Loss

Dear Losers:

The hot topic in this issue of themail is the cap on property taxes increases that the City Council will vote on Tuesday. You can read the first few E-mails below for the details, but what it comes down to is that the city government is still fighting against its residents to defend a method of assessing property values that is legally questionable at best, and that the high-tax faction of the Council stands a good chance of getting most of what it wants through a sneak attack on the proposed ten percent cap by Councilmember Kathy Patterson. The high-tax hard-liners want the city to be able to raise property taxes by 25 percent a year, if the property’s assessment rises by that amount or more, and they oppose lowering the cap on tax increases to a “mere” ten percent. They probably won’t get that, but as things stand, and if Councilmember Patterson’s amendment is not defeated, they will probably be able to delay the lowering of the cap to ten percent by one year. That would allow the Councilmembers to pose as friends of overburdened taxpayers, to say that they voted to limit property tax increases, while still socking us with hefty increases this year.

The mindset is perfectly expressed by the word “loss” to which Bob Andrews objects in his message below. The administration and the council look at the amount of additional taxes that the city could raise if property taxes rose with assessments, and view any amount of taxes less than that maximum amount as a loss. This is known as governmental mathematics. It is also known as screwing the taxpayers.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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Tell the Council Not to Gut the Property Tax Control Legislation
Steve Posniak, sposniak@earthlink.net

Happy 2004! Here’s a way to try to make it a bit happier. For those of you who do not know me, I am Steve Posniak, a DC native who previously served as Commissioner for ANC-3E-04 and ANC-3E-01 and as the Commission’s Treasurer and Chair. If you have questions about what follows, feel free to contact me, sposniak@earthlink.net or 663-4449 (office). This Tuesday, January 6, the DC Council will be taking its final vote on a bill which started out with an excellent intent, but which now has been amended in a way which will make it less than helpful. On November 26, the DC Council’s Committee on Finance and Revenue approved and reported out to the Council Bill 15-303 (the Owner Occupied Residential Tax Credit Act of 2003), which, beginning with their March 2004 tax bills, would have limited, for residential owners with valid DC Homestead exemptions, the amount of their TY04 property tax bills to no more than ten percent over what was paid the previous year, regardless of the amount of their assessment increases.

This bill was originally introduced by Councilmembers Evans and Catania, and was cosponsored by Councilmember Patterson as well as several other members. At the December 2 Council session, Councilmember Patterson introduced a crippling amendment to the version of Bill 15-303 that had been reported out of the Finance and Revenue Committee. Her amendment postponed the implementation of the ten percent limit from the March 2004 tax bills to the March 2005 tax bills (TY05). Her amendment also adds the following language: “This act shall be subject to the inclusion of sufficient funds in an approved budget and financial plan.” The impacts of this amendment, which was tentatively approved by the Council as part of the bill, but which must be voted on again at the Jan. 6 session, are: 1) Everyone whose March 2004 tax bills, based on their assessments, would have increased by at least 25 percent will still see those 25 percent increases in their March and September 2004 bills. 2) The implementation of the March 2005 ten percent limit will be dependent on Mayor Williams and Chief Financial Officer Gandhi cooperating with the Council and voluntarily making the appropriate cuts in the city’s budget. If you think this is very likely to happen without additional compulsion from the Council, I have some Brooklyn real estate I would like to sell you.

