The requests totaled more than $5 million initially and included additional future payments over the 30-year lease of the $300 million project.

AD

AD

Lew and Tom Hunt, chief operating officer for the team, responded in a joint letter Oct. 10 outlining a series of transportation, workforce development and housing initiatives that either have been undertaken in planning the stadium or which they said the District already provides through existing programs.

(A copy of the community’s proposed agreement is online here. The response by the team and city is posted here.)

Rather than proposing different dollar amounts to the community’s request for aid to Southwest, Lew and Hunt made clear they believe the entire District ought to benefit from the stadium project and asserted that in many cases existing city programs were capable of meeting those needs.

AD

For instance, in response to the community’s request for a revolving $500,000 workforce training fund to benefit residents of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6D, Lew and Hunt wrote that “it does not make sense to create a separate and standalone employment program for ANC 6D residents. The District is, however, committed to working with the CBCC to ensure that ANC 6D job-seekers are successful in accessing these existing programs.”

AD

Similarly, in response to the request for a $750,000 small business incubator fund, Lew and Hunt wrote that “it does not make sense to develop a separate standalone program” from the city’s current small business programs.

To a request that the team create a series of recreational and educational programs for elementary and middle-school students in the neighborhood, Hunt said the team planned to continue and expand its charitable programs in the city, including at Amidon-Bowdern Elementary School, and offered an additional 25 scholarships to low-income students in the neighborhood for the team’s week-long summer camp.

AD

The response did not go over well. Felicia Couts, a CBCC coordinator, said the response amounted to a “slap in the face” and that she and other organizers had decided that rather than respond they would try to bypass the administration and appeal directly to the D.C. Council to get the stadium package to require a legally binding community benefits agreement in stadium authorizing legislation.

AD

“Basically the city says no to everything,” Couts said. “The city’s response basically was there are programs for that, you need to get with the program. Or, this deal is going to serve all of District residents we don’t see any need to specify anything for the 14,000 people in Southwest.”

“This is a neighborhood here. There are going to be people affected unless there are certain subsidies to help bear the brunt of those adverse affects,” she added. “For you to basically slap us in the face and tell us to go away…I don’t see where they’ve left us any type of room for negotiation by telling us no to every last thing that we asked for.”

AD

Spokesmen for District and the team declined to elaborate, saying the letter spoke for itself.

Even Lew’s attempts to specifically address some of the advocates’ concerns may have struck a nerve. He sought for instance to assuage concerns about how the project would affect public housing communities nearby by including a statement from D.C. Housing Authority Executive Director Adrianne Todman.

AD

Todman’s letter, however, raised the prospect that some of those properties could be redeveloped, writing that her agency “is firmly committed to preserving the same (or higher) number of housing it owns that are available to low income families.” Todman said the housing authority is reviewing its properties including those in Southwest and will be determining which need to be redeveloped and which will simply require minor upgrades.

Overall, Couts said the letter was such a disappointment that she has begun meeting with members of the D.C. Council to push for the inclusion of a binding agreement in stadium legislation, which could be considered shortly after the Nov. 4 election.