Category Archives: Takoma Park Newsletter

Category for original news items as well as Takoma Park Newsletter articles that are copied into takomaparkmd.gov as web content.

By Kathleen O’Toole

This will be my last column as Takoma Park Poet Laureate. I’m coming to the end of my term, and my husband John Ruthrauff and I are preparing for a move to a retirement community this spring. So, here’s a potpourri of parting reflections.

On Poetry and Solidarity

It’s April again − National Poetry Month, and hard to believe that only one of my four as Poet Laureate was pre-pandemic. We’ve weathered a lot, and I’ve been asked to offer poetry as consolation and have encouraged writing poems as a daily practice for wrestling with it all − finding beauty and hope in a world of loss. And now, just as we seemed to be emerging cicada-like from our COVID hibernation, the onslaught of war in Ukraine.

In my 20 years here, I’ve known Takoma Park as a community in solidarity with those suffering from conflicts around the world, one that rallies in hope for a better world. I wrote a poem “Storm” in 2004, a year after the start of the Iraq War, inspired in part by the Buddhist peace flags I passed on Westmoreland and Walnut each day walking to the Metro. An excerpt seems timely: “Afternoon of March winds −//surprise cloudbursts drench the fat squirrels // in my yard. Sunshine, blowback // disheveled branches:// litter of a year of war. // …. On the corner // rows of Buddhist peace flags//raveling with each new storm.”

A Return to In-Person Poetry Readings!

Our Takoma Park Arts team kept poetry programming alive during COVID lockdowns with online readings and our sidewalk poetry contest (look for more poems under your feet soon!) Finally, after omicron-related delays, we’re looking forward to the first in-person poetry readings since February 2020 at the Community Center. Mark your calendars!

The Free Minds Book Club will be returning at 7:30 p.m. on May 12 in the auditorium. Their first reading here in 2020 of poetry created by those incarcerated in the D.C. jail and the federal prison system and presented by formerly incarcerated poet-mentors drew a large crowd and was riveting.

Then on June 2 at 7:30 p.m., we’ll host a themed reading: Poetry of Migration with Indran Amirtanayagam, Luz Stella Mejía, and Sofía Estévez, again in the Community Center auditorium.

Poetry and “Mixed Emotions”

W. H. Auden reportedly said: “Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.” So, my own feelings – about leaving my post (with many plans upended by COVID), not to mention leaving this community − a mix of gratitude and sadness: delighted that on April 29, I’ll do the poetry workshop for the residents of Victory Towers that was set for March 2020, and regretful that a reading of local Ethiopian poets will have to wait for the next Poet Laureate.

As for leaving this community − our neighbors and our home here, I’m reminded of lines from poet-friend Rob Soley’s “Moving Day”: “It’s time to walk through your home//with the eyes of one who will no longer be there…no longer look at the sun as it comes in a room at a certain angle//and plays like newborn light across the kitchen floor.” Still, I’m comforted by what we’ll take with us: friendships, the spirit of Takoma Park, and spring days we continue to savor.

This article was featured in the April 2022 Newsletter. Visit the Takoma Park Newsletter webpage to see full list of past newsletters.

Takoma Park Newsletter

County Codifies Improved Municipal Tax Reimbursement Process with Phase-In of Higher Takoma Park Payment

April 12, 2022 Lars DeSalvio

By Sean Gossard

On Monday, March 14, 2022 Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich signed Bill 2-22, which will reimburse incorporated cities and towns—including Takoma Park—for duplicate taxes for services like local police enforcement, crossing guards, and park and road upkeep according to agreed upon formulas.

“The codification of municipal tax duplication formulas is a long overdue request from our municipalities,” Elrich said in a statement. “This reimbursement program addresses the issue of property tax duplication since both the County and the municipality levy a property tax, but only the municipality provides that service within its jurisdiction.”

