Corruption
Dear Controllers:
I could title an issue of themail “Corruption” every other week
or so. It’s particularly appropriate tonight, however, since today
brought the news of five arrests in a public corruption case. Two
District government employees in the Office of Tax and Revenue,
Harriette Walters and Diane Gustus, and three of their alleged
co-conspirators, were charged with defrauding DC out of at least sixteen
million dollars over the past three years (http://www.dcwatch.com/govern/cfo071107b.htm).
What they are accused of doing is preparing false property tax refund
requests, which Walters approved in her position as manager of the DC
Real Property Tax Administration Adjustments Unit, depositing the refund
checks into sham corporate accounts controlled by Walters’ relatives,
and then distributing the money among themselves and their relatives.
Sixteen million dollars is the largest public corruption case, indeed
the largest theft of any kind, in the history of the District and of the
region. The forty-plus fraudulent refund checks that the investigators
have identified so far averaged over $388,000 each. The size of the
fraud dwarfs the theft in the Washington Teachers Union case, and that
in itself is rather impressive. What is puzzling, however, is how they
were able to get away with it for so long. A single property tax refund
of $388,000 would attract notice; two or three in a short period of time
should have caused questions. Alarm bells should have been ringing
loudly throughout the building long before forty checks that averaged
that much had been issued in a three-year period.
Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi acted swiftly today, firing
four top officials in the tax office, including Deputy Chief Financial
Officer, Office of Tax and Revenue, Sherryl Hobbs Newman, and Chief
Assessor Thomas Branham, and issuing directives to review management
controls (http://www.dcwatch.com/govern/cfo071107.htm).
But this swift action still brings to mind the old adage about closing
the barn door after the horse has run away (after the sheep have been
stolen, after the cow has disappeared, etc.). Some people are always
going to be dishonest, always going to try to scam the system, and some
people are going to get away with it. But a sound and secure financial
system should make it impossible to continue a scheme of this magnitude
over a period of years. Not just the perpetrators and their immediate
supervisors, but Mayors Williams and Fenty and Chief Financial Officer
Gandhi himself will have to answer questions about why it was possible
for the DC government to bleed sixteen million dollars without questions
having being raised from inside the government.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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On Monday afternoon, November 5, Mayor Fenty issued a new executive
order, Mayor’s Order 2007-239, rescinding his previous order, Mayor’s
Order 2007-207, dated September 21, that would have allowed his
administration to delete government E-mails permanently after six
months. Fenty’s decision made after a morning press conference at the
Wilson Building where two councilmembers — Council Chairman Vincent
Gray and Government Operations Committee Chair Carol Schwartz —
indicated they would introduce a bill at Tuesday’s legislative session
to classify E-mails as “public records” that must be retained under
the District’s Public Records Management Act of 1985. By the time the
mayor reversed his position, on Monday afternoon, ten of the thirteen
councilmembers had signed on as co-introducers of the Gray-Schwartz
bill, and all thirteen had signed on by the next day. In a statement,
Mayor Fenty indicated that he was responding “to reasonable concerns
raised by the council.”
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Save the Jesse Baltimore House from Demolition
Mary Rowse, merowse@aol.com
Your help is urgently needed to save the Jesse Baltimore House from
demolition. The mayor and the city council need to hear from you if you
or someone you know would like the chance to own and restore this
classic 1925 Sears “Fullerton” kit house at 5136 Sherier Place, NW,
in the heart of the Palisades neighborhood. This two-story,
three-bedroom home made of high-quality, first-growth wood has been
neglected by the DC Department of Parks and Recreation for decades. Now
the agency and Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh want to tear it down or
move it off site, ignoring the wishes of over a thousand Ward 3
residents and another four hundred fifty people across the metro area
who signed individual letters asking that the home be put back into
private hands and restored in place by a new owner. Advisory
Neighborhood Commission 3D voted overwhelmingly to support the home’s
return to private ownership and preservation in place, but Councilmember
Cheh is ignoring this as well.
Would you like the chance to own and restore this home right where it
is? Do you know someone else who would? Do you think it’s right for
the city to destroy this valuable historic home that they turned into an
“eyesore,” when the home can just as easily be brought back to life
at the hands of a private owner? Washington, DC, is filled with
teachers, firefighters, police officers, and others who haven’t been
able to afford to buy a home but who could find the resources to bring
this one back to life if the mayor and the city council would make it
available to a lucky recipient. Here’s a “Close to Home” opinion
piece on the Jesse Baltimore House from the Sunday, November 4,
Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201681.html.
