Beat the Heat
Dear Beaters:
Adrienne Washington’s column on Friday about the Washington
Times’ editorial interview with Chancellor Michelle Rhee
summarizes my feelings well (http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20070810/METRO/108100065/1004):
“I was waiting with bated breath. I was hoping against all odds. I
tried ever so hard to keep an open mind. Maybe, just maybe, if I sat
still and wished hard enough, I would actually hear something different.
You have no idea how much, for the sake of DC children, I longed to hear
something different, to feel the aging cynic in me nudge. Unfortunately,
the yack-yack was the same during a one-hour editorial board meeting
with DC Public Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee. . . . She is the
latest in the long line of superintendents who sat in the same seat and
spewed forth the same reformer’s rhetoric about this failing ‘faceless
bureaucracy.’” No, I’m not motivated by cynicism or negativity,
and Adrienne really isn’t either. And nobody wants Rhee to do badly or
to fail. It’s just that Mayor Fenty is handicapped by a rookie’s
arrogance, sure that he’s smarter, harder working, and more capable
than anyone who preceded him, and that led him to make phony promises of
rapid, dramatic improvement in school performance that he can’t keep.
Rhee is now saddled with having to make it appear that she will fulfill
those promises, and that she has a reservoir of knowledge and competence
and a bag of tricks that her predecessors didn’t have.
The administration is instituting a very bad public policy, and the Washington
Post is giving Fenty at least a partial pass on it — even though
his recent executive order to destroy the record of governmental
electronic communications badly harms the principles of open government
and freedom of information that the Post world normally champion
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/11/AR2007081101054.html).
In May, an insider leaked to Dorothy the information that the government
had an unofficial policy of retaining government E-mails for only six
months, and totally erasing them after that, and that there was a plan
to make that policy official and shorten the retention period. Dorothy
researched the situation and found that the city government didn’t
have an official retention law or regulation in effect. Dorothy went to
Councilmember Carol Schwartz and suggested that the government should
develop an official policy about preserving electronic communications,
and sent a copy of her recommendations to the Washington Post’s editorial
board. Keeping electronic records is important because over the past
several years almost all internal government communications have moved
from being written memoranda to being E-mails. Now only the most formal
and final government actions are reduced to paper memoranda, which are
automatically retained and archived. E-mails and instant messages, in
which all the real business is now done, will now be lost to reporters
looking for the real story, to history, and to legal proceedings.
Several recent national corporate and government legal cases have
emphasized the importance of keeping the E-mail record. But the DC
government has decided the safest policy is to bury the evidence. Every
DC government E-mail older than six months will be deleted automatically
and permanently, unless it has been flagged by its author as
historically important or unless the government has been officially
notified that the E-mail may be needed as evidence in litigation. What
is most questionable about the Post’s editorial support for
this destruction is that the newspaper buys the government’s
fraudulent rationale for it -- that it costs too much to save electronic
records. The cost estimate given by the government and quoted by the Post
is $1.2 million for three years to save all electronic communications.
That’s only $400,000 a year, a fraction of the cost of archiving paper
records, and the cost of saving electronic records has been dropping
like a stone for decades, and will continue to get cheaper and cheaper.
(The first widely available hard drives in personal computers were 10
meg., and cost several thousand dollars; 500G hard drives, fifty
thousand times larger, now cost $100 at retail.) No, cost isn’t the
issue, and cost-saving isn’t the purpose of destroying the record of
how government decisions were made and why government actions were taken
— keeping information from the press and the public is what this is
all about.
Latest ice cream and sorbet news: lime sorbet, even tarter than lemon
sorbet, is the most refreshing so far; watermelon and tomato sorbet, a
recipe from the current issue of Southern Living (http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1634658),
is the most unusual (we substituted commercial tomato juice for
fresh squeezed, since we prefer the consistency of the commercial
variety); and fresh peach ice cream is up next. What are you eating to
beat the heat?
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
###############
Public Land Sales: The View from Tenleytown
Sue Hemberger, Friendship Heights, smithhemb@aol.com
At an ANC 3E meeting Thursday night, David Jannarone from the Office
of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, told a
stunned audience that his office was hoping to issue an RFP (Request for
Proposals) for the Tenley Library-Janney School site by the end of this
month. As community members peppered him with a series of challenging
questions, Jannarone reassured them that the Mayor’s goal was simply
to unleash the value in the land to serve neighborhood goals and that
the community would be fully involved in the process. He hoped that this
deal, the first of many, would serve as a model for the rest of the
city.
