“I come home and figure out ‘okay’, what’s broken? What needs to be mended, because they don’t mean to do anything but stuff happens, and I just fix it up for the main event,” Gilbert said.

Gilbert said he doesn’t spend “much” on the decorations, using home-made ideas like the pirate ship and an old organ propped up in his yard.�� He told 91���� he stores his decorations but adds to them every year. He has a new animatronic monkey and cat on display this Halloween.

The neighbors of these long-time Halloween decorators say they had to do something when they saw what was happening next door.

Lauren Howard and Stuart Schmadeke also just moved to Petworth. They decorated their house previously when they lived in Shaw but have tried to step up their game with a bigger front yard.

“It’s usually a collection of things. I would say nothing is truly home-made anymore, is it? But, we cobble together stuff from a bunch of different places,” said Howard.

They’ve used traditional decorations from local stores, but what makes their yard stand out are the unique pumpkins lining their steps.

“We try to get all the pumpkins out and we do trips out to farms to get those,” Schmadeke said.

“The main battle you fight with the pumpkins is with squirrels, the squirrels. We are probably down to 60% of the pumpkins we started with because the squirrels – they just go nuts,” Schmadeke said.

According to a National Retail Federation 2019 study, shoppers spend an average of $86 on Halloween, making it an 8.8 billion-dollar spending holiday. Those figures do not include the additional costs of candy.��

These Petworth residents say they spend considerably more than that average, decorating their yards so elaborately that crowds form outside.

Regardless the elaborate decorations all of these neighbors have the same goal.

“A lot of people are asking are we having a party or something but none of that is happening. This is all just for trick or treaters, just for the kids.” Odle said.

Howard knows the next problem to solve is where to put it all once Halloween is over.��

“This is our first year doing this so, storage is a major concern. So, we are trying to think creatively about how we are going to store all of this year-after-year,” Howard said.

Odle said he’s happy that he has a garage and no car.

Tonight the neighbors will be dressed up as witches and grim reapers as they expect over 600 kids to swarm their front steps looking for treats.

Here are a couple more houses decorated throughout the neighborhood.

The post Extreme Halloween designs have stories behind their haunting front yards. first appeared on 91����.

Youth Build’s first construction site to kick off their 2019-2020 school year is underway in the backyard of a women’s transitional house.

Student construction workers have come to the D.C. metro area over the past few weeks, to build a new patio ledge for the back exit of the Petworth home in need of repair.

The older patio was too big for the door frame to handle and slowly started to give, until it became a safety hazard and was removed.

Youth Build is a public charter school serving as an alternative high school for students between 16 and 24 years of age. In the program, students earn construction industry certifications or certifications equivalent to a high school diploma in certain subjects to get them started in the work force. There are currently 242 youth build programs in 46 states. To be admitted to the program you must be a high school drop-out.

One of three on-site instructors this week in Petworth was Antoine Clipper He starts off the day explaining to students basic tasks since many of the students are starting their first week out in the field.

Students first have to attend four weeks of training in the classroom before they are able to head out on-site to an assigned construction project.

“It’s a lot of the students first time, almost every day for the first few months, so they will just watch until they get the hang of it while others that have been here before or like it’s their second year or something will just jump in,” Clipper said.

Youth Build groups travel in cohorts, with one class starting a project and then others adding on until the entire site is complete. Georgetown and Virginia students have already laid the foundation of the patio steps and helped shape them, now Howard and Maryland groups are attaching the steps and digging to stabilize the support staffs for the next week.

Travon McCrae is in his first year of the program, he didn’t care for the traditional high school route, which would’ve consisted of attend Roosevelt High School. Tired of getting in trouble at Roosevelt he learned about this option from a friend already in the program.

“Once I found out, I enrolled as fast as possible cause I didn’t want to get sent nowhere else,” McCrae said. “I came here to change everything. And everything right here, they ask what you need, they got it for you, they supply for you. It’s amazing here.”

Clipper, who has been a teacher in the program for over seven years, comes from a family that deals in construction and learned all the skills he is now helping teach his students at a young age.

“The program helps, you know, it works. Everyone has different experiences and it gives students a chance to do something other than be bored at home, then going to try and find something to do. I got past students in construction, in D.C., making a way for themselves, so I know the program works,” Clipper said.

Youth build is housed under AmeriCorps, which is a national service opportunity organization that gets people actively engaged in building better communities. They are funded through local appropriations with an annual grant worth 89 million dollars that has to be re-applied for every 40 months according to the U.S Department of Labor.

“This right here is preparing me for the real world, so that I can know how to do everything and get the different certifications. They also pay you to come to school so that’s an extra reason.” McCrae said. “At first I wasn’t really in it, but now I like it because people will tell you that’s it’s hard, but it’s not really hard, once you start doing it and know what you are actually doing, you learn so many different skills over time.”

Eliza Meeks, a neighbor that has been watching the site says she has never seen work done so quietly and that she can’t wait to see the finished product of their hard work.

There are two more weeks left at this site until the construction is complete. Now that the steps are up they have to dig holes deep enough to put in the supporting staffs, and put in cement to keep them sturdy. After they plant the base of the patio and paint they will be on to their next assignment.

The post Youth Build Making Big Steps in Petworth. first appeared on 91����.

Upgraded security and ticketing requirements created confusion and a lot of disappointed tourists hoping to get inside the iconic structure.

Local DC resident, Page Schrerner, remembers how it used to be before the new system. He said during his last visit, in the ’80s, it was a lot easier getting in and out of the monument.

“Back in those days, people could just walk in and I don’t remember ever having a ticket and the security, well, there was a whole different way for security back then,” Schrerner said. “I mean you had security but not to the extremes that you do today.”

