Fantasyland
Dear Fantasists:
I know that it's a character defect, and that the compulsion to
respond and have the last word is a terribly unattractive flaw, but I
have one final smart alecky comment to make about next year's
make-believe Democratic primary before I drop it completely and move on
to issues that have a real impact on our lives in DC. The argument of
the advocates of our giving up a meaningful, binding primary is, as I
understand it, that a Democratic primary election that doesn't elect any
delegates to the convention is just as good as a real election, so long
as we all agree to pretend hard enough.
Okay, then, if we keep that attitude we can completely solve our
problem with Congressional representation today. We already elect two
shadow Senators and one shadow Representative. If we all agree to
pretend hard enough that they are real members of Congress and that
their votes count in Congress, it'll be as good as the real thing.
Problem solved. And we won't have to waste the $350,000 that it will
cost for the Board of Elections and Ethics to run the Democratic
presidential opinion poll next January.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
###############
The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) Board of
Directors has voted to increase water and sewer rates by 2.5 percent
beginning October 1. This approval nearly cuts in half the original
management proposal of a 4.4 percent increase for this October and 5.0
percent increase in October 2004. The Board nixed the proposal for
October 2004 altogether. At its monthly meeting on July 3rd, the full
Board heard a recommendation from its Retail Rates Committee on the
two-year rates proposal. The Committee, composed solely of District
residents, recommended lowering the proposed rate increase for this
October and not approving an increase for October 2004. The Committee
said it would review WASA's financial position later this year and next
year to consider future increases.
Board Chairman Glenn S. Gerstell said after examining WASA's
better-than-projected financial performance this year, “It would be
prudent to pass cost savings directly to our customers.” Gerstell, who
also chairs the Retail Rates Committee, added, “The Board closely
scrutinized WASA's financial position and recognized that cost savings
have occurred through lower chemical costs due to improved performance
at the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant; control of
overtime usage and savings in contractor costs by retraining and
utilization of current employees. These operational savings directly
translate into cost savings to our customers by lowering a rate
increase, which is needed to fund WASA’s ten-year, $1.6 billion
capital improvement program (CIP). This is not unlike a family that
saves for college educations — we, too, must save to fund our capital
program for infrastructure improvements.”
Infrastructure improvements are required for both water and sewer
systems after many years of disinvestment. WASA's CIP is well underway
and must continue to meet regulatory requirements and ensure safe and
reliable delivery and treatment systems for the District. Additionally,
this increase in slightly less than the current rate of inflation.
Effective October 1, for a typical residential customer, the monthly
bill will increase approximately $0.92, from $41.08 to $42.00 per month,
as opposed to approximately $1.50 more per month to $42.58 under the
original proposal abandoned by the Board.
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Over the coming months, while others will be enjoying the warm summer
weather, Mayor Williams will be grappling with the heat generated by the
departure of several senior members of his administration. Kelvin
Robinson, the Chief of Staff, arrived from Florida in July 2001. He has
been exceedingly unpopular with staff members in the Executive Office of
the Mayor, and the cause of much of the intrigue and disorganization in
the EOM. Now the decision has finally been made that Robinson will be
leaving his position within the next several weeks. The mayor must now
decide whether Robinson will be given another position within the
administration (most frequently mentioned is Director of the DC
Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, the job for which he
originally applied when he was hired as Chief of Staff) or whether he
will be offered a generous separation package. The mayor must also
decide on Robinson's replacement, an issue that has been made more
thorny since several individuals who have been approached, including
DHCD Director Stan Jackson, have turned down the position. Concern is
now growing among staff members that press secretary Tony Bullock may be
given the job by default. Joy Arnold, the Deputy Chief of Staff for
Community Affairs, is joining the staff of the quasi-independent
National Capital Revitalization Corporation (NCRC), although NCRC hasn't
settled on what job or title she will be given. Arnold will join Ted
Carter, Williams's former campaign manager in 2002, and Peggy Armstrong,
Williams's former press secretary and senior policy adviser, at NCRC.
