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| | It’s the Friday before a long weekend, so let’s start with a heartwarming story, courtesy of City Cast’s Emma Uber. | | Emma spent some time yesterday talking to Michael Fabio, the driver of Metro’s P10 bus route. Fabio was in the news for all of the best reasons: A mom named Melissa Littlepage had called attention to what happened after her son left his trumpet behind on the P10, which he and his brothers take home from school every day. | | Littlepage had filed a lost-and-found claim and followed up with a call but was told that it would be a minimum of 3 to 5 days before she could expect to hear back. Bad news, since her son had a concert that night. But then the school called: It seemed a bus driver had just shown up with a trumpet. | | Fabio explained to Emma what happened: He wasn’t sure which school the boys went to, but he knew which stop they got off at and that they wore green shirts as part of their uniform. Based on that, he managed to figure out where to go. It was his day off, so he drove on over. | | “I have four kids,” Fabio said. “They've been in all sorts of activities, so I know how important rehearsal and practice is. And I knew that the lost and found process would probably take a few days for him to get his trumpet back, so I just wanted to get him back as soon as possible.” | | Possibly related: I put up another story on the results of City Cast’s big poll of D.C. residents, focusing on the mood of the city. Its most surprising result: Despite DOGE and the police takeover and the grim local economy, 54 percent of locals feel positive about our city’s future. |
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| | Win Some, Lose Some. The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts okayed the Arc de Trump. The board’s decision was no surprise: Donald Trump packed it with loyalists last year. Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans looked likely to abandon efforts to insert $1 billion for the ballroom into an immigration enforcement bill. Trump is unhappy: He wants Senators to fire the parliamentarian who ruled against putting the ballroom into that unrelated bill. | | Dulles Hot Zone. This will not help IAD’s reputation: The Department of Homeland Security says all U.S.-bound flights containing passengers who have been in Congo, Uganda, or South Sudan have to land at IAD for screening against the recent Ebola outbreak. Here’s hoping they won’t have to wait on the airport’s infamous passport line. | | Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back in the Water. The Potomac Interceptor needs three new repairs — just months after last winter’s massive sewage spill! Axios reports that the work may cost $425 million, and no contracts have been issued. Understatement of the month: "We're hopeful that we do not have another break,” D.C. Water CEO David Gadis said. | | Daycare Doldrums. The Washington Post’s opinion section continues to focus its newly conservative attention on D.C. And the latest example is actually a fascinating read: Allister Chang, who sits on the D.C. State Board of Education, writes a first-person account of his efforts to open a day-care center — and the municipal bureaucracy he says stymied him. As leading mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George touts proposals to underwrite daycare, Chang says cutting red tape would be better. | | Ritzy Zips. The DMV had 15 ZIP codes where house prices averaged more than $1 million in April, Urban Turf reported. The priciest? 22101 in McLean. D.C.’s most expensive was 20015, covering parts of Friendship Heights and Chevy Chase, where the average price last month was $1.4 million. Notable: Ultra-luxe 20016, which includes Spring Valley and Wesley Heights, didn’t make the cut because “a high volume of condo and co-op sales brought the median price below $1 million.” | | Finally: The Washington National Opera, newly sprung from the Kennedy Center, has just scheduled an opera that would probably not have passed muster under the center’s new MAGA management: Fellow Travelers, based on D.C. author Thomas Mallon’s novel about the McCarthy-era anti-gay “lavender panic.” (Operas schedule way in advance: It won’t happen until 2028.) | | Did someone forward you this email? To subscribe, visit https://dc.citycast.fm/newsletter | | |
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| | We asked residents to weigh in on a widely-debated issue: automated traffic cameras. It turns out more people support them than oppose them -- unless they've received a ticket in the past six months. Thoughts? | |
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Thanks for reading! If you’re enjoying it, please sign up to be a City Cast member, just like our newest neighbor Douglas P. just did. We won’t have a newsletter on Monday because it’s Memorial Day. See you Tuesday! | | Meantime, do you have a heart-tugger about someone who helped out in need? Are you optimistic about D.C.’s future? Will you ever wade in the Potomac again? I want to know! Drop me a line at mike.schaffer@citycast.fm. |
| Michael Schaffer | This week’s newsletter was edited by Yu Vongkiatkajorn. |
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