Public and Private

Dear Privateers:

Lars Hydle, below, raises the issue that proponents of publicly financing building a baseball stadium for Major League Baseball have tried desperately to obfuscate. Yes, public financing for the baseball stadium is public financing, not private. Here’s the rule: tax money is public funds, no matter how it is disguised, always and forever. First, it doesn’t matter whether those who are taxed supposedly agree to being taxed. The businesses that will be paying the stadium tax have not “volunteered” to be taxed. A few spokesmen for business groups have advocated the tax, most prominently Bob Peck of the Greater Washington Board of Trade -- the vast majority of whose members are not based in Washington and will not be paying the tax. But many businesses and business organizations who will have to pay the tax have objected to it; they will not be given the option of not paying it. Taxes are not voluntary; they are collected by the government with the threat of force and compulsion, and with punishment if they are not paid.

Secondly, taxes are taxes whether or not a particular taxation stream is dedicated to a special purpose. Dedicating the taxes collected at the stadium to paying for the stadium doesn’t make those taxes private financing; it simply removes those public funds from the general fund. If the city council passed a law that dedicated all taxes collected at book, music, and movie stores to paying for the public libraries, that wouldn’t make the libraries supported by private funds; it would just make them supported by a dedicated stream of public tax funds.

Thirdly, it doesn’t matter what the taxes are called — taxes, fees, or “assessments,” or anything else. A supporter of the baseball boondoggle who wants to remain anonymous wrote to me, “I will concede financing for the stadium is public when you concede that the business improvement districts are also publicly financed and when you and others object to that financing scheme which involves businesses levying a fee on themselves.” But of course, the BID’s are publicly financed. Business improvement districts are not voluntary clubs. They are created by law, and businesses that are located within the districts are compelled by law to belong and to pay the “assessments” specified in the law. They can’t choose whether or not to join or whether or not to pay the assessments; the government forces them to join and pay. That means that the BID fee is not levied by businesses on themselves; it makes these assessments taxes, and it gives the lie to the pretense that the BIDs are private enterprises. (Parenthetically, what makes BIDs in DC worse than most BIDs is that in most cities BIDs fund urban niceties that are usually not financed by city government. In Bethesda, for example, the BID funds landscaping, signage, advertising campaigns, and festivals like Taste of Bethesda. In DC, the majority of BID funds go to basic city services like street cleaning, sidewalk sweeping, and collecting trash from public trash bins. In other words, businesses in DC business improvement districts are double taxed for basic city services.) Since I have never pretended that BID financing was anything but public financing, I look forward to the boondoggle cheerleader’s admission that the taxes raised for the stadium are public financing, too.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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Octane Testing of Gasoline
Clyde Howard, ceohoward@hotmail.com

Most residents of this city are unaware that gasoline sold in this city is not tested to make sure that drivers are receiving the correct octane level at the pump. City inspectors can test to make sure that you are receiving the correct amount as measured from the gas pump; however, they are not able to determined if you are receiving the correct octane of gas identified on the pump cover. In other words, you could be the object of the basic "bait and switch" when filling your car at a gas station. Low octane gas could be dispensed from a high octane pump at high octane prices. Conceivably you could be getting an even lower octane of gas from a low octane pump. Remember, today’s cars have computers that compensate for the octane in gas, therefore, there will not be any pinging on acceleration to alert you that the gasoline is not the proper octane for your car. Maryland and Virginia test to make sure that you as a driver are not scammed at the pumps. The city also should fund the appropriate agency to make such tests.

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Cropp: We’ll See
David Hunter, hunterontravel@hotmail.com

I distinctly remember watching the celebration of the DC baseball team in the City Museum on TV that day [September 29], My biggest surprise was that at the beginning when everyone was invited on stage and was jockeying for position in front, as Mayor Williams was congratulating everyone and saying how great it was that baseball was coming to DC, an open mic specifically caught Linda Cropp saying to the mayor, “We’ll see, we’ll see.” I was stunned that the mayor had someone who so blatantly stepping on his joyous occasion right there up front openly defying him. In all my years of White House advance, I wouldn’t have let her anywhere near that stage that day. It was my first impression that this thing might not actually have the support of the council and would probably end up the way it did. I also was surprised that none of the broadcasters picked up on the comment as well. Everyone seemed to have baseballs in their eyes. Play ball..

