Third Strike
Dear Batters:
Mary Katherine Ham, on Hugh Hewitt’s blog, writes about the “Cost
of Baseball in DC” (http://hughhewitt.com/archives/2005/12/11-week/index.php#a000754)
. She cites the newspaper article about the estimated cost of the
baseball stadium rising again by tens of millions of dollars, and says,
“Ok, but please, Mayor Williams, please for goodness’ sake don’t
quote ‘Field of Dreams’ again. That just makes the ride you’re
taking us on more humiliating. ‘“We’re not in a cornfield in Iowa,
but we’re building [the ballpark] and they have come,” Williams said
of the developers, playing off the famous line from the movie “Field
of Dreams.”’ Urrggh, you did it. It’s like a punch in the gut
every time you do that -- a punch in the gut on top of the tax hikes and
the eminent domain takings and the floating price tag.
“The headline on this story is ‘Stadium Pricetag to Rise By
Millions.’ I’m willing to bet (a lot) it’s not the last time we’ll
see it between now and '08-ish, when the stadium is due to be finished,
and most of the funding will be ‘public,’ which is a nice way for
Mayor Williams to say ‘someone else’s, so I don’t have to worry
about it too much.’”
You may also want to read Nicole Gelinas’ article in the August
2005 issue of City Journal, “They’re Taking Away Your
Property for What?” (http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_4_eminent_domain.html).
It explains why eminent domain seizures for the purpose of economic
development, such as those that the mayor plans for the baseball stadium
and for the rest of the Anacostia Waterfront project, are not just an
unjust abuse of state power, but also almost always economic and
planning failures. Among many pertinent points, including a sidebar on
what Gelinas calls the “eminently silly” Skyland Shopping Center
project, read her description of the Atlantic Yards stadium and office
building project in Brooklyn, so similar to the Anacostia Waterfront
plans. It’s another example of how government intervenes in an
up-and-coming area where development is already taking place and, with a
massive investment of public funds, succeeds only in replacing organic,
natural, piecemeal development with a centrally planned, dull, failed
project — and in massive profits for the politically favored
developers. “In the free market,” Gelinas writes, “a poorly
designed project will fail and be replaced by a well-designed project
— or just won’t find private financing to get built. With government
central planning, ill designed projects last forever — and they retard
natural growth around them. Take Mayor Bloomberg’s recently scuttled
plan to subsidize a football stadium on Manhattan’s West Side. Like
Ratner in Prospect Heights, Bloomberg pitched the deal as a necessary
stimulant for a long-dormant neighborhood. In truth, developers have
been moving midtown Manhattan steadily westward for two decades,
beginning with the Worldwide Plaza office and condo tower on Eighth
Avenue in the early 1980s and now extending westward and southward with
new apartment towers along Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Avenues throughout
the West 40s and 50s. A stadium would only serve as a wall against the
continuance of that natural growth. We can see the effects of
1950s-style urban renewal — the housing projects still stand. It’s
harder to see missed opportunities.” She could be describing the
Anacostia Waterfront project. As developers repeatedly testified
yesterday at the council hearing on the stadium, development will take
place in this area anyway, and the most that government investment and
planning will accomplish is speeding it up by a few years — but at the
cost of billions of dollars of public funds, seizures of private
property from disfavored owners to give to politically favored
developers, and governmentally planned projects that will be far
inferior to what would otherwise be built.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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More Questions about the NCMC
Samuel Jordan, Health Care Now, samunomas@msn.com
The current administration came to office on the strength of the
mayor’s reputation as a no-nonsense financial officer at the US
Department of Agriculture, followed by a chief financial officer stint
under the aegis of the Control Board. We are, consequently, smothered in
irony when the administration’s drummers for the National Capital
Medical Center (NCMC) speak of public responsibility while campaigning
to suspend the Certificate of Need (CON) process. A CON inquiry requires
an examination of the market impact and market value of the services
offered by the proposed hospital within the local health
services/facilities matrix. Will the additional beds glut the District?
Are the costs of construction and startup to be recovered within a
nonpublic source revenue generation strategy? Will Howard University
Hospital survive? Just commonsensical stuff.
