Disengaged
Dear Engaged:
Instead of my boring you by harping on the same subject for three
issues in a row, I'll let school board members Williams Lockridge and
Julie Mikuta do it instead. Here's how Lockridge describes how Mayor
Williams touted McKinley Technological High School in his campaign
appearances, but then dropped his interest in it (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46218-2003Oct5.html):
“The mayor's people bailed out. It's about control. If we don't do
what the mayor wants us to do, he takes his marbles and goes home.”
And here's the ending of Julie Mikuta's letter in today's Outlook
section, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42186-2003Oct3.html:
“I have been an elected member of the DC Board of Education for nearly
three years. The mayor, who lives in Foggy Bottom, is one of my
constituents. But unlike the many people who call me frequently with
their concerns about our schools, and despite his support of my
candidacy, I have never received a phone call from the mayor. Never. I'd
like to see the mayor put the bickering aside and make a commitment to
improve the quality of education in our city. In case he doesn't have my
number, I can be reached at (202) 442-4289.”
Let us know if you get a call, Julie, but don't hang by your phone.
Four years ago, during the campaign over the school board charter
amendment, there may have been some excuse for the voters' having been
fooled by the mayor's and councilmember's campaign promises that they
were so concerned about education that they wanted to be accountable for
the schools themselves. We've had enough experience since then so that
there's no excuse for anyone's being fooled by that a second time. But
then, the mayor and the councilmembers don't have to return to the
voters and fool us again. In our vote on the charter amendment, we voted
away our democratic control and gave away our ability to ensure an
independent, elected school board. We gave the city council the
authority to do whatever it wants to do to the Board of Education and to
the schools. It's out of our hands.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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This spring the city council, bolstered by support from DC statehood
and voting rights advocates, adopted Bill 15-81, the “Presidential
Primary Election Amendment Act of 2003.” In an effort to focus
national attention on the District's unique political situation, the
bill changed the date for the District's presidential primary from May 4
to January 13, 2004. Advocates believed that DC's holding the nation's
first presidential primary, prior to Iowa's January 19 caucus and New
Hampshire's January 27 primary, would “raise national awareness of
DC's need for Congressional voting rights and full self-government.”
From the start, however, the strategy has run into serious
difficulties. First and foremost, the Democratic National Committee
objected to DC's unilateral effort to change the party's presidential
primary calendar. In recent months, the party has sought to discourage
candidates from campaigning in DC, and last week, at the DNC's fall
meeting in Washington, the party's rules committee officially decided
not to recognize the District's primary. As a result, no convention
delegates will actually be elected by the January 13 “primary”; the
delegates will be selected at a subsequent party caucus. (The Republican
party, faced with the same national party objections to the scheduling
of the DC primary, has decided not to participate in a non-binding
election at all, but to select its convention delegates at a party
caucus.) As a result, in recent weeks local Democratic party activists
have started to worry that the January 13 primary may turn out to be a
major embarrassment — that many of the current presidential candidates
will not register for or seek a place on the District's ballot, and that
the voter turnout in January will be less that 8 percent of the
District's registered voters. (Voter turnout for the presidential
primary was 8.8 percent in May 2000, and 8.4 percent in 1996.)
In an effort to promote the January 13 primary, leaders in the
District's Democratic party appeared at a hearing before the Council
last Friday and asked it to support legislation that would change the
District's election laws and force the Board of Elections and Ethics to
change some of its rules and procedures. These changes include: 1) same
day voter registration (currently six states allow voters to register on
election day — Idaho, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and
Wyoming); 2) easing the rules regarding securing absentee ballots; 3)
automatically placing all the Democratic Party's presidential candidates
on the District's January 13 ballot “without a filing fee, petitions,
or any requirement”; 4) giving non-citizens the right to vote in all
future elections. The council is likely to rush through emergency
legislation to pass any or all of these measures at its legislative
session on Tuesday, without any further public discussion or
consideration, or any press attention.
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DC Doesn’t Work Without Child Care
Parisa B. Norouzi, parisa@wishdc.com
Support working families: Maintain eligibility for subsidized child
care! The Department of Human Services is proposing to change the income
limits for the Child Care Subsidy Program, in order to reduce the number
of families who are eligible. Only a few years ago, the District raised
the income limits in recognition of the inability of low-income working
families to afford market-rate care. Existing rules allow families
currently enrolled to earn 300 percent of poverty. Too, existing rules
allow new families to earn up to 250 percent of poverty. The proposal is
to lower it to 200 percent. For example, for a family of two, the
current income limit is $33,180, and the proposed income limit is
$24,240; for a family of three, the current income limit is $41,640, and
the proposed income limit is $30,520.