Councilmember Patterson’s excuse for the amendment was: “It is against our budget rules to do so, and if I had not moved the amendment, Chairman Cropp would have ruled the legislation out of order.” This ignores the fact that it is the Council which sets the rules for budgets and for what gets approved, not the Mayor. Councilmember Patterson is hiding behind bureaucratic procedures and is ignoring the fact that these decisions are being made about our money — not the DC Council’s. Please contact Councilmember Patterson, kpatterson@dccouncil.us; Councilmember Evans, jackevans@dccouncil.us; your individual Ward Councilmember; plus At-Large Councilmembers Mendelson, pmendelson@dccouncil.us; Brazil, hbrazil@dccouncil.us; Catania, dcatania@dccouncil.us; Schwartz, schwartzc@dccouncil.us; and Council Chair Cropp, lcropp@dccouncil.us. Tell them you expect them to approve the version of Bill 15-303 exactly as it was approved by the Finance and Revenue Committee on November 26, with, if necessary, additional language instructing the Mayor and CFO to make the appropriate budgetary cuts in response to the fact that their homesteaded residential property tax revenue will, in March and September 2004, increase by no more than ten percent. If you can also attend the Tuesday, January 6, Council session, that would also help. The session starts at 10 a.m., but the vote is the sixtieth item on the agenda. If you call the Chair’s Office (724-8032), they can probably give you an estimate as to what time it is likely to come up. (The DC Council’s web site is http://dccouncil.us. Click on Contact Us for additional Council E-mail addresses, phone and fax numbers.)

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Proposed Property Tax Cap
Pleasant Mann, pleasant@chesapeake.net

An article in the January 3 Washington Post, "Estimated Loss Under Cap Plan Rises Higher," [David Nakamura, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50518-2004Jan2.html] gives attention to a developing opposition to the proposed 10 percent annual cap on property taxes, an opposition that includes the Williams Administration. The search for an alternative to the tax cap is attributed to a suspicion that the benefits of the cap would go to a small group of already affluent people. The opponents to the tax cap are trying to come up with an alternative package that would intend to spread tax relief to a broader group of homeowners.

This opposition ignores a few facts. The drive to establish an annual cap on property taxes only came about after a sort of public policy Perfect Storm. The District moved to an ill-advised triennial assessment system just as housing prices started to rise, and then suddenly decided to move back to annual assessments before the housing market started to settle down again. Few home owners in the District have seen their incomes rise as fast as their property tax assessments. In addition, the people who have been hurt by this sharp increase in assessments are not all in affluent neighborhoods. The Fannie Mae Foundation's study “Housing in the Nation's Capital 2003” shows that the most rapid increase in housing values has been in the middle of the District and in Capitol Hill, not in the richest neighborhoods of the city. All the areas that had housing values rise more than 110 percent from 1996 to 2002 were east of Rock Creek. In fact, the highest increase in housing values (151 percent) occurred in Neighborhood Cluster 3, the Howard University, LeDroit Park, Cardozo-Shaw area.

When you consider that 56 percent of the District's homeowners have lived in their homes for more than ten years, it becomes clear that these rapidly rising property assessments are not just a concern of the rich and famous. The most severe impact falls on those that view their homes as just a place to live, rather than an opportunity to increase their wealth. If the property tax situation continues without substantial relief for those most affected, it is inevitable that long-term residents of the District will start to be forced out. The opposition to the proposed ten percent property tax cap is unwise and misguided.

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Fairness in Property Taxation
Bob Andrew, rdandrew at erols.com

Let me object to the use of the word “loss” in Saturday's Washington Post Metro section “Estimated Loss Under Tax Cap Rises Higher” (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50518-2004Jan2.html). A better phrase might be “ill-gotten gains.” Whatever happened to the concept, as is done in most other jurisdictions, of tax-neutral rates? The “cap” scheme merely delays the ultimate sticker shock, and does not address all inequities, although raising the homestead exemption seems a move in the right direction.

In order for residents to more fairly judge the merits of Evans-Catania bill vs. Mendelson bill, could one of themail readers produce us a table, showing side-by-side the effect of the two bills: for houses ranging from say $100,000 to $1,000,000 in $100,000 increments. This would be for two scenarios: a rapid change in assessment that triggers the cap versus a small increase in assessed value that does not trigger the cap.

