Bits and Pieces
Dear Correspondents:
On Friday, Mike Rupert reported in The Washington Examiner, in
an article that unfortunately is not online, “Enrollment
in DC Public Schools fell by 3,000 students in 2005-06 school year —
down to 59,600 students — yet a recent audit of school staff showed
the District added 500 new positions during the same period, officials
said. John Musso, DCPS Chief Financial officer, said the District has
11,075 full-time employee positions — nearly 1,000 more than last
school year. Of those 1,000 positions, 500 were filled. Musso said the
rest were either waiting to be filled or were ordered to remain
vacant.” That’s one DCPS employee for every five or six students.
What on earth are all these employees doing? The next time your local
school principal says there aren’t enough teachers to provide foreign
language instruction, or enough librarians to keep the school library
open, or enough janitors to keep toilet paper stocked in the restrooms,
go to your childrens’ school and try to locate the four, five, or six
employees hired per classroom.
I’m keeping at least one of my New Year’s resolutions, to eat
more. This past week has been Restaurant Week, and Dorothy and I have
sampled more restaurants than ever: one a day for the past six days. The
problem is that even a resolution that initially seems simple to keep,
like eating more, ends up being hard work. After six huge meals in six
days, I’m actually looking forward to small, light meals for a change.
But I’m glad that we went to Acadiana, Cafe Mozu, Charlie Palmer
Steak, Galileo, the Prime Rib, and Vidalia. What did you try, and how
was your meal?
Some geniuses at WMATA decided that the way to relieve overcrowding
on Metrorail was to order new subway cars with fewer seats, forcing more
people to stand, and to make even more standing space by getting rid of
the horizontal poles that standing riders hold on to. Dan Tangherlini is
moving from the DC Department of Transportation to be the interim
director of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Agency,
while WMATA searches for a new head. Here’s my suggestion for one of
the first things for him to do: take a long ride on one of those new
cars, standing in one of those open areas, without anything to hold on
to. After a few jerky starts and stops, he can pick himself up and dust
himself off, cancel the order for the new cars, and ease overcrowding by
running trains more frequently, with more cars.
Shelley Winters has died. This doesn’t have anything to do with
Washington, but I want to tell two stories about her. First, in the late
1960’s, several Broadway plays involved nudity, and in a number of
them whole casts were nude. The New York Times asked several
people to comment on the social and artistic significance of this. Most
of the comments were pretentious, and I have forgotten them all, but I
recall what Winters wrote. I’ll paraphrase, since I haven’t found
the article in the online Times archives, but the essence of it
was: "I feel it’s degrading, demeaning, and diminishing to the
actors and the audiences. And if I were still 25 and slender, I would
feel it is ennobling, enriching, and uplifting." The second story
is personal. When Dorothy worked as an aide to former Supreme Court
Justice Arthur Goldberg, who was then running for governor of New York
State, she and her parents were invited to a private party in Goldberg’s
hotel suite to watch the election returns. Dorothy was concerned about
whether her parents would have any fun at the party, since she would be
busy working with Goldberg, and all the other attendees would be
heavyweight New York and Washington political and social players, none
of whom her parents knew. She needed have worried -- Shelley Winters
invited them to sit on the sofa with her, and they spent the whole
evening talking, joking, and eating with her. They spoke about her
fondly for years afterward.
I’ve received several E-mails complaining about Jonathan Rees, Ward
Three Democratic candidate for councilmember, and protesting that
DCWatch and themail shouldn’t carry his campaign materials, but all of
the E-mails have either not been for publication or have been sent
anonymously. Here’s the deal: DCWatch publishes all candidates’
campaign materials (except for fundraising appeals) at http://www.dcwatch.com/election2006.
We don’t edit them except to format them for the web. If we’re
missing your candidates’ flyer or position paper, send it to us and we’ll
put it up. If you support or oppose a candidate, including Rees, tell
people why by sending an E-mail to themail@dcwatch.com.
If you don’t send it, or if you won’t sign it, we can’t publish
it, and people will never know what you think.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Final Judgment Against the DC Government on
Tax Year 2002 Assessments
Peter S. Craig, SwedeCraig@aol.com
Senior Judge Eugene Hamilton on Friday filed his Final Judgment and
Order in the class action suit brought by Peter S. Craig and fifty other
petitioners in Superior Court Finance Dockets 8112-02 and 8141-02,
contesting the lawfulness and Constitutionality of across-the-board
increases in residential assessments for tax year 2002 in one-third of
city known as Triennial Group 1. The suit was initiated on September 30,
2002, but because of what the judge has described as
"foot-dragging" by the District’s lawyers, was not decided
on its merits until September 26, 2005.
