No Complaints
Dear Complainers:
Today, a stranger on the street greeted me with a big smile and said,
“It's a beautiful day, isn't it?” He's right. Spring is here, the
cherry blossoms are out, and people are smiling on the street. It's
enough to make me lay off of the numerous complaints about the city's
government that I have stored up over the past few days. Luckily, a
beautiful start to spring hasn't diverted several of you from trying to
straighten out the mess we're in, so there are plenty of interesting
submissions to this issue of themail.
I do have to mention something that hasn't been in the news yet —
today the mayor vetoed the City Council's emergency legislation amending
the qualifications for the Inspector General. The Council is in a tough
spot — the legislation that made the Inspector General's office
independent gave only the mayor the power to remove an Inspector General
for cause. The legislation foresaw every eventuality except that a
corrupt mayor and a corrupt Inspector General would cooperate to protect
and support each other. Links to the Council's emergency and permanent
legislation and the mayor's veto are at http://www.dcwatch.com/govern/igdefault.htm.
But I'm not complaining. Not today.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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More Waste at the Department of Mental Health
Paul Michael Brown, pmb@his.com
Thanks to coverage in the Post, by now those of us who stare
slack-jawed and askance at the cesspool of waste that is the District
government are well aware of the decision by the Department of Mental
Health to award outrageously expensive contracts for ordinary accounting
and billing work that should be performed by city bureaucrats already on
the payroll. But recently I personally discovered waste of a less high
profile kind, although equally discouraging. I returned to my Capitol
Hill condo one night last week to find the vestibule floor littered with
about thirty pamphlets from the Department of Mental Health providing
advice on how to cope with stress you may be feeling these days, what
with the war and all. While I certainly support mental health outreach,
I question whether trashing condo buildings all over the city is the
best way to go about it. Whatever happened to public service
announcements or Metro ads? I expect this kind of senseless,
ineffective, and probably illegal advertising from the local Chinese
carryouts and pizza places. But the District government should know
better. What do you want to bet the pamphlets were printed by a
contractor who's somehow connected to a District worthy and paid for
with federal funds earmarked for “homeland security?”
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Property Tax Assessments of Large Apartment
Buildings
Warren Gorlick, wgorlick@cftc.gov
Yesterday was the deadline to file an appeal of DC's proposed
property tax assessments for 2004. One of the things that DC has done to
make such appeals more difficult for homeowners is to drastically
increase the value of the land. In my own case, the value of my land
supposedly increased by 53 percent over the past year. Mysteriously,
there has been no commensurate increase in the value of the land of
large residential apartment buildings in northwest or elsewhere. For
example, I checked 2900 Connecticut Avenue and 3000 Connecticut Avenue,
two very large residential apartment buildings in my neighborhood, each
having far in excess of 100 apartment units. With respect to 2900, DC
increased the land value just two percent, and there was no increase in
the land value for 3000. In each case, DC is now assessing the land
value of these large buildings far lower than for my row house, even
though my land is not zoned for multifamily housing, and is in a far
less convenient location than these residential buildings . In fact, the
total assessment (i.e., land and improvements) for 2900 is only $8
million, which is absurdly low. I saw the same pattern of
underassessments for every large commercial residential apartment
building that I checked.
For persons filing appeals of their assessment, I would therefore
suggest that they compare their assessments not only to their neighbors
with similar houses, but also to apartment buildings in their
neighborhood. Owners of such buildings have access to skilled and
connected legal help, and the benefits of lower assessments that such
property owners receive should also apply to residential homeowners as
well.
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Last Thursday, March 27, the school day for DCPS students was
expanded by 45 minutes to make up the four snow days not built into the
calendar. In the April 2 Washington Post, it was reported that
the school board is now considering shortening the school year by four
days due to a budget shortfall. Need I say more?
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The Funding of the Children’s Assessment
Center
Aeolian M. Jackson, ajack10970@aol.com
The National Children's Alliance offered to build the Children's
Assessment Center in testimony by Kimberly Shellman, Executive Director,
DC Children's Advocacy Center, before the US Congress House of
Representatives, Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on the
District of Columbia, on May 5, 2000: “The National Children's
Alliance has made an offer to the CAC and District and Federal
Governments to assist in the development of such a Center. . . . The CAC
and National Children's Alliance will build the new facility on the
Gales School Site. . . .” The plan presented included housing the
National Children's Alliance, the parent organization of the DC
Children's Advocacy Center, in the building.
