Road to Justice

Dear Justice League:

Toby Doloboff, below, asks an interesting question about the Washington Teachers Union embezzlement case: what happened to it? But the WTU case isn't the only political criminal case that languishes in the leisurely pace of Roscoe Howard's US Attorney office. Two minor players in the WTU case have signed plea agreements, but no plea agreements, no indictments, no visible movement has been sighted for the past year in the case of the mayor's campaign petition fraud -- which has an overlapping cast of characters. And a year before that, Howard couldn't find anything indictable in the Executive Office of the Mayor's scheme in which it used real and phony nonprofit organizations to disguise political contributions and get tax deductions for them.

If a single lowly clerk in the DC government is caught in scamming some money, justice can take a straight, swift path. If following the trail of corruption to its logical end would lead too high, however, justice takes a long and winding road, and it too often loses the path and gets lost in the woods.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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Washington Teachers Union
Toby Doloboff, Toby1414@aol.com

One would hope that the wheels of justice are grinding so slowly in the case of Barbara Bullock, Gwendolyn Hemphill, and others because they are in the process of grinding finely. In other words, are charges against the former leadership of the Washington Teachers' Union pending, or what? In case people have forgotten, the above-mentioned former president of the WTU and her assistant resigned their posts after accusations of misspending millions of teachers' dues monies on luxury items, including furs, shoes, and art work. Meanwhile, teachers' negotiated raise of 9 percent have been cancelled by the school board and morale is in the toilet among DCPS teachers. Strike rumors are rampant.

[Materials on the WTU case are available at http://www.dcpswatch.com/wtu. — Gary Imhoff]

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A Real Mayor
Ed T. Barron, edtb@aoldotcom

You'd think if you lived in the same city for more than fifteen years you'd be blessed with at least one good mayor. I must have landed in a dry hole; haven't seen one worth a damn yet. I sent a note to Mayor Bloomberg in New York City asking him to give DC an opportunity to elect our first good mayor in nearly twenty years. Bloomberg has done a fine job in very trying times in NY City and still is considered unelectable should he choose to run again. He could manage this city, with his brains and strong leadership style, with one hand tied behind his back.

You'd see a lot better policing and performance in all the major departments of this city's government with Bloomberg at the helm. And heaven protect those who would steal from this city. They'd be squashed in a NY minute. Come on down Mayor Bloomberg, we have a job for you.

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On the Road
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com

Last week, Mayor Williams was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Cleveland, Ohio, from Tuesday through Thursday. According to the mayor's office, he was visiting the two cities to review education issues (translation: come up with arguments for vouchers). He returned to DC on Thursday evening, and hit the road again Friday afternoon, flying to Honolulu, Hawaii, to attend the annual meeting of the American Society of Association Executives; he'll be there through Tuesday. According to WRC-TV reporter Tom Sherwood's count last week, Mayor Williams had then been out of more than a month this year.

While the mayor cannot be faulted for occasional business trips, sometimes he's needed at home. Last week alone: 1) Greater Southeast Community Hospital, the linchpin of the mayor's controversial healthcare alliance, lost its accreditation from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. By Friday, the Washington Times was also reporting (http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20030821-100521-5632r.htm) that “the owners of Greater Southeast Community Hospital have spent more than $675,000 in lobbying expenses and campaign contributions for city politicians since 2000, despite declaring bankruptcy amid the hospital's worsening management crisis that now threatens its closure.” 2) Citing a crime “crisis” (including both gang violence and murders in Columbia Heights and Adams Morgan and the murders of two transgendered people) MPD Chief Ramsey announced that he would suspend the Department's collective bargaining agreement regarding scheduling and leave. MPD revealed the following statistics: citywide crime is up 2 percent over last year, including a 20 percent increase in sexual assaults, 15 percent increase in robberies, 24 percent in stolen automobiles, and 5 percent increase in homicides (including a 61 percent in the 7th District). 3) The mayor and the city council were trying to retrieve $14 million in surplus taxes wrongly collected by the National Capital Revitalization Corporation. 4) The University of the District of Columbia came under increased criticism for its hiring policies and its deteriorated physical condition. 5) The city's conflict with the Washington Humane Society came to a head, requiring city officials either to come to terms on a new contract or to find another organization to run the city's animal shelter.