Municipalities and the County’s Chapter of the Maryland Municipal League have pushed for revisions to the tax duplication legislation going back to the 1970s and the changes in Bill 2-22 come as a major relief for city leaders. “It’s been a really longtime coming,” said Deputy City Manager Jessica Clarke, who helped negotiate with County and other municipal leaders for over six months to ensure feedback from municipalities was fairly incorporated into the bill. “It’s nice to reach an agreement with the county knowing that it’s a stable revenue source for the foreseeable future.”

Previously, the City would need to renegotiate the reimbursement every year with plenty of time-consuming back and forth between City and county officials. While the county would occasionally reimburse the municipalities for services, the total amounts would need to be renegotiated every year. “Every year we weren’t sure when the county would give us the money and weren’t sure what the amount would be,” Clarke said. “It felt like a political process each time. Now it’s all
in the code.”

Bill 2-22 formalizes that Montgomery County owes a certain amount every year for certain services, which is an incredibly significant step, according to former Takoma Park City Manager Suzanne Ludlow, who had been pushing the passage of the legislation since the late 1990s.

“There’s been two issues,” Ludlow said. “One is that the county never liked paying the money and wanted to spend that money somewhere else, and two, the county didn’t really see it as an amount that was owed. How much of that and how much they owed was a topic of conversation every year. There had been formulas years ago from the economic crash from 2008 to 2012 and trying to get that back has been a particular challenge.”

Over the years, the amount the county would reimburse had remained stagnant and had not kept up with inflation or the growing budget of the city’s police force. “The bill that just passed also codifies quadrennial reassessments, so the fact that we now have a formal codified process for tax duplication and a timeline for when reimbursement activities need to happen each year is a significant improvement to the ad hoc processes of the past,” Clarke said.

In all, the bill will double the County’s reimbursement for municipally delivered services from $10.1 million for Fiscal Year 2022 to $20.5 million with an 80 percent phase-in for Fiscal Year 2023, a 90 percent phase-in for Fiscal Year 2024, and a total phase-in for Fiscal Year 2025.

“The phase-in was a compromise we had to make to reach agreement with the County,” Clarke said. “After Fiscal Year 2025, reimbursements must be increased [based on] the annual Consumer Price Index percentage change for the D.C. Metro area.”

Takoma Park itself is expecting to see reimbursements of around $5.3 million for Fiscal Year 2022, with increases over the next few years. That includes a guaranteed minimum of $4,020,521 for the city’s police department. The money goes directly to the City’s General Fund.

It has truly been an effort on multiple fronts, including other municipalities in Montgomery County like Chevy Chase, Gaithersburg, and Rockville, along with plenty of Takoma Park employees and leaders. “I appreciate that over time we’ve really made progress formalizing this process with the municipalities. That’s the hugest step; it’s really phenomenal,” Ludlow said. “The pressure on the county has been consistently coming from the mayors of Takoma Park—including Bruce Williams and Kate Stewart—keeping pressure on the elected officials as something that needs to get done.”

This article was featured in the April 2022 Newsletter. Visit the Takoma Park Newsletter webpage to see full list of past newsletters.

Takoma Park Newsletter

Mansa Kunda Brings West African Fare to Takoma Park

February 3, 2022 Lars DeSalvio

By Sean Gossard

Hatib Joof wanted the tastes, smells, and hospitality that he knew from his native country of the Gambia, but when it came to West African fine dining in the region, there was an obvious shortcoming. “There was a vacuum that I had to fill because at the time there wasn’t a fine-dining West African restaurant,” Joof said. “There was always some hole-in-thewall place for the cuisine, but not for the dining experience. I thought that we were missing out on literally introducing the cuisine and hospitality to America.”

So, in January of 2019, he opened Mansa Kunda, which translates to “kingdom” in Mandinka, at 8000 Flower Ave. to bring the flavors of Western Africa to Takoma Park. Featuring fresh West African ingredients like the African Baobab fruit, one of the most nutrient-rich foods on the planet; shito, a Ghanaian hot pepper condiment; and tamarind, a sour tropical fruit often used in Indian curries and chutneys, Mansa Kunda quickly gained an adoring fan-base, being named one of The Washington Post’s 10 Best Casual Dining Restaurants for 2019.

