Character

Dear Characters:

If you wanted information to help you understand Mayor Anthony A. Williams's character, you had two choices last week. You could have read Harry Jaffe's airbrushed puff piece in February's Washingtonian, from which all hints of criticism and all attempts at objective reporting have been carefully eliminated. Or you could have read two pieces of real journalism, Marc Fisher's devastating columns in the Washington Post (Tuesday's “After the Killing: A Mother Waits in Silent Anguish,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50944-2004Jan26.html, and Thursday's “Sullying the Grave of a Slain Child,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57991-2004Jan28.html).

If you haven't read Fisher's columns yet, you need to now. Here's my inadequate summary. In Tuesday's column, Fisher outlined the case of Jahkema Princess Hansen, a 14-year-old girl who lived in the drug infested Sursum Corda housing complex. Hansen may or may not have witnessed a drug murder, but the police certainly gave her neighbors the impression that they believed she did. As a result, she was killed, and Fisher reprimanded Mayor Williams, MPD Chief Ramsey, and others in city government for not expressing any sympathy for her and for not visiting her bereaved mother. The day after Fisher's first column was published, the mayor visited Hansen's mother in Sursum Corda. But it was already too late for him to do the right thing because, as Fisher wrote in his Thursday column, by then the mayor and Tony Bullock, his press secretary, had been busy smearing and slandering Princess Hansen and her family. Bullock, who does nothing without the approval of the mayor, called reporters to spread the true story that two of Hansen's brothers were in jail on drug charges and the lie that she herself had a year-and-a-half-old child. (She had no children.) Williams told a meeting of businessmen, without proof, that Princess Hansen was trying to cut a deal with neighborhood drug dealers.

The mayor's apologists defend his and Bullock's actions. They argue that the Hansens, after all, are not our kind of people; they don't deserve our sympathy. And they argue that Bullock and the mayor spoke off the record, that they were trying to keep secret their roles in the campaign to smear and malign Princess Hansen and the Hansen family. The mayor's apologists argue that the real disgrace is Fisher's, and that he should not have exposed them as the fountainhead of the effort to, as Fisher wrote, “sully the grave of a slain child.” I don't share the apologists' sympathy for the mayor and Bullock. Their instinctive reaction to the murder of a fourteen-year-old girl was to vilify her and to defame her name. That is the measure of their character, and scandalmongers, especially those who would use their positions of power and privilege to crush the powerless at the time of their deepest tragedy, do not deserve our sympathy. It is they who are not our kind of people.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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The Washington Post’s Shaky School Policy
Ed Dixon, Georgetown Reservoir, jedxn@erols.com

The city's influential Washington Post either doesn't understand how the Districts' public schools work or the paper is as intent on telling the schools what to do as are the mayor, the council, and the Board of Education. The Post has probably reported more dirt on DCPS than any other institution in the city. But with all the investigating that Post reporters have done, one would think its editorial opinions would be more stable regarding DCPS. During last years budget season, the  editorial page decried DCPS' proposed increase to its budget and encouraged city leaders to pursue vouchers as educational policy. Once Education Secretary Paige made it clear that vouchers would support religious instruction, the Post editorial page felt compelled to waiver in support. And again this December when major layoffs were brewing, the Post editorial page redirected city leaders to find some money to cover costs that the school system had asked for a year before.

In the last week, the Post editorial page ran two pieces on DCPS' interim superintendent, Dr. Elfreda Massie. The first one seemed a snide and indirect attack on her and her supporters on the Board of Education. Massie had told the Post earlier that she was very interested in a long term position as superintendent of DCPS. Massie started her thirty-year career in education as a elementary classroom teacher in Baltimore County, moving up into administrative posts as she earned her master's and doctorate respectively at John Hopkins and the University of Maryland. The Post editorial listed a number of qualifications it was sure were unnecessary: “education insider,” “brainy academic,” “visionary,” “thin skinned shrinking violet,” and “classroom teacher.”

By week's end, Massie withdrew her name from the superintendent search that had begun. This sudden turn around drew an immediate response from the editorial page. “If Ms. Massie cannot be persuaded to stay on and lend her considerable talents to the school reform effort in some other major capacity, the public school system will be the real loser.” The Post dodged blame by saying, “no self respecting administrator will want to take on a post that is the focus of competing governing authorities' efforts to see who can exert the greatest influence on the school system.” Unfortunately for the sake of full disclosure, the Washington Post left its editorial board out of the equation. The editors claim that “many of the school system's problems are internal and self-induced,” but one has to wonder.