Subsequently, the District somehow assumed total financial
responsibility, at a cost of $7.3, for this building to be built to the
specifications of this private organization. The amount was set aside
before any architectural plans had been submitted or approved. The cost
is highly suspect when compared with the $8.5 million spent for the
complicated improvements to the Anacostia Museum and Center for African
American History and Culture, a project highly praised by the Washington
Post's architectural reporter, on March 2, 2002. This is not a
necessary expenditure, and appears to be an example of the District's
paying obeisance to Congressman Delay whose associate, Cassie Bevins,
serves on the CAC board of Directors. A report required by the
California State legislature describes the simple requirements of a
child assessment center.
The CAC plans proceed in the FY2003 budget, even as the Child and
Family Services Administration flounders to establish a program for the
late night, emergency and weekend placement of children who come into
care. Recently these children have been housed in the CFSA office
building. The District taxpayers will fund state of the art
accommodations to be open during bankers' hours (when investigation
interviews occur) to meet the aesthetic needs of the private CAC staff
and the political needs of its national organization to be near
Congress. At the same time, the homeless people now in the Gales School
building will be removed and uncertain. And at the same time, services
to at risk families and their children are being cut and as yet untried
placement plans for the emergency, late hours, and weekend placement of
vulnerable children are “in progress.”
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Homeland Insecurity and More 911 Deaths
John Aravosis, John@SafeStreetsDC.com
There's been another death in DC blamed on our faulty 911 system. And
apparently, Chief Ramsey botched this investigation too. Well, in all
fairness to the chief, you can't botch an investigation you never even
did. This time it was 20-year-old Chinese-American immigrant Yong Chen.
Yesterday's Washington Post reports that on February 10 Chen was
stabbed in the hallway of his apartment building after trying to stop a
fight. He reportedly lay dying for half an hour as his family tried to
call 911 for help, to no avail. Finally an ambulance arrived, but it was
too late. Chen died shortly thereafter. When confronted with this story
at yesterday's MPD budget hearing in the DC city council, Chief Ramsey
and Asst. Chief Fitzgerald both said this was the first they'd heard of
allegations of a 911 problem surrounding Mr. Chen's death, and they said
that just yesterday morning they launched an investigation. But, as
always, the facts get in the way of a good tale.
You see, the Washington Post's lawyers have been working with
the MPD for five weeks to get the facts about what happened with 911 the
day Mr. Chen died. The Post even had to FOIA information from the MPD
about the case. Clearly the MPD knew all too well about this issue
before yesterday's hearing. Are we really to believe that in the middle
of the media feeding-frenzy surrounding the January 15th death of
24-year-old Christopher Smith in the Dupont Circle fire, the Post
is asking questions about another 911-related death, and no one tells
the Chief or the Assistant Chief? Even harder to believe is that as soon
as the MPD heard from the Post about Mr. Chen's death and the
allegations of 911 problems, no one at the MPD launched an investigation
of what happened (especially since five days after the incident 911
phone logs start to disappear). Yet that is what the Chief told us at
yesterday's hearing: There was no investigation of the 911 issue
surrounding Mr. Chen's death. (We also learned at yesterday's hearing
that the Chief lied for the past year about there supposedly being 106
call-takers in the 911 office — there are apparently only 61, way
below the 98 necessary to ensure calls aren't put on turbo-hold.)
Once again, either Chief Ramsey lied to the city council about not
knowing about the Chen 911 issue, and about there not having been an
investigation already (the Post article sure makes it sound like an
investigation already happened about the 911 problem), or Chief Ramsey's
renegade staff is utterly negligent for not launching an investigation
and not telling the Chief. How many more people need to die, and how
many more times must the Chief lie to the City Council, before someone
with an election certificate gets the nerve to tell Chief Ramsey it's
time to go?
###############
What’s in the Mayor’s Budget?
Ed Lazare, DC Fiscal Policy Institute, info@dcfpi.org
A new DCFPI report highlights the key features of the 2004 budget
proposed by Mayor Williams. The report can be found at http://www.dcfpi.org/4-2-03bud.htm
and http://www.dcfpi.org/4-2-03bud.pdf.