“The food, in most cases, is unorthodox,” said Joof, the former operations manager at Spring Mill Bread Company in Takoma Park. “It took a while for me to take our menu and extract the items that I wanted from around the region and to be able to cook 90% of the dishes as vegan or vegetarian. I am a vegetarian of over 20 years. It was very important to me to solve the problem of making sure that everyone who walks into the door is fed and satisfied.”

Joof says getting the flavors correct is vital to him, but there are some obstacles to overcome regarding shipping and importing certain ingredients. “Authenticity is very, very important to me,” he said. “You try as hard as you can to maintain the taste and quality of the food. There are some things that aren’t allowed to enter the U.S., so some things may be different, but we find a way to work it out.”

Operating the restaurant got a bit more difficult after that first year when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. For Joof, the pandemic has been both extremely challenging and a chance to learn. “We had a full year of business bliss in 2019,” Joof said. “It was an excellent year for the first time around, but then by March 2020, when the pandemic hit, I honestly thought it would only be three or four months and we’d weather the storm, but it’s been two years.”

But through weathering that storm, Joof has learned to be resilient in what’s commonly a very difficult industry, even without a global pandemic. “I used the pandemic as a learning tool to see where the mistakes were being made and where I could improve,” Joof said. “I learned a lot on how to maneuver myself on people’s experience with the cuisine.”

For Joof, the location at 8000 Flower Ave. in Takoma Park was an incredibly important one. “I’m hoping that with this location, which is in a residential area, that I am creating a resemblance of ‘Cheers,’ where people don’t have to drive and they can take an evening walk to come grab a glass of wine and dessert and enjoy themselves,” he said. “The location used to be a convenience store for 10 years before I got my hands on it. And to me it was a blank canvas.”

Staying in Takoma Park was particularly essential for his restaurant. “I chose Takoma Park because I found that this is the only place, I would risk this venture knowing that my shortcomings would be overlooked,” he said. “The people are more curious here, more warm and more appreciative in most cases.”

Despite fighting through a global pandemic just over a year after opening, Joof remains confident that his restaurant is filling a special desire for the area by offering high-quality dishes from a region he’s passionate about: “There’s something so gratifying about having an idea, conceptualizing it, bringing it to fruition, watching it germinate and having someone come in from as far as Pennsylvania, saying ‘I’ve read about your restaurant’ and they sit down and dine and you can see satisfaction on their faces. That’s a drug you can’t find anywhere; it’s something you create.” To check out Mansa Kunda’s menu, visit mansakunda.com.

This article was featured in the February 2022 Newsletter. Visit the Takoma Park Newsletter webpage to see full list of past newsletters.

Takoma Park Newsletter

Welcome New Recreation Department Staff Member, Haven Rhodd!

February 3, 2022 Lars DeSalvio

The Recreation Department is pleased to welcome a new addition to our Get Out and Play crew! Take a few moments to get to know Haven, who joins us as the Youth Success Coordinator.

Q: Tell us a little about yourself and your hobbies.

A: My name is Haven Rhodd, and I grew up in Prince George’s County, Maryland. I graduated from the illustrious North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University with a BA in psychology in 2018. Since then, it has been my personal mission to be a positive influence on my community, and I have always sought out opportunities to do so. My hobbies include cooking, playing the Sims, and obsessing over fitness. I have a passion for cooking nutritious foods that also taste good and fuel me to get a great workout in. I am also currently a graduate student in the Masters of Public Administration and Masters of Nonprofit Management dual enrollment program at the University of Central Florida.

Q: What recreation programs were you involved in growing up and how do you feel they shaped who you are now?

A: I was not involved in any recreation programs growing up; however, I did participate in extracurricular activities such as the Student Humanitarian Organization and marching band. While in marching band, I played the clarinet for about two years before switching to the trumpet my senior year of high school. Marching band played such a huge role in my life because it is how I ended up choosing my alma mater and how I learned to be more disciplined and dedicated in all that I choose to do.

Q: What are you most excited about regarding your new position?

