Dracula
Dear Van Helsings:
Bad ideas are like Dracula: no matter how many times he's staked
through the heart or turns into ashes from being exposed to the
sunlight, he'll rise from the dead to haunt the nights in the sequel.
Today's example comes from the sponsors of the Video Lottery Terminal
Gambling Initiative of 2006, who turned in petitions to the DC Board of
Elections and Ethics to place their initiative on ballot in the next
citywide election, whenever it may be held. They have also filed an
appeal of the November 22, unanimous opinion of a three-judge panel of
the DC Court of Appeals that found that the Video Lottery Terminal
Gambling Initiative of 2006 was not a proper subject for an initiative (http://www.dcwatch.com/election/init20ee.htm).
The Court of Appeals ruled that: “The VLT Gambling Initiative is not a
proper subject of initiative because its adoption would be an attempt to
repeal or amend an Act of Congress which does not apply exclusively to
the District. . . . We declare the VLT Gambling Initiative invalid and
instruct the Superior Court to grant judgment for plaintiffs.”
The Board of Elections and Ethics took the petitions from the
sponsors of the Initiative and marked them as “received but not
accepted.” The Board has said that it will not review or process the
petitions in any way until and unless the Court of Appeals reverses its
opinion. We're confident that the DC Court of Appeals will not reverse
its opinion, which was very tightly and carefully reasoned and written.
Today's actions by the initiative's sponsors are a desperate, last-ditch
tactic that will not succeed.
Gary Imhoff and Dorothy Brizill
themail@dcwatch.com and dorothy@dcwatch.com
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The Department of Public Works recently announced that alternate side
street parking for mechanized street sweeping was suspended from
December 4, 2006, until March 21, 2007. Parking on the south side of
the1700 block of Church Street, NW, is allowed only on Mondays for
alternate side parking/street sweeping. On Monday, December 4, there
were twenty-five DC licensed autos parked unnecessarily on the south
side of the 1700 block of Church, NW. That's twenty-five DC residents in
one block alone who did not get the message about DPW's parking/street
sweeping winter changes. You may draw your own conclusions about whether
DC residents aren't paying any attention or whether DPW is not
adequately getting the word out.
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Some Good Moves
Ed T. Barron, edtb1@macdotcom
Mayor-to-be Fenty has made some good moves already, prior to his
inauguration. He began with announcing some excellent choices for key
personnel in his administration. Fenty has since followed up with
benchmarking visits with key personnel, to see how some other
municipalities are addressing issues that face the new mayor (e.g., who
runs the schools). Recently it was announced that Fenty would be
rearranging the deck chairs in his office. The new configuration would
be similar to that used by NY City's Mayor Bloomberg. That configuration
is a circle of desks surrounding the Mayor and his top aides. In this
manner the Mayor is accessible, unlike the Ivory Tower approach of Tony
Williams, who is isolated from his bureaucracy, and in a manner that
fosters good communications. It seems the new mayor is actually building
a team and exhibiting the traits of a good team leader. A good team
leader does not have to be the smartest dude on the block. He needs only
to be good at letting his key people do what they do best and working as
part of his team.
My only caution to the relentless new (24/7) mayor is that he should
not measure the effectiveness of his key teammates by the number of
hours they put in. He should only measure their performance by results.
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Once again the stupid bug has struck. The DC Government has decreed
that, effective December 1, it is against the law to pass a Metro bus
stopped at the bus stop near a corner to make a right turn. You must
wait behind the bus until it moves, if you need to make a right turn.
The Metropolitan Police Department will issue warning tickets for one
month; after that the ticket will cost $100.
There is a law that forbids right turns from the left lane, which is
the lane that someone would be in who made a right turn in front of a
bus stopped at a bus stop. The charge would be "failing to yield
the right of way," plus an illegal right turn. Now one would think
that if MPD would get up off their lazy butts and enforce the existing
laws on the books and if those representatives of the DC government that
dreamed up this law had researched the traffic laws there would be only
one recourse to resolve the problem, enforce the existing law. However,
did they ever think that that what must a person do when the stop the
bus is standing at is a terminus for that bus? How long would one have
to wait until the the bus moved before making a right turn? Buses do not
have information on their rears giving drivers a heads up as to whether
the bus is shut down, waiting until the scheduled departure time from
the stop if the bus is ahead of time, or broken down. Just remember,
brain storming a problem is not a talent of the DC government; they are
good only for developing more ways to snatch money out of your pocket.
