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Welcome to Barcroft Neighborhood
The LatestNext: Our 4th of July Parade!Barcroft Street Sweeping: May 13, then June 10Street sweeping is important to keep debris out of the Chesapeake Bay. Citizens are asked to put cars in driveways on sweeping day so that the machines can provide more effective sweeping. More info on the County's web page.May 2nd meeting minutes.New Officers for 2013-2014President: Eric HaroldVice President: Chris Kupczyk Treasurer: Jennifer Lis Recording Secretary: Randy Swart Executive Committee Member: Michael Behringer (term ends 2017) Executive Committee Member: Keith Fred (term ends 2014) May Barcroft NewsNote: replace |.| with @ for email addresses. President's Report for Mayby Pat WilliamsonThe Springtime beauty of Barcroft is remarkable. What a glorious place to live. Thank you to everyone who helps this neighborhood be so wonderful. The May 2 regular monthly meeting features our annual election of BSCL officers. We hope many neighbors will show their support for our candidates by coming to the meeting and voting. Candidates are: President: Eric Harold Vice President: Chris Kupczyk Treasurer: Jennifer Lis Recording Secretary: Randy Swart Executive Committee Member: Michael Behringer Executive Committee Member: Keith Fred Thanks to brand new neighbor Brian Hefner who stepped forward to tackle the Newsletter Advertising Manager job. Additionally our May meeting program include presentation of the County's design for improving our trail connection from 7th Street to the W&OD trail. County staff will explain the various elements of the design including ADA compliance and stormwater management. Guests include Sena Wijesinha and engineers who will discuss the elements of the design that were dictated by ADA requirements, etc. After hearing the presentation we will take a vote on whether or not to approve it for a Neighborhood Conservation program funding decision in June. Send in your dues. Voting is limitied to dues paying members of BSCL! Easter Egg Hunt March 30There were two hunts: One, at 10:15 a.m. for ages 0-4, and one at 10:30 a.m. for ages 5-15. The children hunted for Easter eggs filled with stickers and small toys, and then could trade in their eggs (once the treasures have been harvested, of course) for a bag of candy. Who handed out the candy? The EASTER BUNNY! There was also be socializing inside for parents and five GOLDEN EGGS, very well hidden. The lucky children who found those eggs traded them in for a chocolate bunny.Some photos from the 2012 hunt: 
February MeetingFor our discussion of the two storm outages last year we were pleased to have Deb Powers from the County preparedness office, Caroline Temmerman from Parks and Rec, and both Deborah Johnson and Tony Savage from Dominion Virginia Power. All of the speakers emphasized that they had well-defined priorities in such situations, and made a strong effort to communicate on where the power outages were and be aware of what the situation was as recovery progressed. Barcrofters raised a number of concerns about the storm response in our neighborhood. Randy Swart asked people to please comment on the chat list about the streetcar issue.Report on discussions after the February meetingby Randy SwartOur February BSCL meeting was very useful for venting some problems during recent storm recovery. But it was even more useful for bringing us two Dominion staffers who could handle other problems as well. Somehow President Pat persuaded Dominion to send Tony Savage, their Operations Manager for all of Dominion's network inside the beltway, and extending down to Lorton. He was the highest level Dominion operations person I have ever encountered at a meeting. After the meeting we talked about how Barcroft had noted that in the last two big storms our neighborhood-wide outage has persisted long after they had already resolved other neighborhood's outages. It may be related to the fact that our power comes up from the substation down on Four Mile Run Drive via a route through the park parallel to the high voltage lines. In both storms those lines were part of the problem, even though they did considerable tree trimming after the first storm. We also apparently have a backbone along 6th St South that makes all of us vulnerable to trees coming down along there. Mr. Savage said he would have his Reliability engineer take a look at our situation and see if he had any recommendations. Who knows whether it will produce any action, but at least our concern got to the right person. The second Dominion staffer there was Deborah Johnson, Manager of Regional State and Local Affairs. It turned out that she was not familiar with the story of our old substation lot on Pershing Drive, where Dominion has not cleaned up the PCB pollution to the residential standard that the County insists on to buy the lot and add it to our park. She said she would look into the issues. I doubt that she can resolve it, but at least that keeps the question active. We had our December holiday party!
County Board deferred Restaurant El Salvador's karaoke requestThe BSCL, Arlington Partnership for Affordable Houseing and the Arlington County Police Department had recommended denial.Dues are due for the 2012-2013 year.County begins work on George Mason DriveThe County plans to make changes along George Mason Drive at the National Guard entrance, 4th St South and 6th St South. They will enhance pedestrian safety by narrowing the width of the 4th Street entrance, adding crosswalks at 6th Street and adding a High-Intensity Activated crossWalK signal (HAWK signal) at the National Guard entrance. Take a look--your entry into Barcroft is changing!
How a HAWK signal works--coming soon to George Mason Dr. The video clip will prepare you for your first encounter. The County planner is Jeremy Watson, Division of Transportation 703-228-1861 jrwatson|.|arlingtonva.us Recent StormsWe had a big, big derecho storm on June 29, 2012. Many Barcroft homes were without electric power for two to four days. The weather was sweltering. There was major tree and power line damage on 6th St South between Wakefield and Buchanan. We are grateful to Dominion Virginia Power for their energetic and competent response.After the storm we had a "Celebrate Power is Back On!" Fourth of July parade that included floats thanking Virginia Power for their work getting out power back. Carol Harvey marched with a big splinter from one of the 6th Street poles. This photo is from Hurricaine Irene in 2011. Some had no damage, but on Abingdon Street there were three large trees down. Here is the one at the Cackleys. 
And you can see it in Arlington's storm damage report. The first three slides are Barcroft homes on Abingdon. Our Ice Cream Social on National Night Out was GreatWe had a good crowd for Barcroft's annual celebration of National Night Out on August 7. Many neighbors, Captain Brett Butler of the Arlington County Police Department and others joined us for an ice cream social at the Community House. The weather cooperated and good conversation was had by all. Ballston Patch had a nice report with photos.We had a wonderful 4th of July Parade!It was the 24th Annual Barcroft 4th of July Parade
Here is our 2012 parade pageBarcrofter Joan Mulholland is in the news againOur own Joan Mulholland is again the subject of a documentary about her civil rights activities in the 1960's. This one is called An Ordinary Hero. We have a page on Joan with links.Eighth Road had a Block PartyHere are Lisa Piantanida's photos.The Gardens of Barcroft TourSunday May 20, 2012, a beautiful day for a garden tour. Here is the day in photos.Community House Garden BlitzSaturday May 19, 2012 with many hands making light work. Here is how it looked.Weather Forecast for BarcroftThe link on the right at the top of this page is the result of Barcrofter Eric Parker's years of recording our weather and sending data to Weather Underground. Their new system integrates the historic data from local stations like Eric's to produce micro weather forecasts. So thanks to Eric we now have a real Barcroft weather forecast.We celebrated the renovated Barcroft Community House on Feb. 2, 2012 |
| Home | Membership | Location | History | Goals | Newsletter & Minutes | The Barcroft Players | People |
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