A: I am most excited about becoming an active member in the community. During the pandemic, I have really missed working with the youth and their families as well as planning programs and events for community members to enjoy. I am passionate about enhancing the lives of others, so it is very exciting to have a position in which I can do that again.

Q: What inspires you to continue your work with teens and young adults?

A: It inspires me to know that I can serve as a level of support that is different from parents and teachers but still necessary. The work that I do allows me to be a friend, a mentor, or even a family member for these young people. I love that I can serve as the person I wish I had when I was growing up.

Q: What have you enjoyed so far about the City of Takoma Park?

A: What I have enjoyed about the City of Takoma Park is the familial feel within the community. Everyone seems to want to help each other, which is really refreshing. I am looking forward to working here and learning more about Takoma Park!

This article was featured in the February 2022 Newsletter. Visit the Takoma Park Newsletter webpage to see full list of past newsletters.

Library, Takoma Park Newsletter

Information Literacy: A Special Report from the Takoma Park Maryland Library, Part Two

February 1, 2022 Lars DeSalvio

By Jill Raymond and Anne LeVeque

Last month we talked about the various forms of mis- and dis-information (Part One). Now we’re going to talk about how we sort out the vast amount of information we are exposed to every day. Two central skills are required for discerning credible from non-credible information: first is the ability to set aside our emotions and desires and use our capacity for reason, accepting facts even when we don’t like them; second are the tools to recognize trustworthy information.

So, how do we know what is trustworthy? Is a source that is trustworthy always right, every time? Actually, no. A trustworthy source can be in error, resulting from lack of clarity, insufficient data, or honest misinterpretation of data. Dr. Anthony Fauci, and others, asked that people not wear masks at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, thinking it would cause a shortage and medical personnel would not have enough; there were shortages of protective materials in the beginning, but as the science of the virus came into better focus, it was clear that mask-wearing offered great protection for the public; many people began making masks to help mitigate the shortage, and production ramped up. The knowledge around this issue continues to evolve.

Science builds its knowledge base on information gleaned from multiple failed experiments. The details of these experiments are critiqued by other experts in the same field, which is why we say that trustworthiness comes from facts as society currently has the tools to discern them. The tools of discernment examine factors like intent, expertise, and transparency regarding data, methods, connection to monied interests, etc.

Disinformation involves malicious intent. Disinformation is false information promoted to achieve a particular end goal that benefits the perpetrator, either financially, socially, politically, or militarily. Disinformation is usually (but not always) a professional product. Like actors on a stage or sophisticated advertising techniques, it is packaged to deceive and look like “the real thing.” One recent example is the well-documented effort by the Russian government to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Disinformation morphs as the public conversation shifts over time and as true and factual information becomes available to more people. For example, those who publicly deny climate change and the science behind it began to call themselves (and get the media to refer to them as) climate skeptics, which sounds much more thoughtful, often naming themselves something that sounds quite public-service-minded, like “Institute for Energy Research.” They try to discredit climate science by casting doubt on the evidence. However, their “experts” are often tied to the fossil fuels industry or far-right-wing organizations with political agendas tied to climate denial. A famous tobacco industry document from the 1960s said, “Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the minds of the general public.”

Do your own research: Google and Wikipedia. One problem in discerning information is semantic: The word research is used for many different levels of inquiry from scientific research into diseases to looking up the definition of a word with which we’re unfamiliar. Using Google is fine for a general inquiry and frequently takes you to a Wikipedia page as part of its results. Wikipedia is a user-edited encyclopedia and thus is subject to problems of bias. It does its best to address these issues, but it’s not perfect. Wikipedia is a good starting place. The example given at the beginning of this article, Critical Race Theory, was adequately addressed by looking at Wikipedia. The article ,was clearly scholarly and had many sources and footnotes. Those sources and footnotes are a good indicator of the reliability of an article.

When a scholar is beginning a research project, they will go further than Wikipedia, of course. They will begin by searching academic databases for their topic, reading those articles, and further researching the footnotes and references given by those articles. This way, researchers can be sure they are not either covering well-worn ground or furthering incorrect information. This type of research is best aided by a research librarian who is familiar with the literature in any given field of study.

