John Ray
Dear Ray Watchers:
Gambling promoter John Ray. Think of that. A longtime councilmember,
a successful lawyer, and that’s going to be his legacy. That’s how
he’ll be remembered. Promoting a slots casino. Selling out his city
for a corrupt deal. Writing a piece of special interest legislation that
gives his client every advantage and shortchanges the citizens of this
city at every step. Trying to get that special interest legislation
passed as an initiative by cutting every corner, breaking every rule,
trying to slip it past the citizens. Betraying us for nothing more than
a fat fee.
There’s a reason it’s called filthy lucre. Selling out for money
just isn’t worth it. Think of it. For the rest of his life, he’ll be
John Ray, the gambling promoter, and the deal is already falling apart
and he won’t even get rich from it.
Read the Initiative, please read the initiative, at http://www.dcwatch.com/election/init18.htm.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
###############
Corcoran Handout
Paul Wilson, Ward 6, pawilson at starpower dot net
It seems the Mayor and (surprise) Jack Evans, not content to limit
distribution of city largess to the oligarchs of Major League Baseball,
are proposing to hand the Corcoran Gallery $40 million. Well, not a
handout, really, you see, but a grant to be paid back with unspecified
anticipated tax revenues, to wit: a Tax Increment Financing package. (By
the way, is not the Corcoran one of those maligned tax-exempt
organizations that populate DC?) Now, I thought TIFs were designed to
jump-start development citywide, not to provide prominent cultural
institutions with hideous idiosyncratic building additions by “world-class” architects. I'm having a tough time seeing how
the 1700 block of New York Avenue, NW, is in need of a development “jump start.” It's hardly a depressed neighborhood, adjacent
to the Octagon/AIA headquarters, the Department of the Interior, and the
DAR. In any event, the Corcoran, having failed to make its case to the
philanthropic community, wants all DC taxpayers to “contribute” to their grandiose scheme and to subsidize their
overreach. Here's hoping we can find seven councilmembers to pop this
trial balloon.
###############
DC Government Grant of $40 Million to Corcoran Gallery
Warren Gorlick, wgorlick@cftc.gov
We are told by our Council leaders (Mayor Williams, along with
Councilmembers Evans, Catania, and Cropp) that it is in our interest to
support a $40 million grant to the Corcoran because increased taxes from
tourism will offset the expense. How ridiculous. Does anyone really
think that there are that many tourists who will come to see an expanded
Corcoran? The Alice in Wonderland math appears to be based on dubious
projections that visits to the Corcoran will increase from the current
total of 250,000 annually to 500,000 to 1.2 million. Will so many extra
visitors really go to the Corcoran just because it now has a prettier
building? Fairly dubious. But even assuming tourists do visit the
Corcoran in greater numbers, when is the last time that you had a guest
who specifically came to DC just to visit the Corcoran? Just like the
false projections used to support baseball stadiums based on increased
tax revenues from tourism (the tax revenues for such sports facilities
never actually materialize), the notion that millions of extra tourists
will choose Washington because the Corcoran has been expanded is
ludicrous. This is simply a decision by government officials to bail out
the board of the Corcoran, which apparently failed to obtain private
funds during its recent fundraising drive. I would not care, but this is
my money, money that has been taken from me in the form of greatly
increased property taxes, and which is not being spent on critical
infrastructure. Just to give you an example, I live in Ward 3. There has
been a huge number of new apartment buildings in recent years in the
Ward, but not one new additional classroom space has been created — in
fact, teachers have been laid off, and existing infrastructure has been
allowed to decay (for example, the nice large pool at Wilson High has
now been closed for two years, with no apparent progress to fix it).
There have also been cutbacks to libraries and other vital services. I
would urge persons to strongly voice their objections to members of the
District Council, and to Mayor Williams' office.
###############
DCFPI Comments on Proposed Corcoran Subsidy
Ed Lazere, lazere@dcfpi.org
On Monday, June 28, the DC Fiscal Policy Institute testified at a
hearing on a proposed $40 million subsidy to the Corcoran gallery of Art
to support an expansion designed by architect Frank Gehry. DCFPI
commented that the proposal represents an inappropriate use of the
city's Tax Increment Financing program, an economic development program.
DC's other TIF projects have been funded because the completed projects
would generate enough new revenues to offset the subsidy, but the
Corcoran expansion is not expected to do so.