John Koskinen, the City Administrator, and Carolyn Graham, Deputy
Mayor for Children, Youth, Families, and Elders, are both leaving the
administration by September. While Herbert Tillery, the Deputy Mayor for
Operations, was once heir apparent to Koskinen, his role in and handling
of the ongoing scandals regarding the Office of Property Management and
District credit cards may preclude his ascendency to the City
Administrator's position, and may indeed lead to his leaving the
government soon after Koskinen. Eric Price, currently Deputy Mayor for
Economic Development, is now a leading candidate to replace Koskinen.
Margaret Kellems, the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice, has
been shopping her resume around for some time. Now Kellems, whose
contact with city government began as a Booz Allen Hamilton consultant
on the police department for the Control Board, may bear the brunt of
the mayor's blame for growing public dissatisfaction with the MPD and
Chief Ramsey. Suzanne Peck, the city's Chief Technology Officer, is on
temporary loan to the Governor of Pennsylvania, and there is a growing
belief that she will not return to full-time service with the DC
government, especially after her friend, John Koskinen, departs. Yvonne
Gilchrist was named in May to head the Department of Human Services, but
the Washington Times' reporting on her poor track record in Baltimore
and with the state of Maryland led to the City Council's postponement of
her confirmation hearing until after its summer recess -- and Wilson
Building gamblers give odds that she will not be around by the time of
that confirmation hearing. Inspector General Charles Maddox's
continuance in his job relies on Mayor Williams's continued refusal to
obey the Council's law upgrading the qualifications for the position, on
the chance that Superior Court Judge Campbell will rule that the
Council's law is invalid (even though the General Counsel's briefs on
behalf of the Council seem to be far superior to the Corporation
Counsel's briefs for the Mayor), and on the questionable wisdom of
retaining an IG who has lost the confidence of all thirteen
Councilmembers (with the possible shaky exception of shaky Harold
Brazil).
Rumors also are flying about the potential departures of the Banking
Commissioner, the Director of the Office of Cable Television, and the
Director of Parks and Recreation. And the mayor has to fill several
positions on important boards and commissions from which he is expelling
reform-minded and civic-minded members, including the Board of Elections
and Ethics, the Alcohol Beverage Control Board, the Convention Center
Board, and the Sports Commission. Polish your resumes.
###############
I have been concerned for a number of years about the amount of trash
found on city streets, alley's, etc. My neighborhood, Barney Circle, has
several cleanups a year to remove trash and garbage. We have noticed the
following problems regarding trash: 1) bulk trash limits — the
restriction on the amount picked up is far too restrictive. To be frank,
it's silly. The limit just means that people try to find ways to make
more than five items look like five items. People assume that eventually
the extra items will be picked up. (I am not suggesting that the city
pick up items that relate to home repairs.) 2) Measuring bulk trash —
when you call for a pick up, you are now asked for weight, size, etc.
This is not helpful. People assume, and I think rightly so, that bulk
means bulk. Not many people can lift items that weigh tons. Therefore,
not many people are going to ask that bulk trash pick up items that
weigh tons. Most people have no idea how much an object weighs. The
assumption is that if I can pick it up, clearly someone else can pick it
up. 3) Regular bulk trash pickups — why doesn't DC institute the same
policy as the surrounding jurisdictions, i.e., bulk trash is picked up
several times a month, without having to call the city, or count and
measure the items. I firmly believe that there would be less trash in
the city if this were done. I know you have seen lots of discarded bulk
items tossed around the city in open spaces. Although this is illegal, I
have to say that sometimes the city forces people to do such things
because of the laborious regulations. My neighbors and I would be
interested in talking with you about these and other issues.
###############
I'm sure Adam Shipley's heart was in the right place when, in the
July 6 issue, he sought “to clear up some misunderstandings about the
ownership of the DirecTV dishes and the rules about where a dish can be
placed.” That said, he's just flat wrong when he asserts that “the
homeowner has the right to place the dish basically where he or she sees
fit.” Quite the contrary: the FCC fact sheet Mr. Shipley relies upon
says, for instance, that “[r]estrictions necessary for historic
preservation may also be permitted even if they impair installation,
maintenance or use of the antenna.”
Here on Capitol Hill, the past few years have brought a veritable
plague of satellite dishes, many installed (incredibly, and illegally)
smack on the front of historic facades. Lest anyone be misinformed on
the subject, let me assure you that the inspectors for the Historic
Preservation Office are regularly writing violation notices for these
atrocities, which are just as regularly being relocated to concealed
rooftop locations on pain of further citation.
