Valued Input
Dear Inputers:
Today, there are some interesting responses to my rant in the last
issue about whether citizens' input is really valued or wanted in city
hearings. I've tried to think of every government hearing over the past
few years that I've attended or at which I've testified. There's a good
chance that the outcome or decision was at doubt and shaped by the
testimony in cases before the Zoning Commission, the Board of Zoning
Adjustments, and the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. Other than that,
as far as I could tell the hearings were all mere formalities leading
toward predetermined outcomes. The Office of Planning meetings in my
community have been efforts to sell the administration's plans and to
identify people who will support them, not honest attempts to determine
the residents' wishes in order to shape the administration's plans for
the community.
To me the value that the Neighborhood Action Initiative places on
open input is best characterized by one of the multiple choice questions
at its second public session, held at UDC. At that time, the Mayor was
fighting against the tax cut that was proposed by the City Council. One
question that I shall paraphrase, but paraphrase fairly, was: “With
regard to taxes, which option do you favor: (a) higher taxes and
improved city services, (b) taxes at the same level and city services
improved through better management, or (c) a tax cut and city services
falling apart and going to hell?” The Mayor soon added to his campaign
rhetoric the “fact” that over 85 percent of the attendees at the
Neighborhood Action Initiative meeting opposed the City Council's tax
cut.
But the beauty of a public forum like themail is that I don't have to
rely on my own experience in order to shape my opinion; I can rely on
your experiences. Over the past few years, have you felt that your
opinion counted and was influential in shaping governmental policy and
plans? Did something you said at a public meeting change the course of a
department or agency? Let us all know.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Marc Fisher, in his Saturday column in the Post, describes one
more horrendous encounter with D.C.'s DMV. The point in the column that
resonated most for me was the quote regarding the DMV's employees
mistake that caused Marc additional grief: “He made a mistake. You
never made a mistake?” I can't speak for Marc, but I sometimes make
mistakes. The difference is that when I make a mistake, particularly at
my job, I take the responsibility to fix it. I never take the attitude
that the fallout from my mistakes must cheerfully be borne by others. It
is a difference in attitude — a difference in culture. I'm not
suggesting that anyone change what goes on in someone's head. I am
suggesting that a code of conduct for D.C. employees is long overdue.
Maybe we can't change culture, but we should certainly change how D.C.
residents are treated by the government workers they employ.
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Radio Reception and Crossed Communications
Valerie Kenyon Gaffney, vkg0531@aol.com
I was wading through a stack of old mail this morning when I
uncovered a solicitation from WBJC (91.5 FM), a self-proclaimed
24-hour-a-day classical music radio station, “heard in six states and
the District of Columbia.” Deciding to check it out as an alternative
to 103.5, I switched my tuner to 91.5 and heard the most dreadful urban
racket. Listened a while (thankfully not too long!) until the station
identified itself as WKYS, 93.9 FM. How curious — I tune to 88.5 and
that's what I get; I tune to 103.5 and I get 103.5; etc. But when I tune
to 91.5 I get 93.9. (Interestingly, when I tuned to 93.9, I also got
93.9.) Except for the relatively recent but ongoing experience of
extremely poor reception of 105.9 I have never encountered this kind of
crossed channels before. Has anyone else experienced this, or is it some
bizarre consequence of my living in the Foggy Bottom area?
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Vacant Buildings and Property Taxes
Paul Michael Brown, pmb@his.com
Victoria McKernan quite sensibly asked why there eighty vacant
buildings so close to fashionable Dupont Circle. The answer, I think, is
misplaced priorities in the District's property tax collection.
Supposedly, vacant and undeveloped properties are taxed at a rate that
is drastically higher than all other properties. But I suspect many of
the speculators who own these eyesores fraudulently claim that they or
somebody else lives in them, thereby qualifying for a lower tax rate. If
the people who collect property taxes were to crack down on this abuse,
it would increase revenue and force speculators to either develop the
properties or sell them to somebody who will. Which is of course the
idea. But apparently, whoever is supposed to do that prefers to focus on
ever-escalating assessments for people who really do live in their
homes.
