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April 1, 2007

No Joke

Dear April Fools Pranksters:

Nothing in this issue of themail, at least to my knowledge, is an April Fools joke. There is no events listing for a snark hunt.

But there are a few unbelievable things that may as well be April Fools pranks. Among them is the reckless budget behavior of Mayor Fenty and his staff, detailed by P. Walters and Dorothy below. The silly scheme to provide no funding for the Offices of Personnel and Contracting and Procurement is surely a joke. What is beyond humor is the Fenty administration’s casual disregard of the law in funding the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education, the first step in Fenty’s plan to build a duplicate schools bureaucracy within the mayor’s office. As Dorothy points out, Fenty has completely ignored the legal requirements for funding this Deputy Mayor’s office. In the same way, he has funded a rally to support a Congressional vote for Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton by taking the funds that the city council appropriated specifically for a parade to commemorate Emancipation Day.

Fenty seems to believe that, as mayor, he should be able to do what he wants with city funds, without regard for the budget that was passed by the city council and approved by Congress. That was the attitude that got the city in such financial difficulty in the 1980’s and early 1990’s, and that made the city’s budget a fictional document. The question is whether anyone has the power, the authority, and the will to hold the mayor to the budget, and make him obey the law. So far, the answer seems to be no. But if Fenty is allowed to get away with disregarding the budget this early in his term, it will only encourage larger abuses in the future.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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Silly Season or Fiscal Madness?
P. Walters, konetidy@gmail.com

What kind of silly season is going on with our elected government in DC these days? The week brought several stories that makes one wonder if there is any sense of accountability to taxpayers. First, we saw an unbalanced budget presented to the council, with key departments such as Personnel essentially unfunded because of reliance on a goofy transfer-pricing scheme cooked up by . . . who? In this game, the Personnel Department charges all the other departments for its services, but the rest of the government isn’t budgeted anything to pay for those services. What’s the point, anyway? An already dysfunctional department that treats employees like annoyances will be focused on internal games more than ever, as it wastes time on phony interdepartmental negotiations on funny-money fees.

Next, we hear about the decision not to finish work on the West Virginia Avenue vehicle inspection station because -- well, we’re not sure why. Williams and Fenty spent $8 million, and DC will probably have to refund the feds $3.5 million, making this a nearly $12 million goof up.

Finally, we read in Colbert King’s most recent column [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/30/AR2007033001790.html] about the $1.1 million that Reinoso is spending on himself and his staff, but his guy Eric Lerum couldn’t account for what those people did, when Fix Our Schools asked for that information. Of course, if the Superintendent winds up reporting to Reinoso, those staff costs will skyrocket, because Reinoso won’t want to make less than his direct reports. So is someone at the Wilson building printing all the money needed to pay for this stuff? Let’s hope so, because taxpayers should be tired of getting gouged like this.

[Two points: DC used to require yearly car inspections, and Mayor Williams reduced inspections to once every two years because the West Virginia Avenue station opening kept getting delayed, even though it was repeatedly announced. Second, both the Office of Procurement and the Office of Personnel are completely defunded in the mayor’s proposed FY 2008 budget, and the other agencies and departments aren’t budgeted any additional funds to pay for either of these services that they are supposed to "purchase" from these two Offices. This scheme was devised by Mayor Fenty, City Administrator Dan Tangherlini, and Chief of Budget Execution Will Singer. — Gary Imhoff]

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Lawless Spending
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com

In his Saturday column, “Cleaning Up in the Name of DC’s Schools,” Colbert King notes that “an education empire is being built” by Mayor Fenty even before the city council’s vote on his school takeover proposal. The column also notes that Fenty’s Deputy Mayor for Education, Victor Reinoso, is receiving a salary of $175,000, and details how Reinoso has already assembled a staff of eleven people “at a cost to DC taxpayers of $1,137,291.”

