World Travel
Dear Travelers:
Mayor Adrian Fenty accepted tens of thousands of dollars from two
foreign governments to travel to their countries: $25,000 from the
United Arab Emirates and $11,300 from China. He failed to disclose these
gifts to the public — in fact, he failed to disclose his trip to the
UAE at all until after he returned — and he originally lied about the
financing for both trips, claiming that he had paid for them himself.
Although he is required to file reports of gifts with the Office of
Campaign Finance, he has failed to report any gifts — not just these
two trips, but any gifts that he has received — since he has become
mayor. The administration claims that it has to report the two gift
trips only to the Office of Partnerships and Grant Services, which is
part of the Executive Office of the Mayor, and that Partnerships and
Grant Services has to issue public reports only quarterly. However, even
under this claim, the China trip gift was not reported on either of OPGS’s
last two quarterly reports.
The Mayor’s Order establishing the Office of Partnerships and Grant
Services (Mayor’s Order 2008-33, February 26, 2008, superseding Mayor
Williams’ order that originally established the office, Mayor’s
Order 2002-2) says that, “Procedures must be adopted to ensure that
solicitation, acceptance, and use of private donations are governed by
the highest standards of ethics and accountability.” It says that, “This
[OPGS] is the only entity that has the authority to solicit, review,
receive, and approve donations to the District government.” The Mayor’s
Order, as well as Mayor’s Order 2002-1, “Rules of Conduct Governing
Donations to the District Government,” which is still in effect, make
it clear that the OPGS solicits and accepts all gifts to the District
government so that both the appropriateness and the proper auditing of
such gifts can be assured. But there is no evidence that these
procedures were followed, and in fact by all appearances the OPGS was
not even aware of the gifts from China and UAE until after Mayor Fenty
had accepted them and had taken the trips.
This situation has been “investigated” by Attorney General Peter
Nickles, who claimed on Friday that the “acceptance of both donations
(both allowing the Mayor to perform formal and official governmental
functions) were found by the Office of the Attorney General to be
legally sufficient and in compliance with applicable law.” However,
the mayor’s reporting is already out of compliance. Nickles has
repeatedly said that the role of the Attorney General is to represent
the mayor and the mayor’s interests, not those of the citizens or of
the city government. His statement cannot be trusted or considered an
independent or disinterested one; at best, it is a brief for the
defense.
Nickles attempts to confuse the issue by stating that the travel
donations were in-kind, rather than in cash, but in-kind donations are
not treated any differently from cash donations in the Mayor’s Order.
Nickles also attempts to create confusion by misleadingly claiming that,
“Prior to 2009, District international travel donations were handled
through the Office of the Secretary and publicly reported by the end of
January of the year following the trip through the US State Department,”
and claiming that the trip to UAE is the first foreign trip to be
handled through the OPGS. Neither statement is true. Donations to Mayor
Williams for his foreign travel — for example, to Korea, London, and
the Paris Air Show — were accepted by and processed by the OPGS. (Nickles’
statement also raises a new question about both of Fenty’s trips.
Fenty has said that he paid the expenses for his family’s travel on
both trips, but instead of saying that Nickles twice uses the less
precise wording, “The Mayor’s family’s expenses were paid for
privately,” suggesting that someone other than Fenty may have paid
those expenses.) Nickles’ one-page statement was released only to
three favored news organizations, including the Washington Post, which
reprinted it at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dc/2009/03/fenty_trip_expenses_25000_from.html.
Another case in which Nickles’ words cannot be trusted is in the
confrontation that he has created against the city council over
late-night releases from the DC Jail. The council had passed a law
forbidding the release of prisoners from the city jail between the hours
of 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m.; Nickles, in another display of his belief
that the mayor and he are above the law, has unilaterally declared, in a
shaky legal analysis (http://www.dcwatch.com/govern/occ090217.htm),
that this law is unconstitutional and that he will not obey it. On
Wednesday, he ordered the Director of Corrections to ignore the law and
to obey Nickles’ directive to release prisoners at night (http://tinyurl.com/cjnrcd).
Nickles has previously shown nothing but contempt for constitutional
rights. He fought against the Second Amendment to defend the DC gun ban
and against the Fourth Amendment to defend police blockades of
neighborhoods; his sudden pose as a champion of Constitutional rights
rings hollow, and is unconvincing.
DC Public School Chancellor Michelle Rhee is continuing to try to
soften the hard edges of her war against teachers and their union. On
Friday, she issued an eight-page letter to teachers that sounds
conciliatory on the surface, http://www.dcpswatch.com/mayor/090313.htm.