Here’s some history on the house, on Jesse Baltimore and his family,
and on the Palisades neighborhood: http://www.victoriansecrets.net/jessebaltimore.html.
Please E-mail the mayor and the city council and tell them you want
the Jesse Baltimore House given to someone who will restore it in place
and put it back on the city’s tax rolls, from which it has been absent
for fifty years. Tell the mayor and the city council not to let the
Department of Parks and Recreation and Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh
destroy this valuable and historic neighborhood resource that many
people want the chance to own and restore in place. Send your E-mail now
to the Mayor, the Councilmembers and their chiefs of staff: Adrian.Fenty@dc.gov,
vgray@dccouncil.us, DSlonneger@dccouncil.us,
pmendelson@dccouncil.us, BRWheeler@dccouncil.us,
cschwartz@dccouncil.us, jabbot@dccouncil.us,
kbrown@dccouncil.us, dcatania@dccouncil.us,
byoung@dccouncil.us, jgraham@dccouncil.us,
tloza@dccouncil.us, jackevans@dccouncil.us,
sgrant@dccouncil.us, mcheh@dccouncil.us,
jwillingham@dccouncil.us, mbowser@dccouncil.us,
jholland@dccouncil.us, hthomas@dccouncil.us,
glewis@dccouncil.us, twells@dccouncil.us,
callen@dccouncil.us, yalexander@dccouncil.us,
jrmeyers@dccouncil.us, mbarry@dccouncil.us,
kperry@dccouncil.us, merowse@aol.com
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Lerners Take Nats Gala to Maryland
Tom Monroe, tmonroe77@yahoo.com
From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/06/AR2007110602296.html?hpid=topnews:
“District officials are outraged that the Washington Nationals plan to
go to Maryland for major events celebrating the team’s first season in
the city-funded $611 million stadium complex. The baseball club’s
charitable arm will host its annual black tie ‘Dream Gala’ in Prince
George’s County, and the team will hold its FanFest, a day-long
celebration, in Bethesda. Last fiscal year, $36 million in business and
nonresidential utility taxes, including those from hotels, were
collected to help repay the money borrowed for the stadium. ‘I guess
we’re like Charlie Brown or Rodney Dangerfield. We can’t get
respect,’ Vincent Gray said yesterday. ‘This is just an outrage.’”
Why would the city get any respect after it gave up the sweetest of
sweetheart deals to Major League Baseball and failed to improve the city’s
part of the deal when the opportunity arose to renegotiate the lease
with MLB? When it comes to helping the city financially or their own
bottom line, MLB and the Lerners simply chose to continue taking the
best deal for themselves.
“‘We gave them a $611 million free stadium. I think that entitles
us to have their gala at our businesses,’ Carol Schwartz said. Jim
Graham called the move ‘offensive.’ ‘That’s like taking a stick
and poking your eye. What a level of ingratitude. The timing is worse
than ever. We’re opening the $611 million stadium and . . . to have
the annual banquet in Prince George’s County, that’s staggering,’
he said. ‘This once again truly demonstrates why we should have been a
little shrewder about selecting owners for the Nationals,’ Marion
Barry said.” Welcome to wouulda-shoulda-coulda land! All of these
calls for what the city is entitled to or what the city should have done
before mean nothing because of the council’s gutless actions when they
had a chance to make demands of MLB and their ownership group multiple
times from 2004 when the team was on its way to 2006 when the lease was
finalized.
“Gray called a closed-door meeting with council members yesterday
to discuss the situation and how to address it. Minutes later, Jack
Evans, one of the Nationals’ biggest cheerleaders and chairman of the
committee on finance and revenue, was on the phone with Kasten. Evans
was one of the most irate members yesterday, telling Kasten that ‘the
Nationals have an obligation to hold their gala here.’ Gray was trying
to contact Mayor Fenty to dial up Nationals principal owner Theodore
Lerner. Kasten, interviewed after his conversation with Evans, said
there are no plans to change the venue.” How pathetic of a scenario is
this! Did they really think they’d make Lerner and Kasten cancel a
freebie arrangement over an "obligation" to the city? There is
no obligation, Jack, because you and your gang gave away the right to
make any demands on the team and its owners in your haste to secure a
team over Virginia. This is what happens when you let private concerns,
whose highest obligation is to their own pockets, call the shots.
