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October 10, 2007

Firings

Dear Long-Lost Friends:

Before we were so rudely interrupted, I promised (themail, September 30) to say why I disagreed with Colbert King’s op-ed article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/28/AR2007092801399.html?sub=AR) supporting Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s and Mayor Adrian Fenty’s plan to fire a lot of DC Public School teachers and administrators. Let me start with teachers. We all know, or at least we have been told, and we all (except for some teacher union officials) agree, on two points: DCPS has some bad teachers, and it’s hard to fire them. On the basis of that agreement, Rhee and Fenty are promoting a plan built on a stereotype: the senior teachers in DCPS are ill educated, unenthusiastic, tired, and uncaring. They should be removed to make room for the new, young teachers that Rhee will recruit, all of whom will be well educated, enthusiastic, energetic, and caring. Think of Jon Voight in Conrack or Edward James Olmos in Stand and Deliver, and imagine a school system with thousands of teachers like them. This is, of course, a crock. Schools need both older teachers, who have gained some wisdom from their experience as they have been worn down by the system, and younger teachers, who still are naive enough to try to conquer the world through their homerooms (think of Sandy Dennis in Up the Down Staircase).

Rhee’s and Fenty’s mistake is to try to institutionalize their stereotypes of teachers, and to resolve the difficulty of firing those teachers who really are bad teachers by eliminating the protections that teachers have against being fired arbitrarily, capriciously, and for improper, political, or personal reasons. What will happen if those protections are eliminated -- I guarantee it — is that teachers will be fired arbitrarily, capriciously, and for improper, political, or personal reasons. Soon arbitrary, capricious, improper, politically and personally motivated firings will outnumber the firings that are done because teachers are incompetent. That will happen unless school administrators are uniformly and unfailingly good, and Rhee and Fenty have assured us that the school system is filled with bad and incompetent administrators. After two or three years of these firings, the word will spread that teachers have no protection in the DC school system, that good teachers are let go because administrators take a personal dislike to them or for no reason at all, and then the DC school system will be unable to recruit all of the thousands of heroic, enthusiastic, but most of all young teachers (think of James Franciscus in Mr. Novak) that will be needed to replace our old, tired, disposable ones. Rhee and Fenty will be able to skate for a few years, but eventually the press will begin to take notice of some of the egregiously unwarranted and unjustified firings, and will begin to ask why DC is unable to recruit new teachers, or why new teachers leave the DC system for nearby jurisdictions after just one or two years, and the story will begin to unravel.

The other group Rhee wants to begin firing is administrators, and she wants to do some arbitrary and capricious firings there herself. Certainly, the DCPS central office is bloated; it has been for decades. But Rhee hasn’t been in office long enough to know who’s good and who’s not, whom to fire and whom to keep. One of the most popular anecdotes she tells to community groups is of her asking DCPS administration officials to describe their jobs, and finding them unable to tell her clearly what their job description is, and what they do. From that, she draws the conclusion that they’re unnecessary, and should be fired. That gets her applause, but she’s actually picturing herself as an inexperienced, clueless public manager by drawing that conclusion. Workers in a government bureaucracy don’t write their own job descriptions and give themselves job assignments. Their bosses do that. If workers in DCPS central office don’t have clear job descriptions and assignments, the blame belongs not to them, but to people two, three, or four levels above them in the bureaucracy. What Rhee is describing is actually a public administrator’s dream — extra workers, extra bodies who don’t have anything in particular to do. Fenty and Rhee have told us that the amount of work that has to be done at DCPS is far beyond what they originally thought. Well, give these people jobs to do. Give them new job descriptions and assignments, doing what Rhee thinks needs to be done. Train them to do these jobs, and give them an opportunity to do them. If they fail at their jobs, then is the time to fire them. But don’t come in starting your administration by swinging a meat ax, when you don’t have any idea whom to cut.

Why has themail been absent? It’s been a comedy of errors, and you don’t want to hear about it. Okay, since you insist, I’ll tell you. The Pepco line between the street and our house failed about three weeks ago, so we didn’t have electricity. The line finally got fixed last Friday (only through the intervention of the Public Service Commission and the People’s Counsel -- Pepco originally gave us a repair schedule of two months, and then tried to claim to the PSC that their line to the house hadn’t failed, but that we had had a fire inside the house). In the meantime we brought in a generator, so we had electricity to send out one issue of themail, and I was able to send out a second issue to a small portion of subscribers before my outgoing E-mails got blocked again. But every time we shut down the generator at night, the router for broadband service got reset with a new IP address, so the setting that gave me permission to send mass E-mails through Comcast got lost. When I tried to get that restored, I ran into a succession of rude and hostile "customer service" people at Comcast who basically called me a liar for telling them that I had been using the Comcast service for years to send themail. I decided to send themail through DCWatch’s web hosting service, but that required upgrading the service plan and moving the web to a new server at the web host. The web hosting service misconfigured the new server, and it took several days to get that straightened out. It just got fixed (cross your fingers for luck) today. Now I believe I can send themail through that server, but this is the first experiment. The remaining problem is that I can send only plain text, not HTML, messages to mass mailing lists -- so goodbye color, goodbye bolding and italics, goodbye different-sized fonts. I’ll include the web address of each issue right under the title, so if you want to read themail with all those clues for easier scanning, just click on it.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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Resolution on Charter Schools
Joseph Fengler, fengler6a02@yahoo.com