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Another Worst in the Nation
Ed T. Barron, edtb1@macdotcom
The January issue of Car and Driver magazine has the rankings
of the fifty states and the District of Columbia according to their
attractiveness to drivers. The ranking was based on nine statistical
criteria including quality of roads, traffic fatalities, etc.
Washington, DC, came in dead last in the rankings. This means that,
according to the statistics used in the rankings, DC is the worst place
to drive in the entire country. That matches my experience in the
nineteen years I've been here in the District. Most of my complaints
about other drivers are those who come from Maryland. They are the worst
I've ever encountered in more than fifty years of driving. Maryland was
almost as bad for drivers as DC in the rankings. No surprise there.
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Arguments Most Curious
Bill Coe, bceedeec@aol.com
Allow me to publicly thank Mr. Wilson for his interesting remarks [themail,
December 3] on the history behind DC's constitutional standing, the
Supremacy Clause, the Second Amendment, local gambling, gun control, and
how all these issues have been treated in the courts by interested
parties. Isn't it amazing how comfortably one boot fits so many feet! It
appears statehood would be a poor remedy for DC's predicament, and that
perhaps the better option is to preserve our current benighted status.
Is statehood not a goal of dubious utility? In the first place, I'm
not sure becoming a full-fledged state wouldn't cause more problems for
us than it solved. Secondly, I don't think it's going to happen —
never, ever. Our grandchildrens' grandchildren won't be able to promise
DC statehood to their grandchildren. The best we can expect, beyond a
constitutionally suspect swap of House seats with Utah, is retrocession
to Maryland. (That might not be so bad, actually; we would have our
representation, and the political center of gravity in that state would
suddenly be shifted to a point somewhere between RFK Stadium and the
Laurel Racetrack.)
DC's beef has been expressed in the slogan “Taxation Without
Representation.” It's a fair complaint. We're unhappy with a Congress
whose members, unelected by us, meddle in our municipal affairs, often
gratuitously. Consider this notion, though: DC, by virtue of being a
territory or special district or outlier or uberstate or whatever, might
escape the Supremacy Clause along with federal taxation. According to
Mr. Wilson, this has been argued by proponents of the District and
suggested in a ruling from Judge Walton. If it's true, statehood is a
bad deal. Instead of seeking representation, we should do away with
taxation. Imagine it, if the ridiculous became real! The resulting
benefits, unfettered local governance and untaxed wealth, would convert
our city overnight into a kind of American duchy — akin to Monaco, a
place renowned for glittering prosperity. I, for one, could live with
this indignity.
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Brigid Quinn makes an excellent argument [themail, December 3] about
there being too many libraries in DC. In an extra few more minutes on
the subway (which we can “jump on” from whereever we live), we can
be at the Library of Congress. We can accordingly scrap DC's entire
library budget, including that for the MLK library.
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Tenley Library
Martha Saccocio, Friends of the Tenley-Friendship
Library, MarthaNS@aol.com
The Tenley-Friendship Branch Library was one of the most heavily used
libraries in the DCPL system before it was closed for reconstruction. To
have it out of service for almost two years already is a real detriment
to the neighborhood. In addition to having one of the highest
circulations of any branch library, the programs, like the weekly story
times and other children's programs, were heavily attended. After
school, every table in the children's room was filled with children from
neighborhood schools. The branch's position on the Metro meant that it
served people from many neighborhoods, not just the immediate area. Many
senior citizens who live within walking distance of the branch relied on
it for anything from reading the newspaper to taking computer classes or
getting free assistance with filing income taxes. The closure has been a
problem for many neighborhood groups who convened in the meeting rooms.
To those of us who used the Tenley-Friendship Branch on a regular
basis, there has been nothing “quick” about the process of
reconstruction. While many of us appreciate the reasons for the
cancellation of the plans, we are growing increasingly impatient with
the lack of progress on a design for a new permanent branch. I think I
speak for many in the neighborhood when I say that the reconstruction of
the Tenley-Friendship Branch is an urgent priority that needs to begin
moving forward.
