Hatched

Dear Enforcers:

Some misguided local political activists don't want DC government employees to enjoy the protection of the Hatch Act. The Hatch Act is the federal law that essentially created a professional bureaucracy and gave bureaucrats cover from the strong-arm tactics of their political bosses. Since the Hatch Act forbade government employees from raising campaign funds and from engaging in political campaigning during their working hours, it gave them the ability to say no to elected officials who tried to use the government workforce as their campaign staff. It gave government employees a good excuse not to be Shanghaied into anybody's campaign.

Last summer, after Mayor Williams's name was not put on the Democratic primary ballot because of his petition fraud, the Williams campaign was in dire straits. It had very few volunteer workers and only a skeleton paid staff, and it had no time to locate and hire professional campaign workers. So the Executive Office of the Mayor, led by Chief of Staff Kelvin Robinson, told government workers, up to and including department heads, that they were expected to contribute to and work for Mayor Williams's reelection. Even in a meeting to explain the restrictions of the Hatch Act, employees were told to write a check, and were told that their time after 5:00 p.m. and on weekends belonged to the Mayor. Employees were later told that attendance was being taken at political events, and those who didn't attend were asked to explain their absence. Now that this is coming out and being investigated by the federal Office of the Special Counsel, those employees who complained about the pressure or who are suspected of cooperating with the federal investigation are finding that their “personnel status is being reevaluated” by the EOM.

I don't know about you, but I'll take the Hatch Act any day. When government employees who hold their jobs at the whims of politicians can be forced to contribute to and work for the election of those politicians, we all suffer.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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Drug Free Zone?
D.C. Reardon, dcreardon@aol.com

I have the misfortune to live in the unit block of Hanover Place, NW, the first of the new "Drug Free Zones." Yesterday DC cops were all over the place taping up red signs, and putting flyers on parked cars, about this new "Zone" where groups of two or more congregating in a public space for the purpose of participating in the use, purchase, or sale of illegal drugs, and fails to disperse . . . yada, yada, yada. DC Law 11-270 of 1996.

How can this be legal? And last night an unmarked van full of DC cops pulled over a young man in front of my house; they had him handcuffed on the ground for two hours while they "ran his plates." Meanwhile the six cops just stood out there, running their mouths, with this kid sitting on the ground among them. Finally, the kid came back clean and they let him go, and got in their van and drove away. This is law enforcement? Don't they have anything better to do?

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Still More About the St. Coletta Giveaway
Jim Myers, hilleast@aol.com

I tire of writing about the St. Coletta boondoggle at Reservation 13, the former DC General campus, because there seems to be no way of stopping this runaway train. But residents of eastern Capitol Hill still keep encountering aspects of this deal that cast the city's eagerness to give away valuable land to a private vendor in a strangely paradoxical light. For example, we now hear fussing over whether our school board president is endorsing vouchers that would, in effect, send more children away from District public schools. But no one seems to be fussing over the privatization of special ed services, the idea underlying the behind-the-scenes maneuvering in behalf of St. Coletta's.

Next, we encounter a column in the March 30 Washington Post in which Raymond Bryant, chief of DC Public School's Office of Special Education Reform, cites savings in transportation as a major rational for giving St. Coletta's millions worth of land at Reservation 13 for $1 a year. Perhaps, there will be transportation savings; we sent Bryant a request for more specifics, but so far we've gotten no reply. So we would like to ask publicly: How much will the District really save in transportation, and how will this be accomplished?

Using so simple a resource as MapQuest, we've found that from various locales in Southeast, Southwest, and Northwest DC, the distance to 19th and Independence, SE, the proposed St. Coletta school site, is longer than a trip to 207 South Peyton Street, Alexandria, St. Coletta's current address. From other District locations the trips are roughly equal. And for some neighborhoods in far Northeast, the MapQuest-recommended trip via the Beltway and Baltimore-Washington Parkway to 19th and Independence is much longer than the recommended route to Alexandria. So, we wonder, what will the savings be, and do they justify the city's multi-million dollar giveaway to St. Coletta's?

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I Found the Missing Tourists
Ed T. Barron, edtb@aoldotcom

If anyone in DC is looking for the tourists missing since the homeland security folks designated DC as a war zone, they need only to look at New Orleans. The french (intentionally not capitalized) Quarter is teeming with tourists walking the vehicle free streets surrounded by eclectic and funky shops and with street entertainers on every block. So many folks cheek-a-jowl that you can't draw your leg. If you want the Gap, Brookstone, or other well known mall stores you won't find them in the french Quarter. They are over near the Convention Center. This is a wonderful city to visit. Trolley cars run along the riverfront for about two miles. But the best ride is the ninety-minute round trip west from Canal Street on the St. Charles trolley which goes out past the Garden District and its beautiful mansions. The Canal Street trolley will be running again soon after forty years of being idle. This North/South run will take one from the river all the way to the northernmost part of the city to City Park. That park has a Botanical Garden, Art Museum, and a golf course. How smart not to rip up the median and the trolley tracks on Canal Street.