In addition, the fortieth anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington would have provided a national platform for a Washington mayor who was in town. Moreover, last week the mayor could have worked on: 1) filling critical vacancies in his administration, including a new City Administrator, Deputy Chief of Staff, Director of the Office of Community Outreach, Director of the Office of Property Management, and Director of the Department of Personnel, as well as appointees to the Sports Commission, Convention Center Authority, Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, National Capital Revitalization Corporation, Board of Real Property Assessment and Appeals, Board of Elections and Ethics, and so on. 2) Averting the real possibility of a teachers' strike soon after the schools open, following the school board's decision not to honor a negotiated 9 percent pay raise for teachers. 3) Balancing the District's budget by the end of the fiscal year on September 30, despite severe overspending by the DC public schools and the Department of Mental Health. 4) And preparing for the mid-September return of the city council from its summer recess.

In addition, the mayor's staff needs to answer how many of the frequent trips the mayor has taken this year have been at the taxpayers' expense, how much these trips have cost, and where in the budget the expenses for them have been buried.

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It’s Not the Numbers, Stupid!
Bryce A. Suderow, streetstories@juno.com

I want to post a follow up to my letter last Sunday in themail. In that letter I described three instances where people beat me up — and the MPD did absolutely nothing about punishing my assailants. Just so no one misses my point, let me make my point clearer. All this talk about the number of cops on the street is dodging the real issue, which is that the MPD won't do its job when it is on the streets. Unless the mayor or the city council forces the cops to work, putting more cops on the street will only result in one thing — packing the 7-Elevens so full of malingering cops that we won't be able to shop there.

Let's see the mayor and the city council “step up to the plate” (as Sharon Ambrose puts it) and confront this crucial issue.

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Tenleytown Does Need More Development
Claude Kacser, kacser@umd.edu

Since Tenleytown is on the Metro, and since residents do want the pleasures of a vibrant yet small city scene -- restaurants, movies, bookstores, etc. -- it behooves them to encourage multi-use development on the Wisconsin Avenue corridor and adjacent.

They should not oppose all developments. They should eagerly accept and promote midsize multipurpose developments. And the new library should if at all possible become one part of a bigger development. That site is prime!

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Tawdry Tenley
Sue Hemberger, smithhemb@aol.com

Stan Wellborn's “more residents = more/better retail” equation is far too simplistic. In fact, the high-density development being proposed (and fought) in Tenleytown kills neighborhood-serving retail rather than enhances it. The pedestrian-friendly retail strips Wellborn praises in northwest DC are the product of zoning overlays that significantly restrict height and density. These overlays typically allow maximum heights of forty feet and maximum floor area ratios of 1 or 2 and also address other issues that make retail strips livelier — put the banks, travel agencies, etc., upstairs; eliminate curb cuts that interfere with the flow of pedestrian traffic, etc.

Cleveland Park's overlay came out of exactly the same kinds of development pressure Tenleytown is experiencing now — Metro-driven investment led to proposals to put a very large/dense high-rise on the Park and Shop site. Their Safeway moved out because the land underneath it was becoming too valuable for a supermarket, which could be put more cheaply and conveniently, given loading requirements, at Van Ness and still attract the same shoppers. And when Cleveland Park's residents had extraordinary difficulty attracting a new supermarket, they pushed for the overlay to protect a compact strip of Connecticut Avenue for neighborhood-serving businesses that otherwise would have been pushed out in favor of projects that are more profitable land-uses (e.g., high-rise luxury one-bedroom apartments) if there were no (or very permissive) zoning restrictions. Van Ness shows what happens when you don't downzone to preserve neighborhood/pedestrian friendly retail in these situations. Its commercial core is C-3 (65+ feet, FARs of 3.5 and up) and its retail looks a lot like Tenley's. What's more, the experience at Van Ness (I lived through it) has been that the retail got worse and worse as more large apartment buildings went up. (It lost Safeway, GAP, Kinkos, kitchen store, furniture store, Blockbuster, bookstore, etc., and went from being a decent place to shop to basically a bedroom community in a city).

The Office of Planning knows how to foster good retail in a neighborhood (the overlays I've been describing are, in fact, called “Neighborhood Commercial Overlay Districts” — they are Chapter 13 of the Zoning code, available online as are the zoning maps) -- and "build more high-rise apartment buildings to stimulate consumer demand, then cross your fingers and wait for the market to produce retail nirvana" ain't the answer. The answer is to use zoning to create parcels whose most profitable use is retail. They'd be doing precisely the opposite if they were to support these two projects. Under the current zoning, retail has to be twice as profitable per square foot as residential to be the preferred usage. But retail would have to be four times as profitable as residential under the proposed zoning. Basically, this kind of upzoning prices retail out of the real estate market.

