Holy Mackerel, AndyDear Neighbors: Thanks for bearing with me on this week’s data-dump. I think we’ve recovered most of the material. And I found some time to recompose before I left for my mini-trip. So I’ll try to get this out before the software hiccups again. **** dc.story readers may want to think twice about providing their phone numbers on their postings. I don’t object but remember that almost everyone who reads this has email service which provides more privacy than a telephone number, the subscription list exceeds more than 1,000 people, and I’m constantly spammed by commercial companies who monitor this list. ***** I would like the steer the conversation toward the administration’s plans for fixing the District. And it’s a strange issue when I find myself agreeing with both Sam Smith and Ed Barron. Careful readers know that I don’t buy the argument that the District needs a state to support itself—though everyone else in town seems to disagree with me on that point. So I’ll concede the point that the district needs a state...and a heart needs a home. But why in heaven’s sakes pick Uncle Ernie (Uncle Sam) as your state? (Yes, baby boomers, that’s a reference to "Tommy.") If you want to be adopted, why not pick a real state like Maryland? Or Virginia, even though many of you don’t know how to cross the Potomac. Or both? There’s obvious precedent for such a move that we’ll go into next week. But don’t go with Uncle Sugar. Since when are the federales known for their efficient delivery of goods and services? Moreover, Uncle Schmuel has a different agenda when it comes to the 64-square-mile District. Who’s priorities are its actions going to reflect? Which roads will be fixed first? Who’s streets plowed? (Maybe not the mayor’s, but don’t bet against embassy row.) This is what happens when the District is so mismanaged that it has to bargain from weakness. ****************** To read a summary of one of the plans for relieving DC’s revenue crisis, check out the Brookings Policy Brief written by former NY budget director, Carol O’Cleireacain .The report was unfortunately released on the same day as the President’s initiative and didn’t get a fraction of the attention it deserved. And a note to Brookings—I’ll post a small summary if you have one. http://www.brook.edu/ES/POLICY/POLICY.HTM ****************** And now a note from Howard Gillette, a professor at George Washington University: Subscribers to the list may be interested in the website I have put together for a course on the history and politics of the district. It draws together many of the documents most relevant to the city’s contemporary crisis and establishes links to many relevant sites, including this one, the control board, the National Capital Planning Commission, and others. We will be recording all lectures to the class and making them available on the site, along with summaries for those who do not have audio capacity. We welcome your reaction to the materials through a bulletin board established on the home page. Check us out at http://www.gwu.edu/dcrenewal. ////\\\\\////\\\\////\\\\\/////\\\\ Also free! dc.movie: Free movie passes, short movie reviews, and movie discussion. Send an email message to story@intr.net to subscribe. Cheers, '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' Free DC News Service: Clinton’s flimflam scheme for DC President Clinton is proposing a financing scheme for DC that would replace a formula based on the equities of the city’s relations with the federal government with one based on major and permanent dependency. The Clinton plan would remove the any possibility that the city could gain true self-government again and certainly not statehood. It proposes that DC ever more be a financial ward of the national government. Demonstrating that no humiliation is too great to bear provided they are not stripped of their salaries and token status, elected DC officials are lining up behind the scheme. Two of these plans — the tax haven scheme and the latest White House proposal — bear the imprint of Franklin Raines, now the president’s budget director but formerly head of Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae is the city’s biggest deadbeat thanks to an enormous congressional tax exemption. Raines is close to Eleanor Holmes Norton who is already cheering the federal takeover. Under the current system, the federal government makes an annual payment that theoretically reflects the cost of services provided by the city and revenues lost due to the federal presence. In 1993 the city estimated this cost to be nearly $2 billion dollars a year. The actual federal payment is one-third that amount and a smaller percentage of the city’s revenues that at the beginning of home rule. Because the federal payment is a payment in lieu of taxes rather than a subsidy for servitude, it could easily survive even the granting of statehood. The Clinton scheme, on the other hand, would do away with the federal payment and replace it with a hodgepodge collection of federal takeovers of local functions. The IRS would collect local taxes, the feds would maintain the local road system and the Justice Department