Advisories
Dear Advisors:
Thanks to a reader who anonymously mailed me the link to the article,
I learned that Sewell Chan, late of the Washington Post and now
at the New York Times, wrote about the recent pay raise that the
city councilmembers of New York City voted themselves (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/16/nyregion/16pay.html?ex=1164344400&en=a1c5ef8df29cb3d3&ei=5070&emc=eta1).
New York’s councilmembers are currently paid $90,000 a year, and they
voted themselves a raise to $112,000. Like DC councilmembers, New York
City councilmembers are allowed to take outside jobs. Unlike them,
however, they are paid not only their salaries but also stipends for
holding committee chairmanships or leadership posts. Of the fifty-one
members of the NYC council, forty-six get these additional stipends,
ranging from $4,000 to $28,500.
In DC, Councilmembers Gray and Mendelson have proposed bills
establishing "advisory committees" to take the political heat
for council pay raises. Mayor Bloomberg had appointed an advisory group
to examine council salaries, and the New York experience showed how
ineffective such groups are. As you would expect, the advisory group
supported pay raises for the councilmembers, but it also said that the
additional stipends should be eliminated, and it suggested that the
issue of outside employment “merit[s] further examination.” As you
would also expect, the NYC council ignored those proposals, and accepted
only the recommendation to raise their pay. Chan writes, “Several
advocacy groups assailed the Council for approving the raises without
ending the stipends or restricting outside employment. ‘While
deserving of their first raise in seven years, the council members
missed an opportunity to reform the way they are paid,’ said Dick
Dadey, executive director of Citizens Union, which advocates
transparency in government. Gene Russianoff, a lawyer for the New York
Public Interest Research Group, said, ‘In the end, council members
decided to take the money and run away from salary-related reforms.’”
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Have you driven on the Devil’s Road yet, the roadway from
Bladensburg Road, NE, to Minnesota Avenue, NE, better known as Benning
Road? With the exception of the bridge over the Anacostia River and
Route 295, this road is worst than the Death Road from Brazil to
Argentina, worst than the Burma Road and the Stillwell Road, all rolled
up into one. Steel plates dot the roadway, the pavement is uneven, there
are deep pockets in the roadway and no lane markings. Plus the islands
have sunk into the ground, leaving no curbs visible and weeds growing in
the area where curbs should be. This is what the replacement for Dan
Tangherlini at the Department of Transportation has allowed to happen.
It is unconscionable to let a roadway vital to the transit of vehicles
into far northeast to fall in such a deplorable condition. It has taken
me two days to stop my teeth from rattling from the violent shakes
delivered to my vehicle from a roadway so badly ruined. What is even
worse is that there isn’t much light radiating onto the street, making
it hard to see the pits and uneven pavement. Those who travel on Benning
Road should seek an alternate route before they have to replace the
shocks in their vehicles caused by the lack of maintenance by DDOT.
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The Bus Schedule Makers Are in La-La Land
Bryce A. Suderow, streetstories@juno.com
Today I rode a 90 bus from 8th and F, NE, to 8th and Pennsylvania
Avenue, SE. The driver told me that she was sixteen minutes behind
schedule. The 92 bus that was driving right behind her was twenty-two
minutes behind schedule. Because she was late (through no fault of her
own), my driver said she would arrive at the end of her run so late that
she wouldn’t get her twenty-minute break.
I asked her why they were behind. She said that the Metro officials
who schedule the routes don’t realize that in the past five years more
people with cars have moved to the district and have created more
traffic congestion. This is true especially in northwest DC. Also, she
said, they don’t take into account the fact that the building boom
reduces two-lane routes to one-lane routes.
She urged me to pressure Metro to meet with its riders and drivers in
small groups to hear the truth, that the busses can’t meet unrealistic
schedules. And that’s what I’m doing here. I urge all of you who’ve
seen three Metro busses arrive simultaneously at your stop -- all of
them late -- to contact Metro and ask for realistic route schedules.