###############
The GAO and Structural Deficits
Harold E. Foster, harold.foster@mncppc.org
Is Henry Townsend serious? I very carefully read the same GAO Report
he did about structural imbalances in District Government, and we ended
up drawing diametrically opposite conclusions about it. The point of the
study is something that is clear to anyone who has lived in this city
more than ten New York minutes. The so-called Federal presence generates
largely intangible benefits for the city that the city literally has to
pay for out of very tangible, and very artificially restricted,
revenues. The inability of the city to tax something like half the
developable land in a 69 square mile, completely urbanized jurisdiction,
together with the inability of the City to recover in income taxes
anything remotely resembling an equitable share of the income being
generated here, far outweighs these supposed benefits — the
Smithsonian, the Zoo, Rock Creek Park — that I am sick of hearing
about.
This so-called Federal tradeoff justification for what, at bottom, is
simply a colonial relationship between the Congress and residents of
this City also constantly reminds me of the outraged plantation owners
who, in 1865, for the life of them couldn't understand why their slaves
were so keen to leave the only home those slaves had ever known. I can
only speak for myself, as a third-generation Washingtonian, but I, for
one, would gladly ship off to Richmond or Baltimore or Austin or Albany
some of the supposed benefits of the Federal presence that Townsend
alleges we enjoy here, in exchange for, say, the ability to tax (the
remaining) nonresident income at its source. Or, better yet, for full
governmental sovereignty at home and a full Congressional delegation
(including two Senators, Mr. Davis) up on the Hill.
###############
More on Restorative Justice
Susie Cambria, scambria@dckids.org
For a short period of time, there was movement on the restorative
justice front in the District. A few years ago, there was a restorative
justice initiative in the District operated in the private sector. As
their mail has been returned to us, I'm not sure what their status is
now. In addition, Caroline Nichol (a former senior-level employee of MPD)
was high on this issue. Again, since she left MPD a couple of years ago,
we haven't heard anything from MPD on this important initiative.
Finally, Youth Services Administration (the operators of Oak Hill and
other juvenile justice-related services and programs) was on the
bandwagon of RJ for a little while. No word from them on this issue
lately either.
Perhaps a conversation with Kathy Patterson, chair of the Council's
Judiciary Committee, is one place to start. Another is with Time Dollar,
which operates a youth drug court here in DC. Finally, the Coalition 4
DC Youth! (Retta Morris, director) would probably be interested in this
as well.
###############
Last Saturday night I talked to some visitors from New York, who said
how glad they were to be visiting our state.
It occurred to me that, if we want to be treated like a state, maybe
we should ask the rest of the country how they would like to be treated
like us. Many of the arguments against civil rights for DC apply, on a
slightly scaled-down basis, to all the state capitals as well: they
derive their rights from the national and state constitutions and the
actions of their legislatures, we wouldn't want the local residents
exercising undue influence over the government, etc. Let's ask all the
states to disenfranchise all the residents of their state capitals and
see how the shoe fits on the other foot. They won't do it, but it might
make people realize that all the residents of DC aren't government
employees and all the land and services in DC aren't government
operations.
###############
One-Third Voting Americans, Without Legal Precedent
Timothy Cooper, worldright@aol.com
Supporters of Rep. Tom Davis's proposal to grant DC residents 1/3rd
voting rights in Congress, either by grafting a 9th Maryland
Congressional District onto the District or by creating some sort of
special legislation to grant DC a voting representative as a stand alone
entity, should answer this question first: What legal precedent exists
to accomplish it? In Albaugh v. Tawes (1964), the US Supreme
Court rejected a DC resident's claim that he should be entitled to vote
for Congressional members in the state of Maryland, declaring that DC
was no longer a part of the state. In Howard v. Maryland
Administrative Board of Election Laws (1997), a District resident
sued for the right to participate in Congressional elections in
Maryland, claiming that because DC residents were permitted to vote in
Maryland elections prior to 1801, they should be entitled to enjoy those
same voting rights nearly two hundred years later. The federal District
Court of Maryland rejected that argument, based largely on the Albaugh
case, and Howard's petition for cert was denied by the US Supreme
Court.