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The Convention Center
William M. Mazer, wmmazer@aol.com

All the rhetoric about the fight to close the baseball stadium deal has ignored the inherent waste associated with this enterprise. Last week the Convention Center “collapsed in an implosion,” per the Washington Post. Having been built in December 1982, it was just twenty-two years old. That will definitely beat the pending record of the Reed Electric building on Wisconsin Avenue, NW, in Georgetown, whose demolition is being planned. That handsome building, which is in excellent condition, was erected thirty-eight years ago, after demolition of a previously standing building. It is interesting that Georgetown residents attach a definite cachet to the age of their dwellings, but apparently not to commercial buildings. The Post reporter, Manny Fernandez, stated that onlookers at the Convention Center demolition site reacted with “awe, fright or simple curiosity.” How about just plain disgust and despair at the thoughtlessness of our community’s leaders? The Convention Center shared the news by coincidence that day with the hoped-for baseball stadium. After the customary, expensive destruction of existing buildings and enterprises, can we anticipate that the currently perfervid enthusiasm for the baseball stadium will be replaced by ennui and a desire to pull it down in roughly the year 2026 in favor of some sort of mixed-use development? How long before the planned replacement developments, where the Convention Center once stood, will draw frowns and sneers? Considerations of reckless consumption of the current international unit of currency, $40-50 barrels of oil, for the demolition of existing structures, followed by construction of narrowly functional and dedicated facilities, do not enter into these plans. Has any DC accountant computed, or is able to compute, the net lifetime profit/loss of the Convention Center, destroyed after such a short life span?

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Baseball: Private Versus Public
Lars Hydle, larshydle@aol.com

While I tend to be a fan of the private sector and of at least partly private financing for the new stadium, I think practicality should trump ideology in defining “public” and “private” and in identifying the best deal for DC. Arguably the deal is already partly private because repayment of the bonds is financed partly by rent paid by the team, taxes on products purchased voluntarily by the fans, and taxes on large businesses who have volunteered to be taxed.

We should not go for the “private” deal on parking spaces on the streets near the stadium. If there is one thing the DC government can do itself, it is squeezing revenue out of vehicles parked on public streets.

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Baseball and Antitrust
Mark Eckenwiler, themale at ingot dot org

In the December 22 issue [of themail], Lars Hydle “corrects” himself by stating that it was Congress, not the Supreme Court, that granted baseball’s antitrust exemption. In fact, he was right the first time: it was in Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, Inc. v. National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, 259 U.S. 200 (1992), that the Court held baseball’s economic activity to fall outside the reach of the Sherman Act.

Writing for a unanimous Court in a very short opinion, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., reasoned as follows: “The business is giving exhibitions of base ball, which are purely state affairs. It is true that in order to attain for these exhibitions the great popularity that they have achieved, competitions must be arranged between clubs from different cities and States. But the fact that in order to give the exhibitions the Leagues must induce free persons to cross state lines and must arrange and pay for their doing so is not enough to change the character of the business. . . . [T]he transport is a mere incident, not the essential thing. That to which it is incident, the exhibition, although made for money would not be called trade of commerce in the commonly accepted use of those words. As it is put by defendant, personal effort, not related to production, is not a subject of commerce. That which in its consummation is not commerce does not become commerce among the States because the transportation that we have mentioned takes place. To repeat the illustrations given by the Court below, a firm of lawyers sending out a member to argue a case, or the Chautauqua lecture bureau sending out lecturers, does not engage in such commerce because the lawyer or lecturer goes to another State.” 259 U.S. at 208-09.

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Disapproval
Dorcas C. Dessaso, dorcas.dessaso@verizon.net

What a lousy bunch of elected officials sitting in the council representing the “people?” What a joke! Talk about dividing this city! They are the laughing stock of all major cities in this country. Time to get them out of office!

