Excuses
Dear Non-Excusers:
In the last issue of themail, I asked you to point out things that
are working well in DC. As you can see below, nobody has responded. Don’t
worry, with enough time and enough people working on it, somebody will
come up with something.
As the perfect example of what doesn’t work well, I offer the DC
Inspector General’s report on the emergency response to the assault on
David Rosenbaum (http://www.dcwatch.com/govern/ig0606.htm).
It was released on June 16, and it makes for dismal reading. The
summaries in news reports over the past few days can’t do it justice.
I’d suggest asking current officeholders and candidates what they
intend to do about the fire department and the ambulance service,
something over which they actually have control. Throwing a low-level
first responder overboard hasn’t worked to quiet public concern, so
Fire Chief Adrian Thompson will have to walk the plank, sooner rather
than later, to give the impression that elected officials are concerned.
But what do they really propose doing to reorganize Emergency Services
so that mistakes of this magnitude won’t happen again?
Candidates for mayor and the city council would rather talk about
what they’ll do about the schools, since once they’re elected they
have a built-in excuse for not delivering on their promises: it’s the
Board of Education that’s responsible for the schools. Meanwhile,
candidates for the Board of Education blame the city council and mayor
for not giving enough funding to the schools. What would be enough
funding? There will never be enough, since the real problem with the
schools is bad management, not a lack of funds. But candidates for the
Board of Education say they’re responsible only for setting policy,
and aren’t responsible for management.
So what’s working well, what’s always working in DC, is the
ability to make a good excuse, to find somebody else to blame.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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A friend of mine was cleaning up her husband’s estate and
determined that, since the car needed to be registered and he was
deceased, she would take his name off of it. She thought that it would
be a simple process, but quickly learned otherwise. She assumed that she
needed to bring a copy of his death certificate, no problem since she
had extra copies with the raised seal. She received her letter from the
lien-holder removing her husband’s name from the lien. She thought
that this wouldn’t take long. She was wrong; it took all day.
First she had to present her husband’s death certificate. She had
that. They made a copy and gave it back. (Imagine that cost if all they
needed was a copy). Then she had to obtain a temporary tag — $13.00
for the three hours it took for her to have the car inspected. Next, she
had to drive to the inspection station with the temporary tags and have
the car inspected, though inspection for the car hadn’t expired yet.
Then she had to return to the Department of Motor Vehicles. There she
paid a recordation fee, a title fee, and then the cost for registering
the car. Total cost: well over three hundred dollars (she wanted two
years registration so she didn’t have to deal with DMV again; if she
could have registered it for five years she would have done it.)
She was even told that she had to obtain an administrative letter
from the court in order to remove her husband’s name and that she
would need to retain an attorney to obtain this letter. What a
labor-intensive process. One would think that if two names are on the
registration of a car, it would not take long to remove a name in the
case of death. If a lien-holder removes the lien, does the company have
to go through the same mess? I don’t think so. I think it’s a scam
or a tax on the person who has the temerity to survive; in this case I
call it a widow tax.
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From June 7 through June 11, Mayor Williams visited Seoul, South
Korea. A mayoral press release stated that the purpose of the trip was
to “strengthen ties between the District and the South Korean
capital” in light of the sister-city agreement between the two cities
that had been signed in March. The press release also stated that the
trip “is a strong statement about the importance” of the city’s
Korean-American community, and indicated that it was being paid for by
the Korean American Business Association of Greater Washington (KABA).
In response to a FOIA request, the Williams administration has just
released some interesting information regarding the trip. Contrary to
what the press release said, KABA made only an "in-kind donation of
airfare valued at $5,160" for three individuals — Mayor Williams
and his wife Diane, and Julie Sooyhun Koo, the deputy director of the DC
Asian-American and Pacific Islander Commission. KABA also used its
influence to persuade the Seoul city government to pick up the other
expenses. Seoul paid for lodging, meals, and ground transportation. In
making the donation, KABA was required to sign a formal donation
agreement with the District government stating that “to the best of
the Donor’s knowledge, the donor is not aware of any transactions
pending before any agency of the District government involving the
Donor, nor any litigation pending against the government involving the
Donor.” However, KABA and some of the individuals who accompanied the
mayor on his trip do in fact have several important policy issues and
transactions currently pending before the District government. KABA
represents several of the store merchants east of the river who are
fighting the Ward 8 community’s efforts to curb the sale of drug
paraphernalia in liquor and neighborhood convenience stores. An article
in today’s Washington Post details how bitter this fight has
become (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/20/AR2006062001490.html).
