When Lightning Strikes

Dear Targets:

I've written before (nearly three years ago, on November 28, 1999) about the wonderful Spanish Mediterranean Sunday brunch at Gabriel. It's certainly no secret; the restaurant is very popular and Sunday brunch is usually fully booked. Today, Dorothy and I had a celebratory meal there in a mostly empty room. The waiter said that the restaurant had had over a hundred reservation cancellations for the two seatings. If a Dupont Circle restaurant that is very far from any easily accessible highway is undergoing a severe cut in business because of fears of a single sniper who chooses suburban sites near highways, it is certain that restaurants and other businesses throughout the region are suffering a major setback, at least comparable to and maybe worse than that after September 11, 2001.

We are inflicting a tremendous wound on our region and on ourselves by reacting to the sniper attacks with a crippling fear that keeps us in our homes and away from our normal daily business. The odds of being shot by the sniper are tremendously low — certainly lower than being in an automobile accident driving to a shop or restaurant. But the unpredictability and randomness of the shootings makes us insecure. Most people in DC can usually ignore the danger of being murdered. As long as we refrain from buying or selling drugs, which provides the motive for the majority of murders here, we are usually in danger only from our family or close friends. The sniper makes us afraid of strangers, and unseen strangers at that. But hiding from the sniper by staying away from public spaces makes no more sense than staying indoors forever for fear of being hit by lightning.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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Vote Yes for an Elected District Attorney
Mark David Richards, Dupont East, mark@bisconti.com

The Council of the District of Columbia unanimously passed a resolution on July 2 to place Advisory Referendum A on the ballot this November 5 http://www.dcboee.org/htmldocs/Advisory_Referendum_A_2.htm to determine if DC voters support or oppose amending the DC Home Rule Charter to establish an Office of the District Attorney for DC. Since DC home rule, prosecutorial authority has been shared by a US Attorney appointed by the US President http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/dc/ and Corporation Counsel appointed by the DC Mayor http://occ.dc.gov/main.shtm. The proposed District Attorney for DC would become DC's single, unified, Chief Legal Officer for defending and protecting DC residents and the public interest on issues ranging from enforcement of human and civil rights laws to environmental and consumer protection. The office would be responsible for prosecuting violations of DC law and for all civil actions by and against the municipal government. DC is the only area in the US where the President appoints the person who is supposed to enforce their local laws. DC citizens would benefit by having control their judicial system and having a prosecutor who is accountable only to them and their priorities. One office responsible for prosecuting all crimes in DC would be more efficient.

Councilmember Catania said that establishing this office is one of the most important things we can do right now to improve the quality of DC government. This is something that is achievable in the near term. Since elected, Councilmember David Catania (R) has championed this effort, which would become the first major expansion of Home Rule since 1973. He says, "The US Attorneys, by virtue of their federal appointment, are structurally more inclined to prosecute federal rather than local laws. This system has greatly ignored certain crimes, such as government fraud, abuse, and corruption, and has led to lax enforcement of many laws." http://www.dccouncil.washington.dc.us/CATANIA/news/20020702da.htm. Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp (D) told that Washington Post (1-25-02), “As we look as a city at strengthening our foundation, improving government and service delivery, we can't do it with only two legs of a three-legged stool.” Councilmember Jack Evans told the Post, “This is a fundamental principle of democracy, to control your own judiciary.”

Some have raised concerns about the cost of having a locally-controlled judicial system. Councilmember Catania estimates that the maximum cost of this measure would be $60 million annually. Sam Smith, who has supported such a measure for several decades, says that many of the abuses DC suffered over the past years could have been stopped by a locally elected prosecutor attentive to DC voters. Citizens for DC Justice (www.cdcj.org, 496-1292, 1050 17th Street NW) is leading the effort to encourage citizens to vote YES for Referendum A. Contact CDCJ if you would like a yard sign or can volunteer to pass out fliers. Stand Up for Democracy in DC, Get the Vote, Democracy First, DC Appleseed, DC Democracy Fund, Let's Free DC, and many others support the measure. To endorse Referendum A as a group or an individual, fill out this form http://www.cdcj.org/endorsement.pdf and fax it to 462-9878.

