Elections
Elections in themail, August 11, 2004
Dear Electors:
West of the Anacostia, we’re having a dull set of elections this
year. In Wards 2 and 4, nobody is running against incumbent
councilmembers Jack Evans and Adrian Fenty. Not only do they have no
competition in their Democratic primaries, but also no Republican or
Statehood-Green candidate has even entered their parties’ primaries.
It’s possible that at-large councilmembers Harold Brazil and Carol
Schwartz will have real competition in their party primaries, but so far
neither appears to be very worried. It’s only in Wards 7 and 8 that
something unexpected, by which I mean the defeat or even the close call
of an incumbent, could happen. And nobody in any race, neither incumber
nor challenger, has put out any interesting, inspiring, or even
intriguing campaign literature; there’s a dearth of any political
literature at all. We’re a city with plenty of problems and plenty of
room for politicians’ plans and promises. Why aren’t more ambitious
potential public servants vying for our favor this year? Are am I
overlooking somebody?
DCWatch’s coverage of the candidates, admittedly skimpy so far, is
at http://www.dcwatch.com/election2004.
Click on the candidate’s name for any literature we have on the
DCWatch web site, and follow the links to candidates’ own web sites. Let
us know if you have any additional information on any of the candidates
and, as always during election seasons, write to themail about your
favorite and least favorites candidates -- persuade your fellow voters
to vote the right way.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Real Property Tax Relief — Bogus Analysis in
Washington Post
Matt Forman, Matthew.Forman2@verizon.net
A week ago Saturday, the Washington Post reported the results
of a purported analysis conducted by the DC Fiscal Policy Institute (DCFPI)
concerning the effects of the 12 percent cap on annual real property tax
increases enacted this year by the City Council. The DCFPI study claims
that the residents of certain wards collectively received more dollar
benefits than those in other wards. Hmmm. Maybe because some wards have
more homeowners than other wards? Indeed, from my own analysis of the
tax rolls, Ward 3 has around 13,000 homeowners, while Ward 8 has only
around 2,700. So it's no wonder Ward 3 got more dollar benefits —
there are simply more taxpayers there! Perhaps the Post should
have used the following headline: “Study reveals that five people get
five times as much benefit as one person. That's not news. It's
multiplication.
OK. So I've exaggerated a little. Even when calculated on a per
resident basis, that the relief per household was higher in some wards
compared to others, both in terms of absolute dollars saved per
household (still a deceptive measure because of varying home values) as
well as the percent of tax bill saved per household (a more informative
comparison). There are two obvious explanations for this differential.
First, the wards receiving the least benefit simply pay the least in
taxes. Ward 8 generates a mere 1 percent of the total residential real
property tax revenue generated in the City. So even if the Council
eliminated the property tax tomorrow, then Ward 8 would get only 1
percent of it. I suppose DCFPI would consider that to be unfair as well?
Second, the whole point of the cap was to provide tax relief to people
whose property taxes were outpacing their incomes. So by definition, the
relief was only intended to go to the people whose assessments were
increasing above 12 percent. As it turns out, assessments were
increasing faster in certain wards compared to others. So naturally the
wards with the highest increases would get the greatest relief. That was
the whole point -- to give the greatest relief to people who needed it
the most. But DCFPI (and, as indicated in the Post, Phil
Mendelson and Vincent Orange) argued that relief should be instead
provided to those whose taxes had not increased at all, and therefore
had suffered no hardship. To argue that the homeowners whose taxes were
not increasing should get the same relief from those whose were is like
arguing that WASA should not replace lead water supply pipes in Ward 1,
which has 38 percent of the city's lead pipes, because Ward 7, which has
only 8.4 percent, won't get as much benefit.
For a more in-depth analysis of the analytical errors in the DCFPI
report, please visit http://www.KaloramaCitizens.org/news.
