Last Session
Dear Sessionists:
The last legislative session of the seventeenth city council period
was held yesterday. You’ve read about most of the results, I’m sure.
But I haven’t griped about it yet, so I’ll get my licks in. One
thing I won’t complain about is that, by a vote of five to eight, the
council rejected the lottery contract championed by Mayor Fenty. The
mayor and the Washington Post wanted the contract to be awarded
to Fenty’s cronies, rather than to the longtime cronies of several
councilmembers. Neither group got it, so the contract to operate the DC
Lottery will be put up for rebid. Perhaps this time it will be awarded
on merit, rather than on the basis of whose friends make the best
sounding unverifiable promises about future performance.
Councilmember Mary Cheh turned in an unexplainable performance for a
constitutional professor who in the past had championed civil liberties.
She introduced an unconstitutional bill to limit free speech and the
right to protest by forbidding picketing in residential neighborhoods,
and then withdrew it at the last minute. And she amended the gun
licensing bill by adding an unnecessary and useless training requirement
that guarantees that anyone who files a lawsuit challenging DC’s new
gun regulations will win, regardless of Attorney General Peter Nickles’
characteristic bluster that he will successfully defend them in court.
You know that the council doubled parking meter rates downtown (of
course, councilmembers don’t have to pay the meters, since they’ve
exempted themselves from the parking regulations), and you know what
happened to the bill about lengthening bar hours during inauguration
week. The bar hours bill got most of the press and public attention, but
that bill will affect the city for just one week. A much more important
bill, passed by a unanimous vote, disposed of sixteen acres of city land
on the southwest waterfront for ninety-nine years, at a charge to the
developer of a dollar a year. Here’s what one correspondent, who wants
to remain anonymous, wrote about it: “We need the project, but the
deal’s terms and details were opaque. This was the worst and sloppiest
year-end rush job ever, and the deal is third in size only to the
stadium and the convention center. What’s the scope of the subsidy?
Who knows? What’s the sweep of indemnifications? Who knows? What’s
the recurring added annual subsidy? Who knows? This was emergency
legislation, passed in a way that totally denied the public access to
the full terms of the deal. Most councilmembers and their staffs don’t
know and can’t articulate even in the simplest terms the outline of
the deal or the financial returns on it. You should ask the council
members, ‘What was the deal? What did DC give and what did DC get?
What was the net all-in cost? What is the net financial return to the
district?’ See what you get as a response. Such a megadeal should not
be ramrodded through with such a rush and lack of consideration,
certainly not in this fiscal environment.”
Washington has lost two popular longtime restaurants with which
nearly everyone has a history. Les Halles, serving thin French-style
steaks and fries on a key corner of Pennsylvania Avenue, is already
gone, and the historic Market Inn, part of Capitol Hill since 1959, is
closing on New Year’s Eve. And I have to note the sad passing of Steve
Pozniak, and give thanks to his family for the good he did for this city
as an ANC Commissioner.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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On Monday, Council Chairman Vincent Gray held a press conference to
release a 123-page “Report of Investigation” regarding the
embezzlement of funds by Harriet Walters at the DC Office of Tax and
Revenue. The report concludes a yearlong investigation conducted for the
council by the law firm of Wilmer Culter Pickering Hale and Dorr and the
accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers. The entire report will be
posted on DCWatch by the end of this week, look for the link on the home
page.
In addition to detailing “the mechanics of Walters’ scheme,”
the report summarizes the “failures that allowed her scheme to succeed
for nearly twenty years and to drain more than $48 million from District
coffers.” The report concludes that “Walters was able to perpetuate
this long-standing fraud because of a failure of controls, a
dysfunctional work environment, and a lack of oversight.”
Commenting on the report, Council Chairman Gray was highly critical
of the dysfunctional work environment and the “culture of apathy and
silence” that existed at OTR. However, when he was repeated asked
during the press conference to comment on the growing controversy
regarding Jim Graham’s plan to use fire department cadets and recruits
at this holiday party that afternoon, Gray claimed that he wasn’t
aware of the issue, despite numerous press reports, and wouldn’t offer
any public opinion criticizing a colleague. It seems as though the
council also suffers from a culture of apathy and silence.
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Made the List
Ed T. Barron, edtb1@macdotcom
Think that Illinois is one the top ten states with the most
corruption? You’re wrong. Florida heads the list and non-state
District of Columbia made the list of the top ten most corrupt in the
US. That’s what was published in the Sunday Times (which takes
me about two days to read, without even trying the crossword puzzle).
This info might influence the Obama crowd if they have any inklings of
granting representation to DC.
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[Re: “Charter Schools Make Gains on Tests: Headway by Poor Children
Linked to Rigorous Methods, Ample Funds,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/14/AR2008121402654.html.]
Surely, the twelve (or whatever number it assigned the task) Post reporters
forgot or ignored the most basic rule of comparison — that is, to
compare “like with like.” They may have forgotten (or did not refer)
to a long-ago industrial study that attempted to generalize a rule of
what was taken to be “efficiency” by separating out an (unsorted)
group of production-line workers to find out if the manipulation of
surroundings would make a difference to what this group produced. One
test was to improve or to worsen the simple lighting of the workplace.
They found that whichever way the lighting was moved, productivity
increased. The investigators concluded that was at stake was not the
physical condition, but the mere fact of being selected, noticed, and
focused on: i.e., that being informed that you were special, and taken
as an example of something good, was enough to produce useful productive
performance.