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The Fenty Transition, the Next Step
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com
Councilmember and Mayor-elect Adrian Fenty, having finished his
“pre-transition,” is now engaged in his transition. So far, two
major parts of the transition effort have been announced. The first is a
series of town halls that will be run as “professionally facilitated
dialogues.” These meetings begin in Ward 8 on Monday, November 20,
6:30 p.m., at Ferebee Hope Recreation Center, 800 Yuma Street, SE. The
other meetings will be in Ward 7 on Tuesday, November 21, 6:30 p.m., at
Benning Park Community Recreation Center gymnasium, 53rd and Fitch
Streets, SE; in Ward 6 on Tuesday, November 28, 6:30 p.m., at King
Greenleaf Recreation Center, 201 N Street, SW; in Ward 5 on Thursday,
November 30, 6:30 p.m., at Joseph H. Cole Recreation Center gymnasium,
1200 Morse Street, NE; in Ward 4 on Monday, December 4, 6:30 p.m., at
MPD Regional Operational Command North, 801 Shepherd Street, NW; in Ward
3 on Tuesday, December 5, 6:30 p.m., at the University of the District
of Columbia, 4200 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Building 47, gymnasium; in
Ward 2 on Thursday, December 7, 6:30 p.m., at Kennedy Recreation Center,
1401 7th Street, NW, and in Ward 1 on Saturday, December 9, 10:00 a.m.,
at Garfield Terrace, 2301 11th Street, NW.
The second part of the transition will be a continuation of the
“E-Transition Team,” which conducts its work through blogs, chats,
web meetings, and “webinars.” The chairs of the E-Transition are
Bill Lightfoot and James Hudson, and the staff member in charge is Clark
Ray. The team leaders for transition topics are Chico Horton, affordable
housing; Judith Terra, the arts; Don Wilson, nonprofits and
community-based organizations; Bonnie Cain, education; Therman Baker and
Max Brown, economic development, Larry Martin, environment; Ron Linton,
public safety; Bob Malson, Jim D’Orta, and Bob Brandon, health; Darryl
Wiggins, technology; Peter Rosenstein, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and
transgender affairs; Jay Haddock and Arturo Griffiths, Jr., Latino
affairs; Jenny Ho, Asian and Pacific Islander affairs; Lola Frankel and
Janice Ferebee, women and girls; Karen Szulgit and Kevin Kiger,
democracy and voting rights; George Holmes and J.C. Pritchett, religious
affairs; Rod Woodson, government operations; and Susie Cambria, human
services. To date, the E-Transition has been closed, and only those who
have been invited to participate have been able to join the online
discussion. Participants have not been well distributed geographically;
in the pre-transition, not one of the group leaders was from east of the
river. If you would like to participate, you can try to get an
invitation to join the discussion in any of the specific groups by
E-mailing clarke.ray@fentytransition.org.
Participation requires Internet access and fairly advanced computer
knowledge.
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My Annual Reminders
Ed T. Barron, edtb1@macdotcom
Leaves are being raked out to the curbs in American University Park.
If you park on top of a pile of those leaves (though they are wet now)
you stand a good chance of incinerating your car. The hot catalytic
converter will easily ignite dry leaves, and your car can become toast.
The DC Department of Public Works did not pick up leaves until January
here in AU Park last year.
If you did not change out the batteries in your smoke and carbon
dioxide detectors at Halloween, then now’s the time to do it. Sorry to
be such a nag.
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The Board of Elections (and local newspapers) reported that Phil
Mendelson won 50.62 percent of the vote, and David Catania got 32.67
percent. Not quite. 114,741 voters showed up to the polls on election
day, and voters were instructed to vote for two at-large members,
meaning that there were 229,482 possible votes for the at-large seats.
But only 168,087 votes were cast. So, if I’ve done my math right,
56,029 people voted for two members and 61,395 voted for only one. So
more than half of the voters possibly thought that Mendelson and Catania
were running against each other for a single seat, which wasn’t
exactly the case. The Board of Elections computed the percentages as if
that were the case, i.e., the percentages were based on total votes
actually cast, not total number of available votes. Recomputing the
ballots based on total possible votes, Mendelson received 37.08 percent
of the vote and Catania 23.93 percent. But there’s more at stake than
just the reporting error. The electorate as a whole may not really be
electing whom it intended. Specifically, the majority of voters who
voted for only one councilmember instead of two may be unintentionally
letting the remaining minority of voters select the second member. I’m
oversimplifying, but I think the ballot needs to be reformatted for next
time to avoid the confusion. Or perhaps when voters put their ballot
through the computer, it could alert them to their possible error.
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Paper Trail? What Is That?
Harold Goldstein, mdbiker@goldray.com
Dennis Jaffe and others talk about the desire for a paper trail as
their reasons for not wanting to vote electronically. What is the logic
to this? That you have a piece of paper you stick in a box? Why do you
trust that the contents of that box will be correctly and honestly
counted? Are, somehow, the people in charge of dealing with those boxes
more trustworthy than those dealing with the machines?