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Can someone who attended either meeting about the DCPS Business Plan
describe what happened in somewhat greater detail? Basically, the plan
doesn't say anything very specific, other than we are going to work
harder and be much more successful. Big question: why does the
Superintendent refuse to release the SAT9 scores that that they've had
since mid-June? What's the reason for delaying their release? And why
won't DCPS release scores by school and grade? That way the public could
see where the strengths and weaknesses are. Furthermore, it would make
it possible to follow students from grade to grade.
If nothing is being hidden, then why not release the scores?
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Input — No, They Don’t Want It
Sais Phillips, zsphillips@yahoo.com
I am the parent of a child who attended a very poorly run DC Public
Charter School in the 2000-2001 school year that was charted by the DC
Board of Ed. In April, several representatives from the school's
parent/teacher organization went to the Board of Ed's committee of the
whole meeting to ask that the board perform its oversight role and place
the school on probation while various problems were investigated. We
decided to go to the board meeting after our attempts to deal with the
board's charter school bureaucracy (that would be Julie Mikuta) failed.
I was one of the two designated speakers (as PTO co-chair). As a
group we had done a great deal of research and documentation of the
issues at the school (financial irregularities, unmet needs of special
ed students, poor management, general inability/unwillingness to perform
services outlined in charter, high staff/student turnover, no parent
representation on board of trustees as required by law, etc.) and I was
prepared to explain all of these issues to the board members along with
some needed historical background (the school was placed on probation in
1999 under the previous Board of Ed because of the same/similar
problems). When we were recognized by Ms. Cooper-Cafritz, she asked that
we speak for no more than five minutes, despite the fact that at this
time the Board of Ed did not have any official time limit. I agreed, but
no more than 90 seconds into my presentation, Ms. Cafritz said, “I
don't think that I appreciate the way you have come here today to use
this public comment period to make a case.” In shock I responded that
we were the public and these were our comments. To make a long story
short, we were not allowed to finish our comments because the current
board chair really did not want to hear them. The board did eventually
vote to have the school audited (after much confusion and chaos and the
intervention of the parliamentarian). During the discussion leading up
to the vote, Ms. Mikuta complained that an audit was unnecessary because
she was already in cahoots, I'm sorry, that is negotiation, with the
charter school to “fix” it's problems. When it became clear that
other board members wanted to vote on having the school audited she
complained, “I must be speaking French down here.”
Instead of resolving the issues raised by the parents, the school
board's action allowed the school an opportunity to hire lawyers who
successfully delayed the audit by a month and forced the DC school board
to pay for it. (And I'm sure that the school used per-pupil allotment
dollars to pay the lawyer — they certainly were not using them to
educate our children) As of the end of July, a public charter school
with no principal, and few remaining faculty and students from the
2000-2001 school year was planning to reopen this fall and was actively
recruiting new students. But my point in all of this is that the Board
of Ed is no more interested in hearing from the citizens and parents of
DCPS students than the man on the moon. Can something be done to shorten
their terms? 2004 seems a long way off, which is probably part of the
problem.
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Cheap shot about DC agency public meetings in your lead essay, Gary.
You are experienced enough to know better than to cover hundreds of
diverse items with the same blanket statement. In any given week, there
are a dizzying number of public meetings happening on under the auspices
of DC and/or federal agencies. Some are surely pro forma, as you
suggest. Some are sincere but poorly implemented. Some are sincere and
well implemented (with or without professional facilitators), but the
results are disregarded. Some are done well and the results are
considered. In most of the meetings I've attended over the past year the
main criticism has been not that everything is pre-cooked, but rather
that citizens are asked to give guidance without enough to react to. The
five I helped to design as a subcontractor to the DC Office of Planning
had faults, but none was anywhere close to having a “done and
finalized” plan.
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Where’s Tony
Ed T. Barron, edtb@aol.com
We checked out Montreal, Canada, then headed up to the Maritime
provinces for a few days, starting in Halifax. No sign of Tony Williams
so far. The natives, those that speak English, have never heard of Tony
Williams. When you explain that he is the Mayor of Washington, D.C. they
say, “What ever happened to that drug guy, Barry?” It seems that
notoriety lasts a long time and certainly longer than fame.
Not surprising that Mayor Williams came here for a vacation. The U.S.
dollar is incredibly strong and a buck gets you more than a buck fifty
of Canadian goods or services. In addition the cost (in Canadian
dollars) is quite reasonable compared to what you would find for food
and lodging in the Washington area. I'll keep looking for Tony Williams
as I wend my way west over the next three weeks toward Vancouver by
train (with several stops along the way). This is a wonderful way to
travel.
