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February 4, 2001

In Your Neighborhood, In Your Life

Dear Neighbors:

As Ed Barron points out below, the Washington Post's Robert Pierre is doing a series of articles as a midterm review of Mayor Williams's first term. We've been doing our own review all along, but this is a good opportunity for us to do it formally. Please don't generalize, but instead let us know what your personal experience has been in the past two years. Is your trash being picked up more regularly? Is your recycling picked up on schedule? Is your street cleaned more frequently? Have the police patrols increased in your neighborhood? Has your child's school, or the school closest to your home, improved? How have your relations with the DC government become better or easier, or worse and more frustrating? Have you noticed any difference?

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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It’s Not Rocket Science
Ed T. Barron, edtb@aol.com

Today's (Sunday's) Post, in the Metro Section, describes the mayor's frustration with the slow pace of progress in fixing the dysfunctional organizations of the D.C. Government that must provide services to the residents of D.C. The problem with most of these organizations and Departments is that they are reactive and not proactive. It seems that most Departments are just waiting around for the next brouhaha and crisis before they take some remedial actions. It need not be that way. To make organizations proactive is neither hard nor complicated. It's all a matter of processes.

Every service is really a process. If a team were put in place for each major process with team members who must make that process happen, and that team established a specific mission statement with measurable time-oriented goals, then that process team would become a proactive team. Each measurable goal becomes, in itself, a mini-process. As the team works off these goals and mini-processes the mission gets accomplished. It's not rocket science.

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DMV
Yoma Ullman, ullman724@aol.com

The day after my letter appeared in themail to the effect that I hadn't received my parking sticker along with my renewed registration and tags, I received, to my astonishment, an E-mail from the director of the DMV, Sherryl Hobbs Newman, who clearly reads themail. She expressed sympathy and apologized for my difficulties, telling me that Ms. Alston in her office at 724-2034 could help me.

She also told me that my sticker would arrive separately from my registration renewal and tags. And indeed, it showed up about a week afterward. This is surely a new policy and Lorie Leavy, who wrote on the same subject, and I would not have been so panic-stricken if we had known that the documents would arrive in different mailings. In fact, I found this out from Kathy Patterson's office when I appealed to them for help.

The DMV needs to make such new policies clear, perhaps by including a message in the registration renewal that the parking sticker would be mailed separately and would arrive about a week later. Meanwhile, it appears that the DMV is under concerned and determined management and this can only be a happy day for our city.

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Comparatively Well Off
Jerry Nachison, jnach@bellsouth.com

After 25 plus years in DC (and Rockville at the end), I admit I thought WDC government could never get any lower (Barry and what Williams has turned out to be). Yet, after eight months in the "big" world (Tennessee — ha), I submit to you that the DC city council and school board should get “good government awards” when compared to the Memphis City School Board (don't have a real feel for the city council yet) and the Shelby County government, particularly the prisons administration (excuse me, hellhole), whatever it really is called. Lorton, comparatively you are in great shape! Tell me, is that not scary?

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Practice Makes Perfect
Ed T. Barron, edtb@aol.com

Last week was an ideal week to observe just how to remove snow from the streets. The venue was the Village of Lake Placid in upstate NY, where I was cheating death all week skiing the slopes of Whiteface mountain. It snowed every day and every night while I was there, generally about two inches each day and each night. The snow removal crews kept the village streets and roads into and out of Lake Placid clear at all times. While walking the icy sidewalks (responsibility of the shop and property owners) of the Village one day, when the precip was freezing rain and snow mixed, I encountered one of the crews on lunch break. I stopped to commend them for their fine efforts (which I could hear all night long on the main street through the village below) to keep the streets so passable. This was a crew with the right attitude, skill and determination to do the job right. Of course they get lots of practice. The road leading to the mountain was similarly cleared early each morning.

On the day I left at just after 5 a.m., I drove on roads that had been cleared of a three inch snowfall (with the snow still falling) and found the roads very clear all the 28 miles to the Northway. There were three plows on that road over that stretch of road coming from the other direction. I'm sure they made a “U” turn when they got to the other end and kept on plowing. Nice to see how well things can be done by folks who have the right attitude about making things happen.

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One Step Down
Bob Levine, rilevine@cpcug.org

Does anybody know what happened to the One Step Down? The One Step was one of DC's legendary Jazz bars. I grew up in that club; when I was too young to drink I was pushed into the corners and told just to listen. It was one of my first stops when I got back to DC from the Army. I just tried to call and see who was playing and their phone is disconnected. If we've lost the One Step we've lost a landmark. There was some wonderful music made there. Now I'm feeling very sad.