Are we supposed to believe that electronic voting will cause election
improprieties that never existed before? Have we all forgotten the chad
fiasco? Have we forgotten the “vote early, vote often” exhortations
from the Daley machines and others?
The idea that a paper trail means your vote is secure and the
election will be somehow more accurate is a total joke.
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A Voter Verified Paper Trail
Dennis Jaffe, DennisJaffe @ G mai l. com
Harold Goldstein accurately pointed out the lack of integrity in
voting in elections by placing paper ballots in a box. Indeed, boxes
have been stuffed. No system is perfect. The voting machines we’ve
used for years had problems, too. I don’t know of anyone who faults
paperless, electronic voting machines and who also is a proponent of
casting ballots by paper. Mr. Goldstein’s inference of such doesn’t
contribute in any useful way to the debate on the security of our
country’s voting system.
In 2004, I returned temporarily to my home state of New Jersey to
serve as communications director for the reelection campaign of US Rep.
Rush Hold (D-Hopewell), the prime sponsor of the federal legislation
that would require electronic voting machines to be equipped with a
voter-verifiable paper record. In that capacity, I did research on the
problems associated with electronic voting machines. In short, it has
been documented in a number of elections that the preference of the
voter would show up visually to the voter as having been correctly
recorded -- but in fact was later shown to have been recorded
incorrectly due to computer malfunction. A voter-verifiable paper
record, assert many credible technology experts, would allow us to see
how the vote was cast and how it was recorded by the machine.
I am not a technology expert. But Verified Voting, one of a handful
of nonprofit organizations conducting in-depth research on this issue,
has many technology experts involved in its efforts. Electronic
malfunctions aren’t difficult to conceive. They do happen. So can
purposeful manipulation. One problem is that the software companies for
paperless, electronic voting machines refuse to allow election officials
to have access to be able have more control over the security of the
system. Verified Voting is on the web at http://www.VerifiedVoting.org.
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Why Are We Still Waiting for Election Results
Ron Leve, Dupont Circle, theron@comcast.net
Here it is ten days since elections took place in the District of
Columbia and we still don’t know who won many of the Advisory
Neighborhood Commissioner positions. This is especially the case where
no one filed as a candidate and the election was decided purely on the
basis of write-in votes. Many contested House of Representative
elections elsewhere in the country have already been resolved with the
necessary recounts and inclusion of absentee ballots. But all one sees
on the web site of the DC Board of Elections are the results as of
November 7.
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Naive Question about DC Absentee Voting
Joan Eisenstodt, jeisen@aol.com
When Gary wrote about the low turnout in DC for our elections, I
wondered if absentee ballots are taken into consideration when
determining turnout, and if they are truly counted. We had to vote
absentee and now I wonder. Or are they counted only in a “close”
race?
[Let me stress that, while I provide titles for messages that are not
sent with titles, and while I shorten titles that are too long, I did
not title Joan’s submission a “naive question.” She did that
herself. — Gary Imhoff]
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DPW Restricts Street Sweeping
Paul Wilson, dcmcrider at gmail dot com
A quick glance at a press release on the Department of Public Works
web site shows yet another curtailment in city services (http://dpw.dc.gov/dpw/cwp/view,a,1201,q,637087,dpwNav_GID,1479,.asp).
This year DPW is extending its traditional (and largely unnecessary)
winter moratorium on residential street sweeping an extra six weeks,
from the beginning of December to the first week in April. Previously,
the moratorium began after the first of the year and extended to
mid-March. In the past the department has claimed that residential
streets can’t be cleaned due to freezing temperatures, yet,
paradoxically, cleaning will continue all winter long on commercial
thoroughfares. It must be warmer there. Odder still is that sweeping of
the commercial areas occurs in the overnight hours, when it’s
generally colder. So, for neighborhood streets like mine, this means
four months of accumulated litter and more street crud and potentially
toxic sediment flowing into the catch basins, and ultimately the river
system via the combined sewers.
I’ve written before about DPW’s ham-fisted trash collection
procedures, and this latest service rollback suggests that an attitude
adjustment at DPW should be high on Mayor-elect Fenty’s to-do list.