[A resolution of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6A]: We strongly request that the Public Charter School Board (PCSB) reconsider their stated position on enforcing the DCMR [DC Municipal Regulations] prior to approving charter schools in the District of Columbia. Accountability and transparency are critical to ensure that charter schools are opened in our city in accordance with the law. Abdicating the oversight role inherent in the approval process is a recipe for disaster. We believe PCSB can accomplish this task of oversight by developing a simple check list that required each applicant to certify they are in compliance with all relevant zoning, health and safety regulations. This check list could be included with the existing paperwork required to approve a charter school. Effective coordination is the underpinning of any successful government function. Passing responsibility is not the hallmark of effective leadership. We encourage this be minor policy change be implemented immediately.

At our regularly scheduled meeting on September 13, 2007, we voted unanimously to ask the Public Charter School Board to abide by the current regulations of the District of Columbia in siting new and expansion charter schools. The Zoning Commission has promulgated two changes to the zoning regulations governing the siting of public schools in residential neighborhoods (ZC Orders 06-06 and 07-03). The new requirements specify minimum lot size (9,000 sq. ft. in duplex and row house neighborhoods), the number of street frontage parking slots to be required (six), the number of parking spots for staff, and a required minimal length of street frontage (120 feet).

At its hearing of March 19, 2007, the Tri-Community Public Charter School came before the PCSB for review of its status of "charter warning." As part of that review Chair Tom Nida proposed expansion of the school into a nearby residential property. Mr. Nida had been part of the Zoning Commission charter school hearings and the subsequent briefings by the Office of Planning. At the PCSB meeting of July 16, 2007, Mr. Tom Nida advised the local ANC, Brookland residents, and concerned citizens to direct concerns regarding zoning, traffic, fire, health, and safety issues to the other entities of the government. This is the same response ANC 6A earlier received regarding the proposed location of AppleTree PCS.

We believe strongly that the PCSB should ensure by its own investigation whether or not a particular proposed school site meets current regulations. There should be no possibility that a failure by the city’s inspectors or a change of building use without notice to the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs could result in the inappropriate location of a school. The PCSB should not simply say that health, safety, and legality of a school site selection are not its problem. A simple bright-line checklist can easily be developed and used by your staff. We urge you to do so. In summary, ANC 6A requests that the PCSB honor the city’s laws and regulations, and publicly state that no charter school shall be permitted to site a new charter or an expansion campus in violation of the District of Columbia regulations. Please contact either Commissioner David Holmes (251-7079) or Commissioner Nicholas Alberti (543-3512), if you have further questions.

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Black and White at DCPS
Ralph J. Chittams, Sr., minchittans@gmail.com

Why is it that a white principal at a DC Public High School who has received a ranking in the 30s gets to keep his job and black principals with higher ratings get fired? I am not presenting a hypothetical situation. Neither is this a rhetorical question. It addresses a factual situation currently existing within DCPS. According to DCPS policy, principals achieving such low scores are to be terminated. Why this exception? For those who care, presenting this information here does not violate privacy or personnel policy because the principal in question has admitted publicly to his dismal ranking. The more things change the more they stay the same at DCPS. The Chancellor wants the city council to suspend personnel policy so that she can terminate under-performing staff. She does not need council action to remove an under-performing principal; she is already vested with that power. All she has to do is exercise it. Well?

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1880 Street Railway Lines of the City of Washington now on Google Maps
Nikolas R. Schiller, Ward 1, Cartography [ at ] NikolasSchiller [ dot ] com

Using Statistical Map #10 of the City of Washington (1880) from the Library of Congress’ Geography and Mapping Division, I was able to retrace the roughly thirty miles of street railway that existed 127 years ago. The idea behind this Google Mapplet is to show Washington’s mass transit system in its infancy (it was fewer than twenty years old in 1880) and to hopefully elicit support for the construction of new lines. If I could wave a magic wand and have a streetcar line be built, I’d put the line where the Columbia Railway Company had their line (hint: H Street, NE).

Add the Google Mapplet to Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/ig/directory?synd=mpl&pid=mpl&url=http://nikolasschiller.com/gis/1880street_railway_mapplet.xml or http://tinyurl.com/25qumc. For comparison purposes, you can add the DCist.com Metro Map to show a then and now perspective: http://maps.google.com/ig/directory?synd=mpl&pid=mpl&url=http://dcist.com/map/mapplet.xml or http://tinyurl.com/yqszow

Lastly, Wikipedia has a great article about the history of streetcars in Washington, DC at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcars_in_Washington%2C_D.C.