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I agree with Brigid Quinn's sensible comment (themail, December 3)
that re-doing Tenley library is not the most important item in the list
of proposed capital spending projects.
But the District's failure to achieve anything there — other than
to pay for an architect's proposal that was rejected — twenty-three
months after the branch library was closed does seem to be symptomatic
of an indigenous capacity for malfeasance or nonfeasance. My sense is
that statehood would mean a larger public payroll — more public
employees not getting things done, or screwing them up.
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In last week’s submission to the mail, New Era of Leadership
(November 29), I stated that the Departments of Mental Health (DMH) and
Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Administration (MRDDA)
were under the oversight of the Committee on Health. That was wrong. One
of Councilmember David Catania’s staffers (B. Young) later set the
record straight; both agencies are under the Committee on Human
Services, chaired by current Ward 4 Council member and Mayor-elect
Adrian Fenty. It was an honest mistake, since the erroneous information
was initially obtained from a Catania staffer, H. Alston in the
Committee on Health. End of story? I wish it were that simple.
How does a $300 million shortfall happen? As reported in the November
28 edition of The Washington Post, the District’s Chief
Financial Officer, Dr. Natwar Gandhi, explained that these two agencies,
DMH and MRDDA, routinely fail to submit the proper paperwork to receive
federal reimbursement for Medicaid and Medicare services. Logical
explanation, right? Again, I wish it were that simple. The question is
whether there are sound processes in place to ensure systemic financial
flaws like these are prevented from ever occurring. What happened to the
checks and balances — the fail-safe triggers up the chain-of-command?
“It’s all a big misunderstanding,” said CFO Public Affairs Officer
Maryann Young. On Monday, December 4, I called the Office of the CFO to
get a lesson in DC budget process 101. “Mr. Alexander, there is no
shortfall . . . these were routine budget pressures,” said Ms. Young,
along with the following written statement: “What the Post
article referenced was some background on the budget process provided
last week to the Fenty transition team last week. This is the
budget process. This has not been identified as a 'shortfall.' Shortfall
usually means there are few or no alternatives to closing the budget
gap, and as Bert Molina, Deputy Chief Financial Officer for budget and
planning explains in the story, there are options here. Let us further
explain that similar pressures have been present through four of the
last five budget cycles. This actually shows that the OCFO is being very
diligent in identifying pressures and looking for ways to meet those
pressures, which include the requested reduction in budgets to all
agencies. Similar reductions have been requested in previous budget
cycles and represent prudent fiscal management.”
So where did the Post get this story about a “shortfall”?
Ms. Young said, “We gave our budgetary information to the Fenty
transition team and in the spirit of transparency they simply
misinterpreted the findings to the Post.” So why didn’t Dr.
Gandhi protest the shortfall slant? Ms. Young replied, “This happens
quite often. Dr. Gandhi’s personal policy is not to respond.” The
bottom line is that Team Fenty didn’t properly understand the nuances
of the 2006 budget and Team Post didn’t do its due diligence in
order to get the proper understanding from Team Gandhi. Don’t you just
love it when the Mayor-elect and the CFO aren’t on the same page; and
the Post compounds the atmosphere of confusion? If this
continues, the incoming Fenty administration could give new meaning to,
“running the city like a business.” This whole story could have been
avoided if the Mayor-elect had someone he trusted at his back with years
of experience in interpreting the intricacies of the District’s budget
process. Avoidable headlines are the last thing a new administration
needs, but nothing teaches that like experience. I recall a joke from my
days in the newsroom that goes — why let the facts get in the way of a
good story. Now I see the scribes at the Post share the same
sense of humor.
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HR 5388: (Non)severability; Electoral College
Votes
Scott McLarty, scottmclarty@hotmail.com
Sam Jordan is correct in all his objections to HR 5388 (“DC
Fairness in Representation Act”), which would grant DC a voting seat
in the House of Representatives, except one. The Section 7 of HR 5388,
titled Nonseverability of Provisions, states, “If any provision of
this Act or any amendment made by this Act is held invalid, the
remaining provisions of this Act or any amendment made by this Act shall
be treated as invalid” (http://www.dcvote.org/advocacy/material.cfm?legID=29).
