Corresponding

Dear Correspondents:

My apologies to a couple correspondents whose messages aren't in this issue of themail. A few E-mails were corrupted. I've written to most contributors to ask them to resubmit their messages, but I had only the headings of two messages, without even the senders' E-mail addresses. Michael Karlan and David Fleiss, please write again. And if, in addition to those two, your vital communication isn't in this issue of themail, please send it in again.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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The Forgotten Component of DCPS: The Front-Line Folks
Wanda Morsell, wandamorsell@yahoo.com

The Mayor has a plan. The Council has ideas. Business people have ideas. Yet no one has considered the pleas and cries of the front line folks -- students, parents, teachers and principals. In the report from the Council of Great Schools [http://www.dcpswatch.com/dcps/0312.htm], they acknowledge that they did not talk to parents. Can you imagine a comprehensive report without input from parents?

I have three school-aged children. I have been actively involved with DCPS since 1998. I have participated in hearings, meetings, you name it. I testified by myself, with other parents, and on school teams. We have given specifics about what negatively affects our schools and given possible solutions or directions to explore. We have been totally ignored.

Read the mayor's 2000 State of the District Address, which was given at Ballou [http://www.dcwatch.com/mayor/000306.htm]. Compare it to his 2004 State of the District Address at the Lincoln Theater [http://www.dcwatch.com/mayor/040205.htm]. This underscores the fact that since 1998 things have not gotten any better — things are worse. So it is hard for me to believe that the mayor, the city council, or even the Board of Education at this point, really cares to know what our students need or what parents think. Our school system is under attack. A few is not enough. As parents, we'd better wake up, band together, and start raising real hell.

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Another Layer of School Authority?
Ed T. Barron, edtb@aoldotcom

Normally, I am in favor of any proposal that will help the kids in D.C. get a better education. When the Mayor proposes yet another initiative, however, I become very wary and suspicious. Is the proposal to establish another controlling organization, layered on top of the ineffectual School Board, just another attempt at recruiting supporters (read contributors) for another election campaign?

If not then let's see the beef. if there really is an independent group that will make needed changes in the D.C. educational processes and system then let this group show us, not just tell us, how they intend to make any reforms. This phantom group should show us just what they intend to do, how they intend to do it, and show us the timetable for accomplishing their work. If this new seven-person group can produce a viable plan (seems like Charlene Drew Jarvis did just that several months ago). Otherwise, this is just another exercise in futility.

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Fraudulent Education
Susan Ousley, SLOusley at AY OH EL DOT COM

I was thrilled last year when a marvelous new principal at Garrison Elementary reintroduced art and music — and brought in all sorts of good community people and resources. Sure enough, my daughter got good grades in art and music again on last week's report card.

Just one problem. The art and music teachers and the wonderful principal, despite more than two hundred parents' pleas, were removed last June.

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A Zero-Sum Game
Ed T. Barron, edtb@aoldotcom

The folks running the Metro system still haven't figured it out. Raising fares will not result in increased income for the Metro. Over the long haul revenues will decrease and to match revenues with expenditures, services will have to be cut. That will result in additional loss of revenue and the Metro system will go into a death spiral. Public transportation systems will never be profitable. They are a public service and should be treated as such. The answer is to make the management and operations as efficient as possible and subsidize the system to meet the operational costs of that public transportation service.

Instead of raising fares the folks at Metro should try lowering fares. And, lowering them to the point where many more folks would not bother to spend time and effort driving in traffic each day into the city. This, in turn, would reduce a lot of costs to the city in police services, road maintenance, and pollution.

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New Capitol Hill History Book
Paul K. Williams and Gregory J. Alexander, Paul@WashingtonHistory.com

We are pleased to announce the publication of Capitol Hill, our latest edition to the Image of America series by Arcadia Press. Representatives have been distributing it to local bookshops in the city, focusing on Capitol Hill businesses. It is also available at online retailers Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It's our eleventh title focusing on Washington, DC, neighborhoods. It is a 128-page book that contains over two hundred historical images of the neighborhood. We hope you find time to enjoy what we have put together! PS: Another book, Washington in W.W. II, will be published this coming May!

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WASA Prediction
Bryce A. Suderow, streetstories@juno.com

Let me predict how this lead in the water problem will turn out. The city's government and its business leaders are counting on attracting 100,000 middle class residents to revitalize the city and solve its fiscal problems. In fact, thousands of these people have been moving in these past four years. But now there's this little problem with lead contaminated water. Our leaders have to realize that although people will move here and stay here despite the poor schools and lousy police protection, there's a good chance they will flee in droves if they can't drink the water.

