Sore Winners

Dear Good Sports:

Now that the first chapter of the baseball stadium saga has been written, all that remains is for the spinners to try to revise it, so that we forget what really happened. The straight story is that the mayor and the DC Sports and Entertainment Commission struck a lousy deal, by far the worst deal any city ever made to get a sports franchise, with Major League Baseball. The city council, through its opposition and through the very real threat that it would not pass that deal, has marginally improved it, so that it is now only the worst deal ever, not the worst deal by a huge margin. Council Chairman Linda Cropp and the six councilmembers who consistently voted against the deal fought on behalf of Washington residents and taxpayers, trying to get a less expensive and less risky deal for us. The six councilmembers who lost the vote on the stadium financing bill won the fight to improve the contract, though it will take a few years to determine exactly how much public expense they have really saved. The mayor, his administration, the DC Sports and Entertainment Commission, and the six supporters of the MLB deal fought as hard as they could to preserve every advantage for Major League Baseball and to prevent any change that would improve the deal for Washingtonians. They won the vote to pass the stadium financing bill, but they lost the war of public perception. Opponents of the deal, through the council debate, exposed the faults of the agreement with MLB, and the public — even those who are enthusiastic baseball fans — understood well that they were being taken for a ride by its supporters.

That explains why the winners in this fight — Mayor Williams, Jack Evans, Vincent Orange, and Harold Brazil especially — are such sore winners, so sour and ungracious in their victory, so vindictive toward the councilmembers who lost the vote, and so bitter toward Linda Cropp, who finally voted with them to pass the bill with her amendments. And it explains why they are so eager to revise the history of what happened over the past two months. They are portraying Cropp as a turncoat, falsely stating that she not only knew all the elements of the agreement in advance, but that she and her staff participated in the negotiations with MLB herself -— and they have sold that misrepresentation not only to credulous sports writers, but also to some who are normally among the most skeptical and perceptive reporters in town: Jonetta Rose Barras, Marc Fisher, and Tom Knott. In fact, as Cropp stated in Tuesday’s debate, “I never saw that agreement until it came down to the Council on October 14th,” and as Phyllis Jones, the Secretary to the Council, wrote to me, neither Council Budget Director Artie Blitzstein nor Rob Miller was involved in the negotiations.

The sore winners are rewriting our Home Rule Charter, claiming that the mayor has unilateral authority to commit the city to contracts and agreements, that the city council is obliged to rubber-stamp whatever agreement the mayor presents to it, and that the councilmembers who improved this deal failed in their duties by examining it closely. And the sore losers are straining credulity, even among the most credulous, by claiming that paying for the stadium with tax funds isn’t public financing. Get over it, fellows; you’re only hurting yourselves.

By the way, since themail won’t be back until Sunday, an early Merry Christmas to you.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

###############

New City Council Committees
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com

At today’s city council organizational meeting, the final committee assignments were made for the sixteenth legislative session of the city council, 2005-2006. The highlights are that in the upcoming session there will be ten council committees: the former committee on Health and Human Services will be divided into two separate committees, and the two subcommittees (Subcommittee on Public Interest and Subcommittee on Human Rights, Latino Affairs, and Property Management) will be abolished. None of the three new councilmembers will chair a committee, and the chairman of the Economic Development Committee will be Sharon Ambrose, who has seniority over Vincent Orange, who lobbied heavily for the position.

The complete new committee lineup: Consumer and Regulatory Affairs: Jim Graham (chair), Sharon Ambrose, Kwame Brown, David Catania, Vincent Orange. Economic Development: Sharon Ambrose (chair), Kwame Brown, Jack Evans, Vincent Gray, Vincent Orange. Education: Kathy Patterson (chair), Marion Barry, Vincent Gray, Phil Mendelson, Carol Schwartz. Finance and Revenue: Jack Evans (chair), Sharon Ambrose, Marion Barry, Vincent Orange, Kathy Patterson. Government Operations: Vincent Orange (chair), Adrian Fenty, Jim Graham, Phil Mendelson, Carol Schwartz. Health: David Catania (chair), Adrian Fenty, Jim Graham, Vincent Gray, Carol Schwartz. Human Services: Adrian Fenty (chair), Marion Barry, Jack Evans, Vincent Gray, Kathy Patterson. Judiciary: Phil Mendelson (chair), Sharon Ambrose, Kwame Brown, David Catania, Kathy Patterson. Public Works: Carol Schwartz (chair), Marion Barry, Kwame Brown, Adrian Fenty, Jim Graham. The appointee to the Metro board will continue to be Jim Graham, and the appointee to the Council of Governments will continue to be Phil Mendelson.

