Zoning Out
Dear Zoners:
On September 29, at 6:30 p.m., the Zoning Commission is going to hold
a hearing on proposed zoning regulations that are so restrictive that
they will make it nearly impossible to establish a gun shop in DC, http://tinyurl.com/6kbgy8.
The Zoning Commission has already adopted these regulations on an
emergency basis; the hearing is only to accept comments on whether they
should be adopted on a permanent basis. Basically, the proposed
regulations forbid gun shops in industrial and mixed-use
commercial-residential districts, and permit them only in commercially
zoned C-3, C-4, and C-5 districts. However, no gun shop can open as a
matter of right; each has to get a special exception from the Board of
Zoning Adjustment, and even in these districts no gun shop can be within
six hundred feet of a Residential District or Special Purpose District,
a church, school, library, or playground. All gun shops have to be on a
building’s ground floor, and, “Any proposal for a new or expanded
firearm retail sales establishment shall be referred to the Chief of
Police, Metropolitan Police Department for review and comment regarding
security measures, and to the Director, Office of Planning for review
and comment regarding neighborhood impacts.” Sounds to me like the
District wants to provide another good opportunity for expensive and
protracted litigation.
Until a real gun shop actually open in the District, DC residents who
want to purchase a gun will have to buy it online or at an out-of-state
shop, and have it shipped to a licensed firearms dealer in the city.
Mark Segraves of WTOP News, who has been reporting on his own experience
with the process of buying and licensing a gun, reported today that
Charles Sykes, the only dealer in the city who is willing to transfer
handguns to individuals, has had his federal and city permits renewed
after moving his office, and will be open for business next Tuesday.
While gun shops in Maryland and Virginia charge as little as $25 for the
transfer service, Segraves reports that Sykes, with no competition in
DC, will be charging $125.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Continued Financial
Recklessness Will Harm DC
David J. Mallof, mallof at verizon.net
Based on my intensive past work with Wall Street equity and debt
rating analysts, I was disappointed in the well-intentioned but highly
superficial financial reasons offered in the Current’s and InTowner’s
recent endorsements of Mr. Jack Evans for another term as Ward 2
councilmember. Retaining the seventeen-year incumbent would keep a
reckless driver seated as Chairman of the DC Council’s Finance and
Revenue Committee. We should not blame Mr. Evans for the current
recession. Nor should we allow him to take any particular credit for the
massive fiscal spending stimulus DC received over the last seven years,
as well as the added monetary policy stimulus that decreased the overall
structure of interest rates nationwide by a staggering 80 percent in a
very short period of time during the single year of 2001. Yet Mr. Evans
has invariably implied a direct personal link between his council tenure
and DC’s recent growth.
He does, however, bear direct responsibility for over $1.5 billion in
recent and negligent “lapses” cited in the partial list below. In
the private sector, any one of these could well lead to the immediate
dismissal of a manager entrusted with handling other people’s money:
Wall Street Illusions: Contrary to what Mr. Evans suggests about his
own role, the Street does not look to one man to determine DC’s fiscal
health, but looks to substance: DC’s balance sheet, income statement,
managerial depth, and financial controls. Mr. Evans’ campaign web site
says: “We now live in the most fiscally sound city in the nation.”
Says who? DC’s credit ratings are average at best. Of the largest
twenty-five US cities rated by Standard and Poors, twenty rank higher
than DC. Arlington County is at the highest S&P level, AAA, which is
four notches above DC’s A+. I believe this dangerous campaign-spun
falsehood is an excuse for perpetuating fiscal non-oversight and
spendthriftness.
Approaching “Red Light” Debt Levels: Evans believes DC’s debt
level can be 70 percent higher than the limit DC’s Chief Financial
Officer urgently recommends. On at least five occasions, CFO Mr. Natwar
Gandhi has begged the Council to limit the rapid borrowing increases,
yet Mr. Evans has repeated that today’s debt levels, which are nearly
at Mr. Gandhi’s “red light” and “alarm signal” levels, can
keep going even higher.
Lazy Fiscal Oversight: Evans’ committee has approved nearly every
spending deal over the last five years to grant boons to private
interests with no real revision, and he never remands anything for
further analysis by the mayor. He recently approved in one single
twelve-minute session over $699 million in off-the-balance-sheet revenue
bonds. His staff glibly says DC is not responsible if the bonds default.
(That’s what Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said about much of their
off-the-balance-sheet commitments too, which is a significant reason in
part why their balance sheets are crumbling.)