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Worth Emulating
Ed T. Barron, edtb1@macdotcom

Here’s something worth emulating. The Big Apple (NY City) has eliminated sales taxes on clothing and shoe purchases in NY City. Any items (with a limit of up to $110 for any single item) will be exempt from city sales taxes. Any clothing items or shoes costing more than $110 will require paying sales tax. Now, here’s a way to keep shopping dollars in the District and even attract shoppers from MD and VA to do some of their shopping in good ol’ DC.

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Examiner: City’s Lie about Parking Threatens Opening Day
Tom Monroe, tmonroe77@yahoo.com

From http://www.examiner.com/a-966746~City_s_lie_about_parking_threatens_Opening_Day.html?cid=rss-Washington_DC: “Why does it seem so hard for DC to figure this out? Why are the Lerners, the family that owns the Nationals, spending more time on bringing in cars than luring great players?” Quite simply, because private concerns overrode any serious discussion of the one viable site the city had to offer at RFK Stadium, because it wasn’t downtown-y or sexy enough for them. We’re all reaping the fallout form that, which includes issues that could make a trip to and from FedEx Field look like a breeze!

“The city lied about parking in 2003 when it chose to locate the new stadium by South Capitol Street.” And it’s been keeping up the spin ever since on just about every aspect of the new ballpark. “Cap? What cap?”

“Being resourceful, the Lerners have come up with a temporary solution: Offer free parking to fans at RFK Stadium lots and bus them in seven minutes on back roads to the new stadium.” Unless the shuttles have propellers, it’s almost certainly too good to be true.

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Using RFK Stadium Lots for Ballpark Parking
Ed Delaney, profeddel@aol.com

From: http://washingtontimes.com/article/20071004/SPORTS02/110040088/1005/SPORTS: “Nationals fans likely will be able to park near RFK Stadium and take a shuttle to the team’s new ballpark next year, but it’s still unclear how much they will be charged. The DCSEC revealed yesterday that it will allow fans to park near RFK but has asked the team to pay as much as $5 a spot for the rights on game days. The DCSEC has offered to provide 1,000 spaces for free, while charging the team $5 a space for 2,500 additional spaces. The team, however, has argued against the $5 a space charge because it likely already will incur costs by operating the shuttle service.” Since the city failed Logistics 101 by siting this stadium where it is deep within the city grid with parking, access, and infrastructure issues aplenty, and is now depending on the parking at a rejected stadium site over two miles and two dozen blocks away, it’s not surprising that an analysis of this shuttle plan shows that it falls short of being a significant help to the parking and access fiasco, let alone a realistic solution. First, a shuttle is only worthwhile if it’s going to provide a timely alternative for a significant number of ballpark patrons. However, what is proposed is likely to prove much more time-consuming on both weeknights and weekends than the seven-minute time mentioned in this week’s Examiner piece on the parking debacle. After those wishing to take the shuttle reach the RFK Stadium parking lot (which is time-consuming enough for the majority of those heading in on the congested SE-SW Freeway either at rush hour during the week or over the weekend), fans will wait for shuttles, and the length of the wait will depend on how many shuttles the Lerners spring for and how long it takes them to make the round trip. (Given their spending track record, their reported attempts to force the city to pay for several items outside of the baseball agreement, and their reported dickering over $5 a space at the RFK Stadium lot even with the parking situation in crisis mode, I doubt the Lerners are going to go overboard on the number of shuttles they use.)

On top of the commute to the lots and the wait for the shuttles, fans will then be transported somewhere near the ballpark (where exactly remains a mystery given the limited options for shuttle staging areas on the narrow and congested streets surrounding the ballpark district) as the shuttle buses merge with the rest of the buses and cars caught up in the rush hour/ballpark crush on M Street, SE. As nice as the image was of the shuttles making tracks on “back roads,” we’re still talking a considerable distance to be traveled from the RFK Stadium lot on roads that already get congested without a ball game and that will be feeling the effect of twenty to forty thousand fans pouring into southeast on Metro and on the roads. After the game, one wonders how many shuttles will be allowed to stage near the ballpark with the limited space to do so and transport the hoped-for thousands of shuttle patrons back to the RFK Stadium parking lots. There will also have to be someplace where these fans can gather and line up for the shuttles that will work efficiently, but I’m sure the ballpark planners are all over that solution like they’ve been on top of everything else, right?

Though the rush hour issue is not in play on the weekends, congestion in the city and around the stadium can still be a factor for those planning a trip to the ballpark. This becomes more of an issue because on the weekends the ballpark will actually be competing with Camden Yards for many planning a fun day trip centered around major league baseball within driving distance of our metro area. In this scenario, Camden Yards already has the upper hand with the well-known appeal of the ballpark itself and its proximity to the Inner Harbor, so it was even more critical for DC’s new ballpark to deliver on the convenience side of things to draw the local fans rather than have them travel northwards instead for their fill of the MLB experience. Unfortunately, the extra steps involved to get to DC’s ballpark for those who want to drive there, what with the parking and lining up and waiting for shuttles before and after the game, might look more like an unnecessary hassle to some than an appealing solution in comparison with the well-planned parking and infrastructure that Camden Yards is known for in this region. The weekend is the time when MLB teams especially hope to lure the causal fan, and the Band-Aid that is the RFK Stadium lot shuttle is hardly going to turn the tide in DC’s favor.

