Hey there! Both Punxsutawney Phil and Potomac Phil saw their shadow this morning, but our hyperlocal Capitol Phil saw a Popeye’s five-piece special. Thanks for that interesting visual, Manny Kid!
What else is going on? Oh yeah. The Washington football team has a new name: the Washington Commanders! Twitter had great fun with all the nickname possibilities and many weren’t exactly thrilled with the name. But hey! Go Commies!
Mayor Bowser greeted the name change with some hopes and dreams of her very own: bringing back an NFL franchise into DC proper. Now, this is something she’s wanted to do for a long time, and there are plenty of proponents who’d like to see her accomplish this somewhere in town. But when it comes to repurposing the old RFK campus, neighbors aren’t quite having it:
Over 50% of the more than 400 votes that came in during our poll this morning voted no, they would not want the RFK site to come to DC. A special thank you to readers who are not on the Hill but love reading and interacting with us— we love you, neighbors!
Later in the day, Mayor Bowser joined MPD Chief Contee, as well as Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks and PG County Chief Malik Aziz for a special news conference. You can read highlights from Twitter here, including questions and comments from the press, and you can read the gist of what was said through the official press release here.
Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen sent out his Ward 6 update yesterday, where he addressed the rise in carjackings and other crime, as well as a spate of deaths due to what appears to be a bad batch of fentanyl. You can read it here.
The fentanyl overdoses started on Friday, January 28 and have claimed the lives of at least three people. WJLA has more details.
Also on Friday the 28, which incidentally was the day after Holocaust Remembrance Day, Union Station was covered from pillar to pillar with swastikas. The perpetrator was 34-year old Geraldo Pando of no fixed address, who seemed to have a hard time recalling writing some of the graffiti (The Hill) and seems to be a Mexican national who came to DC by way of Colorado. He’d been twice deported before (Examiner). Always interesting to see how different outlets focus their story.
ANC redistricting, also known as the sleeper event in the redistricting olympics, is under way. ANC 6B Chair Corey Holman tweeted about yesterday’s meeting here.
In intriguing news, it seems that a good chunk of the 1000 block of H Street NE, north side, is for sale. PoPville reveals that the buildings are going for a combined $10 million.
Did you know that people in the DC area saved an average of $2,834 from not commuting during the pandemic? Today Testing has more information.