Speed Trap City
Dear Speeders:
We haven’t discussed red light cameras and speed cameras lately,
but the Washington Times has an editorial today that makes the
story fresh again: “Fenty’s Traffic Camera Jackpot: DC Photo
Ticketing Is Up 104 Percent in Two Years,” http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/13/fentys-traffic-camera-jackpot/.
“By October, the District’s privately operated speed and red-light
cameras will close out the 2009 fiscal year having mailed out a whopping
620,000 tickets worth $46 million. That’s an increase of 104 percent
over the number of tickets issued just two years ago. On top of this,
Affiliated Computer Services, a city contractor, has begun issuing
thousands of fully automated $30 parking tickets using cameras mounted
on street sweepers. . . . City budget documents show that the mayor
plans to triple the number of speed cameras on our roads by allowing the
city’s other private contractor, American Traffic Solutions, to issue
speeding tickets at the existing 49 red-light camera locations. The
private companies that operate traffic cameras get a cut of the profits
generated for City Hall, so there is a substantial financial incentive
to maximize the number of tickets issued. There are numerous documented
instances of shoddy traffic-camera maintenance by various contractors,
and bogus tickets have been issued to motorists innocent of any moving
violation. Once dozens of traffic cameras are upgraded to issue both
speed and red-light citations, the District could easily achieve levels
in excess of 1 million photo tickets per year. Given the District’s
population of less than 600,000, this ticketing assault is in shooting
range of two citations every year for every man, woman, and child who
resides in the city. For all the effort invested in collecting copious
amounts of cash from motorists, the city has failed to provide a shred
of credible, independently verifiable evidence to show its actions have
yielded a safety dividend.”
The Times expresses the hope that District voters will
eventually revolt against elected officials who use traffic laws not to
increase safety, but simply to fill the city coffers. So far there’s
been no hint of that revolt in the District; drivers seem to be content
with being shaken down, and nondrivers seem to be pleased about it. But
we’re in an era of voter dissatisfaction, and the mayor’s and
council’s turning the District into a speed trap and red light trap
for its residents and visitors alike invites retaliation at the polls.
Virginia Postrel Twittered today, “Per @Romenesko, ‘Washpo lost
$143 million through the first six months of this year’ Which means
they lose $1.10 PER COPY. Yikes.” Why are subscriptions and ad
revenues, and thus total income of the Post, all down?
Explanations vary from a general economic downturn, to a younger
generation disinterested in news, to competition from the Internet, to
revulsion against slanted news. Today, just from following this story, I’d
guess the major reason is competition from the Internet. The story broke
Saturday in the Post, http://tinyurl.com/n9dk9d;
was picked up yesterday by Jim Romenesko at Poynter Online, http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=169952;
was Twittered by Postrel; was commented upon by Ed Driscoll, http://pajamasmedia.com/eddriscoll/2009/09/13/twas-accountability-that-killed-the-msm/;
and was blogged by Kenneth Anderson on the Volokh Conspiracy, http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_09_13-2009_09_19.shtml#1252895653.
In other words, what would just a few years ago have been a single story
in a newspaper has become a conversation carried out by several people
on several different web sites. By being looked at from several
different viewpoints, the story quickly develops beyond what any single
newspaper could do with it. Yet and still, losing $1.10 a copy? As
Postrel so eloquently and accurately says, yikes.
I’ve forwarded the complaints that you sent me about RCN service to
Marcella Hicks at the Office of Cable Television; I hope that you get
the same resolution to your problem that most Comcast customers got a
couple months ago.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Good News from the DC Board of Elections and
Ethics
William O’Field, wofield@gmail.com
Good news regarding the voter roll came out of the September 9th
meeting of the DC Board of Elections and Ethics (DCBOEE). This comes
after my two postings in themail (July 15 and July 19) about the
District’s bloated voter roll and how it can enable voter fraud. Those
postings were as a result of my participation in public hearings when
the city council was investigating the DC BOEE. They were also in the
context of how the potential implementation of Bill 18-345, the “Omnibus
Election Reform Act of 2009,” could possibly negatively impact DC’s
elections.
