Candidates
Dear Electors:
My apologies to Jay H. Marx, the Statehood-Green primary candidate
for Ward 2 councilmember, whom I inexplicably missed listing as a
candidate both in the last issue of themail and on the DCWatch web page.
Thanks to several readers who pointed out the lapse. In 2002, Marx was a
candidate in the Statehood-Green primary for Shadow Senator. As John
Vaught LaBeaume also pointed out in his message alerting me to my
oversight, Statehood-Green and Republican party members can and will
vote for write-in candidates in races where they currently have no
announced candidates, and this can result in some party competition in
the general election in November. However, it’s highly unlikely that a
candidate who doesn’t take the trouble to enter the primary race will
run a very energetic and enthusiastic race in the following two months.
So, again, I ask you to turn your thoughts to the announced
candidates in these races (see http://www.dcwatch.com/election2004
for the list), including the unjustly neglected Mr. Marx, and to send
your words of praise or disparagement of them to themail.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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The description At-Large is applied to those persons whose
whereabouts are unknown and cannot be found. That's an appropriate
description of Council person Harold Brazil. When it comes to critical
votes or meetings, Mr. Brazil is often at large, or more appropriately,
out to lunch. It's time for a big change, and I hope that Harold
Brazil's opponents knock him off in the September election. He's just
one of the empty suits on the Council.
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SimCity for City Council Candidates
Ben Slade, PublicMailbox@benslade.com (append 030516 to
the subject to bypass my spam filters)
Does anyone like the idea of a SimCity computer game competition for
candidates for the DC City Council? Winning scores could be announced to
give voters a sense of which candidates really know how to run a city.
For those who don't know about SimCity, here’s a description from
an online FAQ: “SimCity is a city manager [computer] game where you
control where to build things like commercial, residential, industrial,
police and fire stations, roads, power lines and power supply, airports,
and harbors. Plus, depending on what you do, you can also control the
crime, population, frequent fires, and more. This is a game which is
basically teaching you what it's like to be a mayor of a city.”
I guess maybe Mayor Williams should play too!
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SEC Fines Against Thayer Capital and Fred
Malek
Ed Delaney, profeddel@yahoo.com
This is huge: fines on an SEC fraud investigation case have come down
on Thayer Capital Partners and on its chairman, Fred Malek, personally;
see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61538-2004Aug12.html
and http://www.washingtontimes.com/sports/20040813-125632-4440r.htm.
After already being a less-than-desirable ownership entity due to his
list-making activities for the Nixon White House, Fred Malek has chalked
up another reason he should not head a team playing in a stadium paid
for with public funds and not his (since he worked out a sweetheart deal
earlier this year that eliminated his group's long-promised major
contribution to stadium financing).
Post: “Thayer and Malek did not admit or deny wrongdoing as
part of the settlement.” Or to be blunt: Thayer and Malek did not deny
wrongdoing as part of the settlement. That can’t be good for the
Washington Baseball Club’s dossier that they hope Major League
Baseball would view favorably enough in their strict vetting of their
potential business partners to award them the team, at least not in the
post-Marge Schott era of MLB ownership. Post: “(Privately-held)
Thayer Capital’s board of advisers includes former AOL chairman James
Kimsey.” Won’t MLB be sad to learn that this blight alights on the
WBC’s main money man as well as the head of the group whose head
already has a checkered past? Post: “Barry E. Johnson, Thayer's
chief financial officer, said he could not speak for the government, but
he said that the firm was unaware of any ongoing criminal investigation
into Thayer or Malek stemming from the Connecticut allegations.” That
doesn’t mean that couldn’t become an issue in the future, which
should give pause to anyone wanting Malek to head the team that will be
receiving so much revenue from a stadium project built with public
funds.
Times: “Malek received a $100,000 fine and Thayer a $150,000
fine.” A $100K fine to Malek personally? I don’t think they usually
hand out personal fines for clerical errors or typos. Times:
“The state of Connecticut still has $53.5 million invested in Thayer
funds.” And with this track record with a government’s money, Malek,
Kimsey, et al., want MLB and DC to be a party to a bonding plan
that the WBC helped put together working with DC officials behind closed
doors? OK. . . .