In his order of September 26, 2005, Judge Hamilton concluded that, as
a matter of law, the assessments by the Office of Tax and Revenue in tax
year 2002 were arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and
otherwise not in conformity with the Constitution of the United States
or the laws of the District of Columbia, and were, therefore, void. His
final judgment directs the city to refund any increases in property
taxes in tax 2002 resulting from increased assessments over the prior
year -- plus annual interest of 6 percent. All taxpayers in Triennial
Group 1 who suffered increases in assessments and who paid all taxes,
interest, and penalties for tax year 2002 will receive refunds under his
order. Triennial Group 1 encompasses the neighborhoods which the Office
of Tax and Revenue describes as Anacostia, Barry Farms, Brentwood,
Central, Cleveland Park, Columbia Heights, Congress Heights, Crestwood,
Eckington, Forest Hills, Fort DuPont Park, Garfield, Hillcrest, Kalorama,
LeDroit Park, Marshall Heights, Massachusetts Avenue Heights, Mount
Pleasant, Observatory Circle, Randle Heights, Trinidad, and Woodley.
The District government estimates that the total refunds will reach
$15 million. Payment of these refunds will be stayed, however, while the
District of Columbia appeals the rulings of Judge Hamilton to the DC
Court of Appeals. By a separate order, also issued at the same time,
Judge Hamilton has directed the Office of Tax and Revenue to notify all
members of the class entitled to refunds by mailed notices and by a
notice published in the Metro Section of the Washington Post.
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The proponents of the multimillion dollar new National Capitol
Medical Center argue it is vital for improving emergency medical
services. However, the real problem with emergency services is not the
distribution of hospital beds (as the proponents keep talking about) but
the distribution of ambulance and EMT resources — as was pointed out
in the recent Washington Examiner story — “Robbery, killing
prompts cries for more efficient ambulances” (http://www.dcexaminer.com/articles/2006/01/12/top_news/03newsdc13ambulance.txt).
That story contains the following quote: “Two ambulances in this
ward serve 70,000 people is outrageous,” said Council Member Vincent
Gray, who represents Ward 7, east of the river. “If one of those
ambulances or both have been dispatched, it takes a significant amount
of time of time to get back. The situation for our citizens is analogous
to that of Rosenbaum — potentially life and death situations.”
Council Member Gray is exactly right. But the NCMC will not solve
that problem and may, in fact, take resources away from the real
solution. Rather than waste money on a new, unneeded set of beds, let us
put that money into primary care and more emergency response units. ANC
6B unanimously voted last year to “urge the City Administration and
the Council to develop alternative proposals that will better address
the health care needs of the citizens of the District of Columbia,
including more appropriate health care facilities on the HillEast
Waterfront.” That alternative should include better emergency
transport units.
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A Certificate of Need Is Needed
Eric Rosenthal, eric.rosenthal@mac.com
The Washington Post reported today on the latest example of
faulty planning for the National Capital Medical Center (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/14/AR2006011401037.html).
The proposal anticipates financing assistance from the Federal Housing
Administration. In the city’s haste to circumvent the certificate of
need process, it failed to notice that FHA requires a certificate of
need. As the Post said: “But the FHA’s ‘minimum eligibility
requirements’ will not allow the hospital to move ahead . . . by
bypassing the ‘certificate of need’ process that is intended to
encourage accountability within health care and to discourage
unnecessary duplication of services.
“The District and 26 states mandate such evaluation of major
medical construction, expansion or modernization, and the FHA considers
it ‘a fundamental element of the FHA review process,’ spokesman
Lemar Wooley noted Friday. Asked whether officials ever have allowed a
certificate-of-need state to excuse a large project from that scrutiny,
he responded with one word: ‘No.’ His characterization contradicted
the city’s latest argument that the stipulation is a perfunctory
detail — or, as a senior policy adviser to City Administrator Robert
C. Bobb put it, ‘basically just a check-box to ensure that all local
requirements have been met before they hand out a credit enhancement.’”
