On 7:30 the morning of Election Day, volunteers reported that voter turnout was good so far. This was a sign of good things to come as Takoma Park enjoyed a 21 percent turnout rate, one of the highest in the last few election years.

By 7:45 a small line had formed as residents voted before heading to work. Residents of all ages showed up at the polls, from families strolling with young children to 55+ voters who came accompanied by spouses and other relatives. And they all embodied the spirit of community and inclusiveness that Election Day brings out in Takoma Park.

“I have always appreciated the openness of the election process in Takoma Park,” observed 15-year resident Margerita Silverstone of Ward 1. Silverstone was in favor of the advisory question on the ballot if it meant the process could be “even more open and inclusive.”

One of her fellow residents shared this sentiment. Joan Horn, also of Ward 1 and a 35-year resident of Takoma Park, was also in favor of the advisory question. In addition, Horn said, “Face-to-face contact made the difference in casting her vote.” She talked with Kate Stewart during her campaign and “would like to see her continue on the same path” should she become Mayor.

Stewart, councilmember for Ward 3, was elected Mayor of Takoma Park, and Peter Kovar, one of two newcomers to the city council, won the Ward 1 seat with 630 votes. Ward 6 councilmember Fred Schultz kept his seat, receiving 206 votes. The other four candidates, Ward 2’s Tim Male, Ward 3’s Rizzy Qureshi, Ward 4’s Terry Seamens, and Ward 5’s Jarrett Smith ran unchallenged. (See full election results on p. 11 and read our interview with the new mayor in the January issue.)

Bernice Tyler, who has lived in Takoma Park for 45 years, also appreciated candidates who gave their campaigns that personal touch. “Folks who came to my home to visit personally got my vote,” she said.

It’s clear that the Takoma Park community takes elections personally. Perhaps an exchange between one of the City’s younger residents and his mom as he was dropped off for before-care best summed up the day. “What election?” he asked. To which his mom replied, “The city election.” “Why?” he asked. She said, “They’re deciding who will be the next mayor.”

This article appeared in the December 2015 edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. The Takoma Park Newsletter is available for download here.

By Gina Mathias and Alexandra Young

Winter is coming, and with it chilly drafts and high heating bills. Most home owners can likely pinpoint a few of the biggest energy wasters in their homes, but many of the places in your home that drive up your bills remain harder to diagnose. That’s where a professional comprehensive home energy audit can help.

Takoma Park resident Keith Kozloff recently had a comprehensive energy audit. He also helped his neighborhood team earn points for the Neighborhood Energy Challenge by completing upgrades to his home to save energy.

Costs:

Energy audit: $0 after rebate and subsidy. Keith initially paid $100 for the energy audit, which normally costs $400. Because he chose a participating Pepco contractor, the cost is subsidized through EmPOWER Maryland. Through City of Takoma Park Energy Efficiency Rebate Program, Keith received a $100 rebate for the energy audit.

Energy audit recommended work: $1,512 after rebates. The total cost for the insulation and air leakage reduction package was $4,262.30. Keith qualified for the 50 percent, up to $2,000 Pepco insulation and air sealing rebate, the Takoma Park 25 percent up to $500 energy efficiency rebate, and the $250 Montgomery County energy efficiency tax incentive.

Lifetime energy savings: $3,005. The recommended work included wholehome air leakage reduction attic insulation and crawl space insulation.

What was the biggest surprise the energy audit revealed for Keith? He had no idea that a large amount of air was getting through his 2nd floor crawl space (or “kneewall”). The energy audit revealed that the space was only half insulated, making it ambiguous if it was an interior or exterior space. After speaking with the auditor and learning the options for how to better treat the space, Keith decided to make the crawl space an exterior space. He moved the insulation and fiberglass batts to an inner wall and then covered the wall with a reflective air barrier. Keith also insulated the half door leading to the space. The contractor sprayed dense pack insulation in the floor through holes drilled in the floor.