According to Schrerner, security should not deter anyone from visiting because the view is too amazing.

“The views are just phenomenal, I’m standing up there just click, click, clicking and I can not believe I am this high up. The view is just spectacular,” Schrerner said.

He was one of the lucky ones, since over a thousand people did not get to experience the views.

With visitors coming from around the world to see the monument on opening day, only a fraction of them got in, according to rangers.

A woman from Texas stayed four extra days from a business meeting just to be told she was not allowed to go up.

“I came out for the Black Caucus Convention, I stayed over extra days because I heard on TV that the monument would be reopening only to get here and no tickets,” She said. “So now I am scheduled to leave for tomorrow and, of course, I can’t be here for 8:30 to get tickets.”

Two Virginia residents brought a friend from Ecuador to see the view. One of them, Andrea Walls, said they got in line early enough to go up.

“We got here at 7:30 and there weren’t too many people, maybe about 50 or 60 ahead of us,” Walls said as they left the 12:30 tour. “And the view was ‘Wow’! I felt like I could reach out and touch the top of all the buildings, I mean it was beautiful.”

Many people figured they would get the tickets they heard about at the monument, not at 91����ington Monument Lodge, which is the monument’s visitors center about five minutes outside of the monuments gates.

And with many people being returning visitors they thought the security gate would be the only thing they would have to go through to access entry, according to National Parks Chief Ranger Paul Ollie.

National park rangers actively serve as the monument’s security guards and tourist guides, but on opening day they spent most of their time telling people that they could not use the monument since the tickets were sold out.

“Here today I am helping to make sure that the reopening is going smoothly. That everybody is happy and excited to re-enter for the first time in over three years this iconic landmark in Washington D.C,” Ollie said.

Ollie has worked at the site for over four years and helped manage it before it closed and contractors renovated the elevator system along with the new security structure that is now in place.

“The elevator system was over 20 years old, so it desperately needed upgrading but we also had a temporary security structure that was put in place after 9/11, and that was only meant to be temporary,” Ollie said. “So this is now the permanent security structure to allow people to access this site safely.”

Tickets are handed out at the Washington Monument Lodge, every day starting at 8:30 am. The tickets are free and given out by different tour times on a first come first serve basis. Once the tickets are all out people will have to wait until the next day and there are no reservations, according to the visitor center staff.

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Neighbors are now equipping their homes with cameras paid for by the D.C. government through the Security Camera Rebate program. The goal is to create a network of residential cameras to increase feelings of security and to catch more thieves in the act.��

The Security Camera Rebate program has given funds to over 600 households in Petworth since the program began in 2015, averaging about 30 cameras a month according to the program’s public records.��

This program is run through the Office of Victim Services and Justice Grants. The agency is allocated half-a-million-dollars every fiscal year to give a maximum of $500 to any household that buys a security camera and registers it with the Metro Police Department.

The O.V.S.J.G. office gets the money from a local appropriation, meaning a permanent law that requires money from the treasury to be directed to specific purposes. If the money ever runs out there is supplemental funding to help out the program, according to O.V.S.J.G. officials.

“The purpose of the program is to provide residents and businesses an incentive to install cameras on their properties as a way to help reduce crime,and identify perpetrators, and improve public safety in the neighborhood,” O.V.S.J.G official Christopher Dyer said.

Neighbors who catch perpetrators in their backyards and porches routinely post sightings on the Neighborly app as well as notify the police. Police send out neighborhood alerts, but residents complain most alleged thieves caught-on-camera end up running away and are not captured.

Tim Jancel is a Petworth resident, whose partner got them cameras at the beginning of the program. He believes the cameras do have an effect.��

“If a package is deliver

ed, it’s a deterrent to anyone that may be a package thief, but we use our cameras for a lot of things,” Jancel said. “We use it to see who is at the door so we don’t have to get up. Police have come by, less than five times, but it has come up to use our footage to solve something. They help.”

According to Metro Police, the program has been beneficial. Hard crimes have dramatically decreased in certain residential neighborhoods, including two huge drug busts shut down in Petworth since the program began.

��

When the Wash asked Metro Police how it feels about the program, the Department released this statement.

“MPD encourages all DC residents, homeowners, and businesses to participate in the . These cameras assist in deterring crime throughout the district and have been instrumental in helping us during active investigations.”

Neighbor, David Rich, believes the Security Camera Program used to deter crime is unrealistic.��

Rich believes that theft is not a policing priority and that even though larger crimes are being solved, the cameras are not helping with Ward Four’s theft problem.

“It is a fantasy that if you spend money on technology you are going to be able to change a perpetrator’s behavior,” Rich said, “When I reported a package stolen to the cops, I waited, and no one comes to interview me, no one comes to look at the porch, no one does anything.”��

Neighbor, Ronald Gunnel, has a camera but he didn’t enroll it in the program. He doesn’t want the rebate money but has been active in giving police his video clips to solve both a car crash and a drug bust.

“The camera’s make a difference, because when you call police and tell them what’s going on nothing happens but when you show them what’s going on they take action,” Gunnel said, “It makes a difference when you can see it.”

Dyer said that even though he can not say the camera program has directly affected crime rates since crime has so many aspects to it, he knows it has impacted investigations.

“There have been media stories about the camera footage leading to arrests in high profile cases and we know through our own tracking that there have been at least 10 to 15 homicides that have had arrests made as a result of footage that’s been extracted by cameras we’ve helped pay for,” Dyer said.��

Even though the program requires people to register their cameras with the police department, it is not a requirement that you have to share your footage.

There are cameras in all eight wards and every police service area across the city with a flood of applications coming in every week, according to Dyer.

The program is expected to have over 7,500 applications in by the end of the year.������

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