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DC Parking Story Covered by ABC 7
Gabe Goldberg, gabe@gabegold.com
Http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0804/164852.html.
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What’s the Law?
Ed T. Barron, edtb@aoldotcom
Just noticed yesterday, for the first time I looked on my bus ride
back form Georgetown, that the bus driver was not wearing her seat belt.
I'm sure that the policy by the transit authority is for all drivers to
wear their seat belts. But is it against D.C. law for bus drivers not to
wear their seat belts? I'll pay more attention on my next trips aboard
D.C. buses.
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Reporting on Revitalization
Anne Lindenfeld, annekl@aol.com
In his post entitled "Norton Comments About Our
Neighborhood" [themail, August 11] Mr. Layman laments that our
hometown newspaper does not report on neighborhood and area events and
issues, especially the more positive ones like revitalization efforts.
He compares Post reporting to the Philadelphia Inquirer's
many articles about neighborhood development and revitalization. In
part, I agree. For as long as I can remember (in my twenty-plus years as
a DC resident), most of us would prefer more column space in this
laudable daily to be devoted to things local. However, I think there's
more at work here than reporting styles. There's a good reason
Philadelphians read more in their newspapers about efforts there to
revitalize neighborhoods, clean up streets, replace blighted buildings
with safe affordable housing, and give youth something better to do than
run in gangs and sell drugs, and it's not due to better reporting.
Philadelphians read about these positive things because they are
happening there.
Since being elected — and then reelected, despite Ashcroft’s
shamelessly bugging his office — Philadelphia Mayor John Street has
focussed his energy and city resources on making its poorest
neighborhoods cleaner, safer, and more economically vibrant. We're not
talking gentrification here; we are talking real neighborhood
development. Literally thousands of abandoned cars have been removed
from North Philadelphia streets; acres of blighted, burned out houses
have been torn down and are being replaced with affordable housing. This
is what Philadelphians get to read about -- and experience.
What we get to read about is the legacy of a K Street mayor, who is
out-of-touch with anyone who does not make six figures. In his two
terms, he's made corporate downtown look terrific; however neighborhood
developments like H Street NE, 8th Street SE, Columbia Heights, and
others languish, largely holding on because community development corps
scramble to keep them alive. Gangs are on the rise here, yet less and
less city money is put into youth summer programs and the school system
has largely dismantled its vocational-technical programs. (They don't
help standardized test scores, after all.) We still don't have adequate
hospital coverage in the southeastern areas of the city, because our
mayor closed DC General and negotiated a contract with a hospital that
he knew was going into bankruptcy at the time. And in this Friday's Post,
I read that since 2001 over one hundred retarded adults died while
living in DC-run group homes without anyone in DC government thinking
their deaths warranted any investigation. I guess if disabled people
dependent on our city's care don't warrant special treatment, why should
any of the rest of us? The real reason that Philadelphia and DC
reporting is different is not so much a matter of editorial control,
it's a matter of content -- and the political will of these two mayors.
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Bike Messengers in Farragut Park
Jim Holm, james_holm at msn dot com
[Response to “Busting People for Beer in Farragut Square,” by Amy
Hubbard, themail, August 11]: I, for one, am actually glad to hear that
the DC police are doing something about the bike messengers who turn
Farragut Square into their personal bar, stunt ground, trash can on an
nightly basis. I work about one block from the park, and pass though
both on my way to and from work. While the bike messengers are not the
only ones who abuse the park grounds, they are probably the most
destructive.
In the mornings, the place is usually trashed. There are empty beer
cans and bottles scattered throughout the grounds, and several times I
have seen bike parts (chains, tires) and even an entire bike frame
hanging from tree branches. The grass, until it was recently replaced,
was always more dirt than plant because of its constant use as a test
course for bike messenger riding tricks. In the evenings, the bike
messengers are obviously not trying to make any friends. I have been
insulted and cursed at, all for having the apparent audacity to ask bike
messengers to move their rides out of the walking paths.