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Help Fight Back Against Graffiti
Don Squires, dsquires(at)erols.com

A few months ago, the Washington Post reported that two men were arrested in the act of spray painting graffiti on a building on Florida Avenue, NW. The two men, ages 21 and 22, who live in Colesville and Beltsville respectively and who are gainfully employed, apparently get their kicks by plastering their "tags" on as many DC properties as they can. Their tags are not ornate but they are very recognizable — they are “NORES” and “KOMA.” This is not the first arrest for these particular vandals. They were arrested once before for vandalizing Metrorail cars and were given community service as a punishment. Their current case is now pending in District Superior Court. I have been in touch with the Assistant US Attorney handling the case who said that it would be helpful to collect photographic evidence of these vandals' "art work" to be used to help guide the judge at the eventual sentencing hearing. Anyone willing to help is welcome to take and E-mail me pictures of their work. To be useful, the pictures should be only of these particular graffiti vandals — that is, only those that portray the tags “NORES” and “KOMA.” They should also be taken to show the entire building, so that the judge can plainly see that these are each different instances (and not just a hundred pictures of the same wall). Finally, it would help to record the address or location of the building and the date the picture was taken.

I don't have an estimate on when this case is likely to be resolved. Obviously, the sooner I can collect the pictures the better. For anyone really interested in going the extra mile, we could also use some letters from community leaders or business persons who have been victimized by these or other vandals to help demonstrate that graffiti is not simply an eyesore but has real economic effects for small business owners and DC residents.

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Guidance on Tax Preparation for Low- and Moderate-Wage Workers
Susie Cambria, scambria@dckids.org

The DC Earned Income Tax Credit Campaign has prepared a one-page information flier entitled “Don’t Pay to Get Your Money, Have Your Taxes Done for Free!” This piece is designed to arm DC residents with the information they need to make an informed decision about getting their taxes prepared. While the DC EITC Campaign is promoting the use of free tax prep sites, we know that these sites cannot begin to help everyone who is a low- or moderate-wage earner. So, for those who decide to go to a paid preparer, we offer the following advice: 1) choose a preparer who has a permanent office and will be around if there is a problem with your tax return. Ask friends and neighbors who they use and trust. Also, the preparer should be properly trained. Ask how recently the preparer took classes. 2) Ask about the fees up front, before the tax return is prepared. Ask if there are any costs for additional schedules (like the EITC) or forms. Ask about fees for refund loans. 3) Pay preparation and filing fees by cash or check instead of asking the preparer to take the fees out of your refund. 4) Avoid anyone who suggests you lie or fudge figures. You will be responsible for errors. 5) Do not sign a tax return that is blank or completed in pencil. Sign the return only after you have reviewed it with your preparer. 6) Make sure the preparer signs your completed return and includes their address and Employer Identification Number (EIN) or Social Security Number. This is required by law! 7) Make copies of all the documents you give the preparer and get a copy of your completed return and keep it.

The complete publication is available on-line at http://www.dcfpi.org/eic2003/outreach.htm (Paid Tax Preparation Information (one-page PDF) or by calling Ann Pierre at 408-1080.

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Political Action and Property Taxes
William Haskett, gollum@earthlink.net

I wonder if the discussion of property taxes has now matured to the point where individual viewpoints on it might be translated into an effective political movement? This would mean trying to discover what the actual overlaps of arguments occur, and reducing them to a political (rather than a series of individual statements) position, which might then be transmitted by one or more reporters to the powers-that-be, or their surrogates in the media, for wider distribution. The elements of the situation are relatively clear, I suppose, to everyone: i.e., 1) the ostensible creation of “wealth” by the increase of market-prices; 2) the detachment of this “wealth” from current income, so that home owners have to meet extraordinary tax-increases out of income that is not related in the least to the increase in the apparent “value” of their houses in a market place; 3) the determination of government to maintain its revenues in the face of mounting demands upon them from all kinds of worthy causes, including community health-needs, the multiple challenges of urban-education. the advanced decay of many services, not least among them the public-library system; and 4) the developing crisis of population-pressure on limited free-space for new housing, linked to the problem of time-distance for commuters of all kinds.

We even have at least preliminary calculations of the uneven distribution of benefits from all of this, as well as some from the solutions presently proposed by the council, mayor, et al. None of this is quite definitive, and probably cannot be made so, given the divergent interests involved. But we ought to be able to distinguish agreed upon numbers from wild guesses. From such a process, we should all take something. It should be more widely-known perhaps that there is legal challenge to the manner in which the District's agencies have used/misused the defects of the present system to create a morass of confusion. No more than four years ago, we were given a trifold division of the District and a triennial system of assessment: this was abandoned for another that ensured that two of the three resulting zones would be badly (and probably inequitably) affected by the new system of annual assessment, which was applied before the triennial system had even gone through one complete cycle.