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In a classified ad, Amy Slemmer wrote: “Following on Malcolm L.
Wiseman, Jr.'s, invitation to readers of themail to become part of the
solution to DC's second class citizenship, I would like to [recruit for]
the campaign for full Congressional voting rights.” Trouble is, full
congressional voting rights would not make us equal to other U.S.
citizens. We would remain the only U.S. citizens whose elected local
government must ask Congress for permission to spend its own money
raised by local taxes. We would remain the only U.S. citizens whose
elected local government can be overruled or even disbanded by Congress
on a whim. Okay, we'd have three seats at the table where our democracy
gets carved up, chewed, digested, and sent to Blue Plains — we'd get
to choose three of our 537 overlords — and perhaps those three could
temper the hostility of the whole Congress a bit. But it would not alter
our form of government; it would not alter the colonial relationship
between Congress and the District; and it is not to be mistaken for
democracy. Sorry, my time and resources remain committed to the D.C.
Statehood Green Party.
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Dear Mr. Cooper, Please Be Careful What You
Wish For
Tom Matthes, tommatthes@earthlink.net
Recently, the US government enraged a United Nations commission by
refusing to endorse a universal right to housing. Such a right would
eliminate the right to own property that is protected by the Fifth
Amendment to the US Constitution. The US government also angered a UN
conference on small arms by rejecting trade policies that violate the
Second Amendment.
To this explosive mix has been added Timothy Cooper's trek to
Switzerland to ask the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination to declare racist the provision in the US Constitution
that denies the privileges of statehood to the District of Columbia.
Let's honor Mr. Cooper's hard work over many years to find a solution
for the disenfranchised residents of DC and overlook the inherent
silliness of this argument. Instead, let's hope he doesn't get what he
wishes for. The solution is neither racial nor international, but
constitutional and will be solved in Flyover Country, USA, not at the
UN.
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Corrections from the Government
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com
1) It wasn't a party. In the last issue of themail, I wrote that Jack
Abadie, the Districts' chief procurement officer, decided to celebrate
his appointment by closing his office early on July 27th and holding a
party at the Holiday Inn on 14th Street. I also wrote that employees in
the Office of Contracting and Procurement were asked to contribute $50
each to pay for the festivities, which included a cash bar and an array
of hors d'oeuvres. On Friday, I spoke with Mr. Abadie, who corrected me.
He told me that the Holiday Inn event wasn't a party, but a training
session, at which he shared with employees his vision and plans for the
agency. He also said that neither he nor his staff solicited the $2300
the event cost, but that "the organization" decided to hold
the event. I didn't ask whether in the future OCP employees would be
expected to pay for government training sessions, or whether future
training sessions would include chicken wings and cash bars, but I did
ask who, aside from him, the director of OCP, was “the
organization.” Mr. Abadie also confirmed that he had written personal
checks returning the employee's contributions. I asked why, if nothing
was questionable about the training session or having employees pay for
it, he was returning the money; he responded it was because of the
“public misinformation” about the event.
2) The Mayor's order wasn't an order. In the last issue of themail, I
also wrote that since Mayor Williams and City Administrator John
Koskinen were both out of town on vacation last week, that under the
existing Mayor's order, dated October 25, 2000, there had been nobody in
charge of the DC government on last Monday and Tuesday, and on Wednesday
and Thursday Chief of Staff Kelvin Robinson was also the Acting Mayor of
the District on his first two days in office. In Thursday's Washington
Post, the Mayor's Interim Communications Director, Tony Bullock,
insisted that the first part of that wasn't true, and that on the
previous Friday a new Mayor's order had been issued putting Kelvin
Robinson in charge, apparently even before he went on the District's
payroll on August 1.