But that letter contains few, if any, real concessions to teachers’
concerns. The softer rhetoric doesn’t alter her ongoing efforts to
bust their union and to make teachers vulnerable to a willful and
ideologically driven administration. For example, Rhee writes to
teachers that, “You deserve to work in safe and orderly schools. I’ve
been in enough schools over my 16-year career in education to know that
one or two troubled students can disrupt an entire classroom. We can’t
allow that to occur.” Yet she is supporting efforts to mainstream
special education students and to deny them access to specialized
schools and classes, and the State Board of Education is considering
regulations “that would require each local education agency to address
discipline in a manner which allows students to continue their
educational path within the school environment wherever possible” —
in other words, to eliminate disciplinary suspensions. Both of these
movements will necessarily make maintaining classroom order and disciple
more difficult, yet the administration doesn’t support teachers faced
with disruptive students even now. Bill Turque’s informative article
on “Disorder in a Merged DC School,” http://tinyurl.com/celc5a,
gives accounts of teachers who have been assaulted and attacked by
students at Woodson Academy. But teachers who are attacked by students
are then subjected to a further attack from Rhee’s chosen principal,
Darrin Slade, who blames the teachers for the students’ behavior, and
says that “the teachers were distorting the situation to deflect
attention from their own professional shortcomings. ‘These are
disgruntled teachers in the process of being terminated,’ he said. ‘We
have one of the safest ninth-grade programs in the city.’” This is
the kind of “support” that teachers can really expect from a Rhee
administration, and soft rhetoric can’t disguise it.
Gary Imhoff, themail@dcwatch.com
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com
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“How do you conduct an investigation on you, when you are
monitoring all the [tech] traffic?” That’s the question the Office
of the Attorney General asked a couple of years ago, when there was talk
of creating a system for monitoring the Office of the Chief Technology
Officer (OCTO), say District government sources. “People tried to get
[the council] to understand why certain things needed to be done outside
OCTO, but members didn’t buy the argument,” says an insider familiar
with those discussions.
That conversation gained new relevance this week after the FBI raided
the OCTO, alleging that Yusuf Acar, the city’s head of technology
security, conspired with a contractor, Sushil Bansal, to defraud the
District of millions of dollars. The scheme involved so-called “ghost”
employees and kickbacks.
Read the full story at http://jrbarras.com./site/?p=436
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Failure of Oversight
Paul D. Craney, pcraney@dcgop.com
[An open letter to Councilmember Mary Cheh from the DC Republican
Committee] Friday the 13th has brought horrors to the District. As
Chairperson for the Committee on Government Operations and the
Environment, you have oversight responsibly for the District’s
procurement practices. Yesterday, Yusuf Acar, an employee of the DC
Office of the Chief Technology Officer, was taken into custody by FBI
agents at his home in NW. Sushil Bansal, President and CEO of Advanced
Integrated Technologies Corporation (AITC) was also arrested.
Procurement in the District of Columbia, under your leadership, made
headlines for all the wrong reasons. The District will face ridicule for
charges of corruption again. Corruption in our District government
should not be tolerated, but under your leadership it is. The Office of
Procurement has long been criticized for rampant conflict of interests
and today we learn that the FBI swooped in clean up a problem you
refused to confront.
This is the second example in a matter of months that we have seen a
lack of your leadership. This last November, many District voters were
mailed absentee ballots printed in error when you were charged with
oversight of the Board of Elections and Ethics which continues to make
numerous mistakes. The DC Republican Committee, District residents, and
Ward 3 constituents insist that take your oversight role more seriously.
It is disheartening to discover today’s headlines when they could have
been avoided with stronger leadership.
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I am still curious to find out how the advocates for statehood get
around the clearly worded propositions of Article I, Clause 8, Section
17, of the Federal Constitution, which provides for “exclusive
Legislation in all Cases whatsoever over such District,” etc., and
declares that, “Representatives and direct taxation shall be
apportioned among the several States which may be included within this
Union. . . .” I would only add to these the words of the Twenty-Third
Amendment, that, “The District constituting the seat of government of
the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may
direct: A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to
the whole number to which the District would be entitled if it were a
State. . . .”
Analogously, a youth does not become a man because he wears (or uses)
a gun. A District does not become a state for constitutional purposes
because we would like it to.
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It really isn’t about “dimming the lights,” it is rather about
how light is directed (below) to the public areas we want properly
lighted.