In Michel v. Anderson (1994), a case which challenged the
legality of the residents of the District of Columbia, American Samoa,
Puerto Rico, and Guam casting a vote in the Committee of the Whole in
the House of Representatives through their nonvoting delegates by
altering House rules, the US Court of Appeals concluded, “were the
House to create members not 'chosen every second year by the People of
the several States' and bestow upon them full voting privileges, such an
action, whether or not pursuant to House Rules, would be blatantly
unconstitutional.” Referring specifically to such non-state entities
as DC, the court held that “unless the areas they represent were to be
granted statehood, the Delegates could not, consistently with the
Constitution, be given a vote in the full House.” Moreover, in E.
Scott Frison v. US, in which a DC resident challenged the
constitutionality of the lack of voting rights in DC, the US District
Court found that it lacked “jurisdiction of the subject matter of this
litigation. . . ,” emphatically stating that “under the Constitution
the people of the District of Columbia — which is not a State — are
not entitled to vote for Senators or Representatives.” In Adams v.
Clinton and Daley v. Alexander (later known as Alexander
v. Mineta, 2000), a three-judge panel declared that “long-standing
judicial precedent, as well as the Constitution's text and history
persuade us that this court lacks authority to grant plaintiff's the
relief they seek.”
For Mr. Davis's proposal to move forward, he will also have to
persuade a bevy of Republican Senators to change their legal opinions.
Citing the aforementioned case, as well as similar conclusions drawn in
other Congressional committee reports in opposition to Del. Norton's
“No Taxation Without Representation Act of 2002,” the minority views
noted that “in 2000 the US District Court for the District of Columbia
concluded, 'denial of representation does not deny them equal
protection, abridge their privileges or immunities, deprive them of
liberty without due process, or violate the guarantee of a republican
form of government.' Any contradiction in the lack of Congressional
voting representation for residents of the District of Columbia derives
from the Constitution. Thus, to achieve the goal of granting
Congressional representation to the residents of the District of
Columbia, neither the Constitution, nor statute, nor case law provides
Congress with the power to bypass the constitutional amendment
process.” Leaving aside for the moment a discussion of the merits of
Davis's proposal, it will be most instructive to learn exactly how he
intends to leapfrog all legal precedent in order to make District of
Columbia residents one-third voting Americans.
###############
Gary, amazingly, the only person mocking anyone in your “Mock
Elections” column is you. The challenge to you to come up with a more
meaningful way to highlight the plight of the District resulted only in
sarcasm and abuse to the people who have been attempting to do
something. So, seriously, what do you propose that we do to focus the
attention of the other residents of this country on the shameful fact
that more than 700,000 Americans do not have voting rights for no other
reason than that we live in the nation's capital? Whatever we've been
doing up until now hasn't exactly been working.
Per John Whiteside's concerns about Tom Davis's offer of voting
rights in the House in exchange for an extra seat to be added in Utah,
to be honest I think we should take Davis up on it. If another seat
happens to go to rock ribbed Republicans in Utah (who were apparently
fewer than 1000 voters shy of getting a seat that went to North
Carolina, well, eventually the seats will all get redrawn in 2010 (and
if Republicans have their way, every year from now until then as long as
it helps the Rs — when will the Dems start getting really angry? But
that's another question). It's definitely uncool that we more or less
have our vote effectively cancelled out, but to be honest to keep the
House delegation at 435 would mean NC loses a vote (which hardly seems
fair), so once you're adding a seat it makes no more or less sense
adding two seats. If the Dems stop being so lame and figure out a way to
get voters to the polls, well they stand as much chance of gaining a
majority in a 437 person House as in a 435 person House. Incidentally, I
haven't heard that we might lose some of our population to Maryland.
That seems a little unlikely since that would essentially involve
retrocession, but the point is to get represented.
###############
DC Primary/DC Voting Rights vs. Solutions
Tom Matthes, tommatthes@earthlink.net
It's too soon to tell whether DC voting rights advocates are making a
mistake or scoring a victory for their cause by moving the DC primary to
January. Here's a modest suggestion, just in case this gambit doesn't
produce the desired result, which seems a 99.9 percent certainty (given
GOP control of Congress and the White House): next time, try to be part
of the solution to the nation's ridiculous presidential primary system,
instead of compounding the problem.