Thought I was reading the Washington Post and not the New Orleans Picayune when I read about $31 million in unaccounted for public school budget funds. One of the causes is uncontrolled and undocumented overtime. One school employee had time cards for two consecutive weeks with 192 hours of overtime each week. Seems no one told that person that there is only a total of 168 hours in any week..

The city runs festivals every two weeks in the Spring and actively promotes tourism via these events and other promotions (including web sites). We left the day before the big NCAA final four event was to begin and the hotels were already claiming 90 percent occupancy. How about a comeseedc.com web site to promote the many nice things right here?

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Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?
Mark David Richards, Woodley Park, mark@bisconti.com

Last Thursday, some residents living on Woodley Place, NW, asked, “Why is there a rooster in my front yard?” A large rooster wandered from one front yard to the next, scratching and pecking for food. This isn't the first time a chicken crossed the road and headed to front yards in the area. Woodley Place is just off Rock Creek Park near to where humans have a sense of risking their lives when they cross Connecticut and Calvert — people have died at that intersection. A couple years ago, while watching a healthy-looking chicken peck and scratch and duck periodically under bushes for cover, residents said they hadn't seen a chicken in the area for years and years. NBC's Tom Sherwood reported the story. Eventually, I believe a DC animal control unit took the chicken to a new place. This Thursday a friend talked to a police officer about the rooster in his front yard while I speculated that a neighborhood restaurant (which one?) was serving fresh plucked chickens (but who in urban American would actually pluck a chicken?). The chickens (but this is a rooster!) were escaping from a restaurant! I was wrong. The officer said the chickens are coming from Rock Creek Park where homeless people are raising them for food.

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They Doth Protest Too Much
John Whiteside, johnwhiteside at earthlink dot net

Just caught an interesting story on “Metro Connection” on WAMU about the many local antiwar protests that have been happening almost daily around town. Adam Eidinger, spokesman for Critical Mass/Bikes Not Bombs, seems to be emerging as the voice of the protesters, showing up to explain why DC residents must be punished for the policies of the government in which they have no vote. The bike groups have focused on blocking rush hour traffic around Dupont Circle, that hotbed of hawks. Expected results? Regarding the war, none, but giving the participants a fuzzy sense of empowerment and maybe some air time, quite a bit. It's an elaborate form of mental masturbation for the protesters.

There is, of course, the little side effect for DC residents of not being able to get places, and of police officers working long shifts and being assigned to protect protesters, instead of our neighborhoods where crime is on the rise. The real irony is that spokesman Eidinger was a candidate for DC Shadow Senator in 2002. A man who wanted to represent the people of DC doesn't mind making them the sacrificial lamb in his cause. I hope if he ever has the chutzpah to run for office again, people remember what little regard he has for the well-being of the city's residents. (Incidentally, I'm opposed to the war and sympathetic to the protesters' viewpoints.)

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Parents United Web Site Revived
Paula Jones, paula_jones@washlaw.org

Parents United for the DC Public Schools is on the web providing analysis of DC public school budget issues, ways you can take action to support school funding, and information about the organization. Visit us at http://www.parentsunited4dc.org.

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Why DC Assessments Are So High
Michael Bindner, mbindner at aol

There has been much comment in themail about skyrocketing real property assessments for land. Some have complained that their assessments have gone up while large apartment building assessments have not. If you know the logic behind the assessment process, this should not be a shock. Land is assessed at its highest and best use, regardless of zoning, rather than its current use. If, in the judgment of the DC Government, your property would be better used as a multifamily development or an office building, then that is the highest and best use. While the appeals board might overturn this judgment on appeal, you will likely not be successful forever. Certain areas of the District are more attractive to developers. If your property taxes show that you live in one, my advice is to either get ready to sell eventually or organize to overturn the legislation that created the National Capital Revitalization Commission (which will eventually get around to recommending your property for redevelopment under eminent domain procedures). Of course, the other option is to start organizing now for a recall — which can be filed on January 2, 2004. If you are going to do that, your first step should be to get the DC Council to harmonize the procedures for purging the voter roles to match the rest of the country. Right now, it is almost impossible to purge the roles of non-voters/non-residents automatically. Doing so would make a recall so much easier, since fewer signatures would be required to force a recall vote.

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Property Valuation Trivia
Mark Eckenwiler, themale@ingot.org

In the last issue, Warren Gorlick wrote to complain about relative valuations of the land (versus improvements) for his house and nearby apartment buildings. While I'm certainly not an expert on DC property tax law, my research last year did turn up a case that says, in sum, forget about land versus improvements and focus on the total assessment: “the comparability analysis was properly performed by the assessors at the level of total property value rather than at the particular and — as shown by this case -- potentially more arbitrary level of land and improvements separately.” Washington Post Co. v. DC, 596 A.2d 517, 522 (DC Ct. App. 1991) (emphasis in original).