Councilmembers and citizens should be concerned about the failure
described above because it is just one mistake in a process rife with
serious error. As advocates for a more effective alternative have been
saying, the National Capital Medical Center resulted from a
fundamentally flawed process and no amount of tweaking will fix it. It
is time to start over and to focus on the question of what will make
Washingtonians healthier, if we are serious about making a difference in
the city.
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Brigade Plans Expensive
PR Blitz to Sell Same Old Bad Ballpark Deal
Ed Delaney, profeddel@yahoo.com
“After a flurry of meetings with her colleagues, the mayor and MLB
officials over the past few days, Cropp listed 10 provisions that she
said would ensure that at least seven of the council’s 13 members
would vote to approve a critical stadium lease deal. The key provision
would be a guarantee that the city’s costs for the project would be
capped at the $535 million the council approved last year, plus $54
million in bond financing fees. Any additional costs would have to be
covered by the league, the owner of the Washington Nationals or private
developers, Cropp wrote.” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/11/AR2006011102301.html?sub=AR).
One of those provisions better have included a shift to the RFK
Stadium site, or we’re wasting everyone’s time. There is still no
cost certainty regarding the land at the current site with legal
challenges to its taking and its value still to be determined, the
environmental costs with the site also to be determined, and the actual
costs of bringing to the site sufficient parking, road, and Metro
improvements to handle the exceedingly large crowds — which at its
peak would be twice as large as those that have taxed the much more
extensive Metro station at the MCI Center — that would descend on the
single-line station and traffic-choked location. There is almost
complete cost certainty for those items at the RFK Stadium site — and
if anyone disputes that, let the council commission independent studies
to determine the facts. Such studies might also confirm that the cost
certainties and savings at the RFK Stadium site could also dramatically
lessen the bonding requirements for the city. It would therefore be a
more worthwhile endeavor by the council than listening to yet another
sales pitch from the mayor’s baseball Brigade to pass essentially the
same deal, only with cost overruns being paid via the shuffling of city
assets instead of straight payments — which is not exactly progress.
The lack of cost certainty at the current site is completely skated
around by the Brigade and their water carriers in the media, but it
remains the elephant in the living room, and any discussion of cost
capping and limiting overruns must focus on this point. The Brigade’s
goal is to find ways to keep spending at the current site and tie the
city to paying for it in less obvious ways than straight allocations of
public money. The council’s goal has been to keep costs at the
agreed-upon amount rather than let the city spend away under different
hats to cover the ever-increasing overruns. The Brigade’s efforts are
attempting to obscure the site issue, and they cannot be allowed to
obscure anything again.
“Administration officials have grouped the project costs into three
categories: the ballpark, the land around it and upgrades to roads and a
Metro station. The Williams administration is negotiating with Clark
Construction, which has been hired to build the ballpark, to set a
guaranteed maximum price for construction. The cost of land is uncertain
because some landowners have gone to court to fight for more than the
city has offered and because of the possibility of environmental
contamination at the 21-acre site. Officials are trying to get private
developers to agree to cover any overruns on land costs in exchange for
development rights on adjacent property, And city officials are talking
to the federal government about contributing to the $20 million cost of
upgrading the Navy Yard Metro station.” The development rights
tradeoff remains an unacceptable solution, because it’s using up city
assets on the ballpark project that the city could’ve kept or sold for
other public uses, and whatever amount the rights are sold for gets
sucked into the above and beyond the $535 million total the council had
agreed to finance the stadium for. And again, $20 million doesn’t get
the Metro stop to an acceptable use level (which will cost at least $47
million), but to a level that “officials acknowledge, might create a
logjam on sold-out game days that could keep hundreds or even thousands
of fans milling about South Capitol Street and the surrounding area.”
(Washington Business Journal, February 21, 2005)
The Brigade wants everyone to forget that fact as well as the
cut-rate and unacceptable nature of the infrastructure associated with
the cut-rate stadium, but we can’t let that happen and risk building a
stadium which will offer such an unappealing experience that the city
will experience more shortfalls and have to sell off who knows how many
city assets down the road to cover this bad deal. A site move must be
included in any lease acceptance, or the deal cannot be made acceptable
to the city.
“As the negotiations continue, Williams also is considering
launching a public relations offensive. Yesterday, he asked MLB and
private developers to contribute up to $500,000 to purchase
advertisements in newspapers and on radio stations to help convince the
public that the stadium is a good economic investment for the city.”