There’s also a Catch-22 in play here, as finding places for anything less than 1,000 cars at the RFK Stadium lot makes the shuttle program almost insignificant in helping alleviate the parking and access crisis at the ballpark, while shuttling the amount of fans brought by 1,000 to 3,500 cars will likely be impossible to do in a timely fashion given the logistical challenges inherent in such an undertaking as explored above. Given that cars usually carry two to four fans to a game, 1,000 cars could mean a realistic average of 2,000 to 3,000 fans needing efficient shuttle transportation to the game, while 3,500 spaces would mean that the shuttles would need to transport possibly 7,000 to 10,000 fans from the RFK Stadium site. The greater the numbers, the less likely it is that the shuttle option will be anything but a lengthy alternative that people will not want to endure on a regular basis.

It’s an awfully big chance the city and team are taking, counting on a plan with so many variables as this one. It all comes down to convenience. People might be more willing to do the shuttle thing infrequently for an event such as a sold-out Redskins game which happens generally on a Sunday and ten times less frequently than a baseball game, but getting fans to pay on a regular basis for the privilege of being shuttled to a downtown stadium and wasting a lot of time that could’ve been used at ballpark district stores or restaurants (if they existed instead of the massive parking garages the city had to put up instead) seems questionable. It certainly makes it clear that the thing should’ve been built at the RFK Stadium site to begin with. How we could be this close to Opening Day with such dubious transportation options for the stadium after so much money has been spent by the city on site evaluation studies and transportation consultants is an embarrassment.

What’s clear beyond a shadow of a doubt is how nearsighted the public officials were in keeping the issue-laden current site over the RFK Stadium site on the premise that it would take less work to finish the stadium at the current site rather than change sites because many of them thought it was easier to just continue plans for the current site. Instead, more public funds and city work-hours continue to be tossed at this white elephant with its cut-rate design and accessibility nightmares trying to fix basic transportation problems that would not have been a factor at the RFK Stadium site. Almost every person who chooses to cram onto a shuttle to the concrete greenhouse is going to wonder why the stadium didn’t get built at the RFK Stadium site, and the answer will be because city officials listened to developers and other private concerns rather than stick to their guns and switch sites when the first cost cap for the current site was exceeded. Thanks for the legacy of missteps and regrets, baseball brigade! You’ll have to excuse the skepticism that will accompany your future plans to build soccer and football stadiums on the public’s dime.

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Persecution by Regulation
Jack McKay, jack.mckay@verizon.net

District regulatory agencies can become weapons for disgruntled residents to persecute their neighbors. A case of that sort is under way in Mount Pleasant, where a Latino restaurateur has been ordered to remove all “non-permitted” structures from public space, by order of the DDOT Public Space Administration. On the surface this seems reasonable, but the order is impracticable. The problem here is that this restaurant, due to its location at the convergence of a diagonal street with a north-south street, has no service alley, so the trash bins behind the restaurant are in plain view of residents across the street. The restaurateur has done what he can to placate his neighbors, swapping his mini-dumpster for a couple of smaller trash bins tucked up close to his back wall, and constructing a little stockade-fence enclosure to hide those trash bins from view. Certain hostile neighbors, far from being pleased by his efforts, denounced him to the authorities for an illegal fence.

Because the city right-of-way for this street is much wider than the actual street, a common situation in the District, the land right up to the restaurant’s wall is public space, a so-called “parking.” This puts the land under the jurisdiction of the DDOT Public Space Committee, which is authorized to permit any use of this space if “the proposed additional use will not adversely affect the public interest.” This Committee, which works in total obscurity (leaving no trace of its actions in, e.g., the DC Register), upon hearing bogus complaints from this band of hostile neighbors, has ordered that all "non-permitted" structures be removed. They ignored the Mount Pleasant ANC’s argument that a proposal by the building owner to build a solid masonry enclosure for the trash, on the "parking," was a reasonable solution to the problem. They did not offer any answer to what the restaurateur is supposed to do with his trash. The mayor has, unfortunately, gone along with this decree, rejecting an appeal by the ANC to allow the restaurant, and the owner of the building, some slack, for the benefit of the neighborhood at large.

Beware of neighbors who know how to manipulate the regulatory system. Are any of us so perfect that our properties are totally in compliance with every regulation that exists?

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A Voluntary Agreement Can Be Win-Win
Alexander M. Padro, PadroANC2C@aol.com

Every few years, a business owner or trade association that feels that a community is asking too much of an ABC establishment in negotiations regarding new or renewal ABC licenses complains about the agreements used to settle disputes being called “voluntary” and a statement to that effect makes it into print or online media.

