Testimony before the D.C. City
Council
Regarding the financing plan for the proposed new Washington Convention Center
by Jim Schulman, ANC 6A04
Presented 29 May 1998
Madam Chairman and Council members, thank you for allowing me this opportunity to
testify. My name is Jim Schulman. I represent ANC single member district 6A04, am a
Registered Architect, practicing in the District, am a member of the Shaw Neighborhood
Improvement Council, and for the financing issue before us today, am primarily speaking on
behalf of the Citizens for Socially Responsible Tax Reform, a regional, non-partisan group
that has testified before various City Council committees in the past.
We applaud the tax changes that have been proposed, specifically the limitation of cost
overrun tax increases to hotel stays, and the elimination of franchise tax contributions
to this project. We still disagree, however, with the restaurant meal and rental car
taxes. These are taxes paid by D.C. residents as well as out-of-town conventioneers.
We object to the WCCA being given a dedicated stream of tax dollars. They have shown,
again and again, an inability to responsibly handle public funds. The continued absence of
a guaranteed maximum price reinforces our concern.
We also recommend against the creation of flat percentage revenue streams for the
tourism and convention marketing “organizations.” Why can not these services be
put out to bid like many other city services? Hypothetically, if the new convention center
were to be as successful as the proponents argue, and were to be leased up a decade into
the future, why then continue funding these services? D.C. taxpayers should not bankroll
another slush fund.
The D.C. Tax Revision Commission, which, as you know, was convened by the City Council,
recently issued their final report. It recommended against dedicated taxes, that is, taxes
which do not flow from the general fund, but are held aside for special purposes. Our
citizen's group for tax reform concurs with this recommendation, because it can keep
critical tax dollars from being spent on annual priorities. There may be other ways in
which the legislation being reviewed today conflicts with the Tax Revision
Commission’s recommendations, but we were not able to conduct a full examination in
the limited time available to determine this. The Council may well want to submit this
legislation to the Tax Revision Commission for their review.
With respect to the design of the proposed convention center, we are concerned that the
City Council and taxpayers will not get what we are paying for. I refer here to the
sustainable energy goals in the engineering of the structure, as specified in a section of
D.C. Law (9-705), published in the D.C. Register on August 12th, 1994, page 5337. This law
specifies:
Section 204. Limitations on Authority's powers
“With regard to the design of the New Convention Center:
(1) The Authority shall design and construct a New Convention Center to minimize the
life cycle cost, and dependence on petroleum-based fuels of the facility by utilizing
energy efficiency, water conservation, or solar or other renewable energy technologies.
(2) The Authority shall ensure that the design and construction of the New Convention
Center shall employ state-of-the-art design, engineering, and technology to minimize
energy consumption per-gross-square-foot to the extent that the payback period for capital
costs incurred to reduce annual operating costs shall be less than 10 years.”
Designing and engineering buildings using renewable forms of energy can yield great
savings on the required size of equipment and backup systems, provided that the renewable
energy systems are not installed in a piecemeal fashion. It is not clear from the
information provided to the public that the required state-of-the-art systems have been
specified on this project. If so, the design is not in compliance with District law.
Lastly, as a citizen and an architect, I must reiterate that I believe that the
convention center is sited inappropriately. If built, I believe that it will lead
inevitably, due to the northward creep of downtown office type development and rent
increases, to the disappearance of Shaw as a residential neighborhood. Siting the
convention center at Mt. Vernon Square will give Shaw the ultimate “historic”
designation.
Thank you again, for giving us this opportunity to be heard. |