If the US Supreme Court overturns HR 5388 because the US Constitution
restricts voting representation in Congress to states, then Democratic
DC will lose its new vote, but so will Republican Utah.
However, as Sam has noted elsewhere, HR 5388 will lead to a new
Electoral College vote for Utah, since the number of state electors is
tied to the number of US Representatives, while DC will maintain its
three Electoral College votes. Democrats who plan to vote for HR 5388
will hand more Electoral College power to the Republican Party, giving
the latter a seat that may become the deciding factor in a close
presidential race. For more on various caveats concerning HR 5388, visit
http://www.dcstatehoodgreen.org/float.php?annc_id=176§ion_id=2.
See also the web site of the Stand Up! for Democracy in DC Coalition,
which held a very informative public forum on HR 5388 on November 18, http://www.freedc.org.
For more on how the bid for DC voting representation in Congress has
been used to hinder real democracy for DC (self-determination and
self-government, i.e., statehood), visit “The D.C. Statehood Papers:
Writings on D.C. Statehood & Self-government” by Sam Smith, http://prorev.com/dcsthdintro.htm,
and “Twenty D.C. Citizens Lawsuit: The case for full democracy and
equality,” http://www.dccitizensfordemocracy.org.
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Scott, you may have too much faith in the process. Take a look at
contributions from Jonathan Turley and Tim Cooper as well on this matter
of severability. It is true that the court will not substitute its own
judgment for the actual language of the legislators, but a
nonseverability clause is normally treated as the least binding clause
if there is the possibility that the legislative intent can be achieved.
The legislative intent expressed in the bill is not to grant Utah a seat
only if DC gets a seat. The legislative is to give Utah a seat and to
give DC a seat. Nothing in the legislation can be construed to mean that
Utah is dependent upon the District for its seat even though the
preamble may contain very noble language about the historical lack of
voting representation in Congress for the District.
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The D.C. Voting Rights Act Is Constitutional
Lorelie S. Masters, lmasters@jenner.com
Contrary to recent postings, the DC Voting Rights Act is
constitutional and should be passed to correct one of historic
inequities has afflicted the District. The Constitutional provision on
which Sam Jordan (“Washington, DC, Wants What Utah Wants,” themail,
December 3) relies to argue that the Act is unconstitutional does not
preclude Congress from enacting legislation to give us DC residents a
full vote in the US House of Representatives. That provision, found in
Article I, Section 2, of the Constitution, does state that members of
the House of Representatives shall be “chosen by the people of the
various States.” However, many provisions in the Constitution refer
only to “States.” Despite that fact, courts, including the United
States Supreme Court, have consistently treated DC as a “State” for
constitutional purposes. Thus, courts have ruled that DC residents are
treated like citizens of “States” for many purposes, including: the
power to levy and collect federal income taxes under the 16th Amendment,
federal regulation of interstate commerce, federal court jurisdiction,
and the right to trial by jury under the 6th Amendment.
Other federal legislation has allowed US citizens not present in
their home jurisdictions to vote in Congressional elections. For
example, soldiers stationed overseas are allowed to vote for
Representatives and Senators from the last state in which they resided
before shipping out to their foreign posts, without regard to their
state of residency. The constitutionality of that legislation has never
been challenged, and is unlikely to be so. In addition, eminent legal
scholars have concluded that the Act is constitutional and should be
passed now. Writing in the Washington Times in September 2006,
for example, former federal Judges Kenneth Starr and Patricia Wald
stated that the Voting Rights Act is "consistent with fundamental
constitutional principles; it is consistent with the language of
Congress’s constitutional power; and it is consistent with governing
legal precedents."
Finally, if, after passage, the Act were found unconstitutional, both
DC and Utah would lose the seats in House created by the legislation.
The bill contains the following non-severability clause that provides
that, if DC loses its voting Representative, so does Utah: “Sec. 7.