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The revised Comp Plan is needed to guide the District’s growth and
conserve its neighborhoods. The 1984 plan is no longer relevant to our
city’s needs. It’s 2006 and it’s time to adopt the revised Comp
Plan. The revised Comp Plan is a major accomplishment of four years of
extensive public discussion, debate, and compromise. It balances
competing interests while maintaining integrity in the overarching goal
to build a truly inclusive city. The plan isn’t perfect, but it’s
what we need and can be amended at any time. We should adopt this
well-vetted document rather than allow it to slip out of public view. We
have arrived at the end of a long public process that will replace the
1984 plan with a well-crafted, accessible document that addresses today’s
needs and all of our neighborhoods.
Today, the city is growing. The US Census confirmed that since 2000,
our population has increased by 10,000 residents after five decades of
decline. The revised Comp Plan is needed to guide the District’s
growth and conserve its neighborhoods. The revised Comp Plan recommends
urgently needed actions to address issues like affordable housing, the
use and location of our educational facilities, transportation choices,
adequate parks and recreation, and environmental quality. The new plan
includes a greatly enhanced environmental protection element along with
parks, arts, and other elements completely absent in the old plan.
Residents cannot afford to wait any longer for the city to tackle the
pressing issues of today.
If we fail to adopt this document now, the revised Comp Plan faces
inordinate delay of a year or more. The thousands of people who
participated will feel their evenings and weekends were wasted by a
government that can’t follow through. It’s 2006 and time to adopt
the Comp Plan. Read the draft plan, at least the Framework Element: http://inclusivecity.org/docManager/1000000893/02-Framework%20opti.pdf.
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Home Energy Audits from DDOE
Robin K. Graham, robin.graham@dc.gov
The District Department of the Environment’s (DDOE) Energy
division, in partnership with Honeywell Corporation, is offering free
Home Energy Rating System audits. DDOE offers free home energy audits to
DC single family homeowners interested in addressing energy efficiency.
A Honeywell certified energy auditor will identify a home’s energy
deficiencies and provide homeowners with cost-effective recommendations
that, when installed, will reduce energy loss in the home.
Along with the audit, interested homeowners will be provided a list
of DDOE’s partnering financial institutions (Industrial Bank, DC
Government Federal Credit Union, or the Operation HOPE Center) to apply
for an energy efficient mortgage and/or loan (EEM loans) enabling the
purchase of audit recommended measures or improvements. Standard credit
requirements are a determining factor to qualify for an EEM. The only
program eligibility requirements are District residency and District
homeownership. Interested persons are encouraged to call the Energy
Hotline at 673-6750 to schedule a free audit. For more information on
the program please visit the DDOE web site at http://www.ddoe.dc.gov.
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Join the Final Push for the DC Voting Rights
Act
Ilir Zherka, DCVote, info@dcvote.org
We need your help with our final push to pass the DC Voting Rights
Act this year. As you may have seen in the media, we have secured the
support of Democrats and Republicans for passage of HR 5388, the DC
Voting Rights Act, in December. To achieve that goal we need the support
of as many members of Congress as possible and the support of President
Bush.
Here are two things you can do: 1) ask family members or friends
outside of DC to send letters to their representative in the House and
Senate. 2) Call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 to urge
President Bush to support the bill (and get others to call as well). As
always, please visit our web site for the latest news items and for
sample letters. Feel free to forward this E-mail to your family and
friends.
We are convinced that we can bring the dawn of a new democracy to DC
if we all keep up the hard work over the next few weeks. Thanks for
everything you will do. Now, let’s make history!
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I Second the Motion: One Stadium Is Enough
Tom Monroe, tmonroe77@yahoo.com
See http://www.nbc4.com/news/10330600/detail.html.
It was one thing when Jack Evans was talking up an unneeded NFL stadium
for the District as mere speculation. Now, we need to stop these
presumptive free-spending officials as word leaks out that officials
have talked Snyder about building a new stadium on the RFK Stadium site.
(I’m as incredulous as the Hanrahans and Ed Delaney [themail, November
15] that this site is even under consideration given the trashing of it
as cost-laden and virtually uninhabitable due to federal red-tape and
environmental issues, and someone in the media needs to hold them to
account on that.) The justification for the new ballpark at least had to
do with luring baseball to the region after being gone for over thirty
years. Accessibility is not a reason to go down the stadium spending
road again, complete with the lies and deception that seem to flow the
powers that be in the District’s private and public sector when it
comes to stadium matters.