While a CON review may not approximate vetting by the US Government
Accounting Office or by Easy Rawlins, Private Eye, it may encourage
public confidence in the scheme. Yet, the administration has embarked
upon an attempt to avoid scrutiny, then hustle the plan off to the
council where a number of members have already committed to endorse it
-- without any significant deference to facts. The method chosen shrouds
the proposal in an unnecessary cloak of suspicion. The drum section has
only itself to blame for the increasing skepticism. The NCMC project may
provide an object lesson in pitfalls to avoid when an administration
wants to assure the voters that its proposals have merit. Never begin
the sales tour by seeking suspension of a thorough public examination of
the details. Isn’t this rule elementary? Nevertheless, the
administration’s argument for suspension of the CON process is that it
takes too much time and is somehow obsolete. Really, what is left? A few
hearings before the Council? That approach to scrutiny has gotten us a
lock on a $714 million baseball stadium.
While financial minutiae should be fully disclosed, another challenge
for the NCMC has not been addressed at all. Health Care Now! has
insisted since the project was announced that the proposed hospital
disclose its role in a general strategy to improve the health status
indicators for District residents, particularly those in medically
underserved communities. For over thirty years, in spite of urgent
pleas, not one stethoscope, test tube, or cotton swab made the half-mile
trek from DC General Hospital to River Terrace to determine why this
community on the banks of the sewage-laced Anacostia and guarded by a
Pepco power plant smokestack, was generating the metropolitan area’s
worst health statistics for respiratory illnesses and deaths due to
carcinogens. We need an assertive, health improvement outreach and
service-oriented plan for the District, not another passive treatment
fortress on a hill. DC residents should demand the details on how their
public tax dollars are spent. Health Care Now! recommends that Howard
University Hospital, the Williams administration, and the Council
conduct a multimedia, cable television/radio/online, simulcast panel
discussion to give the public full disclosure on the NCMC proposal.
Register your support for a transparent public information process on
the NCMC by calling the Health Care Now! Survey Line, 547-3237, before
December 31, 2005.
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More Noise in DC
Joan Eisenstodt, jeisen@aol.com
I know . . . don’t live downtown if you don’t want noise . . .
though the suburbs are not noise free nor was our home on the Hill. I’ve
left five messages at the DC office of compliance for construction and
no call back. Ever. It seems that projects can receive variances for
hours. The building (mammoth office/retail space) going up at the corner
of 6th and H Streets, behind our building and next to Coyote Ugly, my
“favorite” bar, is building seven days a week, starting well before
the 7 a.m. stated time to start construction in DC. At 6:30 this
(Monday) a.m., the noise had begun. It goes on seven days a week from
early morning. Other than moving (not a possibility right now) anyone
know who in the DC government might give a damn? (OK . . . I know . . .
but maybe.)
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S.195, which has only thirteen cosponsors, and HR. 398, which has
only eighty cosponsors, will be a year old on January 26, 2006. Will
there be any kind of news conference, or better yet, a protest planned
involving all the voting rights groups and our elected leaders.
I’d like to suggest something outside Democratic National Committee
Chairman Howard Dean’s home (someone here must know where he lives) to
put the Democrats on notice that their tepid support for DC voting
rights has to end, and aggressive support must begin now! All the
Democrats have to do is insert language in to an upcoming must-pass
Omnibus Bill.
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With the council vote on the baseball lease set for December 20,
Mayor Williams testified on Tuesday before the council’s Economic
Development Committee to defend the lease he had negotiated with Major
League Baseball. He stayed at the hearing for more than four hours,
spending more time and being more engaged that he ever had on any other
issue in his two terms in office. During his testimony, the mayor
consistently argued that the second panel of witnesses, which consisted
of the developers whom the city had chosen to get the land around the
stadium, after it had been seized from its current owners, would be able
to answer the council’s questions about how the city would get private
financing for the infrastructure costs at the South Capitol stadium
site. The developers, however, did not deliver. When repeatedly asked,
they said that they would help contribute to the infrastructure costs
related to their individual projects, but they categorically refused any
notion that they would contribute to the infrastructure costs of the
stadium project.