A brief look at that model thus far: 1) choose which sites to sell
based on "unsolicited proposals" floated by developers. Don’t
insist that such proposals be actual offers. Think of them more as
"concept plans." The value of a "concept plan" is
that it can be all things to all people. It’s concrete enough that
specific benefits can be claimed ($16 million in additional revenue, no
loss of green space), yet elastic enough that any new request
(affordable housing, a larger library, tripling the size of the school
project) can always be accommodated. How? Talk is cheap when there’s
no offer on the table and you’re just seeking buy-in on the concept.
At this stage, there’s no budget, no comprehensive site plan, and no
detailed timeline to constrain the project. Gain credibility by
enlisting the support of an enthusiastic councilmember, who will assure
the community that there’s a political solution to every legal,
financial, or temporal obstacle, while assuring the mayor and other
councilmembers that the community is eager to explore this option.
2) Ignore the fact that the site in question contains DCPS’s most
overcrowded school, as well as a shuttered library branch whose
reconstruction has already been shamefully long in coming. Also ignore
the fact that both projects are already fully-funded through capital
budgeting. Use the fact that the school and library projects are on very
different schedules to suggest that yoking the two will make the school
project happen sooner. Treat the prospect that this scenario will
further delay the library project as a justification for acting quickly
to make a deal with a private developer. ("Quick, DC government is
on the verge of building a library. They must be stopped before it’s
too late!")
3) When controversy erupts over whether public land deals are being
based on cronyism rather than the public interest, commit to issuing an
RFP. Get the RFP out as soon as possible -- don’t wait to do any
(short- or long-term) facilities planning for the site. Don’t assess
your real estate holdings to decide whether this is a piece of land you
should be selling. Don’t even wait to forge a community consensus
around what should be built at the site. After all, an RFP commits you
to nothing. And, who knows, maybe some developer will come up with
something interesting that people will like. Urge everyone to wait and
see. Suggest that if they don’t like the proposals, they can reject
them. Backpedal when asked if the community will actually have that kind
of veto power. The decision will be the mayor’s.
Tenleytown is where the mayor and the council will decide what
lessons have been learned from the West End debacle. The need for
competitive bidding and public notice (not to be confused with community
consent) has become apparent. But they still don’t seem to understand
the planning issues or the perils of letting developers name the parcels
to be sold and frame the options for providing public facilities. The
local media have done a terrible job of covering public land issues and,
as a result, major decisions with lasting implications are being made
without much public oversight or even awareness. I find it hard to
believe that the same citizens who overwhelmingly supported Adrian Fenty’s
populist, neighborhood-centered candidacy expected his administration to
be selling public lands out from under our schools and libraries to
build more condos. Yet in West End and Tenleytown that’s precisely
where we’re headed.
###############
Today, the Washington Post writes about Mayor Fenty’s
decision to forego being shadowed constantly by a large security detail
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/11/AR2007081101047.html):
“Mayor Adrian M. Fenty no longer has a full-time police detail to
protect him as he travels about the city on official business,
preferring to drive his own vehicle, unaccompanied by officers.” This
is a good move, since ever since Mayor Barry the size of the mayor’s
security detail has been inflated beyond any reasonable purpose, and
more often than not police officers on the detail are relegated to
simply standing around and holding the mayor’s hat and coat. As the Post
noted, Fenty used his security detail ostentatiously and
unnecessarily in the first few months of his administration, “when he
traveled in a motorcade that frequently used emergency flashers and
sirens to cut through traffic as he whipped around the city to attend
community meetings.”
Moreover, as WUSA-TV reporter Bruce Johnson noted on his blog last
month, “The DC police officers assigned to guard DC Mayor Adrian Fenty
and his family are required to sign confidentiality forms . . . swearing
they won’t repeat ever to their wives and girlfriends anything they
see or hear while accompanying the mayor throughout his busy work day
and evening.” (To access the story, go to http://www.wusa9.com/news/columnist/blogs/brucejohnson.aspx,
click on July 2007 under Archives, and scroll down to July 21.) The
policy of having sworn officers sign confidentiality forms may have been
of questionable legality; whether or not it was, it certainly went far
beyond what even Mayor Barry had required of his security detail.