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Surveillance of Citizens Through Drivers
License Chip
Ed Delaney, profeddel@yahoo.com
From http://www.examiner.com/a-1031230~D_C__DMV_to_build_SmarTrip_chips_into_driver_s_licenses.html:
“Privacy advocates are alarmed by a DC Department of Motor Vehicles
initiative to embed SmarTrip computer chips inside every new DC driver’s
license, making it easier than ever to track DC residents on their
travels through the transit system.”
Besides being a back door to a virtually mandatory tracking system to
be used by private entities and DC bureaucracy alike (the latter of
which has such a history of ethical lapses and incompetence that we
should safeguard as much of our privacy as possible from them), using
chips of this sort in DC drivers licenses is a ridiculous idea from a
practicality standpoint. I’ve had the chips in my SmarTrip card die on
me multiple times. Does that mean that I would have to involve the DMV
every time this happens and go through the hassle of getting a new
license? No thank you; I’d just prefer to go to Metro Center and not
burden the city bureaucracy. Let’s leave all of these types of snoopy
chips out of the basic city IDs.
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Support Neighborhood Dog Parks
Kathy Silva, kathysilva@rcn.com
The October 12 revised version of dog park regulations are fair,
balanced, and provide for accountability. Over two thousand people have
already signed the online petition -- dog owners and non-dog owners.
Please sign the petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/DCDOGTF/petition.html.
You must live in the District, and in order for signature to be
valid, you must enter your full name, E-mail address (not seen
publicly), and zip code. Other fields are optional, but would be
helpful. More than one person in the same household can sign. Share with
your friends. Deadline is November 8.
Read about the new regulations on: http://www.dpr.dc.gov. Read more
about dog parks at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2007/10/27/ST2007102700599.html?hpid=artslot,.
Learn more about efforts in DCDOG and join at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DCDOG/.
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Mary Cheh: Do as I Vote, Not as I Wrote
Frank Winstead, Forest Hills, frank.winstead@gmail.com
In the November 4 issue of themail, Gary Imhoff cites the Washington
Post’s quotation from Councilmember Mary Cheh on the financial
risks to the DC government of underwriting the Greater Southeast
Community Hospital sale: “We’re all keeping our fingers crossed. We’re
not entirely sure that it’s going to work,” In 1981, the District of
Columbia Bar published “How to Read and Analyze a Financial
Statement,” by Mary Cheh.
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When You’ve Got to Tell the World about a
Book You Like
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com
I work at a public library here in the DC area and hear a lot from
people who just read a book they like a lot. I’ve been wondering about
ways that could be used to capture that enthusiasm for sharing on the
Internet. Experiments I’ve tried with videoconferencing software
called SightSpeed PLUS have been encouraging. I’m blogging about this
on the PCWorld.com web site at http://tinyurl.com/397tqv,
with links to the video I captured.
The upshot of this is that it’s now possible for anyone with a high
speed Internet connection to conduct their own Charlie Rose style
interview — and share that video for free via the Internet Archive and
other video sharing sites. The technical hurdles are not that difficult.
The artistic challenges of producing an engaging video interview are
worth pursuing. The product may even be used as a thread in weaving
social fabric.
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DPW Recycling Pledge and Contest
Nancee Lorn, nancee.lorn@yahoo.com
DC Department of Public Works (DPW) recycling inspectors will scour
District neighborhoods, from November 5 to November 16, in search of the
“Perfect Set Out.” A gift package, including a $50 check, will be
given to one resident in each ward who sets out a recycling bin
containing acceptable recycled materials in the proper manner. Winners
will be announced in the week of November 26 to recognize America
Recycles Day, which will be celebrated nationally on November 15.
District residents are also encouraged to take the National Recycling
Coalition’s America Recycles 2007 Pledge. Submitting the pledge card
enters participants into a drawing for prizes that include a $300 gift
certificate at a bicycle shop and a $500 grant to a DC Public School
environmental club or project of the winner’s choice. Pledge forms
will be made available at DPW Headquarters at 2000 14th Street, NW (6th
floor) and online at http://www.mwcog.org/environment/recycling/recyclesday/pledge.asp.
The District recycles glass, plastic bottles, metal cans, and mixed
paper. Residents should place all recyclables in their DC
government-issued recycling can or bin. All recycled items should be
emptied and rinsed. Any lids or labels can remain on the item.