[And where else do you go for live jazz? Any recommendations? — Gary Imhoff]

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Invest in Our Children
Michelle Hynes, hyneslemmon@hotmail.com

On January 29, the new school board voted to recommend a 12 percent increase in the DCPS operating budget, with the increase specifically targeted toward making improvements in several key areas of our public education system. Among these are pre-K programs, after-school activities and neighborhood partnerships, teacher professional development, special education, bilingual education, and technology support.

The priorities are sound and these are investments we need to make for our children and for our city. A small portion of DC's budget surplus would be well-spent on improving our schools. Our kids are worth it.

The Mayor will consider this budget on Tuesday, February 6, and a public hearing will be held on that day. I encourage all citizens to support full funding of the school board's recommendations by (1) calling the Mayor at 727-2980; (2) calling your city council member with the same message; and (3) attending the hearing on Tuesday from 4 p.m. - 9 p.m. at One Judiciary Square, Suite 1030 South. Hope to see you there.

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Donations of Books
Dodie Butler, dodie_b@yahoo.com

Many, if not all, of the branches of the D.C. Public Library have “Friends” groups that raise extra cash to give the branches more flexibility in purchasing books and supplies for library activities. Several, including “Friends of Takoma (D.C.) Branch Library,” of which I happen to be president right now, hold book sales in the spring and/or fall, selling donated books like yours. Damaged or well-worn books, and old textbooks, are a real problem because we don't have anyone to pass them on to, yet people have fits when they see ANY books in the library trash. However, if you have "good reads" in good condition, I am sure we, or a “friends” group at a branch closer to you, would be happy to have them.

I am particularly looking for people — journalists, professors, who else? — who routinely receive free review books from publishers and who would like to donate them for our spring sale in early June.

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Reply to the One-Can Ban
Kenan Jarboe, kpjarboe@erols.com

Alex McRae raises a number of good points about the “one-can ban.” I and many of those who support the singles ban understand the limited purchasing power of some of our poorer neighbors. In fact, as an economist, I lectured the City Council on this point during my testimony a few years back in support of the single-sales ban. The sale of singles to the poor is one more example of the premium that is extracted in our society from those least able to pay.

However, Mr. McRae's argument confuses the two groups. There are those with low purchasing power who are victimized by the singles premium. For them, buying a six pack and taking it home may be an inconvenience and require some saving up the cash but is economically much better. Then there are those who have "no where to store a six-pack safely" and use the liquor store as their bar. These are the street alcoholics who use public parks, public streets and the sidewalks in front of the neighbors of the liquor establishment as their open-air beer garden and toilet. They buy singles and gladly pay the premium because they need their alcohol as quickly as they can raise the cash usually by panhandling to buy it. They are doubly victimized by their alcoholism and the high cash prices they are forced to accept to feed their addiction. And once drunk, they turn into the street problems that makes the entire neighborhood the ultimate victims.

Mr. McRae also raised the excellent point about housing and counseling programs. Yes, those programs are needed and I would point to the excellent example in my neighborhood of the Community Action Group (CAG). But, as any rehabilitation worker will tell you, the first step is to get the addict away from the situation involving the drug. By making singles sales easy and condoning or excusing the behavior of street drinking, we feed the addiction. Getting singles off the street will help get some of those folks off the street not all, but some. That to me is a step worth taking.

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Unproven Remedies
Mark Richards, mark@bisconti.com

The Congress and sixteen states approved the failed 1978 Constitutional amendment that would have granted DC equal Congressional voting rights — DC needed 38 states to support it. Those pushing an Amendment back in the 1800s, or even in the 1920 and 30s, never saw their idea pass the Congress. Some Congressional voting rights advocates and Home Rule advocates competed for which proposal they thought was more important. Congress, of course, did as little as absolutely necessary given the range of proposals. At the time of the Amendment, President Reagan rode an anti-Washington feeling that was sweeping the country to the White House (anti-big government blurred with local DC), DC's highest elected officials seemed to be showing signs of corruption, and crime associated with crack was starting to rise. On top of that, DC citizens weren't in agreement on the Amendment -- many statehood supporters who had built a viable movement since 1969, actively fought local officials who supported it. The amount of resources put into trying to pass the Amendment through 38 states was not adequate — few in the state legislatures, much less the nation, were even aware of the issue or what to do about it, if anything. While I would support the concept Timothy Cooper proposes (writing the amendment to cover equal national voting rights and the right to a republican form of local self government), DC should not attempt to pass ANY sort of Constitutional amendment until there has been a great deal of discussion about the three remedies-the assets and liabilities of each — and there is a strong consensus District-wise (and within EACH Ward) reaching 75% or so. If District citizens have not reached a strong consensus on the remedy they want (the current 60% for statehood is fairly strong, but not strong enough — 30% of DC African Americans and 50% of DC whites oppose statehood), I think it will be difficult to overcome an even more difficult problem-inertia in Congress and state legislatures. If DC citizens can't even agree on a proposal, why are they asking Congress to do something? In the meantime, proponents of different remedies will continue to argue, and perhaps some others nationally will begin taking positions about what Congress should do with DC.

