Hechinger’s Brand New Bonus PlanDear Neighbors, I’ve spoken about my brilliant career and await Jeff’s accounting of himself. Rumor has it that - as George Smathers said of Claude Pepper - his father was a heterosexual, and his sister is a well know thespian. *** Singh’s Mute In the Singh tax return mill case, several cops admitted they falsified receipts to match Singh prepared returns. One officer argued that the forms drove him to it. They were just too hard to understand. Here’s hoping he fills out booking papers with greater acumen. The trial may be pointless, anyway, IRS’ heavy handed threat to audit reluctant witnesses may force Judge Royce C. Lamberth to throw out the whole case. This case has had something for everyone. It’s given Senate Republicans an excuse to hold up Eric Holder’s appointment. If you’re the Post you get to carry on about the IRS - US Attorney politics. If your hiz honor, you can breath easy that, for once, you aren’t in the middle of the mess. Finally, if you’re Chief Soulsby, you re grateful. No one has questioned your silence about up to 800 of your officers dealing with a creative tax filer. **** Free Electoral Divining Rod There is only one real electoral question in DC—will he or won’t he run? Now, as a special service of dc story - and at no extra charge - you can join the ranks of expert prognosticators. Here’s all you do. Watch what happens to the recycling program. If it restarts before the end of the year, it’s a sure be he’s off and running. If not, he’s history. Why recycling? It’s one of the few, affordable programs he still controls. It doesn’t cost much to restart and has a terrific public appeal across the city. Last week, when asked the chances of the program restarting, Hiz Honor took the firm stand that it was 50-50. He’s holding back on the program, biding his time and waiting to get the most out of a restart. If he decides to run, he’ll be out there, with a film crew from each channel, emptying your green box. However, if the mayor did resume his academic career — he has a Masters in Chemistry from Fisk, I believe— what do you think his course syllabus would be like? **** Hechinger’s Brand New Bonus Plan Hechinger’s hasn’t always been the best run place. Even their smartly designed Wisconsin Ave. store has noticeable failings. Nevertheless, we’ve always felt an affinity for them. It’s a family run, hometown business. More than once, it showed that it cared more than most about its employees and its city. Now, it’s fallen on hard times, but this isn’t about the stock price, or even directly about its profits, of which there are none. It’s about its president John Hechinger, Jr. who just raised his pay from $541,000 to $918,000, a 70 percent increase. That’s a lot of paint cans. (About the same time their most common stock fell 60 percent.) Add in a pension funding switch for officers. They can buy an annuity, rather than putting it in a company fund. If the company goes bust, they’re pensions are protected. Let’s be clear about this. The pay raise goes to John, Junior, not Senior. Senior and his father Sidney ran a customer-employee-community oriented business. When JFK was assassinated, it was John Senior who stopped selling guns. John Senior’s company took equal opportunity seriously, long before others. Senior was first chair of the LBJ created District Council. (I should also note my first boss.) After the 1968 riots, he took the council on a series of neighborhood hearings, and followed through with legislation. John Junior, to his credit, has improved company operations, and saved the company from possibly going under. In that, he’s carried on the family tradition. What’s totally new and unexpected is his inability to understand that how Hechinger’s acts matters to their good name in this city. It used to be one of its strongest assets. It’s still a family business. It’s still a local name. Only one thing has changed, the front office no longer gives a damn how they look. ////\\\\\////\\\\////\\\\\/////\\\\ Also free! dc.movie: Free movie passes, short movie reviews, and movie discussion. Send an email message to story@intr.net to subscribe. Regards, """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Glenn Brenner Race There was no Glenn Brenner Race this Spring so I called Channel 9 to find out if there would be a race, and when. With no explanation I was told that would be no race this year and no more Glenn Brenner races. That seemed to be a very popular event, albeit plagued by some unpleasant weather, and seemed to raise a good bit of money for Children’s Hospital. I wonder what happened. **** What’s a Few Million Dollars Among Friends? I find it constantly amazing that citizens of D.C. seem to feel that part of being a good citizen is being an apologist for the failures of our Government. The latest example is the explanation of the disappearing snow removal funds. We are told in a posting that "funds were spent on things like leasing of vehicles." First, I don’t believe that D.C. leases vehicles, otherwise we wouldn’t have had such problems with broken down vehicles during the last snow crisis. Second, the majority of the snow removal funds are spent on employee overtime and the use of outside contractors. Neither expense occurred this year. As citizens, we deserve an explanation of how the unspent funds were used. (Frankly, if the funds were put away in a reserve account for a future snowfall, that would be fine with me.) The loss of recycling in D.C. is a multifaceted failure. What is clear in all this, however, is that as citizens we get what we deserve. Citizens who propose to pay for their own recycling are just encouraging the failure of the local government to provide services for taxes collected. **** Eaton Recycle Center Regarding Eagle recycling for $5 per month...If you’re too cheap, like me, to pony up five bucks, there is a BYO Recycling program now on Saturdays from 10 AM to 12 Noon at the John Eaton school, 34th and Lowell St. N.W. Can’t recall