Dog Days
Dear Fellow Bowsers:
Every dog must have his day, and since it’s the dog days of August,
I’ll let sleeping dogs lie, doggone it.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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A Superstar’s New Pool, and Shuttered
Recreation Centers
David Mallof, mallof@verizon.net
Mr. Gilbert Arenas’ cool one million dollar new pool made a big
splash this week on the Washington Post’s and Yahoo’s sports
web sites. See http://blog.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2008/07/gilberts_pool_the_pics.html.
Well, so much for the cool fifty million dollars the DC government
gifted to Mr. Abe Pollin’s empire in January so his Verizon Center and
Wizards managers could effectively give it to Gilbert and Antawn as a
salary bump a few months later. I’m not saying public money went
directly from one public tax account into the players’ hands, but in
gifting public money to private interests, it effectively frees up other
funding elsewhere for things like player salaries. It’s no different
from the public’s paying 100 percent for an eight hundred million
dollar baseball stadium, thereby freeing up funding for team salaries.
Either way, it’s a wholly corrupt use by DC government officials of
scarce public funding and borrowing power to benefit private interests
while other dire civic needs go begging.
No wonder to this day DC’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer
will not agree to provide — after repeated Freedom of Information
requests — the fifty million dollar Verizon Center “Approved Project
Plan” that DC Mayor Fenty was supposed to okay, as was specifically
required by the tax legislation. Was this pool, or the salary bump DC’s
gift made more affordable to grant, effectively floating around in the
fifty million dollars that Mr. Pollin’s management team would spend?
DC Councilmembers Evans, Catania, and Graham will surely recall from the
non-videotaped “public hearing” that only fifteen million dollars
was specifically identified as needed at the time (for a new high-tech
scoreboard to be owned by the Center but paid for by the public) and the
remaining thirty-five million dollars in Verizon Center “upgrades”
was to be determined (TBD) at a later date. The use of the dangling
thirty-five million dollars was not yet firmly identified when the
legislation was ready for a final vote later in 2007, so the DC council
nonetheless decided to grant a full fifty million dollars in taxes as a
gift since, as was mentioned in the “public hearing,” fifty million
dollars was a nice round number. I guess TBD really means the public
never finds out precisely where incremental and precious tax money goes.
We are only left to wonder after we drop the money onto center court.
And no clear-cut protections were written whatsoever in the law to guard
against the public’s tax money being used for non-capital improvement
purposes, such as to retire the Center’s debt, or in general to clean
up the balance sheet, or to commingle/transfer funds with operating
expenses in the Center’s or other entities, such as the team. But the
council got its own second sleek DC skybox during the very the midst of
this shady DC governance “process.” Talk about utterly corrupt.
What civic suckers we are in DC for granting such implicit mass
subsidies to a few individuals and families in town. We have recreation
centers for kids, teens, and the elderly who are in critical need of
healthful exercise that prevents myriad diseases — and possibly
gunshot wounds. These centers and swimming pools close too early on
Saturday afternoons and are totally closed on Sundays. The city has a
rampant HIV rate, requiring more prevention funding. And at last report,
about the city’s functional literacy rate was about 35 percent. I
wonder if excellent players Antawn J and Gilbert A even know this kind
of kiting using public money is going on. They seem like fine fellows,
and I don’t think they would want the money at the expense effectively
of the poor and needy in DC. I wrote to Mr. Pollin and his Verizon
Center/Wizards team last March and asked that they donate a fresh $50
million in turn to support DC’s all-too-limited recreation centers and
crumbling libraries. Mr. Pollin personally wrote me back saying he would
look into it. Thus far this hot summer, there has been no word back yet
for DC’s kids.
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Why the Long Lines?
Ed T. Barron, edtb1@macdotcom
A lot of the seats at the Nationals’ Ball Park are empty during the
games because there are tons of folks waiting on lines to get their
chili dogs and fries. There are plenty of food vendors, though some are
much more popular than others. The problem is with the serving staff.
Despite being more than half way through the season, most of those
staffing the food counters are real rookies. They waste a lot of time
and motion in gathering their orders. If you go to a Burger King,
McDonalds, or Wendy’s, you’ll find some real fast food. Their
servers are experienced and really fast. Those who are staffing the
vendor locations at the ball park need to be shown how to do things
without wasting time and motion. Real pros should be imported to teach
those rookies how to do things faster and better. Then we wouldn’t see
so many empty seats during the game.