So what has led to Fenty’s cutback, aside from the obvious
possibility that it is just a commonsense move? Perhaps the answer is
that Fenty, who has never stopped campaigning, realized that using
police officers as drivers and servants undermines his image as a
populist and man of the people, or perhaps it is just another instance
in which he is modeling himself in the image of his mentor, New York
City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Fenty now drives himself around the city,
just as Mayor Bloomberg is known for getting to work by riding the
subway (although the New York Times tailed Bloomberg and found
his security detail was actually driving him from his town house past
several subway stations before dropping him off closer to his office, so
he would have a shorter and faster subway ride — http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/01/shadowing-the-mayor-of-new-york/).
###############
Hear the Latest About the Federal City
Council?
Gina Arlotto, DCPS Parent, Ward 6, citymom@dcaccess.com
Contrary to the implication in the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/08/AR2007080800959.html),
those of us who oppose and question the Federal City Council’s
unelected and undemocratic role in our city’s policy decisions are not
simply wild-eyed conspiracy theorists. The glaring omission in Yolanda
Woodlee’s item in the District Weakly (misspell intended) is that the Washington
Post is a major tool of the Federal City Council. As readers of
themail surely know, the FCC was created by Philip Graham, and several
of the Post’s past and present corporate board members are
current FCC members as well. It’s too bad that Yolanda did not provide
readers with the courtesy of a full disclosure notice. What was correct
in the item is that I stand by my post in themail. The fact that
everyone gets worked into a lather and starts backpedaling whenever the
FCC is mentioned proves that there is some damage control afoot and we’ve
clearly touched a nerve. A very well-respected attendee at the meeting
of the DC Economic Empowerment Coalition who prefers to remain anonymous
(natch) stands by the account of what was stated quite plainly: that any
initiatives must “secure approval” of the FCC before implementation
in DCPS.
Additionally, John Hill (Executive Vice President of the FCC and
another FCC link to DCPS and DC Libraries) is repeatedly asked if he is
running DCPS through the Post, the Federal City Council, EdBuild,
or EdAction? Let’s put them all out there: Victor Reinoso, former (?)
direct employee of the FCC, now Deputy Mayor for Education (who has
disingenuously bristled at the mere suggestion that the FCC has had any
impact on his decision making as a school board member and now as the
author — and I use that term loosely — of the school takeover
scheme); John Hill, FCC VP, Chair of the DC Public Library committee,
board member EdAction, and founder of EdBuild (which received a major
no-bid contract to prepare collocation space for charter schools and
supposedly thereby “help” the host DCPS school); Neil Albert, former
Chief Executive Officer of EdBuild, currently Deputy Mayor for Economic
Development (for more on the FCC, Neil Albert, EdBuild, and the $2.5
million in modernization funds, see http://stateofcolumbia.com/weblog/archive/2007/05/24/following-the-money-all-roads-lead-to-the-federal);
and Kaya Henderson, our new Deputy Chancellor of Education, board member
with John Hill on EdAction and EdBuild. I’m not sure if Kaya has been
invited to join the ranks of the much-vaunted FCC, it’s more of a good
ol’ boys club after all, but maybe she’ll get the nod soon, along
with the most popular gal in town, Chancellor Rhee. Don’t think I’ve
forgotten the ultimate man behind the curtain: Terry Golden, Chair of
the Federal City Council, charter school cheerleader and pusher, tuition
voucher mastermind (to name just a few roles) gives everyone, including
our esteemed mayor, their marching orders and everyone falls into line.
If Dr. Janey had had the chance, surely he would have told Michelle Rhee
that if she doesn’t dance with Terry Golden and the Federal City
Council, she might not get asked to the ball.
###############
Michelle Rhee, the new public school reformer, is certainly a chip
off the Fenty block. Fenty disrespects the parents of the children he
claims he is working hard for to improve their education. Ms. Rhee
disrespects the immediate communities in close proximity of Cardozo’s
Football Field by allowing nonresidents of the District of Columbia to
use the Cardozo High School Football Field to play soccer on Sundays.