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New City Council Committee Chairs
Lisa Alfred, rmwview@starpower.net

Unbelievable! Sharon Ambrose, the councilperson who can’t seem to make it to community meetings, and therefore has no idea how Ward 6 residents feel about anything, has been made chair of the Committee on Economic Development.

This is the same person who is yet to discuss with Ward 6 her position on baseball.

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New City Council Committees
Bob Summersgill, bob (at) summergill (dot) net

Dorothy Brizill miscounted the number of committees in the next DC Council session. There are, by her list, nine not ten. The other committee which is apparently dissolved is the Committee on Public Services, currently chaired by David Catania. This was a catchall committee that seems to have been created to make sure every non-freshman councilmember had something to chair. In addition to the three freshman not having committees to chair this time, Linda Cropp is chair of the Committee of the Whole, leaving just the nine subject area committees.

[Bob Summersgill is right that I said there would be ten city council committees in the next legislative session, then listed only nine and failed to mention the tenth, the Committee of the Whole, chaired by the chairman of the council. Thanks also to him for pointing out the dissolution of the Committee on Public Services, which I omitted. — Dorothy Brizill]

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

DC Public Library Events, January 3, 5
Debra Truhart, debra.truhart@dc.gov

Monday, January 3, 6:30 p.m., Northeast Neighborhood Library, 330 7th Street, NE. Capitol Hill Mystery Book Club monthly book chats. Call for book titles. Public contact: 698-3320.

Wednesday, January 5, 1:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW, second floor east lobby. Poetry Read Here. DC Public Library staff will read their favorite poems. Public contact: 727-1281.

Wednesday, January 5, 1:00 and 5:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW, Main Lobby. Dr. Robert Harrison will discuss and sign his new book, John Walker: A Man for the 21st Century, a tribute to Dr. King’s legacy as reflected in the life works of Bishop John T. Walker. The Black Studies Division of the D.C. Public Library sponsors this program. Public contact: 727-1211.

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National Building Museum Events, January 4-5
Brie Hensold, bhenhold@nbm.org

Both events at the National Building Museum, 401 F Street, NW, Judiciary Square stop, Metro Red Line.

Tuesday, January 4, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Architect and author Joseph Passonneau will describe the development of Washington, DC, from its raw beginnings in 1800 to its position today as a world capital. To illustrate the city’s evolution, he will use his original, three-dimensional (axonometric) maps of the city showing six different periods. After the lecture, he will sign copies of his book Washington Through Two Centuries (Monacelli). This lecture is held in conjunction with the exhibition Washington: Symbol and City, which will be open for viewing. $10 Museum members and students; $15 nonmembers. Registration required.

Wednesday, January 5, 12:30-1:30 p.m. Smart growth lecture: Small Towns: The Bypass vs. the Main Street. Phil Hardwick, immediate past president of the Mississippi Main Street Association (MMSA) and coordinator for capacity development, Stennis Institute of Government at Mississippi State University, will discuss the MMSA’s strategies to develop and maintain viable small-town downtowns in the age of the highway bypass. Free. Registration not required.

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If They Could See Me Now, January 11
Brad Hills, bradhills@washingtonstorytellers.org

Washington Storytellers Theater presents the SpeakEasy Open Mic, If They Could See Me Now: Stories of Triumph and Transformation, at HR-57 Center for the Preservation of Jazz and Blues, 1610 14th Street, NW (between Corcoran and Q Streets), on Tuesday, January 11, 8:00 p.m. Ticket Price $5 (corkage: $3 per person); purchase at the door (doors open at 7:30 p.m.). Street parking; Metro Red Line (Dupont) or Green Line (U Street/Cardoza). Washington Storytellers Theater’s SpeakEasy Open Mic digs deep into the cold, dark January night to bring forth these tales of personal triumph and hope. Featured storytellers Chris Chandler , Bill Mayhew, and Eva Salvetti will set the tone and then open up the mic to the audience.

On the first of each month, we will begin taking sign-ups for that month’s Open Mic. Call the WST Office to reserve a space.

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