KABA is contesting legislation currently pending before the council to
expand the definition of drug paraphernalia, and is also defending
several merchants against efforts to challenge their liquor licenses on
the grounds that they sell drug related items.
The principal representative and negotiator for the Korean merchants
is Gary Cha, the president of KABA and a leading member of the
delegation that accompanied Mayor Williams to Seoul. Four of the six
Korean businessmen who were members of the delegation — Sang Oh Choi,
Williams Wonkyun Hwang, James Sohn, and Sang Jin Choi — are business
and property owners in the Florida Avenue wholesale market area. Another
major governmental policy initiative by the Korean-American business
community is the New Town Project to redevelop the wholesale market.
This project is heavily contingent on government support, economic
development assistance, and permitting and zoning from the District
government. They are likely to seek governmental financing through a
TIFF. The Korean merchants involved in this effort are being represented
by John Ray and Tina Ang of Manatt Phelps, who have been hired to
provide legal and political advice. The trip provided the businessmen
who financed it unfettered, prolonged access to the mayor, and a great
opportunity to lobby him to support their interests. In other words,
they made a good investment, if you can overlook the ethical question
about buying and selling access to the mayor.
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The other day I was driving into Washington, DC, from Maryland. I was
headed to Anacostia, so I took 295 South towards southeast Washington. I
was amazed to see Doug Duncan campaign signs (note that Doug Duncan is
running for governor of the state of Maryland) along Route 295 near
River Terrace. I think it is a brilliant political move, since we know
so many Marylanders travel 295 every day. So the next logical questions
is can the major candidates running for mayor of Washington, DC, put up
signs on Rt. 355? The 270 corridor? Tysons Corner? Dulles Toll Road?
Just curious.
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Check out the home page for the Department of Motor Vehicles at
dmv.dc.gov. An announcement that ticket services will "Resume
Wednesday, August 24, 2005, at 301 C Street" is prominently
displayed, as it has been for close to a year. In fact, check out almost
any departmental page at dc.gov and you will find old news, dead links,
and non-working features everywhere. You’ll find that DOT no longer
posts information about scheduled street repairs, unless possibly it’s
buried deep within a section of the site that the useless search engine
can’t find. It’s too bad that the city at the core of the Internet
demonstrates a lack of understanding of simple e-commerce design and web
management. Or is that a surprise?
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Broken Ballpark Promises
Mary C. Williams, ANC 6D03, mslaw1121@aol.com
Last month the DC Sports and Entertainment Commission submitted to
our ANC a slick booklet about four inches thick, filled with proposed
changes to the Ballpark design in preparation for the June 26 zoning
hearing. Well, at our June meeting, the SEC’s architect and lawyer,
Claude Bailey, did an hour-long presentation on the changes to the
design, but failed to point out the waivers that were included in the
book. Prior to the meeting, I actually read the booklet, which was quite
an expensive compilation, brought to us by Fed Ex . However, when
confronted, the SEC team that made the presentation told us that not all
of the changes were included in the book, and that those that were had
been scrapped. They expected to have the real changes in days before the
hearing. Now, why they wasted money and time to present proposals that
weren’t on the table and why they didn’t point this out until
questioned is beyond me. They basically wanted to talk about parking and
laying the blame on the many changes on the fact that the council
limited spending on the ballpark. Bailey must have repeated this at
least fifteen times during the presentation. Also, when Andy Litsky
pointed out that the architects did not include plans for a “green”
stadium, Bailey responded that this was not a legal requirement, but
that now they didn’t have the money to do this.
