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April 27, 2003

Taking a Break

Dear DCers:

We're taking a break, so themail is taking some time off, too. The next regular issue of themail will be in three weeks, on Sunday, May 18. There may be some irregular communication from DCWatch between then and now, but don't count on it. I am hoping for the temporary triumph of laziness and lethargy. Please do, however, save your messages and send them to us around the middle of May.

Links: 1) In the last issue of themail, Ralph Blessing asked whether I believed that running red lights is a constitutional right. Of course not. On the other hand, most of us think we have a constitutional right to be considered innocent until proven guilty, and to have a meaningful opportunity to confront the government's accusations against us. That's called due process, and DC's red-light camera law denies it to us. The red-light camera class action lawsuit is at http://www.dcwatch.com/issues/privacy15.htm. 2) The wrong link to Erich Martel's article on McKinley Technological High School was posted in the last issue of themail. The correct link is http://www.dcwatch.com/schools/ps030416.htm.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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Crime Reporting
Bob Levine, rilevine@cpcug.org

I've been noticing a disturbing trend in crime reporting. The DC police don’t want to take a crime report; no report and no crime has been committed — nothing has to be solved and crime statistics remain low. If a victim insists on filing a crime report, the victim is often told he or she will have to wait hours for a supervisor, normally a sergeant, who will also try to discourage a victim from filing a report. When a victim insists on a crime or incident report the details are often changed or minimized to the point that the victim barely recognizes what he or she is reporting. I know that this isn’t official MPD policy, but I’m curious as to how pervasive it is as unofficial MPD policy, how much it’s pushed through the ranks from the chief's office to the cop on the beat not to see crime so as to keep the crime statistics low. I'd also like to know what we a citizens can do about it, what can we do when a crime has been committed against us, and the police simply refuse to do anything about it and treat the victim as a perp. Anybody out there have any ideas about who we can talk to when a cop tells you that a crime hasn’t been committed so he/she doesn’t have to do anything about it?

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DC Is Again the “Murder Capital”
John Aravosis, john@safestreetsdc.com

A new study reveals that Washington, DC, led the nation's largest cities in per capita murders in 2002, earning the District the dubious honor, yet again, as the nation's “Murder Capital.” While the study was mentioned briefly in this past Sunday's Washington Post, the full study was just released on Thursday, April 24. You can read a press release and the full study online here: http://www.safestreetsdc.com/subpages/murdercap.html. Questions, etc.? Contact John Aravosis, Co-Founder SafeStreetsDC.com, John@SafeStreetsDC.com.

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Time for the City Council to Perform
Ed T. Barron, edtb@aoldotcom

The city is getting into deeper and deeper financial waters every day. Yet none of the constituencies and departments of the DC government will willingly reduce their budget requests. The City Council has to work as a team and put aside parochial wants to make the necessary cuts. It is too early to be posturing for the next mayoral election, so the Council Members can act with impunity if they all work together to preclude the impending crisis. Raising taxes is not the answer. That will drive more folks away from DC and preclude others from moving in.

The answer lies in streamlining government operations and finding those activities that just don't fit into a reasonable budget. The Mayor will sit back and watch since he doesn't want to dirty his hands or make any enemies. Hey, Tony, it's not your enemies you should watch out for. It's your so-called friends.

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Summertime, and the Livin’s Easy
Mark David Richards, Dupont East, mark@bisconti.com

This time of year is wonderful, and people seem almost giddy. As the weather warms the neighbors come out to sit on the porch or steps, the sidewalks are busy, and urban life moves into full swing. Today, Dupont Circle was packed with people of all shapes and colors who watched teens do urban dance moves, listed to African/Caribbean drummers, and took in sun through the fresh and lightly-colored translucent green tree leaves. Blossoms from trees drifted through the air as dogs walked with the best friends to check out the dog scene. Nearby, a brass group energized an ever-changing audience that lazily passed around cars moving by the circle. Tourist season is moving into full swing, despite security concerns. In 2000, Cherith Richards Avery and I did a content analysis of 26 tourist guidebooks to DC and found an appalling lack of information about local DC. I thumbed through the latest editions of guidebooks on Saturday and have the impression that many have dramatically improved. Some of the dates and facts are not accurate, but more attention is being given to DC's unique political status and its neighborhoods. Some even explain why DC has "Taxation without Representation" on its license plate. Although I do not have time to undertake a systematic analysis as before just now, I will highlight a few items periodically, starting here with Frommer's Irreverent Guide.