The US Park Service just spent a good amount of money improving
Farragut Square — it would be nice if folks who use the park would
respect the rules so that it stays presentable. If it takes the cops
(probably US Park Police, by the way, since Farragut Square is a federal
park) to keep the park nice, I think that's more of a sad commentary on
the bike messengers' ability to act like responsible adults than on
heavy-handed law enforcement.
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Nunc Est Bibendum,
or Apprehend ’em?
Mark Eckenwiler, themale at ingot dot org
In the last issue [themail, August 11], Amy Hubbard complained about
the arrest of a group of bike messengers for drinking beer in Farragut
Square. Having now retrieved my jaw from the floor, let me say, “Thank
you, officers.” We're not talking here about a candy bar in the
entryway to the Metro; what Ms. Hubbard describes is drinking alcohol in
public, which is illegal for all sorts of reasons readily apparent to
any sentient being in the time-space continuum my fellow DC residents
and I inhabit.
As for the argument that there's much worse crime they should be
worrying about: Feh. I don't quite grasp why lower-end scofflaws —
your public drinkers and urinators, say — deserve a free pass just
because there are worse offenders out there. (Note: I do want the police
to put a higher priority on solving or deterring murder, rape, and
robbery, just not at the cost of ignoring quality-of-life violations
altogether.) And as for the absurd suggestion that this is a diabolical
“way of keeping black working class bike messengers from congregating
downtown,” I hold the truly naïve view that the BWCBMs among us —
and white frat boys, and everyone else — are capable of congregating
downtown and elsewhere in DC without resort to boozing it up in a public
park.
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Some Points on Candy Bars
Craig McLane, New Carrollton, cmclane@comcast.net
a) Police work is boring and extremely dangerous. That makes it very
high stress, which roils the emotions, which sometimes can impede
judgment a bit. When you have a case of poor judgment, if it is
recurrent, it's probably a problem with the officer; if it's isolated,
it's probably an indicator that stress is higher than acceptable. It is
just possible that being a Transit cop in DC is somewhat more stressful
of late. Perhaps that is the root of the candy bar incident — rather
than most police officers and their supervisors having an inner Nazi
that yearns to breathe free. b) Most jurisdictions try to buy police
services on the cheap. Highly educated, skilled people with very keen
judgment are extremely expensive to hire and are not usually effective
at breaking up a bar room brawl or subduing someone on PCP. They're also
markedly reluctant to take boring and extremely dangerous jobs, so most
police forces tend to hire directly off the high school football team.
Not to say that's the case with Metro or with this particular officer,
but just to point out that you get what you pay for, and you can't be
too critical of exactly how your system works when you buy an 80 percent
solution.
c) Policing is an art form. It is a minute-by-minute re-asking of the
question of when to let something pass and when to use the letter of the
law. Think about it. Nearly every one of us violates some trivial law or
other every single day of our lives. How many of us get stopped, much
less arrested? Each cop sees dozens of clear violations an hour, and
balances the law against the real-life needs and habits of the people
who enacted that law. Police officers know on a gut level that their
power and authority actually come from the people they're policing; that
as a society, we know we need to be policed in order to live together
peacefully and safely; and that that (a peaceful, safe society) is the
cops' goal, not a perfect, no-tolerance enforcement of the law. That's
why we're not all in jail today. And that's why being a cop requires so
much judgment (see a and b, above). d) It's true that some officers are
ignorant bullies (or sometimes worse), but it's also true that some
citizens are abusive assholes (or sometimes worse). While nearly every
police force in the country has a program in place to identify and
remove their bad apples, on the other side of the fence we citizens
don't worry about it at all. After all, that's what we have police for,
right? We don't discipline and guide our children, we glorify violence,
and we pretend our poor, uneducated, and oppressed brethren do not
exist.