The article itself adds all the elements which make certainly direct
comparison of the overall public school population and that of the
typical charter school population at least partially invalid. In terms
of the simplest element of all, that of available monies, the two groups
each have available to them $12,000.00 of public monies. But this is
rendered not so useful as an index of effectiveness by the variation in
access to private funds not readily available to the fully public
counterpart, and referred to in the article itself as the charter
schools’ “ability to tap into private donors, bankers, and
developers [which] has made it possible to fund impressive facilities,
expand facilities, expand programs, and reduce class sizes.” And
charters have “freedom to experiment,” which is given to no public
school in anything like this degree of direct effectiveness.
An adjunct article (“DC Prep’s Founder Emphasizes Financing,
Staff,” http://tinyurl.com/3qhfv3)
describes the success of Ms. Emily Lawson in establishing such a school.
It is now six years old, and has 740 middle and elementary school
students, with an additional $1,500 added to the public school allotment
of $12,000 per student, provided by “philanthropy, as well as loans
and other sources.” With the additional funding, she has been able “to
hire more staff workers so the school can have longer days, and teachers
have more time to compare. She also pays teachers competitive salaries
[compared with whom?], subsidizes their cell-phones, and provides them
with laptop computers.” The original building was an empty warehouse,
offered 37,000 square-foot of space, and Ms. Lawson was able to buy and
renovate it with five million dollars in loans and one million dollars
in donations. The school is presently buying another building for twelve
million dollars, and “plans to have ten campuses in Northeast and
Southeast.” “DC Prep is one of about more than a dozen charter
schools that have qualified for bond deals with the city by showing that
they are financially sound and can attract students.” While DC Prep is
supposed to be one of the best examples of charter school success, it is
worth noting that it has taken four years to achieve it, and that, the
Public Charter School Board, in its assessment of the school’s
performance on the 2007 city tests, “praised the program but warned
that despite high scores, it had not met the Board’s requirements on
its 2007 tests, and that the Board will reevaluate the program in 2009.”
I might add that none of what I have said (drawn solely from the Post’s
stories themselves) is meant to compare like with unlike, and certainly
not to criticize any charter school program for things it cannot help.
It is merely meant to draw attention to the oversimplified notion that
things can be done without resources, and to emphasize that good ideas
need substantial nourishment before they can get to the point of what
they have undertaken to do.
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It is easy to stop development in DC. All you seem to need are a few
neighbors that yell loudly enough and the bureaucracy mires everything
down in red tape. At last we are seeing neighbors saying Yes, Build It
In My Back Yard. Last Saturday, on a cold December day, a group of
neighbors spent five hours gathering hundreds of signatures on petitions
asking the zoning commission to approve an application by Giant to
rebuild their property at Newark and Wisconsin to include a much larger
store, underground parking, and condos to pay for the expansion.
The Giant project started in 2000 and ground to a halt several times
because of NIMBY neighbors that yelled and even moved to declare the
mundane buildings as “historic.” The new group (Advocates of
Wisconsin Avenue Renewal, AWARE) is not affiliated with Giant but is
just a bunch of people that shop at the Giant and got tired of never
hearing their desires being articulated. The surprising thing was the
overwhelmingly enthusiastic reception they received. At least 90 percent
of the people passing by only asked where to sign and why the process
was taking so long. It looks as though the “silent majority” is
finding its voice. Perhaps YIMBYism will spread to other parts of the
community.
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Operation Inauguration
Phil Lepanto, ANC 1D-01, phil.lepanto@aol.com
While several readers of this publication decried Councilmember
Graham’s emergency legislation allowing operational leniency during
inauguration week, many others saw an opportunity for the hospitality
industry to shine. DC is home to many fine establishments that would
love to serve District residents and visitors responsibly during this
period of momentous celebration.
Unfortunately, the council decided on Tuesday that it would be more
effective to legislate than to lead. Small business owners are already
greatly stymied and perplexed by the Byzantine gauntlet of rules and
regulations in this city. Now, instead of helping our businesses offer
world class hospitality, they’ve created yet another hoop for them to
jump through. Instead of bringing businesses, government, and residents
together to roll out the red carpet cooperatively, they tried to solve a
problem with a pen rather than rolling up their sleeves, talking to
their constituents, and leading the city forward. Yes we can? Apparently
only if you fill out this form, pay this fee, and operate a business in
the downtown area.
I know this city has a deep preference for the Democratic Party, but
inauguration week should be DC’s quadrennial Mardi Gras. This is not a
time to sit on our hands or hamstring our local merchants. This a time
to say “Welcome America, we’re open for business!”
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Historical Society of Washington, DC, December
21
Ed Bruske, euclidarms@yahoo.com
Sunday, December 21, 2:30-3:30 p.m., Historical Society of
Washington, DC, 801 K Street, NW. Free admission. Jewish storytelling:
“Chanukah Gift” with Jeanne Leckert. The “Chanukah Gift” tells
the story of Chanukah through the sweet tale of a boy trying to find the
right present for his mother. On a walk through the woods, David meets a
variety of characters with whom he relates the story of Chanukah, piece
by piece. They, in turn, humorously help him discover the perfect gift.
This show features music, audience participation, and shadow puppets.
Ages three and up. RSVP@historydc.org
or 383-1828.
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CLASSIFIEDS — INAUGURATION HOUSING
Request for Inauguration Housing
Joan Eisenstodt, jeisen@aol.com
A colleague sent this to me. If you can be of help, please contact
the person whose E-mail appears at the end of the note.
I just found out that our San Francisco Boys Choir was chosen to sing
at the inauguration. Here’s the problem — they need a place(s) to
stay from January 17 to 21. There will be forty-three boys, aged 9-12
and twelve to fifteen adults. Are there any readers out there close to
DC who could offer a floor in their homes. (We would need a few families
in a neighborhood.) Does anyone have any suggestions on other sources of
places to stay (all the hotels are either sold out or a thousand dollars
a night). Any suggestions would be helpful. Please respond to Lesli Mays
at momamays@sbcglobal.net.
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