While the Fenty administration has provided information suggesting that the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education has eleven full-time employees, sources in the Wilson Building indicate that the true staffing level is already eighteen, and growing. Staff recruitment and personnel interviews have been ongoing for the past several months. Moreover, I have asked the mayor and the Chief Financial Officer’s office how the Education Office is being funded. Since the FY2007 budget was developed last spring by Mayor Williams, it never contemplated Fenty’s proposal to take over DC’s public schools and create the position and office of Deputy Mayor for Education. According to the mayor, he decided to abolish three offices that were staffed and fully funded in the FY2007 budget, the Office of Deputy Mayor for Operations, the Office of Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice, and the Office of Deputy Mayor for Children, Youth, Families, and Elders. Fenty says that he shifted funds from the three abolished offices to the newly created Office of Deputy Mayor for Education. (Fenty retained only one of the previous Deputy Mayor offices, that of Planning and Economic Development.) Under District law, DC Code Sec. 47-363 et al., Fenty’s actions in creating and funding the new office are illegal, since he failed to submit a reorganization and reprogramming of funds plan to the council and Congress for approval.

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The Hijacking of ANC2C
Richard Rogers, rrwashingtondc@verizon.net

This is to let you all know that our Advisory Neighborhood Commission, ANC 2C, has been officially hijacked. This is an SOS distress call! Last month’s meeting was abruptly canceled and never rescheduled. Now the meetings are being held wherever the (unelected) representative of the chairman (Doris Brooks) wants them to be held, even though the commission voted three to one to hold meetings in one specific location all year long. The meetings are being moved as to avoid being recorded, because those in control don’t want the public to see who really runs this commission and how commissioners are manipulated as another commissioner sleeps. I can’t really say where Phil Mendelson is when all this is going on; can you? Stay tuned.

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Democracy in DC? As Easy as A-N-C?
Dennis Jaffe, DennisJaffe@Gmail.com

Advisory Neighborhood Commissions in the District of Columbia have a very important role in making decisions affecting, for example, local business licenses, traffic, and development. Dedicated commissioners represent their constituents to advocate for better services.

Yet, what’s the percentage of people who know: what ANC stands for, other than the African National Congress? What an ANC’s role is? The name of their ANC commissioner? How to contact their ANC commissioner? And to top it off, which ANC . . . let alone which Single Member District they live in?

Do you think this is really important to do something about -- from a perspective that focuses on both Civics 101 and more practically on improving the quality of our daily lives in our neighborhoods? If you do, I’d like to hear from you. Please E-mail me.

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A $1.75 Million Paperweight
Ed T Barron, edtb1@macdotcom

Almost two years ago American University bought the house across 48th Street, NW, from the AU Law School. They paid a megabuck for the house and then proceeded to spend another $750 thousand (estimated) in additions and complete refurbishment. Ostensibly, this was done to house visiting professors and family. To date the property has been empty except for aborted attempts to use the facility as a conference center. That use was thwarted by threats of a lawsuit by local property owners, since the property is residential only. The only occupants are the security guards who come and go during the day and in the night hours. This has turned the property into the equivalent of a very costly paperweight.

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Video Commentary on This Week’s News
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com

DC public schools raise their graduation requirements and the Washington Post redesigns (redecorates?) the front page of its web site. Can you discern any parallels in the decision making behind these initiatives? See http://youtube.com/watch?v=NsWYJR44z18 for some ideas.

For those who might be interested, I used Windows Movie Maker 2 (a free program) to capture this video from my Logitech Webcam, a fairly inexpensive consumer device. I trimmed the beginning of the video with a quick edit to remove the part where I’m looking completely baffled and confused. I then saved this video for the web by choosing Finish Movie/Save to My Computer from the left panel of Windows Movie Maker. The video compression setting I chose was Video for Broadband (512 kbps), because someone smart told me that’s a good setting for YouTube videos. I should have toned down the brightness of this video before capturing it, as my yellow shirt shows up too brightly. There’s a software setting that lets people choose the brightness of the video they’re capturing. Next time.

And a quick correction: the Washington Post redesigned the front page of it web site, not its newspaper. I made an error on this in the above video.

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US District Court
Andy Catanzaro, catanzaroa@gmail.com

I have been summoned to be a juror in the US District Court. Isn’t there a protest where DC residents are refusing to serve due to our lack of representation? Who could advise me on this effort?

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Wilson High School Teachers Discuss a Heavier Workload or Loss of Humanities Electives
Erich Martel, Wilson High School, ehmartel at starpower dot net

This past Wednesday, Wilson High School teachers met to consider a schedule change to meet the new Board of Education graduation requirements. The principal proposed that the school replace the current seven-period AB schedule (three ninety-minute periods that meet every other day, alternating with three other ninety-minute periods, and a fifty-five-minute period that meets every day) with an eight-period AB schedule (four eighty-minute periods that alternate with four other eighty-minute periods). That would require teachers to teach six classes every two days (three each day), instead of the current five classes every two-day period.