Clyde Howard’s characterization of voluntary agreements (themail September 30) between ABC licensees and neighborhood organizations as “the worst form of legal blackmail that can be fostered on a business owner” is a bit extreme. In the hands of reasonable ANCs and civic associations, these agreements can help set benchmarks for the operation of establishments so that the potential negative impact of such businesses, if any, on the surrounding neighborhood can be minimized. But when those who oppose liquor licenses for businesses at all costs try to throw everything including the kitchen sink into agreements simply because they think they can get away with it, some owners decide to take their chances with the ABC Board rather than hamstring their businesses in such a manner that it makes their operations unsustainable. These agreements are voluntary in the sense that an operator has a choice to risk the imposition of unacceptable conditions by the ABC Board if a compromise cannot be reached with community stakeholders. It could also be argued that neighborhood residents, ANCs, and civic groups “voluntarily” end their objections to a new license or renewal as a result of reaching a compromise, and choose not to allow the ABC Board to decide what is in the community’s best interests.

Mr. Howard is in the midst of a dispute between the Elks Lodge in LeDroit Park and the surrounding community, represented by ANC Commissioner Myla Moss and the LeDroit Park Civic Association. Concerns about noise and other impacts apparently emanating from or associated with patrons of the lodge, which Mr. Howard is advocating for, are nothing new. The responsible thing for the lodge to do is to see what they and their neighbors can agree upon, and put that in an agreement. Other matters that cannot be resolved via mediation can and should be addressed by the ABC Board. Both sides have a choice as to whether or not they want to “voluntarily” settle some or all of their differences by mutual agreement before the ABC Board meets to consider both sides’ arguments. I must say that either the Board, or the council when the ABC laws are next revised, should strike the adjective “voluntary” from the term for these agreements. An agreement is an understanding between two parties, ideally one where both sides compromise and benefit to varying degrees by the terms thereof. That’s what these agreements should be about. Just call them what they are.

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Voluntary Agreements
Alan Kimber, alan@alankimber.org

I have to disagree respectfully with Mr. Howard’s assessment of Voluntary Agreements entered into between the community and liquor licensees [themail, September 30]. ANC 6C has recently taken a stronger stance on seeking Voluntary Agreements with applicants for new liquor licenses, and we consider seeking Voluntary Agreements for license renewals on a case-by-case basis, depending on whether there have been problems that have arisen from the licensee’s operation.

In the case of liquor stores, Voluntary Agreements are often the only way to ensure that negative impacts, if any, are minimized. In the past, we have entered into Voluntary Agreements that impose reasonable restrictions on licensees such as not selling “go cups” (that enable more public drinking), not permitting loitering in front of the store, regularly cleaning up trash around the store, and reporting problems with patrons promptly to the Metropolitan Police Department. With respect to tavern, restaurant, and nightclub licenses, we have addressed issues such as cleanliness and safety around the establishment, parking, procedures for admitting patrons and dealing with problem patrons, protections such as soundproofing to protect neighboring residences, hours during which music and entertainment may be provided. It is important to remember that licensees are seeking permission from the District to conduct their business. Liquor establishments are businesses that have been deemed to have a higher likelihood to impact the surrounding community than say, a shoe store. This is why there is an added level of licensure required, and why the community is entitled to seek to have legitimate concerns handled appropriately. Without a Voluntary Agreement, the community is essentially powerless to get the business owner to take care of problems. Conversely, business owners have an interest in fostering a good relationship with the community.

Both long-term and new residents, and most of the business owners, have appreciated the thoughtfulness we have displayed in ensuring that legitimate concerns are addressed up front, so that there is a means to work with the owners to handle situations if they arise later. Neither our goals nor our methods have been vindictive or without sensitivity to the business owner’s need for their business to succeed. Are there people or groups who might have bad intentions? Sure, but that is certainly not always the case, and has not been a factor in our dealings.

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Voluntary Agreements
Tolu Tolu, tolu2books@aol.com

I served on one of those committees in Ward 6. I agree with everything Clyde Howard said [themail, September 30] and complained about those issues and many others to the point that the group and process made me sick to my stomach, and I resigned. Of course, they were probably delighted that I did resign.

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An Empty Lot
Ed T Barron, edtb1@mac.com

Be prepared to see an empty lot where the Tenley Library used to be for several years. Yes, the city has plans to replace the old library but you know what happens when it comes time for the District to implement their plans. On the other hand their are proposals, in response to a city Request for Proposals, from developers who would build a new library and also some condos above the library, as well as expanding the Janney School. My pick would be for one of the developers to create a whole new complex in Tenleytown, along with a needed library and improved Janney School in a much shorter time frame than the District can accomplish.

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Public Land Deals in Tenley and West End
Sue Hemberger, Friendship Heights, smithhemb@aol.com

As someone who has spent months investigating the option of a public-private redevelopment project at the Janney School/Tenley-Friendship Library site, I couldn’t disagree more with Bill Coe’s analysis of the public land issues in West End and Tenleytown [themail, September 26]. In a way, Coe’s confusion is understandable — until very recently, media coverage of these controversies has ranged from virtually nonexistent to grossly misleading (for example, a Channel 4 news segment that left viewers with the impression that DC Public Libraries had no plans to renovate the Tenley-Friendship branch and that Roadside Development was offering to pay for the project itself). And the abuse of process in West End was so outrageous (a sole-source contract with no specified terms, a bogus emergency, a public hearing without citizens) that it has threatened to overwhelm a more substantive debate about which public lands should be sold and why. This is why the Tenleytown controversy will have citywide significance. The Deputy Mayor’s office is preparing to make the land that houses DCPS’s most overcrowded public school and what has historically been one of its busiest branch libraries available for commercial, presumably residential, development. It made the decision to put this land on the auction block unilaterally — without a public hearing, without council approval, without giving the local ANC an opportunity to weigh in.

