Party Foul: Increasingly Clear that They Don't Need Anybody Else

Previously on Battlestar Galactica, we learned that the Executive Committee of Historic Germantown, Inc. balked at passing a Salemtown Neighbors petition among their membership; that petition would encourage the state to implement overnight security measures at Bicentennial Mall. If that didn't suck enough, SNNA just found out that HGI's participation in last year's "1st Annual Salemtown-Germantown Block Party" was also their last participation because they have their own parties to throw in 2008. According to the SNNA Social Committee, HGI is instead having a picnic at Morgan Park, but they will select certain Salemtown residents along 5th Avenue, North who are already their "friends" to picnic with them. How magnanimous. Apparently, the HGI Executive Committee planned all of their parties back in January, and they didn't see the need to communicate with SNNA leadership about their intentions, in spite of the feedback I heard from a number of G-towners last June that the block party event needed to happen regularly.

Of course, it is HGI's prerogative to hold their own parties and invite whomever they please, but they seem to have a long way to go to grasp the concept of unsnobbish support for sister organizations in the community. Fine. Don't party with us, but at least lift a finger to back us up when we are trying to leverage positive public safety changes from the state in the North End. Otherwise, the block party snub is just insult to injury.