It was explained that remaining on the present seven-period schedule would result in the loss of elective courses in art, music, social studies, foreign languages, physical education, etc. The Board of Education’s decision to increase specifically designated requirements to 22.5 credits or Carnegie units (more than all fifty states) and cut elective requirements from 4.5 to 1.5 credits (fewer than forty-two states) is forcing our staff to choose between a heavier workload (six classes) and eliminating important electives -- and losing important teachers of these subjects. Students in Wilson’s academies would have to choose between pursuing a foreign language or electives in art, drama, or social studies, and meeting academy requirements.

The humanities (including elective courses in art, music, advanced levels of foreign languages, social studies electives in history and global issues — each of which has offered countless Wilson students a structure for self-discipline and a path to achievement) have been unnecessarily pitted against improved achievement in math and science. Many teachers felt that they were being forced to take responsibility for the consequences of an ill-considered Board decision. In face of the strong opposition to the eight-period day, the faculty vote was postponed until after spring break.

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Where Is the Balance?
Sam Jordan, samunomas@msn.com

HR-1433, sponsored by Eleanor Holmes Norton (Del.-DC) and Tom Davis (R-VA) proposes that a new voting seat for the District of Columbia in the House of Representatives be balanced with a seat for Utah. Balancing is one of the two traditional tactics employed to grant Congressional representation to a jurisdiction featuring a nonwhite numerical majority in its population. The tandem entry of Alaska and Hawaii in 1959 is the best example of this racial balancing. While we have been lead to believe that the purpose of balancing is the maintenance of bipartisan neutrality, the Congressional Record contains language that reveals the truth of the technique’s utility -- nothing of value for non-whites without something of equal or greater value for whites.

Lyndon Baynes Johnson led the opposition to statehood for Hawaii. He feared that Hawaii would send a delegation to Congress that would "oppose segregation." Other members of Congress declared that Hawaiians were not sufficiently “American.” Even though Hawaii applied for statehood in 1903, it experienced the second-longest delay between application and grant -- 56 years. Alaska, with its white majority, was admitted ahead of brown-skinned Hawaii — the only deal that Johnson would accept. The longest wait for the grant of statehood is the record held by New Mexico, 62 years. Is it merely coincidental that New Mexico, which was described in the April 1, 1876, Harper’s Weekly as “. . . an ignorant, foreign community . . . nine tenths Mexicans, Indians, ‘greasers’ and other non-English speaking people,” did not become a state until the census of 1910 confirmed a white majority? This rejection of the nonwhite numerical majority until its replacement with a white majority is the second of the two traditional tactics used when a territory with a nonwhite majority population has sought to increase its democratic representation. No other options have been available. Is it coincidental that all US jurisdictions with white majorities are “states” and that all the current US territories, including the District of Columbia, have nonwhite majorities — and also have no realistic prospects of achieving full Congressional representation?

If HR 1433 passes, Utah will have an additional vote in the Electoral College in the presidential election of 2008, because it is a state. That vote may be decisive. The District will not gain additional Electoral College strength. Does this still sound like bipartisan neutrality and political “balancing?”

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Water Lead Line Replacement
Greg DuRoss, washgreg@verizon.net

A few observations from one who has been through it. With a few helpful exceptions, the WASA folks at the lead line replacement office are woefully inadequate to the task. We on Caroline Street, NW, got so many different answers to our inquiries that we lost track in our attempts to understand what was going on. One day two different residents got two different start dates that were weeks apart! Their database appears to be highly inaccurate (which we should remember is not the current employees fault).

Expecting the worst, I think that it is fair to say that we were pleasantly surprised by our experience with the contractor doing the work. Clearly they were more competent. Test pit sizes were small, and they seemed to make an effort to minimize damage. If paperwork had not been received to provide for the private property portion replacement, they accommodated people on the spot, and they even made a serious effort to clean up the street at the end of each day. What is surprising is that the woeful contract management by WASA on this massive project has not gotten any better with the passage of time. Our councilmembers and District leaders need to apply some pressure so that things improve during the remainder of this multi-year project.