###############

Why Are Students Leaving DCPS?
Ed Dixon, jedxn@erols.com

Between 1988 and 2002, almost every state saw an increase in the number of public school students enrolled (http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d03/tables/dt037.asp). Only West Virginia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Maine, North and South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming saw decreases. Eight states in fifty, or 16 percent, lost students. Similarly, the District of Columbia dropped in the number of students served in public schools over the same period. But DC is not a state and it differs from states in many ways.

From 1996 to 2000, among the one hundred most populous school districts in the US, only one in five (or 20 percent) saw an increase in public school student enrollment. DC is number 47 on the list of 100 and as mentioned it has been declining in student enrollment. Similarly, Montgomery, Prince George’s, Anne Arundel, Prince William, and Fairfax County all saw decreases as well. The majority of large school districts’ student enrollment decreased, in contrast to states’ student enrollment, which increased (http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d02/dt092.asp).

But of the twenty large school districts that rose in population, the average percentage of students below the poverty rate was about 14 percent. DC had 33 percent of its public school students below the poverty rate in 1996. The average poverty rate for the one hundred most populous school districts in 1996 was about 21 percent. Though some large school districts below 21 percent saw decreases, only four of twenty that saw increases had 21 percent or more of their student living in poverty. Perhaps, students are leaving DCPS not because DCPS is no good, but because it serves a large number of poor students.

###############

Novels About Hometown DC
Patricia Pasqual, changedc@yahoo.com

The DCPL Washingtoniana Division and the DC Center for the Book are compiling an annotated bibliography of novels about life in “Hometown DC.” The novels on the list are not about the president, congress, or federal activities! If you have any favorites, please send them to me. We have about thirty-eight authors on the list so far. We will be publishing a booklet in the fall.

###############

Ho, Ho, Arf: Scoop’s Holiday Greeting
Phil Carney, philandscoop@yahoo.com

Check out Scoop the dog’s holiday greeting at http://www.dupont-circle.com/partnerships.html#scoop.

###############

Holiday Schedule For DPW Services
Mary Myers, mary.myers@dc.gov

This year, both Christmas Day and New Years Day fall on a Saturday, which means that the two holidays are observed by the government on the preceding Friday. Normally, DPW would follow the federal holiday schedule and forego trash collection on these dates. However, the Department, in consultation with its employees, has decided to continue trash and recyclables collection on a normal Friday schedule for both December 24 and December 31. Following is the holiday schedule for DPW services through the end of 2004.

In observance of Christmas, DPW offices will be closed and most services will be canceled on Friday, December 24, as well as on Saturday, December 25. However, trash and recyclables collection will occur on a normal Friday schedule. There will be no street sweeping, parking enforcement, booting and towing, or abandoned vehicle removal. In observance of New Year’s Day, all DPW offices will be closed and most services will be canceled on Friday, December 31, as well as on Saturday, Jan. 1, 2005. However, trash and recyclables collection will occur on a normal Friday schedule. There will be no street sweeping, leaf vacuuming, parking enforcement, booting and towing, or abandoned vehicle removal.

Residents who receive DC trash collection service are encouraged to put holiday trees -- without ornaments — in curbside tree boxes by January 2, 2005. Trees will be picked up during a special one-week collection from January 3-7. Residents who wish to keep their trees longer should put them out at their normal point of trash collection (curbside or alley) after January 7. DPW trucks will then collect the trees with the regular trash, as space in trucks permit, over the following weeks.

###############

DMV Holiday Closings and Schedule
Janis Hazel, janis.hazel@dc.gov

For your information, in observance of Christmas and New Year’s, the all Department of Motor Vehicles facilities will be closed on Friday, December 24; Saturday, December 25; Friday, December 31; and Saturday, January 1. The C Street service center is always closed on Monday, except for the temporary tag office. All DMV facilities will resume regularly scheduled hours of operation Monday, January 3, 2005. For additional information, please call the DMV call center at 727-5000 or visit the service location information page, http://dmv.washingtondc.gov/info/dropbox.shtm.

