Commitment
Dear Committed:
In the August 26 issue of themail, Lee Hendricks asked whether
General Counsel Peter Nickles would be moving into the District of
Columbia, as District law requires him to do and as he promised to do
when Mayor Fenty appointed him. Yolanda Woodlee has answered that
question definitively today: Nickles won’t consider living in this
city, and has no intention of doing so (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/01/AR2007090101237.html).
In my answer to Hendricks, I suggested that Nickles would probably ask
the city council for an exemption from the law that requires excepted
and executive service employees of the city government to live within
DC. Woodlee reports that Nickels would probably have a hard time
convincing the council that there is a compelling reason to give him a
waiver from the law.
Therefore, he has, typically, come up with a quirky, eccentric
misinterpretation of the law that serves his self-interest. The general
law requiring high-level appointees in the District government to live
in the District is DC Code §1-609.06. Nickles and Mayor Fenty are
contending that this residency requirement doesn’t apply to attorneys
— because, of course, there is such a shortage of lawyers in the
District that attorney positions are hard to fill — and they are
arguing that when the city council tightened residency requirements in
2002 it left a loophole for lawyers through which Nickles can slip.
Nickles hasn’t restricted himself to acting as Fenty’s General
Counsel. Instead, he has an almost unlimited portfolio. He been involved
in most of the major policy and litigation issues that have confronted
this administration. He is the primary negotiator of DCPS Superintendent
Janey’s buyout, the major drafter of the administrations’ policy to
erase its E-mail history, and the leading representative of the District
government in its defense of the mistreatment of retarded and
disabled patients under the care of group homes. He is the only eminence
grise in this administration; his power and influence far exceed that of
City Administrator Dan Tangherlini. His importance makes it even more
vital that he obey the law himself and live in the city over which he
has such power and control. Harold Foster argues, below, that Mayor
Fenty’s failure to enroll his own children in the school system that
he controls casts doubt on his confidence in and commitment to his
school reform efforts. Nickles’ refusal to live in the city that he
helps govern casts the same shadow over him.
Larry Seftor and Bill Coe, below, take one more round in their
criticism of themail. I won’t reply again, in order to emphasize that
this dead horse need not be beaten any further. Please, kind
respondents, get us started on some new subjects. What's happening in
your neighborhoods?
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Not Good Enough for Him
Harold Foster, Petworth, incanato@earthlink.net
I confess to being surprised that here, and throughout the city
generally, more skeptics about the mayoral takeover of DC Public Schools
have not (well, not yet) noted that, according to the Post, Mayor
Fenty has both of his children in private school. Whatever happened to
the Hammurabic principle that the engineer who built the bridge had to
stand under it while the emperor rode his chariot back and forth across
it? How about the public school sauce being good for both the mayor’s
gander as well as us mere mortal geese?
You know, I distinctly recall that Clifford Alexander immediately
lost credibility during a mayoral race in this town, when it got out
that his children were not only in private school, but private schools
outside the city. Then, again in 1998, then-councilmember and mayoral
hopeful Kevin Chavous was taken to task — rightly — for having
removed his son from a public school, claiming that his celebrity status
as a councilmember was “creating issues” between his son and that
school’s principal. I mean, when I had issues with my teachers in the
DC public schools, my semi-sainted mother dropped by for a chat with
them and, about 90 percent of the time, the issues left the school when
my mother did. So my mother apparently has greater people skills than a
councilmember presuming to run for mayor.
Seems to me something similar is going on now and I am struck by how
little controversy and how few eyebrows it has raised. We have a mayor
who wants control over a municipal service that he doesn’t trust to
adequately serve his own two children. Huh? The contradiction is even
more glaring now for Fenty than for either Alexander or Chavous. That’s
because, both councilmember and now Mayor Fenty publicly (and rightly,
though hypocritically) opposed the private school voucher program here.
Sounds kind of dog-in-the-manger, since his own children are in one of
those very private schools that the voucher program has benefited. I
mean, hello. At least both Chancellor Rhee and Deputy Mayor for
Education Reinoso enrolled their children in the public school system
they are claiming they will radically transform and improve. What about
The Boss? And I raise these questions as someone who has voted for Fenty.
Three times.
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A Legend in My Own Mind
Bill Coe, bceedeec@aol.com
This responds to Mr. Imhoff’s opening piece of themail on August
30, which refers to my assertion that he is guilty of an ugly desire to
see Schools Chancellor Rhee fail. Okay, my stated opinion on this was
immoderate; it was perhaps a touch malicious; but it is not (as he puts
it) fantasy. It arises from what Mr. Imhoff says, not from what he
claims to feel. Mr. Imhoff defends himself by declaring he always writes
in the hope that Fenty and Rhee will succeed with our schools. I’ve
gone back and read through numerous editions of themail without finding
much to support this statement. Indeed, I find much to refute it.
He continues, for example, to mischaracterize Ms. Rhee’s remarks on
following rules. He quotes her directly on this. Addressing her staff,
Rhee said they should focus exclusively on students’ needs, and if
they need to break or circumvent a rule, so be it. “I refuse to be
hamstrung by rules and regulations that are not serving our students.”
In other words, don’t pass up an opportunity to help students by
rigidly and mindlessly adhering to written rules or procedure. There’s
nothing revolutionary about this; she’s empowering her employees to
rise above being mere bureaucrats and use professional judgment in
accomplishing their mission. Imhoff corrupts this principle and turns it
into a possible apology for crimes committed in the office of charter
schools. The perpetrator, Ms. Belton, makes no bones about her motives;
she never claimed to be acting for the benefit of students; she openly
admits to taking advantage of a poorly controlled organization (created
and overseen by the board Mr. Imhoff misses so much) in order to enrich
herself. This behavior is hardly what Chancellor Rhee has in mind in
telling her employees to do what they must to help our students. On the
contrary, she is gently suggesting to them that failing to do what they
must will no longer be excused by a slavish and narrow reading of any
rule book. I say bravo to that!