The arithmetic consequences of all of this were subject to a hugely optimistic application of compounding: it was discovered that a 25 percent cap on actual increases in taxes per year (independent of the assessments arrived at by statistical extrapolation) would double the taxes in two to three years. In an effort to deal with widespread discontent over this outcome, we now have a cap of 12 percent, which doubles them in five to six years. All without reference to either income or some system of making the impact progressive, as that term is normally used. Naturally, what I summarize as common knowledge is a shorthand for my own views. I have testified on them before Jack Evans committee. I am impressed by the intelligence of recent comments in themail on these issues, and wished simply to suggest that we might try to meet to work out a more comprehensive and workable set of comments that reflect something of this apparent agreement on at least the central issues. This might then be put into a form (with defensible calculation of impact and effect) that would spread further than individual comment ever can. Who knows, we might then reduce to order at least one part of the overall confusion that is all that comes to mind in the discussion of the government and administration of the District of Columbia, and help to give it a real political form.

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Other Property Tax Ideas
Peter Luger, Dupont Circle, luger p j at george town dot edu

I agree with Nora Bawa that the property tax system should not be one size fits all. (This assumes that the DC government is capable of a system that has different rules for different situations, but that's a different argument. This posting assumes the government is capable of running the city.) Perhaps homes should be reassessed at the time of sale, so the new owner is paying the correct amount of taxes and knows from the start what he or she is getting into. It might be necessary to add something to closing costs (maybe make this part of the recordation tax, for example) to offset the cost of reassessment. This could be paid by the seller. The assumption would be that the seller has, over so many years, had reasonable property tax increases, but would be willing to pay a few hundred dollars at the time of sale for the true reassessment, which would be a lot less than the tax savings on the real property value. Then, the buyer takes on the higher, true tax burden into the future. This would be in addition to a reasonable reassessment every three years for all homes. Over the course of time, the assessed value of homes would level out so most were assessed correctly and the reasonable increase at periodic reassessments would have some basis in reality. There should also be a mechanism where home values could not be assessed higher if there is a depressed market. The government may not agree to this because it would be at the exact same time they'd be looking to increase their revenue. Hopefully the days of decreased property value are gone, even if the days of ridiculously inflated value go away.

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Property Tax Help?
Erica Nash, nashee@starpower.net

I was reassessed at a high 14.6 percent last year, and again this year at an additional 22 percent. Now that the cap is 12 percent, can I go back to the Office of Tax and Revenue and ask them to redo my last 2004 assessment?

[The council-passed bill does not affect or lower the property assessments; it only caps the amount of additional tax that can be charged an owner-occupant. — Gary Imhoff]

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Good Old All-American Denial
Larry Seftor, Larry underscore Seftor at compuserve dot com

In downplaying my comments about the shooting in Friendship Heights Richard Layman attempts to analyze the problem away. If I read between the lines, the essence of his argument about why we should not be scared is that shootings happen between “those people” and don't affect “us people,” even if the shots fired are in our midst. I reject this argument on three counts. First, while I didn't know the cook from Booeymonger, I did know a lawyer who was shot in Friendship Heights. He did not know his assailant and doesn't fall into one of Mr. Layman's at-risk groups. Second, I reject the concept that we can tolerate shootings as long as they are restricted to particular groups of people or particular places. Suggesting that we can seems barbaric to me. Third, I believe in what Jim Nathanson called preventative visibility. People will be less likely to use guns in an area with persistent, continual police patrolling. We pay enough in taxes to support it. Other locales have it. There is no reason we should live in a heightened state of risk because we don't have it. Frankly Mr. Laymen, I don't really care about the “etiology of crime.” I do care about the police keeping me safe.

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Planning
Edward Cowan, Friendship Heights, edcowan1114@yahoo.com

On January 29, Gary Imhoff wrote, in part: “Good city planning is done to benefit the residents of the city, and involves the citizens in the process of planning from the very beginning. When planning is done right, it is done from the bottom up; it starts with and builds on the needs and desires of the residents.” Without commenting specifically on Anacostia or Wisconsin Avenue or any other project, let me offer a brief reaction. As philosophy, this is fine. But as a schematic, a plan for doing something, it is naive and insufficient. In a city that is growing — at least, a city whose leaders seek growth — and changing, “the residents” alone are ill-equipped to initiate planning for development or renewal. They lack knowledge — what might be economically feasible, who the prospective commercial tenants are, which real estate entrepreneurs are interested, what sort of tax deals the city is willing to cut, where water and sewer capacity can be expanded, and so on. Expert knowledge is needed. Some local activists hate experts, and super democrats will deride them, but they have knowledge that is essential.