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Property Tax Class Action Lawsuit Update
Peter S. Craig, swedecraig@aol.com

I have volunteered three years of my time to try to get Henry Riley and the Office of Tax and Revenue to abide by the assessment laws written by Congress and the Council and, indeed, its constitutional duty to insure that each residential property is assessed based on its own market value (not arbitrary across-the-board multipliers applied to arbitrarily drawn "neighborhoods" and arbitrarily defined "uses" which result in widespread discrimination). Efforts to get the Mayor and CFO to correct this situation were unavailing. Thus, it became necessary to file a class action lawsuit. Other conscientious taxpayers have also volunteered to help me in this task. I was therefore appalled to read in the December 24 Northwest Current that OTR was given $500,000 last summer to hire outside counsel and now seeks an additional $3,500,000 to defend Mr. Riley's illegal actions.

Riley's request is especially ironic in that neither of his superiors (the Mayor and CFO) bothered to read the taxpayers' petitions to them asking that they correct OTR's flagrant disregard of its statutory duties. Indeed, both the Mayor and the CFO admitted during depositions in the pending case that they had not read any of the pleadings in the class action lawsuit. Analysis of data sent to OTR's consultant, Robert J. Gloudemans, confirms the widespread discrimination resulting from OTR's across-the-board multipliers. Assessments for Tax Year 2002 were required to show market values as of January 1, 2001. The multipliers used were allegedly based on residential properties sold in 1999 and 2000. A comparison of the resulting assessments for Triennial Group 1 with the 1999-2000 market values of 2977 houses sold in those years shows the following discrimination by "neighborhood" (after first-level and second-level appeals): for all of Triennial Group 1 – 10 percent within 5 percent of market value; 67 percent overassessed; 23 percent underassessed. (Usually the more expensive properties dominate underassessed properties; that is what results from using "neighborhood" averages in the assessment process.)

By "neighborhood" (as defined by OTR): Anacostia-A: 16% within 5% of market value, 57% overassessed; 27% underassessed; Anacostia-B: 9%, 58%, 33%; Barry Farms: 5%, 78%, 17%; Brentwood-A: 9%, 86%, 5%; Brentwood-B: 5%, 90%, 5%; Central-West: 4%, 88%, 8%; Cleveland Park: 11%, 71%, 18%; Columbia Heights-A: 16%, 60%, 24%; Columbia Heights-B: 8%, 70%, 22%; Columbia Heights-C: 10%, 74%, 16%; Columbia Heights-D: 12%, 62%, 26%; Columbia Heights-E: 9%, 41%, 50%; Congress Heights-A: 9%, 78%, 13%; Congress Heights-B: 19%, 72%, 18%; Congress Heights-C: 4%, 89%, 7%; Crestwood: 7%, 57%, 36%; Eckington-A: 6%, 60%, 34%; Eckington-B: 8%, 71%, 21%; Forest Hills: 17%, 76%, 7%; Ft. Dupont Park-A: 30%, 57%, 13%; Ft. Dupont Park-B: 19%, 78%, 3%; Ft. Dupont Park-C: 16%, 61%, 23%; Ft. Dupont Park-D: 18%, 68%, 14%; Garfield: 14%, 74%, 12%; Hillcrest-A: 12%, 76%, 12%; Hillcrest-B: 8%, 87%, 5%; Hillcrest-C: 13%, 74%, 13%; Kalorama-A: 15%, 67%, 18%; Kalorama-B: 6%, 71%, 23%; Kalorama-C: 15%, 62%; Ledroit Park-A: 13%, 66%, 21%; Ledroit Park-B: 15%, 44%, 41%; Marshall Heights: 10%, 79%, 11%; Massachusetts Avenue Heights: 16%, 37%, 47%; Mt. Pleasant-A: 6%, 63%, 31%; Mt. Pleasant-B: 5%, 62%, 33%; Mt. Pleasant-C: 13%, 64%, 23%; Observatory Circle: 6%, 64%, 30%; Randle Heights-A: 2%, 88%, 10%; Randle Heights-B: 6%, 80%, 14%; Randle Heights-C: 3%, 92%, 5%; Trinidad-A: 11%, 57%, 33%; Trinidad-B: 21%, 62%, 17%; Trinidad-C: 8%, 61%, 31%; Woodley: 20%, 75%, 5%.