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I'd always thought of it as nothing more than a punch line to jokes
about clueless tourists. Then a few days ago, while walking past the Air
and Space Museum on 4th Street, I get stopped by a car full of young
women from Florida. They wanted to know where the mall was. I told them
it was just a half block back, that long stretch of green running
between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial. No, they said, we're
looking for the National Mall, “You know, the one where you can
shop.”
Continuing up 4th Street, I crossed Pennsylvania Avenue and strolled
through the plaza that separates the Canadian Embassy from the US
District Courthouse. There I spotted four young men huddling around the
lifelike statue of two businessmen engaged in a game of chess. Though
the four were speaking a language other than English that I couldn't
make out, it was obvious from their gestures that they were strategizing
what moves they would make were play to resume.
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Busting People for Beer in Farragut Square
Amy Hubbard, ahubbarddc@yahoo.com
Last night I watched while three men (presumably DC undercover
police) confronted a group of young men with bikes (presumably bicycle
messengers) for drinking beer in Farragut Square. They handcuffed two of
the young men and took them away. I realized this was happening because
one of the policemen stood in the restaurant where I was having dinner
and watched the bicycle messengers with binoculars while reporting their
actions to someone else via cell phone. I thought at the time there was
a drug bust coming down and I was surprised to find out that it was all
about drinking beer in the park.
Granted, I don't know the details. Possibly these young men have been
a regular public nuisance and the police were only cleaning up the park
after repeated complaints. But it certainly looked as if the DC
government was expending way more of my tax money than necessary to
harass a bunch of bike messengers when there is so much other more
serious crime happening in our city. Three undercover policemen? Is that
really necessary? And was the point just to stop people from drinking
beer in Farragut Square or was it also a way of keeping black working
class bike messengers from congregating downtown? I don't frequent
Farragut Square and I also know there may be important details of which
I'm unaware, but it certainly makes me question Chief Ramsey's and Mayor
Williams's priorities.
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I, Robot
Larry Seftor, larry underscore seftor .the757 at
zoemail.net
I’ve sometimes wondered if there is a living, breathing, thinking
person in control at the front of a Metro train. The recent incident
where an operator left a train unattended showed that while she was
living and breathing, she wasn’t thinking. When given an order to
leave a train full of passengers, she didn’t think to question the
order in light of the fact that there was no one to take control of the
train as she left. I’m sure that Metro will deal with this issue by
talking about training, as if training can deal with every situation
that might arise. The fact is that the world is unpredictable and it is
impossible to train someone for every conceivable situation. Sometimes
thinking is the only answer and, in light of the uncertain world we
face, Metro needs to provide staff who can think well enough to meet
current and future challenges.
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Still Looking in All the Wrong Places
Ed T. Barron, edtb@aol.com
Just back from a family reunion and wedding and find that the DC
School system is still looking for a top school administrator. Like the
little match girl was told, “Look where there is light.” The folks
hunting for a new school chief are looking in all the wrong places.
Instead of getting a worn out and used school administrator from the
merry-go-round of rotating school chiefs, try a whole new approach. Look
for a proven business leader who is looking for a real challenge and a
mid life career change. And I use the word “leader,” not manager,
not administrator, because there is a world of difference between
management and leadership. In all the seventeen years I have been here
in Washington, I can not find a mayor or top school administrator who
qualifies as a leader.
By selecting a nonacademic person as a school leader one will find a
whole new approach to running the school system. A good leader will be
more able to break through the traditional bureaucracies and form
functional teams within the schools. It's time for DC to think outside
the box (or is that a coffin I se downtown).
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Norton Comments About Our Neighborhood
Richard Layman, rlaymandc@yahoo.com
[Re: Where Is 14th and F, NE?, themail, August 8] I had a
conversation with someone before this tragic incident, and in my opinion
their attitude was that everyone who lives north of H Street is
extremely poor, on welfare, and is a food stamp recipient. I was at a
workshop last fall about charter schools, and a woman was describing the
neighborhood around the Soldiers Home as extremely bad, and I bristled.