Looking the Other Way: Early last year Evans called “ridiculous”
the US Government Accountability Office’s second desperate, even
pleading report urging DC to finally fix massive no-bid procurement
lapses (and likely fraud). A day earlier, Evans held a CFO confirmation
hearing where he talked about how he would like filmmakers from India’s
“Bollywood” to make movies in DC. Not one instant was spent in the
hearing on any weighty matters like the new GAO report. He held a
minimalist annual CFO oversight hearing soon thereafter, where he failed
to ask any meaningful questions of Mr. Gandhi or the Office of Tax and
Revenue Director about financial controls, even though DC’s auditors
repeatedly warned that most financial management systems are very weak.
I can’t say he should have found that one obscene $50 million OTR tax
refund scam, but overall, his proactive scrutiny is nonexistent. After
the scandal broke last November, I repeatedly asked the Committee in
formal testimony and in multiple follow-up requests to provide reference
to any video clip of archival material on the council’s web site to
show any manner of rigorous questioning on financial controls over the
last five years. Answer: continued silence.
Corrupt Public Property Dealings: Evans was the prime cheerleader for
myriad no-bid sales and special access deals, including last summer’s
attempted secret sale of the West End library and a strategic fire
station, as well as the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation’s corrupt “Separate
Development” award at the ballpark for Mr. Miller’s company. He
helped lead the charge to approve the Radio One deal for the valuable
Howard Metro stop location that was given away for a no-bid pittance —
less than the single and old appraised value the District had in hand
— all to a politically connected developer.
Enough Is Not Enough: Evans boasts constantly about the original 1998
Verizon Center development, yet DC initially offered to chip-in a 33
percent subsidy, not 100 percent, as with the baseball stadium.
Then-Mayor Barry later called back and lowered the deal to 25 percent,
telling the team owner, Mr. Abe Pollin, “the city is broke.” A 25-30
percent range can be a sound level of subsidy for public infrastructure,
not 100 percent gifts to private interests, as with the ballpark. Last
year, he led the Verizon Center $50 million giveaway that granted even
more money to the already wildly successful private entity. Both Mr.
Evans’ and the Chief Financial Officer’s staffs have refused to
disclose the “Approved Project Plan” the District was required to
review and approve. In other words, we don’t know where the money
went. But we do know the DC council got its own sleek skybox — all led
by Mr. Evans’ Committee. Mr. Evans also speaks often about using
Gallery Place as a policy model, but that project almost certainly would
have been built without giving $75 million in public benefits to his
then next door neighbor and political benefactor in Georgetown, Mr. Herb
Miller.
Bloated Baseball Blundering: Evans aggressively rushed forward with
the initial $279 million stadium estimate in 2005. He protested any
thoughtful review right up to the last minute creation of the
meaningless $611 million “non-cap” that occurred after Mr. Gandhi
removed $150 million or more from the project and buried it in the
transportation budget and elsewhere. The ballooning total cost is widely
recognized as approaching $800 million. The baseball stadium contract he
ramrodded through the council will make you gasp in the sweeping subsidy
by, and burden of total risk placed irresponsibly upon, District
taxpayers. The deal includes near-negligent giveaway passages that even
the most junior lawyer would never recommend to a client. This is why
the Nationals’ owners demanded with straight faces — right up to
(unsuccessful) arbitration — that even the team’s uniforms should be
paid by DC.
More Looming Giveaways: To get the Redskins back to DC, fat money
cows will need to jump over the fiscal moon to replace a ten-year-old
private ballpark which the team owner, Mr. Daniel Snyder, has spent
millions more of the team’s own money continuously improving. The
scale of the DC public subsidy or giveaway would need to be massive. Has
Mr. Evans offered even a basic sense of how such a deal would ever work
— even jotted down “dealpoints” on a cocktail napkin or Post-It
Note? No.
Our current road to public finance hell is uncritical, wasteful, and
crony/corruption-based. What is our real return on investment? Should
taxpayers accept another four years of this non-fiduciary stewardship
and non-oversight?
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In Contempt of Special Education
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com
Today, I attended a hearing in US District Court that Judge Paul L.
Friedman held to review the findings of the court-appointed monitor’s
report on the Blackman/Jones case, which details the District’s
noncompliance with the provisions in the 2006 consent decree regarding
special education. For an overview of the report and the court hearing,
Bill Turque has written two articles: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/02/AR2008090201615.html
and http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/03/AR2008090303325.html.
A notable aspect of today’s hearing was the judge’s focus on
school reform and the issue of accountability. On several occasions,
Judge Friedman acknowledged and even praised the “grand plans” and
“reform efforts” of schools Chancellor Rhee. He also noted that a
common element and theme of Mayor Fenty’s and Chancellor Rhee’s
school reform effort is “accountability.” With that said, Judge
Friedman then admonished Rhee, State Education Officer Deborah Gist, and
the district government for failing to focus their reform efforts on
special education and failing to implement the provisions of the consent
decree by, as the Judge noted, “believing that something else is more
important than special ed.” He also noted that “it isn’t clear who
is responsible for what,” “who is responsible for rolling up their
sleeves” and implementing the consent decree, and “who at the end of
the day can Rhee call into her office and hold accountable for special
ed.” In frustration, Judge Friedman noted that Rhee “says and claims
that she was hired to fix DCPS’s dysfunctional system, and isn’t
DCPS’s special education program part of that dysfunctional system?”