And then, when we've let things get so wild that we are actually
afraid of telling fellow citizens that they shouldn't park in a handicap
spot or litter or steal sandwiches from the 7-11 — then we send in the
police. Once we've been so irresponsible and incompetent as neighbors,
parents and voters that we can hardly live with the results, then we
send in the police. Would you like it if the police were so unassertive,
irresponsible, laissez-faire and timid about their social
responsibilities that you had to wear Kevlar and a gun every time you
went to work? I wouldn't. So I think it would be wise that the next time
we see a situation in which a police officer may have gone overboard,
that we hold off shouting "police state!" and ponder for a bit
just who it is that's screwing up.
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Letting the Goose That Lays the Golden Eggs
Strangle Itself
Len Sullivan, lsnarpac@bellatlantic.net
Most people would agree that our Metrorail system is one asset that
adds considerable luster to DC's image as a world-class national capital
city. Why then would local, regional, and national leaders and power
brokers allow the system to choke on its own success within the next few
years? WMATA is having little success raising enough funds to keep its
current public transit equipment operating, and even less success in
adding to its capacity to handle rush hour crowds within its current
self-clogging network of tracks and stations. Metro officials project
downtown stations will reach ultimate saturation within ten years at
most. There are no accepted plans or cost estimates for expanding
Metrorail trackage or stations within DC, though regional planners
anticipate robust growth in population, commuters, and city jobs.
Meanwhile, city planners are busy devising means to reduce traffic flow
on the city's major streets as well. Current long-range plans and
visions talk about adding traffic-blocking trolleys, bicycle and
pedestrian paths to major routes that are also envisioned to become
stately "boulevards" by the dreamers, but 24/7 heavy truck
routes by the realists. There are no plans for major off-street and
curbside parking innovations to improve flow-rates on current streets.
In a wan effort to stimulate focus on Metrorail's long-range urban
future, NARPAC has generated a notional 25-year redesign of the current
layout in an effort to a) avoid underground urban gridlock during normal
or emergency rush hours, b) encourage economic development away from
downtown, and c) increase local and regional access to the system. (see http://www.narpac.org/METROVIZ.HTM).
The added 38 miles of underground and elevated track, 28 new stations,
four new river crossings, and "Inner Circle" Line would cost
some $20B in today's dollars spread over 25 years. That amounts to a 3
percent annual growth in capital assets over its current $24 billion
value. It is also over and above the 2 percent-plus needed to keep the
current system working. Where should such funding come from? The same
federal government that provided the funds to build the system in the
first place, but then left it unable to generate its own revenues, or
keep up with national capital region growth. If there is any one
permanent role for Congress in our national capital city's affairs, it
must be to assure its global stature by appropriate planning for and
underwriting of its highly visible infrastructure. Check out this
contentious addition to the August update of NARPAC's web site at http://www.narpac.org/INTHOM.HTM.
You too should think about the special long-term demands of being part
of our national capital city.
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This is to advise that the August 2004 on-line edition has been
uploaded and may be accessed at http://www.intowner.com.
Included are the lead stories, community news items and crime reports,
editorials (including prior months' archived), restaurant reviews (prior
months' also archived), and the text from the ever-popular "Scenes
from the Past" feature. Also included are all current classified
ads. The complete issue (along with prior issues back to March 2002)
also is available in PDF file format directly from our home page at no
charge simply by clicking the link provided. Here you will be able to
view the entire issue as it appears in print, including all photos and
advertisements. The next issue will publish on September 10. The
complete PDF version will be posted by the preceding night or early that
Friday morning at the latest, following which the text of the lead
stories, community news, and selected features will be uploaded shortly
thereafter.