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AOBA Gets Multimillion Dollar Council Gift
Debby Hanrahan, Statehood Candidate for Council Chair, debosly@aol.com

In late July, the DC Council, thanks to legislation introduced by David Catania, handed the members of the Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington (AOBA) a multimillion dollar gift. The legislation, approved without a public hearing, exempted the city's downtown property owners from having to pay ground water discharge fees to the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (WASA). This recent example of the Council's succumbing to business giveaways has not yet been reported in the press. Through a combination of resistance to having flutter meters installed on its members' property and court action, AOBA had been able to block WASA from collecting ground water fees from its members for eight years. As AOBA bragged on its web site earlier this year in a summary of its accomplishments for its members in 2001: "AOBA continues its opposition to attempts by the Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) to require metering of and billing for ground water discharges into the city's sewer system. . . . Our organized and methodical resistance to this ill-conceived program has forestalled its implementation for over eight years now, effectively saving AOBA members millions of dollars in the process."

But, thanks to the Council in an election year, AOBA -- one of the city's most influential business groups -- is now legal and no longer a scofflaw. It and its members have been rewarded by the Council for their recalcitrance, their skilled and ever-present lobbying on this and a number of other issues, and their campaign contributions. WASA in the past has fought AOBA in court to try to get AOBA's members to pay up. WASA clearly did not support the Catania legislation, but is now making no public statement about the AOBA exemption -- apparently because it does not want to pick a fight with the Council over this. Two WASA representatives told me in late summer (before I began raising this issue at political forums) that WASA didn't want the legislation, didn't ask for it, and heard that it had passed only after the fact. WASA representatives also told me that this legislation not only lets AOBA members off the hook, but exempts other entities that had each been paying thousands of dollars annually in ground water discharge fees -- such as the federal government, Metro, the World Bank, George Washington University and other private universities, the Convention Center Authority, et al.

Curiously, only AOBA had been refusing to pay these fees and only AOBA appears to have been actively lobbying the Council on this issue (as evidenced by past statements going back a few years on AOBA's web site). This legislation was a favor for AOBA, pure and simple. Ground water discharge fees are (or were) paid by those downtown businesses, apartment buildings and institutions that have deep basements that capture ground water, which is then sent to WASA's Blue Plains treatment plant where it is processed and discharged into the river. It is this treatment that costs money, and somebody has to pay for it. Meters (flutter meters) were installed in non-AOBA buildings downtown in order to determine that building's billing for ground water. I don't want to speak for AOBA, but one of their objections was apparently that they shouldn't have to pay for an antiquated downtown sewer system (which has just one combined sewer for ground water plus sewage, rather than also having a second and separate sewer for ground water and rain water, as newer areas of the city have). So it is complicated (as two Council members told me). But while the mechanics of it may be complicated, what isn't complicated is that a powerful downtown business lobby has gotten its way at the expense of ordinary rate payers. Somebody has to pay for the Council's largesse. And who is that somebody? I have been following this issue for some time. Months before this legislation passed, a WASA spokesperson told me that AOBA members' total annual ground water discharge fees were anywhere from $3 million to $10 million. (WASA had no precise figure, because AOBA members were blocking it from installing the flutter meters needed to monitor this process.) AOBA members' refusal to pay the fees translated into a 1 percent increase on residential water bills, I was told. In other words, we residential rate payers were paying for AOBA's deadbeat activities. One Council member advocate for this legislation recently told me the measure — despite exempting all “improved properties” downtown, including AOBA members' properties — won't cost residential rate payers anything. Somehow, I don't believe it.

This legislation also has environmental ramifications because, by eliminating all the ground water discharge fees, a major incentive not to create ground water (for example, by deep digging) is eliminated. And our efforts to capture the sewer water overflow will be undermined, according to a local environmentalist involved in efforts to seek federal funds to contain raw sewage. The legislation could undermine those efforts to get federal funds, this environmentalist said. Stay tuned. I hope to have additional developments.

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District Cable: Bad and Getting Worse
Jon Desenberg, Jondes@hotmail.com

How bad does District Cable reception have to get before we can get a refund for our monthly payment? The snowy picture is now interrupted several times an hour with a complete interruption in service. A call to the company leads to a recording informing the customer of “Service Problems in 20002, 20003, 20009, etc.” Whole zip codes with no service or a picture worse than rabbit ears, and we're paying for it! Does the company's management still read themail?

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Things That Worked
John Whiteside, johnwhiteside at earthlink dot net

Fair's fair. I complain when things don't work. So when they do work, I will spread the news as loudly. Through the city web site, I reported two broken walk signals near Logan Circle. Today I discovered that the first has been fixed; I'll keep an eye on the second. In the past nothing ever happened when these things got reported, so this is progress. More surprisingly, I submitted a request for a public trash can on my block. We have a major litter problem, and I really think some of it is because there is nowhere for blocks to throw trash — you can't do the right thing if there are no trash cans. Lo and behold, a trash barrel has appeared on the corner. Hopefully this will help with the litter. I hope I'm not naive about this.