Other improvements included sealing air leaks in the attic floor, basement, and other areas of the home with caulk and spray foam. After the contractors achieved a targeted rate of air leakage reduction, measured by a blower door, insulation was added to attic floor to bring the total thermal value of attic insulation to R49. Keith hopes an upstairs bedroom that was too warm in the summer and a downstairs office that is too drafty in the winter will be much more comfortable.

The importance of working with a professional energy auditor:

Many do-it-yourselfers can install insulation, caulk and spray foam. Beyond finding energy savings, however, energy auditors perform tests to ensure that projects are completed in compliance with safety standards. A blower door test measures how drafty your home is, ensuring it is within safe levels. Most homes in Takoma Park are well over the building airflow standard necessary for safe indoor air quality. However, over-tightening your home can cause once properly venting gas appliances to back-draft, spilling dangerous flue gasses into your home.

Combustion safety tests measure the pressure of flue gasses being vented from the appliance to outside your home, including carbon monoxide. While the blower door is running, there is also a better chance to find hidden drafts and areas of missing insulation, especially when used with an infrared camera.

The improvements didn’t stop with insulation and air leakage reduction. Committed to helping reduce greenhouse emissions, helping his neighborhood win the Neighborhood Energy Challenge, and the City win the Georgetown University Energy Prize, Keith has made more changes that will make home as energy efficient as possible and earn him a Takoma Park Dark Green Home certification.

Solar PV rooftop installation: $7,209. Total system cost before federal and state tax credits $11,433.

Solar lifetime electricity savings: $28,094. System size is 2.94 kW. This will generate approximately 3,323 kilowatt hours of electricity per year, representing about 70 percent of Keith’s total electricity needs annually. This estimate was made before many of Keith’s energy efficiency improvements were completed; the total dollars saved on electricity may be lower; however the panels may get closer to generating 100 percent of Keith’s electricity needs.

Other energy efficiency improvements Keith has made:

• Super efficiency boiler and hot water system
• Energy star appliances (refrigerator, washer and dryer, dishwasher)
• Programmable thermostats
• Motion sensors on outdoor CFL security lights
• LED and CFL light bulbs throughout home
• Blinds and shades on windows to minimize/maximize solar heat gain in summer/winter
• Ceiling fans to make rooms more comfortable at a higher temperature in summer
• Faucet aerators
• Power strips on electronic device centers
• Cleaning refrigerator coils every six months to improve function
• Blocked off fireplace to prevent drafts

Would Keith recommend using an energy auditor and making audit-recommended upgrades to his neighbors? “Sure, I would recommend this to my neighbors,” he says. “There are three motivations: one is to save money, another is to increase comfort, and the final one is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” We couldn’t agree more.

This article appeared in the October 2015 edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. The Takoma Park Newsletter is available for download here.

Silber, Perlman, Sigman & Tilev, P.A., is moving. The firm has been on the corner of Carroll and Laurel in Old Town for twenty-seven years and has served as the city attorneys for Takoma Park as well as assisting clients in Takoma Park and the DC-Metro region. The law firm is moving its offices to the Takoma Business Center, just a few doors down from its current location, where clients will have access to elevators and great views of Takoma Park. The firm’s new location will be 6930 Carroll Ave., Suite 610, Takoma Park, Md. 20912 as of Nov. 1, 2015. The firm looks forward to continuing to serve clients from its new space.

By Tim Rahn

Join the Friends Reading Group to discuss Edwidge Danticat’s novel Claire of the Sea Light on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 7:30 p.m. in the Hydrangea Room of Takoma Park Community Center.

Claire of the Sea Light takes place in a fictitious Haitian town, Ville Rose. Within the first couple of pages of the novel, Danticat describes two profound events. First, she tells how Claire’s fisherman father has learned of the death of another fisherman and then she reveals that the father has made the difficult decision to let another person raise Claire.

The evening of the same day, Claire’s birthday, she goes missing. Danticat uses the stories of neighbors and acquaintances to explore the mystery of Claire’s disappearance. We learn how Claire, whose mother died giving birth to her, has touched the lives of the other characters and what these relationships mean.

One reviewer commented that much of Danticat’s fiction is about “how the coercive power of collective silence about gender, race, and inequity creates deeply personal damage for individuals.” Claire of the Sea Light, she comments, “is a further investigation of the infinitely rippling consequences of silence.”