Still, the waivers sought are of enormous concern; we’re going to
get a cardboard box. Among some of the hidden gems were a request to
waive the sixteen-foot setback for the stadium required under the South
Capitol project; lower the fourteen-feet ceilings in the retail area of
the stadium; cut down on the preferred retail space (there’s only
about 60,000 square feet inside the stadium anyway); and measuring the
130-foot height restriction from the South Capitol roadway, which is the
highest elevation point. The design from the South Capitol side is as
unsightly a building as you can imagine. A wall of cinder blocks
(painted to look like stone) topped by horizontal industrial-styled
windows is what the stadium appears like from South Capitol. This is the
view from my house. It is not a pretty site. The access to the parking
garage, which begins on N Street, SW, from S. Capitol, will lead to
traffic jams along one of the busiest entrances. And our community’s
promise of a pedestrian thoroughfare along South Capitol will vanish
with a parking garage entrance right there. That is why the mayor needs
an Office of Baseball to make this work. The plans, as we now know, don’t
work for the rest of us, and none of the things promised will come to
past.
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City Dodging Ballpark Spending Cap by Selling
Property Taken by Eminent Domain
Ed Delaney, profeddel@yahoo.com
The Baseball Brigade seeks to dodge the ballpark spending cap by
selling city property taken by eminent domain to private interests. From
http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2006/06/12/daily61.html?jst=b_ln_hl:
“The mayor has asked the DC Council for permission to sell city land
at the new baseball stadium site to a developer who would build more
than 900 parking spaces — both above ground and below ground. The
mayor wants approval to authorize the city to sell ‘certain real
property’ at the stadium site to WDC Baseball Partners, an entity
headed by Herb Miller’s Western Development.” The Brigade’s lack
of interest in sticking to any form of the purported cap on ballpark
costs has become obvious with their nonstop efforts to evade rather than
work under the constraints of the cap at the first sign of trouble with
the parking issue. The city’s portion of the costs associated with the
already woefully inadequate parking situation was at least supposed to
be a set figure at this point, not something that the Brigade and the
developers allowed to escalate and then engage in creative accounting to
pay for it. Last week, certain city officials were lamenting that the
presence of aboveground parking garages will cut down on the city’s
ability to maximize revenue from the land in question. However, this
“solution” — which appears to leave much of the parking above
ground — pours all of the potential revenue into parking garage
overruns and gives up a set asset of city-owned land with a specific
value and whose revenue-producing potential is not a “but for the
ballpark” scenario and could’ve been targeted towards other city
project rather than ballpark overruns. The real property in question
most certainly qualifies as a revenue source that otherwise might go to
the city’s general fund, and as such cannot be allowed to be added to
the supposedly capped costs of the ballpark.
The sale of this land by the city to a private developer, especially
one as close to certain officials as Herb Miller is (to the point that
his attorneys drafted ballpark legislation that Jack Evans attached to a
pending bill [Post, May 30, 2004]), after it was taken from existing
landowners by the city for a purported public use, is extremely suspect
and troubling. It has every appearance of a shameless pass-through of
private property to a developer facilitated by his friends in high
places. It also raises the question of the proper use of eminent domain
and could leave the city vulnerable to more lawsuits and higher payouts
(AKA more ballpark costs) to the previous landowners, whose lawsuits are
still not resolved.
The matter has to be approved by the city council. When the issue of
selling development rights to pay for ballpark overruns came up last
December, councilmember Kwame Brown said that he did not “favor giving
up a city asset — land — for the money.” This will be the first
clear test of whether the DC Council meant it when they insisted that
the $611 million cap was real and not just a political number that could
be creatively dodged down the line when the public wasn’t looking as
hard.
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Who Needs Experience Like This?
Ed Dixon, Georgetown Reservoir, jedxn@yahoo.com
Considering the financial weight of education in the management of
this city one would hope future mayoral candidates have a strategic plan
to wrestle the education bureaucracy in a way that will benefit both the
stockholders and beneficiaries of the system. Since she has been DC
Board of Education chair, one would think Linda Cropp would certainly
have the background to juggle educational issues. What is not clear is
why, with that background, her mayoral education proposals for the city
seem so meaningless. See http://www.lindacroppformayor.com/
For example, Linda has a get tough on “failing” schools plank.