With a new Metro station within walking distance of FedEx Field,
existing shuttle services and access directly to the Beltway, it looks
to be a wash as far as accessibility, and certainly not enough of a
difference to justify more stadium spending. People have to remember
that the new stadium seats over 35,000 more than the old one did for
football. It was slow-going after Redskins games, and that many more
fans would certainly make it even more so at a new place. The Metro
station is key for FedEx Field, as it has seen a great deal of use and
taken the burden off of the roads while offering another option, which
had been people’s main request. As has been pointed out here multiple
times, Evans and his free-spending pals need to stop chasing premier
parking spaces and be content with having premium access at the new
ballpark. Their botched handling of that situation could end up yielding
a substandard park that pales in comparison to nearby Camden Yards and
has a worse commute to and from it than FedExField. That should
automatically disqualify them from ever getting in the stadium game
again.
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As the old beer commercial put it, I feel strongly both ways
regarding Mr. Delaney’s regular contributions to themail on the new
baseball stadium. On the one hand, his insinuations and unrelenting
pessimism over the ballpark project are growing tiresome. He regularly
posts basically the same two or three paragraphs, making the same points
over and over again. We’re supposed to believe that some imagined
“Brigade” of nefarious public officials has conspired to advance
their material interests at the public’s expense. In my opinion, the
facts are these: DC whined for thirty years about losing baseball and
not getting another shot at the bigs. After working our long way back to
respectability as a city, we finally were offered a hard bargain. We get
an established major-league team in exchange for building the club a new
stadium. To me, this is a no-brainer. Did we want to wait another thirty
years? Mayor Williams did the right thing. The choice is made. The steel
is in the ground. We are going to build this ballpark!
It might have been feasible to refurbish RFK Stadium for the
Nationals or rebuild on that site, but the chosen alternative was not
unreasonable -- redeveloping a crappy few blocks south of the Capitol, a
down-at-the-heels neighborhood in the very heart of the city, with a
stadium as the anchor of larger projects. With the redevelopment of the
waterfront, that stadium will be the centerpiece of a transformation in
the southwest and southeast quadrants of Washington. (Don’t forget the
soccer-stadium complex, too, which will be placed on the opposite side
of the river. Given demographic trends, this might turn out to be the
most interesting and profitable part of the whole plan.)
On the other hand, I agree with Mr. Delaney that our public officials
are a bit obsequious to the Nationals’ new owners. I was hoping the
new mayor might work with the council to improve our negotiating
tactics. The Lerners are a local family with locally based businesses;
they have a stake in baseball here as large as anyone else’s. Since we
taxpayers are ponying up for the stadium, and since we control public
services surrounding the construction site, we can and should assert the
community’s interests more forcefully in matters of interest to
everyday fans. The Lerners can be expected to grab for all the perks and
extras they can get. However, when it comes to parking and public
transport and the viability of much-needed urban development, DC has a
stake to protect. Unfortunately, early signs are not encouraging. Mr.
Fenty has caved to the Lerners’ demands and accepted the erection of
two ugly parking garages on the north side of the stadium — buildings
which will obstruct not only the views of fans at the game but also the
future development of that neighborhood. Much is made of contractual
obligations and potential penalties, but the District of Columbia has a
seat at this table and ought to use the chips at our disposal. If this
means calling the Lerners’ bluff, risking short-term outlays today in
the interest of Washington’s long-term prospects, so be it. We elected
Mr. Fenty to be a strong player, not to fold in the face of tough
choices. The bottom line, it seems to me, is this: when it comes simply
to financial cost, getting the Nationals was worth much more than what
we will ever pay; any lemons in the bag will be turned to lemonade in
the form of a vibrant and attractive neighborhood along both sides of
the Anacostia River.
I also agree with Mr. Delaney that in no way should the District deal
with Dan Snyder over a return of the Redskins. That guy is a loser; he
spoils everything he touches. I wonder why he’s allowed to use
“Washington” in his team’s name. The Skins live, practice, and do
business in Virginia. They play their games in Maryland. Their
connection to Washington is getting to be ancient history and is tenuous
at best.
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I can claim no expertise on the question of school takeover
proposals. All agree the present situation is not working. But it
appears to me that if Mr. Rees’ recent missive on the subject [themail,
November 15] laced with personal attacks against Fenty are any
indication of the level of debate, we are already on a path away from
the substance of the issue and that does a huge disservice to both sides
of the debate.