During the course of the hearing, the council also raised questions
about the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation’s having awarded
development rights to two large parcels of land that it doesn’t own
and can’t seize by eminent domain because they are owned by the Water
and Sewer Authority (WASA) and by the Washington Metropolitan Area
Transit Authority (WMATA). Councilmembers Carol Schwartz, who is on the
board of WASA, and Jim Graham, who is on the board of WMATA, both
stressed that these utilities’ boards had not been approached about
selling the properties and were unlikely to approve of selling them.
They talked about the usefulness and value of those properties and the
immense costs involved in purchasing and relocating the multipurpose
WASA facilities and the bus garage and parking lot that are on them --
costs that do not seem to have been factored into the cost estimates of
the stadium project.
The witness list on Tuesday consisted of sixty-three names, and was
top-heavy with stadium supporters who had been invited by the
administration. Most of these supporters, however, did not show up to
the hearing, and most of those who did come left long before their turn
to testify. The supporters who were there were mostly from recreation
groups — youth team coaches and so on. Business groups such as the DC
Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Washington Board of Trade did not
show, suggesting to onlookers a possible weakening of business support
as the unfunded costs of the project soar.
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Even Fans Hate the Stadium Deal
Jon Desenberg, JonDes@hotmail.com
One aspect of the stadium situation that has gone unnoticed is that
many of the people shelling out thousands for season tickets would
rather stay forever in RFK. I was once in favor of the stadium, but
after discovering that my season ticket seat location would be displaced
at the ultra-lux new palace for corporate boxes I changed my tune. Yes,
I live in the District and have the same fiscal reasons that everyone
else has listed for hating the stadium deal. But it came down to
something much more selfish; they want to kick us regular folks out from
behind the plate and move us somewhere where we won’t get near the
swells or the players.
Long live RFK.
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I find it curious that Section 18.16 of the Stadium Lease Agreement
between DC Sports and Entertainment Commission and Expos Baseball, Inc.
has a waiver of jury trial found at section 18.16. That Section reads:
18.16. Waiver of Jury Trial
THE PARTIES WAIVE ANY RIGHTS TO A TRIAL BY JURY IN ANY ACTION,
PROCEEDING, OR COUNTERCLAIM BROUGHT BY ANY OF THE PARTIES AGAINST ANY
OTHER PARTY ON, OR IN RESPECT OF, ANY MATTER WHATSOEVER ARISING OUT OF
OR IN ANY WAY CONNECTED WITH THIS AGREEMENT OR ANY DOCUMENT OR
INSTRUMENT DELIVERED IN CONNECTION WITH THIS AGREEMENT, THE RELATIONSHIP
OF PARTIES HEREUNDER, AND/OR ANY CLAIM OF INJURY OR DAMAGE.
It is the only section of the lease that is entirely capitalized.
This suggests that it is an especially important contract term for the
parties. What message does that give? It is clear that the parties are
very eager to make sure that, if there is a breach of the contract or
some other civil complaint arising out of the lease arrangement, a fair
and impartial jury of DC citizens should not be the fact-finders. Why is
that?
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Kathy Patterson, Stealth Member of the City
Council
Larry Seftor, larry underscore seftor .the757 at
zoemail.net
As a resident of Ward 3, I’m continually stuck by the fact that I
hear, see, and read about other members of the city council, while my
council representative is apparently in hiding. Therefore, it is with
some interest that I hear (on WTOP) that Kathy Patterson is one of three
swing votes on the baseball stadium financing issue. While I read on
Patterson’s web site, for example, that the “Wilson Pool Completion
Date Moved Up One Year,” I can find nothing about the potential
commitment of close to a billion dollars that Ms. Patterson is soon to
vote on. Ms. Patterson, I call on you to stand up and speak out. Explain
to me, and others who you represent, your position on the baseball
stadium. Explain why, in light of the facts that Abe Pollin paid for an
arena downtown and the Redskins ownership paid for a stadium in
Landover, that DC taxpayers are supposed to build a single use stadium
for a monopoly that is reaping a windfall by the upcoming sale of the
team. Explain why, if economic development is important for Southeast,
that there are not better types of investment for urban development than
a single use stadium. In short, explain to me, and others in Ward 3, the
rationale for your upcoming vote in light of the interests of your
constituents.