Another use of the word research is scientists’ clinical trials and laboratory experiments. This kind of research is based on the foundations laid by prior research and the preliminary research done by searching databases. When the results of this kind of research are submitted for publication, the study undergoes peer review, where other researchers in the same or a similar area review it and recommend (or not) the research for publication.

When we research a topic, we want to see what Google or Wikipedia says for most of us. However, if we want verified, reliable information, we should go to such resources as Encyclopedia Britannica, Oxford Reference resources, and others, all of which are available through the library’s website. Your tax dollars have paid for access to these resources.

There are other valuable resources online for checking facts and quelling rumors. One of the best is Snopes.com, which began as a fact-checker of urban legends but has expanded into a trusted source of information. Another is Politifact.com, which as its name implies, verifies political information, including statements made by politicians or pundits. It is sponsored by the Poynter Institute, a non-profit school for journalists.

Speaking of doubt. This brings us to two important caveats as we think about how to navigate the oceans of mis- and dis-information on the internet and in our conversations.

Cynicism and nihilism are the byproducts of a chaotic and unreliable information environment. To throw one’s hands up and surrender, to find oneself saying “they all lie” or “they all cheat and steal” is as damaging to our info-ecosystem as spouting the tenets of the newest cult. To be critical is not the same as adopting a posture of manufactured cynicism. Criticism shines light, and it does not promote hopelessness, which is the real goal of many purveyors of disinformation. Cynicism and hopelessness do not work to make things better.
Critical thinking does not exclude marginalized or minority voices. The insights from racial, ethnic, and gender minorities have been excluded, deliberately and otherwise, from much of public discourse.

Our tools of discernment and fact-checking must become habits of thought, like looking both ways before crossing a street. The good news is that the more people there are being careful with information, the easier the job becomes because we share reliable and credible sources.

Library Director Jessica Jones contributed to this article.

A note to readers: The authors posted references, footnotes, and some expanded content on the library website, including links to reliable sources of information along with some amusing illustrations and memes. Go to www.takomapark.info for more information.

This article was featured in the February 2022 Newsletter. Visit the Takoma Park Newsletter webpage to see full list of past newsletters.

Library, Takoma Park Newsletter

Information Literacy: A Special Report from the Takoma Park Maryland Library, Part One

January 24, 2022 Lars DeSalvio

By Anne LeVeque and Jill Raymond

Not long ago, a library patron asked for help in finding information about Critical Race Theory (CRT). The patron had searched online using Google and said that all the results, “were negative.” We helped the patron find unbiased information about CRT, including a clear definition of it. There is a huge amount of misinformation and disinformation about CRT being bandied about in the public square, not just on social media but in school board meetings, state legislatures, and the courts. Many of these debates are heated and have led to death threats against school board members.

The consequences of poor information literacy can be dire. In the age of COVID, people have literally died because they believed incorrect information about the disease, how to prevent spreading it, how to treat it, and, of course, vaccinations that prevent it. Not only that, but the misinformation around COVID has led to significant financial losses in our economy. The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security published a report in October 2021 estimating that the cost of COVID vaccine misinformation and disinformation is between $50 and $300 million dollars per day since May 2021, and that is just in the United States. Global figures are much higher. At press time, the omicron variant has just emerged, and we may see this figure increase significantly.

First, let’s start with some definitions: What is misinformation, what is disinformation, and what is the difference? The meanings are very close. Both terms refer to false information. Misinformation refers to false information, such as false rumors, misunderstanding of information, and misleading use of facts. Disinformation is like misinformation; false information is used deliberately and in an organized fashion. The term has its origins in the Cold War era and originally referred to a type of propaganda, particularly government-sponsored propaganda. The word “disinformation” has come to mean any organized campaign of false information, whether government-sponsored or not. Think of it as the deliberate intent to convey an untruth or to persuade people of an untruth for the purpose of achieving some goal of the perpetrator.