She plans to take over schools five years after they have not shown
academic success, presumably based upon the No Child Left Behind
regimen. That proposal seems a little odd, since after four years the
schools will be shuttered or chartered by federal law or the District
will lose federal monies. What exactly is she planning to take over?
Another example is her desire to mobilize the public in defining
clear learning standards. This effort should also be fairly easy for the
mayoral hopeful, since the Board of Education adopted language arts and
mathematics standards last year and is currently vetting social studies
and science standards, the latter of which will be used to take city
wide science tests next spring. These standards have already been
mandated by the US Department of Education as set down in No Child Left
Behind law. By the time she is sworn in, her work will be complete.
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Mendelson Compromises Public Safety
Chuck Thies, chuckthies [at] aol [dot] com
The DC Inspector General’s “Rosenbaum Report” was released
Friday, June 16. As Chair of the Judiciary Committee, Phil Mendelson
should have conducted his own inquiry months ago. Findings and resulting
actions that benefit public safety could have been implemented by now.
I can’t imagine former Judiciary Chair Kathy Patterson sitting on
her hands for six months waiting to act. Indeed, in a letter dated
January 16, Patterson urged Mendelson to conduct an investigation: “I
write to ask you to schedule a public roundtable on the emergency
response, and to consider initiating a Committee investigation. . . . I
also believe we have a responsibility to use the full force of our
oversight powers to secure timely and consistent answers to questions
about the emergency response in this case.”
Mendelson rejected Patterson’s request. Shortly thereafter, on
January 31, he had this to say, “Everything I have seen indicates that
the firefighter EMTs performed correctly.” (http://washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20060130-113024-3484r)
I worked for Mendelson’s reelection campaign in 2002. For those who
continue to wonder why I am supporting and working for Scott Bolden’s
campaign to replace Mendelson, the scenario as detailed above is one of
many reasons.
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What is going on in our city that people who presumably are well
informed can write things such as, Through arrest they can be placed in
to programs that provide counseling, education, drug treatment, and job
training, as Jamal Turner did in the most recent themail (June 18)? Does
he really believe this? Can he point to evidence that juveniles or
adults arrested and put into the District’s justice system go on to
receive counseling, education, drug treatment, and job training, let
alone go on to become better citizens? Can he show that making juvenile
records available to police would improve policing? I’d be surprised
if he could.
Like minimum sentences, this appears to be a feel good measure that
self-interested politicians and the police like to trot out to show they
are doing something or to explain their failures. “If we just had
those records we could really clean up this town,” as if that is the
problem with the MPD. Moreover, it blurs the very important distinction
made between juveniles and adults in our criminal justice system, and
reforms should not be taken lightly or done quickly. This policy
deserves consideration, but I suspect Mr. Turner’s only interest in it
this summer is as a brickbat to beat council member Mendelson with in an
election year. But I may be wrong; convince me.
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Re: Leo Alexander’s posting on Adrian Fenty’s vote against an
Emancipation Day holiday [themail, June 18]. What nonsense. Yet another
holiday? Let’s go forward. It’s high time we, in the District,
focused on the main issues. Education, education, with city government
able to manage competently at every level. We are citizens deserving
exemplary management serving a city of diverse ethnic backgrounds. I
lived in DC and attended public schools when they ranked among the
highest in the US, and the city infrastructure was well administered.
That’s our goal.
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Emancipation Day: Bread and Circuses
Victoria McKernan, victoriamck@mindspring.com
While Adrian Fenty’s age is an unquestionable fact, I don’t
accept Leo Alexander’s conclusion that only youthful immaturity
compelled him to vote against a holiday for Emancipation day. In fact, I
find it quite mature to make a fiscally sound but politically unpopular
decision, particularly when Mr. Fenty is certainly aware of the racial
polarization that people like Mr. Alexander try to foment in this city.