With regard to blaming Tenley's tawdriness on cave-dwelling NIMBYs: Cleveland Park fights as fiercely as Tenley does with even less provocation (Tregaron, Rosedale, NCRC). But Cleveland Park achieved a decisive victory in its battle over commercial development when it got the overlay. As a result, its remaining turf wars tend to be between neighbors and non-profits rather than developers with big bucks, friends in the Office of Planning and at the Post, etc. Tenley wins some and loses some but keeps on fighting — and so do the developers.

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A Message from Tenleytown
Mary Alice Levine, levines5@starpower.net

Mr. Wellborn lives in a DC neighborhood with single family homes and no commercial development. It seems he must regularly drive several miles (or take the bus?) to Tenleytown, another neighborhood of single family homes, so he can avail himself of the Tenleytown business district which he categorizes as an “embarrassment.” So why does he want to come here? And why would he want developers to destroy our neighborhood of single family homes? Wouldn't it be more logical for him to ask the developers to relocate their plans for mammoth apartment buildings closer to Rock Creek Park in hopes that they would foster the development of nice restaurants, schools, and lots of movie theaters closer to Mr. Wellborn? We in Tenleytown already have these amenities.

I honestly would not wish that fate on my neighbors to the east. No neighborhood should lose its character because of developer and government greed. But if we in Tenleytown who walk to several movie theaters (including the multiplex at 4000 Wisconsin), fine restaurants, grocery stores, fast food places, three fine DC public schools, many private and nursery schools, gyms, a large public library, dry cleaners, mattress stores, a drug store and (soon) Best Buy and The Container Store . . . yes, if we Tenleytowners are a “cabal of cave dwellers,” what does that make the residents of Mr. Wellborn's neighborhood just west of Rock Creek Park? Not cave dwellers, but people who enjoy a suburban lifestyle right here in the city. Just as people in Tenleytown enjoy a slightly more urban lifestyle in the nation's capital. We don't want our neighborhood torn down, our light cut off, our views cut off, and we don't want to become Bethesda or Ballston. We don't want to worsen the traffic congestion we already suffer, and we especially don't want our streets made any more hazardous for our children and our senior citizens. About five thousand children attend school in Tenleytown every day. Few are taxpayers, and even fewer vote. But they are hardly cave dwellers, and they count as people, though Mr. Wellborn thinks we need more people. We also have hundreds of citizens who use Iona House, a service center for senior citizens located in the heart of Tenleytown. There have already been numerous accidents which have involved both our very old and our very young on Wisconsin and Nebraska Avenues.

And by the way, building huge apartment buildings did not bring the retailers to Van Ness and Connecticut. It might not work in Tenleytown either. We already have a great deal of retail on Wisconsin in Tenleytown, and even more in Friendship Heights just north. Building apartments isn't necessarily going to bring more retail. It might bring us a few more people, but contrary to Mr. Wellborn's assertion, we have already have lots of people, and we are a vibrant community.

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Reply to Stan Wellborn’s Tawdry Tenleytown
Cheryl Browning, pavukmatt@aol.com

This letter was interesting. I wondered which group (“cave dwellers) the author was referring to. I also found it curious that, despite the fact that Tenleytown is a “commercial embarrassment,” the author regularly shops here. Perhaps his neighborhood is even more of a commercial embarrassment. Obviously, it lacks Whole Foods, CVS, Starbucks, library, Metro, health club, and a framing store. He has not noticed that we do have some restaurants, such as Guapos (wildly popular), Angelicos (good sandwiches, pizza, and pasta), Krupins (very good deli), the Thai restaurants, Cafe Ole; and Matisse (nice upscale French/American restaurant) is just a little north of us. I guess Mr. Wellborn thinks we have not hit the mark unless there are a bunch of chain restaurants.

He also doesn't realize that there are several movie theaters at 4000 Wisconsin and that we old Tenleytowners certainly didn't want the Tower to be here. He also didn't address the fact that retail fled from the Van Ness Metro stop when the high rise apartments were put in. Discussion is good, but I think I am getting very tired of reading one-sided views that are easy. It is not so easy when all the facts are taken into consideration.