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Victor A. Reinoso, Another Bad Fenty Appointee
Jonathan R. Rees, jrrees2006@verizon.net
While our school buildings do in fact need to be repaired or new
schools built in their place, the problem with our students is not the
buildings or the teachers but with the students themselves, and with
their parents who do not show as much interest in their education as
your and my parents did. This is a subject for another day. Recently,
Mayor-elect Adrian Fenty appointed Victor A. Reinoso, who is already a
member of our failed school board, to head up our soon-to-be DC
Department of Education. Excuse me, but picking a loser from a group who
has failed us by not turning things around doesn’t make sense to me!
Victor A. Reinoso’s claim to shame is on our DC Board of Education
(http://www.k12.dc.us/dcps/boe/boebios.html#Reinoso),
but, more often than one might realize he has been accused of
over-inflating his resume. What work he has really done, especially at
the Federal City Council, has been made an issue in themail, the Washington
City Paper, and elsewhere. Mr. Reinoso will only have a real job if
the US Congress decides to allow a mayoral takeover of our public
schools in whole or in part. I hope they are wise enough not to do that;
there was good reasons why the US Congress wanted to keep our schools
out of the hands of our public leaders.
This appointment of Mr. Reinoso is about as idiotic as Mr. Fenty’s
appointment of lawyer who had been inactive for ten years (Linda J.
Singer), to be our next attorney general. Linda J. Singer was not even a
member of the DC Bar after being in DC for more than years, and she
would not have applied for such a membership if Mr. Fenty was not about
to nominate her. Mr. Fenty is starting to show us that he does not care
about the experience or quality of the people he is appointing. Rather,
he is engaging in massive cronyism by appointing people who worked on
his political campaign, with little or no regard for their actual skills
or abilities to carry out the job ahead of them.
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While DC public officials have decided to give themselves a raise
with the hard-earned tax money we pay, our city-state is quietly sliding
into major fiscal imbalances. Despite the campaign pledges to get
elected, mayor-elect Fenty and our council members will have to humble
themselves to the economic and mathematical reality that 1-plus-1 does
not equal 11. The schemes and dreams that the minority of voters (30.90
percent, or 122,356 out of 395,926 voters, according to the DC Board of
Elections and Ethics) elected our latest crop of candidates on will have
very limited dollars to finance them. Hardly a “mandate” or even the
“landslide” and “avalanche” that some in our local news media
hyped the actual vote count.
No matter who wants to run DC schools, it will still take a real plan
and effective use of limited money to raise educational quality to at
least the top twenty category. The same applies to genuinely affordable
housing, truly accessible healthcare systems, expanded DC resident job
training and employment, plus DC-based small business development.
However, we should all support and pray for mayor-elect Fenty’s and
the DC council’s success — plus their total focus and greater
cooperation on genuine public priorities. Only measurable and effective
results, not rhetoric and spin, will matter.
Recent US Census figures, when sorted and filtered for actual
full-time non-transient residents, show the reality of DC population
losses in families, permanent residents, plus long-term working and
middle class taxpayers. Even the prestigious Urban Institute confirms
the losses. Fewer families mean less revenue. More working residents and
families generate exponential revenue. These long term resident losses
will create the coming District budget deficits and fiscal imbalances --
especially when much of our money will go to new stadiums, dysfunctional
DC agencies, and other revenue wasting initiatives (boondoggles). Urban
Planning 101: Families won’t stay where family basics and amenities
are missing. [Finished online at http://www.dcwatch.com/themail/2006/06-11-19.htm#moore]
During the 2006 election year, while DC news media focused on
campaign hype, candidate personality, and who has the most campaign
money, candidates for District office did not discuss or admit DC
government has significant revenue shortages leading to a fiscal crisis
after 2007. The revenue shell games are coming up empty. The signs are
all around us: aggressive efforts to sell off public property (schools,
libraries, etc.) to developers, payment delays for numerous public
services and personnel, creative schemes to tax or re-tax property
owners, the floating of leaky bonds, and the increasingly desperate (but
justifiable) attempts to gain some of the lost revenue drained by
suburban commuters.
The most revealing evidence can be found within the constant
revisions or reinterpretations of figures from the Office of the Chief
Financial Officer. Recent and previously reported CFO figures about the
new baseball stadium, DCPS Master Facilities Plan, MLK Library and other
"initiatives" either change or conflict. Any first year
college accounting student knows that figures and projections can be
shaped to reflect a specific economic (or political) objective. As
citizens and taxpayers, we are the primary source of the revenue being
spent by the DC public officials we hire (elect) and pay (our tax
dollars). We, the boss, must not be silent and satisfied with the poor
performance of our employees -- elected or appointed DC public
officials.
