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July 30, 2003

That Was the Week That Was

Dear Newsies:

Metropolitan Police Department Chief Charles Ramsey announced that the MPD would expand its policy of avoiding its law-enforcement duties by refusing to enforce immigration laws any longer and giving a free pass to illegal aliens (http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20030728-091925-3832r.htm). DC residents responded with surprise that the MPD had still been enforcing some laws.

Over the past few days, USA Today published a survey of ambulance service in fifty American cities (“Many Lives Are Lost Across USA Because Emergency Services Fail,” http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/ems-day1-cover.htm; “The Method: Measure How Many Victims Leave the Hospital Alive,” http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/ems-day1-method.htm; “Seattle: Firefighters, Medics Unite to Save Lives,” http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/ems-day1-seattle.htm; “Washington, DC: Slow Response, Lack of Cooperation Bring Deadly Delays,” http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/ems-day1-dc.htm; and “How Fifty Major Cities Stack Up” database, http://www.usatoday.com/graphics/life/gra/ems/flash.htm). The first article quotes Kenny Lyons, the head of DC's paramedic union, as telling his loved ones “not to waste time dialing 911 if they face a dire medical emergency. 'If they can find someone to drive them to a hospital, drive them. If they can somehow catch a cab, go,' he says.” DC Fire and Emergency Services responded with a plan to subcontract ambulance service to Pizza Hut and Domino's, both of which promised faster response time and a free medium pizza with three toppings with every trip to the emergency room.

Mayor Williams, at his press conference today, blasted the City Council for holding an emergency session to overturn his veto of their bill eliminating the administration's badly managed program to use credit cards for government purchases. “We've effectively eliminated the Mayor's ability to do a pocket veto,” Williams complained, expressing his dismay at the democratic principles of checks and balances and separation of powers. (I don't even have to make this stuff up: http://octt.dc.gov/services/on_demand_video/channel16/July2003/847.asx.)

At the same press conference, City Administrator John Koskinen reassured DC patients that Greater Southeast Community Hospital will continue to remain open and to provide substandard health care; that the DC government will continue to monitor, document, and maintain that low level of health care; and that the hospital "will not close overnight," as long as continues to be profitable for the mayor's political donors. Koskinen affirmed that, consistent with the administration's policy of neither researching nor vetting either DC government employees or the companies that do business with the government, he and the mayor were unaware of and unconcerned that the parent company of Cambio, the company now managing Greater Southeast, had paid the largest fine in history to the federal government for its Medicare and Medicaid fraud.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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Spinning Schools
Ed Dixon, jedxn@erols.com

The cost of living in DC is high. When compared to other states, the city ranks third after Hawaii and New Jersey ( http://www.ded.state.mo.us/business/researchandplanning/indicators/cost_of_living/index.shtml). In 1999, it ranked fourth among metro areas after New York City, Oakland, and Nassau County (http://www.accra.org/edu_prof/pubs/coli_sample.htm). Obviously, the cost of educating one's children would fall into that high cost because of the number of factors that go into education. The high cost of living, education, and socioeconomic status of most of DC's public school children are among the reasons those children as a whole have difficulty maintaining a top grade when the Nation's Report Card comes out (http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/). Obviously, states with school districts like those in Montgomery, Fairfax, Orange, and Westchester Counties score better because of the nature of their students' financial and economic resources.

But not all children in DC are economically disadvantaged. The majority of white families in the District reside in Ward 3, where the per capita income is roughly four times that of DCPS strongholds Wards 7 and 8. Almost 6000 children reside in Ward 3, which is over 80 percent, white and a few thousand of those children attend DCPS (http://planning.dc.gov/documents/census2000/household/age_ward.shtm). According to the Nation's Report Card, fourth grade white children in DC public schools on average are scoring consistently in the top 20 percent nationally, well above the national average. Those scores exceed the average scores of Maryland and Virginia. But many of these children drop out from DCPS after the fourth grade.