In 2000, Irreverent covered twenty percent of the many issues we thought important to telling about DC's local sociopolitical situation — it was a third tier guidebook relative to other guides. The 2002 edition of Irreverent continues to be enjoyably irreverent and slim enough to toss in a backpack without feeling like one is carrying a brick. It chides, “Yes, Washington is a special place, and yes, it's fun to visit. . . . But if it's urban electricity you're after, you'd be better off in Cleveland.” It also continues to quote from Washington Confidential and calls DC residents “parasites.” Irreverent, however, seems to like DC nightlife. It advises, “Despite conservative daytime appearances, DC really knows how to cut loose come sundown. There's a scene for everyone: Capitol Hill bars for people who've left work to talk about work before turning in early; mammoth dance clubs where dayglo-adorned ravers bounce happily till the sun comes up; hip gay clubs where shirtless men flaunt their gym-perfect physiques; and live music clubs, featuring alternative rock and jazz-tinged hip-hop. And there's no shortage of happy hours and all-you-can-drink nights. Hey, somebody's gotta keep all those college kids, worldly visitors, and government workers happy.”

Irreverent also tells how “special” DC is — special in an “unusual” and “extraordinary” way, as well as in the Saturday Night Live “Church Lady” way. It explains that, “The US Constitution made sure it would forever be a special place by ordering Congress to establish and 'exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever' over a 'seat of Government of the United States,' a weird political setup that's caused trouble ever since. . . . The city of Washington has always had a stormy relationship with its congressional masters. Citizens of Washington have no representation in Congress, which make them frequently yell 'Taxation Without Representation' and launch noisy campaigns for DC statehood. DC had home rule, with an elected mayor and council, from 1802 until a presidential commission decided to take over in 1874. A Constitutional amendment granted Washingtonians the right to vote for president in 1961; full home rule, with an elected mayor and city council, was restored in 1975, though the arrangement is pretty unwieldy — Congress still has the right to approve the entire city budget. Home Rule II has been a mixed blessing, partly due to the character of the elected home rulers themselves. . . . Washingtonians can afford to be tolerant because, down deep, they know how good they've got it. . . .” Especially when the weather is like today! One benefit of not being a highly-dense urban space is that there is still some room left to walk on the sidewalks where you can nod, smile, and say hello to neighbors, friends, and tourists alike.

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Getting My Mail Costs Me $100
Dawn Dickerson, ddd668@aol.com

What do we need to do to get the Brentwood post office reopened? Hey, I wouldn't dare dismiss the seriousness of an Anthrax cleanup, but I have absolutely had it with the DC Department of Public Works' aggressive ticketing at the Mass Avenue post office. Can you believe that DC is ticketing people for double-parking in front of the Mass avenue post office going to pickup mail? Where else are you supposed to park when you have to pick up a package and all the metered parking spaces are taken?

Honestly, I am not trying to be whinny about this. I know that it's against parking laws to double park in front of the post office, but I've gone to the post office at 8:30 p.m. and seen Public Works ticketing cars that are double parked, and something about that is not right to me. I tried to complain to Carol Schwartz during election time and she looked me in my face and told me that, “We don't have any way of knowing if these people are going to work,” to which I said, “No, they are going to the post office and, since Mass Avenue is now the main post office, this is where folks have to go to get packages.” To which she replied, “Hey, I can tell you I'm going to do something about it so that I can get your vote but I can't. There's nothing that I can do about it.”