This is all akin to the punishment meted out in themail to Deputy
Mayor Reinoso for his supposed plagiarism — as if his work on the
schools proposal was part of a creative writing assignment. Talk about
malicious fantasy! Reinoso was not offering what he wrote as a scholarly
work or original fiction. He was simply trying to put some useful ideas
across. Period. His crime was borrowing the thoughts of other experts in
the field. For this, he was subjected to endless carping and caviling in
this publication. Mr. Imhoff needs to get real. He laments the corrosion
of democracy, as seen in the decline of our feckless school board. He
doesn’t see the plain truth -- that DC’s voters decided to transfer
control of our schools from one elected institution to another. For
better or worse, accountability for educational results in this city
will now reside in a single office — Mayor Fenty’s — which makes
the job of us citizens rather easier than it was: If we don’t like the
results, we can go to the polls and get rid of the guy who produced
them, instead of whittling away at a bunch of poorly performing
executive directors. I believe this arrangement falls within the proper
bounds of democracy. I see a chance of success in the new approach to DC’s
schools. I didn’t under the old regime. I would just like to see that
chance given a little respect in themail.
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Correction
Larry Seftor, Ward 3, larry underscore seftor .them757 at
zoemail.net
I would like to correct the following assertions about me in the last
edition of themail. 1) I am not a strong champion of Mr. Fenty. Based on
the Sinclair Skinner business that I documented here prior to the
election, I decided to vote for Ms. Cropp, rather than Mr. Fenty.
However, I recognize that Mr. Fenty was elected by a large majority from
every part of the city and I respect the way he won the job. He earned
it. 2) I am not a strong champion of the school takeover plan. In fact I
have not expressed an opinion on it. However, I note that what happened
to the school board is not a subversion of democracy. The changing role
of the board was effected by duly elected representatives. I view this
as democracy at work. 3) I am not a strong champion of Ms. Rhee. I am
completely neutral towards Ms. Rhee and am waiting to judge her
performance following a reasonable period of time, as I have recently
written. 4) Finally I have not insisted “that there be no criticism of
Mayor Fenty, his school takeover, or Chancellor Rhee.” Instead I have
presented a process-based approach based on evaluating Ms. Rhee’s
performance on the degree to which she meets established goals, within
established time frames and parameters. If she fails to meet established
goals, then she will be ripe for criticism. I know it is more fun to
make this personality-based, but a little objectivity might do everyone
some good.
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Hey, Wow, A Brand New Overcrowded Grade Level
Intersection for Only $25 Million
Len Sullivan, lsnarpac@bellatlantic.net
How come none of themail’s sharp-eyed activists have weighed in on
DDoT’s latest gift to our nation’s capital? In less than eight weeks
of bonus-winning effort, the South Capitol Street overpass above the
until-now little-used West end of Potomac Avenue has been replaced by a
grade level, stoplight-burdened intersection. The new baseball stadium
is right smack on its northeast corner, and the Avenue will be a major
part of the new high-density development all around the park. Within two
years, it will surely be among DC’s ten busiest intersections, and may
well join the list of most dangerous as well. It could be killing
pedestrians, cyclists, drivers and/or beer-soaked fans by next summer.
Let’s hope DDoT has the prescience to incorporate commemorative niches
for plastic flowers and teddy bears into the basic design of the
crossing.
This feat of transportation foresight is being billed by city
officials for two outstanding features. The first is to make this nexus
a better walker and biker "experience" by merging them with a
huge traffic flow. Most of the more than seventy thousand daily commuter
and commercial vehicles consider this gateway to downtown a throughway,
not a destination. (It is a major 24/7 arterial for heavy trucks.)
Second, echoes the mayor, this marks "the rebirth of the South
Capitol Street corridor as a grand urban boulevard." Too bad this
urban boulevard doesn’t reach all the way to the Capitol any more,
because of seemingly permanent security barriers at C Street! Will DDoT
decide next to lower the CSX and Amtrak railroad bridges to boulevard
grade level to improve the trucking experience? Wouldn’t it make more
sense to invest in vehicle-free promenades for people, and tunnels for
through traffic? Should city planners take a look at NARPAC’s
suggestions at http://www.narpac.org/REXLRPRO.HTM#ncpca!Pst?
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
DC Public Library Events
Randi Blank, randi.blank@dc.gov
Wednesday, September 5, 6:30 p.m., Northeast Neighborhood Library,
330 7th Street, NE. Capitol Hill Mystery Book Club. Please call 698-3320
for the book title for September’s meeting.
Thursday, September 6, 12:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial
Library, 901 G Street, NW. Brown Bag Recital. Vasily Popov, cellist, and
Ralitza Patcheva, pianist, and guest artist Nicolas Pellon, pianist,
perform the music of Schumann.
Thursdays, September 6-September 27, 1:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m., Martin
Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW, 2nd Floor East
Lobby. Separate Realities: A Philosophical Film Series. The Philosophy
Division presents a film series celebrating alternative spiritual and
philosophical views. Please call 727-1270 for more information.
September 6, What the #$*! Do We Know!? (2004), Rated R; September 13,
The Celestine Prophecy (2006), Rated PG; September 20, Conversations
with God (2006), Rated PG; September 27, The Secret.
Thursday, September 6, 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 White Castle by Orhan Pamuk. Call 727-1264 for more
information.
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