My understanding is that while Mr. Fenty appreciated the significance of
Emancipation Day, he considered the financial hit the city would take (a
million or more dollars) by making it an official District holiday, and
decided that the city’s money could be more responsibly spent in other
ways. I see nothing hypocritical in his participation in parades or
events. He didn’t, to my understanding, vote against parades or
ceremonies, just against a big fat paid holiday. One can object to
spending $50,000.00 on wedding festivities and still appreciate the
sanctity of marriage.
I do agree with Mr. Alexander that “We will be going to the polls
September 12 essentially to hire the next chief executive of our
multi-billion dollar business.” And so I will be voting for a
candidate that has demonstrated willingness to take a responsible, if
unpopular, position. Since emancipation from the horrors of slavery,
African Americans have worked against crushing obstacles to accomplish
great things, among them, governance of this city. Isn’t it better to
honor the sanctity of that struggle by practicing fiscal responsibility
and refusing to placate with bread and circuses?
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DPW Doubletalk on ROSA Enforcement
Mark Eckenwiler, themale at ingot dot org
In some other, happier world, public officials promptly acknowledge
legitimate criticism and make efforts to resolve the problems brought to
their attention. Then there’s the universe we inhabit here in DC.
Normally I’d be grateful to see a DPW spokesperson respond to my
comments in themail (May 21), even when it takes almost a month (and
some additional behind-the-scenes prodding). Alas, Mary Myers’ recent
response (June 18) is a masterpiece of doubletalk and evasive posturing.
Let’s put aside the deliberate distortions in her opening sentences
(I never said the ROSA regulations aren’t being enforced at all). No,
the most outrageous part of Myers’ response is her claim that I
“misspoke” when I said ROSA violators are, by DPW policy, never
ticketed less than thirty days apart. Oddly, my information comes from
two reliable sources: 1) one of the ROSA program overnight supervisors,
who confirmed this information over the telephone, and 2) my own
observations on the street and via DPW’s publicly accessible parking
ticket database. To recap: under DC law, ROSA violators are supposed to
be ticketed every day after the first thirty days, but DPW’s tracking
database starts a new thirty-day clock after every ticket. Here are the
ticket issuance dates for one ROSA scofflaw in my neighborhood: 2/16,
3/21, 4/27, 6/1. Here’s another vehicle, going back to last fall:
10/11, 11/21, 1/9, 2/16, 3/21, 4/24, 5/30. Both vehicles, along with
numerous other violators, park here every night; both have been reported
to DPW on a near-daily basis going back to last year. And, I might add,
both are sufficiently undeterred by DPW’s lax enforcement that they
remain parked here every night.
In Mary Myers’ alternate reality, however, the ROSA regulations are
being enforced as written. Here’s a challenge, then: Ms. Myers, please
identify one vehicle that has ever — ever — received two or more
ROSA tickets within fewer than thirty days. Just one vehicle (with
ticket numbers and dates, please). Given your latest claims, this should
be a trivial task. Please put my mind at ease, lest I harbor baseless
doubts about your honesty or about DPW’s diligence in enforcing the
law.
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Critiquing Comprehensive Planning Without a
Full Deck
Len Sullivan, lsnarpac@bellatlantic.net
For those of you who might have visited NARPAC’s latest commentary
on the inadequacies of DC’s transportation planning, let me try again
to provide an adequate URL: http://www.narpac.org/REXDCPLAN.HTM.
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Statehood and the Crisis of the Nonwhite
Majority
Samuel Jordan, Stand Up!, samunomas@msn.com
Stand Up! for Democracy in DC Coalition (Stand Up!) is a grassroots
organization established in 1997 as a continuation of the Free DC
movement to mobilize and advocate for full democracy for the residents
of Washington, DC. Stand Up! supports H.R. 5410, the “No Taxation
Without Representation Act of 2006,” which provides full
representation for the District of Columbia in Congress with two seats
in the Senate and one vote in the House of Representatives Nevertheless,
Representative Thomas L. Davis (R-Va.) has introduced a bill, HR. 5388,
the DC Fair and Equal Voting Rights Act of 2006. The principal mechanism
set in motion by the bill is a vote in Congress altering the size of the
House of Representatives from 435 seats to 437, permitting the District
of Columbia to be assigned voting membership in the House with one vote
and an expansion of the congressional delegation of the state of Utah by
one vote in the House. The bill promotes a “balancing” act that
raises, rather than settles, questions concerning the goals of the
proposed legislation.