Which side is the Council on? Does it favor the flagrant disregard of both the law as written and the Constitutional requirements of due process and equal protection, as evidenced by OTR's simplistic across-the-board formulas? Or does the Council stand behind the law, the Constitution, and the interests of the taxpayers who elected them, taxpayers who ask only for fairness in the assessment practices used?

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Real Property Tax Relief
Matt Forman, Matthew.Forman2@verizon.net

For those who missed it, Saturday’s Washington Post had an article about the property tax relief debate before the Council. Unfortunately, the Evans/Catania bill reducing the current cap from 25 percent to 10 percent, originally slated for 2004, would now not take effect until 2005, thanks to an amendment by Kathy Patterson. This is bad news to the homeowners in triennial assessment group 1 who will see their third year of increases in a row in 2004. Group 1 neighborhoods seeing double-digit increases for 2004 include Anacostia with a 17.3% average increase; Barry Farms, 27.5%; Columbia Heights, 27%; Ledroit Park, 32.4%; and Mt. Pleasant, 28.5%, to name a few, according to the Chief Financial Officer’s web site. If the ten percent cap is not enacted until 2005, homeowners in these neighborhoods will feel the full effect of these increases in 2004, obviously not getting much relief from the current 25 percent cap, and probably having little left to be capped in 2005. Meanwhile, triennial group 3, just now seeing their first increase, such as AU Park at 55.3%; Brookland, 40.2%; Chevy Chase, 47.7%; Petworth, 40.6%; and Shepard Park, 52.4%, will continue to benefit from the 25 percent cap in 2004 and still have enough left over to benefit heavily from a ten percent cap in 2005. So if everyone gets the cap in 2005, group 3 will reap the most benefit from it, while group 1 may receive little if any benefit, having already reached their full assessments in 2004. Therefore, the cap should be phased in sequentially, starting with triennial group 1 in 2004.

Despite all of these alarming assessment increases throughout the city, however, Phil Mendelson opposes the lower cap. Instead, according to the article, he would propose to increase the homestead exemption to $45,000, saving only $144 in each homeowner’s tax bill, and to shave the tax rate by one or two percent. These measures would provide virtually no relief to homeowners who are expecting double digit increases this year, which again is most of the city. Mendelson apparently believes that the cap would not do enough to help lower-income homeowners in neighborhoods where assessments are rising more slowly. That claim is simply outrageous. First, it’s factually incorrect. Almost every single neighborhood in the city, including low-income ones, is expected to see a double digit assessment increase for 2004, as noted above. Second, even if there are homeowners whose assessments haven't gone up, they simply don't need the relief! Their taxes haven’t gone up! Finally, he seems to have conveniently forgotten about the real property tax credit, which already provides up to a $750 credit against low-income taxpayers’ income tax returns.

So, many homeowners’ taxes have doubled. Doubled! And this doubling has provided the city with a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars, when services continue to be lousy. And the city just discovered a $190 million surplus from 2003, so there’s plenty of money to start phasing in a ten percent cap starting in 2004. Readers of themail should contact their councilmembers before Tuesday’s vote, to insist that the ten percent cap be phased in, starting in 2004.

