The Near Southeast/Southwest Community Benefits Coordinating Committee (CBCC) welcomes LaVerne Naughton as its latest addition to the board. Naughton is a native Washingtonian who grew up on Capitol Hill and attended DC public schools. She moved to the Southwest neighborhood in January 2000 with her husband, the late Reverend Ezra A. Naughton, and immediately joined several committees in the River Park community where she later served as vice president of the River Park Board. She is a graduate of Howard University and, before moving to Southwest, served as president of her Fort Lincoln Condominium Association. Naughton is currently radiology administrator of the Children’s National Health System in Washington (formerly Children’s Hospital), where she has worked for more than three decades. She brings to CBCC both her skills in board work and employment policies and her deep commitment to the mission of CBCC to maintain Southwest’s social diversity and to negotiate for community benefits toward that end. The expansion of the board will help CBCC tackle the housing, workforce, and amenities issues it has been addressing.
CBCC has also moved its monthly meeting, which are always open to the public, from the second Saturday of the month to the fourth Saturday in order to be better able to forward recommendations to the ANC in advance of their monthly meeting. The board includes two ANC commissioners, Rhonda Hamilton and Gail Fast, which helps communication between the two bodies. The PUD Task Force continues to research PUD plans, develop generic “asks” that will better serve the community, particularly employment opportunities for SW residents and the choice of retail and other services that serve the neighborhood and may be incorporated into the plans as they unfold. CBCC has asked DC United to broaden participation in their monthly community meetings so that issues that affect the whole Southwest community can be addressed. Now that ground has been broken on the new soccer stadium, community benefits agreed to between CBCC and DC United will move closer to implementation. CBCC has continued to assist efforts to ensure programming through fiscal year 2018 and needed physical improvements at the newly refurbished Randall Community Center, begun with a prior contribution secured by CBCC from the Bernstein Companies.
The next CBCC Board meeting will be April 22 at 9 a.m. at Westminster Presbyterian Church. CBCC is always looking for community members who may want to serve on the board or help with its task force work.
By: Fredrica Kramer, CBCC vice chair