In his public statement at the September 9 meeting, DCBOEE Executive
Director Rokey Suleman reported that “we plan on moving forward with
the ‘clean up’ of the voter roll. We are currently interviewing
third parties to assist the office in this endeavor. The office hopes to
have this project completed in the first quarter of calendar year 2010.”
He went on to state that “[T]his project will consist of the
removal of any inactive voter that meets the requirements under NVRA
[the National Voter Registration Act], scrubbing the list for all known
deceased voters and we have been in preliminary discussions with
Virginia and Maryland to look for duplicate registrations and how to
resolve them.” This is good news.
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Why Waste Money on a Ban When Exemptions Are
for the Asking, and Cheap
Mary C. Williams, Mslaw1121@aol.com
An article appearing in the September issue of the Hill Rag,
the monthly publication on Capitol Hill [http://tinyurl.com/myb4yg],
reveals that the Ward 6 ban on the single sales of beer and alcohol
implemented earlier this year is largely ineffective in many areas
because the ANCs, including my own ANC 6D, routinely grant exemptions to
stores in their own neighborhoods. Despite a petition signed by more
than thirty residents in my neighborhood against this move, ANC6D voted
last December to support an exception for Cap Liquor Store, located at
the corner of South Capitol and N Streets, SW, and directly across from
the Nationals Ballpark. The store is the chief attraction and site of
daily raucous and illegal activities. Located only a few yards from the
dozens of federal buildings housing government contractors with
disposable cash, it’s prime location provides a steady stream of
unsuspecting and compassionate out-of-town “donors” or victims for
the aggressive panhandlers, drug dealers, and addicts, prostitutes,
alcoholics, and general loiterers looking to make a quick buck. And many
aren’t asking, “Brother, can you spare a dime.” The demand is now
for two dollars, the economic downturn notwithstanding; but a can of
beer is expensive at this store. Neighbors complained routinely to
police, but even hourly patrols cannot discourage the perpetrators, who
scatter like roaches and return within minutes.
You can’t blame the perpetrators entirely. It’s a lucrative
corner. In the last year ending May 2009, police responded to
seventy-four calls for disorderly conduct outside this establishment.
Despite the ever-present problems, the ANC chose to ignore our petition
to deny the store’s application for the exception and accepted the
recommendation of its ABC committee chair, who claimed that the store’s
owner was a good neighbor and provided a community benefit. We are still
wondering what their definition of a community benefit is. We don’t
agree that making it convenient for alcoholics and drug addicts to get
their fix while standing outside the corner is an overall community
benefit. No one on the ANC mentioned the number of police calls to this
store nor the letters of complaint from adjacent neighbors who endured
the daily stench of urine and human waste behind our homes, or the
dozens of bottles and cans that litter the area. My ANC offered up two
supporters who noted in a letter that the store’s owner supplied sodas
and donated items for their holiday gatherings. The committee chair told
the Hill Rag that “we believe in live and let live.” We are outraged
at this comment because our personal safety and that of thousands of
other people who visit the ballpark, and work in this area, are being
trampled and ignored for what appears to be a case of Pepsi or a half
pint of vodka.. Our well-being is certainly worth more than that. We
shouldn’t have to point out that millions of our tax dollars are spent
each year on rehabilitation, food, shelter, and medical services for
those same perpetrators who often scrape up enough cash each day to buy
this liquor but who wouldn’t contribute one dime to buy a book bag or
purchase supplies for the local elementary school or wouldn’t pitch in
during a neighborhood cleanup of their own mess. My neighbors and I are
not very happy that we must now spend an inordinate amount of time and
money on meetings with ABRA (Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Agency)
trying to undo this ANC decision. As a result of our work, we discovered
that the legislation passed by my own councilmember is flawed. It does
not provide for affected residents to appeal the ANC’s decision, a
step that would give residents some leverage to protect their own
interests and ensure fairness in the process. Because the ANC gave its
unconditional support, a hearing on the store owner’s application for
the exception was not held and ABRA did not know of our protest. Based
on his record, the store owner did not meet all of the criteria for the
exemption. Fortunately for me and my neighbors, the store owner’s
license is up for renewal. My neighbors and I have filed a protest based
on the ABRA violations and we will present our evidence for denying
renewal of the license on Sept. 30, 2009. Meanwhile, we want to hear
from residents who also would like to have the legislation amended to
include a step for individual protests. We cannot trust our ANCs to
represent the residents in this instance. We need better legislation and
greater administrative enforcement now. Election is right around the
corner.