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Taxes and Texas
Bill Coe, bceedeec@aol.com

This is a single posting on two items in themail of March 28. In response to Carl’s piece on tax-return software, I can report good results with both Quicken’s TurboTax and H&R Block’s TaxCut. These tools make writing tax returns pretty easy, although it irks me that DC — unlike the federal government — provides no electronic filing option, which means printing out a return on paper and then writing a check.

As for the advantage of one filing status over another, no tax-preparation program for DC will (to my knowledge) simultaneously calculate a married couple’s bill for the three options available to Washingtonians — married filing jointly, married filing separately, and married filing separately on one return. The reason for this is probably that the separately-on-one-return option requires married taxpayers to divide the numbers for each line item between the two spouses which, of course, the software can’t do. The division of income, allowances, etc., does affect the bottom line on DC returns. I can state with fair confidence that, in choosing married filing separately on one return, Carl will almost always end up with a lower tax bill. When I first discovered the advantage of this option, I’d already paid taxes in DC for several years as married filing jointly. The savings from filing separately on one return were large enough to justify going back and submitting amended returns for previous years. Unless something has changed, this advantage still exists, and I would no longer bother to compare results for the three filing statuses.

In response to Mr. Orvetti’s piece on voting representation, if enfranchisement is to be merely a numbers game, then let’s not pick on all those small states with populations comparable to DC’s; this complicates the problem politically. Let’s instead aim at one large state -- thus preserving the size of our Union and simplifying the task. I nominate Texas. It’s mostly empty space anyway -- both topographically and intellectually. Had Texas not enjoyed representation in our system, think of the pain and embarrassment we might have avoided during the past few years. Think, too, of the benefit to DC from having such a large jurisdiction argue on our side for a change.

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Jack Evans Has a Choice
Jeffrey Menzer, jalanmenz@gmail.com

[A response to “Give Jack a Choice,” Phil Carney, themail, March 28] Jack already has a choice — the box at the baseball stadium. Can we FOIA the list of beneficiaries of this kickback to the elected officials?

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Freedom of Information Request
Peter Craig, swedecraig@aol.com

On March 28, I hand-delivered the following appeal under the DC Freedom of Information Act. Dear Mayor Fenty, On behalf of myself and the thousands of DC homeowners who suffer from the cloak of secrecy by which the Office of Tax and Revenue (OTR) issues its annual real property assessments, I respectfully ask you to review the denial of my Freedom of Information Act request, issued by Angela Y. Washington, FOIA officer of OTR, on March 21, attached as Exhibit 1. This appeal is being filed under D.C. Code § 2-537 (a), which provides: “Any person denied the right to inspect a public record of a public body may petition the Mayor to review the public record to determine whether it may be withheld from public inspection. Such determination shall be made in writing with a statement of reasons therefor in writing within 10 days (excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays) of the submission of the petition.” I also ask that appropriate fines be issued against Angela Washington and such other persons at OTR who are responsible for the arbitrary and capricious failure to provide the requested public records under DC Code § 2-537 (d), which declares: “Any person who commits an arbitrary or capricious violation of the provisions of this subchapter shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be punished by a fine not to exceed $100.00.”

As you know, I have personally sacrificed much of my time over the past six years in an effort to bring OTR into compliance with the law with respect to its duties to fairly assess residential properties in the District of Columbia. (See my brief to the DC Court of Appeals in Docket No. 06-TX-177, attached as Exhibit A.) The two primary objectives of the DC Code provisions regarding real property assessments, as set forth in D.C. Code § 47-801, are the "equitable sharing of the financial burden of the government of the District of Columbia" and “full public information regarding assessments and appeal procedures.”

In the case now pending before the DC Court of Appeals, the record shows that both of these primary goals were neglected in TY 2002 because of the gross discrimination resulting from a process which was carefully hidden from public scrutiny. The present appeal challenges a holdover practice by OTR to keep its discriminatory practices secret by withholding key public information from the public. Under the Freedom of Information Act, § 2-536(a), there is certain “Information which must be made public.” This includes, in subparagraph (2), “Administrative staff manuals and instructions to staff that affect a member of the public.” Under paragraph (b) of the same subsection (§ 2-536), OTR is required to "make records available on the Internet or, if a web site has not been established by the public body, by other electronic means" whenever such information “must be made public pursuant to this subsection.”