These nonresidents, from Maryland and Virginia, bring large numbers of
cars to the immediate neighborhoods that they park illegally; tie up all
available curb space preventing residents from parking; and leave their
trash, making the community look seedy. The sad thing is that while Ms.
Rhee is trying to budget money to enhance the educational quality of
instructions for the students she is allowing nonresidents to ruin
Cardozo’s football field’s playing surface, which will be costly to
put back into shape for the students who participate in high school
athletics as for the little league’s competition with other teams.
How is that we are so agreeable to letting nonresidents use our
school’s facilities to the detriment of our students, who need
facilities comparable to other those of other school systems? If it is
so important for these nonresidents to play soccer, let them make the
necessary arrangements where they live and not use our public school
facilities. Perhaps ICE should make an appearance at these soccer games
because I am sure the pickings will be very good.
###############
Speeding Ticket — The Resolution
Gabe Goldberg, gabe at gabegold dot com
Folks with good memories may remember that I griped last Fall about
being tagged for speeding (53/30) westbound in the District’s E Street
Tunnel. Note that it’s not a city street: it’s a submerged highway.
There are no pedestrians, no houses, no stores, no schools, no entrances
or exits from one end to the other, no traffic weaving sections, and no
safety hazards. 30 is a ridiculously low speed limit.
Since 53/30 — more than twenty miles over the limit — is or can
be considered reckless driving, I asked for a hearing to dispute the
ticket. After some fumbling — I’d moved, they had an old address,
etc. -- I received a hearing date. I prepared with various arguments
that thirty is an unsafe speed in the tunnel (it obstructs traffic and
is dangerous because of people coming up much faster from behind) and
that I’m a safe driver (decades of safe-driver insurance discounts, no
tickets/accidents). I showed up a bit early, was pleasantly astonished
that the waiting room wasn’t a nasty mob scene and the woman in charge
was pleasant and competent.
I overheard a lawyer advising a client that if the charging officer
didn’t show up, the hearing examiner would offer three choices:
guilty, guilty with an explanation, and deny. If you deny and the
officer’s not there, charge dismissed. My officer didn’t appear, I
denied, the ticket was dismissed. The hearing examiner was also
competent and professional. My officer wasn’t the only one to no-show
— I was almost (almost!) disappointed I didn’t get to argue the
ticket but I was just as happy to have it go away. So spending the
couple hours to prepare and go through the process was worthwhile.
###############
Fresh Viewpoint at the Washington
Post
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com
I commend the Washington Post for adding Catherine Rampell to
their editorial board. This young writer has fresh insights and many
sensible things to tell us. (See http://tinyurl.com/2ahfm4.)
Her editorial says as much about the topic she’s writing about as it
does about a slightly expanded mindset at the Washington Post.
But check out the abysmal editing. Rampell uses the word
“despise” in describing the characters’ attitude towards each
other in the Dr. Seuss story “The Sneetches.” That’s an absolutely
incorrect word. Nobody ever despises anyone in a Dr. Seuss story. The
characters in “The Sneetches” exhibit jealousies about stars on
bellies (and non-stars on bellies), but nobody despises anyone. Would it
be asking too much of the person who edited that editorial to
thoughtfully read “The Sneetches”? Is that asking too much?
Rush, rush, rush. Mush, mush, mush. If we all go too fast, we’ll
all fall on our Tush.
###############
Jim Champagne had it exactly right in his posting on “Construction
Blocking Roads and Sidewalks” [themail, August 5]. When I testified
recently before Jim Graham in hearings on DDOT’s budget, I told what
happened when my wife and I spent a long weekend in New York City and
walked all over Manhattan. We passed many, many construction sites and
not once — I repeat, not once — were we ever forced out of the
sidewalk. That was because every construction site had a fully protected
and lit walk-through on the sidewalk. At a DC construction site,
however, there’s inevitably a sign telling you, in effect, to go away
— try the street or the other side, but just go away. The danger it
creates for pedestrians is obvious, never mind the blatant arrogance and
flipping DC law. Chairman Graham agreed with me and so afterwards did
the DDOT Director, albeit blaming the problem on “third-party
contractors.” Is it so hard to enforce the law? So far, as Mr.
Champagne confirms, the problem is as bad as ever. I plan to return when
the council next has DDOT hearings to ask what’s been done and armed
with pictures of construction sites in NYC and DC. Likely won’t be a
pretty comparison.