Here we are, enjoying the age of instant communication, in which a
major war can be fought in three weeks, while our horse-and-buggy
primary system gets longer and longer and increasingly expensive. It is
so expensive that “reformers” insist Congress must violate the First
Amendment rights of free speech, assembly, and association with
Byzantine campaign finance laws that constantly backfire. There is no
reason why the entire process of nominating and electing a president, in
this day of the Internet, should take more than two months, but let's be
generous. If every political party refused to seat any delegates chosen
before June 1, there would still be more than two months of
pre-convention campaigning and at least two months for the final
campaign before November. The costs of running for president would no
longer be so huge that serious candidates would have to start running,
and raising funds, more than a year before the first primary and
candidates would not have to watch several major wars, and turns in the
economy, pass after they started writing their platforms. Wouldn't DC
make a much bigger splash by advocating such a plan and becoming the
first to implement it?
###############
At least themail is consistent. Anytime an individual or a group of
individuals come up with a legitimate, legal idea to point out to all
that District residents do not have the same rights as other Americans,
themail steps in by beating that idea into the ground. One of my
priorities in any political battle in the District is to point out that
usually the problem tends to be a result, either direct or indirect to
the fact that DC is not a state. The lack of final authority that is
missing from all of our elected officials is very real and needs to be
noted.
This week's themail target is DC's first-in-the-nation presidential
primary. Somehow the purpose of the primary has become scrambled in the
mind of Gary Imhoff. Saying our vote counts for nothing is about ten
percent of what goes on in the Presidential primary process. First and
foremost, the primaries are about picking a nominee of the party. The
reason that early primaries, such as New Hampshire and Iowa, are
important is that candidates need to approach individual voters,
including Gary Imhoff, and earn their vote. This has never happened in
DC, since our primary came in May and the race has been decided at that
point. Since we are now first, despite the lack of a binding vote, the
whole point is that someone in the Democratic field of candidates will
want to win in DC, and voters in DC will have the rare privilege of
meeting and questioning Presidential candidates about how they can help
us get our rights. In the past, other early non-binding polls and
primaries have had a significant effect in deciding who ends up becoming
the nominee of the party. When the history of the making of the
president, 2004, is written, DC will have a place in the book. What if
the Democratic candidate who wins our primary (or does well enough to
thank DC voters) wins the nomination and then goes on to become
President? They might consider living up to the promises that were made
during the campaign to grant DC citizens equal rights.
To clarify, another assertion, that our vote is diminished, is silly.
Only a small number of delegates were chosen four years ago in the
primary and that is again the case this time. This year, the delegates
will be chosen at a caucus in March and all democrats can participate
then. I doubt that most people who are DC Democrats care if Jack Evans,
John Capozzi, or others go to the Democratic Convention in August of '04
as a delegate representing them. To compare a convention delegate to a
school board candidate is a canard or deliberate distortion. I know that
I fought to keep a fully elected school board because the people elected
to the school board can help to make our schools better; a precious
convention delegate is one of a few thousand votes who will pick the
Democratic nominee, not impact the life of the average DC resident. If
you aren't a Democrat, it does not effect you at all, since this
election is not an open primary. Finally, I hope the next idea that
comes forward to help us get our rights will win the support on themail.
If that is not possible, give it a pass and direct your anger those
people on Capitol Hill and the White House who do not yet care that DC
residents are second-class citizens.
###############
Drawing Attention to a Mock DC Government
Mark David Richards, Dupont East, mark@bisconti.com
DC is in the unique and peculiar situation in which its elected
officials are chosen by DC voters, but their decisions can always be
overturned by Congress. Regardless of whom you vote for in DC to make
your laws, the final say resides with Congress -- not with the people
you elect. I am inclined to see all DC elections as mock elections. But
that doesn't stop me from voting. And that brings me back to the DC
Presidential primary.
