Georgia Avenue Great Streets project in danger of funding reallocation...again

Michael Neibauer of the Washington Business Journal first reported this:

• The Metropolitan Police Department's overhaul of 2850 New York Ave. NE, where several divisions will soon move, requires $3.5 million. Gray has proposed reprogramming that money from 13 separate funds, including $1.1 million from "Penn Ave. SE properties" (unclear as to what that is), $46,225 from vacant property inspection and abatement, $215,566 from IT system modernization, and $1.44 million from the Georgia Avenue Great Streets project. The latter has not gone over well with D.C. Council members Jim Graham, D-Ward 1, and Muriel Bowser, D-Ward 4, who have issued a joint disapproval, delaying the funding move until after the council's summer recess. The District's Great Streets initiative is a joint effort of numerous agencies to transform nine struggling corridors, including Seventh Street-Georgia Avenue. "We still need it for the Georgia Avenue Great Streets," Bowser told me. "If the administration has a way to replenish it, then we can talk about it."

This isn't the first time funds meant for the Georgia Avenue Great Streets project have been threatened with reallocation.

The Lower Georgia Avenue Community Development Task Force is circulating a petition demanding that funds be kept in place. The Task Force only focuses on the portion of Georgia Avenue south of New Hampshire Avenue though, and I think residents, businesses and stakeholders along Upper Georgia Avenue (Brightwood/Takoma/Shepherd Park) ought to be working to ensure that the funding for Upper Georgia Avenue's Great Streets is not lost.