The deadline for comments has been extended to October 17. Deliver
the message: “Do not reduce eligibility requirements for the Child
Care Subsidy Program. Instead, increase the FY 2004 budget. Low-income
working parents rely on the subsidy program! No child care, no work!”
Send the comments to: Barbara Ferguson Kamara, Office of Early Childhood
Development, 717 14th Street, NW, Suite 1200, 20005, Barbara.Kamara@dc.gov,
fax 724-7228. Copy your comments to Mayor Williams, mayor@dc.gov,
fax 727-0505; and Yvonne Gilchrist, Acting Director, Department of Human
Services, 2700 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. SE, 801 East Bldg., WDC
20032. For more information, contact Parisa at 332-8800, parisa@wishdc.org.
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Public Space: The Final Frontier
Mark Eckenwiler, themale at ingot.org
In the last issue, Winston Bull lamented the price-gouging that goes
on at parking lots near the MCI Center. Here's an added outrage: just
about every parking lot in town is using public space to increase its
capacity and revenues. As many readers of themail know, the land between
the sidewalk and the street's building facade line is typically not
private property, but rather public space. I regularly encounter lots
with cars parked on public space abutting the sidewalk, but have yet to
find one that has a permit for this occupancy. (Yes, I have checked with
the permitting office.)
Unfortunately, the DC agencies charged with enforcing the public
space rules -- primarily DDOT and (for vehicular parking) DPW -- are
institutionally clueless about DC public space. For example, there's a
billboard at 4th Street and Massachusetts Avenue, NW, that's illegal
because two thirds of it stands on public property. (Mass. Ave. has a
forty-foot public space setback from the curb line.) Yet, despite my
repeated complaints (including, I kid you not, an aerial photo of the
site with overlaid property lines illustrating the violation), this
eyesore remains in place, reaping revenues for its owner even as it
pollutes the streetscape.
Another good example is FlexCar (which I think is a wonderful concept
in principle). FlexCar has at least two cars stationed in public space
on Capitol Hill for which it is paying rent to the “owner,” who only
owns the adjacent private property. When I pointed out this to a FlexCar
officer (who has posted here in themail), the insouciant response was,
“We'll keep doing it this way until someone makes us stop.” Alas,
DDOT has shown no such inclination.
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High-Priced Parking on MCI Nights
James Treworgy, jamie@trewtech.com
I had thought there used to be a law capping parking at around twelve
bucks in DC, but couldn't say for sure. In any event, I personally have
no problem with this. DC, particularly near the MCI center, is well
served by public transportation. Given that, the ability to drive
downtown and park cheaply would seem to be more of a privilege than a
right. I see no reason why the capitalistic system shouldn't be allowed
to run it's course and let market prices reign for those who choose to
drive downtown.
I'm not some crazy close-the-city-to-cars type of person, I drive
downtown myself plenty when it makes sense. I just think that there's no
good justification for what amounts to subsidized parking if the market
will bear a higher price in parts of the city that are extremely well
served by public transit. There are clear benefits to reducing the
number of cars in the city and encouraging the use of public transit, so
I think those who choose to drive ought to pay what the market will bear
for that privilege.
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On October 2, Judge Eugene N. Hamilton issued orders denying all
attempts by the District government to block or delay discovery in the
class action lawsuit filed by Peter S. Craig and forty-eight other
homeowners challenging the methodology used for assessing residential
property in tax year 2002. The suit was filed September 30, 2002, but
has been delayed by the District's insistence to limit the case to
review of assessments of twenty-three of the petitioners who had filed
administrative appeals to BRPAA.
Reminding the District's lawyers that he had certified the case as a
class action last June, Judge Hamilton excoriated Corporation Counsel
for their refusal to abide by court orders absent amendment thereof. In
June he had directed that discovery be completed within forty-five days,
but this became impossible when the District's lawyers persisted in
limiting discovery to twenty-three properties and only two of the
neighborhoods affected by the across-the-board "trending"
which the Office of Tax Revenue used for Tax Year 2002 assessments. In
addition to his oral rulings, Judge Hamilton issued two written orders,
reproduced below.