“Public Engagement” is the title of an editorial in the June 30
edition of The Northwest Current. The editorial complains that
Fenty’s economic development officials seem like they are not
interested in listening to neighbors regarding the proposed
public-private partnership to develop the Tenleytown Library and an
apartment complex atop the library. If the administration were to hold
public hearings on the project the library would never be built. Trying
to get the Ward 3 residents to agree on going to lunch would probably be
impossible. Fenty has done the right thing for the right reasons in
going ahead with the LCOR proposal. At last we will have a library and,
perhaps, some nice new neighbors. Hearings would go on for years with
bickering among those who cannot accept change. When you are green you
are growing. When you are ripe you rot.
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DC Vote Comments on Congressional Gun Bill
Jaline Quinto, jquinto@dcvote.org
In an article in The Hill, “Pelosi opposes gun bill but may
allow vote,” http://tinyurl.com/665dm6,
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced that she will allow a vote
on a bill that would dictate DC’s gun laws. The bill imposes gun
legislation on the District and would override any legislation written
by the locally-elected DC government. According to the article,
supporters have a commitment for a vote by mid-September.
DC Vote Executive Director Ilir Zherka said, “It is an outrage that
members of the House are trying to impose their will on DC residents by
bypassing the local democratic process. Not one of these members would
ever allow Congress to interfere with their local governments back in
their congressional districts. Washington, DC, is home to more than half
a million, taxpaying Americans who are entitled, like every other
American, to elect officials who act in their interest and write local
laws. What some members of Congress are attempting to do shows disdain
for the rights of Washingtonians. Congress should reject efforts to
curry favor with gun rights advocates who are willing to put the lives
and safety of DC residents at risk.
“Ironically, while some in the House attempt to gut DC’s
democracy, a bill to give DC a vote in Congress is languishing on the
Senate floor. DC Vote is already working with our coalition partners to
implement a very public demonstration of our opposition through rallies,
call-in days and media outreach.”
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To respond to Ralph Blessing’s comment [themail, June 30], I raised
the same issues — and about the same locations, plus others — with
DDOT recently. I received a reply from the DDOT director with a
commitment to send inspectors. That happened, and while the reasons
given for the apparent noncompliance were reasonable, I still quarreled
with them. One reason was that the regulations now allow for sidewalk
blockage during facade work. I pointed out to DDOT officials that, “in
New York City’s excellent regs — http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob/downloads/bldgs_code/bc27s19.pdf
— I didn’t see any exception for facades on constructing walk
throughs. I appreciate that you have to go about this carefully. Perhaps
you can ask your NYC counterparts on their experience with protecting
pedestrians during facade work. My own (rather obvious) prejudice is
that the safety of pedestrians comes first, and that providing a well
constructed walk through is best, no matter what is going on above them.”
Overall, I’ve been pleased by DDOT’s responsiveness and
follow-up.
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Once again the hounds of Urban Planning have been let loose on the
unsuspecting public with their un-urban planning schemes. Now they want
to restrict parking spaces in the city, reduce the requirement for
parking spaces in buildings, and just set sail on the likelihood of
limiting cars in the city period. My, my, aren’t we full of great
planning promises that will become the byword of urban planners. If
allowed to go forward with their draconian ideas of making this city a
giant pedestrian way with grandiose plans for public transportation, do
you really think that they will become the lamp light of planners
countrywide? I don’t think so.
They will set the population up in this city for a fall, a fall that
would have devastating effects upon the life and safety of every man,
women and child that will live and work in this city, now and in the
future. Denying the population a means of escaping this city in an
emergency is tantamount to building one massive mousetrap, causing
untold injury and mayhem on everyone who is banking on public
transportation to be their savior in an emergency. Our public
transportation cannot move people during rush hour without some form of
screw up. How can an inadequate subway system limited to two tracks, no
express service, and unable to switch from one line to another without
changing trains, be expected to move masses of people in an emergency?
The day when the transportation system was impacted with the Air Florida
Crash, snow, and subway trains derailing was a perfect example of trying
to move a mass of people.
Where do they get these so-called planners? What do they do doing the
day besides dreaming up some ideas that must have been sent from the far
reaches of space. There are enough enforcement laws in place, if
exercised by the book, to restrict people from driving into work and
parking up all available curb space, and that will push them to use
public transportation as much as is reasonable.