would be put in charge of the courts and prisons. Felons would be sentenced under federal guidelines and the convicted would be sent — in a manner reminiscent of Soviet penal practices — to federal installations that might be a couple of thousand of miles away from families and friends. The one good thing about the proposal is that the federal government would finally take responsibility for the huge unfunded pensions left over from before home rule. It is also proposed that Congress — at least until it wants to — not exercise line item control over the remaining city budget. Of course, an earlier president and Congress once promised the city meaningful home rule and look where we are now. As Senator Thomas Eagleton said presciently at the time, "The lord giveth and the lord taketh away." The decision to take over the city’s prison and court system has little or nothing to do with financing and a lot to do with control. Even under so-called home rule, the federal government retained the choice of judges and prosecutors. Now it wants to expand its power so it controls the city’s prisoners and their sentences as well. ------- Maybe Writing About it Will Make Me Feel Better Last Monday our local Civic Association had elections. Our neighborhood is multiracial, and race is often an issue in our meetings, as it is in our neighborhood — usually it simmers below the surface, but sometimes it flares up into the open. Before the elections, a lot of the cooler heads in the association were concerned that the upcoming choice would exacerbate racial tensions — the presidential contest pitted a black candidate against a white candidate. I did a rough head count the night of the elections — the crowd was about 60% black, 35% white, and 5% Asian. I think everyone was surprised when the white candidate won by exactly one vote. I was personally surprised, as I knew that there were white voters who had abstained or voted for the black candidate. The inescapable conclusion was that real issues had surpassed race for once. I felt an incredible surge of pride in my neighborhood. Of course, being DC, it was too good to last. After the election, the local ANC commissioner, who is black, addressed the meeting. He railed against those who had "sold out" and refused to "stick together." He repeatedly used a racial epithet to refer to the assembly (I can’t bring myself to repeat it here; it’s two words, first word "house") .The meeting collapsed; a number of people stormed out, there were angry words. Now some members of the association are discussing legal action against the ANC commissioner; the ANC commissioner has announced he is trying to get the election overturned by challenging the eligibility of some of the voters. And a lot of people are saying they will never attend another meeting. ---- Holy Mackerel Andy Has Andy Brimmer given up the whole store to the federal government? Although I’m not a big fan of so-called Home Rule, methinks that we should be responsible for all of those tasks that we can perform effectively and efficiently. I’m not sure I like the idea of the Feds collecting the District Taxes. He who controls the gold, rules. The good news is that additional net funding will be coming to the District and the idea of Statehood for D.C. will be even more improbable. ---- Cable Television Jim Farley asks if an apartment building can block tenants from subscribing to District Cablevision. Yes, it can, and this is the case in many older buildings in the city, as I found out when I looked into this question about a year ago. The District came fairly late to cable; as a result, many older buildings already had proprietary service in place by the time District Cablevision got around to their neighborhoods. In some cases, those contracts are still in force. In others, the buildings are wired for systems incompatible with D.C. Cable’s technology, which means the old systems would have to be ripped out and new wiring installed before D.C. Cable could set up service. (D.C. Cable will not wire an individual unit in a building; it’s all or nothing for them.) Many management companies have concluded that the expense and hassle aren’t worth the effort. The manager in my building downtown said the issue isn’t important enough that most people let it determine leasing decisions, and the one or two tenants who move out in frustration every year are immediately replaced in popular buildings. He’s got no compelling reason to bother, and so I’m stuck without HTS, C-SPAN2, Headline News, MTV, Bravo, CNBC, MSNBC, NewsChannel 8 and most other legitimately desirable channels. ---- Prisons Charlie Adler asked "isn’t the point of incarceration to punish the offenders for their behavior?" Depends on your opinion. There are three classic reasons for incarceration: punishment, rehabilitation, and physical removal of a threat from common society. (Actually, an interesting point has been made by several sociologists that indicates in part why so many poorer people are in jail, as compared to those with financial means. Over the course of our development of our penal system, the idea was to get the criminal to "pay" for the crime. Those