###############
[Re: “Incommoding,” themail, August 12] I’m strongly in favor
of police disbursements to demonstrators — we often seek such a remedy
in our lawsuits — but I think you meant “the police may disperse
them.” The heat must be getting to Gary.
###############
This is to advise that the August 2007 online edition has been
uploaded and may be accessed at http://www.intowner.com.
Included are the lead stories, community news items and crime reports,
editorials (including prior months’ archived), restaurant reviews
(prior months’ also archived), and the text from the ever-popular
"Scenes from the Past" feature (the accompanying images can be
seen in the archived PDF version). Also included are all current
classified ads. The complete issue (along with prior issues back to
January 2004) also is available in PDF file format directly from our
home page at no charge simply by clicking the link in the Current &
Back Issues Archive. Here you will be able to view the entire issue as
it appears in print, including all photos and advertisements. The next
issue will publish on September 14 (the 2nd Friday of the month, as
always). The complete PDF version will be posted by the preceding night
or early that Friday morning at the latest, following which the text of
the lead stories, community news, and selected features will be uploaded
shortly thereafter.
To read this month’s lead stories, simply click the link on the
home page to the following headlines: 1) “Four Branch Libraries,
Including in Shaw, to Get New Buildings — ‘Partnership’ Deals for
Some Projects Raising Major Questions”; 2) “New Farmers Market in
the Bloomingdale Neighborhood Welcomed and Very Popular”; 3) “Adams
Morgan Day Festival Set for Sunday, Sept. 9.”
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
DC Public Library Events
Randi Blank, randi.blank@dc.gov
Thursday, August 16, 1:00 p.m., Chevy Chase Branch Library, 5625
Connecticut Avenue, NW. Summer Foreign Film Series. The second film in
the series is The Prisoner of the Caucasus (1996), a film based on Leo
Tolstoy’s story of the same title about an oddball pair of Russian
soldiers who are captured by a Chechen father hoping to barter them for
the release of his own captive sons. Directed by Sergei Bodrov. In
Russian with English subtitles. Not rated. The series will continue in
September. For more information, call 282-0021.
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CLASSIFIEDS — HELP WANTED
Organizing Job Announcement
Roger Newell, rnewell@teamster.org
DC Jobs with Justice is seeking a full-time organizer to make a
six-month commitment, with the possibility of continuing. DC Jobs with
Justice is a coalition of labor organizations, community groups,
religious organizations, and student groups dedicated to protecting the
rights of working people and supporting community struggles to build a
more just society. Responsibilities: 1) campaign support: work with lead
organizer and partner organizations to plan and implement coalition
support for campaigns led by member organizations; 2) internal
organizing: build and maintain working committees and strengthen
participation of member groups in coalition campaign and activities; 3)
mobilization: work with coalition member groups to mobilize for
coalition actions and events; 4) coalition building: work with lead
organizer and coalition leadership to reach out to allies and recruit
new labor, faith, student and community organizations to the coalition;
5) fundraising: assist lead organizer and coalition leadership with
grassroots fundraising efforts.
Qualifications: 1) organizing experience, including experience
developing and implementing campaigns; 2) understanding of the labor
movement and economic justice issues; 3) strong written and verbal
communication; 3) computer skills, including word processing; database
management, desktop publishing, and web design a plus; 4) proficiency in
Spanish a plus. Term of employment: we are seeking someone to start as
soon as possible, with a six-month commitment. The organization will be
fundraising to make the position permanent and will evaluate the
possibility of a longer commitment after four months. Compensation:
$30,000-$35,000 a year, depending on experience; full benefits.
Please send a resume and cover letter to DC JwJ Search Committee at
888 16th Street, NW, Suite 520, Washington, DC 20006. Fax: 974-8152.
E-mail: mbaris@dclabor.org. For
more information, please contact Mackenzie Baris at 974-8224 or mbaris@solidaritycenter.org.
###############
CLASSIFIEDS — SCHOOLS
HOPE Academy Public Charter School, an newly formed 5-8 grade college
preparatory charter school in southeast Washington, DC, is currently
enrolling fifth graders. If you are or know of interested parents,
contact Hope Academy at 903-3100 or rrodriguezmitchell@hopeacademypcs.org.
For additional information, see http://www.hopeacademypcs.org.
###############
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