Born in Haiti and raised in New York City, Edwidge Danticat has won numerous awards for her fiction. Claire of the Sea Light was short-listed for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Danticat is considered a major voice of the Haitian Diaspora.

This article appeared in the October 2015 edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. The Takoma Park Newsletter is available for download here.

Books & Breakfast

This school year, the Library is partnering with the ESOL teachers at Takoma Park Elementary School in a special “Books & Breakfast” program.

Funded by a grant from the Takoma Foundation, the “Books & Breakfast” program is designed to connect ESOL parents and their pre-K and kindergarten children with helpful local resources, including the Library.

At each of the four hour-long meetings (October, November, February and March), participants are given breakfast while ESOL teachers model ways to read aloud and offer other helpful tips to encourage families to make books and reading part of their daily lives. Participants are given a new book at each of the meetings, plus other literacy tools, such as a jar of magnetic letters.

The “Books & Breakfast” program had a successful debut during the last school year (2014-2015), and the ESOL team decided that adding the Library as a partner this year would further enhance their efforts to teach parents how to help their children build pre-literacy skills.

As part of the Library’s participation in the “Books & Breakfast” program, Karen MacPherson, children’s and teen services coordinator, will help parents and children register for Library cards and also introduce them to the many resources the Library has to offer. These include print and electronic books in Spanish and French for all ages, numerous book-related events, and a fully-staffed Computer Center. The Library also has numerous online resources, including one for learning English, as well as numerous other languages.

A recent Pew Research Center report, “Public Libraries and Hispanics,” underlined the importance of libraries to immigrant Hispanics, once they discover what the public library has to offer them. This Pew report is just one more indication of how connecting Hispanics and other immigrants with their local public library can offer them a key educational and cultural lifeline. It is this connection that the “Books & Breakfast” teachers, working with the Library, hope to offer their participants this school year.

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor program

Newbery Medalist Phyllis Reynolds Naylor will talk about the fourth book in her “Shiloh” series on Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 7:30 p.m. in the Takoma Park Community Center auditorium.

Titled A Shiloh Christmas, aimed at readers ages 8-12, Naylor’s new book continues the saga of a beagle named Shiloh and Marty Preston, the young boy who rescued him from an abusive owner. The new book comes 24 years after Naylor published the first book in the series, Shiloh, which won the 1992 Newbery Medal, given to the best-written children’s book each year by the American Library Association.

Since then, Naylor has published two sequels, Shiloh Season and Saving Shiloh. In A Shiloh Christmas, Naylor tells how Marty and his family reach out to Judd Travers, Shiloh’s formerly abusive owner, when his house and others are burned in a drought, and Travers is suspected of arson. Meanwhile, a new preacher has come to Marty’s town of Friendly, W.Va., and it seems the preacher is more interested in stirring up controversy than talking of mercy.

In a starred review, Kirkus said, “Shiloh’s move from abused pup to well -loved pet is an ideal metaphor for the plot’s various redemption stories, which culminate on Christmas day. Perfect for longtime fans of the series and newcomers alike, this Christmas story can be enjoyed yearround.”

Meanwhile, School Library Journal noted in its review of A Shiloh Christmas: “This is not so much a Christmas story as it is a book about practicing tolerance, acceptance, and forgiveness and recognizing one’s own moral compass. In response to Marty’s many philosophical questions, his loving and supportive parents offer realistic guidance, advice and discipline. As expected, Shiloh the dog plays a pivotal role in bringing about a happy resolution for Judd and Marty.”

Politics & Prose will be selling copies of Naylor’s books at the event, but the program is free, and no purchase is required to attend. Please join us for what promises to be a very special event with a top author.

This article appeared in the October 2015 edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. The Takoma Park Newsletter is available for download here.

By Ellen Robbins

The lines between old and new music are often blurred, especially when beloved standards are re-worked with understanding and sensitivity by younger musicians or even by their original creators. A sampling of our new music CDs is an evocative mixture that brings this idea home.