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Bicoastal Bobb
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com

Just days before he was named City Administrator of Washington in early September, Robert Bobb had assumed the position of president of the newly created Oakland African-American Chamber of Commerce. Bobb was vague about what continuing commitments he would have in Oakland, California, where he was previously the City Manager. Bobb’s wife and family continue to live in his Oakland house, he has maintained his investments and consulting and real estate development firm there, and he has traveled often across the country. On November 14, 2003, the Oakland African-American Chamber of Commerce issued a press release about its first membership luncheon meeting, at which Bobb presided. The press release says, “He [Bobb] reacted sharply Friday to critics who have suggested his commitment to the Oakland venture from across the country might be flagging. He said such criticism is ‘short-sighted and divisive and indicates a village mentality.’ . . . He said that, just as ‘many presidents of national and international organizations do not reside where their corporate headquarters are located, but travel to attend their board meetings and actively participate to help make their corporations strong organizations, that’s what I intend to do — until Bishop Robert Jackson and the members of the organizing board say “well, we’re ready, move aside.” Until then, I’m here, and I’m committed.’”

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New Year’s Notion for Commuters to DC
Len Sullivan, lsnarpac@bellatlantic.net

For commuters who wonder why they should be taxed to help the nation's capital city pay its own (inflated) municipal bills, consider the following two current issues: a) the DC Council is on the verge of passing legislation to cap real estate tax increases, even though the majority of those taxes are paid by some of the metro area's wealthiest land owners; and b) DC's Office of Planning is recommending capping the height of buildings along Wisconsin Avenue between Friendship Heights and Tenleytown to less than half of that already bringing far higher revenues to Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, and Montgomery Counties. Instead of pressing for handouts from the suburbs, wouldn't it make more sense for DC residents to belly up to their own costs of living in the nation's capital, while those living in its suburbs belly up to paying the real costs of alleviating regional traffic gridlock?

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Absentee Ballot
Mary Alice Levine, levines5@starpower.net

My eighteen-year-old daughter just voted by absentee ballot in the DC Primary. Since she will be away at school on the date of the actual primary, she voted at the Board of Elections today. She voted on a computer screen which gave her a choice of all the Democratic contenders, including the five that reportedly have been taken off the DC Primary ballot. What gives?

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DC Appropriations Bill
Mark David Richards, Dupont East, mark@bisconti.com

On December 8, 2003, The House of Representatives voted to approve a spending bill for eleven Cabinet-level departments, several agencies and the District of Columbia, http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/R?cp108:FLD010:@1(hr401). This included DC's local $7.5 billion budget (including capital budget), previously balanced and approved by the Council and mayor. The bill contains about forty riders. The Senate is expected to vote on the bill on January 20. The fiscal year began on October 1, 2003. Here are highlights of the Omnibus Conference Report: http://appropriations.house.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=340.

In the DC section of the bill, Congress provides funds to DC for the operation of its courts and defender services, for resident tuition support, and for implementing new pet projects, including vouchers. Some of these projects are useful. The total amount of federal funds added to the DC budget in the appropriations process represents 7 percent ($545 million) of DC's budget; this is not compensation for services provided to the federal government or payment in lieu of taxes or a payment for exemptions, mandates, and economic disincentives.

Earlier last year, the Senate insisted on amendments to the House version of the DC Appropriations bill. You recall that a major focus of the debate involved a controversial voucher program, http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?&dbname=cp108&maxdocs=100&report=hr401.108&sel=TOC_401672&. The Senate version proposed to ban the use of federal funds for lobbying related to any legislation before Congress and state legislatures, but not local funds. The House insisted on putting a rider similar to one from the previous year which explicitly forbids DC from using any federal or local funds in support of DC statehood or DC Congressional voting rights. The bill forbids the use of federal funds for the DC Statehood Commission, Statehood Compact Commission, and the DC statehood delegation. It does not forbid the use of local funds for the statehood delegation.

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Warrants an Investigation
Shaun Snyder, Chevy Chase, shaunsnyder at starpower dot net

For those of you who didn't read it because of the holiday, here's an interesting excerpt from the Post's District Weekly politics column written by Craig Timberg [“Another Year, Another Sorry Saga,” January 1, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44899-2003Dec31.html]: “Second-oddest contract award: Former mayor Sharon Pratt, not long after making a few cameo appearances in the re-election campaign of Anthony A. Williams (D), received a $236,000 city government contract to write a report on how the city should deal with bioterrorism, a subject in which she acknowledged having no expertise. The report remains secret.”