On a tangentially related subject, I note that when I went to OTR to drop off my appeal form on March 31, I encountered the longest lines (both to enter the building and to get to the OTR intake desk) I've ever seen there in many, many visits.

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Follow-Up to Cable Outages
E. Bersin, eyzarblu@aol.com

I too was a “victim” of the recent cable outages. The Comcast contractor told me (after four phone calls and over an hour of my time) that my “tag” didn't match what he had in his records. When I inquired as to why they didn't just contact the home office to find out that I was in fact a viable, paying customer, his answer was, “if he called they would verify that the tag they have on file is in fact the one on the main box in my basement.” Well that seemed like a no-brainer to me, but apparently not. To further that, the customer service representative probably realized that the way they were going about executing this “audit” is incorrect . . . so much so that she gave me two months credit towards free cable. I plan to write a letter to the divisional director of customer service. For anyone else who had this problem his contact information is as follows: Calvert Johnson, Director, Customer Service, 900 Michigan Avenue, NE, Washington, DC 20017.

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Homeland Insecurity and More 911 Deaths
Naomi J. Monk, nmonk10501@aol.com

[Reply to John Aravosis, themail, April 2] Is it not unfair to state that Chief Ramsey lied or to blame the police for community problems since everyone living, working, or visiting a neighborhood is in part collectively responsible for working towards improving the quality of life in a neighborhood? This statement brings us to using three approaches to policing for prevention: law enforcement, neighborhood partnerships, and systemic prevention. It takes a village to raise a child. Likewise, it takes a community and those outside of the neighborhood to work as a team with all three of these approaches of policing for prevention at the same time. So, why not be a part of the solution by actively participating in improving the quality of life in your neighborhood, rather stating that Chief Ramsey lied as if you were present and witness all incidents. Put yourself in Chief Ramsey's place. Would you welcome someone stating that you lied yet that someone was not present to know the details first hand? Further, why waste time in creating negativity when you can be a part of the solution by engaging in positive endeavors to improve the 911 system?

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

Hair and Raffle Tickets at Ellington, April 10-12
Susan Gushue, smgushue@starpower.net

On April 10, 11, and 12, Duke Ellington School of the Arts will have its first all-school musical — “Hair.” Performances are at the school, 35th and R Street, NW, at 7:30. There is a 3 p.m. matinee Saturday. Tickets are $10 for adults and $7 for students and can be obtained by calling 965-3141.

On April 12, there will be a drawing for the school raffle. Ellington's fundraising arm, The Ellington Fund, and the Ellington PTSA are working together on this raffle. It has a grand prize of $10,000. The first prize is two round trip tickets on the Acela train to NYC , the second prize is dinner for six at the Starland Cafe, and third prize is four tickets to the Kennedy Center Jazz Club for a performance at the end of May. Each raffle ticket is $100. There are only five hundred tickets, better odds than any state or District lottery. Call me and buy a ticket! Susan Gushue 526-1632.

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Rosemary Reed Miller, April 29
Pat Bitondo, pbitondo@aol.com

African American fashion history comes to life at a gala three-course dinner with wine on Tuesday, April 29, at the Woman's National Democratic Club, 1526 New Hampshire Avenue, NW, dinner 6:30 p.m. (bar opens at 5:30 p.m.), cost $25.00 (a tax-deductible WNDC-EF Foundation Event).

Rosemary Reed Miller, owner of a Dupont circle boutique, Toast & Strawberries, historian and author of Threads of Time, will present a stunning show profiling African-American fashion designers. Starting with Mary Todd Lincoln and her designer Elizabeth Keckley, and including Ann Lowe, selected by Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy to design her wedding dress, the presentation will honor five talented women who rose above the confines of race and gender. Toast and Strawberries has been a community-focused center of artistic expression for over 35 years. Charlene Drew Jarvis, President of Southeastern University, and Zsun-Nee Matime, director of the Washington-Custis Lee Enslaved Rememberance Society, will join club members in reading the profiles of these designers. The book will be available for purchase. Ms. Matime will appear in period dress. Come join us for an exciting evening. Telephone 232-7363 and ask for Pat Fitzgerald or E-mail pfitzgerald@democraticwoman.org. No ticket sales. Reservations only.

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CLASSIFIEDS — HOUSING

Room or Roommate Wanted
Annie McCormick, amccormick@itic.org

A new employee at my fiancé's work is looking for a room or roommate situation. Please contact him directly. New to area, professional male late 40's. From Texas, works for the US Department of Agriculture. Looking to rent a room for less than six months or until he can find his own place. Finances are limited but willing to exchange professional services (accounting, taxes, computer programming, and database design) for consideration of reduced rent. Quiet, nonsmoker, no pets. References, if needed. Please contact Gary at work 703-605-4897 or E-mail him at spindler@ev1.net.

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