The Corcoran commissioned an analysis which concluded the museum
expansion would generate enough new economic activity throughout the
city to justify the subsidy, but it is based on a number of optimistic
assumptions. In particular, it assumes that most visitors to the museum
would be people who otherwise would not have come to DC or who would
extend their planned trip because of the Gehry addition. DCFPI suggested
that any subsidy for the Corcoran should be considered in the regular
budget process -- where it would compete with other funding priorities
— rather than being supported under the economic development program.
DCFPI's testimony can be found at http://www.dcfpi.org/6-28-04tax.htm
and http://www.dcfpi.org/6-28-04tax.pdf.
###############
Do people mind the continued reliance upon riders to make up for
Metro funding shortfalls and $500K-$1 million in parking thefts? What
else can be done, since local Governments are throwing their hands up? I
have addresses for Board members; E-mail me if you want them. You'll
need them, since the WMATA site has no contact information for Metro
board members. Also, is it me or is it true that within a suspiciously
brief time period following the recent WMATA fare hike hearings, large
covered-over boards began appearing at Metro station kiosks? Does that
mean a) that the signs were prepared prior to the hearings to reflect
the new fares, b) that the decision to raise fares by Metro had been
already been made, and (3) that the hearings were a sham? Is it possible
to begin a dialogue with our Councilmembers and Government agencies
about new, creative approaches to raising money for Metro? I came up
with the following ideas. Are these workable? Horrible? Do you have
other ideas?
1) Increase advertising space through billboards in stations, trains,
and buses. This might mean putting aesthetics lower on a list of
priorities, more so than using fare hikes. 2) Set aside and designate
space in stations where trade associations, companies, or nonprofits
could lease limited exhibit space. This space already exists and is
found where newspaper vending machines used to be. It could be rapidly
converted to exhibit or display areas and made available to the several
hundred thousand organizations in our area eager to get their message
out. 3) Similarly, WMATA could offer named days or weeks to
trade associations, agencies, companies, or nonprofits during which an
entity or group of entities would be able to hang banners, distribute
promotional items and materials, and perhaps even make custom fare cards
available throughout the system (or in designated parts of the system)
through a financial arrangement with WMATA. Peak periods, such as the
4th of July, could be offered at a higher cost. Larger entities, such as
BET, Coke, Verizon, Wendy’s, or malls such as Pentagon City and
Springfield, might be able to promote products, services, and materials
at certain stations. Riders could win free fare-cards. The creation of
occasional, festival-like community outreach and promotional
opportunities would go a long way toward smoothing over soured relations
between WMATA and its riders. 4) More difficult to accomplish in the
short term are two suggestions, but both would dramatically improve
service. First, run express trains for a higher fare for those traveling
in a hurry or for longer distances between key stations during peak
periods. A train might depart in the morning from Shady Grove or Vienna
and terminate at Metro Center (or a few other downtown stations) then go
out of service to be used elsewhere. The routes would be reversed in the
evening. Second, quiet cars directly behind the train operator would be
available to riders at certain times for a higher fare in limited
service. Entry to those cars would be through the doors found closest to
the operator, or modifications to the SmarTrip card might make it
possible to control access in some way. 5) Maybe it’s time to see the
following sign, “Silver Spring-Discovery.”
I'd like to see Councilmembers Catania and Graham and other
Councilmembers use their appearances in the community to gain ideas from
riders and the general public for how to increase Metro revenue without
raising fares or taxes.
###############
Can Anyone Understand This Blurb?
Ed T. Barron, edtb@aoldotcom
Certainly I'm no chemical engineer but, as an engineer, I do
understand things that are technical in nature. I'm baffled, however, by
the latest fancy multipage blurb from WASA which, I guess, is intended
to make me feel very safe about drinking the DC water. This blurb is
totally incomprehensible to me and, I'm sure, to about 99.99 percent of
the folks who received this high cost mail out. It would be far better
to publish and mail something that 99.99 percent of the water users in
DC could read and understand. Put something out in layman's terms that
clearly describes what problems are still facing the District, what
problems have been solved, and what will be done (and how) to fix the
remaining problems. Fortunately I don't drink more that a gallon of
water a year from the DC taps. I haven't been a water drinker since I
left Brooklyn (and the infamous Flatbush water) in 1957. So if the blurb
is telling me not to drink the water, I'm already in compliance.