In spite of these high scores being published for the past ten years, the city's leadership has consciously undermined public education in Ward 3 by not investing more in its public schools in Ward 3. Since 1999, the city has provided tens of millions of dollars in tax-free public financing to expand private schools in Ward 3 (http://dcbiz.dc.gov/info/rb2b.shtm). This money went to building facilities and providing the bells and whistles that everyone expects of private education. Simultaneously, nothing comparable has been done to the public secondary schools in Ward 3 or the city. Tax dollars garnered through a commercial transaction could have been used to create more attractive and enticing facilities at Deal Junior High or Wilson High School. But the city's leaders would rather Ward 3 parents send their children to an institution that charges $15-20 thousand per year. The public schools lose students and the resultant tax revenue based on the per pupil funding formula. Families move out of the city because of the problems with the public schools. More taxes lost. The Ward 3 parents who choose to stay in the city refinance their houses to send their kids to private schools. DCPS loses their political support, and the city loses its tax dollars in the interest of special deals. If these deals sound like the baseball stadium, they should. The real estate lawyers who give a lot of money to DC's leaders also help decide what our schools look like. They then write their costs into the revenue bond. And they end up making so much money, the cost of living in DC doesn't seem high to them.

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It’s Incompetence, DC’s Good Friend
Rene Wallis, bryantstreet@highstream.net

Blaming the preventable deaths and the problems at Greater SE Community Hospital on the closure of DC General's inpatient facilities is understandable, but wrong. GSCH would be having these problems with or without DC General's closing. If GSCH wasn't in the hot seat because of its role as the provider of care for the vulnerable, you maybe wouldn't hear about the problems, but they would still be there. Tufts, the owner of GSCH, bought GSCH before DC General went into its death throes. Tufts snaps up dying hospitals for the poor around the country and squeezes them for all he can get. Tufts, we have learned, as David Catania, (R, At-large), warned us, is what he is.

That being said, I object to any mythology about DC General. DC General did get a high JACHO rating; however, the Public Benefit Corporation, which ran DC General, was plagued with problems. The PBC had a crumbling facility and no ability to bill Medicaid or Medicare; thirty percent of the patients receiving free care (funded by DC tax dollars) were Maryland residents, and administrators generously rewarded themselves and the friends they hired with ever-increasing salaries while denying entry level support staff raises for three consecutive years. I ran a free medical clinic for five years (1990-1995) and we couldn't get our patients into DC General except through the emergency room. It was horrible.

GSCH and DC General both have had poor management and poor oversight. Classic management for chaos, in city where those responsible to provide oversight look the other way. Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss.

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The Sports Commission
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com

This past spring, John Richardson, a member of Mayor Williams's political inner circle, finance committee, and kitchen cabinet, resigned as chairman of the DC Sports and Entertainment Commission, effective August 1, in the face of substantial criticism from the public and the City Council, a critical audit by the Chief Financial Officer's Office of Integrity and Oversight, and a looming financial deficit for the Commission. On Tuesday, Richardson convened his final meeting of the Commission with the principal purpose of having the board approve a new multi-year contract for the Commission's executive director, Bobby Goldwater, whose $275,000 contract expires in November. After a lengthy heated discussion in a closed-door “executive session,” the Commission deferred action on Goldwater's contract when it became apparent that there weren't enough votes to approve it.

With Richardson's departure, Mayor Williams must appoint an interim chair of the Commission from among the remaining Commission members by Friday. According to Council sources, Harold Brazil, who chairs the Council Committee on Economic Development, which oversees the Sports Commission, has confronted the Mayor and insisted that John Mahoney be appointed. Mahoney is one of the newest and least knowledgeable members of the Commission, having been appointed just last July. However, he has a long history and relationship with Brazil. Mahoney was one of the Ward 6 residents who recruited Brazil from his job at Pepco for his first campaign for the Council, in 1990. In the intervening years, Mahoney has served as the treasurer of Brazil's political campaigns.

Several other Councilmembers are lobbying Williams to appoint instead a political ally of Councilmember Jack Evans, William Hall. Hall is one of the original members of the Sports Commission, appointed to it when it was created.

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What Is the Mayor Thinking?
Ed T. Barron, edtb@aol.com

Or, perhaps, a better question is: who is he protecting this time? The Mayor says use of the credit cards saves the District money. Has he included the $200,000 the District has paid in interest because the card users have not paid their bills and keep a large interest accruing balance (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64714-2003Jul29.html)? You know who is paying the interest on those accounts, you and I.

I made a very rational suggestion on a credit card program that is based on issuing American Express cards that must be paid at the end of each billing period. Those cards would be issued in the name of the card holder with that person responsible each month to close out the bill. The District would get copies of the monthly bills to ensure that all purchases were legitimate and would write a check each month to the individual based on expense vouchers for all purchases. That check would be used to pay off the AMEX bill.