And, I used DMV's online registration system. Hey, it worked. It's been a little over a week, and today I received my new card and window sticker. I like the new sticker system. The tag stickers are a pain in the butt, and I think someone tried to peel off my current one (it's half gone). Plus, when someone steals a tag, it should be slightly more obvious now, since the tag won't match the sticker. For those who think this change is nuts, I'll mention that New York has been using window stickers instead of tag stickers for a very long time — at least back to 1985, when I first registered a car there.

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Renewing DC Tags on Leased Vehicles
Matt Brosius, matt.brosius@oecd.org

I have been leasing cars for many years now, as do increasing numbers of people. Each year when tag renewal time comes, instead of sending the renewal to the leasee who has to pay for the tags, the DC government either sends no renewal, or sends it to the leasor, usually too late for passing on to the leasee, which results in the leasee often not receiving renewal notices before expiration. The DC government is unrepentant about this practice, but it has come to my attention that in other states the government is able to send the renewal notice to the leasee. Why can't DC? The government would get their renewal payments sooner and the car leasees would not get tickets for expired tags, and would be much happier customers. This is just another one of those aggravating things the DC government does which gets citizens upset. Can't the city council do something about this?

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Residential Parking Is Broken
James Treworgy, jamie@trewtech.com

The current residential parking system is broken and I don't see how the short-term solutions being proposed are of any value. From Denise Wiktor's E-mail: “According to the former PSA Lieutenant for Mt. Pleasant, there are about 300 cars registered out of state that belong to folks who live in Mt. Pleasant. There is now the ROSA task force working evenings geared toward targeting those cars and getting them registered in DC.” I don't see any way that this will increase the amount of parking available in Mount Pleasant. I think it's wonderful that the city will receive an additional $19,500 per year in registration fees from these 300 cars, but the cars, with DC plates, will still be in Mt. Pleasant after they're registered.

“It is a simple process to get your block zoned RPP. The problems folks have run into is blocks where there are a large number of out-of-state cars and apartment buildings. Both of those can be dealt with, the first one administratively with DDOT, and the second we have helped with.” I live on an unzoned block of 19th Street, NW. Sure, we have some out of state cars. But zoning only covers daytime hours. There is plenty of parking during daytime hours. At night, when it's a free-for-all everywhere, you can't park on my street or anywhere else for that matter, zoned or unzoned. What difference will zoning make when I get home from work at 7:30 and there's no parking anywhere in the neighborhood already? And what difference will it make at other times, when there's always plenty of parking already? The only result of zoning my street would be that a few people finally register their cars in DC (and possibly park on other streets where the owners actually live, but since it's a net sum zero game other cars will be displaced to my street anyway) and my out-of-town and across-town visitors get ticketed. No thanks.

The bottom line is that the current zoning system serves little to no purpose, and inconveniences out-of-town and out-of-zone visitors. None of the solutions or task forces here will reduce the number of cars in my neighborhood: not registering them in DC, not zoning my street. So, since we're stuck with the fact that there are too many cars and not enough space at night, at the very least can we get rid of this ridiculous zoning system that makes me get a ticket every time I visit my friend in Glover Park during the day, when there's lots of parking available? P.S. There's a dusty Kia Sportage with California plates that's been parked for six months at 19th and Lamont. How about using the law requiring you to move your car every 72 hours to get rid of this guy, rather than making me zone my street?

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Parking Solutions for DC
Cheryl Cort, ccort@washingtonregion.net

Parking cars in a city is surely a challenge, but so is safely crossing the street or riding a bicycle. According to the 2000 census, 37 percent of District households do not own cars. At the hearing on parking policy held by Councilmember Carol Schwartz, she proclaimed that parking is a struggle “for all.” For those who own cars, she must mean. While existing parking could and should be better managed, let’s not forget about giving fair attention to the residents who rely on walking, bicycling, and riding the bus and Metrorail. There are few places in the suburbs where you can get along without a car. In the District, foregoing the cost and hassle of car ownership is a viable option because many neighborhoods offer reliable transit service, new bicycle lanes, and shops and businesses within easy walking distance. The city needs to give sufficient attention to making streets and sidewalks safer and more inviting places for all residents and visitors — car owners and non-car owners alike.

