Power Failures

Dear Power Watchers:

I hope that your power, at least your electrical power, never faltered or, if it was interrupted, that it has been restored. Your political power is another thing; it will take much longer for you to get any of it back.

In interviews with candidates for the Board of Elections and Ethics positions that Dorothy discusses below, Mayor Tony Williams complained that the Board was engaged in a vendetta against him, that it was out to get him. Williams nurses a grudge against the Board and the Office of Campaign Finance not only because they held him responsible for his forged primary petitions, but also because they have called him on a range of campaign finance violations. He found a sympathetic ear in David Marlin, whom he nominated to chair the Board. Marlin has his own grudge against the Board, which he sued in 1999 because it enforced its rule against electioneering in polling places by telling him that he couldn't wear Tony Williams campaign paraphernalia into the poll. Marlin appealed his right to electioneer inside polling places from the Board of Elections to the District Court and to the Court of Appeals, losing soundly at every level, until his final appeal to the Supreme Court was turned down. (The District Court and Court of Appeals decisions are available at http://www.dcwatch.com/govern/boee020119.htm.)

Marlin betrayed his bitterness and the depth of his contempt for the Board when he misrepresented their position at the mayor's press conference at which his nomination was revealed. Although the Court opinions note that the Board of Elections offered Marlin the same curbside voting service that it gives to the disabled if he insisted upon wearing Williams campaign materials, Marlin falsely claimed that the Board had denied him the right the vote, and that they wouldn't let him cast a ballot unless he removed the campaign paraphernalia. And both Marlin and the mayor revealed that behind his nomination was an agenda. Marlin said about his campaign to allow electioneering within polling places that, “I felt strongly about that, and it is something that one of these days I would like to see if the other members of the Board agree with me to revisit.” Mayor Williams had an even more worrisome agenda; he said that he wanted his new appointees to the Board to revisit campaign finance rules and regulations. Goodness only knows what mischief he intends by that; he refused to detail any rules or regulations that he wanted changed. For more than two decades, ever since Emmitt Fremeaux was hired as the Executive Director of the Board of Elections, and he hired Joe Baxter, Alice Miller, and William Lewis as his deputies, the Board of Elections and the Office of Campaign Finance have been jewels of the DC government; they have worked extremely well. Mayor Williams, in his shortsighted rage, intends to end that, to deal with it in essentially the same way he dealt with DC General Hospital.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

###############

Mansion May Not Be Freebie
Alma Gates, ahg71139@aol.com

More than two years after the City Council approved the Casey Mansion Foundation's offer to build a Mayor's Mansion on its seventeen-acre tract on Foxhall Road, the terms of the deal still have not been set down in a formal agreement between the District and the private foundation. Among the key matters the Council required to be covered is “whether the amount of funds set aside by the Casey Mansion proposal includes funds to cover annual property tax revenue that is foregone” because the Foundation is tax exempt. The cash-strapped DC government should not continue to ignore this aspect of the Mansion project, especially because Casey will continue to own the Mansion and the grounds. The Council should use the September 30 hearing on the intended long-term lease of 1.8 acres of Whitehaven Park to expand the proposed Mansion as an opportunity to examine the Mansion deal closely for the first time.

Casey's offer seems unlikely to be the "freebie" the public has been led to believe. In its 2001 approval resolution, the Council also asked, “how open and accessible” the Mansion and grounds will be to the public. The community has a right to the answer, particularly because Casey has an eight-foot-high steel fence around its own seventeen acres and plans the same barrier around the public parkland.

###############

DC Home Insurance Costs Among Highest in Nation
Mark David Richards, Dupont East, mark@bisconti.com

Many of you will not be surprised that, according to an article in CNBC Money today, home insurance cost in DC ranks fourth highest nationally after Texas, Louisiana, and Florida. DC ranks 27th for rental insurance. See http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Insurance/P61312.asp. The article has a feature by which you can select your state and find out which hazards you could encounter. The feature advises that DC could suffer from the perils of “wildfires, floods, high wind, and freezing weather.” (Wildfires? Have I missed something? I thought the threat of terrorism was driving up our rates.) The article also reports that: “The flip side of the building-standards coin is seen in Louisiana and the District of Columbia, where there exist a disproportionately high percentage of substandard, easily damaged structures. This makes them more costly to repair, hence the high property insurance rates.”

Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/4108146.html, reports that “Homeowners hit by Isabel could face a double whammy — hurricane damage and higher insurance deductibles. Many of the 17 catastrophe-prone states that allow hurricane deductibles were in Isabel's path, and homeowners there may have to absorb more of the reconstruction costs than they anticipated.” The Star Tribune reports that DC permits hurricane deductibles; see the Insurance Information Institute, http://www.iii.org.

###############

Partisan Politics at the BOEE
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com

At his weekly press conference last week, Mayor Williams announced two appointments to the DC Board of Elections and Ethics (http://www.dcwatch.com/mayor/030917.htm): Lenora Cole Alexander, a Republican who previously served on the Board, has been nominated to replace Jonda McFarlane; and David Marlin, a Democrat, has been nominated to chair the Board and replace Ben Wilson. According to Ron Collins, the Director of the mayor's Office of Board and Commissions, a third nominee will soon be named to replace the last BOEE member, Stephen Callas. That will complete the mayor's goal of replacing all the BOEE members who ruled against him for submitting forged primary nominating petitions. Although the terms of the three-member board are supposed to be staggered, Mayor Williams will be able to name the entire Board at essentially one time because he did not make timely reappointments as their terms expired over the past three years.

Williams broke tradition in naming David Marlin as his nominee as chairman. To ensure their independence and impartiality, Board of Elections members, not only in DC but around the nation, are usually not closely associated with any particular candidates and not active in party politics. Marlin, by contrast, has been an active partisan political supporter of Mayor Williams. He was a member of Williams's transition team in 1998; he served on the finance committee for Williams's 1999 inauguration; he was a member of Williams's committee to promote the school charter amendment in 2000; he sued the Board of Elections and Ethics to assert his right to wear Williams campaign materials within the polling place; and he gave his latest campaign contribution to the Reelect Williams campaign ($175.00) less than two months ago, at the end of July 2003, at the same time that his nomination to the Board of Elections was being considered.

###############

What Does It Mean?
Ed T. Barron, edtb@aoldotcom

As I cleaned up the debris that had fallen from the huge trees outside the house this weekend, I noticed that the acorns this year are huge. They are real ankle breakers on the sidewalks in this neighborhood. Just wondering why they are the biggest I've seen in my fifteen years here in Dodge City. What does it mean? What does it portend? (Only the Shadow knows)

###############

Amazing Headline
Scott McLarty, scottmclarty@hotmail.com

“Isabel leaves 4.5 million homes in dark,” Washington Times headline, September 20, http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20030919-115211-3939r.htm.

That's more than the Washington Times and Washington Post combined!

###############

No Trash Pickup Implicit?
Joan Eisenstodt, jeisen@aol.com

Searched the web last night (September 17) and early this a.m. (September 18). Found lots on Virginia jurisdictions about trash pick up, yea or nay. DC? By the time this is message is seen, I guess we'll know. I could not find, on the DC government web page, at WTOP, WJLA, and other emergency and non-emergency sites, what DC was doing about trash. Or is it implied that if there is a “state of emergency,” no trash pick up?

Postscript: after posting earlier and having called the DC emergency line and checking all over the web, guessing that if there were a “state of emergency” in DC, there would be no trash pick up, I was wrong. I ran outside when I heard the truck, and they kept going since so few people had stuff out. Sheesh. How tough would it have been to update WTOP or WJLA or other stations and the DC info number and web site to say trash would be picked up on Thursday?

###############

EPA Publishes State Anti-Idling Regulations
Mark David Richards, Dupont East, mark@bisconti.com

The EPA published a list of states with anti-idling laws, including DC. In DC, the law states that diesel and gasoline vehicles may not sit idle for more than three minutes, http://www.epa.gov/orcdizux/retrofit/documents/s03002.pdf. DC's standard is among the strictest in the country, with New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Philadelphia, PA. There are three exceptions to DC's 3-minute law: 1) if it is necessary for auxiliary equipment installed on the vehicle, 2) to operate air conditioning for fifteen minutes on a bus with twelve or more people, and 3) to operate heating equipment when the temperature is less than 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

###############

Both Clinics and a Public Hospital
Vanessa Dixon, vmdixon@earthlink.net

An article in themail (September 17) advocated more money for primary care, not hospitals, and disagreed with Gary Imhoff's endorsement of a public hospital as suggested by the CEO of GWU Hospital. What's disturbing about this article is that all too often discussions about public health devolve into a competition that pits hospitals against primary care. The truth is that in a healthy health care system both hospitals and primary care are important. Further, with regard to the need for a public hospital, it should be noted that a health care safety net consists of the Department of Health, teaching hospitals, clinics, and a public hospital. Do primary care providers have legitimate reason to believe that primary care is overshadowed by hospital care? Yes! However, there are reasons for that reality. In an ideal world, everyone would obtain regular preventive care from primary care doctors (in clinics and private offices), and this would indeed decrease the number of ER visits to hospitals. However, there is still a critical need for hospital care because, too often, illness that requires hospital care can’t be prevented, or addressed in a timely manner, no matter how diligently primary care is utilized.