Moreover, ascertaining the collective will of the residents is no simple matter. Listening at an ANC meeting is not sufficient. Most of the neighbors who come are the “agins,” the people who want nothing to change, no temporary disruption — and construction is disruptive — and no modification of the character of a neighborhood. Do they speak for everyone? Not likely. Those who favor development or who have no opinion don’t come to those meetings. If the city is to observe Gary Imhoff’s stricture literally, it must survey the residents — all of them. What questions to ask them and how to summarize or synthesize their replies are matters that will provoke more controversy. (How questions are phrased and the sequence in which they are asked influence responses.)

In sum, when city planners take soundings in a neighborhood, there must be a predicate — a proposal of some kind to which people can react. The notion that the process can begin spontaneously at the grass roots, with the neighbors, appeals to the Jeffersonian democrat in each of us but does not offer a useful guide to planning for tomorrow.

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Office of Planning
Wayne Dickson, waynedickson@verizon.net

I don't know anything about the baseball stadium, but as an ordinary citizen I have been involved with the Office of Planning and their efforts toward modernizing our Comprehensive Plan. My experience is they have more than gone out of their way to involve every aspect of the city and federal government in an almost exhausting effort to be consultative and inclusive. I have come away from that experience with great admiration for our Office of Planning. My opinion is that we are fortunate to have such a team working on behalf of our city.

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Planning in DC: We've Met the Enemy and He Is Us
Len Sullivan, lsnarpac@bellatlantic.net

Pogo's famous quote when the denizens of the Okefenokee Swamp felt threatened by imaginary intruders seems to apply here. Some DC residents feel that whenever they don't get their way they should angrily attack their elected officials (or even recall them), and block urban progress however they can. This shows a deep misunderstanding of the representative democratic process in a free market society, and the compromises it requires. Gary Imhoff reinforces this by asserting that “good planning is done from the bottom up; (starting) with and (building) upon the needs and desires of the residents.” I find this patently misleading. Clearly, the “needs” of some residents will always conflict with the “desires” of others, and there are many key stakeholders beyond residents. These include the thriving commercial businesses and their employees (that pay a good chunk of DC's bills); the federal government and its varied camp followers (the only reason DC exists, and doesn't resemble Camden, NJ); and all US citizens who expect their national capital city to reflect the best of our national lifestyle, not just the pettiness of single-purpose activists.

DC leaders are in the tricky business of taking just enough money from some to meet just enough needs of others plus the short- and long-term needs of the city as a whole. NIMBYs, NOOMPs (not out of my pocket), DIMWOEs (do it my way or else), and ICDIBAs (I could do it better alone) seem to have little interest, understanding, or experience in the city's fiscal needs. DC has way more than its share of the region's poor, attracts too few middle-class entrepreneurs, and gets most of its local revenues from wealthy residents and firms who focus on national and global affairs, not grubby urban controversies. DC depends more on Federal handouts than any of the states it wistfully aspires to be, and does less to carry out those functions.

To answer a frustrated Sue Hemberger, the real problem with DC's leadership and those hired to plan our capital city's physical and economic future is that they seem preoccupied with humoring residents' whims. Those legally picked to drive this very special moving train focus too much on a few riders bouncing in their seats, and too little on analyzing, explaining, and doing what it takes to keep the engine running and the tracks clear, as Congress and the world watch!

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

DC Public Library Events
Debra Truhart, debra.truhart@dc.gov

Floral Arrangements, Monday, February 2 and 9, 6:00 p.m., Capitol View Neighborhood Library, 5001 Central Avenue, SE. A free six-week class on how to make floral arrangements. Public contact: 202/645-0755. Cleveland Park Film Club, Tuesday, February 3, 6:30 p.m., Cleveland Park Neighborhood Library, 3310 Connecticut Avenue, NW. Come see the 1971 Joseph Losey directed film The Go-Between, starring Alan Bates. Public contact: 282-3080. With These Hands, Tuesday, February 3, 7:00 p.m., Mount Pleasant Neighborhood Library, 3160 16th Street, NW. Writers Danny Strickland, Jomo Graham, Lisa Pegram and others will speak about the influences of key political and literary figures in their lives and in their writing. Public contact: 671-0200.