This is ridiculous on several levels. First, does this not warrant a formal investigation by the Inspector General? Let's see, the mayor's campaign was in deep trouble because they turned in forged petition signatures, then defended them. After losing that battle the mayor had to run a write-in campaign where he needed all the help he could get. Suddenly a long-forgotten former mayor shows up to endorse Williams and makes a few appearances with him. Then, coincidentally, the former mayor is granted a $236,000 government contract to do something that she is not qualified in the least to do (and I'm not talking about running the city).

The second ridiculous aspect: since when is Sharon Pratt's endorsement worth a $236,000 bribe? In fact, when is it worth $.25? Where's the outrage? The mayor literally took $236,000 in public funds and wasted it for his own personal benefit. I wish we lived in a city where that was unacceptable, but I guess that's what you get when the voters blindly reelect a corrupt mayor.

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Parking Ticket Snafu
Tim Cline, tcline@populationconnection.org

[An open letter to Councilmember Jim Graham:] You have probably already heard that even though the Post published (Friday, January 2, Metro section page 2) that parking regulations for today (Friday, January 2) would be the same as Sunday, the city was enforcing regular Friday regulations. Bingo, I (along with fifty or so other people in Cleveland Park) got a $100 ticket on Connecticut Avenue for a rush hour violation. The Post says that they published what the city told them. The Mayor's hotline operator says that we can always fight the ticket and gave me the number for Parking Adjudication. Parking Enforcement must have had a field day today and written thousands of tickets. Can you look into this and see if there will be some sort of blanket resolution rather than have people either pay a bogus ticket or have to go through the adjudication process?

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Automated Traffic Enforcement
Candace L. Davison, cdavison@juno.com

I just received notice that on October 25, 2003, I was photographed on 295 going 61 mph in a 50 mph zone. This is as much of a scam as "red light" photo enforcement, where yellow warning lights have been shortened, making it impossible to stop within legal speed limits, especially in a larger vehicle such as a charter bus, which I drive in DC. The problem is amplified when roads are wet, making it safer to go through the intersection when all other traffic is still stopped instead of ending up in the middle of the intersection.

This was a discriminatory action because plenty of automobiles were passing me at speeds of at least 65 to 70 mph. I just happened to be the easy target. This has nothing to do with safety. It's all about money. The people that come up with these scams know darn well it's impossible for me to obtain the license plate numbers of all the vehicles that were passing me, far exceeding the speed I was doing, and present them in court. I was operating my vehicle in a safe manner and not tailgating. Welcome to DC: guilty until you prove yourself innocent, which in this case would be an impossibility. Ride with me for a few days and I'll show you the real people that need to be taken off the road. What a joke!

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Allocation of TANF Bonus Funds
Susie Cambria, scambria@dckids.org

In the fall of 2003, the federal government awarded the District of Columbia a number of TANF bonuses. The bonuses totaled $24.6 million. According to a memo from Carolyn Graham (Deputy Mayor for Children, Youth, Families, and Elders) to city Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi, the funds are being used to “make improvements in the welfare of District residents. . . .” In their entirety, the funds are “directed toward programming that will help us make greater strides toward achieving better outcomes for individuals and families.” The specific allocation of funds ($24,567,000) is as follows: Employment services: job skills enhancement, $600,000; TAPIT, $400,000; adult basic education, $250,000; ESL, $250,000. Longstayers/case management services: home visiting, $1.6 million; UDC-PATHS, $500,000. Child care: Child Care Subsidy Program (to eliminate the waiting list), $11.5 million; nontraditional child care, $2 million. Pregnancy prevention: teen pregnancy grants, $1.5 million. Family emergency support service: eviction mediation, $1.6 million; housing assistance centers, $1 million; domestic violence services, $150,000; fatherhood initiatives, $1 million. Youth development: after care services, $1.3 million. Emergency fund: emergency reserve fund, $917,000 for grants. (Thanks go to the Office of Budget and Planning for sharing the memo about the TANF bonus funds. This is from the December 31, 2003, edition of BANTA, a free publication of DC Action for Children. Information about subscribing to Budget Advocacy News and TA is available from Susie Cambria, scambria@dckids.org. BANTA is available only by E-mail.)