We should manage parking better, but we don’t necessarily need to pour huge public subsidies into municipal parking garages. Increasing supply without addressing demand will only create more demand -- meaning more traffic, air pollution, and a continuing shortage of parking. Through fairer parking pricing and investing in alternatives like requiring apartment and office buildings to provide transit passes, shared parking, ZipCar or FlexCar spaces, and convenient and secure bicycle parking, we can manage demand. Residential parking can be better managed by charging graduated prices for each permit per household. With a more managed supply of permits, we can also enable non-car owning households to sell their permits to car-owning neighbors. It's usually most efficient and equitable to allocate scarce and costly resources by charging prices that reflect those limitations. Managing demand, rather than throwing money (that we don’t have) at parking supply can make our city streets better places for truly all — including the more than one-third of our households that do not own a single car.

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Time to Remove Primary Campaign Signs
Toni Ritzenberg, taritzdc@aol.com

The Department of Public Works and many of the losing campaigns have done a wonderful job of removing most of the signs in Ward III. But, alas, there are signs remaining, some too high to be gotten down without a “super” ladder. If you are the culprit, how about spending a few hours and taking them down. I know that losing can be hard, but there is always tomorrow.

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Tax on Non-DC Bonds
Kathy Patterson, kpatterson@dccouncil.washington.dc.us

In addition to co-introducing legislation to rescind the tax on interest earned from non-DC municipal bonds, I'm looking at options for rescinding it before it takes effect, when the Budget Support Act comes up for second and final reading and vote on November 7. The revised budget itself, with totals for revenue and spending, has already been sent to Congress, but the policy underpinnings included in the Budget Support Act require a second vote and, hence, a chance to substitute an alternative revenue source. (The $6.6 million estimated from interest on bonds can't be replaced with budget cuts because we can't change the bottom line numbers at this point). While none of the alternatives is attractive, except perhaps an even higher tax on cigarettes, I think it may be more legitimate to raise the rate of an existing tax as an alternative to instituting a wholly new tax given that residents based investment decisions on the tax-free status of bonds. Anyone who wants to weigh in with a preferred revenue alternative, let me know.

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Gertrude Stein Club Meeting in Public Space
Kurt Vorndran, kvorn@nteu.org

Some question was raised in this forum as to our Club's meeting site. The DC government has a long-standing practice of allowing community, nonprofit, and civic organizations to use meeting rooms in public buildings. No one has ever suggested to us that political groups should be excluded from this practice. However, our organization would certain follow whatever decision the government makes. Similarly, if the DC OCF told us that meeting in a commercial space was an unreported in-kind contribution from that business, we would comply as well.

At that endorsement meeting, members of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, DC's largest gay and lesbian political organization, endorsed At-Large Councilmember Phil Mendelson (D) for re-election, but came to no consensus as to an endorsement for the second At-large DC Council seat on the ballot this year. While I am confident Councilmember Mendelson will win overwhelming support from gay and lesbian voters, clearly we have a diversity of opinion in the gay and lesbian community as to what we will do with our second vote. Candidates other than Mendelson, the Democratic nominee, include incumbent Councilmember David Catania (R), Statehood Green Party nominee Michele A. Tingling-Clemmons, and independent Eugene Dewitt Kinlow.

Stein Club rules allow for the Club to have a voice in all elected offices in the District and suburban Maryland. A supermajority of 60 percent is required to insure consensus from the Club. Proponents of all viewpoints made articulate statements in support of their position at the meeting. We heard some state their affection for Catania as a member of the gay community, others for Eugene D. Kinlow for his stands on the issues and work with gay leaders and others still for no endorsement, to respect the diversity of opinion in the gay community. In the end, it was the later viewpoint that prevailed.

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Preventative Arrests
Ed Dixon, jedxn@erols.com

Though “preventative arrest is a tactic more commonly used by despots, tyrants, dictators and others who cling to power by brute force,” countries such as Great Britain and India, renowned democracies, use it constitutionally. Another step, as DC becomes one of the great democracies of the world. Preventative arrest as a tactic of the state becomes unmanageable when the numbers arriving to protest outnumbers the space police have to keep them or at least away from the television cameras. Maybe next year RFK will become the processing center.