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Statehood without State Functions: Alaska
Tim Cooper, worldright@aol.com

Finally, on the subject of DC statehood without state functions, it was previously claimed that such territories as Alaska were “far” from being able to financially support themselves at the time of admission into the Union. This was simply not the case. Alaskan historian Claus M. Naske points out in his comprehensive statehood study, as detailed in William R. Hunt’s Alaska: A Bicentennial History, that it was critical that Alaska get his own economic “house in order” before applying for statehood by “providing an adequate tax system” because, among other things, “[o]n attaining statehood, Alaska would have to assume the burden of services previously supported by the national government.” Naturally, it was not a straight line from territorial insolvency to state solvency. Indeed, there existed staunch opposition to the statehood drive by the powerful mining and canning lobbyists as well as wealthy Alaskans, who felt materially threatened by the prospects of new state taxes. These were the lords of Seward Peninsula commerce. They thrived on the natural bounty of the territory and made their bundles of riches because the timid territorial government refused to impose more reasonable taxes for fear of alienating them, notwithstanding the rising costs of government.

Hunt describes the skewed economic culture this way — with distinct echoes of the District’s own lopsided relations with its neighbors in Maryland Virginia, who daily employ the services of the District, yet pay nothing in the form of reciprocal or non-reciprocal taxes to DC: “"Even after territorial Governor Ernest Gruening guided a tax-reform bill through the legislature in 1949, the special interests still waxed fat. In 1947, journalist Richard L. Neiberger had described Alaska as the looted land, a feudal barony where absentee entrepreneurs carried away millions in natural resources and left virtually nothing in return. Alaskans owned only 38 of the 434 fish traps licensed by the United States Department of the Interior. The value of the fish pack in 1946 was $56,571,000, on which the territorial tax was a modest $630,000. Taxes on gear and traps added to territorial revenues, but the total tax bite was light. That year, the fishing industry brought 12,484 workers to Alaska and paid them $7,206,000 in wages, none of which was taxed because the employees were paid at their point of hire, after the canning season. Alaskans hired by the packing industry that year numbered only 10,965, and their combined earnings were $3,729,000.”

Yet Governor Gruening’s new tax legislation that was sent to Juneau and passed by the Alaskan territory’s House and Senate ten years before statehood ever passed the US Congress "resolved to rectify the scandalous tax situation . . . and modified the existing business license fee system to provide for taxation of enterprises that had always escaped taxes previously. In effect, the legislature . . . set the territorial house in order and prepared Alaska for statehood."

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Basic Plus Expanded Local Self-Government
Mark Richards, Dupont East, mark@bisconti.com

A main reason that statehood advocates get riled when someone talks about the District's need for Congressional voting rights without elaboration is that they fear that JUST that-without the protections of a republican form of local self-government-would leave the District in the hands of the same disrespectful Congress, of which we would hope to have 2 of 102 in the Senate and 1 of 435 in the House (or whatever our share would be according to our population). In other words, if Congress retains unlimited authority to modify the District's legislative and budgetary priorities at will without a means test or something, they can simply out vote us, as they've done for 200 years. Sure, we'd have extra clout. But, historically, District citizens — and even presidents — have asked for Congressional restraint on local issues, without much effect. So, local self-government is a key part of what many in D.C. want, and may be even more important to many than Congressional voting rights. The advantage of statehood is that they go hand-in-hand. With this in mind, advocates for full local self-government should be pleased (?) with two proposals from the Council last week. If the District can't have statehood now, why not work to move from Basic to Expanded Home Rule (of course, it would be a legislative solution and could be reversed-so is not the final goal). There is no need to have four Congressional subcommittees and four Congressional committees overseeing the District's affairs (this must be quite expensive for taxpayers?). Perhaps for now there should only be one oversight committee, with both legislative and executive representation to reduce getting caught in the middle of feuds? And, if there is Congressional budgetary review, there should be a means test to determine when it is appropriate for federal intervention (national security issues). I'd like to see the proposals discussed in much greater detail, because the discussion would be information. For the next two plus years, District citizens should make every effort to point out to the ruling Republicans the ways in which they can uphold the principle of local self-government, the idea of the consent of the governed, and make the District a shining example of this important concept for the world. Let's lay out the proposals, one-by-one. Thanks to the Council for taking the lead. (I was a bit shocked to hear Jack Evans advocating greater levels of Home Rule-perhaps I haven't been listening attentively, but I think this is one of the few times I've heard my Council member speak on a democracy-related subject. I'm impressed.)