African American History and Culture, Tuesdays, February 3, 10, and 24, 7:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW, Room A-5. Historical lecture series on African Americans presented by area scholars. February 3, House Negroes in the Attic: Neo-Black Servants of the Neo-Confederate Movement by Asa Gordon, who has investigated the roles of African Americans in the Union and Confederate armies. February 10, When God Was a Woman: The African Origins of Today’s Major Religions presented by Carter Ward, lecturer on a broad range of topics including Blacks in early Europe and Asia, the origins of race, and multiculturalism. February 24, Crusade Against Tyranny: The First World War and the African Diaspora presented by C.R. Gibbs, author lecturer and historian of the African Diaspora. Gibbs is the founder of the African History and Culture Lecture Series, which began in 1989 at the Francis A. Gregory Neighborhood Library. Public contact: 727-1211.

Poetry Read Here!, Wednesday, February 4, Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library. Public Library staff will read their favorite poems on the first Wednesday of each month. Public contact: 727-1281.

2004 Brown Bag Recital Series, Thursday, February 5, 12:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library. Pianist Ralitza Patcheva and cellist Wassili Popov perform their monthly recital of chamber music. This performance will feature the music of Bach, Brahms, Martinu and Corigliano. Public contact: 727-1281.

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Washington Storytellers Theater Seminar, February 19
Brad Hills, bradhills@washingtonstorytellers.org

Washington Storytellers Theater announces Facing Your Fears, a workshop with Elizabeth Ellis. Fear is the great "shape shifter," appearing in our lives in hundreds of ways that sabotage our progress and happiness. Learn to face them and use them for heightened artistic development. Elizabeth Ellis is a versatile and riveting teller of personal, Texas and Appalachian tales for all ages. She is well known for her stories of heroic women powerfully presented, and for being an inspiring teacher able to empower others to tell.

Elizabeth first appeared at the National Storytelling Festival in 1981 as part of the Twelve Moons Storytellers, with partner Gayle Ross. She returned as a solo teller in 1986, and served on the National Storytelling Association Board from 1994 to 1996. Elizabeth was the first recipient of the John Henry Faulk Award from the Tejas Storytelling Association . In 1997, Elizabeth received the circle of Excellence Award from the National Storytelling Association given to individuals for their efforts in preserving the art and for setting standards of excellence in the field of storytelling.

The seminar will be held on Thursday evening, February 19, 7-10 p.m., at 8720 Georgia Avenue, Suite 303, Silver Spring, MD 20910. Workshop fee, $35. Registration, 301-891-1129. For more information, visit http://www.washingtonstorytellers.org.

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DC Independent Film Festival and Seminars, March 4-11
Vernard Gray, nsaqi@connectdc.com

The DC Independent Film Festival 2004 marks its five-year milestone with an advocacy forum on March 5-7 at the Embassy Suites Hotel, 4300 Military Road NW (Metro: Friendship Heights, across from the Mazza Gallerie). If relevance is the imperative for troubled times in the film and video industry, the DC Independent Film Festival and Market deserves credit for hosting its Film Industry Advocacy Forum. The forum, to be held March 5, will bring together industry professionals and policy makers as part of the annual festival and market. The forum, designed to discuss pressing issues facing the film and video industry, is a new programming thrust for DCIFF, which this year hits its five-year milestone in the recognition and exhibition of independent filmmakers. DCIFF 2004 runs March 4-11, with screenings, a film market/trade show, and educational seminars at the Embassy Suites Hotel and area theaters. For more information, visit http://www.dciff.org or contact Lisa Bass, 726-7228.

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CLASSIFIEDS — FOR SALE

Exercise Equipment at Great Sale Price
Erica Nash, nashee@starpower.net

Eleven aerobics brand new step. and one brand new small exercise machine. Together $100 or best offer.

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CLASSIFIEDS — WANTED

Cast Iron Radiators
Marguerite Boudreau, margeet@hotmail.com

Cast iron house radiators wanted. Need at least two radiators 2 to 3 ft. wide, but will consider different sizes. Will pick up. Margaret, 332-5968, margeet@hotmail.com.

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CLASSIFIEDS — PERSONALS

Laurie
Bryce Suderow, streetstories@juno.com

Laurie — you dropped out of sight. Where are you? E-mail me.

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CLASSIFIEDS — RECOMMENDATIONS

Help with Brick Chimney
Erica Nash, nashee@starpower.net

My chimney on the roof needs new brick. Anyone know a brick/fixer worker?

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Short Term Child Care/Babysitting Service
Jon Katz, jon@markskatz.com

Please give me your recommendations for quality organizations and individuals that provide short-term child care/babysitting on-site or off-site. The child needing this service is nine and lives in Silver Spring; the service would be needed for regular weekend baby-sitting and for snow days, etc. I know the best option is to find quality individual baby-sitters, and I welcome those recommendations, as well.

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