###############
From the Post, Williams and the baseball brigade literally
prostrate themselves and DC coffers before the Major League Baseball
monopoly (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13386-2004Jun28.html):
“Three months later, with the all-star break deadline fast
approaching, Mayor Williams tried to close the deal. In a three-hour
June 20 meeting at the Wilson Building, DC officials presented more
detailed information about the bid to three members of the relocation
committee. At one point, Williams asked for an exclusive negotiating
window to try to get the deal done. ‘We can get it done like
that,’ Williams promised, snapping his fingers, according to Robert
D. Goldwater, the former president of the DC Sports and Entertainment
Commissioner, who was at the meeting.” That snap of the fingers
doesn’t leave a lot of time between a conditional award of the
franchise and getting public input into the process, does it?
“We're just saying to baseball, ‘Please bring a team here,’” Williams said last fall.
“But who owns it, or what
team, is up to them — the man behind the door.” What a great way
to do business! Please give us a team! We‘ll pay whatever it costs,
and we won‘t even look at the man behind the curtain or specify what
site works best for DC or what owner we’re going to make a
zillionaire! Take us, we‘re yours. “Mark K. Tuohey, the chairman
of the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission, said the mayor decided
to offer a fully funded stadium after it became ‘clear to us that they
were going to get 100 percent financing’” from another city. The
evidence for that determination was unclear. (As if that would stop
them.) Tuohey said DC officials became convinced after reading press
reports and talking to baseball executives. “I'm told Monterrey has
that kind of proposal,” Tuohey said. “I'm told that Las Vegas
does.” Asked if he was concerned that DC was bidding against
itself, Tuohey said: “No, I don't think we are. Because we looked
at the 100 percent and it was doable.” Did he let anyone see if it
were doable or determine for sure if he was bidding against himself,
with public money, of course, before he offered it up? We intend to be
heard on whether this is doable whether they like it or not!
Active polls on where MLB should put the team: http://www.wtop.com/index.php?sid=218195&nid=127,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13386-2004Jun28.html,
and http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/2004-06-29-expos-analysis_x.htm.
###############
Re: Baseball NIMBY, This Place Is a Zoo
Lea Adams, Workinprogress247@mac.com
Am I expecting too much, or is this place falling apart at the seams
with no tailor on duty? Slot promoters, sex offenders, sloppy zoo
keepers abound, and all our leaders can argue about is how to squeeze a
stadium into downtown. Washingtonians revised our lives enough to
accommodate MCI and Convention Center mobs, the WWII Memorial addition,
and the pompous mega-wake for a former President who openly disdained
having to commute from California to work in DC. To propose a baseball
park closer in than RFK is absurd and irresponsible. There's a reason
the song says “take me OUT to the ball game.” The National Zoo
used to be a point of pride for the whole city; now its a point of
shame. The ASPCA ought to have a picketers at the gate carrying
"Unwanted" posters with Lucy Spelman's picture on them. She
gives new meaning to the phrase "wearing out your welcome."
Six months ago I moved from a quiet, upper northwest house to a
skyline/river view apartment in Southwest hoping for authentic
"development," not the latest rage of racially and
economically biased "gentrification" that has meant wholesale
upheaval for existing northwest and near northeast neighborhoods east of
Rock Creek Park. But all's quiet on the waterfront; the action is behind
closed doors where Anthony and the Imperialists meet to consider their
best interests and decide our future. Is the Children's Museum really
coming to L'Enfant Plaza, or is that just another hopeful rumor?
Reaganomics promised "mo' money" at the top would
"show me the money" at the bottom, but the only thing
trickling down from the rich to the poor are their bad values, bad
debts, and bad policies. Our local elected officials (past and present)
look more and more like the shady operators on the Hill. Where is Mr.
Rogers when we need him? The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
will continue unless we reorder our priorities to put education, health
and housing for all ahead of entertainment for those who can pay for it.
We, the people, just have to stop following lousy leaders and start
paying attention before they're (re)elected .