It should be considered that the availability of primary care is limited to business hours, and subject to the scheduling limitations of physicians. Yet illness often does not occur during business hours and physician availability does not always coincide with the onset of illness. In these cases, the only responsible option is to seek hospital care. Further, there can be lengthy waiting lists to access care at the city's clinics. The bottom line is that the decision to seek hospital care is often unavoidable, hence the greater allocation of dollars to hospitals -- which is based on actual volume of use.

The city's clinics are suffering financially — as are the private hospitals, which results in competition for the same dollars. However, given that the city's hospitals have collectively cried out in pain due to the absence of a public hospital, this is a legitimate concern that should not be dismissed due to the equally legitimate concerns about insufficient access to primary care. The answer to increased primary care is not to bewail the attention (and money) paid to hospitals. Rather, the real solution to accessing quality health care for both the insured and uninsured is educating the public about the need for primary care, as well as a public hospital at the strategically located DC General site that incorporates increased access to primary care. Let's stay focused on the real issue, quality health care, and let's not devolve into promoting the interest of clinics above that of hospitals. Both are vital.

###############

The Real Issue in Primary Care
Michael Bindner, mikey b at yahoo dot com

Rene Wallis calls for more money for primary care in order to lessen reliance by the poor on emergency rooms for these services. This is an essential reform, but does not address a major reason the poor and uninsured use the ER for primary care services. These services are often used on Sunday nights. This timing is not an accident. Most of the uninsured who use these services are among the working poor; the non-working poor on TANF have access to Medicaid. The working poor are not only without health insurance, they are usually without sick leave. If they do not work, they do not eat. They must work sick and cannot miss work to take a sick child to a doctor — or to take a healthy child for preventative appointments, especially vaccinations. Therefore, it is not enough to open primary care clinics, or even provide insurance for poor children. Two reforms are necessary.

First, clinics for the uninsured must be open Sunday nights to meet the needs of this population. Second, paid sick leave must be considered a civil right, including paid leave to take a healthy child to the doctor for immunizations. The Council of the District of Columbia could make this happen in the same way that it mandates a higher minimum wage than the federal requirement. This will not result in job loss, since the firms who deny these benefits to their lower wage workers are here because this is the nation's capital. They aren't going anywhere. Until this benefit is provided, the working poor will continue to use the ER for primary care on Sunday nights.

###############

CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

Evening at the Embassy of Jordan, September 25
Michael Karlan, events@dcyoungpro.com

On Thursday, September 25, at 7:30 p.m., the DC Society of Young Professionals is hosting an evening at the Embassy of Jordan, located at 3504 International Drive, NW, near the Van Ness Metro Station. This walk-around style event features a complimentary Jordanian buffet, an open bar of middle Eastern wine and beer, Jordanian music, film, art, a diplomatic greeting, and the chance to mix and mingle with DC's professional community. This event costs $60. For more details about this event, or to learn about all the DCSYP events, please visit http://www.dcyoungpro.com, E-mail events@dcyoungpro.com, or call 686-6085.

###############

CLASSIFIEDS — FOR SALE

Baby Furniture
Paul Fekete, pfekete@nova.umuc.edu

Baby on the way? Two car seats, toddler car booster seat, crib with bumpers, high chair, booster seat, safety gate, training potty, stroller, diaper pail. All for $250 or best offer. Call 686-1759.

###############

themail@dcwatch is an E-mail discussion forum that is published every Wednesday and Sunday. To subscribe, to change E-mail addresses, or to switch between HTML and plain text versions of themail, use the subscription form at http://www.dcwatch.com/themail/subscribe.htm. To unsubscribe, send an E-mail message to themail@dcwatch.com with “unsubscribe” in the subject line. Archives of past messages are available at http://www.dcwatch.com/themail.