Clearly, the land isn’t surplus in any normal sense of the word. In fact, DC government hasn’t even done the facilities planning necessary to ensure that this campus can accommodate a residential building and still have enough land left over to meet DCPS’s educational specifications for an elementary school of 550 students. This "make a deal first, figure out the logistics later" approach is a surefire way to guarantee that public needs are sacrificed to private profit. The developer who is chosen will certainly be entitled to build the residences. The school will get whatever land remains available after that -- undoubtedly not enough to provide the multipurpose playing field for physical education and the various playscapes that DCPS standards call for. Tough luck -- there’s no room -- you live in a city and have to learn to make compromises.

As I’ve written previously in themail, Tenleytown is being held up as a model to the rest of the city. There will be a veneer of public input (but only after the crucial decision has been made) and the appearance of competitive bidding. The developer whose unsolicited proposal led to the issuance of an Request for Proposals will have spent a year lobbying and making plans and everyone else will most likely be given forty-five to sixty days to figure out both the physical and the economic logistics that will enable them to double the size of the school, build a library, and fit both affordable and for-profit housing on this hilly site.

What will the community get out of this deal? Odds are, a multi-year delay in the reopening of our branch library (which has already been closed for three years and is currently on track to come back on line in early 2010) and no guarantee that the school renovations will be speeded up. If the library and school parcels are combined, the library is likely to be part of a mixed-use building that includes the for-profit component of the project. For a variety of reasons, it seems unlikely that the school project can begin until that building is completed, especially since the goal is to keep Janney students on campus during the school’s renovations.

So is there money in it? Not for the city. The highest plausible estimate I’ve seen on the land’s value (and this assumes that the developer is authorized to build 125 luxury condos on the site) is about $9 million dollars. If the mayor and council are serious about their pledge that 30 percent of the housing built on public land must be affordable, that figure plummets. And take another $3 million off the top to provide the underground public parking required to free up land for residential development. Construction delays on the library will increase the costs of building it, and a mixed-use project imposes additional expenses as well. We’ll be lucky to cover these new costs in making this transaction. The school and the library’s construction costs will be paid for by the public out of the capital funding -- over $40 million -- that has already been budgeted for these two projects.

Hopefully, after the West End emergency legislation is rescinded, people will start taking a closer look at what’s happening in Tenleytown. The experience in both neighborhoods suggests the urgent need this city has for better facilities planning and for a more clearly defined (and more scrupulously followed) process for making decisions about the sale or lease of public lands. The mayor has to be reminded that the city’s land isn’t his land to dispose of at will. And the council needs to step up to the plate and exercise some oversight on this issue.

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The Tenley Scoreboard
Bill Coe, bceedeec@aol.com

In themail of September 30, Ms. Levine roundly excoriates my “many inaccuracies” in trying to keep the proposed Tenley public-private partnership (PPP) separated from the fiasco in West End. Let me just say that, of the errors and excesses undoubtedly committed by both sides in the Tenley argument, inaccuracy ranks as a minor sin. In support of her accusation, all Ms. Levine can offer is one written timeline compared to another, but both are just pieces of paper. More substantive and, in my opinion, more persuasive is the actual history behind the missing library in our neighborhood. How can one look at what’s happened in recent years and seriously believe the city will deliver a finished library on time? I would bet a dollar to a donut that the new Tenley library will be opened for business faster as part of a project done in partnership with creative private-sector operators — people whose business is building communities, and who are motivated (horrors!) by filthy gain.

I make the same prediction for planned improvements at Janney Elementary School, also part of the proposed Tenley PPP. The official projection has these done in 2014 (just in time to be enjoyed by children born next year). Now, though, I read in the Post (October 2) that the District is ready to fire a school-construction contractor for falling at least a year behind schedule and $12 million over budget. The report states that twelve of eighteen building projects currently underway for DCPS are running up to five years late. Five years. Let’s see: That would extend completion of the work at Janney to about 2019 (just in time for all those lucky children born six years from now). It’s time to look past the promises of DC government, earnest as they always seem. I suggest, again, that we examine the history unfolding before our very eyes. We have before us a proposal for a mixed-use development on the Tenley site that would produce the desired library, as well as early improvements to Janney, plus additional housing in a thinly populated neighborhood (something rarely mentioned by opponents of the PPP) — all in an area served by a major transit hub. Does this not conform to the very definition of smart urban growth? Does it not deserve at least a good, hard look?