1. Upon consideration of the Craig Petitioners' Motion for an Order
Compelling Discovery, dated September 4, 2003, and the memoranda in
support thereof and in opposition thereto, and it appearing that good
cause exists for the granting of such motion, it is this 1st day of
October, 2003, ORDERED that the Craig Petitioners' Motion is hereby
GRANTED, and it is FURTHER ORDERED that Respondents shall, at the
District of Columbia's own expense –
1. Produce for the purposes of depositions, each of the persons
noticed for deposition by notices dated July 21, 2003, at such time
and place as shall be specified by counsel for Petitioners without the
need of issuing subpoenas therefor,
2. Submit to counsel for Petitioners all documents requested in
paragraphs 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16, 19, 20 and 21 of
Petitioners' first request for the production of documents, served by
Petitioners on June 9, 2003, within 21 days of this order, including
but not limited to, the Microsolve CAMA itemized cost records used in
2001 as a basis for across-the-board increases in assessments for tax
year 2002 and the Vision CAMA itemized cost records prepared to
replace them in 2001-2002, such CAMA records to be furnished in
electronic form or format, capable of being read by a personal
computer. Permission is granted for Respondents to redact the social
security numbers of the persons whose names appear in documents
covered by Paragraph 6, above.
And it is FURTHER ORDERED, pursuant to Superior Court Rule
37(a)(4), that Petitioners' request that Respondents' counsel
reimburse Peter S. Craig, counsel for Petitioners, $20,000 as partial
reimbursement for his time and expenses in endeavoring to secure
compliance with discovery in this case, be held in abeyance.
2. UPON CONSIDERATION of the Respondents' motions for protective
orders as to depositions, and the oppositions thereto, it is by the
Court this 1st day of October, 2003, ORDERED that any and all
protective orders are denied.
FURTHER ORDERED that as to any depositions to which protective
orders have been sought, such persons to be deposed must make
themselves available for depositions within twenty (20) days of the
date of this Order.
Among those noted for depositions are Anthony A. Williams, present
Mayor and former CFO; Natwar Gandhi, CFO; William Henry Riley, Thomas
Branham, Chief Assessor, and various assessors. Two days before this
court conference, a second class action lawsuit was filed by Peter
Craig, joined by seventy other petitioners, alleging that similar
across-the-board increases in assessments for Tax Year 2003 are
unlawful and unconstitutional. Such assessments, it is alleged, result
in unlawful discrimination among homeowners and were established
without due process of law. The second case has been assigned Tax
Docket No. 8269-03. The lead case, involving Tax Year 2002, is Tax
Docket No. 8112-02.
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I'm glad Eric Martel took the opportunity to critique my proposition
that public education exists to address socioeconomic conditions in any
given jurisdiction. His references to accountability, standards and
W.E.B. DuBois are all important ideas in any discussion on public
education. But I stand by my assertion that public education exists to
address socioeconomic conditions and public education should not be
confused with private education or education in and of itself. The
District has balkanized education to the extent that we are no longer
clear why public education exists.
Let's first touch on DuBois because he should be considered in the
debate as one of the premier American intellects of the twentieth
century. It was the organization that he helped form, the NAACP, along
with Supreme Court Justice to-be Thurgood Marshall, which brought Brown
vs. the Board of Education before the US Supreme Court on Capitol Hill
in the spring of 1954. But as early as 1905, as part of the Niagara
Movement, DuBois was calling for equality in education for
African-Americans in order to address the social, political, and
economic injustices against African-Americans in the United States.
DuBois had a long debate in particular with Booker T. Washington on what
the nature of that education should be for African-Americans and to what
end, but it did not change the fact that he felt African-Americans
deserved equal accommodation. DuBois was an extremely literate person,
being the first African American to receive a doctorate from Harvard
University in 1895. His education put him intellectually ahead of not
only most African-Americans but most Americans of his time and to this
day.
As for standards, reading and writing are tools critical to surviving
in an economy and society dependent on the products of these tools.
Literacy effects one socioeconomic condition. Forty percent of DCPS
elementary schools sit in census tracts in which more than one third of
the population did not finish high school. More than half of those
neighborhoods have forty percent or more residents without high school
degrees. The numbers continue to fall until you get a handful of
elementaries where less than half of the neighborhood surrounding the
school has high school degrees. It should not be surprising that at the
higher end of this group families are straddling the poverty line on
income level. At the lower end, median family incomes around the school
drop well below $10,000 per year. If literacy is a challenge at this
level, how about computer literacy or for that matter computer access in
general? So much for themail getting to them.
Accountability is something that for public education to work, all
levels of society have to beheld accountable. It cannot fully fall on a
student, a teacher, a principal, a superintendent or a school system.
