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November 19, 2006

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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The Devil’s Road
Clyde Howard, ceohoward@hotmail.com

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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Misreporting At-Large Council Votes
Matt Forman, matthew.forman2@verizon.net

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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We Need the New Comprehensive Plan Now
Cheryl Cort, ccort@washingtonregion.net

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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Play Ball, or Get out of the Game
Bill Coe, bceedeec@aol.com

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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The School Takeover Debate
Marchant Wentworth, marchant_wentworth@msn.com

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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The Coming DC Fiscal Crisis
Dennis Moore, mooreforpeople@gmail.com

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.

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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.

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Healthcare and Statehood
Leo Alexander, Ward 4, leo_alexander1@yahoo.com

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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