Information literacy is the ability to distinguish reliable information from mis-and-disinformation. The term arose in the 1980s in the context of libraries and refers to the ability to evaluate information critically to determine its authenticity, veracity, and purpose. In this article, we hope to convey information about some of the tools available to help you do that.

Types and Sources of Misinformation

We all pass around misinformation. We all like to be “in the know.” Sometimes an otherwise reliable source we trust has made an error, and we have passed that on in casual conversation or on social media.

One source of misinformation is our own memory. Professional investigators know that the memories of eyewitnesses to crimes or other events are notoriously unreliable, some have even tweaked their interviewing techniques appropriately.

Are there things you would like to be true, but you suspect probably are not, like horoscopes? Are you ever in arguments with friends about a scandal involving a sports figure or celebrity? You may not want to think this person guilty of serious moral failings, but the credible evidence suggests that maybe they are.

Psychologists know that people too often believe what they want to think is true for emotional reasons. This is called “confirmation bias.” People often want to believe something just because they think large numbers of other people think it’s true. This can bring about something called the Mandela Effect in which large numbers of people believe that something happened (the death of Nelson Mandela in prison in the 1980s, when in fact he died in 2013 after serving as president of South Africa) that didn’t occur.

Another source of misinformation is “spin.” Spin is the manipulation of information for a particular purpose. It is not necessarily inaccurate, but it is info that is packaged in such a way as to achieve a specific reaction in listeners/readers. Relevant details may be left out deliberately or irrelevant ones disproportionately emphasized. The best example of this is television commercials. All of us boast, exaggerate, or try to “spin” the facts if, for instance, we are embarrassed about something. But for serious and reliable information based on facts as society currently has the tools to discern them, casual assertions cannot be taken at face value.

An extreme sort of spin is clickbait. Clickbait is not necessarily incorrect, but it is designed to tempt. It screams something phrased to enrage, terrify, offend, or otherwise make people put down what they’re doing and look at something they would otherwise ignore. Whenever this is the case, we must look at what interest is being served here. Most clickbait articles are on sites that are paid “per click,” so there is a financial interest in getting people to read these lurid articles.

Satire is such an enormous source of misinformation that some social media platforms have required it to be tagged as such. A well-written satire is not always discernible as comedy. Three centuries ago, Johnathan Swift wrote “A Modest Proposal,” which suggests that the poor in Ireland could survive by eating their children. Scholars debate Swift’s precise target, but it certainly served to excoriate British policy towards the Irish.

Today, Alexandra Petri writes columns for the Washington Post with headlines like, “Big Bird is a Communist.” But as things get passed around on the internet, often without identifying source details, some people mistake satire for sincere argument and may be inclined to join up with a movement that isn’t real. Is Big Bird a communist? Another example is in the 1990s, the satirical news website The Onion ran a joke article saying that J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, was encouraging children to worship Satan. This article was spread among people who believed it to be a real news article and evidence that the Harry Potter books were Satanic. Those who spread the article, presenting it as real, whether they knew it was satire, have spread misinformation.

The founders of America knew that a mass of people could be manipulated into an angry mob capable of violent behavior none of the individuals would separately, having thought about it, engage in. What they feared is really a combination of disinformation—on the part of the perpetrator, who has something to gain—and misinformation being passed along among members of a crowd that is emotionally primed to believe what the perpetrator is telling them. And that’s why the founders knew the framework of checks and balances they devised was not by itself sufficient for protecting democratic governance. An educated and knowledgeable populace was necessary. Inscribed on the Library of Congress building named for him is James Madison’s warning: “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own governours must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

Library Director Jessica Jones contributed to this article. Next month’s article (Part Two) will discuss how to tell reliable information from misinformation.

This article was featured in the January 2022 Newsletter. Visit the Takoma Park Newsletter webpage to see full list of past newsletters.

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City Offices and Facilities Closed on Thursday, November 28, through Sunday, December 1 for Thanksgiving Holiday

Library Renovations Update 10/17: Changes to the Community Center/Recreation and Maple Avenue Trench Work Continues

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