the name of the volunteer organization running it, but they only ask for a donation-it’s not mandatory-and it goes to something worthwhile like building kids’ characters. They take everything the city used to except magazines and phone books. **** A "Shining" Example of DC Wrong-Headedness My downtown lunch walks sometimes take me past a one-man shoeshine stand at 17th and L NW. Lots of office workers have gotten to know Sam, the man who has operated in this spot for several years, and some of us occasionally even get our shoes shined. But for the past couple of months, I haven’t seen Sam, who is basically homeless and is afflicted with diabetes. Last week, I saw Sam in a doorway. When I asked him where he had been, he said the DC police had given him a summons for operating without a vendor’s license. In fact, the police had swept all the shoe shine guys off the streets. Sam can’t afford the license, which costs a couple of hundred dollars and must be renewed each year. An office furniture store owner had given Sam a spot in the back of the shop, and he was trying to attract customers, without much luck. On top of that, he needed to get an antibiotic prescription filled because of some foot sores that weren’t healing. Maybe I’m missing something here, but this strikes me as the kind of police work that is pretty mean-spirited-and surely not curbing the activity of real criminals. Can’t the DC code be amended to allow shoeshine guys and other tiny entrepreneurs a chance to work? What’s next-neighborhood lemonade stands? **** Tornado Coverage Bob King complained about media reportage of weather, he wrote "If we can get fair, honest weather reporting from the big media..." .I think this is a little unfair. Where do you see the dishonesty in the broadcast coverage of that evening? Was the tornado a hoax? no, therefore how can you question its fairness and honesty. It so happens that a tornado touched down in NoVA, this is a story that any sensible news producer should cover given the rarity of such an occurrence in these parts. Every station, regardless of size, operates at a near constant pace, AND late on a Sunday night it isn’t realistically feasible for a local broadcaster to cover every single angle of a single minor weather story. Most stations have neither the crews nor the air time to devote to such a story. It rained a lot, agreed, but the story of the night was the Tornado. Now, it may be that I have a colored perspective (being a second generation Broadcast Engineer myself), but there is nothing that ticks me off more than unrealistic expectations and accusations that somehow the media like to manipulate stories all the time. Most cases, it’s people who are put in a position of having to make a decision to cover one story to the detriment of another, the time scales are narrow and the pressure is enormous. It’s important to note that I am in no way defending some of the seedier sides of broadcast news, I am specifically talking about coverage of an average weather event. **** Paris Metro Contrary to Larry Seftor’s recollection, the Paris Metro closes about midnight. That surprised me when I was there last May. I figured a city Paris’s size had all-night subway service. Alas, it does not. There are, indeed, many more lines and stations in the Paris system, and perhaps the trains are more frequent than in DC. But the Paris trains are not air conditioned and it gets awfully steamy in the summer. Subway car windows are open and it makes it very noisy as well. Meanwhile, the system is very unfriendly to the disabled. One must climb stairs to and from almost every station platform. There are virtually no escalators or elevators. Our Metro isn’t perfect, and I’d love to see weekend service extended to 1 a.m. or even later, but it is a world-class system that has served the city well. **** Keeping Metro Open Later Dear Robbie Pitt: As a suggestion, it was honest and thoughtful and well meaning. As an idea, it was naive and thin on buttressing arguments/information. If you really want a thing to happen, you have to build a case for it. Which means finding the most credible sources, the most reliable information, and then setting out to persuade people with it. Naive ideas (and whiners---which I don’t think you are) get slammed. Why all the tough nuts seem to be DC Story readers, I don’t know. Why your posting elicits "here’s why your idea won’t work" instead of "here’s how you can make your idea better" responses, I don’t know. But you’re right to say that such responses will de-motivate people to "risk offering their ideas to the public." I was surprised to see the very person who called for more write-ins dishing some negativity. Why, Jeff? [Because I made a mistake. I did what I strongly encourage others not do on this list—I shot the messenger instead of addressing the idea. Please accept my apologies. Jeff] **** Metro late hours Metro extend its hours into the next morning? Most nights, no one in this town goes anywhere after 11! Friday and Sat. nites maybe… [Perhaps most retire early to be alert for the Sunday morning political gab fests? Jeff] **** Is Poor Maintenance Killing Metro? One night last week the Red line was delayed in both directions. The announcement said that this was due to a problem with a train in each direction. The same week my wife noted a burning electrical smell on another Red line train, and the train was taken out of service at the next station. At various other times the trains have been erratic and certainly have not been running on schedule. I believe that this must be due to maintenance problems. As the system ages, its performance relies less on its initial design and more on the quality of the service and replacement parts that are installed on the trains. The evidence is that our Metro system is failing in this regard. **** Tenley Town No Town For Restaurants So Tenleytown drove out Acadians,, for those with a historical bent, a brief perusal of the papers will also show they drove out Cate’s