who had money could pay in money. Those who didn’t had to pay in the only commodity they owned — time taken from their lives. So — over time, our penal system has developed so that the kinds of crimes committed by the wealthy tend to be punished in financial terms, such as a $250,000 fine and community service, while the kinds of crimes committed by the poor tend to be punished in prison terms. We, of course, view such as the natural order of things, which is why most S&L bailout criminals are long since out of jail, while a hungry man in California can be sentenced to life over a slice of pizza.) The problem with locating the incarcerated far from their families is that it falls into the areas of "cruel and unusual punishment." Considerations are not just what is cruel for the convict, but also what is cruel for the convict’s family. A 5-year-old may lose the right to have a parent around on a day-to-day basis due to the actions of that parent, but it’s cruel and unusual to prevent the child from *seeing* the parent. This can be overridden by states having a compelling reason, such as prison overcrowding or some such. But our penal system has to make an effort to not cruelly punish the convicted — which, as should be noted from time to time, is not synonymous with "the guilty." ------ Rush Hour Parking on Connecticut Avenue? Is it my imagination, or has the problem of illegally parked cars and trucks along inbound Connecticut Avenue gotten worse in the last few months? Aside from trucks unloading illegally in Cleveland Park, the number of cars still parked in the curb lane seems greater than ever. Until a few years ago, those cars would certainly have been ticketed. Recently, though, I’ve noticed that more than a few appear to be "getting away with it." Too bad, since it’s an easy revenue enhancer. ----- Seeking Volunteer Opportunities I am looking for volunteer opportunities, preferably those involving children or children’s issues. I would like something that requires two hours or so on the weekends, as weekdays are very hectic for me. If you know of any opportunities, please call me at (202) 637-0548, or e-mail me. ----- Volunteers The non-profit DC Preservation League has recently been awarded a grant from the DC Historic Preservation Division for a architectural survey of all the public libraries within DC, and needs your help to make it a successful and fun project!
DCPL and the contractor working on the project, Traceries, needs your help to research the DC Library system, its buildings and their architects, social history, and special events that took place in each branch.We will have an organizational meeting at Traceries, 5420 Western Avenue, Chevy Chase, Maryland from 6:00 to 6:45 p.m., Thursday, January 30, 1997. We will introduce you to the project, and explain the scope and schedule of upcoming efforts to document and preserve these important landmarks. Traceries is located above the Chevy Chase bank near the corner of Western and Wisconsin Avenues in Chevy Chase. They are only ½ block from the Friendship Heights Metro station along the Red Line. Traceries telephone number is (301) 656-5283. Please remember to contact DCPL at 202-737-1519 to confirm you participation. ----- We live in Chevy Chase, DC and are interested in learning about local pre- schools. Our kids are 3 and 1. The 3-year-old is in a school that we like very much, but we’re also looking around at others. Anybody out there been through this mill? Phil Greene pgreene@doc.gov ---- Muchos Gracias Thanks to all who replied to my request for suggestions for wedding receptions! I passed them along to my friend, who was thrilled to have them. She’s looking into the list of 6 or so that were provided. Judie Guy EMikesell@aol.com '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' dc.events Thursday, 13 February 1997 7:30 p.m. Education Building Auditorium National Zoo Free, but RSVP by calling (202) 673-4801 or sending e-mail to nzpem053@sivm.si.edu Elizabeth Kalko, research associate at the Smithsonian’s Tropical Research Institute and the National Museum of Natural History and researcher at the University of Tuebingen, Germany, will present "Fluttering through Tropical Nights: The Adventures of Bats in the Rainforests." Learn about the diversity of tropical bats, the variety of ecological niches that they inhabit, and the species’ role in insect control, pollination and seed dispersal. As part of her talk, Kalko will use acoustic playbacks and color sonograms that illustrate echolocation. These visual and sound records will give a unique view into bats’ hidden world. Office of Public Affairs, National Zoo Washington, D.C. 20008 (202) 673-4866 Margie Gibson NZPEM053@SIVM.SI.EDU ------ Want an alternative to the inaugural parties? On Saturday, Jan. 18, at 8 pm, the Washington Storytellers Theatre will present a program of African-American storytelling for adults, OUT OF AFRICA, with Smithsonian curator Rex Ellis and Baltimore’s Jamal Koram. Ellis will trace the history of the banjo from the shores of Africa to the campfires of slaves to the minstrels’ stages, linking the banjo to changes in the social climate. Jamal Koram