###############
DC Cable Strikes Again
Jon Desenberg, jondes@hotmail.com
All DC Cable/Comcast customers have become sadly used to ordinary
fuzziness, picture outage, limited channel selection, and other problems
even as the price continues to rise. Yesterday, however, things sank to
a new low. The picture went out and a note at the door let us know we
were being “audited.” Comcast is now purposely pulling the plug on
paying customers. We are presumed guilty of stealing cable until proven
innocent. In order to get our picture restored, Comcast had to come into
our home and sniff around a little. We've been paying customers for
twelve years, but perhaps they didn't believe it. I've been telling my
neighbors it's not worth the hassle changing to DirecTV or StarPower;
I'm now reconsidering.
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Know what? Every DC City Councilmember needs personal, intense and
ongoing oversight by an activist group that takes no DC funds and holds
no DC jobs. They are way overpaid already, but I personally do not trust
any one of them. As a native Washingtonian, the price I have paid to
stay in my hometown has been too high. Plus, the quality of life here
sucks! Try buying health insurance. There is not one of those people
I'll be voting for.
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[I am a member] of the DC Statehood Green Party, which was part of
the fight against the convention center. Most of the bad things we
predicted about the damn convention center are coming true. Thank you
for remembering and reminding the public.
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Multi-Yard Sale/Moving Sale, April 5
Dana M. Patton, danampatton@hotmail.com
Saturday, April 5, 8-2, 2800 block of Kanawha Street, NW. Leather
furniture, appliances, lawn mower, dishes, clothes, books, comics, TV,
VCR, mags, bookcases, bed, coffee tables, dining room set, etc. All must
go, so please come see!
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Video Producers of DC Meeting, April 5
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com
At this month's Video Producers of DC meeting we'll be taking a look
at an exciting video work-in-progress about two mural painters in
Philadelphia. We'll also be seeing a promotional video shot for the
Capital PC User Group. http://www.cpcug.org.
Along with the usual question-and-answer session about video and
multimedia production there will be ample opportunity for people to
network and chat about video projects they'd like to work on. Newcomers
to video production particularly welcome. The meeting will be taking
place from 4 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. in the upstairs auditorium of Cleveland
Park Branch Library, 3310 Connecticut Avenue, NW, at Macomb St. NW. You
can stay informed about future meetings of this group by joining the
E-mail list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/videoproducersofdc/.
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James Carville, co-host of CNN's “Crossfire,” will appear live at
7:30 p.m. on April 15 as part of the Fairfax County Public Library's
“Perspectives” series. This free event, “James Carville Looks at
American Politics,” takes place in the Alden Theater of the McLean
Community Center. Tickets will be available at the door beginning at
6:00 p.m. the evening of the event (limit two tickets per person). For
directions, call 703-790-0123 or check the Library's Web site at http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library.
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Race, Class, and Health Conference, May 15
Rene Wallis, rwallis@dcpca.org
We are holding a free conference to provide training to medical
professionals on how to reduce disparities among ethnic, class, race,
and economic groups in health care. There will be a track for providers
who offer care and a track for policy folks who are interested in and
working on the Alliance, Medicaid, and other policy efforts. Race,
Class, and Health: Eliminating Disparities: What Will It Really Take in
DC?, will be held Thursday, May 15, from 1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m., and
Friday, May 16, from 8:30 a.m.-4:45 p.m., at Howard University Blackburn
Center, 2400 6th Street, NW. Participants include Claude Earl Fox,
director, Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute, and Robert K. Ross,
President and CEO of The California Endowment. Clinical breakout
sessions will include speakers on disparity issues in history taking,
cancer, diabetes, asthma, cardiovascular disease, and depression. Policy
breakout sessions will also be held.
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CLASSIFIEDS — FREE
Queen Bed Box Springs and Frame
Thomas Carmody, thomascarmody@att.net
Unused queen-sized box spring and bed frame are available for free to
first interested person. Write Tom at thomascarmody@att.net.
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CLASSIFIEDS — SERVICES
Home grocery delivery by Urban Grocery LLC. Delivering fresh produce,
meats, and grocery items in Washington, DC, and Maryland. Free gift with
order. Order at http://www.urbangrocery.com,
or contact Richard Urban at 544-5081.
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