Lest we mention those “other people” (the Europeans) who so often
are a few steps ahead of us, the idea is to use light fixtures that
focus light where it’s needed, rather than blasting it to the skies.
I’m a very practical native Washington who wouldn’t mind seeing
the stars again!
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The city council and some “green” citizens don’t want to stop
with regulating street lights. If they had their way, they’d make it
impossible for anyone to drive a car in the District for local errands
and would dearly love to force everyone to ride bicycles. They don’t
know where it’s sensible to stop.
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Regarding Mr. McKay’s posting [themail, March 11, it is illegal ( I
think a felony) to remove city trees on city property without a permit.
Had he checked with Urban Forestry (ddot.dc.gov) online he would have
found an online permit application process, and an arborist would have
come to visit. The permit and the no parking signs would have been
mailed to him. He needed fire clearance as he would have been blocking
the alley at the end of the dead end street, which goes behind his and
his neighbor’s houses. The permit would be for “occupying public
space,” and he should have had his tree company get it as it is
usually part of the fee.
[Actually, Jack McKay wrote that the District government had ordered
him to remove the diseased tree that was on public property. (I assume
that the tree was in the public tree box space directly in front of
McKay’s house.) While I don’t put it beyond the city government to
issue an order to a citizen that would be illegal for the citizen to
obey, I doubt that that was the intent. Shouldn’t a city order to
remove a tree also constitute a permit to remove it? If it doesn’t,
shouldn’t the order contain clear instructions for how such a permit
can be obtained? If the order doesn’t contain clear instructions,
shouldn’t the city offices McKay visited have been able to give him
clear directions for where to go to get the required permit? — Gary
Imhoff]
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The Trial
and
The Post Office Girl
Ronald Drake, rondrakeatty@msn.com
Richard Cohen’s column about ten days ago [http://tinyurl.com/cywf6x]
referred to the book The Post-Office Girl, by Stefan Zweig. The
first few pages is an apt description of bureaucratic life in post World
War I Austria. It is relevant to your reference to The Trial [themail,
March 11]. I highly recommend it both for reading and as an extension of
your discussion in themail.
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This is to advise that the March 2009 online edition has been
uploaded and may be accessed at http://www.intowner.com. Included are
the lead stories, community news items and crime reports, editorials
(including prior months’ archived), restaurant reviews (prior months’
also archived), and the text from the ever-popular “Scenes from the
Past” feature (the accompanying images can be seen in the archived PDF
version). The complete issue (along with prior issues back to January
2002) also is available in PDF file format directly from our home page
at no charge simply by clicking the link in the Current and Back Issues
Archive. Here you will be able to view the entire issue as it appears in
print, including all photos and advertisements.
The next issue will publish on April 10 (the second Friday of the
month, as always). The complete PDF version will be posted by the
preceding night or early that Friday morning at the latest, following
which the text of the lead stories, community news, and selected
features will be uploaded shortly thereafter.
To read this month’s lead stories, simply click the link on the
home page to the following headlines: 1) “Champlain Street in Adams
Morgan to Re-open — Neighbors Welcome Enhanced Streetscape Design”;
2) “Rooftop Burglar Caught — Not the One Wanted”; 3) “Aging-in-Place
Movement Grows With Formation of Dupont Circle Village.”
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Department of Parks and Recreation Events,
March 16-17
John Stokes, john.astokes@dc.gov
Monday, March 16, 4:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m., Malcolm X Recreation Center,
1351 Alabama Avenue, SE. Madden Madness for all ages. Youth will
participate and enjoy playing in a Madden football video game
tournament. For more information, call Zakiya Brown, 391-2215.
Tuesday, March 17, 6:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., Congress Heights Recreation
Center, Alabama Avenue and Randle Place, SE. St. Patrick’s Dance for
all ages. Participants will learn the origin of St. Patrick’s Day
while listening to their favorite tunes, participating in a dance
contest, playing games, and enjoying light refreshments. For more
information, call Tara Bell, 645-3981.
Tuesday, March 17, 11:00 a.m.-2:30 p.m., Turkey Thicket, 1100
Michigan Avenue, NE. Turkey Thicket Seniors “All Green Affair,” ages
55 and up. The seniors of Turkey Thicket will engage in a St. Patrick’s
Day Social “All Green Affair.” For more information, call Sue Wynn,
Recreation Specialist, 576-9238.