###############
I'm interested in hearing more about how people feel about the story
that the Washington Post did this past week on Councilmember
Brazil and his staff and how they worked to get his mistress a good
paying job in the administration. The Office of the Inspector General
has launched a preliminary investigation into the allegations. [Serge
Kovaleski and Yolanda Woodlee, “ City Job Was Found for Brazil Aide:
Advisers Deemed Personal Relationship Too Distracting,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58999-2004Jun21.html]
###############
Several months ago, the organizers of SmokeFreeDC.org proposed a
ballot initiative to prohibit smoking in restaurants and bars. At the
last minute before the appeal deadline, the DC restaurant association
challenged the proposed initiative in court, claiming among other things
that the initiative would violate the DC code section prohibiting
initiatives from "affecting appropriations," i.e., revenue. In
the smoking case, this was an absurd claim. The likelihood that banning
smoking in restaurants would significantly affect city tax revenues was
speculative at best. If remote effects on revenue can kill a ballot
initiative, then clearly almost any initiative will be struck down on
that basis. Indeed, the superior court judge ruled against the
initiative proposers for that reason. As a result, to this day, there
has been virtually no successful ballot initiative enacted into
permanent law in this city, save a couple of largely ceremonial matters.
Here's what's outrageous about the slots ruling in comparison. In the
SmokeFree case, the judge took something like six weeks to make her
ruling. When she finally gave the ruling, she made clear that any effect
on the budget, both increases or decreases in revenue, would render the
initiative unlawful. This adverse ruling and the delay in time will
prevent the initiative from going forward on the ballot in November. But
in the slots case, somehow the judge was able to make his ruling
virtually on the spot, apparently within a matter of hours after the
challenge was filed. And then, to add insult to injury, even though the
slots initiative proposers openly advertised their proposal as
generating $190 million in tax revenue per year (according to the Washington
Post), the judge apparently denied the challengers' claims that the
initiative was unlawful on the basis of affecting appropriations. Not to
mention the phony DC Register that the initiative proposers
mailed out!
Bottom line: don't bother proposing a ballot initiative in this town.
Unless, perhaps, you're a former DC Council member with friends at the DC
Register and the Board of Elections, and you get lucky with a really
fast judge.
###############
Re: Not About Slots
S.H. Henery, SHe741@aol.com
Don't we, as residents of the District of Columbia, have enough
problems with which to contend without compounding them by adding the
myriad of grave issues that will come with slot machines?
###############
I understand your point about not commenting on slots at this time, [themail,
June 27] although I don't agree with it. But the silence of the city's
elected leadership is deafening. I think the mayor expressed some mild
concern. Slots, parlors, and lotteries are regressive taxation and an
abdication by elected representatives of their duty to deal fairly with
the public policy of raising funds to pay for public services. It is
akin to selling the right to raise taxes as done in Roman times, the tax
collector gets a slice of the taxes as pay, and the power to control
other things with it. But we may be caught between a rock and a hard
place. If Pennsylvania gets slots, it will probably force Maryland to do
the same in defense of money sucked out of the state. That in turn will
suck money out of the District. If we have to have publicly sanctioned
gambling to raise money for the government, than let’s at least have a
public commission to control it and maximize the return to the people.
###############
CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Dumbarton House 250th Anniversary, July 10
Masha E. Raj, masharaj@dumbartonhouse.org
Step back in time and experience life in early Washington at
Dumbarton House, 2715 Q Street, NW, on July 10 from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00
p.m. The favor of your company is requested in celebration of the 250th
anniversary of the birth of Joseph Nourse, America’s first Register of
the Treasury and first occupant of Dumbarton House. Meet Joseph Nourse,
his family and other prominent Georgetowners as living history
interpreters recreate 1804 at Dumbarton House. Enjoy Federal period
games, dancing and musical performances. Admission: $5 adults, children
free. For more information please call 337-2288 or visit http://www.dumbartonhouse.org.
###############
themail@dcwatch is an E-mail discussion forum that is published every
Wednesday and Sunday. To subscribe, to change E-mail addresses, or to
switch between HTML and plain text versions of themail, use the
subscription form at http://www.dcwatch.com/themail/subscribe.htm.
To unsubscribe, send an E-mail message to themail@dcwatch.com
with “unsubscribe” in the subject line. Archives of past messages
are available at http://www.dcwatch.com/themail.
All postings should also be submitted to themail@dcwatch.com,
and should be about life, government, or politics in the District of
Columbia in one way or another. All postings must be signed in order to
be printed, and messages should be reasonably short — one or two brief
paragraphs would be ideal — so that as many messages as possible can
be put into each mailing.
