New Year’s Eve

Dear Friends:

No year-end review, no resolutions, and only one cliché: Happy New Year. As the Scots used to say on this night of the year, before they started singing Auld Lang Syne instead, “Good-night and joy be wi’ you a’.”

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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Public-Private Partnerships and DCPS
Sue Hemberger, Friendship Heights, smithhemb@aol.com

The weekend before Christmas, my neighbors and I received a letter from Principal Charles Abelmann at Janney School. According to his account, Janney is already grossly overcrowded but a low priority for significant capital improvements under DCPS’s master facilities plan. Abelmann wants to solve what he sees as “serious building and space issues” by cutting a deal with developers who will build the school a new wing if, in exchange, they are given Janney’s soccer field and authorized to build high-density housing there. (More detail re these proposals is available online at http://www.janneyschool.org/PTASITPPP/PPP_reports/PPP%20Committee%20Report%20Novemberpdf.pdf.)

For reasons I won't go into in this post, Abelmann’s letter represents an interesting and arguably quite problematic intervention in local development politics. But what struck me most about his letter was the outrageousness of the whole premise that a particular public school (as represented by its current principal and some of its current parents) owns and can dispose of the land on which it sits and may appropriate the proceeds to its exclusive benefit. As a matter of public policy, such a principle guarantees gross inequities within the school district and would, pretty obviously, lead to ill-informed and shortsighted decision-making. If Janney School has surplus land to barter away, then it has surplus land that could be sold. And if the money generated by such a sale should go to capital improvements, then it should go to the DCPS campuses whose needs are greatest. The school district has just spent four years developing a plan that prioritizes those needs and, as Abelmann acknowledges, Janney’s are minor in comparison to many others. Why should Janney get to jump the queue simply because it is sited in what is currently a hot real estate market? And, given that it is located in a hot real-estate market, should Janney be bartering away land that might be necessary for future expansion? Presumably, parents and principals are not the people who should be deciding how much land DCPS should own and where, or what constitutes a fair selling price, or how the proceeds should be spent. Yet, politically, that’s exactly what is likely to happen if entrepreneurial principals and parents are allowed to solicit and develop proposals such as these.

I’ve written to the DCPS officials who are responsible for facilities decisions, to the President of the school board and the members on their facilities committee, and to the City Council members on the committee that oversees the public schools requesting clarification of this policy. No word from any of them yet. Hopefully, that’s just because of the holidays. My fear is that this is city policy, but that no one involved in making it wants to discuss it publicly or abstractly. Superficially, public-private partnerships are an easy sell — “new schools for free!” And that’s how they will be experienced (at least initially) if they are discussed only in the context of particular projects, especially in the context of done deals. But once anyone bothers to think through the logic of what’s actually going on in these exchanges, I suspect that many people will object to them both as inequitable and as unlikely to promote the best use of public resources. Yes, I am aware of the school board's Emergency Rulemaking on this topic. As far as I can tell, it begs the questions I'm asking here -- perhaps because it treats the Superintendent as the only DCPS actor authorized to pursue such partnerships. Will the board be satisfied with the fiction/formality that such proposals come from the Superintendent when, in fact, they've been initiated and packaged by principals and parent groups? Or will it recognize the need to develop a set of standards for determining which schools should benefit from such projects and when they can be used to modify budgetary priorities? Politically, agenda-setting is a very important power and if it's being usurped here, then it doesn't make sense to place the same level of trust in the Superintendent's exercise of discretion. Superintendents who are put in a position where they have a choice between stopping already developed and widely publicized deals for new facilities or letting such deals go through will make very different decisions than Superintendents who have to decide whether to give the green light for such initiatives before any negotiations/discussions can be held. Abelmann and the Janney parents who are pushing this project (let me hasten to add that there are many Janney parents who oppose these plans) clearly understand this dynamic. Let's hope that the city figures it out and reasserts control over (and takes responsibility for) establishing system wide priorities.

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Historical Perspective on the New Hampshire Primary Turnout
Timothy Cooper, worldright@aol.com

New Hampshire primary facts from New Hampshire's First-In-The-Nation Presidential Primary by Hugh Gregg: “[S]ince 1920 until [2000] the New Hampshire primary has always been first in the nation by at least a week. . . . In 1944, a mere 18% of the registered voters turned out, and in 1948 only 27%. Thus, in the 1949 legislative session, Speaker Richard Upton, desiring to make the primary 'more interesting and meaningful . . . so there would be a greater turnout at the polls,' initiated a widening of the primary process which permitted the voter to state preferences for presidential and vice presidential selections. By submitting fifty supportive petitions from each of the two congressional districts, any candidate's name could be entered on the ballot. Unless a name so submitted was withdrawn by request of the candidate, it remained in the ballot. As the procedure was informational only, with no legal effect on the ultimate election, it was called 'the beauty contest' and immediately caught favorable national media attention. The new law also required that delegates receive prior approval from their candidate before filing as 'pledged' and created a new designation of 'favorable' which did not require the candidate's consent.”

In 1984, sixty-four years after establishing the nation's first presidential primary, New Hampshire voter turnout was uneven. 43.18 percent of registered Republicans voted, compared with 76.62 percent of all Democrats. In 1996, 81.98 percent of all registered Republicans voted, while only 44.09 percent of Democrats turned out.

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Mechanical Street Sweeping Suspended January 5-March 12
Mary Myers, DPW, mary.myers@dc.gov

As it does every year, the DC Department of Public Works has announced that weekly mechanical street cleaning operations will be temporarily suspended from January 5 to March 12, 2004. During this time, “No Parking/Street Cleaning” restrictions will also be lifted. Residents and visitors who park along posted, alternate-side street sweeping routes will not be required to move their cars on street-sweeping days during the sweeper hiatus. Further, no citations will be issued for the specific infraction of parking in a street-cleaning zone for those ten weeks. Other parking restrictions, however, remain in effect and will be enforced, including those for rush hour, overtime parking in a residential zone, parking too close to a fire hydrant or bus stop, and expired inspection or registration stickers, among others.

DPW officials explain that the sweepers spread a thin layer of water under their rotating brushes throughout the cleaning operation. During subfreezing weather, the water-cleaning method becomes impractical; creating hazardous driving conditions, and may impede snow removal efforts. The city will take advantage of any comparatively warm days during the winter to catch up on street cleaning. The sweepers will operate on an unscheduled basis, without parking restrictions, when weather conditions permit. Signed street cleaning will resume on March 15, 2004.

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

Dennis Kucinich at Woman’s National Democratic Club, January 9
Susan Baranano, susigbf@yahoo.com

Come to a special champagne and wine reception and hear Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Democratic Presidential Candidate 2004, speak on major issues. Friday January 9, 2004, 6-8 p.m., at the Woman's National Democratic Club Presidential Series. Members $20, nonmembers $25, students $15. The club is at 1526 New Hampshire Avenue, NW. For more information, call 232-7363.

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