Ms. Levine is free to dismiss those interested in the Tenley PPP as a minority consisting merely of “some Janney parents, politicians, and developers.” This group is larger than she thinks. To it she might add the hordes of future Janney parents living around her, along with many of our best and brightest urban planners, plus those neighbors who would like to enjoy big-city life in a Tenley crowded with people, bustling with activity night and day, livened with diverse retail choices -- all connected to a first-class system of mass transit. We already have the transit. Now we want the mass, and the Tenley PPP just might offer a step in that direction.

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

Dr. Frank Kameny at UDC David A. Clarke School of Law, October 11
Wayne Turner, actupdc@aol.com

Thursday, October 11 is National Coming Out Day. Outlaw, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender law students association at UDC David A. Clarke School of Law, will host a talk by gay rights pioneer Dr. Frank Kameny. The event will begin at 12:15 p.m. in room 201, Building 39 at UDC, 4200 Connecticut Avenue, NW (Red Line Metro to Van Ness/UDC — wheelchair accessible, free, and open to the public).

Dr. Franklin E. Kameny (born May 21, 1925, in New York City) is one of the major American gay rights activists. Dr. Kameny launched the first public protests by gays and lesbians with a picket line at the White House on April 17, 1965. In 1971, Dr. Kameny became the first openly gay candidate for the US Congress when he ran in the District of Columbia’s first election for a nonvoting delegate to Congress. Following that election, Dr. Kameny and his campaign organization created the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, DC, an organization that continues to lobby government and press the case for equal rights.

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Behind the Scenes with Building Professionals, October 13
Sara Kabakoff, skabakoff@nbm.org

This year, the Festival of the Building Arts takes you behind the scenes of the building arts and asks, "How do building professionals do that?" Join as many as twenty-five master craftspeople at the National Building Museum annual Festival of the Building Arts to take part in hands-on activities during an interactive, fun-for-all ages celebration of the built environment. Visitors can: thatch a roof, build a brick wall, or finish dry wall; examine the tools used by stone carvers, woodworkers, blacksmiths, gilders, and glass designers; climb aboard construction vehicles at the outdoor “petting zoo”; compete in a nail driving contest; construct a gigantic pipe sculpture; and more. The Festival of the Building Arts is presented by The Associated General Contractors of America.

National Building Museum, 401 F Street, NW, Saturday, October 13, 10:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Free; $5 donation suggested. Registration for individuals is not required. Scouts and other large groups should call 272-2448 or E-mail youthgroups@nbm.org to register. Coming soon to the Building Zone, a brand new life-size custom playhouse, constructed by Pardee Homes as part of HomeAid’s National Project Playhouse, will debut during the Festival. Please join us for the ribbon cutting ceremony at 10:15 am.

We apologize for any inconvenience, but due to installation of the playhouse the Building Zone will be closed from October 5-12. The National Building Museum Project Playhouse is sponsored by HomeAid and built by Pardee Homes.

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DC’s Transportation Dilemma, October 13
George Idelson, g.idelson@verizon.net

Will traveling around DC get to be more and more of a hassle as the city grows? Will parking problems just get worse? Does "transit-oriented development" make sense in a dense urban environment? Is Metro getting hopelessly maxed out? Are there plans to deal with unique transportation problems in Cleveland Park? These and other questions will be discussed at the Saturday, October 13 meeting of the Cleveland Park Citizens Association — “DC’s Transportation Dilemmas: Are We Up to the Challenge?” Speakers include: Ward One Councilmember, Jim Graham, who chairs the committee that oversees the DC Department of Transportation; Karina Ricks, DDOT Citywide Planning Director, and Freddie Fuller, DDOT Acting Association Director for Mass Transit. The meeting will be at the Cleveland Park Library (Connecticut Avenue at Newark Street, NW) starting at 10:15 a.m. The meeting is cosponsored by the Woodley Park Community Association. All welcome.

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Upcoming Talk for Change Toastmasters Meeting, October 17
Corey Jenkins Schaut, tfctoastmasters@gmail.com

Please join us this Wednesday, October 17, at 6:45 p.m. for our next meeting of Talk for Change Toastmasters. We meet at the Teach for America offices, located at 1413 K Street, NW, on the 7th floor. At Talk for Change, we believe in the power of education. By following the Toastmasters curriculum, we have an opportunity to continue to develop and improve our leadership and speaking skills in a safe environment.

Many of us our former teachers and alumni of Teach for America. Many of us are making a difference in our community through work in the nonprofit sector. And many of us just value the opportunity to keep learning. We welcome anyone to join our friendly, fun-loving group. Are you curious what Talk for Change can do for you? We welcome you to join us at an upcoming meeting to see what we are all about. We meet on the first and third Wednesdays of every month.

How Toastmasters works: as your improved communication skills become obvious within the workplace, increased visibility, recognition and promotion will follow. Your improved presentation skills will win you the respect and admiration of your colleagues and employees — and make them wonder what you did to change! Leadership skills acquired through participation in Toastmasters will increase your management potential. You will acquire an increased ability to motivate and persuade, making you more effective as a supervisor or manager. You’ll have access to a wide range of educational materials, including books, CDs, DVDs and seminar programs, available at reduced cost through the Toastmasters International Supply Catalog. We look forward to welcoming you as our newest member. If you have questions, feel free to send us an e-mail at tfctoastmasters@gmail.com.