“Still the King: Celebrating the music of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys” is a tribute album that is imbued with new life in the hands of ninetime Grammy winners Asleep at the Wheel. Bob Wills was known as the “King of Western Swing” in the 1930s well into the 1950s. In this 22-track release, Willie Nelson joins Merle Haggard, George Strait, Lyle Lovett and Del McCoury and other virtuosos in a dazzling display infused with unabashed enthusiasm for this rollicking genre.

2015 is the centennial of the matchless blues and jazz singer Billie Holiday. It’s no coincidence that Cassandra Wilson’s new album “Coming Forth by Day” is released now. Music reviewer Stephen Thomas Erleine has abundant praise for her celebration of Lady Day: “It luxuriates in its atmosphere, sometimes sliding into a groove suggesting smooth 70s soul, often handsomely evoking a cinematic torch song… moods that complement each other and suggest Holiday’s work without replacing it.” (allmusic.com)

Darlene Love is included among Rolling Stone’s 100 greatest singers. Her career spans 60 years from gospel to pop, and she appears in the academy award winning documentary “20 Feet from Stardom” (2013). Identified through much of her career with Phil Spector, who obscured her original style by attributing her singing credits to The Crystals, Darlene Love reemerges with her first solo album in 30 years. Produced by Steve Van Zandt, with songs recorded earlier by Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello among others, “Introducing Darlene Love” has had mixed reviews. Nonetheless, her vocal signature and prowess are abundantly clear. “This is likely the first album that Love has ever released to a wide culture of music fans who know her as the legend she always should have been rather than the footnote she once was” (Dave Bloom, Popmatters, 9/28/15).

A legend since he began his career with the Rolling Stones, Keith Richards is rated as fourth on Rolling Stone’s list of 100 greatest guitarists. “Cross-eyed Heart” is his first solo album since 1992. He has remained an unaffected original with unquestioned staying power. Elysa Gardner in USA Today observes that he is “one of the few vets in his field who has neither lost his edge nor devolved into a parody of his younger self. That enduring, effortless cool is rooted and reflected in his blues-based playing: muscular but not flashy, instinctively groovy, capable of brooding or stinging but also of expressing playfulness and joy.”

In their new album “Django and Jimmie,” Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard are invoking two icons that have inspired much of their music over the years: the gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt who was legendary in the 1930s and 40s, and countrywestern swing musician Jimmie Rodgers. Rolling Stone’s reviewer calls the album “a grab bag of new songs and rerecorded signatures fixed on the duo’s own mythology, largely sans blue yodels or gypsy jazz. Highlights are Haggard’s “Missing Ol’ Johnny Cash”…and “It’s All Going to Pot,” the “420 Day” single that shows two masters nailing the right song at the right time.”

In her album “The Trackless Woods,” vocalist and composer Iris DeMent is inspired by the poems of Anna Akhmatova, who was born in 1889 and died in 1966. Dement and her husband adopted a child from Russia when she was six, and this album is in part an attempt to build a “symbolic bridge” to her daughter’s homeland.” What is so amazing is that she is inspired by a past that is neither her own, nor strictly musical. According to NPR, “Iris DeMent makes music that celebrates humanity’s efforts toward salvation, while acknowledging that most of our time on Earth is spent reconciling with the fact we don’t feel so redeemed. Grounded in hymns, early country songs, gospel and folk, DeMent’s work is treasured by those who know it for its insight and unabashed beauty.”

Visit the Library soon to hear albums by some of the most creative and accomplished musicians recording today, who both celebrate and re-imagine their artistic inspirations.

This article appeared in the October 2015 edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. The Takoma Park Newsletter is available for download here.

By Code Enforcement Staff

On or before Nov. 30, information will be sent out to all Takoma Park landlords informing them that they must apply for the renewal of their rental housing licenses. All applications must be submitted online as the City no longer accepts paper copies of the application for renewals. Email addresses are also now required by code.

If you own a rental housing property or unit in Takoma Park, you are required to obtain a rental housing license. There are five requirements that must be satisfied before the City will renew your rental license. You must 1) complete the online application, 2) pay the license fee (charged per unit), 3) maintain a valid Landlord certification, 4) must meet the lead risk requirements for the Maryland Department of Environment (MDE), and 5) successfully pass a property maintenance code inspection. Licenses are issued for the calendar year and only after all requirements have been met.