The city has no intention of replacing all the contaminated water pipes. That would take years and cost $4 or $5 billion. But there is an alternative: In a few months WASA and the city government will conduct some more tests and will find that by some miracle that the lead levels had gone down dramatically. EPA will accept this lie. The media will accept the lie. The business community will accept the lie. The residents will accept it. End of crisis.

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Calling All Child Advocates
Susie Cambria, scambria@dckids.org

Funding for child care, child welfare and health services threatened! Immediate action needed on the FY 2005 budget: the FY 2005 baseline budget — the budget that only includes ongoing services — had a $250 million gap between expenditures and revenues. The Mayor must propose a balanced budget in March. The Mayor’s staff, the city’s budget office and agencies are currently working to cut programs to make up the $250 million difference. Tell the Mayor that funding for children’s services must not be cut! Programs that need protecting are: 1) the Child Care Subsidy Program — reduced funding in child care funding means that approximately 12,000 fewer children can receive subsidized child care. Parents need child care to work and children need it to thrive. 2) Public health insurance and access programs (Medicaid, DC Healthy Families, DC HealthCare Alliance) -- any cuts to the income eligibility or the services available will negatively impact the health of children, youth and their families. 3) 18-21 year olds in the child welfare system -- kicking these young people out of the system will negatively effect them. By and large, these young people are not financially, socially or emotionally prepared to take on the world alone. 4) the substance abuse treatment pilot for youth -- protecting the current funding level of $2 million is essential if the city is to provide prevention, intervention, in-patient and residential care, and aftercare services to the thousands of young people who abuse drugs.

Deliver your messages to: Mayor Anthony Williams, 727-6263, 727-0505 fax, mayor@dc.gov; City Administrator Robert Bobb, 727-6053, 727-9878 fax, robert.bobb@dc.gov; Deputy Chief of Staff Gregory McCarthy, 727-6979, 727-3765 fax, gregory.mccarthy@dc.gov; Interim Deputy Mayor Lori Parker, 727-8001, 727-0246 fax, lori.parker@dc.gov; Senior Budget Advisor Noel Bravo, 727-6574, 727-0505 fax, noel.bravo.dc.gov. Address for all: 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW 20004.

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DC Voting Rights and a Binding First Primary
David Sobelsohn, dsobelso -at- capaccess -dot- org

In the February 15 issue of themail, Gary Imhoff introduced Gregg Easterbrook as a “liberal political commentator and columnist for The New Republic.” But Easterbrook's views are, to say the least, eclectic. See, for instance, his praise of Charles Krauthammer, recently presented the Irving Kristol Award from the American Enterprise Institute. Easterbrook's views on the environment — what he typically writes about for the printed TNR — make him at best neoliberal. He is especially conservative on foreign policy. Easterbrook's attack on the OAS's pro-DC-voting human-rights decision should surprise no one. As other themail commentators have noted, there is (to say the least) tension between Easterbrook's assertion that “DC residents are over-represented in the United States Congress,” and (on the other hand) his concession that "it is time to grant the District of Columbia a full voting representative in the House" and his proposal that DC residents should vote in the Maryland senatorial elections. If DC is already over-represented, why give us more representation? Interestingly, he provides no argument for giving DC congressional representation. If the justice of DC representation is so obvious it needs no argument, perhaps — as the OAS Commission ruled — denying DC representation does violate international law. Boiled down to its essentials, Easterbrook is really arguing that retrocession makes more sense democratically than statehood. It does. The US Senate is already one of the most malapportioned, unrepresentative legislative bodies in any democracy in the world. Under the US Constitution's equal protection clause, no state could apportion a legislative body like the US Senate. Because of its gross malapportionment, the Senate has (for example) confirmed at least one Supreme Court Justice (Clarence Thomas) by a vote of Senators who represent a minority of the US. Adding two Senators from DC would make the Senate even more undemocratic. (Arguing that it's already malapportioned, because Wyoming gets two Senators, doesn't justify making it more malapportioned.)

On the other hand, Easterbrook (and other retrocession advocates) never address the practical political problem of retrocession: retrocession will never have a political constituency. DC Democrats will always yearn for statehood, and MD Democrats will always find retrocession threatening. Statehood, at least, would require only an act of Congress. Which leaves two questions: 1) is the current complete denial of voting representation to DC worse than exaggerating the malapportionment of the US Senate? I would say yes. Complete lack of representation is worse. But then 2) is there a way, likely to get political support, to accomplish what Easterbrook wants -- our own voting House member and a right to vote for Maryland's Senators — without amending the US Constitution or forcing a shotgun remarriage with Maryland?