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS AND CLASSES

Rally to Oppose Gales Shelter Closure, August 26
T.J. Sutcliffe, tjsutcliffe@some.org

On August 19th, homeless men and women were given notice that they will no longer be able to reside at Gales School Shelter after September 19 due to the city's alternative use plans for the building. As a result, the city will lose 150 emergency beds for men and women in the downtown area. No replacement site for the shelter has been named. For the past two winters, Gales has been key to helping people who are homeless in and near downtown come inside during cold weather. Homeless residents and advocates fear that the loss of this year-round city shelter capacity will increase the number of people at risk of death by hypothermia this winter. The closure of Gales could hardly come at a worse time. Currently, city shelter administrators are reporting existing emergency shelter sites as full or over capacity, and outreach workers are seeing increased numbers of people on the streets. These increases suggest that rather than closing shelter beds, the District government should be expanding capacity in preparation for this winter.

The Coalition of Housing and Homeless Organizations (COHHO) will march with residents who are poor and without homes to Freedom Plaza on Tuesday, August 26, for an 11:00 a.m. rally in front of the John W. Wilson Building. Join us as we will call for the city to keep Gales School open until the city can provide adequate replacement shelter in the downtown area! We will rally in solidarity with residents from Arthur Capper/Carrollsburg public housing who are opposing displacement from their homes due to Hope VI development. For more information about the Gales Shelter closure and rally, contact: Mary Ann Luby, 972-1926.

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Lobby to Stop DC Vouchers, September 3
Elizabeth Davis, lizday_1951@yahoo.com

President George Bush plans to use Washington, DC, as a testing laboratory for school vouchers. Are you for or against school vouchers? Mayor Anthony Williams, DCPS Board President Peggy Cooper Cafritz, and Kevin Chavous did not represent the citizens of the District of Columbia when they agreed to adopt a school voucher program for DC. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton is working with the Washington Teachers' Union, the PTA, American Federation of Teachers, DC ministers, and other community organizations to stop DC vouchers. On September 4, the US Senate will vote on the DC Appropriations bill with the voucher bill attached. . On September 3, Congresswoman Norton has scheduled a lobby day against vouchers at the Rayburn House Office Building at 11:00 a.m. She has scheduled appointments for DC citizens and DC teachers (current and retired) to visit the offices of the members of the House and Senate to let them know that 85 percent of DC citizens have voted against vouchers twice. These representatives will vote against the voucher bill for DC once they are convinced that the Mayor's decision to impose vouchers in DC is not what DC residents want.

We need your assistance to serve as delegates to meet for one hour with one of the Senators or Congresspersons who will vote on the DC Appropriations Bill and to attend a press conference on September 3 at noon. Would you be willing to help us out on September 3 by participating in the Lobby Day press conference and visiting with one of the designated Representatives? If you agree, Congresswoman Norton will send you a package with all of the information you’ll need. for Lobby Day. Call Elizabeth Davis, Chair of the Washington Teachers' Union Anti Voucher Committee, to join in this fight at 301-249-0286, or send me an E-mail: lizday_1951@yahoo.com. Help us stop President Bush and Mayor Anthony Williams from using DC as a test laboratory for vouchers! Our children deserve better!

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Historically Black Colleges Conferences, September 14
Antionette F. St. Clair, StClairAF@state.gov

This conference may be of interest to high school students who are interested in learning about or attending an historically Black college or university. National Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) Conference, September 14 - 17, Marriott Crystal Gateway Hotel, 1700 Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington, VA (Crystal City Metro Stop). To obtain specific details and to register online for the conference, please visit DTI Associates web site: http://www.dtiassociates.com/hbcu/index.cfm. The final date to pre-register is Friday, August 29.

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Free Computer Training
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com

Do you know a DC resident who is low-income or unemployed? CitiWide Computer Training Center, located in Mt. Pleasant and serving the community since 1993, is enrolling students for its fall trainings. Trainings cover Microsoft Office programs, Internet and soft skills. Further info at http://storymakers.net/citiwidetraining2003.pdf. Thanks for helping spread the word about these trainings. CitiWide would also love additional volunteers to help with the trainings and one-on-one tutoring. CitiWide's computer lab has Pentium III computers and cable modem Internet access. CitiWide's web site is at http://www.mycitiwide.com.

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