If your landlord certification has expired, we offer a class every other month at the community center that introduces and briefly reviews the requirements and laws that apply to rental housing in Takoma Park. The classes are held the third Wednesday of every other month on alternating mornings and evenings in the auditorium. If you plan on attending, please call 301- 891-7255 to register for the class. A schedule can be found on the City’s website.

New in 2015 is a change in the MDE requirements from a construction date of 1950 to 1978. Additional information is available online www.MDE.state.md.us/ lead or by contacting the MDE at 800- 633-6101 x4199 or 410-537-4199.

Why be licensed? If your property is not licensed, neither the tenants nor the landlords are protected by Takoma Park’s laws governing rental properties. This is especially important in dealing with health and safety issues, repairs, security deposits and issues with leases and rents. Please ensure that your rental property is licensed so that the rights of all parties involved are ensured.

This article appeared in the October 2015 edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. The Takoma Park Newsletter is available for download here.

Loose leaf collection will be provided by the City from Nov. 16 through Dec. 18. Residents can rake leaves to the curb at their convenience during the fiveweek period. Most streets do not have an assigned collection day. The goal of the program is to collect leaf piles within two weeks of their appearance at the curb. Leaf collection is dependent on the weather and rain, or freezing conditions can slow collection.

There are five streets that receive collection days on scheduled days. These streets are State Highway routes and have a heavy volume of traffic.

• Carroll Avenue, from 7000 to 7800 block
• Ethan Allen Avenue
• Philadelphia Avenue

Collection for these streets will take place Saturday, Nov. 21 and Monday, Dec. 21.

• Piney Branch Road
• Flower Avenue, from 7900 to 8600 block

Collection for these streets will take place Monday, Nov. 23 and Saturday, Dec. 12.

There will be no collection on the Thanksgiving holiday, which is observed on Thursday and Friday, Nov. 26 and 27. Also, on the dates of collection for the posted streets, no other streets will receive collection (November 21, 23 and December 12, 21).

During the first three weeks of collection, the crews will concentrate on picking up large piles of leaves. During the last two weeks, the crews will thoroughly collect all remaining loose leaves from the gutter and grassy strip along the curb.

The Public Works Department welcomes your comments and suggestions about the service we provide. You can also call the leaf collection hotline at 301-891- 7626 to notify us when your leaves have been raked out. Our goal is to collect leaf piles reported on the hotline within 10 days of the call.

Please follow these guidelines:

• Rake leaves into a pile at the edge of the curb. Do not rake leaves into the street. Leaf piles can create traffic hazards.
• Do not park your car in front of a leaf pile, and when raking please avoid piling leaves where cars are likely to park.
• The vacuum leaf collection is for leaves only. Do not include branches, brush, vines, rocks or debris. These items can seriously damage equipment and delay collection.
• Do not pile leaves near storm drain inlets. Leaves can block the drains and cause flooding problems.

The City also provides weekly Monday collection for bagged grass, leaves, branches and brush all year long. The Monday collection requires leaves and loose yard materials to be in paper bags, trash cans or stiff-sided containers. Plastic bags cannot be used for yard material because these items are composted, and the plastic interferes with the composting process. Branches must be less than four feet long and less than three inches in diameter and tied into small bundles or stacked in a trash can. The Monday yard waste collection is cancelled when a holiday is observed on Monday.

This article appeared in the October 2015 edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. The Takoma Park Newsletter is available for download here.

The Takoma/Langley Crossroads Development Authority (CDA) has partnered with the Hindu Temple of Metropolitan Washington and City of Takoma Park to sponsor a November 8 celebration of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, which coincides with the Hindu New Year. Diwali celebrates new beginnings, the triumph of good over evil and light over darkness.