Gary Imhoff calls the non-binding primary a “mock election.” Over
the years different states have used different strategies and approaches
to try to make their primaries meaningful — and some have used
advisory rather than binding primaries. Having a non-binding primary
that is early is more meaningful than having a binding one after a
candidate has already been selected and there is no choice, as has been
the case in DC in the past. If DC had opted for the compromise to make
DC's primary the same day as Maryland and Virginia, DC's issues would
have been lost. The goal of moving to first was one of political protest
— to have a primary that would expose DC disenfranchisement and Home
Fool to the nation at large. The Democratic National Committee (DNC)
pressured elected DC Democratic State Committee (DSC) officials by
threatening to bar many of DC's delegates (mostly super delegates) from
the National Convention. By a very narrow vote under the previous
leadership, the DSC decided not to make DC's January 13 primary binding,
and that satisfied the DNC. If the DSC would like to declare January 13
a binding primary, it can still vote to do so. Local Republicans opted
out of the primary altogether. Would making the Democratic primary
binding be a smart decision at this time? My guess is that if we stay
the course with the current compromise for 2004, DC residents will have
more access to Democratic Presidential candidates this year than ever
before. I will venture to say that DC residents are already having more
contact than in previous primary seasons, and the campaign has just
started. My suggestion is: get involved, work for the candidate of your
choice, and get out the vote. CNN will let the country know how DC is
feeling on January 13, 2004. And they won't be reporting on
representative opinion poll results, but on votes tallied by the Board
of Elections and Ethics.
###############
Last Word on Primaries
Sean Tenner, DC Democracy Fund, stenner@mrss.com
One final clarification on the primary. We haven't given up our right
to vote in a binding primary either as Gary implies. In addition to the
28 super-delegates, who may vote based on the winner of the January 13
primary, the ten remaining delegates will be selected at a Democratic
State Committee caucus — open to all Democrats — likely to be in
February. We have not sacrificed any delegates, or the rights of any
District voters, by having the January 13 election.
###############
I admit it: when it comes to Republican Party history I could use
some brushing up. In defense of the January 13, 2004, presidential
primary I recently cited two “facts” about Richard Nixon and Pat
Buchanan. First, Richard Nixon was never governor of California (I said
he was). Nixon ran for governor and was defeated in 1962. Second, in
1992 Pat Buchanan didn't win the New Hampshire primary (I said he did).
Rather, Buchanan placed second, behind George H.W. Bush. Nonetheless,
Buchanan's stronger-than-expected showing was seen by many as a defeat
for the incumbent president.
I regret not having checked my facts, but I maintain the point of my
arguments; voters who live in a jurisdiction associated with a disgraced
official are not viewed as unworthy or unfit participants in the
American democracy, and a candidate who participates in a primary prior
to New Hampshire will not be penalized by New Hampshire voters for doing
so.
###############
The analytical arm of the Congress is the GAO. Asked to quantify DC's
mythical structural imbalance, it produced a report filled with buried
assumptions that seem to defy credibility, as noted by Henry Townsend (themail,
July 06). But the real problem isn't that GAO analysts conjured up for
their sponsors an answer worthy of Hogwarts School of W&W, it's that
high DC officials fell all over themselves praising an effort which
borders on the bizarre. DC needs a CFO, a Council, and a delegate to
Congress that understand the city's real financial problems and try to
solve them, not ones bent on conning the Feds for subsidies. NARPAC's
preliminary views on this, and on DC trends in tourists and condos as
well, can be found in the thin July update of its web site at http://www.narpac.org/inthom.htm.
Try a new approach to making DC better. Get positively involved. Even
during the summer.
###############
How Tom Davis Fixes Schools
Ed Dixon, Georgetown Reservoir, jedxn@erols.com
Congressman Tom Davis has taken the principled stand that vouchers
are the right thing for DC public school children. The truth of the
matter is he would never propose the same for the schools in Virginia's
11th Congressional District. In fact, on May 23, Davis voted against an
amendment to a bill (H.R.1 — reauthorizing ESEA) that would have
provide private school vouchers nationwide, including to his district's
unhappy public school residents (http://clerkweb.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.exe?year=2001&rollnumber=135).
Davis' Congressional District is made up of large portions of Fairfax
and Prince William Counties in Northern Virginia. Fairfax County Public
Schools have a reputation as being some of the best in the country. This
is clearly a sign that public schools are not an ideological whim of the
past for Davis' constituents. Many would attribute that overall quality
to the socioeconomic background of the student body, the tax base that
the schools exist on, and the generous involvement of the PTA's and the
rest of the school community.