In reality, as it is for most of us who work or start a new job, an
election (new hire) also has a probationary period subject to the
satisfaction of the electorate, everyday District residents. Any public
official (the employee) who doesn’t perform to the actual needs,
standards and best interests of District citizens (the boss) should be
recalled (removed) from office, or not rehired (reelected). We, the
people, are the authorizers and owners of their public titles, duties,
salaries, entitlements, and even the facade of their official image. To
use one of their overused statements: “At the end of the day,” you
are the boss. Also known as: government for the people and by the
people.
###############
No Reason to Support
Takeover
Ed Dixon, Georgetown Reservoir, jedxn@yahoo.com
Fenty can’t improve the school system by taking it over and
reducing the power of the school board, based on recent history. Fenty’s
role as a public school maverick on the council has been commendable,
especially while his colleagues felt it was both financially and
politically advantageous to focus on stadium financing instead. However,
Fenty has one issue with school management that he has to address before
proposing the takeover of an entire school system.
According to DC Office of Campaign Finance, in January 2001 Adrian
Fenty was a trustee on the board of the then recently founded Joz-Arz
Academy, a DC public charter for students with special needs (http://ocf.dc.gov/intop/opinions/op_01_01.shtm).
As early as April 2002, though Fenty is not listed as a board member,
the DC Board of Education found the school not in good academic standing
(http://www.dcboecharters.org/pdf/JosArz.pdf).
That same year, journalist Jonetta Rose-Barras wrote in themail: “The
Jos-Arz . . . claimed in 2000 through 2001 that it would serve 190
special education children, who would have been diagnosed with emotional
disturbance/behavior disorders and who required residential care.
Following the charter school laws, the city allocated more than $10.4
million to fund the education for that number of children. But there was
never any residential facility at Jos-Arz where children could spend the
night. Further, during the 2000-2001 school year, only 18 students were
actually served by the school, according to government documents.
Consequently, Jos-Arz was obligated, by law, to return a portion of its
advance. When the DCPS went to collect, the council and mayor came to
its rescue. Emergency legislation was introduced and approved by the
full council that protected the charter school against any demand for
the return of all funds. Instead the school was required to reimburse
the city for only half of the original allocation. The legislation also
allowed for advance funding, which meant in the end Jos-Arz had to pay
back only about $3 million or $4 million. It still has not made that
reimbursement, according to school and executive branch sources” (http://www.dcwatch.com/themail/2002/02-06-02.htm).
In November of 2003, the trustees turned management over to Cornell,
a management company that planned to make $5 million on the takeover.
According to the Houston press release: “The Therapeutic Public
Charter School is a natural extension of Cornell’s mission to build
better futures for troubled children and it is an outstanding supplement
to our recently announced Jos-Arz Residential Treatment Center. Several
months ago, when we entered into a management agreement for the
residential treatment center, we indicated that the program was a
harbinger of more growth in the District of Columbia. We are delighted
that this growth has come so quickly. . . . We continue to grow our
business by taking advantage of opportunities to provide solutions to
our clients and contracting agencies. . . . This new program requires no
additional capital or lease costs and only modest, incremental additions
in staff.”
Less than two years after the Cornell takeover, the school entered
into a probationary period with the Board of Education regarding fiscal
and academic concerns (http://www.k12.dc.us/DCps/boe/announcement/News%20Release%20-%20Board%20Accepts%20Voluntary%20Surrender%20of%20Jos-Arz%20Charter.pdf).
Early in 2006, the school was closed by the DC Board of Education after
millions were lost to the city.
Fenty was both a councilmember, privy to funding decisions on this
charter school, and an early trustee of the charter’s board. DC does
not need to recreate the example of Jos-Arz system-wide. Because Fenty
has not spelled out what he plans to do or how it will change the
challenges that many of the children in the DCPS face every day, there
is no reason to support his proposed take over.
###############
Friday evening, November 17, 2006, I attend a strategy session for
the Citizens for the National Capital Medical Center in Chairman-elect
Vincent Gray’s office. DC healthcare practitioners, Howard University
representatives, and community activists surrounded Gray’s conference
table. I learned a couple of things from that meeting; the first being
that the quick fix proposed by the Mayor’s health care task force has
a couple of gaping holes in it. The proposition: outgoing Mayor Anthony
Williams wants the council to embrace a plan that calls for a Healthplex
to be built on the old DC General site, which will offer emergency care
services, primary and specialty care physician offices, ambulatory
surgery facilities, diagnostic imaging, laboratory, and health education
services. This proposal also calls for the construction of two
ambulatory care centers, one each in Wards 7 and 8. Each center will
offer primary care, specialty care, pharmacy, laboratory, radiology, and
mental health services. Now here are the two problems.