Perhaps the real problem is that many of the current card holders won't qualify for the Amex cards. Do we want those individuals to have cards for which someone else is responsible for paying the bill? I'd sooner give Willie Sutton the key to my safe deposit box.

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DC Democracy and Gun Control
Parisa Norouzi, Washington Innercity Self Help, parisa@wishdc.com

Please take a moment to stand up against the latest attack against DC’s gun control laws and attempt to exploit our lack of statehood. Go to the link below to access an online petition against Senator Hatch's (R-UT) senate bill # S.1414, the so-called “District of Columbia Personal Protection Act.” Senator Hatch's office phone number is 224-5251. Please take a moment to call and sign the petition, and encourage anyone you know, especially in Utah, to do the same: http://www.petitiononline.com/s1414/petition.html.

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Missing the Point on the “Commuter Tax”
Marc Battle, MBattle_HUSL2002@Hotmail.com

In Gary Imhoff's commentary on the commuter tax legal argument, he misses the point by incorrectly stating that the argument is the oft cited “taxation without representation” mantra. It is not. The lawyers in the case realize that it is not per se unlawful to have taxation without representation where the taxed entity is taxed in a discriminatory manner. Because DC is the only jurisdiction congressionally barred from taxing income at its source, its residents are not treated on an equal basis as other citizens. Supreme Court precedent has held that it is unconstitutional to tax individuals in a discriminatory manner when those persons are not represented in the legislature. Therefore, the argument is more accurately described as "No discriminatory taxation without representation." The difference may seem subtle, but it carries with it a substantially different legal theory.

Lawyers have long been known to say "When you don't have the facts, argue the law. And when you don't have the law, argue the facts." In this case, opponents of the lawsuit have neither the facts nor the law. They attempt, however, to argue the facts by raising the red herring of alleged mismanagement of District funds as a rationale for denying the right to tax. The constitutional rights of DC's residents are not predicated on DC's management of money, its choice of elected officials or any other factor. The naysayers of Maryland and Virginia attempt to erect all sorts of bogus tests and conditions to avoid addressing the fundamental issue of fairness. If your employer paid you only 75 percent of what you were entitled to because you had a penchant for wasting your salary and showed poor money management skills, would that be acceptable? Of course not; the issues are not related. You are supposed to get what you are due, and then do with it what you will. The situation is the same here. If DC wants to elect Kermit the Frog as mayor and then declare each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday an official holiday, so be it. The rights of its citizens are no less valid because of the choices that they may choose to make. If we allow individuals in Maryland and Virginia to deny equal rights to DC because of what they allegedly think of DC on a personal level, they will forever protect their pecuniary interests while coming up with nothing but more excuses for the inexcusable.

[I simply reported that the plaintiffs in the lawsuit said at the press conference that DC should be able to tax suburbanites because taxation without representation was unconstitutional. If Mr. Battle believes that misrepresents the point of the lawsuit, then his argument is with the plaintiffs. — Gary Imhoff]

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Pay Cut for Top Officials
Richard Urban, rurban@worldnet.att.net

I agree that if the Mayor and Councilmembers and other officials are serious about saving money and setting an example, they should take a pay cut. Collecting and spending more money is not the key issue; using funds appropriately and cutting waste and inefficiency are more important. This includes holding officials to a high standard of integrity, both personally and professionally.

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The Hickenlooper Cut
Margaret Feldman, mefeldman@aol.com

Great idea! They are quick to cut teachers and other low-level people — why not themselves?

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado Set in DC, July 31 and Following
Jonathan Darr, movement@starpower.net

The Capitol Hill Arts Workshop and the GLBT Arts Consortium are presenting The Mikado (as set in Titipu, Washington, DC, sometime next week). This rendition of The Mikado has several unique twists! With a little “No Taxation Without Representation” for good measure and an invading band of Texans, this is one not to miss for any DC resident! Shows are Thursday, July 31 through August 2 and again August 7-9 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are: $15 and are available by calling the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop at 547-6839. The show is at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop on the corner of 7th and G Streets, SE (a three-minute walk from the Eastern Market Metro). The Arts Workshop is a nonprofit arts education center for adult and youth classes, performances, and exhibits. The GLBT Arts consortium is a voluntary collaboration of varied arts organizations from the Washington, DC, metro area.