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Public-Private Partnerships and DC Government, Not Just DCPS
Harold Foster, Petworth, harold.foster@ppd.mncppc.org

[Re "Public-Private Partnerships and DCPS," Sue Hemberger, themail, December 31, 2003] You can go to the bank -- any bank -- with the following. Just take it from someone who is 1) an urban planner, 2) someone who worked on these kinds of joint development issues (although oriented toward DC, and now Prince George's, Metrorail stations), and 3) a third generation Washingtonian. a) The kind of proposal you're talking about from Abelmann is nothing new, here or elsewhere. All over the country municipalities and urban county governments -- desperate for cash to build or rebuild badly needed or overtaxed public facilities -- especially schools -- are cutting all manner of very problematic deals with developers and investors, usually to get the facilities built or renovated in exchange for some sort of sell-off or legal alienation of scarce and usually undervalued public resource (land, air rights development, access to taxpayer-funded services or facilities, whatever.) b) It sounds like Abelmann is trying to "do an Oyster" (or "a Lincoln-Bell"). Oyster Elementary School was razed and rebuilt as a state-of-the-art school by a developer in exchange for the right(s) to develop the land at and around the school into up-market housing. Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Antonio, Miami, Charlotte, and several partridges in a pear tree are all actively courting developers and investors to build, or fund the construction of, schools in exchange for development rights.

c) Something similar, as I understand it, is also at the bottom of the construction of the new Lincoln-Bell Multicultural and Technology Center near Columbia Heights Metrorail station. I believe General Electric is heavily involved in this particular so-called public-private partnership, but the basic exchange is the same: valuable and scarce public resources go out and a public facility that, although badly needed, will, under the most ideal of circumstances, have a “shelf life” of perhaps half a century comes in. And, meanwhile back at the bank, the developers and investors clean up, usually on a heavily written down (or completely forgiven) land acquisition price, almost always on expedited or waived permitting and fee requirements to get into ground and, ultimately, on being able to retain all (or, in Chicago, almost all) of the proceeds — rents, housing sales profits, access fees — from the actual development itself. d) You ain't seen nothin' yet. This is the tip of the iceberg and, especially here in the vote-less, disenfranchised Reservation of Columbia, you can be sure we will see even more, and more controversial, suspect, shortsighted and, ultimately, self-defeating tradeoffs of our core, nonrenewable public assets for short-term black ink in the municipal account books. And, in most cases, rest assured (sic) that the ongoing proceeds and profits from the developments and uses these private interests make of these alienated or sold off public assets will, for the most part, stay right in those private interests' pockets.

e) It will take some uncharacteristic political will by both citizens of the City and the alleged leadership to do something about all this. You can strike The St. Louis Kid off your list right now: Williams is planning a host of these public-private pantry raids, and not just to build less debatable needed public facilities such as schools or the occasional fire station. Something similar to these arrangements will probably drive both the redevelopment of the old Convention Center site, the present King Library, a number of DC Government-owned sites around the City that may be declared surplus expressly for these kinds of purposes, and, of course, Reservation 13 near RFK Stadium (if not RFK itself) and other areas along the waterfront which Williams clearly sees as part of his Pharoahnic legacy once he is back in St. Louis. f) And I haven't even begun to talk about the long-term consequences for the City of the wrong kind of so-called joint development on WMATA-owned land in some parts of the City, now that developers have (finally) discovered that yes, there is, in fact, money to be made near Metrorail stations besides the ones in downtown Alexandria and Arlington and Montgomery counties. g) In fact, we can all look for this particular development vehicle to be a major feature of the new DC Comprehensive Plan. It is already a cornerstone of the DC Economic Strategy (which I accessed right here on DCWatch's web site) h) So stay tuned, Lady and Gentlemen of the Jury. If you are quite rightly concerned about some of Ms. Hemberger's justifiable points about where these deals are taking us (never mind our children), you will be positively worried sick about some of the follow-on proposals we'll be hearing about from Antoninus Publicus.