Am I the only one who finds it weird to think a binding, first-in-the nation presidential primary for DC will persuade American voters that DC should get more political representation? If we needed more proof of the excessive clout of voters in early primaries, John Kerry's lock on this year's Democratic presidential nomination would provide it. Of course, a binding, first-in-the nation DC primary can have two salutary effects: 1) it can extract promises of genuine support for DC voting rights from presidential candidates, promises they wouldn't otherwise give; and 2) it can garner national press attention for our lack of voting rights. Effect #1 remains to be proven, since the primary wasn't binding this year — although we did have, as it turns out, a fairly early caucus. Did it get us any new promises? But effect #2 seems dubious if we have a binding first primary. The message will get circulated that we don't have voting rights except for president; but that message will get blurred by our obvious excessive clout regarding selection of a president. A binding first primary will only reinforce Gregg Easterbrook's argument that we're already over-represented in the American political process. DC voting rights did get more national press this presidential campaign season than ever before. But I'd like to see national opinion polls indicating whether that increased press actually changed anyone's mind. If so, it may have been exactly because the primary was nonbinding, showing that, even when we have the right to vote, it doesn't count. That's the whole point, isn't it?

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

DC Public Library Events, February 28-29
Debra Truhart, debra.truhart@dc.gov

An Afternoon with Children’s Book Authors, Saturday, February 28, 2:00–3:30 p.m., Cleveland Park Public Library, 3310 Connecticut Avenue, NW. Children’s authors will read and discuss their books. Sheree Fitch reads from her book, Sleeping Dragons All Around; Laura Krauss Melmed reads from her book, Capital!: Washington, D.C. from A to Z; and Mary Quattlebaum reads from her newly released book, Family Reunion. Book signing and sale will follow the program. Public contact: 282-3080.

African American History Month Drama and Poetry Presentation, Saturday, February 28, 12:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW, Main Lobby. Ingri Cornell of Hadasah Productions presents Munday Alexander Crowell, Jr., as he recites poetry from his new work Independence Day, a commentary on fatherhood, love, and Black History. Public contact: 727-1211.

Blacks In Dance, Sunday, February 29, 1:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW, Main Lobby. History of African Americans in Dance presented by Dance Depot and Atrium Dance Performance Ensemble. Public contact: 727-1211.

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ReDefeat Bush Event, March 2
David Swanson, david@davidswanson.org

ReDefeat Bush, http://www.redefeatbush.com will launch its drive to register one million new Democrats with its first Tuesday Night Democratic Club on Tuesday, March 2 at Spy Lounge, 2406 18th Street, NW, starting at 6:00 p.m. Volunteers will call and write to people not currently registered to vote in Wilkes-Barre, PA, and register them to vote in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary on April 27. After the voter contact activities, participants will watch the Super Tuesday primary returns on television and celebrate Democratic unity. If you have a cell phone bring it!

RSVP to events@redefeatbush.com or 329-7847 so we know how many people to expect, and please forward this message to your friends! ReDefeatBush.com operates on proceeds from the sale of ReDefeatBush merchandise, available online at http://www.redefeatbush.com/store.

[To clarify themail's policies again: themail is not the place for debate over national or international political issues, but we shall accept announcements for political events in DC that are held by any party or independent candidate. — Gary Imhoff]

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CLASSIFIEDS — HELP WANTED

Part-Time Junior Secretary
Jon Katz, jon@markskatz.com

Marks & Katz, Attorneys at Law in Silver Spring, Maryland, seeks a junior part-time secretary with a minimum of some college education or equivalent intellectual ability and experience. The junior part-time secretary preferably will work at least six to eight hours every Thursday and Friday; we welcome working additional hours on Monday through Wednesday, as well. Top pay and excellent work assisting our law firm's mission of fighting for justice and the underdog. Pluses to your resume include prior secretarial or clerical experience, Spanish fluency, and experience in a fast-paced office workplace. Please send, only via E-mail, a text version of your resume, a persuasive cover letter (designating "Junior Legal Secretary"), salary history, and relevant references, to Jon Katz, justice@markskatz.com, Marks & Katz, LLC. Please refrain from e-mail attachments and phone calls. For more information, visit http://www.markskatz.com.

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CLASSIFIEDS — RECOMMENDATIONS

Masonry
Victoria McKernan, victoriamck@mindspring.com

I'm having a hard time finding a masonry company for an exterior repointing and painting job. Our four story, thirty unit condo building appears to small for the big companies, but too much for Jose and the boys. Need permits, scaffolding, etc., and familiarity with 1920's mortar specifications. Any recommendations would be very welcome.

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