In the end, Friedman suggested that the District could be held in
contempt of court, and noted that there is a “lack of accountability,
lack of coordinated oversight, lack of sufficient resources, and lack of
an adequate knowledge regarding the consent decree.”
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What is the law in the District regarding motor scooters, mopeds, or
whatever you want to call them? Do they need a license plate and do the
drivers need to wear a helmet? I was told by a driver of one tonight
that she didn’t even need a drivers license to drive one. Then on the
way home a motor scooter cut around a group of cars, ran a red light,
and went into the entrance of one of our more notable universities. The
driver wasn’t wearing a helmet and didn’t have a license plate. He
was just operating a motor vehicle in DC. Have the city and its police
force sunk so low that these vehicles operate with impunity on our
streets? I ask because I’ve never seen any effort to enforce any laws
for their use. It seems that police cars just drive by them without our
fine officers even noticing them.
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New Education Blog
Nathan A. Saunders, nasaunders@aol.com
I want to announce my new education blog, http://NathanSaunders.blogs.com,
which focuses on public education, unionism, and politics, with a little
art and humor mixed in. Stories, opinions, and documents from the front
lines of public education that are not accurately reported in the
newspapers will be featured from a unique perspective. Critical issues
and other pertinent stories are being missed by the Washington Post’s
editorial board. In the words of Obama, “They just don’t get it.”
Frankly, it is the independents and Internet-based media that will
deliver the most important analysis of public education and political
issues. Check out my suggestions for teachers on Chancellor Rhee’s
evolving plan B. Teachers cannot assume that the Washington Teachers
Union is fairly representing them. They must demand proof and evidence
at every step. Don’t forget my rating of the WTU President’s union
history knowledge. I couldn’t help myself, as I am a highly qualified
and certified social studies teacher.
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Paying middle schoolers is silly. However, paying high schoolers, who
have opportunity costs from not working full time, or even part time
when they should be doing their homework, is more than appropriate —
although the wage should be much higher than proposed. For most of the
life of the species, youth of that age were independent of their parents
and responsible for providing for themselves. It is deep in our DNA. One
of the reasons we have so many problems as a society is that we continue
to infantalize our young adults. Paying them to be in school (and
providing them supervised housing, a marriage license, and family
support funds if they produce their own children) is a step away from
the current pathology. Needless to say, the implication of this action
would be to cut parents out of paying for college altogether and finding
someone else, like future employers, to do so instead. This would take
most of the sting out of having kids and will likely increase family
size — thus saving Social Security.
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Bilking the City to Bear Arms
Sylvia C. Brown, Ward 7, sylviabrown1@verizon.net
I am astounded by the $3.5 million claim that libertarian Dick Heller’s
attorneys want to squeeze out of DC taxpayers. For all the talk about
limited government and constitutional rights, libertarians are the same
as any caricatured politician. It is my understanding the attorneys are
already well-to-do and the billable hours were covered by the Cato
Institute. This a case of the fat cats getting fatter and
double-dipping. I also read that DC Attorney General Nickles is “planning
to negotiate in good faith.” What? Do not cower to these strong-arm
tactics. City council and city leadership stand up! Three and a half
million dollars could construct the missing link of Minnesota Avenue,
NE, and repair innumerable alleys and sidewalks in my long-neglected
Deanwood neighborhood.
[For an account of legal fees being requested by the plaintiff’s
lawyers, see http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/the-bill-for-heller-35-million.
— Gary Imhoff]
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Fun Family Films Under the Stars, September
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.
Friday, September 5, Langdon Park Recreation Center, 2901 20th
Street, NE
Saturday, September 6, Florida Park, 1st Street and Florida Avenue, NW
Sunday, September 7, Carver/ Langston Terrace, 21st and Maryland Avenue,
NE
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DC Public Library Events, September 6, 9
George Williams, george.williams2@dc.gov
Saturday, September 6, 10:00 a.m., Palisades Neighborhood Library,
4901 V Street, NW. Palisades Lace Group.
Sunday, September 7, 2:00 p.m., Southeast Neighborhood Library, 403
Seventh Street, SE. Sunday Afternoon Jazz.
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National Building Museum Events, September 9
Jazmine Zick, jzick@nbm.org
September 9, 10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m., Family Program, book of the
month: My Town. Readings at 10:30 and 11:30 a.m. Join us in the
Building Zone for a special interactive reading of My Town
written by Rebecca Treays and learn about the life cycle of a community.