This is emblematic of the Brigade’s whole approach to the ballpark
project: if you don’t like how the numbers add up, just throw money at
the problem! That’s why the city is now staring at a $1.1 billion
dollar project at a minimum, a project which the Brigade never cuts off
spending as a solution to overruns but simply finds other public
resources like development rights to dedicate to the project. The
council needs to stop this continuation of fiscal irresponsibility in
its tracks, no matter how loudly and expensively the mayor lobbies the
council against confronting MLB and forcing real and meaningful changes
in the ballpark deal, bringing it back to what the council agreed to in
the first place.
“The council is scheduled to meet today with Louis S. Cohen, a
stadium development consultant with the Chicago-based firm DLA Piper
Rudnick Gray Cary. David Catania has recommended that the council hire
Cohen, who has represented other cities in stadium deals, to help
renegotiate some of the lease terms with baseball.” Now that’s the
kind of approach that’s going to get results, not some deceitful
shuffling of public money from hat to hat at unlimited levels to pay for
a cut-rate stadium at an unworkable site. The council has nothing to
lose and everything to gain by supporting this effort and having someone
on their side who knows the ins and outs of baseball deals in order to
win a truly better deal for the city. It’s worth holding off on buying
what the Brigade’s selling until the council has taken its own best
shot at getting MLB to the bargaining table. Unlike in 2004, time is now
on the council’s side, and there’s no reason to rush out and approve
essentially the same deal from the Brigade based on their worthless word
that major changes have been made.
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The Future of DC’s Libraries
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com
In the last issue of themail, January 11, there was a notice about a
series of ten “listening sessions” that will be held to get public
comments on the report of the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on the
Future of the District of Columbia Public Library System. The only
problem was that there was no link to an online copy of the report, and
no way listed to get a printed copy. I called officials at the library
and was told that the report hadn’t been completed, and was not going
to be released. When I said that I knew that the report had been
finished in November, I was then told that the city council had
ordered the libraries not to release it. I was referred to a one-page
summary of the task force’s findings on the library system’s web
site, but it was well hidden; locating it took clicking through five
other pages.
I called the office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic
Development, which had paid some of the staffing and consulting expenses
of the Task Force, and asked if they had a copy of the report. Not only
did they not have a copy; they had not even been informed that the
public listening sessions had been scheduled or the press release
distributed. Then I called the mayor’s press secretary, Vince Morris,
who denied that the mayor’s office had anything to do with the Mayor’s
Blue Ribbon Task Force, and insisted that the DC Public Library system
itself had full responsibility for it and its report. In fact, the mayor
had not only initiated the task force and appointed all its members; he
had appointed himself the chairman of the task force (see the mayor’s
press release, on December 8, 2004, at http://www.dcwatch.com/mayor/041208.htm).
Finally, I wrote an E-mail to Alfreda Davis, the mayor’s Chief of
Staff, who had participated in setting up and staffing the task force,
asking for a copy of the report before the listening sessions began. By
the time Ms. Davis wrote me back a few hours later, the library system
had not only posted a copy of the report on its web site; it had also
posted a copy of the much longer technical report and put links to
everything on its main page, http://www.dclibrary.org.
The one-page summary and draft report are available at http://www.dcwatch.com/mayor/0511.htm,
or in PDF format the summary is at http://www.dclibrary.org/news/BRTF-Draft-Report-0ne-Page-Summary.pdf
and the draft report at http://www.dclibrary.org/news/BRTF-Draft-Summary-Report.pdf.
The draft technical report is at http://www.dclibrary.org/news/BRTF-Draft-Technical-Report.pdf.
If you’re planning to go to one or more of the listening sessions,
please take the opportunity to read at least the draft report to see
whether you agree with their plans.
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Lifeless Political Campaigns
Jonathan R. Rees, jrrees@peoplepc.com
Although 2006 should be an exciting year in DC politics with many
campaigns currently underway, a lot of voters are telling me that they
are not very excited with the field of candidates now running for mayor,
council chair, at large council seats, or on the local ward level.
Hundreds of people are saying they are tired of the old faces, the old
issues, the broken promises still being promised, and they want some
fresh blood and they are not getting enough fresh blood.
The new problems facing Marion Barry and Jack Evans seems to be
getting more attention than the current political races in the media and
the minds of voters, and many are waiting to see what will take shape
over the $420 million dollars in improperly granted contracts and will
it reach the level of the city council as if people are waiting to see
if heads will roll.