Nonseverability of provisions. If any provision of this Act or any
amendment made by this Act is held invalid, the remaining provisions of
this Act or any amendment made by this Act shall be treated as
invalid.” The full text of the Act can be found on the web site of DC
Vote, for which I serve as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors. The
bipartisan compromise in the Act has the support of both Republicans and
Democrats on the Hill, a fact that will help promote its passage and
preclude efforts later to take away our vote (as was done with DC's vote
in the Committee of the Whole in 1994 by the then-new Republican
Congress) and disenfranchise the District once again. Mr. Jordan
apparently opposes the VRA because he believes that we residents of DC
deserve more. Surely, he is right that we do deserve the same rights,
and votes in Congress, enjoyed by every other citizen of the United
States. However, until that ideal becomes reality — and indeed to help
achieve it — DC residents should have full voting representation in
the House of Representatives.
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Ward 5 Democrats Holiday Party, December 8
Hazel B. Thomas, thomashazelb@aol.com
You are invited to the Ward 5 Democrats holiday party, Friday,
December 8, 6:00-9:00 p.m., Ellis Island Restaurant at 12th and Quincy
Streets, NE. Special guests, hors d’oeuvres and cheer, cash bar,
dancing. General admission: $10 per person; donors: $25 per person (one
admission and one bar drink); sponsors: $50 per person, two admissions
and ad/listing in program. RSVP: 745-1818 by December 7. Admission can
be paid at the door.
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DC Public Library Events, December 10, 13
India Young, india.young@dc.gov
Sunday, December 10, 2:00 p.m., Chevy Chase Neighborhood Library,
5625 Connecticut Avenue, NW. American University journalism professor
Alicia Shepard will discuss her new book, Woodward and Bernstein:
Life in the Shadow of Watergate.
Wednesday, December 13, 12:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial
Library, 901 G Street, NW, Main Lobby. Harrine Freeman, author of How
to Get Out of Debt: Get an “A” Credit Rating for Free Using the
System I’ve Used Successfully With Thousands of Clients, will
discuss issues such as bankruptcies, judgments, student loans,
delinquent debts, repossessions, how to correct errors and more. For
more information, call 282-0193.
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Antiques of the Future,
December 13
Lauren Searl, lsearl@nbm.org
Wednesday, December 13, 11:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. Interested to know what
the most sought after, valuable collectibles of tomorrow might be? Visit
the Museum Shop for a look into Antiques of the Future. Noted
author Lisa Roberts will be on hand to sign and answer questions about
her latest book on deftly designed, fashion-forward products of today.
National Building Museum, 401 F Street, NW, Judiciary Square stop, Metro
Red Line. Free. Registration not required.
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H Street, NE, Community Carol Sing, December
17
Sharon Cochran, sharondotcochran@verizondotnet
Come join the Capital City Symphony on Sunday, December 17 at 5 p.m.
for a free community carol sing. The event will take place at the
orchestra's new home, the Atlas Performing Arts Center at 1333 H Street,
NE. More information is available at the Capital City Symphony web site:
http://www.capitalcitysymphony.org
or the Atlas site: http://www.atlasarts.org.
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CLASSIFIEDS — VOLUNTEERS
I would like to announce that six schools in the District of Columbia
have received the NASA Space Grant from American University. Each team
will receive $10,000.00 to participate in the US FIRST Robotics
Competion. The schools are: Banneker, Ballou, Friendship Collegiate
Academy (Public Charter School), Roosevelt, Bell Multicultural, and
McKinley Tech.
Each team, along with more than forty other area teams, will attend
the kick off at Capitol College in Laurel, Maryland, to receive the
official challenge. The students then have six weeks to design, build,
and program the robot. In addition, the teams also design a web site,
compose an animation, create an autocad design, and write three essays,
as well as design their marketing strategies. For more information about
US FIRST, go to their web site at http://www.usfirst.org.
If you would like to volunteer your time or resources it would be
greatly appreciated.
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CLASSIFIEDS — SERVICES
Give a Bit of History for the Holidays!
Paul K. Williams, DChouseHistory@aol.com
Ever wondered who lived in your house, who wrote that note on the
wall, or when your addition was built? You can find out, plus a whole
lot more; we research the details of your house history to find out who
owned it, who lived there, who built it and when, who designed it, and
can sometimes even locate living family members of your home’s
earliest inhabitants. Give an attractive gift certificate for your house
history today as a personal and very unique gift! Did you know our house
histories average twenty-five illustrated pages? For a free estimate and
sample history, visit http://www.WashingtonHistory.com.
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