It turned out she was from Gaithersburg. It's common for people
unfamiliar with areas to be uncomfortable in them, but this is
ridiculous, and no less out of touch than Delegate Norton's comments.
Yes, frankly, I am uncomfortable in many areas in the neighborhood
due to rampant trash, vacant properties, habitual public drunkenness,
large numbers of people hanging on the street, drug selling, etc., but
that doesn't prevent me from going about my business, exploring, or
picking up trash, anywhere in the neighborhood, at all times of the day
and night. What happened to Myesha Lowe is a tragedy. And it is another
indicator that we have a serious problem in the entire city about
certain segments of the youth population, the availability of guns, and
the eager willingness to use guns to “solve” disputes."
I will say that another problem is the Washington Post. I
don't normally criticize the Post, because it is a high quality
newspaper, but I don't think it covers DC neighborhoods very well. In
the work that I do, I read other newspapers such as the Baltimore
Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Richmond
Times-Dispatch on an almost daily basis. These newspapers run many
more positive stories about changes in neighborhoods in their equivalent
of the “Metro” section (which for the Post I joke that it
should be retitled “Bad Things”). I am not saying that these papers
do not report about murders and other crimes. They do. But they,
particularly the Baltimore Sun and the Philadelphia Inquirer,
run many more stories about community revitalization activities on a
almost daily basis. The Inquirer even runs a localized editorial page on
page 2 of their local news section (Monday-Friday) so that the
Philadelphia local news section has its own “commentary page”
different from the one for South Jersey, the Philly suburbs, or outstate
Pennsylvania. This gives the community additional opportunity to comment
on matters important to them. If people not from particular
neighborhoods only hear, see, or read from the media negative stories
about our neighborhood, and since the only "news" in DC that
tends to make the local TV news is crime-related, what else can we
expect them to believe but the negative about our neighborhoods and
about our city?
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Metro Police Response Should Fit the
“Offense”
Elizabeth Buchanan, elizabethabuchanan@yahoo.com
I'm rather surprised at the number of my fellow DC citizens who
support the Metro police officers' extreme response to the riders'
offense of chewing a payday while entering a metro station. While I
won't dispute the fact that this particular customer seemed to be
childish and unpleasant, her behavior did not warrant the officer's
response.
We should expect law enforcement officers — who are given
significant power over other citizens — to use good judgment and
common sense. Her overzealous reaction was a waste of her
taxpayer-funded time; unduly punished the customer; and denigrated the
other, more important priorities that need metro police officers'
attention (i.e., serious security threats to a vulnerable public transit
system). Put simply, the woman should have received a ticket and been
sent on her way.
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Zero Tolerance and Enforcing the Rules
Ed T. Barron, edtb@aoldotcom
After considerable thought about the brouhaha surrounding the Payday
candy bar eating incident in the entrance to a Metro station, I have
decided that the law enforcement folks were right in issuing a citation.
I'm sure there were some unreasonable behavior actions by both the
ticketer and the ticketee during the fracas, but the bottom line is that
zero tolerance works. Just look at the results in New York City. Under
Rudy Guiliani's leadership the city cracked down on turnstile jumpers,
arrested the "squeegee men," those who would streak your
windshield with a snot filled rag and demand a payment, and gave
citations to those who littered the streets.
Zero tolerance worked. New York City is so much cleaner and neater
now, the attitudes of those who use public transit are measurably
better, and the subways much safer. For some reason there are no posted
rules banning eating or drinking on the NY City subways, and folks bring
their coffee and rolls aboard as they head to work. There's no litter,
though, that is definitely a no-no.
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Doesn’t DC Have Enough to Worry About?
Erica Nash, eyzarblu at aol dot com
Good grief, doesn't DC have enough to worry about without tossing in
eating on the Metro and who's not wearing a head set to talk on their
cell phone while driving?