To read this month's lead stories, simply click the link on the home
page to the following headlines: 1) “Stead Park 198-Year Lease Plan
For Private Group Galvanizes Opponents Objecting to Public Land
Disposal,” 2) “‘Gentrification’ in Shaw: Many Fear It, Others
See Benefits but Still Worry.” 3) “Adams Morgan Day Festival Being
Revamped by Area’s by ‘Main Street’ Organization,” 4) “Michael
K. Ross: Mt. Pleasant Artist Stars With His Call Box Sculptures.”
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Historic Theaters and Movie Houses Bus Tour,
August 21
Rebecca A. Miller, rebecca@dcpreservation.org
The DC Preservation League presents an historic theaters and movie
houses bus tour on Saturday, August 21, at 10:00 a.m. Throughout the
mid-1900s, Washington, DC, boasted numerous theaters, ranging in style
from the highly ornate Tivoli to the Art-Deco Uptown. Join DCPL for a
bus tour to explore the remains of this golden age of entertainment. Our
tour leader, author and local theater aficionado Robert Headly, will
share intriguing stories and describe the curiosities of well-known and
not-so-well known DC theaters. Participants will see first hand
preservation successes and visit the interiors of a few theaters that
have stood the test of time. The tour begins at 10 a.m. and is estimated
to take about three hours. Light refreshments will be provided. Cost:
members: $25; non-members $35. For reservations: call 202.783.5144 or
E-mail info@dcpreservation.org.
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The Street Stage: Performance Event by
Homeless and Housed Artists, August 21
T.J. Sutcliffe, tjsutcliffe@some.org
The Street Stage is a free community arts performance event providing
a creative outlet for those experiencing homelessness. Each event not
only serves as a stage, but also as a way to break down barriers by
bringing together artists and art enthusiasts regardless of their
socio-economic background. On Saturday, August 21, 1:00-3:30 p.m., The
Street Stage will welcome artists from around the city, whether homeless
or housed, in Malcolm X/Meridian Hill Park at 15th and Euclid Streets,
NW. in Columbia Heights. The event will include stage performances (e.g.,
music, poetry, drama, etc.) as well as displays of visual arts. For more
information visit The Street Stage web site at http://www.streetstagedc.com,
E-mail info@streetstagedc.com,
or call Michelle A. Maslov at 301-233-2911.
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Farce and Justice of the Magistrate, August 21
Debra Truhart, debra.truhart@dc.gov
The play Farce and Justice of the Magistrate by Alejandro Casona will
be performed in Spanish only on Saturday, August 21, at Mount Pleasant
Neighborhood Library, 3160 16th Street, NW. The play is directed by
Mario Marcel of Teatro de la Luna. This farcical comedy, that, in the
midst of all the laughter, reveals to us the corruption of biased
justice. Public contact: 671-0200.
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At-Large Candidates’ Forum on Development in
Our Neighborhoods, August 23
Susie Cambria, s.e.cambria@dckids.org
An at-large candidates’ forum on development will be held on
Monday, August 23, from 7-9:30 p.m., at St. Columba's Church, 4201
Albemarle Street, NW. Please come and bring your neighbors! A good
turnout is important. This is our chance to let the At-Large candidates
know how we feel about overdevelopment in our community and to ask for
their views on what they will do to bring sensible development if they
are elected to the City Council. You will have plenty of opportunity to
ask questions. This event is sponsored by a coalition of community
groups who believe a public discussion of development is essential to
our making informed choices in the City Council races. Among these
groups are the Friendship Neighborhood Association (FNA), the Coalition
to Stop Tenleytown Overdevelopment (CSTO), The Tenleytown Neighborhood
Association (TNA), the Georgia Avenue Steering Committee, the
Friendship-Tenleytown Citizens Association, and representatives from
Capitol Hill and Burleith.
Harold Brazil, Kwame Brown, and Sam Brooks will take part.
Overdevelopment and loss of our small businesses and affordable housing
are crucial issues for our neighborhoods. We often feel we are under
assault, and unfortunately with good reason. Marc Fisher and Roger Lewis
present one side of a complex issue. The other side, the side with the
2,000 signatures gathered in a few weekends standing at Safeway,
deserves to be heard as well. (DC ACT is not associated with this. I’m
sharing it for informational purposes; it was originally posted by Dave
Jannarone on the North Petworth Yahoo Group list.)
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