Pursuant to this requirement, OTR commenced publishing on the Internet its “Assessor’s Reference Materials” for TY 2004 assessments. Such publications, however, omitted several key elements involved in the assessment process, including so-called “neighborhood adjustment factors.” As explained on page 28 of the TY 2008 “Assessor’s Reference Materials” (Exh. 2):

The last multiplicative variable, “Sub-Neighborhood Adj. A”, is the local neighborhood multiplier established within the particular neighborhood where the sample home is located. The “Sub-Neighborhood Adj. A” reflects the market-derived fact that location is a very significant factor in the value of real estate. Two otherwise identical homes can have a substantial difference in value based on their locations.

The same “Assessor’s Reference Materials” for TY 2008 confirm that the neighborhood adjustment factor appears on the computer printout (cost.dat sheet) of each residential property assessed. (See Exh. 2, page 44.) These cost.dat sheets are public records, entered into the CAMA computer program by human beings and extracted from the computer program by human beings. All the CAMA program does is to apply the arithmetic formulas which OTR enters into its program.

These neighborhood adjustment factors vary from one neighborhood or sub-neighborhood to another and are used in the assessment of every residential property. Yet, because of the refusal of OTR to reveal its multipliers, the homeowners are deprived of any ability to appeal the level of such multipliers as applied to their own property. They may obtain a cost.dat sheet for their own property, showing the neighborhood multiplier applied to their own property, but they have no way of ascertaining the multipliers applied to properties in other neighborhoods or sub-neighborhoods as unilaterally defined by OTR.

The reason advanced by OTR for not producing the neighborhood adjustment factors applied to each neighborhood and subneighborhood is the claim, as set forth in Angela Washington’s letter of March 21, 2007, attached to her E-mail is that they “do not exist in a public record subject to the FOIA requirements” of the DC Code. She gave a different explanation, however, in the letter mailed to me, which stated: “no functionality currently exists that is capable of extracting the Neighborhood Adjustment Factors from the CAMA programming language, logarithms or tables.” (Exhibit 3)

Neither statement is true. Such records exist on the cost.dat sheets (computer generated sheets) for every assessment of residential houses, as shown in OTR’s own Assessors’ Reference Materials (Exh. 2, pp. 28, 44.) Indeed, Angela Washington has previously conceded that such records existed and had previously agreed to supply them until overruled by some unseen hand at OTR.

Last year I asked for the same materials from OTR. She agreed to supply them. She then wrote me on April 2, 2006, saying “Per your request, please find enclosed . . . the neighborhood adjustment factors being used for each residential neighborhood.” (Exh. 4)

She did not, however, enclose any listing of such neighborhood adjustment factors. I then demanded that she do so. (Exh. 5) By letter of May 18, 2006, she acknowledged that such information had not been enclosed and said that she contacted the Real Property Assessment Division regarding this omission. (Exh. 6) Then on June 1, 2006, David Tseng, a lawyer for OTR, sent me an E-mail (Exh. 7), attaching a letter over the name of Angela Washington, stating for the first time the nonsense that public records on neighborhood adjustment factors were not “public records.” (Exh. 8)

I immediately replied to Mr. Tseng and Ms. Washington by E-mail that neighborhood adjustment factors were indeed “public records,” pointing out that “public records include information stored in electronic format.” D.C. Code § 2-502(18). (See Exh. 9) Neither one replied to my E-mail.

This spring, I addressed an E-mail to Thomas Branham, specifically recommending that the neighborhood adjustment factors applied to each neighborhood and subneighborhood should be included on the Internet publication of the Assessors’ Reference Materials. He replied that they would be made available only on an “individual basis.” (Exh. 10) Now, Angela Washington tells us that they will not be supplied on any basis, because as public records on a computer they are somehow not public records.

Please, Mr. Mayor, stop this stupid nonsense by government officials who owe their employment to our taxes. It is time that they heed the law’s demands for fairness and for transparency.

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

Ward 7 Council Candidate Forums, April 4, 5, 17
Sylvia Brown, sylviabrown1@verizon.net

Countdown to the May 1 special election! Here are upcoming Ward 7 council candidate forums to give you opportunities to meet candidates and their supporters and hear their platforms. Monday, April 2, 6:00 p.m., Johnson Memorial Baptist Church, 800 Ridge Road, SE, sponsors: Baptist Ministers Association. Thursday, April 5, 6:00 p.m., Riverside Center, Division Avenue and Foote Street, NE (Marvin Gaye Park), sponsors: Washington Parks and People, Sierra Club, other environmental groups. Tuesday, April 17, 7:00 p.m., Ward Memorial AME Church (241 42nd Street, NE), sponsors: Central NE Boundary Civic Association.