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Bone and Organ Donation Program, August 1
Barbara Riberts, barbara202@aol.com

On Friday, August 1, there will be a special program held at the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library. The Technology Division will be sponsoring a program presented by National MOTTEP on National Minority Donor Awareness Day to present information on the importance of bone and organ donation. At 10 a.m. there will be a proclamation from Mayor Williams, from 12:001:00 p.m. lectures and demonstrations in the main lobby. From 10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m. and 1:00-3:00 p.m. there will be health screenings that will include blood pressure (afternoon) and cholesterol testing (morning). There will also be a number of exhibits on the subject.

The library is located at 901 G Street, NW, between Metro Center and Gallery Place. It has limited parking available on a first come first served basis. For further information, contact Bartbara Riberts in the Technology Division, Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library, telephone 727-1175.

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Expanding the Franchise, August 4
Parisa Norouzi, parisa@wishdc.org

Professor Jamin Raskin, American University, will speak on the history, constitutionality, and politics of granting non-citizens the right to vote in local elections, sponsored by The Voting Rights for ALL DC Coalition, on Monday, August 4, from 6:30-8:30 p.m., at the Latin American Youth Center, 1419 Columbia Road, NW, one block from the Columbia Heights Metro station. For translation services please call ahead. Contact Olivia or Dave at 483-4165 for more information.

A constitutional law professor at American University and author of a leading article on non-citizen voting in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Professor Raskin will discuss the experience of Takoma Park, Maryland in enacting non-citizen voting and the current movement in other parts of the country to "share the vote." Professor Raskin is a noted constitutional authority and best-selling author of numerous works, including We the Students, The Wealth Primary, and Overruling Democracy.

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Capital City Public Charter School Community Block Party, August 9
Sue Bell, bellsue@aol.com

Capital City Public Charter School will have a community block party on Saturday, August 9, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. (rain date Sunday, August 10), at the Columbia Heights Community Marketplace, southwest corner of 14th and Irving Streets, NW, next to the Metro. Free activities for kids, moon bounce, music and entertainment, food vendors.

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CLASSIFIEDS — FOR SALE

Four Dining Chairs
Rob Pegoraro, robp at speakeasy.org

Four Crate & Barrel dining chairs with pine ladderback frames and wicker seats. In great condition. The set cost me $400 new, but it's yours for $200. 703-217-0493 or robp at speakeasy.org.

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CLASSIFIEDS — HOUSING

Writer’s Waterfront Retreat for Sale
Phil Greene, pgreene@doc.gov

“Chez When,” the waterfront retreat of the late Philip H. Love, Washington Star editor, syndicated columnist (“Love on Life”) and Andrew Mellon biographer, is on the market. Near Piney Point, MD. Here is the listing: http://www.realtor.com/Prop/1029284886.

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CLASSIFIEDS — HELP WANTED

Bilingual Legal Secretary
Jon Katz, jon at markskkatz dot com

Silver Spring's Marks & Katz, LLC, seeks a full-time legal secretary who speaks and writes flawless Spanish and English, and who will accurately interpret and translate between the two languages. This position requires successful prior secretarial experience; working well and thriving under tight deadlines and high pressure; strong caring for our clients and for quality work; strong communications skills; flexibility and strong interest in learning new types of work; intelligence and strong common sense; and independence. Pluses to your application are prior legal experience, a college degree or demonstrated similar intellectual achievement, current daily experience speaking Spanish, and prior experience translating and interpreting between Spanish and English. Ideal for people seeking rewarding work for justice and individuals, and substantial client interaction. Please apply with a one-page resume, strong cover letter specifically addressing your strengths for and interest in this position (designating “Full-Time Bilingual Legal Secretary”), relevant reference letters or a list of relevant references, and salary history and pay preference to Jon Katz, Marks & Katz, LLC, 1400 Spring St., Suite 410, Silver Spring, MD 20910. Fax: 301-495-8815. Please do not send E-mail attachments. For more information, visit http://www.markskatz.com.

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CLASSIFIEDS — SERVICES

House Sitter Available
Tolu Tolu, tolu2books@aol.com

Mature writer, nonsmoker, extremely honest and reliable. I know what is important regarding your home's safety and security while you are gone. I am very clean and neat and would not entertain in your home. 331-4418.

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CLASSIFIEDS — RECOMMENDATIONS

Any Ideas for Dealing with the Invasion of Little Ants?
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com

Does anyone have ideas for dealing with the invasion of little ants that some of us endure? I'm about ready to rent an aardvark from the National Zoo for a week or two. What delight I'd have coaxing an aardvark into my house and pointing out its waiting buffet.

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