Well, why not? Why can't Public Works be a little more cooperative about the parking in front of the post office? There's not some parking conspiracy going on. People just want to get their mail and, since Brentwood is not open, Mass Avenue is where they have to go. Why is the solution to everything always to extort money out of the residents of this city?

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Be Careful What You Wish For
Ed T. Barron, edtb@aol.com

The folks on Foxhall Road wish that Ms. Casey and her Mayoral mansion would go away. Ms Casey is running out of patience with those folks and may soon decide to abandon the whole $50 M gift to DC and sell the property instead. If so, look for drooling developers to move in quickly and scoop up a very valuable piece of real estate that would likely allow for the building of a couple of hundred town homes. Great location for in-town homes that would likely sell for about a megabuck apiece. Be careful what you wish for, Foxhallers.

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Don’t Count the Voucher Opposition Out
Melody R. Webb, melodywebb@lobbyline.com

Congress has gained an ally in the DC school system to subvert the cause of DC home rule. Recently, School Board President Peggy Cafritz has received a lot of heat for her turnabout on school voucher legislation in Congress, courtesy of Congressman Jeff Flake of Arizona (R-AZ-6). Last week, Ms. Cafritz' letter to the editor in the Washington Post stated that she had evolved into her new stance due to the unhappiness of DCPS parents and due to her desire to avoid a fight against the voucher legislation that could not be won (given the Republican-controlled White House and Congress). Congresswoman Norton has a lot to say about that. Let's take this on mano a mano with the voucher proponents — in the legislative sense, of course.

Local DC residents and supporters and Ms. Norton's allies in Congress are perfectly capable of mounting a huge fight against this voucher effort and are doing so as you read this. Ms. Cafritz has yet to articulate arguments favoring the merits of school vouchers. Aside from the fact that we disagree with vouchers as a policy, we disagree with Ms. Cafritz because she has failed to do outreach, education, and consultation with the community on this matter on the timetable of the DCPS community, rather than that of Congressman Jeff Flake's legislation. Does Ms. Cafritz know, for example, that children with special needs are not afforded the same educational rights and protections in private schools that they are in public schools? What happens if a child begins to display behavior-related learning disabilities in a private school that he has entered with a tuition voucher? The school simply kicks him out. Not so in public schools. There is too much work to be done; too much to learn from the community of local DC parents, advocates, and scholars, to jump in bed with this Republican non-fix for the DC public school population.

Let's tell Ms. Cafritz to withdraw her support from this voucher legislation. Let's thank Councilmember Adrian Fenty for his work opposing this voucher plan. Let's tell Congressman Flake to withdraw the legislation (H.R. 684) altogether. Let's tell his Arizona constituents via his home district newspaper (which has come out against vouchers a couple of years ago) that Jeff Flake is neglecting Arizona issues, just like the Arizona Governor Napolitano says he is doing. Let's tell Jeff Flake to leave DC alone. How do you do all these things? You can E-mail and fax these decision-makers in a couple of minutes on the action page of http://www.lobbyline.com/vouchers.htm. Of course, as ever, you can write your own missive opposing the Congressionally imposed voucher plan.

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WASA and Water Cutoffs
Bill Adler, billonline@adlerbooks.com

I wrote to themail, criticizing the DC Water and Sewer Authority's failure to notify hundreds of District residents (or more) about a water cutoff to facilitate repairs. Michael Marcotte, Deputy General Manager/Chief Engineer of the Washington Water and Sewer Authority, replied to my post about this 12+ hour water cut off. In his post, Mr. Marcotte said that an unknown number of people having their water cut off without warning for twelve hours had a “small impact on our customers.” That's the wrong attitude for the District government to have. I think that this view gets to the heart of what happened over April 11-12: Having no water without notice from about 11 p.m. until after 12 noon the following day does not have a "small impact" on people. And nowhere in Mr. Marcotte's E-mail is there an apology for cutting off residents' water without notification. A simple apology would have been nice.

