Trinidad Neighborhood Association Meeting

Trinidad Neighborhood Association held its monthly meeting on Tuesday, February 23 at 7:00pm. In attendance was the Assistant Fire Chief, Edward Mills III, Officer Chandler from 5th District Metropolitan Police Department, a representative from Best Kids organization, Constituent Services Coordinator at Council of the District of Columbia Wesley Dawson, Ward 5 Community Liaisons from the Mayor’s Office Tommie Jones, and Department of Employment Services representatives.

DC Fire and EMS is proposing to contract out Emergency Medical Services because they cannot meet the needs or demands of DC residents and their emergencies. The contract will be performance based, the response time for the contractors will have to meet national standards which is 10 minutes. Lateness in response time will be penalized. The contractors and ambulances will be located throughout the city and every EMS technician will be certified and meet all requirements. The contractors will be on call during the peak hours as well as DC Fire and EMS.

Officer Chandler informed the neighbors of the violence and whether it was up or down in the Trinidad/Ward 5 area. Homicides from this year to last is still at 0. Robberies are down 30%, property crime (theft from auto) is up 62% and the overall of crimes is down 29%. He also made it clear that noise ordinances can’t be enforced until after 10pm.

DC Council member McDuffie’s has introduced the Neighborhood Engagement Act which is a legislative package created to combat the increase in crime in Ward 5. “Councilmember Kenyan R. McDuffie (D – Ward 5), Chairperson of the Committee on the Judiciary along with Chairman Mendelson and Councilmembers Allen, Bonds, Cheh, Evans, Grosso, May, Nadeau, and Silverman introduced the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results Act of 2015, a bill to address the surge in crime with a holistic approach that includes collaboration of human services agencies, neighborhood organizations and provides the District with the data it needs to more effectively prevent outbreaks of violent crime in the future.

A key provision of the bill would create an Office of Neighborhood Engagement and Safety. The role of the office will be to identify our teenagers and young adults most at risk to engage in crime. The program will incentive its participants to create and execute a successful life-plan, moving them away from the pitfalls of violent crime and showing them a path to success.”

The Mayors office is preparing for the re-opening of the DC Streetcar on February 27, at 10:am. They are also launching a private security camera program as part of Safer, Stronger DC Initiative. The program has a budget of $500,000 which will supplement up to $200 of the purchase of the camera and $500 rebate per residential addresses. Businesses will have a maximum rebate of $750 and the $200 camera supplement will remain the same.

The Department of Employment Services has increased its ages that the youth can work which is up to 24 years of age. Registration opened today to all DC residents from ages 14 – 24. They are also offering apprenticeships, which last 3 – 5 years, to DC residents that wish to take up a trade. Depending on the trade, they will start out at $13.85/hour. The minimum wage in DC is $10.50 which will increase July 1 to $11.50. D.O.E.S. has four locations.