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My Humble Response: World Bank II
Tom Berry, tom@berrybefst.com

First I'd like to thank George Ripley and Vicki Kratz for opening my eyes and mind to the fact that there is cohesion and unity in the World Bank protests. Maybe I should get in the trenches and see what is going on, but I'm afraid that, for personal reasons, I'm going to have to decline Mr. Ripley's invitation to do just that. As for David Pansegrouw's not buying the line that the police have every right to peacefully disassemble large groups before the situation gets nasty, I'd just like to ask: If you were forewarned that a mob was going to burn your house on Saturday would you alert the police or wait until the torches were thrown? (After rereading that sentence I cynically realize that the police wouldn't do a damn thing until the firemen had finished cleaning up. But the question remains valid.)

Ms. Kratz raises another interesting side to this issue that has no easy answers, but there is a side that protesters seem to ignore. Ms. Kratz says, “Developing countries can't afford to devote resources to the huge AIDS epidemic they're battling because so much of their money is tied up in debt. They're forced to pay back the money they borrowed from the World Bank, rather than pour that money into health care.” Let's assume, for argument's sake, that these countries and the World Bank sign agreements regarding their loans. These agreements surely have payment terms and that is what they are “forced” to honor, like all of us when we borrow money. Maybe if these countries would recognize the serious problems that the protesters are aware of, they'd shift the allocation of much of these borrowed funds from corrupt pockets and their pork projects to the people the leadership is supposedly governing. AIDS is truly a valid concern for all humanity, but there are some countries that are obviously not doing enough to combat this vile disease. Gosh, even Pres. Mbeki of South Africa, a non-third world country no less, refuses to acknowledge an epidemic. Perhaps if the protesters directed their energy towards the leadership of these countries, rather than their financial benefactors, there would be more positive results in this battle. But travel to these countries could be prohibitive for many protesters, not to mention the great number that would be incarcerated for more than a few hours because of their honorable actions. So, protest on in DC, folks, it keeps forums like this active and the city vibrant. I'm off to ask my banker to forgive my loans.

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Correction
Anne Heutte, heuttea@earthlink.net

I posted the wrong web page for the DC Statehood Green Party in the last issue of themail. The correct address is http://www.dcstatehoodgreen.org.

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

DCPCA Annual Meeting, October 23
Rene Wallis, rwallis@dcpca.org

Come learn and meet others who share the vision of DC's low income community living long and health lives. The District of Columbia Primary Care Association annual meeting will be next Wednesday, October 23 from 1:00 to 5:00, followed by a Health Reform Campaign Forum from 6:00 to 8:00. It will be at Children's National Medical Center. All the vital information is available on the DCPCA web site, http://www.dcpca.org, or just request more info from dcpca@dcpca.org.

This is going to be a great meeting! You will get the chance to ask questions throughout the day. Connie Garner, from Senator Ted Kennedy's Office, is going to give a federal overview of what to expect nationally on health care reform for the vulnerable. She's a dynamic speaker! Sandy Allen, City Council Chair, Human Services will talk about her vision for health care. Sandy is committed to the vulnerable. James Buford, new Director at DOH, will talk about his vision for health reform. He's the man who will make it happen! Two incredible new reports will be released: who are the medically vulnerable and the primary care safety net that serves them. A savvy, sophisticated and compelling panel has been assembled to give their thoughts on health reform and where it needs to go in the future. Hear from some of the folks who do the work: Bob Malson, CEO, DC Hospital Association; Vince Keane, ED, Unity Healthcare; Maria Gomez, ED, Mary's Center; Kim Bell, Covering Kids, DC Action for Children; Marty Kneisly, Director, DC Mental Health Department; Jennifer Campbell, Senior Director, DC Healthcare Alliance. After all this, you'll be so well educated you will be able to really evaluate DC's elected official's grasp of health care issues, so stay and hear: Catania, Mendelson, Orange, Mayor Williams, Carol Schwartz, and other candidates for city office discuss what leadership they would provide in health reform efforts.

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DC Historian Sets the P. Charles L'Enfant Record Straight, October 24
Mark David Richards, Dupont East, mark@bisconti.com

Historian Kenneth R. Bowling, author of the landmark work, The Creation of Washington, DC, will discuss his new book, Peter Charles L'Enfant: Vision, Honor, and Male Friendship in the Early American Republic on Thursday, October 24, at 7 p.m. in Room 105 of the National Archives. Call 208-7345 for information and reservations. http://www.archives.gov/about_us/calendar_of_events/sep_oct_2002.html. This is an excellent and concise book that sets the historic record about P. Charles L'Enfant straight. For example, did you think L'Enfant was dismissed by George Washington due to his conflict with the DC commissioners? Bowling shows that L'Enfant resigned.