###############
The Associated Press reports that mayor absentee is going into vote
grubbing mode rather than standing up to Major League Baseball with the
city council (http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=25&sid=649196):
“The mayor is hoping that the promise of $3 billion in economic
development and the creation of up to 20,000 permanent, year-round
retailing and hospitality jobs in the ballpark district will help him
land the additional votes.” Failing that, he’s going to go into vote
buying mode like he did the last time. The ability of MLB to drive such
a bad deal down the throat of the District simply because the mayor will
be handing out political swag to self-serving council members would
truly signify the private sector’s control of the political situation
and make Tammany Hall look democratic by comparison.
“Williams said Tuesday that 70 percent of the 2.7 million people
who attended Nationals games during their inaugural season were not city
residents. Most of the money to repay construction costs for the new
ballpark would come from taxes on tickets and concessions. ‘Why wouldn’t
we want to invest in something where most of the dollars and purchasing
is coming from outside of the city?’ Williams asked during his weekly
news briefing.” Because most of the dollars and purchasing are not
staying in the city but are immediately going to be swallowed up in
stadium costs despite the cut-rate nature of the stadium or are going to
flow back out of the city coffers and into the coffers of MLB, Deutsche
Bank, and the developers the Brigade is cronying up with for the
development projects near the stadium.
“Major League Baseball officials have said the original site is
essential to the success of the franchise and will not accept a new
location.” They didn’t say that they won’t accept a new site. They
said that “We are not prepared to summarily agree that the site ought
to be moved,” which is not the same thing whatsoever as saying MLB
would not accept a new location but it rather leaves MLB plenty of
wiggle room to allow the RFK Stadium site to still be accepted. But this
guy Derrill Holley — who recently has seemed to be attached to the
mayor’s hip during this baseball process — has been carrying water
for the Brigade hard, so what’s another falsehood here and there when
you’ve got an agenda to drive?
“We will have residents that will be able to have jobs. There will
be revenue from people stopping off at restaurants,” said Cropp. And
that’s the reason to pass a deal at the current site where costs have
led to the dropping of infrastructure, parking and Metro improvement
costs? How are these people going to get to the stadium site and home
from it in order to stop off at a restaurant if the Brigade doesn’t
take care of the infrastructure, Cropp? The access issues created by the
lack of certitude on infrastructure along with the forced cuts in
stadium amenities into a cut-rate greenhouse that you yourself said
would lead to “a Buick or Ford” ballpark isn’t going to lead to
any significant amount of revenue compared with the costs. Plus, any
jobs benefits, low-paying and menial as they likely will be, would
almost certainly be counterbalanced with the loss of DC businesses who
are unwilling to shoulder the extra tax burden brought by the ballpark,
especially since the Deutsche Bank proposal cannot provide businesses
tax relief due to Wall Street requirements. I missed the CFO and mayor
talking about that spin-off result of the ballpark.
“Councilman Vincent Orange, said revenue from the planned
entertainment district around the ballpark would help raise money for
schools, libraries, construction of the National Capital Medical Center
and other projects within five years. ‘Having $3 million coming to
this city each year to attend these baseball games, represents new
dollars,’ said Orange.” When details were sought at yesterday’s
hearing about where such a deal was spelled out in full, the Brigade
balked and couldn’t produce a thing, because there is no such plan up
and running and ready to go. It was supposed to be comprised of excess
project revenue, but the plan’s cost have risen so that we know the
city has had to make cut after cut in the stadium project to pay for it.
If there’s no excess revenue to even cover basics such as parking,
infrastructure, and revenue improvements, there’s going to be no money
of consequence to be found for this unrealistic "community benefits
fund.”