Free. Drop-in program, recommended for ages 3 to 5.
September 9, 6:30-8:00 p.m. Celebrate the inspirational work of Dr.
Charles H. Thornton, founder of the ACE Mentor program, which introduces
high school students to careers in the building arts and sciences by
connecting them with mentors and providing access to scholarships. The
program includes a discussion with Thornton, Norbert Young, president of
McGraw-Hill, Peter Davoren, CEO and president of Turner Construction,
and Jon Pickard, AIA, principal of Pickard Chilton. $12 Member; $12
Student; $20 Nonmember. Prepaid registration required. Walk-in
registration based on availability. Both events at the National Building
Museum, 401 F Street, NW, Judiciary Square stop, Metro Red Line.
Register for events at http://www.nbm.org.
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State Board of Education Meeting, September 10
Kadidia Thiero, kadidia.thiero@dc.gov
The District of Columbia State Board of Education will hold a public
hearing on Wednesday, September 10. At the meeting, the State Board will
receive public opinion and discussion points regarding the essential
role of familial contributions in education. The meeting will begin at
5:00 p.m. at 441 4th Street, NW, in the District of Columbia State Board
of Education Chambers, located on the ground floor of the building.
Constituents who wish to comment at the meeting are required to
notify the State Board of Education in advance by contacting the
Executive Director, Beverley Wheeler, by phone at 741-0888 or by E-mail
at Beverley.Wheeler@dc.gov before the close of business Monday,
September 8, 2008.
The meeting will air live on DSTV Comcast Channel 99 and RCN Channel
18. For more information about the District of Columbia State Board of
Education, please click http://sboe.dc.gov/.
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DC Neighborhood Circulation Study Meetings,
September 10-11, 16-17
Sylvia Brown, sylviabrown1@verizon.net
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), in
partnership with the District Department of Transportation (DDOT), wants
to enhance bus service through District neighborhoods. Currently, many
District of Columbia neighborhoods lack efficient surface transit
circulation to support mobility and accessibility;
neighborhood-to-neighborhood connectivity; and District-wide economic
development goals. The focus of this study is to 1) identify current
deficiencies in neighborhood transit connectivity, 2) improve local bus
services to enhance neighborhood circulation as well as connectivity, 3)
identify new neighborhood services that will enhance circulation and
connectivity, and 4) complement the long-range growth of DC’s transit
system
WMATA and DDOT understand that residents are the most important part
of the study. We want to hear from you. Please come to one of the
community meetings and let us know how we can serve you better. All
meeting times are 6:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m. Facilities are handicapped
accessible, but if you have special needs or questions, please call the
project hotline at 561-3700 or visit http://www.dcgetinvolved.com/circulationstudy.
Woodley Park/Adams Morgan Area, Wednesday, September 10, Mary’s
Center, 2355 Ontario Road, NW
Bellevue Area, Thursday, September 11, Southeast Hospital, 1310 Southern
Avenue, SE
Trinidad Area, Tuesday, September 16, Trinidad Recreation Center, 1310
Childress Street, NE
Capitol View/Benning Heights Area, Wednesday, September 17, Hughes
Memorial Church, 25 53rd Street, NE
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Internet Alley,
September 25
Elisenda Sola-Sole, kensingtonbookevents@gmail.com
Paul Ceruzzi will discuss his new book, Internet Alley: High
Technology in Tysons Corner, 1945-2005, on Thursday, September 25,
at 7:30 p.m. at the Kensington Row Bookshop, 3786 Howard Avenue,
Kensington, MD. Much of the world’s Internet management and governance
takes place in a corridor extending west from Washington, DC, through
northern Virginia toward Washington Dulles International Airport. Much
of the United States’ military planning and analysis takes place here
as well. At the center of that corridor is Tysons Corner — an
unincorporated suburban crossroads once dominated by dairy farms and
gravel pits. Today, the government contractors and high- tech firms —
companies like DynCorp, CACI, Verisign, and SAIC — that now populate
this corridor have created an “Internet Alley” off the Washington
Beltway.
In Internet Alley, Paul Ceruzzi examines this compact area of
intense commercial development and describes its transformation into one
of the most dynamic and prosperous regions in the country. Ceruzzi finds
that a variety of perennially relevant issues intersect here, making it
both a literal and figurative crossroads: federal support of scientific
research, the shift of government activities to private contractors,
local politics of land use, and the postwar movement from central cities
to suburbs.
Paul E. Ceruzzi is Curator of the National Air and Space Museum,
Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. He is the author of A History
of Modern Computing (second edition, MIT Press, 2003) and other
books, and coeditor of The Internet and American Business (MIT
Press, 2008).
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