Raymond J. Brown, MD, president of Doctors Council said, “This is
Band-Aid primary care and not real primary care, which is what’s
needed.” I asked him to explain, and he continued, “What the mayor’s
health care task force is proposing will never work because the
specialists will not participate in that community. The difference
between primary care and Band-Aid primary care is that in an effective
primary care model, a patient goes to his or her doctor and if a problem
is diagnosed, the patient is referred to a specialist for treatment.
Both primary care physician and specialist are fully engaged in the
process of health care delivery. In the proposed model, a patient will
go to one of these clinics to see their doctor, but there won’t be a
specialist to refer them to after a problem has been diagnosed — that’s
the Band-Aid.” So the patient’s problem gets worse, and when they
finally end up in a hospital the costs rise exponentially. Dr. Brown
said, “I would prefer a model that begins with a Level-1 trauma center
with a full service in-patient care hospital as the anchor to a health
care delivery network, which will then attract specialists and primary
care physicians under the umbrella of a teaching institution.”
That brings us to the second problem with the task force proposal. I
recently obtained a memo dated November 9, addressed to The Honorable
Linda W. Cropp, Chairman of the Council of the District of Columbia from
Natwar M. Gandhi, Chief Financial Officer. The subject of this memo:
Fiscal Impact Statement: “Community Access to Health Care Omnibus
Amendment Act of 2006.” The conclusion of this memo reads: “The
mayor’s health care task force proposal will cost an estimated $169
million in fiscal year 2007, money that will come from the $245 million
in net proceeds from the DC Tobacco Settlement. However, it is important
to stress that the approval of the authorization of a Healthplex and the
construction of two ambulatory care centers build in a potential
commitment of future/long term costs (operating and capital) for which
there is, at present, no future financial plan.” So what Mr. Gandhi is
saying is that we have the money to build this thing, but there is no
real data to support what it will end up costing us to operate and
maintain it for the long haul.
Meanwhile, Howard University representative Chris Hopson said, “In
our proposal for the National Capital Medical Center (NCMC), the
District’s commitment would have been just the $200 million initial
investment.” In their proposal, Howard University would be responsible
for all future operational and capital costs of the NCMC. So, on one
hand, we have an idea of what the costs will be with the Howard deal,
and on the other hand we have a solid start up figure. From there, the
numbers get fuzzy. This scenario sounds awfully similar to the old bird
in the hand is better than two in the proverbial bush.
The next day I attended a panel discussion on statehood at the
University of the District of Columbia sponsored by Stand Up for
Democracy. The panelists were Johnny Barnes of the ACLU, Timothy Cooper
of Worldrights, Marilyn Preston-Killingham of Stand Up, and statehood
activists Samuel Jordan and Joyce Robinson-Paul. All the panelists gave
convincing arguments on why the HR-5388 Bill written by Virginia
Representative Tom Davis (R) and cosponsored by DC Delegate Eleanor
Holmes Norton (D) is a raw deal for the District. Timothy Cooper, a
specialist in international human rights, gave the most compelling
statement by linking the Davis-Norton Bill to a time when African
Americans were defined as three-fifths of a human. Cooper said, "If
we accept one vote in the House and nothing in the Senate, then we’re
essentially saying that we accept our place as being only one-third of
an American."
Why would the Washington Post’s editorial board endorse a
bill that continues to relegate the people of the District of Columbia
to second-class citizenship status? Is it all about a vote for Del.
Norton? Why else would she settle for less than our birth right as
Americans? The Davis-Norton bill also gives Utah an additional seat in
the House. Why should our continued struggle for democracy be linked to
any other state? And why is it that this bill also stipulates that the
State of Utah will receive an additional Electoral College vote for
President and nothing extra for the District? Knowing that Utah is a GOP
stronghold, is Rep. Davis trying to stack the deck for more Republican
votes in the 2008 race for the White House? Finally, now that the
Democrats have regained control of both houses of Congress, why would
Norton support a strategy that does nothing more than strengthen the
position on the other side of the aisle? Is this the thanks we get for
faithfully voting Delegate Norton back in to office for a 9th term? It
makes you wonder whether we’d be better off with a vacancy in that
position until we get a true champion for democracy for the citizens of
the District of Columbia.
###############
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