Bowling shows how after L'Enfant died in poverty on June 14, 1825, he was further disrespected with an apparent tug-of-war over, of all things, his name. Bowling reports that he was buried in the unmarked slave portion of the William Dudley Digges family graveyard on their Green Hill plantation in northern Prince Georges County. L'Enfant's estate — comprised three gold and silver watches, three compasses, survey instruments, and books — was valued at 45 dollars. In 1909, when boosters were focused on creating an architecturally proud national capital, Congress moved L'Enfant to his current resting place in Arlington Cemetery. President William Howard Taft and British Ambassador James Bryce called him Peter Charles L'Enfant in a book they authored in 1913. But his name was effectively changed to Pierre after French Ambassador Jules Jusserand, a historian, published the first biography of “Pierre” Charles L'Enfant in 1921. Bowling concludes, “For a century biographers and historians have followed Jusserand and called the planner of Washington, DC, 'Pierre' Charles L'Enfant. It is time to recognize Peter Charles L'Enfant's full contribution to the early Republic and claim him as an American, just as we do Robert Morris, Alexander Hamilton, and the millions of other immigrants who followed in their footsteps.”

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Sears Houses Lecture, October 24
Mary Rowse, merowse@aol.com

Rosemary Thornton, author of the recently published book: The Houses that Sears Built, will present a slide lecture on Sears Houses, at the Chevy Chase Community Center, 5601 Connecticut Avenue, NW, on Thursday, October 24, at 7:30 p.m. Thornton will discuss the history of these unique houses (approximately 75,000 exist today) and her Sears discoveries in the midwest, where she lives. Slides of Sears houses in Washington, DC, will also be shown. Thornton's book will be available for sale.

On Tuesday, November 12, at 7:30 p.m., also at the Chevy Chase Community Center, local author Michael Dolan will discuss The American Porch, the title of his new book that examines the history and design of porches. Dolan's lecture will include slides of porches and houses in the Washington area.

These lectures are free and sponsored by Historic Washington Architecture, a newly formed nonprofit dedicated to researching our citywide architectural heritage and presenting educational programs about it to area residents. For more information, please contact: Mary Rowse, at: MERowse@aol.com or at 362-9279.

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Chime Presents Hispanic Music Program, October 26
Dorothy Marschak, chime-dc@aol.com

You’ll all have a wonderful time, for sure
If you join Diana Saez on her musical tour
Of Latin America through song and play
At Petworth Library next Saturday.

This program is right for the whole family
You can try instruments, and learn songs and their history.
Diana directs Coral Cantigas and the IMF-World Bank chorus
And CHIME is delighted she will be performing for us.

This program is the fifth of CHIME’s 22 presentations this year in the series “Music Around the World in Your Neighborhood,” scheduled at 11 branch DC public libraries. For a complete schedule of these programs and information about CHIME (Community Help In Music Education), visit our web site http://www.chime-dc.org,  E-mail info@chime-dc.org or call 232-2731.

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Cleveland Park Citizens Association Mayoral Candidates Forum, November 2
Ann Loikow, johnl@erols.com

The Cleveland Park Citizens Association will hold a mayoral candidates forum on Saturday, November 2, 10:45 a.m., at the Cleveland Park Library, Connecticut Avenue and Macomb Street , NW. Anthony Williams (Democrat), Carol Schwartz (Republican), and Steve Donkin (DC Statehood Green Party) are invited to attend. It should be a lively and informative debate. We look forward to seeing you there. For more information contact, George Idelson (362-4279) or Ann Loikow (363-6658).

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CLASSIFIEDS — HOUSING

Room for Rent
Donald Lewis, donald.lewis@starpower.net

Fully furnished room available. $900 per month. Area: North Cleveland Park; near Tenley Metro stop on red line; available November 1 or flexible; E-mail Donald.Lewis@starpower.net or call 362-9494. Nonsmokers looking for mature professional, clean, responsible to share home, some cleaning; part-time or commuter housemate ideal. Includes utilities; shared phone line is extra. Short or long term rental. Rate reduction for part-time/ commuter housemate.

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CLASSIFIEDS — HELP WANTED

Part-time Secretarial Help Wanted
Sid Booth, SidBooth1@aol.com

Temple Micah, a synagogue located on Wisconsin Avenue between Fulton and Garfield Streets, NW, is seeking a part-time (15 hours per week) administrative assistant. Computer knowledge, Word Perfect or Word, a must. Please fax resume to 342-9179 or E-mail to office@templemicah.org.

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