a Jazz club which ended up in Alexandria. So much for DC being the place to go. **** Closing of DC Streets for Events I sympathize with Ken Nellis’ plight, but stop for a minute and think about the cause. This weekend, I believe it is MS. The weekend you were inconvenienced it may have been breast cancer. As someone who has raised money, walked and volunteered for AIDSWalk every year, and caused a few traffic jams myself, I hope you would be able to weigh the inconvenience against the benefit. AIDSWalk, for example, is the single largest funding source for Whitman Walker Clinic. Last year, the walk raised over $2.5 million (and had a 23% overhead cost; the standard overhead is 35%, so this was money well raised and well spent). The other options for raising money are much less lucrative, do not raise awareness and still cause inconvenience. We could call you just when you are about to eat dinner or just when your son finally fell asleep after being up all night. Whenever events occur, the Post always reports the walk/run/parade route with the times so you can try to avoid the inconvenience. Perhaps you have been lucky enough not to be touched by any of the causes that these events highlight. Unfortunately, someday you will be and you’ll be happy someone tried to raise some money. ***** Sidewalk Sale/Street Toll Since nobody seems to give a damn who owns the sidewalks around Abe Pollin’s new downtown sports palace, then all readers are hereby notified that the sidewalk in front of my house is for sale, too. I’m selling 10" x 10" titanium square bricks for $1,000 each. You can have anything you want inscribed on the squares (up to 3 letters per line; one line maximum) and they’re guaranteed for your lifetime. Your personal brick will reside on a quiet residential, tree-lined street where there is little pedestrian traffic and plenty of fellow snookered taxpayers. While your brick is in place it is your privilege and legal obligation to keep it clear of snow and other impediments to foot traffic. You may visit it as often as you wish between 8-9 am on Mondays only; your guests for these show and tell excursions are limited to one per visit. Upon notification of your demise, either I or my estate, whichever survives you, has the right to remove your brick and sell the space to another fool. Since I’m hell bent on keeping up with Mr. Pollin and the late J. K. Cooke, (he, remember, appropriated an alley from the District a few years back), you are also, hereby, notified that I’m now leasing three parking spaces on the street in front of my house. I will be installing a toll through that half of the street in front of my abode. Parking rates have not yet been established. My financial advisors and traffic engineering consultants can’t agree on anything except where to have lunch at my expense, but the location is perfect. There you have it: an audacious plan to join the major league players in DC and stiff our Mayor for Life, City Council, Control Board, Congress, and my fellow taxpayers. Lordy, it feels so good. **** GSA At It AgainLeila Afzal Leila.Afzal@noaa.gov I have been waiting for an uproar as a result of GSA’s proposal to eliminate parking around Federal Office Buildings downtown. I am a Federal Employee and am very well aware of security issues, but the arrogance of GSA assuming our streets belong to the Federal Government and therefore can be rezoned as GSA sees fit has me seeing red. Other cities manage to have government buildings abutting public streets without roping them off, why can’t we? Or if they do this to DC, why not New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc. Oh yeah, I forgot, we’re a colony, those other cities are not. [That GSA can be arrogant, I don’t deny. However, it’s the federal government not DC, that owns downtown DC’s streets. Carl Bergman] """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" dc.queries ISO Private Room in Cheap Restaurant Near MetroMy drama-discussion group, Footlights, needs a place to meet for our Tuesday, July 15 meeting. Specifically, we’re looking for a separate room. This is to minimize outside noise, so we can hear each other, that seats at least 25, in a relatively cheap restaurant with at least 3 or 4 main-course selections under $10. It should be near a metro station & preferably near the DC-MD border or in the near MD suburbs (Bethesda, Silver Spring, or Friendship Heights would be great. Further out along the red line towards White Flint would work OK, where we won’t be charged for the room. We’ve been meeting at Luna Books, 1633 P, NW, but we have a lot of MD residents who find it a hassle to drive to Dupont Circle for our (weeknight) meetings. We did meet for awhile in the "library room" of La Madeleine in Bethesda, but they now want to charge us $25 for the room (on top of dinner). David Sobelsohn dsobelso@CapAccess.org **** Short Video Community Council for the Homeless at Friendship Place, a Ward 3 organization providing services and housing to homeless people in the area, needs assistance, this week, in filming a short video for a June 10th Board Meeting. If there is anyone out there who could help please contact Claudia Coonrod at 202-363-0663. Claudia Coonrod claudiacoo@aol.com **** Walking Groups/Clubs? Anyone know of any walking clubs in the city (preferably the Dupont area)? Need the motivation, the exercise and not up to joining a gym. Kathy Crawford K._Crawford@telesiscorp.com """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" dc.market FOR SALE 1987 Sterling 825S, 73,000 miles, excellent condition. New radial tires, sunroof, DC inspection good through 4/99. $4500. Call Gloria White at (202) 966-2852. Gloria White GMarieW@aol.com **** Computers Buying one shouldn’t be so scary. Setting one up shouldn’t be so scary. Getting on the Internet shouldn’t be so scary. Jeffrey Itell Story@intr.net 202.244.4163 ================= 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. |
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