will present a more personal journey, blending song, verse, drumming, and story to relive the painful and not-so-painful memories of an African American boyhood. The performance is in the dcstory neighborhood, at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church, 4700 Whitehaven Parkway NW (off Foxhall Road, across from Mt. Vernon College). Call 202-291-2170 for reservations (seats are $10) or information. Jo Radner wanda@dns.nxi.com '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' dc.market Looking For Artists/Band To Share Studio Space Twenty eight year old female artist is looking for 1-4 professional artists (bands are welcome) to share rent of studio space. I prefer a "rough ‘n ready" warehouse type space with about 500 sq ft to myself. Artist must be able to sign lease (Cash on hand!) by March 1. I am a multi-media artist who mainly does installation type work. this means i have power tools and i means tah use ‘em .if that doesn’t bother you, lets talk. susan Smith-Pinelo ninna@earthlink.net ----- Local Yoga Class Class Description: Classes begin with a short period of relaxation and focused breathing to give students a chance to unwind and refocus. Students progress from stretching and balance poses to the more invigorating standing poses such as the Warrior series. Emphasis is on a gentle but thorough practice of classic postures. Students also learn poses that can be done at home to add to their yoga practice. Each class ends with a period of deep relaxation and a short meditation so that students leave feeling lighter and stronger, committed to living with confidence and contentment. Thursday 7-9:00 PM $10/$12 per two hour class. Contact Deborah Dougherty (202) 462-6234. doughert@cpcug.org ----- For Sale Stockade fence panels, six of them, eight feet long by six feet high, in very good condition (I bought too many of them when I put up my fence). Good for replacing old existing panels. Priced new these would be around $20 each. I want to get rid of them for $10 each. Phil Greene pgreene@doc.gov ------ Looking for someone honest and handy to do some minor work on apartment - installing light fixture, minor repairs to chipped paint, remove paint from some tiles — that sort of thing. Suzanne Gallagher suzanneg@iadb.org ---- Babysitter/ Housekeeper Available Our Philapeno (sp?) babysitter/housekeeper has one to five mornings available. She is wonderful with infants and children, loyal, honest, dependable, cleans beautifully, speaks very good English and drives. Want to hear more? Call Cathryn Dorsey at 202-966-4869. Cathryn Dorsey csd@dorseymg.com ------ Since Judith Turner mentioned her housekeeper, I thought I’d put in a bid for Josefina, who works with me. She "freelance" cleans houses and has her own car. She’s quiet, but very sincere, very sweet, very hardworking. She cleans houses, top to bottom, for around $75 (depending on the size and condition of the house). If anyone’s interested, call her at 382-0842. Gaelyn Davidson gdavidso@nas.edu ----- We sell the highest quality 18" direct satellite dishes, with the largest selection of channels, and at the lowest price (we beat Best Buy and Circuit City’s Prices!). We are also looking for distributors in the area to market our many fine telecommunication related products on a part-time basis to make $$$'s. If you are either interested in purchasing our dishes, or in making additional income, contact Charlie, ph. (202)333-5588. Charlie Adler cadler@dgs.dgsys.com ------ Have you recently upgraded to a new Macintosh? I’m interested in a good condition Mac and monitor, to be used for word processing only. And possibly a printer. Randi Rubovits-Seitz rrs2623@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu 202-234-16210 ----- Home Maintenance Services Delbe Home Services is a one-stop resource for all of your home needs. We have been taking care of maintenance problems for over 25 years right here in your neighborhood. Call us for any problems at (301) 652-7201 or visit our web page at http://www.delbe.com for more information. David Burka dhs@delbe.com ------ Opera Tix for Sale I have two great seats to the Washington Opera at the Kennedy Center Wednesday Jan. 22 ("Ballad of Baby Doe") .I can’t go. My loss is your gain. Must sell, best offer gets the tickets. Reply to steve90@erols.com or call Steve at (301)270-8520. Steven J. Hoffman steve90@erols.com ---- Binoculars for sale. Zeiss Jenoptem. 10 x 50W. Mulit-coated. With carrying case. $75 or Best offer. Also, Zeiss opera glasses. $20. Jeffrey Itell Story@intr.net ================= dc.story is a discussion group. The opinions stated are the sole responsibility of the authors. dc.story does not verify the information provided by readers. ---------------- For fast, reliable Internet services and cutting edge Websites contact Michael Mann at Internet Interstate mmann@intr.net. Web: http://www.intr.net ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ dc.story—Your Electronic Backfence http://www.dcstory.com Kibitzing by Jeffrey Itell (story@intr.net) Copyright © 1996 by Itell Communications, Inc. All rights reserved |
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