That would have been interesting if it had been true. When the Post
and I both asked for copies of the new Mayor's order, we were given
unsigned, undated copies. On Thursday, I called the Office of the
Secretary of the District of Columbia, where Mayor's orders are
registered and promulgated (they aren't official until they are signed
by the Secretary of the District). They had never heard of the new order
and never seen it. On Friday, when John Koskinen was back in town, I
asked him about the new order, and told him that I had been told he had
approved of it and signed off on it. He told me he had never heard of it
and never seen it. Also on Friday, Beverly Rivers, the Secretary of the
District, said that she had never seen the order; when I showed her the
copy that Tony Bullock had given me, she said that it was just a draft
and had no legal effect. After I had spoken with both of them, Tony
Bullock told me that John Koskinen had signed off on the new Mayor's
order. When I told him what Koskinen had told me, Bullock said that the
order had been signed off “on Koskinen's behalf.” Bullock told me
that the Mayor's order was official and legal; when I told him what
Beverly Rivers had said to me, he said that was just “a matter of
opinion.” But just before 6:00 p.m. on Friday, Bullock faxed me a copy
of the Mayor's order, signed by an autopen and registered in the
Secretary's office. So, by late Friday afternoon, what Tony Bullock told
the Post on Wednesday had belatedly been made almost true, sort
of.
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Visualizing DC’s Future Ten Years Hence:
Let’s Pick an Argument
Len Sullivan, lsnarpac@bellatlantic.net
No less an authority than Dr. Alice Rivlin, and her sidekick Dr.
Carol O'Cleireacain (The Orphan City) have decided it's time to
stimulate debate on DC's future. As a vehicle, Brookings' Greater
Washington Research Program has published their provocative paper
“Envisioning a Future Washington.” Basically, they advocate adding
100,000 more residents on top of the current mix, as "the
only" feasible means of raising revenues while encouraging a
vibrant, diverse community of neighborhoods and fostering improved
schools. To their credit, they demonstrate that households with kids
cost the city more than they provide in revenues, while those without
kids are needed to pay off that deficit. So they suggest a fifty-fifty
split, adding some 25,000 more school-age kids (all attending DCPS). But
they are wrong in asserting there are no fiscally sound alternatives to
layering new residents on top of those already here.
NARPAC has risen to the bait, and drafted its own vision of DC's
future, offering a starkly different path to a more diverse, vibrant
city. NARPAC builds on theme of "net productivity" pointing
out that small — and completely uncontrollable -- changes in the
numbers of kids, married parents, welfare cases, attractive housing
stock, and, yes, the racial mix itself, can quickly change a balanced
budget into a disaster. It suggests instead that DC focus on its
greatest asset the permanent presence of the federal government, and its
greatest limitation lack of space. It proposes encouraging changes in
the present mix of residents (to increase vibrancy and decrease poverty)
and increasing the number of taxpaying, government-related businesses
and properties — which are far more reliably revenue-productive. For
good measure, it also suggests clustering neighborhoods into fiscally
responsible groups, developing closer ties within the metro area,
shifting to a bicameral DC Council to support both, and revamping
Congressional oversight to help it happen.
Debating DC's future is long overdue. There are surely differing
views on how to do it. You can explore NARPAC's views and quantitative
analyses in the August update of its web site at http://www.narpac.org.
This is what serious DC fans and activists nationwide should be
deliberating. Get positively involved.
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Film Listing: Coca Mama: The War on Drugs
Alan Bushnell, bushnell@cs.oberlin.edu
DC Independent Media Center presents “Coca Mama: The War on
Drugs,” Tuesday, August 7, 7:00 p.m., at Visions Cinema-Bistro-Lounge,
1927 Florida Avenue, NW. Tickets available at Visions now. A three
minute clip is at http://www.journeyman.co.uk/real/926.rm.
The U.S. recently launched another billion dollar aid package to
intensify its “War on Drugs.” But some analysts fear that this war
may become another Vietnam. Filmed over the course of a year in four
countries, this documentary brings us coca-growing peasants,
anti-narcotic patrols, and U.S. lawmakers, and gains unique access to
the Colombian rebels who stand accused of protecting the drug trade. For
more info: http://dc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=10570&group=webcast.
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CLASSIFIEDS — RECOMMENDATIONS
A Home Doctor Par Excellence
Deborah Fort, fortdc@earthlink.net
I would like for the third time to recommend carpenter and handyman
Marcotulio Orellana and his company “The Home Doctor,” (301)
942-7768, cell phone (240) 604-4742. Marcos finished our restoration
begun by a crooked contractor and half finished by his nice
subcontractors until they too walked off the job. Marcos and his staff
comes with twenty years of local recommendations; he gives fair, firm
estimates free; his work is done quickly and well.
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