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Parking and Zoning
Paul Wilson, dcmcrider at gmail dot com
I will take issue with Gary Imhoff’s characterization of changes to
the Zoning Code on the subject of parking. The current parking
regulations are routinely set aside by BZA as unworkable and a genuine
hardship for owners. The changes in some ways cement in place what is
already occurring in many cases through the variance process. My
contention is reduction of the minimum parking requirements largely
returns this decision to the marketplace. Developers are, after all,
free to provide more parking than that required by the zoning code.
Building owners and developers that want to rent space and sell units
are still going to need to provide substantial on-site parking, in order
to meet marketplace demands of tenants and condo purchasers.
What the zoning code revision will do is replace an arbitrarily high
number with the invisible hand of the marketplace. The current parking
requirement has also been a powerful tool of NIMBYs who object to
anything that smacks of density. Removal of this lever is largely to the
good, in my view, and strikes a proper balance between property rights
and the public interest. Bottom line — I think we should have more
faith in the market and less faith in the heavy hand of regulation.
I do find it a little unseemly that outfits like Zipcar are actively
lobbying for changing the parking requirement. I’m a member and
received a “junk” E-mail from them on this subject. This smacks of
good old-fashioned rent seeking on their part, especially considering
that Zipcar uses a lot of on-street spaces. WABA (Washington Area
Bicyclist Association) also supports the change, but confines its
efforts largely to the subject of bicycle parking.
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Optimal Mobility or Induced Driving?
Richard Layman, rlaymandc@yahoo.com
The more you accommodate the car, the more people drive. I call it
“car heroin,” because face it, for individuals, it’s generally
easier to get around by car. (However, in the city, taking into account
stoplights and parking, bicycling is competitive for distances up to
five miles.) It can definitely be easier for multiple people, especially
adults having to manage one or more young children. (I don’t own a
car, but do use Zipcar and rental cars at least monthly.) But the
optimal individual decision isn’t the optimal group decision, because
the amount of space required to park cars (at work, school, play,
shopping, etc.) and fit them on roads is greater than can be
accommodated by our streets, roads, backyards, front yards, and parking
garages.
Part of the problem is that space devoted to cars is less productive
and attractive in the hours it isn’t used. Parking lots often
contribute to crime and disorder, not to mention create unsightly gaps
in the building fabric. Parking structures cost a lot of money to build
and maintain, and take space away from other uses such as housing and
offices. But the real issue is exactly what Gary says about
accommodating people living together but in different ways, along with
the reality that the city is physically designed to be lived in a
different way from the suburbs. In the city, walking and transit are the
more efficient modes. In the suburbs, the car. The problem is what a
colleague calls “inward suburbanization” or what I call “intra-city
sprawl” — the repatterning of urban forms of land use in favor of
car-based land use patterns typical of the suburbs.
Rather than make over the city for people who favor automobility, the
option should be to live in places that the car-based lifestyle works,
rather than to shoehorn it in to a place where it will never work
optimally. (Frankly, I think the car proponents are losing anyway as in
the core of the city, at many hours of the day and night there isn’t
that much traffic, judging by my ability to cross the street against a
red light without there being any oncoming traffic.) The great thing
about DC is that it does have a variety of residential housing patterns
that truly do allow for accommodating vastly different lifestyles. Maybe
a place like Dupont Circle or Columbia Heights isn’t a great place to
live with a car that you expect to park (virtually for free) on the
street at any time of day or night. But plenty of outer neighborhoods in
the city, places like AU Park or Woodridge or my new Manor Park
neighborhood are car heaven. (Fortunately for me, Manor Park just as
easily fits a biking-transit-walking lifestyle.)
I guess I would have to say that the core of the city, to maintain
and extend its competitive advantage within the region, needs to
strengthen non-car centric land use patterns. In the outer part of the
city it can go either way, although you can imagine I prefer
strengthening transit and adding new housing where it can be “surgically”
accommodated, adding population able to support neighborhood-based
amenities that many places are lacking. I aver this makes the most
sense, given the likelihood of ever increasing prices for gasoline and
the concomitant reaction and change in lifestyle and behavior patterns
in favor of nonautomobile-based mobility. That is why I support the
change in zoning requirements regarding parking. However, I wish that
the Office of Planning had been far more strategic in recognizing the
likely opposition and the time required to build the base of support for
these changes. The kinds of practices that we must note haven’t killed
San Francisco, New York City, or Seattle. Leading attempts to change the
zoning code with perhaps the most incendiary and difficult of
regulations to change likely dooms this effort to failure, and you and
your car loving ilk will win in the short run, although in the long run
changes in fuel costs give the advantages, at least in the center
cities, to those who walk, cycle, and ride transit.