Indeed, when people are more interested in seeing our current leaders
fall from grace than the actual political races and candidates, this may
all turn into a lackluster 2006 primary and put all of us asleep from
the boredom.
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The summary of the law concerning notices posted in public space by
Elizabeth Barry of the Mayor’s Office [themail, January 11] is a bit
misleading. It is not correct to state that "it is illegal to post
notices in public space." Posters advertising "the sale of
goods or services" are prohibited, but informational notices are
not:
“DCMR 24, 108.4 Any sign, advertisement, or poster that does not
relate to the sale of goods or services may be affixed on public
lampposts or appurtenances of a lamppost, subject to the restrictions
set forth in this section.” These restrictions include a sixty-day
time limit (thirty days for campaign posters), no more than three
posters per block, and a prohibition of “adhesives that prevent their
complete removal from the fixture, or that do damage to the fixture,”
i.e., adhesive tape.
I’ve not seen any of these Sierra Club posters, but I gather that
they did not advertise “the sale of goods or services,” and so they
were not inherently “illegal.”
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On my last submission [themail, January 8], I tried to explain why I
and many others, feel the way we do about Marion Barry. For that, we are
called apologists and enablers. Then Gary Imhoff went as far as mocking
me, by labeling Mr. Barry as a "Race Hero." The gloves are off
now. I would like to examine what gives you, and people like you, free
license to personally attack members of my community. Is it because you,
for one, are married to an African American woman? I wonder. If you show
this level of insensitivity and lack of understanding towards our race,
what do you really think of your wife? Hmmm.
Or is it because you feel that since you have read a few African
American authors and watched Eye On The Prize and Roots that this
somehow qualifies you to know our experience and therefore feel free to
attack our leaders and issues? I have worked with countless ignorant and
arrogant news directors who honestly feel just as you do, and see
absolutely nothing wrong with it.
I will say to you, Gary Imhoff, and the others like you, we know
Marion Barry. He is our brother and we love him. Our love for each other
is unconditional. And further more, we don’t have to apologize to
anyone outside our community; because we don’t share their warped
sense of humor. Do us all a favor, throw your barbs at George Bush, Jack
Abramoff and their bunch . . . you’ll get no quarrel from me. I truly
believe it is your kind who do more damage to this beautiful city and
not defenseless addicts like Mr. Barry.
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Marion Barry
Dawn Dickerson, ddd668@aol.com
[Re: Nora Bawa, “Marion Barry,” themail, January 11] I was trying
to stay out of this exhausting Barry debate but had to respond to your
post. What you don’t know is that during that time many
African-American families were unemployed and using a good bit of the
cities resources on public assistance. What Marion Barry actually did
was create employment for many of these families. And yes, there was no
"screening" of applicants as it is now. (I mean did we really
have the human resources systems that we have now back in the 70’s -
early 80’s?) He wasn’t intending to set up a system of “nepotism,
graft and cronyism” as you suggest. He was just trying to get money in
people’s pockets, which is the goal of job creation.
I am trying so hard not to bring up race in this discussion but it’s
so obvious that non-African American people that are newcomers to this
city are so tainted by what they’ve read. I wish that it were possible
to silence you all unless you are/were a native Washingtonian that lived
in DC in the mid-70’s, early 80’s when Barry was a political force.
You really have no idea of the ignorance that you are purporting and
maybe us natives should do more to remind folks of the leader that we
love, not the man that is flawed!
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I understand the point [themail, January 11] about enabling and the
harmful effects, but think about it. If Judy Garland’s fans had turned
their backs on her and demanded that she clean up her act, would she
have? Or, would she have only self destructed that much faster? I
suspect the latter. In short, we are responsible for our own destinies.
Judy had her journey and I’m sure those closest to her did the best
they could to help her, but she traveled it the best way she apparently
could. Despite that, her fans loved her for the human being she was.
Marion Barry is responsible for his destiny and traveling his journey in
his way and I’m sure those closet to him have reached out to him as
well. Those who understand that and admire his talents do so not out of
a need to enable him but because of the understanding of what it means
to accept and love someone unconditionally. I’m sure everyone who
loved Judy and those who love Marion prayed that they would find their
way. I would like to think that this is far more effective, and human,
than ostracism.
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