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DISB Hosts Moneysaving Wednesdays, April 4, 11, 18, 25
Michelle Phipps-Evans, michelle.phipps-evans@dc.gov

During Financial Literacy Month in April, the DC Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking (DISB) will be hosting a series of financial literacy and education seminars every Wednesday from noon to 1 p.m. The brown-bag lunch series, “Moneysaving Wednesdays” will be at its office at 810 1st Street, NE, Suite 701. The topics are Making Saving a Habit (April 4), Five Keys to Investing Success (April 11), ABCs of Saving for Education (April 18) and Planning a Worry Free Retirement (April 25). During the seminars, attendees will be able to sign up as DC Savers. As part of the DCSaves Campaign, DC Savers establish a savings goal, and put aside small amounts of money until they have reached that goal. Several District banks have signed on to the program, offering savings accounts to DC Savers at no cost for 12 months. Participants may even receive one-on-one counseling from one of the DCSaves partners. To RSVP, send an E-mail to Michelle Phipps-Evans at michelle.phipps-evans@dc.gov.

On April 26 at 3 p.m., DISB will be hosting a larger seminar on the “ABCs of Saving for Education” at the Martin Luther King, Jr., Library, 901 G Street, NW, Main Lobby. For more information, call DISB at 727-8000, or visit its web site at http://www.disb.dc.gov.

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DC Public Library Events, April 4, 5
Randi Blank, randi.blank@dc.gov

Wednesday, April 4, 6:30 .m., Chevy Chase Neighborhood Library, 5625 Connecticut Avenue, NW. Green Building Solutions for Washington, DC, a panel discussion about green roofing, trees, and other ways to save energy. Panelists include: Nancy Somerville, Executive VP/CEO of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA); Dennis Carmichael, past President of the American Society of Landscape Architects; and Barbara Deutsch, ASLA Senior Director of Programs and Research at Casey Trees Endowment. Each panelist will make a 15 minute presentation; an open discussion will follow. For more information, call 282-0021

Wednesdays, April 4-25, 7:30 p.m., Tenley Interim Neighborhood Library, 4200 Wisconsin Avenue, NW. Washington Writers Rock! Celebrate National Poetry Month at Tenley Interim Neighborhood Library with readings by local poets. April 4, Men Without Drums; the infamous DC trio celebrates the centennial of W.H. Auden. April 11, Science Fiction and Fantasy, a rapid-fire reading for speculative minds. April 18, Washington Writers’ Publishing House, local poets read and sign their books. April 25, Read Your Favorite Poem! Choose a favorite poem, five minutes or less in length, and share it with your Tenley friends. Child readers welcome!

Thursday, April 5, 12:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW, Room A-5. Brown Bag recital series. Cellist Vassily Popov and pianist Ralitza Patcheva will perform music by Elgar and Schumann. Call 727-1245 for more information.

Thursday, April 5, 2:30 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW, Room 221. Let’s Talk About Books. We will discuss the poetry of Sharon Olds. Call 727-1264 for more information.

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Dialogue with Citizens on the School Takeover, April 11
Dominique West, premiercdc@yahoo.com

Recognizing the fact that the school takeover issue is not over until the legislation is signed by Congress and all legal challenges are exhausted, the debate on the mayor’s proposed takeover of the DC public schools takeover continues. The council vote on the takeover is set for April 3, but there will be plenty of discussion in the aftermath of the vote before it goes to final markup. What are the reactions of the city on the takeover? What can be expected from the takeover?

Join Premier Community Development Corporation (PCDC) and others on Wednesday, April 11, 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., at the North Michigan Park Recreation Center, 13th and Emerson Streets, NE, for a forum on the school governance issue. The forum is entitled Standing Up for Our Children, Families, and Communities: The Role of Government and Stakeholders in Improving Our Schools, Our Neighborhoods. There will be a panel discussion with audience participation. Let’s hear what the next steps are in education reform in the District of Columbia and how we can make this city a special place for all. Will there be a place for stakeholders in the proposed new bureaucracy? The forum is free and open to the public.

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