No one’s even mentioning the possibility — and I’d say the
likelihood given the cut-rate stadium design and accessibility issues
— that the $24 million that is anticipated to be raised annually from
ballpark-specific taxes and revenue will be less than anticipated, even
though it was less than anticipated this year for the city while the
team made greater profits than expected. In the October 8th Post,
the city’s revenue shortfall of at least $500,000 (and likely a lot
more, though no follow-up story has ever been done) was explained
thusly: “John Ross, a senior financial adviser for the city, said the
potential shortfall is due mostly to more no-shows at games than
anticipated, meaning less revenue was generated from parking and
in-stadium concessions and merchandise sales. Nationals officials said
that though an average of 33,728 fans bought tickets to each game, more
than 25% did not attend. The industry standard is 15% to 20%. "If
people aren’t coming, they’re not buying concessions and
merchandise," Ross said.” Now, this occurred in the franchise’s
first year, where merchandise sales figure to be at an all-time high.
There were also no rainout games this year, and there was a winning team
on the field. What’s the excuse going to be when the team isn’t so
hot on the field and the ballpark’s Windex-riffic sheen has worn off
(which figures to be rather quickly considering the transportation and
parking issues as well as the cut-rate nature of this uninspired
greenhouse suggests that anyone not in the luxury boxes will be served
up a sub-par experience by design)? That would leave even less
possibility that excess revenue would ever reach the community, yet the
Brigade is still throwing out these fantastic numbers of $450 million
and $3 million annually to the community as their deceit machine rolls
on.
“Williams said he is working with council members who might vote
for the lease if their concerns are addressed.” Ka-ching! It’d be
comical is it weren’t so serious.
###############
The Press at Its Best
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com
Almost as penance for publishing a full-length article about a junk
food board game, the Post publishes a column by Donna Britt
(http://tinyurl.com/8na22) that reminds us what the press is at its
best. There is hope, but only if more readers and subscribers speak out
about what a newspaper should aspire to. That junk food board game
article? Premeditated arbicide. Donna Britt? She should be elevated to a
newsroom editor. She wouldn’t let any junk food board game articles
pollute our eyes. She knows how to separate wheat from chaff.
###############
Eugene McCarthy, An Appreciation
Joan Eisenstodt, jeisen@aol.com
Thanks for what you wrote, Gary [themail, December 11]. I, too, had
the opportunity to meet him a few times when I worked for a
not-for-profit in DC. I had campaigned for him and my very first vote
ever, in the '68 Ohio primary, was the proudest vote I’ve ever cast.
He ensured that a generation was active and still is today. Who will
ensure that a new generation, and all those in between who are not
voting, will be active?
###############
This is to advise that the December 2005 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 May 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 January 13 (the 2nd Friday of the month,
as always). 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) “Final Hurdle Cleared Now
Ensures Columbia Heights Retail Project”; 2) “HPRB’s Strict
Aversion to Deviation from Original Design Recently Obvious”; 3)
“Art and Artists Proliferating Throughout the Inner City as Recent
Open Studio Events Attest.”
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This has been Hospital Month at NARPAC. On the positive side, we have
taken a closer look at the Walter Reed site and see a strong
redevelopment possibility that, if carried to its fullest potential,
could bring the city as much as $270 million in additional annual
revenues. It would also present the ideal opportunity to review outdated
zoning restrictions near the city’s fringes. You’ll probably find
something to disagree with at http://www.narpac.org/REXLRPRO.HTM#waltereed
On the negative side, we agree with most of the genuine experts that
building a grandiose new hospital on the DC General site would be a
waste of both money and opportunities to improve the health of DC’s
most vulnerable residents. The concerted push by DC leadership for the
National Capital Medical Center appears to be a triumph of political
pandering over real-world rationality. Furthermore, the generalized
statements of need are clearly incomplete, and not well-supported by the
ambiguous "Stroudwater Assessment.” Analytically, important
statistics are not included, or not projected far enough ahead. And in
scope, basic regional realities are ignored completely. Take a look at
our (lengthy) analysis in the December update of our web site at http://www.narpac.org/HSNCMC.HTM.
We think it’s high time to return to reason.
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Friday, December 16, 12:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial
Library, 901 G Street, NW, Main Lobby. The Metropolitan Black Arts
Community Choir will sing songs of the holiday season. Public contact:
727-1211.