Mr. Marcotte writes that WASA received 85 calls from people who had no water or reduced water pressure, as if those were the only individuals who were bothered by this incident. But the fact is that if you wanted to be one of those 85 people (most of whom are probably part of two, three, or four person households) you needed to be on hold for nearly half an hour. (A lot of other people found out about the extent of the water outage from the Cleveland Park E-mail list.) Then, if you could get through to WASA, you got conflicting and inaccurate information about when water would be restored.

Why were people angry and upset with this twelve hour water outage? Because despite WASA's "extensive notification plan to alert people who were likely to be affected by the outage" hundreds of people (or more) went without water for the night and well into the next day. And just a couple of months ago the same neighbors were told by WASA to expect water to be turned off one evening to facilitate repairs: Nothing happened that night and WASA didn't bother to tell people that they didn't need to stock up on water and make other plans. Nobody wants our aging water system to go unmaintained. And nobody says that it's not difficult, complex work to maintain this system. But is it too much to expect a minimum level of communication between WASA and District residents?

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Update on Abandoned Car, Final Chapter?
Annie McCormick, amccormick@itic.org

Sometime between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Wednesday the 23rd, the abandoned Geo that was in front of 1401 N Street, NW, was removed. I do not know who removed it, or where it was taken, nor do I know if it were a result of my original call to DPW.

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Sweetness and Light
Scott McLarty, scottmclarty@hotmail.com

I think we enjoyed a period of classical American song writing between about 1920 and the 1950s. One of the benefits of that time was that most of the best songs were introduced in the theater, which required some depth and sophistication. That's true of nearly everything from Arlen, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers, to Frank Loesser, etc. Jazz composers like Duke Ellington had the luxury of writing for their own bands and testing songs in live performances, the surest way to create a classical tradition. From the 1950s on, the emphasis was on mass produced dance music, especially immediate hits that appeal to suburban teenagers with money to spend.

Who are the theater composers of the past couple of decades? Andrew Lloyd Webber writes catchy tunes, but there's something missing from his songs. Theater composers like Richard Rodgers and Leonard Bernstein and Frank Loesser wrote songs specific to character, dramatic situation, and emotion. Lloyd Webber's songs are mostly generic. You could take, say, “Music of the Night,” sung by the title character from Phantom of the Opera, and give it to any other character, not only in the same show, but in nearly any other Lloyd Webber show. You can't do that with most or all of the songs from, say, South Pacific or West Side Story or Guys & Dolls or even lesser shows like Bye Bye Birdie or the Sound of Music. “Music of the Night,” like most other Lloyd Webber hits, is just a pretty song, with no emotional depth or drama or wit. Next to something by Loesser or Rodgers or Frederick Loewe it sounds like a Hallmark card. Stephen Sondheim is the exact inverse. His songs are tuned to character and situation and are loaded with wit and sophistication. But who wants to sing any of them, except “Send in the Clowns”? Sondheim lacks the talent for the long distinctive melodic line, even when he tries to parody the classical American song composers in Follies. But at least he takes his craft seriously.

So who is writing memorable songs today, songs with sophistication and emotional depth and legs (i.e., can be sung by lots of singers, like “Blues in the Night”)? We need a “themusic” discussion list!

[I think there are plenty of singable melodies in Company, which is still my favorite Sondheim show, precisely because it is written in an accessible, popular, and melodic style that Sondheim has since largely abandoned. — Gary Imhoff]

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

DCPS Facilities Master Plan Community Meetings, April 28 and April 30
Nancy Huvendick, nhsljl@boo.net

The DC Public Schools office of facilities has organized a series of community meetings this spring to get neighborhood input on the long range facilities master plan for the District's public schools. These meetings are very important because decisions will be made on future school enrollments, capacities, boundaries, modernizations, and grade configurations (and school closings?) among all the regular public schools in each area. Two meetings have been scheduled between March and June in each of eight planning areas that roughly coincide with the eight wards.

