Beltway Area Indymedia

On the morning of September 18th, as many as 100 fed-up DC residents occupied the City Council chambers and shouted down the council, demanding the revocation of about 40 emergency bills passed in the summer to sell public land to developers.

Schools and libraries are being turned into condominiums over the objections of almost all city residents other than the developers themselves. All summer Jack Evans and Mayor Fenty conspired to speed this up even further and exclude the public, setting mandatory hearings for such dates as July 5th.

On July 5th, a date picked to minimize public involvement, the City Council held a public round table on selling off three parcels of city-owned land. One is a parcel on Ga Ave where a former owner wants to build condos, one a plot where an owner of boarded up homes wants to put in a garden-and one a property where Temple of Praise proposes to build "town homes with 2 car garages for the homeless!"