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Other LCOR Projects
Matthew Gilmore, dc-edit@mail.h-net.msu.edu

Sue Hemberger's E-mail needs just a little bit of context. If one takes a look at the 21st Century School Fund, http://www.21csf.org/csf-home/Oyster/oyster.asp, and LCOR, http://www.lcor.com/pressrelease-a.html, web sites, it can't hurt to know what LCOR has done before with the DC Public Schools.

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

Martin Luther King, Jr., Celebration, January 16 and 18
Toni Ritzenberg, taritzdc@aol.com

The eighteenth annual celebration of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., by Adas Israel Congregation, this year sponsored jointly by Adas Israel Congregation and Peoples Congregational United Church of Christ (UCC) will begin on Friday, January 16, with events at Adas Israel Congregation, 2850 Quebec St., NW, starting with a 6:30 p.m. dinner followed by an 8:30 PM special musical service. Music will be performed by lay choirs of Peoples Congregational UCC and Turner Memorial AME Church, featuring the Heritage Signature Choral. For reservations contact Jean Bernard 301-654-8914. The celebration concludes with a special 11:00 a.m., Sunday, January 18 service at Peoples Congregational UCC, 4704 13th Street, NW, with guest speaker Hon. Harriett Elam-Thomas, former US Ambassador to Senegal. Turner Memorial AME Church and Operation Understanding are also organizers of the event. All members of the community are invited. For further information contact: Lucy Hassell, 703-717-1216.

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Rock Creek Park History Talk, January 20
Ryan Shepard, ryanshepard@gmx.net

The Friends of the Mount Pleasant Neighborhood Library will present a free slide lecture and book signing by Gail Spilsbury, author of Rock Creek Park, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003, on Tuesday, January 20, at 7 p.m. The library is located at 3160 16th Street, NW (16th and Lamont Streets). For more information, please E-mail Ryan Shepard at ryanshepard@gmx.net.

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David Catania Lunch Talk on the District’s Finances, January 22
Ben Slade, PublicMailbox@benslade.com (put 030516 in the subject line to avoid spam filters)

Our Nation’s Capital, a group of citizens group educating the public about the unfair fiscal conditions imposed by Congress on Washington, DC, invites you to a luncheon and speaking presentation by City Councilmember David Catania on Thursday, January 22, at 12:00 noon. David will provide his insights on the District of Columbia's financial situation, and possible solutions to the problem. Location: Charles Sumner School, 1201 17th Street, NW, between Rhode Island and M Streets (near Farragut North Metro stop). The cost is $10.00 per person. Seating is limited, so register now!

To reserve a spot, RSVP by Thursday, January 15 to Zina Poletz at 232-0229 or via E-mail to info@ournationscapital.org. For payment, you may either mail a check for $10.00 to Our Nation's Capital, 2019 Q Street, NW 20009 or you may pay at the door (cash or check only, no credit cards). Earlier this year, founders Richard Suisman, Don Dakin, Peter Szanton, Rob Low, Ben Slade, and Robert Baskin formed Our Nation's Capital, a nonprofit corporation, to educate the public on the serious financial imbalance that Congressional action has created in Washington, DC. We are working to build a coalition of interested individuals, business, labor, and other groups to advance the dialogue and advocate for change, so that Washington can remain a city that every American is proud to call our nation's capital!

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