Acceptable glass: clear, brown, and green glass food and beverage
containers. Not acceptable glass: dishes, light bulbs, fluorescent
bulbs, windows, mirrored glass, or glass cookware. Acceptable plastic
bottles: narrow-necked bottles including water, soda, milk, juice, and
detergent bottles. Not acceptable plastic bottles: bottles from
automotive products, pesticides, or other toxins; butter tubs, medicine
bottles, Styrofoam, plastic food wrapping, toys, and grocery (or other)
plastic bags. Acceptable metal: tin, aluminum (including foil and pie
plates), and steel food and beverage cans. Do not crush metal
containers. Not acceptable metal: auto parts, kitchen supplies,
bicycles, and furniture. Acceptable paper: recycle all papers together
including white and colored papers, envelopes, forms, file folders,
tablets, junk mail, cereal boxes, wrapping paper, catalogs, magazines
and phone books. It is okay to include metal staples, clips, glue,
labels, and plastic windows on envelopes. Paper-based egg cartons are
okay, if clean. Please remove plastic bindings and dividers. Photos are
okay, but not “instant” film (Polaroids). All paper-based inserts
that come with the newspaper can be recycled. Put them loosely into the
cart. Corrugated cardboard boxes and brown paper bags; remove packaging,
then flatten and place in cart or bin. Place shredded fiber into a paper
bag. Not acceptable paper: plastic-coated paper, blueprints, waxed
cardboard, cups/plates, milk or juice cartons, disposable “drink
boxes,” food-contaminated paper, tissues, paper towels, or
“instant” film (Polaroids).
For more information, please call 727-1000 or visit DPW’s web site
at http://www.dpw.dc.gov.
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Parents United Meeting, November 9
DCPS Budget Community Meeting and Hearing, November 15
Marc Borbely, borberly@fixourschools.com
Chancellor Rhee has scheduled a public hearing on next year’s DCPS
budget, after receiving a letter signed by ninety-nine parents,
teachers, alumni, and neighbors, reminding her of the law that requires
this hearing. The official hearing will be at 6 p.m. on Thursday,
November 15, at 825 North Capitol Street, NE, 5th floor. To testify,
contact Traci Higgins at Traci.Higgins@dc.gov or 442-5615 no later than
5 p.m. the day before. The full notice is at http://www.k12.dc.us/media/PressReleases/Press%20Release%20Budget%20Hearing%202009.pdf.
At this hearing, DCPS is required to solicit testimony and exhibits,
among other things, on 1) educational needs and programs that can meet
those needs, 2) support systems needed for safety and efficiency, 3)
historical levels of funding, 4) the levels of funding required
according to professional studies and commissions, and 5) the levels of
funding in surrounding jurisdictions. The Chancellor is required to
“give due consideration” to the testimony and exhibits presented at
this hearing, when she submits her proposed budget to the Mayor at least
45 days later.
To help us prepare for the November 15 hearing, Parents United for
the DC Public Schools will host a community meeting this Friday,
November 9, from 4-6 p.m., at the offices of the Washington Lawyers’
Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs: 11 Dupont Circle, NW,
Suite 400 (entrance is on New Hampshire Avenue, next to the
Books-a-Million). Budget expert Mary Levy will make a brief presentation
and will be on hand to answer questions. If you can make it to the
meeting this Friday, please RSVP if possible to Nancy Huvendick at nhuvendick@21csf.org,
so we have a sense of how many people are coming.
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Wilson High School Musical, November 15-17
Don Squires, dsquires - at - erols dot com
This year’s Wilson Fall Musical is Into the Woods, November 15, 16,
and 17 at 7:30 p.m. in the Wilson auditorium. Tickets are $10 for
adults, $5 for students, and $3 for Wilson students. Tickets will be
available at the door. Into the Woods blends well-loved fairy tales with
the story of a childless baker and his wife, who go into the woods on a
search for items for a magic potion which reverse a curse placed on
their family by a witch. The woods are filled with familiar characters
such as Cinderella, Jack ( of Beanstalk fame), Prince Charming, a
Mysterious Man, Little Red Riding Hood, her Granny, and the Wolf. What
happens when all of these characters meet in the woods while looking to
fulfill their wishes? And what happens when they actually get what they
want? Ultimately, Into the Woods explores the theme of happily ever
after.
Into the Woods opened on Broadway in 1987 and won three Tony Awards
(best score, best book, and best actress) and the Drama Desk Award for
best musical. It was revived on Broadway in 2002, featuring Vanessa
Williams as the Witch. Wilson’s production features a cast and crew of
sixty students and will be fabulous. Fun for the whole family!
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