In 1959, Hawaii became a state after Alaska was admitted in order to
satisfy concerns of the US Senate, led by Senator Lyndon Baynes Johnson,
who insisted that the nonwhite majority of Hawaii be balanced by the
admittance of a state with a white or Anglo majority. Johnson feared
that Hawaii would send a delegation to Congress that was “opposed to
segregation.” There has been only one other response to the demand by
a territory of the US for statehood when that territory possessed a
nonwhite majority among its inhabitants If not balanced like Hawaii by
Alaska in 1959 or like the District of Columbia by Utah in Rep. Davis’
bill, H.R. 5388, the nonwhite majority is subjected to a deliberate
erosion of its numerical superiority in favor of a white majority as in
the case of the admission of New Mexico as a state in 1912.
New Mexico experienced the longest wait between application and grant
of statehood of any of the states admitted to the union — 62 years,
from 1850 until 1912. When the census of 1910 confirmed New Mexico’s
white majority, statehood was granted by Congress forthwith. Until its
admission, New Mexico was reputed as “. . . an ignorant, foreign
community under the influence of the Roman Church . . . nine tenths are
Mexicans, Indians, ‘greasers’ and other non-English speaking people.
. . ,” according to an article appearing April 1, 1876, in Harper’s
Weekly, a leading periodical of the era. Accordingly, Hawaii
experienced the second-longest wait between application and grant of
statehood — 56 years, from 1903 until 1959.
The Davis bill is but proof that the two “rights by race” tactics
— racial balancing or the sabotage of the nonwhite numerical majority,
remain the fundamental responses of the official US political culture to
the democratic aspirations of peoples of color. Lynching, deadly riots,
massacres, mass incarceration, disenfranchisement, and forced expulsion
are other responses somewhat discredited, but nowhere fully renounced as
alternatives.
Proof that the Davis bill belongs to the “rights by race”
tradition is the grant of an additional seat for Utah. What is the
justification for such an extraordinary grant to Utah if not
"racial balancing?" Is there a crisis of democracy in Utah
that requires such an expeditious remedy? Of course not, the crisis of
democracy confronts the residents of the District of Columbia and full
representation in Congress is the only principled resolution. Must
democratic principle be trumped by the “rights by race” tradition?
Perhaps not, although it belongs in the museum of shameful antiquities
alongside the Ku Klux Klan bed sheet and lynching picnics. The “rights
by race” tradition can be discarded now — in 2006.
A lingering irony of the Davis bill is its claim to achieve progress
in the name of democracy, the kind of democracy that the US champions in
the rest of the world At no time did Rep. Davis engage the bill’s
primary benefactors, the residents of the District of Columbia, in any
meaningful democratic consultation. That residents of Utah were also
spared democratic consultation is perhaps, to Rep. Davis, a mere
collateral dereliction since race solidarity often proceeds with a wink
and a nod i.e., “this is a race freebie, enjoy.”
Fully apprised of the historical context in which this
"freebie" is wrapped, perhaps the citizens of the state of
Utah may not be amused. They may well insist on democratic principle and
disdain any phony horse-trading with the rights of the citizens of the
District of Columbia.
Maintenance of the “rights by race” tradition embraced by the
bill is not compelled by any contemporary necessity. The grant of
democratic representation to the District of Columbia need not conform
to a traditional accommodation available only to territories
characterized by nonwhite majorities. This is a tradition we can retire
for its affront to a superior tradition or principle -- fair and equal
treatment for all.