Based on Sewell Chan's informative Washington Post article on January 25th, here is some info about the two Council proposals, supported by all 13 members. One proposal introduced by Jack Evans would allow the mayor to appoint, with council confirmation, D.C. Superior Court and D.C. Court of Appeals judges-privileges currently held by the President and the Senate. The merit-based nominating commission method used in 16 states would continue to be used in the District, and the D.C. Judicial Nomination Commission would continue to select and recommend three candidates for each vacancy. The other proposal by David Catania would allow voters to elect an attorney general every 4 years. The District attorney general would assume the responsibilities currently held by the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia: prosecute local felony and serious misdemeanor offenses. The attorney general would take over the District's civil proceedings, so the corporation counsel's office would be eliminated. The cost is an issue, but the Council argues that more important is a fundamental principal of representative government for a jurisdiction to control the three branches of government. Jack Evans said that the District will find ways to pay for it — phase it in or something — but said citizens shouldn't get hung up on the money, but should stick to principle. The mayor is evidently not sure — he has some financial concerns. (Set up a organization to raise funds, maybe?!) Evidently the judges themselves would consider this a step down from being appointed by the president -- and the federal pay scale is likely to be higher.

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

Tea and Poetry
Juliet Bruce, juliet@artsforlife.com

Writing Circle: A Sanctuary for Writers; Saturday, February 10, 3-5 p.m., 1836 Kenyon Street, NW. $20. Theme: "Images of Love." Although we usually think of writing as a solitary activity, writers actually flourish in supportive community. Writing in a group can deepen and even transform your writing. Using poetry to trigger our imaginations, we'll explore images waiting within to come to life on the page. Plenty of time to write and share in this relaxed setting. No judgments; process is all! Meets the second Saturday of each month and is sponsored by Institute for Transformation Through the Arts, Inc., a nonprofit organization. For more info, visit http://www.artsforlife.com or call 667-3766.

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“Taking Sides”
David Sobelsohn, sobelsohn@footlightsdc.org

Footlights — DC's only modern drama discussion group — meets monthly to discuss plays from the modern theater. Participation is free. On Wednesday, February 21, we'll discuss “Taking Sides” (1995), by British playwright Ronald Harwood. Based on a true story, “Taking Sides” takes place in occupied postwar Berlin. Renowned symphony conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler flourished under the Nazis. The American military wants to know why. “A triumph” (New York Daily News), “brave, wise and deeply moving” (London Sunday Times), this “surprisingly entertaining” play “persuades you to think” (New York Times). We will meet 7:30-9:30 p.m. (dinner at 6:30) at the Delray Vietnamese Garden, 4918 Del Ray Ave., a few blocks north of the Bethesda metro. Our discussion will feature Holocaust scholar Rebecca Boehling and music critic Richard Freed. For reservations E-mail painews@bellatlantic.net or call 638-0444 24 hours/day. For general information about Footlights, visit http://www.footlightsdc.org.

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Washington Eros
Alan Salgado, alsal@dcitymag.com

You are cordially invited to attend the art exhibit “Washington Eros: A Local Exploration and Celebration of Erotic Art,” Thursday, February 8th, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., Christopher Mark's Restaurant, 1301 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW (across from the Warner Theater). $10 at the door (one complimentary Mor Vodka cocktail upon arrival served with select hors d' oeuvres presented throughout the evening).

This supreme social and artistic exhibit of the erotic illuminates the perception of sexuality through imagery. Voluptuous scenes by local masters of art, such as Coleman and Mounib, combine with selected hors d’oeuvres and cocktails to express with finesse what most find difficult to verbalize. The selections and illustrations of this thoughtfully arranged and beautifully presented collection are chosen not only to entertain and inform but also for life-enhancing erotica. This exhibit includes diverse and outstanding fine art nude, erotic, and sensual photography works by the most noted and talented artists in Washington

DC today. To R.S.V.P., send full names to alsal@dcitymag.com with number of persons attending. This is a limited capacity event.

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