The Diwali Mela will be held outdoors at 7505 New Hampshire Ave. from 2 to 7 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 8. Musicians will perform on a stage with traditional instruments, and dancers will present traditional Indian dances. Numerous vendors will set up stalls selling Indian clothing, jewelry, housewares, henna tattoos, snacks and sweets. CDA member Ram Agarwal, who is Secretary of the Hindu Temple, volunteered to secure performers and vendors for the festival, and persuaded the Hindu Temple to co-sponsor the event. Ram’s Fast Tax Service has been in operation at 7487 New Hampshire Ave. for many years.

Numerous City-sponsored events are held every year in Old Takoma or the Takoma Park Community Center. The Diwali Festival is a new sponsorship that will attract residents to an area of the City unfamiliar to many. The Takoma/Langley Crossroads area is very international with a mix of retail and service businesses and professionals. Both “mom and pop” businesses and chains co-exist in a safe, stable area with a diverse population. Long associated with Latinos, today’s Crossroads includes Africans from Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, and Senegal, Caribbean natives, African-Americans, South Asians, Chinese, Koreans, and persons from the Middle East. For more information about the Diwali Mela, call 301-445-7910.

By Patti Mallin

On a Thursday afternoon last month, Karen Maricheau, director of Takoma Park’s Lifelong Takoma program and allaround Pied Piper, leads twenty-some middle and high school students and a handful of adults merrily through the computer center rotunda. Pointing to the left and right, she indicates where workshops will be held, where lunch will be displayed. She asks, “Who are my food service volunteers?” This is the second orientation Maricheau has led for the more than 50 volunteers who will assist her in running the 2nd Annual Lifelong Takoma Day.

In the year since the first event, Maricheau has tracked the needs of Takoma Park residents who contact her directly and gathered similar information from local agencies, churches, and other community partners. She and her planning committee built the agenda for this year’s program based on input from these groups.

The theme of “one community – engaged and inclusive” grew from a sense of disconnect and isolation that many aging residents reported. One person expressed it this way, “There are two Takoma Parks, one for the young and one for the old.”

However, young and old came together on this day. Community partners and service providers lined the front walk to the Community Center, ready to introduce themselves to Takoma Park residents. Mary Murphy, program director at SeniorConnection, explained the free transportation service available to eligible seniors. At the same time, she recruited others, including a young mother with an infant, as volunteers to help drive seniors to the grocery store and to medical appointments.

Right across the walkway, Michelle Dudley reminded visitors about the innovative FreshChecks program at the Crossroads Community Food Network, which helps put fresh fruits and vegetables into the shopping bags of senior citizens and low-income shoppers at the farmers market.

Participants in the financial fitness workshop, facilitated by Kristin Rodriguez, were concerned primarily about debt management. Rodriguez guided them through a decision-making process resulting in a personal plan for taking control of their debt, meeting a workshop goal of putting people in the driver’s seat where their finances are concerned.

The Housing Opportunities Commission of Montgomery County taught attendees how to register for affordable housing through the new online portal. While some were there to explore opportunities for themselves, others looked for opportunities for their adult children living with disabilities.

The social center of the day was the rotunda area outside the senior room and the public computer center. Lunch, and then snacks, were served there by a dedicated (and exceedingly busy) group of volunteers under the capable management of Joyce Seamens. Her team included veteran volunteer Gladys Harvey, also a member of the Lifelong Takoma planning committee, Montgomery College students Thareth and Vicky, and a host of others. Mountains of falafel and baklava fueled conversation among folks with walkers and those with strollers. As groups chatted over Blessed Coffee and apple juice, connections were made and community strengthened.

The day concluded with a “Community Conversation” about building an “agefriendly, intergenerational linked City.” The Takoma Community Band, whose members span generations, kicked things off. Bryan Goehring, representing Takoma Park Middle School’s Difference Makers, noted that the composition of that band is an example of what makes the City special.

Many residents are aware of the Snow Angels program (see p. 12) where TPMS students help clear the walkways of seniors and disabled residents during the winter. Goehring noted that an unintended outcome of this program is that some of the residents it serves have in turn volunteered to help the school in any way that they are able. Takoma Park appears to be on its way to building that linked community.

This article appeared in the October 2015 edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. The Takoma Park Newsletter is available for download here.