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
History of Gallaudet, August 18
Debra Truhart, debra.truhart@dc.gov
Wednesday, August 18, 12:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial
Library, 901 G Street, NW. Lance J. Fischer, coeditor of History of
the College for the Deaf, 1857-1907, which was written by Edward
Miner Gallaudet. Gallaudet was the founder and president of what is now
known as Gallaudet University. The book was published 66 years after
Gallaudet’s death. Public contact: 282-0021.
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AARP District Council Candidate Forums, August
18-19, September 8
Grier Mendel, gmendel@aarp.org
On August 18, 19 and September 8, AARP DC is offering the opportunity
to compare candidates in three of the District’s most competitive
council races — Ward 7, At-Large and Ward 8. The Ward 7 and Ward 8
forums will be moderated by Washington Informer Publisher Denise Rolark
Barnes. Bruce DePuyt, host of NewsTalk on NEWSCHANNEL 8, will moderate
the At-Large Forum. Candidates will be questioned by a panel including
AARP members about key concerns of DC’s older voters: ensuring
prescription drug affordability, improving nursing home quality and
assisting grandparents raising grandchildren. Audience members will have
the opportunity to ask questions as time permits. AARP is nonpartisan
and does not have a political action committee (PAC), endorse political
candidates or contribute money to political parities or political
candidates' campaigns.
District Council Ward 7 Candidate Forum, with candidates Kevin
Chavous (D), Donna Daniels (D), Vincent C. Gray (D), Mary Jackson (D),
Steven Pettus (D), Michele Tingling-Clemmons (Statehood Green), and
Jerod Tolson (R). Wednesday, August 18, 11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.,
Pennsylvania Avenue Baptist Church, 3000 Pennsylvania Avenue SE.
District Council At-Large Candidate Forum, with candidates Harold
Brazil (D), Sam Brooks (D), Kwame Brown (D), Don Folden Sr. (R), Robert
Pittman (R), and Carol Schwartz (R). Thursday, August 19, 11:00
a.m.-12:30 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library, 901 G Street
NW.
District Council Ward 8 Candidate Forum, with candidates Sandy Allen
(D), Marion Barry (D), William O. Lockridge (D), Jacque Patterson (D),
Joyce Scott (D), Sandra “SS” Seegars (D), and Cardell Shelton (R).
Wednesday, September 8, 11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Washington Highlands
Library, 115 Atlantic Street SW.
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Vincent James Lecture at the National Building
Museum, August 24
Brie Hensold, bhensold@nbm.org
Spotlight on Design Lecture: The Minneapolis-based firm Vincent James
Associates Architects produces innovative buildings through the
synthesis of research and design. Working closely with highly qualified
specialists to develop technologically advanced designs, the firm
believes that architecture can play an important role in addressing
social, cultural, and environmental issues. Principal Vincent James will
present the firm's work, which includes the student center at the
American University of Beirut in Lebanon. The firm is internationally
acclaimed and the recipient of four consecutive Progressive Architecture
awards for the Minneapolis Rowing Club Boathouse, the Tulane University
Center in New Orleans, the Cable Natural History Museum in Wisconsin,
and the Longitudinal House(s), which is featured in the exhibition
Liquid Stone.
Tuesday, August 24, 6:30-8:00 p.m., at the National Building Museum,
401 F Street, NW (Judiciary Square Metro, Red Line). Tickets: $12 museum
members; $17 nonmembers; $10 students. Prepaid registration required.
For more information, contact Brie Hensold, Public Affairs Office,
272-2448, x3458, or bhensold@nbm.org.
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CLASSIFIEDS — FREE
National Geographics
Bell Clement, bell@kspinc.com
Does anyone out here in DCWatch-land know of anyone who could make
use of seventy years’ worth of the National Geographic
magazine? The set is pretty solid from 1930 to around 2000. I am happy
to box it up for anyone who wishes to have it and can come and fetch it.
(Warning: heavy!) Please reply with any interest.
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