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Historic Silver Spring Book Discussion,
December 17
Jerry A. McCoy, sshistory@yahoo.com
The Silver Spring Historical Society announces publication of Historic
Silver Spring by Jerry A. McCoy with a discussion and book signing
on Saturday, December 17, 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., at the National
Register-listed 1945 Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Station, 8100 Georgia
Avenue (at Sligo Avenue), in downtown Silver Spring. Cost of the book is
$19.99 (check or cash only). Discussion is free. Limited parking
available in front of the railroad station. Refreshments will be served.
Information 301-565-2519.
Published by Arcadia Publishing, Historic Silver Spring
celebrates the community’s past, beginning with founder Francis
Preston Blair’s 1840 discovery of the mica-flecked spring and the 1873
arrival of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Vintage photographs
document the progressive growth of main streets Georgia Avenue and
Colesville Road, and the construction of the Silver Spring Armory and
National Dry Cleaning Institute in 1927 and the Silver Theater and
Silver Spring Shopping Center in 1938. The volume culminates with modern
pictures of downtown Silver Spring’s 21st-century revitalization,
which continues to preserve the past and secure the future of the area.
In a pictorial journey through the community’s Central Business
District and bordering residential neighborhood of East Silver Spring,
Historic Silver Spring honors the people and places that have come
before.
Author Jerry A. McCoy is a public librarian for Washington, DC,
history special collections at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
Library’s Washingtoniana Division and the Georgetown Branch Library’s
Peabody Room. A resident of downtown Silver Spring since 1992, McCoy
founded the Silver Spring Historical Society in 1998 and co-produced
with Final Cut Productions the 2002 local Emmy-nominated documentary
“Silver Spring: Story of an American Suburb.” His monthly history
column, "Silver Spring: Then & Again" appears in the Silver
Spring Voice. An image of the book’s cover may be viewed at http://www.arcadiapublishing.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=arcadia&Product_Code=0738541885&Product_Count=&Category_Code=
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HIV Planning Summit, December 20
Clifton Roberson, clifton.roberson@dc.gov
The DC Department of Health, HIV/AIDS Administration, is hosting a
community-wide planning summit on Tuesday, December 20, from 2:00 to
6:30 p.m. (registration beginning at 1:30 p.m.) at the Academy for
Educational Development (AED), 1875 Connecticut Avenue NW. It will bring
representatives of planning groups focused on prevention and care, as
well as community stakeholders, together in order to help formulate a
comprehensive community planning process.
Marsha A. Martin, DSW, Senior Deputy Director, HIV/AIDS
Administration, said the meeting is an important first step for
developing a regional HIV plan. Invitees will be asked to help outline
the key components of a comprehensive plan for the region, as well as
identify ways to maximize resources to ensure equity in services to
those infected and affected by HIV. Martin said she will make
recommendations and suggestions from the meeting available to the public
at a later date.
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CLASSIFIEDS — SERVICES
House History and Neighborhood History
Paul Williams, Pkelseyw@aol.com
Give the lasting gift of history for the holidays! Purchase a gift
certificate from Kelsey & Associates for a complete house history!
You’ll be amazed at the amount of historical details we can uncover
about your homes past and about those that owned or rented it by
researching building permits, biographies, Wills, census, deeds, and
even vintage photographs. Each of our color reports is handsomely
illustrated and bound. Visit WashingtonHistory.com for samples and a
free estimate.
Or stop by your local book seller and give the gift of history
through one of our eleven titles on DC neighborhoods and themes, each
with over 200 vintage photographs with extensive captions. We’ve sold
over 20,000 books by author Paul K. Williams to date. Our titles by
Arcadia Publishing include: Dupont Circle, Logan, Scott & Thomas
Circles, Greater U Street, Woodley Park, Cleveland Park, Capitol Hill,
Georgetown University, Washington During the WWII Years, Washington Then
& Now, Nostalgic Views of Washington (only at Borders), and soon,
Southwest Washington. Look for Forest Hills and Art Deco Washington in
2006!
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CLASSIFIEDS — RECOMMENDATIONS
Volunteering on New Year’s Eve
Charlene Collings, woudstone@netscape.net
There are ample opportunities for volunteering on Thanksgiving and
Christmas, especially for helping with holiday meals. Are there any
metro-area organizations serving less-privileged folks who need
volunteers at New Year’s Eve events this year?
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