###############

Christmas Letter
Lea Adams, workinprogress247@mac.com

Dear Santa, All I want for Christmas is a city of good neighbors, affordable neighborhoods, and a local government that serves their needs. Until someone convinces me that a baseball team and a new stadium are going to deliver my reasonable civic wish list through the chimney, I’ll stick to the song that says “Take me OUT to the ball game.” I second Jim Vance’s emotion, as noted by Rick Rosendall, with the caveat that the next victim insist on MBL at least paying for the KY Jelly.

###############

Baseball
Jonetta Rose Barras, jrbarras@aol.com

Someone wrote into themail about Linda’s being at the negotiating table. Linda Cropp herself said on the DC Politics Hour that she was involved. Further, her spokesperson told me that Rob Miller and Artie [Blitzstein], her budget guy, were both involved in fashioning the deal and the finance plan. None of this information came from the Williams administration, as you assert in the mail; it came from Linda and her own people. I do think it’s important that we report the facts, even when we disagree.

[Virginia Johnson, virginiajohnson@netzero.net, also sent in this quotation from Marc Fisher’s column on December 10 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55932-2004Dec10.html): “Cropp was in on the deal from the very start. She sat in on meeting after meeting in the initial phase of the talks. She was informed at every turn. She showed up at the celebration at Union Station and sang Take Me Out to the Ball Game (quite lustily, in fact.) She had ample opportunity to question or oppose the deal. Instead, she promised the mayor and his staff at every turn that she was on board. Then she started pulling her last minute surprises and saw that this won her the support of people outside the debate who resented the way the city has been changing. And here we are.”]

###############

Private Financing Options Are Questionable
Ann Pierre, pierre@cbpp.org

When the DC Council enacted the baseball stadium financing bill on December 14, it added a provision requiring at least 50 percent of stadium construction costs to be covered by private financing sources. In response, the Williams administration has scrambled in recent days to identify various possible sources of private financing. A December 18 Washington Post article noted that at least three proposals have been raised -- selling parking rights around the stadium to a private company, selling landowners near the stadium the right to build taller buildings, and selling the right to create retail space on the ground level exterior of the stadium.

A review of these three proposals, however, suggests that they should not be considered viable private financing options at this time — and thus that the Council should not [have acted] to amend the stadium bill. Most important, all three options essentially would use a public asset to generate revenues from the private sector. Under the parking plan, for example, new parking meters would be installed in a new parking district around the stadium. A private company would then pay the District for the right to operate the meters in return for keeping a share of the revenues. The District would receive this “private” contribution only by forfeiting a public revenue source — parking revenue. The full analysis can be found at http://www.dcfpi.org/12-20-04tax.htm or http://www.dcfpi.org/12-20-04tax.pdf.

###############

Referendum on Baseball Deal
Lars Hydle, larshhydle@aol.com

I have not yet seen the December 19 edition of themail which included the message from me [on the referendum process]. I erred in attributing to the Supreme Court the 1920 decision that baseball was a sport, not a business, hence exempt from antitrust law. In fact it was the Congress that exempted baseball from antitrust, after the owners, embarrassed by the “Black Sox” scandal of 1919, agreed to turn the leadership of baseball over to a powerful and independent Commissioner, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis.

My point remains valid that this exemption gives Major League Baseball the upper hand in negotiations with the District or any other city seeking a new baseball team. Whatever happens to DC’s baseball bid, the Congress should eliminate that exemption.

###############

CLASSIFIEDS — VOLUNTEERS

Probate Court Documentary
Tolu Tolu, wwwTolu2BooksCom@hotmail.com

Tolu2books seeks volunteers for a probate courts’ abuse documentary. We are doing a national documentary on probate court abuses, and need both volunteers and probate court abuse stories. If interested please respond to wwwTolu2BooksCom@hotmail.com, PO Box 48331, Washington, DC 20002-0331, or call 331-4418. See probate court stories at http://www.voy.com/136871/.

###############

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.