The pseudo-democracy of the bill serves only to discredit Congress
while revealing how shallow is the yet-uncovered grave of the rights by
race tradition. If the “one for the District, one for Utah” plan
comports with the “balancing” tradition, statehood for the District
must await sabotage of the numerical strength of its nonwhite majority
— unless British Columbia or Ottawa Province apply for statehood,
thereby providing "balance." Traditionally, there are no other
choices.
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Florida Market Tour, June 24
Richard Layman, rlaymandc@Yahoo.com
The Capital City Market, more commonly known as the Florida Market,
is the primary wholesale food distribution center in the city. A number
of the businesses sell to retail customers. The cinder block "DC
Farmers Market" building on Neal Street is comparable to Eastern
Market, except it is privately owned, and a lot less pretty. The market
area is under great development pressure because of its location and the
attractiveness of the New York Avenue subway stop. The Office of
Planning Cluster 23 Study proposes that the market be revitalized
through a food-centered plan. An alternative proposal suggests
demolishing everything and starting over. We’re interested in showing
people the assets that the market has to offer.
On Saturday, Elise Bernard of the Frozen Tropics blog, and I
(Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space blog) will lead a free tour of the
market. It will start at 9:00 a.m. at 4th and Morse Streets, NE. We will
then go eat at Young’s Deli (inexpensive Korean and other foods).
People could join us at 9:40 at Young’s (300 block of Morse St., NE)
for the rest of the tour if they are not up for kimchee. We will then
visit eleven other places that sell retail, including the multi-vendor
cinder block “Farmers Market” and the outdoor flea market, before
finishing at Litteri’s, which in my opinion, has the best Italian sub
sandwich in the city (sorry Vace, sorry Mangialiardo’s). We should
finish up around noon.
We will repeat the tour on Saturday, July 29, at 9 a.m. at the same
meeting place.
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DC Public Library Events, June 24, 26-27
Debra Truhart, debra.truhart@dc.gov
Saturday, June 24, 6:00 p.m., Francis A. Gregory Neighborhood
Library, 3660 Alabama Avenue, SE. Fifth annual Jazz Comes to Hillcrest,
a jazz concert featuring Washington’s talented musicians. Public
contact: 645-4297.
Monday, June 26, 7:00 p.m. Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library,
901 G Street, NW, 2nd Floor West Lobby. All the World’s a Stage Book
Club. Different countries, times and lives, each book is an adventure. Royal
Blood by Bertram Fields will be discussed. Next month’s selection:
Blowing My Cover by Lindsay Moran. Public contact: 727-2079.
Tuesday, June 27, 12:00 p.m., West End Neighborhood Library, 24th
Street, NW. West End Film Club. Bring your lunch and enjoy the film,
Sense and Sensibility (1995), starring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet.
Public contact: 724-8707.
Tuesday, June 27, 12:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library,
901 G Street, NW, Room 307. The Washingtoniana Division will feature the
documentary, 7th & T Street. This film is about the
residents, visitors, and jazz entertainers who frequented the clubs and
the Howard Theater at 7th and T Streets, from the 1930’s to the 1950’s,
in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, DC. Public contact: 727-1213.
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CLASSIFIEDS — DONATIONS
Furniture for Nonprofit
Samuel Jordan, samunomas@msn.com
Health Care Now! is moving up in the world! Not satisfied with
fighting low health status indicators in Wards 7 and 8, Health Care Now!
will open a full-service satellite office in Brookland Manor in Ward 5
on July 3! The defined community at Brookland Manor, the home of many of
the charter members of HCN!, will provide an opportunity to implement
our preventive and primary care concepts with the hope of attracting
support from public and private sources.
We need furniture: conference table, office desks and chairs, waste
baskets, book shelves, file cabinets, lamps, kitchen stuff, even plants
and flowers (no pets). Can you help us? This is our defining opportunity
to demonstrate that health care seeking behaviors can be modified. A
well functioning office at 2428 14th Street, NE, in Brookland Manor is a
major project asset. Deliveries and pickups can be arranged. Call Samuel
Jordan or Dolores Brooks at 388-6661. You have our everlasting
gratitude!
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