Anticipating a new year that is also a new millenium is a great opportunity to layout themes for improving quality of neighborhood life. Here are some of my own ideas for the Foxhall area - right now I'm  just "thinking out loud"  - that may resonate also with other neighborhoods. This theme is to dedicate 2000 to improving public spaces and streetscape.

For example

• Become a pilot community with DC Heritage Tourism to restore police/fire call boxes with inset plaques telling that block's history, drawing on local works like Harold Gray's "History of the Palisades" and Dick Conn's 1979 "Foxhall Community at the Half Century".
  
• Take advantage of opportunity to host outdoor sculptures by locating them at e.g. visible National Park Service locations near roads, like 44th St at Foxhall Rd, Reservoir Rd at Elliot Place. This is a proven program placing large works for several months to showcase U.S. sculptors, and now looking for more places beyond downtown that can accommodate pieces which could easily weigh 10 tons or more.
  
• Draw on our many private schools to partner with National Park Service in permanently adopting defined park sections. We have thin strips of national parkland along neighborhood borders overgrown with exotic flora that strangles native plants. Only concerted, organized and repeated efforts will get them back to full health and keep them that way.
  
• Engage the whole neighborhood in a masterplan for Hardy Recreation Center, so that both the grounds layout and the building functions serve agreed needs of all generations, with a variety of programs by staff and local residents.
  
• Look into productive uses of under-utilized Urban Ecology Center at Georgetown Reservoir, such as community gardens that could involve seniors through pre-school kids in working the soil together to grow fresh food.