Tuesday, March 17, 5:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m., King Greenleaf Recreation
Center, 201 N Street, SW. Boys St. Patty’s Bling Party, ages six to
twelve. Boys will celebrate the Luck o’ the Irish with green
accessories and hearty snacks. For more information, call Henry Moton,
645-7454.
Tuesday, March 17, 6:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., Stead Recreation Center, 1625
P Street, NW. St. Patrick’s Day Celebration for ages six to thirteen.
Participants will design St. Patrick’s Day crafts and learn the
history of the day. For more information, contact Vince Hill, Site
Manager, 673-4465.
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Environmental Health Group (EHG) Events, March
19
Allen Hengst, ahengst@rcn.com
World War I munitions, bottles filled with chemical warfare agents,
and contaminated soil have been found in and around the Spring Valley
neighborhood of northwest DC. The Environmental Health Group (EHG) seeks
to raise awareness of the issues and encourage a thorough investigation
and cleanup. Every Sunday at 1:30 p.m., please join the Environmental
Health Group for an informal discussion about Spring Valley issues at
Glover Park Whole Foods Market, 2323 Wisconsin Avenue, NW (one block
south of Calvert Street). To access the content at the EHG web site and
participate in the discussion, you may register at http://groups.google.com/group/environmental-health-group-spring-valley-?hl=en.
On Thursday, March 19, at 7:00 and 8:00 p.m., join Academy
Award-nominated filmmaker Ginny Durrin and a panel of experts for
work-in-progress screenings of “Bombs in Our Backyard,” at American
University’s Wechsler Theater, Mary Graydon Center, 4400 Massachusetts
Avenue, NW. This feature-length documentary film chronicles sixteen
years of uncertainty following the discovery of chemical weapons from a
forgotten World War I-era Manhattan Project in Spring Valley. Joining
Durrin on the panel will be Mark Baker, US Army Corps of Engineers
historian; investigative reporter Charlie Bermpohl; Thomas M. Smith, ANC
Commissioner for Spring Valley; Deborah Thomas, Deputy Director of the
Environmental Protection Administration in the District Department of
the Environment; and Dr. Paul F. Walker, director of the Security and
Sustainability program at Global Green USA. For more information, see http://www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org/films.php?FilmID=292
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The Unknowed Things
,
March 21
Beth Meyer, kensingtonbookevents@gmail.com
Come celebrate Small Press Month with Kensington Row Bookshop and
pretend genius author Sean Brijbasi, who will read from his new book of
short stories The Unknowed Things. Saturday, March 21, 7:00 p.m.,
at the Kensington Row Bookshop, 3786 Howard Avenue, Kensington,
Maryland. Brijbasi is the author of two other collection of short
stories, One Note Symphonies and Still Life in Motion.
Critics have called his work “completely original,” “captivating,”
“innovative,” and “deeply intelligent.” The event is free to the
public. Refreshments will be served. Sponsored by Kensington Row
Bookshop, pretend genius press, and the New York Center for Independent
Publishing.
The Unknowed Things is published by pretend genius press (http://www.pretendgenius.com).
Sean Brijbasi (http://www.seanbrijbasi.com)
lives in the Washington, DC, area with his wife and three kids (all
boys). He serves as a contributing editor to the literary e-zine Write
This (http://www.writethis.com).
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Celebrating Brain Awareness Week, March 23-28
Ana Hitri, hitri@gastudio.org
Georgetown Academic Studio, a center for advancing thinking skills,
will celebrate Brain Awareness Week, March 23-28, with activities
centered around the most fundamental function of the brain that relates
to academic performance: memory. The activities are scheduled daily from
6:00-8:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, at 2121 Wisconsin Avenue, NW,
Suite C-68. They are free, but registration is required.
Brain Awareness Week is an international campaign to promote advances
in brain research by increasing public awareness about the benefits of
brain research. Recent scientific evidence suggests that working memory
is the key determinant of students’ academic functioning. Students
with good learning skills have good grades, because they have larger
memory capacity and can therefore remember more facts and concepts.
During Brain Awareness Week, the cognitive experts at Georgetown
Academic Studio will demonstrate methods of learning based on working
memory evaluation in individualized learning programs with built-in
elements for expanding working memory. Parents and children will learn
how working memory can be expanded and will be able to enjoy the fun of
memory-based activities and games.
To register, please send an E-mail to Hitri@gastudio.org
or fax 337-0146.
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CLASSIFIEDS — SERVICES
Our cleaning person is suffering from the recession and could use a
little more work. Please contact me if you are interested. She lives in
Wheaton but is willing to travel.
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