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Text Box: NEW CONGREGATION TO WORSHIP IN GLEN ECHO By Rex Rhein The 63-person congregation of the First Agape A.M.E. Zion Church on Seven Locks Road will be worshiping at the Baptist Church annex on Harvard and University Aves. for the next year or so. Tom Meeks, one of the deacons at Glen Echo Baptist Church, informed the Glen Echo Town Hall at its Sept. 11 meeting that the church wanted to allow the members of the 107-year-old A.M.E. church to be able to use its annex because the old church had burned down in 2004. It previously has been using a synagogue for its services. He said the intention was to make the building available for as long as it takes “to get their church back." Also at the meeting were the A.M.E. church's pastor, Reverend Edgar Bankhead, a retired Navy chaplain, and his wife, Rev. Judy Bankhead. The pastor said fewer than 20 cars would be involved at its events, and that the Glen Echo Baptist Church -- which has an even smaller congregation than the A.M.E. church -- would allow them to use its parking lot. Mr Meeks said that another group -- an Hispanic congregation -- wished to rent the larger church building on Vassar Circle "perhaps in the afternoons." He was enthusiastic about the A.M.E. congregation but expressed some reservations about the impact that the other group might have

Text Box: RESIDENTS OBJECT TO JOINING FLOOD INSURANCE PROGRAM By Rex Rhein Two town residents objected at the Sept. 11 Town Council meeting to the town’s previous decision to enter the federal flood insurance program. The town as a whole is not in a flood plain, but a tiny part at the foot of Oberlin Ave. is. Phyllis Fordham said she had not heard about the town's intention to enter the program until she read about it in Sept. issue of The Echo. (The Echo reported that in August the council unanimously voted to approve a "Resolution of Intent to Enter the National Flood Insurance Program".) Clerk-Treasurer Cathie Polak noted that the town had only been given until Sept. 29 to join the program. Ms. Fordham said residents who might have opposed the council's resolution, if they had known about the issue in advance, were denied a timely opportunity to argue their case. She also objected that the agenda for the Sept. 11 meeting had not been distributed to residents until that same day. Ms.Fordham said she opposed joining the program because it might affect the cost or availability of mortgages for residential property, particularly for those who decline to purchase the insurance. Her position was partly supported by resident Betsy Carpenter, who said she had talked to insurance agents, real estate agents, and her own mortgage lender in an attempt to weigh the costs and benefits of the program for herself. Ms. Carpenter said the only benefit she found was