However, Davis is well aware of the role Congress has in making
schools work. In Davis' campaign literature he claims he “authored the
legislation that finally closed Lorton Prison and transferred the 2,300
acres to Fairfax County for precious open space, public schools, a water
treatment plant, and other community facilities . . . [and] brought home
millions in the last year alone for critical public education
programs” (http://www.tomdavis.org/davisdocs/issues/).
These millions refer in part to funds budgeted by the executive branch
to support school districts around the country. But the millions also
refer to the unbudgeted appropriations Davis got rolled into major
appropriation bills. Since 2000, Fairfax and Prince William County
Public Schools have received nearly $3 million dollars in non-budgeted
appropriations (http://www.cagw.org/site/FrameSet?style=User&url=http://publications.cagw.org/PigBook2002/introduction.htm).
These dollars were not requested by the US Department of Education,
Department of Agriculture, or the Department of Health and Human
Services for state agency school aide. This money was added as
amendments during Appropriations Subcommittee conferences, in Joint
House Conferences or in the hallways of the office buildings known as
Capitol Hill.
The money is earmarked specifically to the local school systems for a
reason. “Tom continues to fight for those issues most important to
Northern Virginians, including . . . seeing to it that federal education
funding can be spent as local school districts see fit” (http://tomdavis.house.gov/davis_contents/about/).
Being a former Fairfax County Executive, Davis knows the pressure a few
million dollars can produce during a local budget debate. And Fairfax
County doesn't want to give up its quality public schools. DC did well
in education pork in 2003. The education lobby in DC grabbed more than
$31.5 million dollars in non-budgeted appropriations (http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reports_pigbook2003),
none of it earmarked directly to DCPS, as was the case in Davis'
district. Most of this was added by the Appropriations Subcommittee on
the District of Columbia or in the same way Davis got his public school
money. None of the project money was directed to DCPS. Rather, the money
supported expensive educational studies, private schools, educational
initiatives and charter school facility money that was not requested in
the budget presented by DCPS, the Education Mayor or the City Council.
The official request by the District of Columbia (http://cfo.dc.gov/budget/2003/pbfp.shtm)
to Congress to spend $980 million local tax dollars on the public
education system (DCPS, DPL, UDC, SEO DCPCS etc.) was reduced by $41
million to $939 million. Federal dollars went up from $188 million to
$208 million (http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.html).
Somewhere on the way to the Hill the District of Columbia lost $20
million dollars for education. Maybe Davis used the money for projects
in Virginia.
###############
CLASSIFIEDS — FOR SALE
12' x 15' natural fiber rug -- never been used -- for sale. We paid
$200 for it at a recent clearance sale, but ordered the wrong size.
Yours for $125 or best offer. Must be able to pick up from Mt. Pleasant.
If you want to see what it looks like, click on this: http://buy.overstock.com/images/products/L64512.jpg.
If interested, E-mail elizabethabuchanan@yahoo.com
or call 986-2745.
###############
CLASSIFIEDS — HELP WANTED
Small design/renovation firm needs bookkeeper approximately eight
hours a week. Work at your home with flexible hours doing data entry on
Quicken. Also some health insurance filing, tracking, and follow-up.
Experience with Quicken and ability to troubleshoot program problems a
must. Good attention to detail, organization skills also necessary. Send
resume by E-mail with contact information to ExpressDesign@starpower.net.
###############
CLASSIFIEDS — VOLUNTEERS
WISH Seeking Volunteers
Parisa B. Norouzi, parisa@wishdc.org
Washington Innercity Self Help (WISH), http://www.wishdc.org,
a community-based organization founded in 1978 with a mission of working
with low income and working people in DC to recognize and realize their
power to effect change, is looking for volunteers to help with various
duties. Possible volunteer projects include: providing child care at
meetings for low income tenants and parents, providing transportation
for low income individuals to attend rallies and council hearings,
helping with office work like filing and data base work, helping with
mailings, and helping to distribute fliers in DC neighborhoods around
issues including affordable housing and affordable child care. To get
involved please contact Parisa at 332-8800, or parisa@wishdc.org.
###############
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