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Parking and the Zoning Commission
Alma Gates, ahg71139@aol.com
I encourage you to send a copy of your excellent editorial [themail,
July 30] to the Zoning Commission. It is extremely helpful for those who
do not swallow the “Smart Growth Kool Aid.” Materials must be faxed
to Sharon Schellin at 727-6072, and director for Case 08-06-2 (Parking).
[Anyone else who wishes to comment on the proposed new zoning
regulations on parking, and who was unable to testify in person at the
hearing, can also send comments to the Zoning Commission. — Gary
Imhoff\]
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Pluckerland Band and Charlie Salyes on
National Night Out, August 5
Laurie Collins, mnpa@mtpleasantdc.org
Enjoy an evening with the Pluckerland Band (formerly Danny Blew and
the Blues Crew) and rockin’ jazzy Latin blues featuring DC’s own
Charlie Salyes at a National Night Out event in Mount Pleasant’s
Lamont Park.
Charlie Sayles’ performs a unique and diverse repertoire of
American roots music and tailors its sets to the audience and venue. At
the core of the music are his soulful and fiery blues harmonica and
vocals and the solid dance groove of a veteran blues band. National
Night Out is sponsored by the Third District Metropolitan Police
Department and Mount Pleasant Neighborhood Alliance. Tuesday, August 5,
6:00p.m.-8:00 p.m., in Lamont Park. Would you like to help or make a
donation to this event? Please let us know; E-mail mpna@mtpleasantdc.org
to volunteer, or to donate go to http://www.mtpalliance.org/membership/membership.htm.
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Citywide Community Meeting on Crime, August 5
Cherita Whiting, cherita_whiting@yahoo.com
You are invited to a citywide community meeting on crime in all our
neighborhoods on
Come, join, and lend your thoughts and ideas to stop the violence in
all neighborhoods. We cannot take the Summer off to fighting crime. The
residents of the District need to stand up and speak out. Our city
leaders need to hear from the people on what we the people want and need
to help keep our streets safe and our young people alive.
Mayor Fenty, Chief Lanier, and members of the DC city council have
been invited to attend to hear from us, the people. Thursday, August 7,
7:00 p.m.-8:45 p.m., in the Old DC Council Chambers, 441 4th Street, NW,
First Floor, South. Metro Judiciary Square stop, on the Red and Blue
lines; Metrobus lines 80, D2, G6, and 96; on-street parking available at
6:30 p.m.
Community organizers: 5th District Citizens’ Advisory Council, Ward
4 Education Council, Eastland Gardens Civic Association, Council of
Churches of Greater Washington Social Action Committee, and DC
Federation of Civic Associations, Inc. For more information, contact
Robert Vinson Brannum, 256-8452, rbrannum@robertbrannum..com;
Cherita Whiting, 487-5926, Cherita_whiting@yahoo.com.
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Fun Family Films Under the Stars, August 5-7
John A. Stokes, john.astokes@dc.gov
The District’s Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) will hold
“Fun Family Films Under The Stars,” its 2008 Family Movie Night
Season, this summer. “Fun Family Films Under The Stars,” which
continues until late-September, will afford residents of all ages and
families of all sizes the opportunity to enjoy viewing the free,
family-oriented films in DPR’s outdoor settings. As in previous years,
viewers are invited to bring their own snacks, chairs, and blankets.
This year, District residents will have a greater selection of viewing
locations. Movies will be shown from 8:45 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.
Community members who arrive early enough for each screening will
have the opportunity to place a vote between two movies that may be
shown that evening. The movie that receives the most votes will be
shown.
Tuesday, August 5, Barry Farms Recreation Center, 1230 Sumner Road,
SE
Wednesday, August 6, DC Village, Lane, SW, Bldg. 1A
Wednesday, August 6, Emery Recreation Center, 5701 Georgia Avenue, NW
Thursday, August 7, Marvin Gaye Park, Division Avenue and Foot Streets,
NE
Thursday, August 7, Anacostia Park, 1800 Anacostia Drive, SE
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