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Stand Up for DC, October 19
Anise Jenkins, anisej@hotmail.com

Join the Stand Up! for Democracy in DC Coalition (Free DC) for an evening of inspiration, food, drink and a bit of history as we celebrate our 10th anniversary as the voice for full democratic rights and statehood for DC residents. Honorees will include a Free DC movement founder, DC Councilmember Marion Barry, and grandmother of the DC Statehood movement, former DC Councilmember Hilda Mason. For information, contact Anise Jenkins, 361-9739, or Bill Mosley at 232-2500.

Friday, October 19, 6-9 p.m., The Carnegie Library, 801 K Street, NW (Mt. Vernon Square Metro). Donation: $51 ($15 student/senior/low income). Advance tickets available on-line at http://www.FreeDC.org.

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Vassar FilmFest, October 20
Alison Westfall, alisoncolew@hotmail.com

Vassar FilmFest, a scholarship benefit, will be held on Saturday, October 20, from 1-9 p.m. It will include a selection of three documentaries, screening of the new film “Rough Cut,” and feature the prize-winning “Open Window” by director Mia Goldman, with Cybil Shepherd and Elliot Gould.

Vassar FilmFest will be held at Jack Morton auditorium, George Washington University, 805 21st Street, NW. $35 for all films; $100 for films and a reception with filmmakers. For more information, telephone 301-299-4855 or go to http://www.filmdc.org.

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Fall Household Hazardous Waste and Electronics Recycling, October 27
Nancee Lyons, Nancee.lyons@dc.gov

The DC Department of Public Works (DPW) will hold its fall household hazardous waste and electronics recycling drop-off day Saturday, October 27, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Trash Transfer Station at 3200 Benning Road, NE.

Residents may bring old cleaning and gardening chemicals; pesticides and poisons; acids, varnish and oil-based paints; solvents; aerosols; wood preservatives; spent batteries of all kinds; roofing tar; chemistry sets; automotive fluids, computer monitors, and TV screens to the collection site for free, environmentally safe disposal or recycling. Monitors and TV screens must be intact, not cracked, punctured, or shattered.

For more information, including a list of acceptable and unacceptable items, please visit DPW’s web site at http://www.dpw.dc.gov.

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Legacy of Great Jazz, October 29
Michael Andrews, mandrews@udc.edu

Join us for an evening of great jazz as the legacy continues with a showcase of the outstanding musicians and ensembles from the University of the District of Columbia Jazz Studies Program. On Monday, October 29, at 8:00 p.m. the UDC Jazz Ensembles under the direction of Allyn Johnson kick off another year of JAZZAlive with the third annual showcase celebrating the legacy of Calvin Jones. Jones was director of the Jazz Studies Program from 1976-2004 and is a legendary figure in the Washington, DC, community.

The evening will feature the University’s powerhouse big band, always "in the pocket" as Jones would say, and once again treat jazz lovers to UDC’s exciting resident group -- the Calvin Jones Legacy Ensemble. Produced by the Jazz Studies Program and the Felix E. Grant Jazz Archives, the event opens this year’s Scholarship Benefit Series and caps off UDC Homecoming 2007.

Tickets are $15 and are available in advance at the Music Program, Bldg. 46-West, UDC Van Ness Campus, 4200 Connecticut Avenue, NW, or online at http://www.InstantSeats.com. Tickets will also be available at the University Auditorium door on the night of the performance. The University Auditorium (Bldg. 46-East) is conveniently located on Metro’s Red Line at the Van Ness–UDC stop. Contact Judith Korey at 274-5803 or JazzAlive@udc.edu for more information.

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Ethnic Dining Talk at Cleveland Park Branch Library, October 30
Beth Meyer, lmeyer8090@aol.com

Tyler Cowen, the author of Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist, will give a talk on “Every Meal Counts: How to Get the Best Food Possible in Washington, DC” on Tuesday, October 30, at 6:30 p.m. in the first floor auditorium of the Cleveland Park Branch of the DC Public Library, Connecticut and Macomb Streets, NW. A book sale and signing of the book, courtesy of the Trover Shop, will follow the program.

Mr. Cowen is a professor of economics and director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He writes for MarginalRevolution.com, the number one economics blog, and writes a monthly column for the business section of The New York Times. He also authored an online guide to ethnic dining in Washington, DC. He will give tips to finding the best restaurants and the best dishes on the menu and why the words “foodie” and “economist” boil down to the same thing.

The Cleveland Park Branch of the DC Public Library is located near the Cleveland Park Metrorail Station. All District of Columbia Public Library activities are open to the public free of charge. For further information, please call the Cleveland Park Library at 282-3072.

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CLASSIFIEDS — RECOMMENDATIONS

Friend Needs an Oncologist
Joan Eisenstodt, jeisen@aol.com

A friend who has been diagnosed with lymphoma is not pleased with the oncologist referred. If you’ve had experience in DC with someone who specializes in lymphoma, please let me know.

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