Community meetings upcoming this week are: 1) Planning Area E (Ward 5), Monday, April 28, Langdon Elementary School, 1900 Evarts Street, NE, in the auditorium, 6-8 p.m. 2) Planning Area F (Ward 1), Wednesday, April 30, Garrison Elementary School, 1200 S Street, NW, in the multipurpose Room, 7-9 p.m. The original Facilities Master Plan was completed in 2000 with the understanding that it would be updated annually. This first update is scheduled to go to the Board of Education in September. Call the Planning Managers Office at DCPS for more information, 576-8267, or visit http://www.k12.dc.us/dcps/home.html and click on “Community Meetings” for a complete list of meetings in the District. These meetings are very important to the future of the neighborhoods in the District — everyone is welcome!

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Tenleytown House and Garden Tour, May 4
Mary Alice Levine, tenleytownhistoricalsociety@yahoo.com

On Sunday, May 4, from 1-5 p.m., the Tenleytown Historical Society will sponsor a tour of Tenleytown's homes and gardens, including excellent example of arts and crafts style, and homes and gardens in the Grant Road Historic District and Armesleigh Park. Tickets are $15, available 12 noon-4 p.m. on the day of the tour at St. Ann’s Hall on Wisconsin Avenue north of Tenley Circle between St. Ann’s Church and Friendship Library. For additional information, E-mail tenleytownhistoricalsociety@yahoo.com or phone 362-0145.

Join the Tenleytown Historical Society! Discover the history of our neighborhood. Membership dues are $20 per year. Write us at 4640 Verplanck Place, NW, 20016.

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Cannibalistic Family Ties, May 18
Robin Larkin, rlarkin@footlightsdc.org

In a shabby midwestern farmhouse, a young man searches for identity in a family seized by sordid secrets. “Buried Child” (1979), by Sam Shepard, “the greatest American playwright of his generation” (New York Magazine), “conveys the mystical, cannibalistic pull of family ties even as they unravel” (New York Times). It was the first off-Broadway play to win the Pulitzer Prize. Footlights, DC's only modern-drama discussion group, will attend a performance of “Buried Child” at the Clark St. Playhouse, 601 S. Clark Street, a short walk from the Crystal City and Pentagon City metro stations, on Sunday, May 18, at 2 p.m. Tickets are only $9 and include a post-show discussion. Send your check, payable to "Footlights," to Robin Larkin, 5403 Nibud Court, Rockville, MD 20852. For more info go to http://www.footlightsdc.org, call 301-897-9314, or E-mail rlarkin@footlightsdc.org.

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Healthier Kids Forum, June 3
Susie Cambria, scambria@dckids.org

Healthier Kids: The Impact of School Polices and Programs on Student Health. Sponsored by the Children's Health Care Coalition of DC and the American Academy of Pediatrics-DC Chapter, this policy and program forum is being held on June 3 at Children's National Medical Center. Come join your colleagues from around the region in informative presentations and lively discussion. The focus will be on childhood obesity, the school health program and violence in schools. Panelists will include representatives from the school system, Department of Health, Department of Mental Health, providers, and advocacy community. Registration begins at 9:15 a.m., and the program will promptly start at 10:00 a.m. and conclude at 2:00 p.m. More information is available from Frankeena Wright, Health Policy Coordinator at DC Action for Children; call 234-9404.

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CLASSIFIEDS — HOUSING

Apartment for Rent
Kendall Schaefer, kendallk@iwon.com

Columbia Heights: beautifully renovated 2 BR, 1800 sq. ft., two-level unit with two baths, office, wood floors, central ac, washer/dryer, all new appliances, parking space, wood deck, patio, security system, and steps to Metro. $2000 or best offer. Available now. E-mail kendallk@iwon.com or call 431-2678.

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