Public investment has to take place to create greater socioeconomic
equilibrium. Taxpayers have to believe in the idea of public education
to fund it. Leaders have to be able to coordinate the right amount of
money to pay for the expense of an adequate education. The fact that
Wilson High School's pool building collapsed this summer with little
interest on the part of the Washington Post, the City Council, the
Mayor, or the Congress says something about accountability. Money and
access to it is a major factor in socioeconomic status. And this is how
DCPS has come to be in the position it is in. DC has been divided by
race, class, and geography to the extent that citizens and their leaders
don't believe in public education. Instead, like squirrels, we put all
our nuts in our private tree and separate ourselves, neglecting the most
important thing our children could be doing: learning to read and write
as different people together.
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Celebrating Our Communities, October 14
Kevin Kiger, DC Vote, kkiger@dcvote.org
DC Vote's 2003 Champions of Democracy Awards Reception will be held
on Tuesday, October 14, from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m., at the City Museum of
Washington, DC, on Mt. Vernon Square. This year, DC Vote will honor
former DC Mayor Walter E. Washington, Mr. and Mrs. Phil and Jan Fenty,
and Jack H. Olender, Esq., for their dedication and commitment to
promoting democracy and full congressional voting representation for the
residents of the District of Columbia.
For more information about DC Vote's Champions of Democracy Awards
Reception and to order tickets, please visit DC Vote's web site at http://www.dcvote.org.
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CLASSIFIEDS — HELP WANTED
Eldercare and Household Help
Randi Rubovits, rrs2623 at aol.com
Looking for eldercare and household help. Flexible needs, hours.
Live-in is an option. E-mail Randi, rrs2623 at aol.com.
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CLASSIFIEDS — VOLUNTEERS
High School Juniors for Operations
Understanding DC
Rachael Feldman, rfeldman@oudc.org
Operation Understanding DC is a nonprofit organization that empowers
African American and Jewish high school students to dispel stereotypes;
to promote cooperation, mutual respect, and dialogue; and to work
together to fight racism, anti-Semitism, and all forms of
discrimination. During our yearlong program, students learn about each
other's cultures, histories and religions and about contemporary issues
facing their communities; go to each other's houses of worship; travel
in July to places of significance to both groups throughout the U.S.;
and facilitate discussions on discrimination and multiculturalism within
the larger community of schools, churches, synagogues and community
centers.
Please help us identify students! Currently, we are looking for
twenty-four African American and Jewish high school juniors who have
strong communication skills, demonstrated commitment to their
communities, a love of learning, and are leaders or who have leadership
potential. Check out our web site, http://www.oudc.org,
or call 234-6832 for more information. The application deadline is to
Friday, November 21.
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CLASSIFIEDS — HOUSING
Mount Pleasant studio Apartment, $725/month. Large English basement
studio apartment on lower Park Road with great access to the zoo, Rock
Creek, Cleveland Park Metro. Plenty of closets, use of washer/dryer.
Looking for relatively quiet nonsmoker, cat OK, one-year lease. $725 per
month includes utilities. Available November 1. Call Anne, 486-0929, or
E-mail anne@seechangeconsulting.com.
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CLASSIFIEDS — WANTED
Donated Laptop(s) Sought
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com
DC LEARNs, the coalition of literacy organizations in the DC-metro
area, is seeking a donated, secondhand laptop, preferably with a CD-ROM
drive, to offer as a grand prize for the 8th annual Women's History
Month Writing Competition. The laptop can be either Windows or
Macintosh. In the past seven years, Washington Apple Pi computer club
generously donated a recycled desktop computer for the grand prize. This
writing competition spawns a lot of writing by adult learners every
spring as literacy organizations around the city encourage students to
enter the competition. If you know of someone upgrading to a new laptop,
with an older one to give away, thanks for passing along my name and
E-mail address. I can pick it up from anywhere in the DC area. In case
multiple laptops become available, these will go to the second, third
and fourth place winners of this competition.
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CLASSIFIEDS — LOST
Engagement/Wedding Ring Set
Oona Waxenfelter, lostrings@hotmail.com
Lost yellow gold wedding band with diamond inlay and 9-23-2000
engraved on the inside, and yellow gold marquise cut diamond engagement
ring. Missing since Sunday, September 28, after ride on Metro and
Metrobus. Both have high sentimental value. Reward offered if returned
intact. If found, please turn in to Metro station manager or bus driver,
call 744-3349, or E-mail lostrings@hotmail.com.
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CLASSIFIEDS — RECOMMENDATIONS
I have a 1940s vintage maple table and two chairs that I foolishly
painted a while back. I want to get them stripped and refinished. If you
can refer anyone, that would be great.
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Can anyone recommend a reliable service station or garage to do a
50,000 mile tune-up and safety check on a Ford?
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