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Teacher of the Year Nominations
Kadena D. Duncan-Lawrence, kadena.duncan-lawrence@dc.gov
The Office of the State Superintendent of Education is requesting
nominations for the 2010 District of Columbia Teacher of the Year. This
award recognizes and honors the many contributions of our classroom
teachers. If you would like to nominate a teacher who has demonstrated
outstanding leadership and commitment to student achievement, please
complete the attached application and submit it to the OSSE no later
than September 30. Self-nominations are acceptable. The winner of the DC
Teacher of the Year will be included in the competition for National
Teacher of the Year. Submissions may be faxed to 724-7656 or E-mailed to
kadena.duncan-lawrence@dc.gov
or erika.lomax@dc.gov by the
deadline with a hard copy to follow to Attn: Erika Lomax, 51 N Street,
NE, 3rd Floor, Washington, DC 20002 no later than October 2.
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Vibrant Minds in DC on Twitter
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com
Wayan Vota is a vibrant mind in DC that I follow on Twitter. See http://wayan.com/about-wayan-vota.html
Follow his Twitter stream at http://twitter.com/wayan_vota
You’ll be rewarded by seeing YouTube videos like this one, too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqv6R5eofhU
People no longer subscribe to magazines. They subscribe to other
people.
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It appears that in her post of September 6 on the shooting of Deborah
Ann Brown, Dorothy Brizill convicted Devonte Carlton, the bicyclist who
allegedly shot Brown, even before he went to trial. Brizill, an
energetic reporter who presumably knows about the use of “allegedly,”
wrote that Brown was “killed by” Carlton.
Are Brizill and her publisher not interested in due process,
especially when a former neighbor of theirs is killed?
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Join the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities for Art Salon, a
monthly convergence of artists, techies, green-collars, art enthusiasts,
bloggers, and educators that are creating the momentum for the new era
of art. Art Salon is modeled after the salons of the late nineteenth
century to inspire and provoke the minds of the creative community.
This month Art Salon travels East of the River to the Anacostia Art
Gallery. Art by Corcoran Artreach, THEARC, Jonathan French, and more.
Thursday, September 17, 7:00-9:00 p.m. Each month, we gather at a
different location. This month, we invite you to converge at Anacostia
Art Gallery, 2806 Bruce Place, SE. Metro: Green Line, Anacostia. Shuttle
will pick up at 6:30 from Dupont Circle on Massachusetts Avenue, NW
(across from PNC Bank) or 7:00 and 7:30 from Anacostia Metro (Green
Line). For more info on shuttle locations and to RSVP, contact dccahevents@gmail.com
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Environmental Health Group (EHG) Events,
September 19-20
Allen Hengst, ahengst@rcn.com
The Army Corps of Engineers is conducting a multi-year effort to find
and dispose of munitions and toxic waste from the chemical warfare
research and weapons testing done in Northwest Washington by the US Army
during World War I. The Environmental Health Group (EHG) seeks to raise
awareness of the issues and encourage a thorough investigation and
cleanup. For more information, visit the EHG on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Washington-DC/Environmental-Health-Group/67807900019.
Saturday and Sunday, September 19-20, 1:30-3:00 p.m., in cooperation
with “WalkingTown DC Weekend,” EHG is offering guided tours
featuring the historical features of the American University Experiment
Station, the current Army Corps of Engineers cleanup operations and
residents’ health problems. Tours are led by a former Restoration
Advisory Board member and Spring Valley resident. Participants see where
testing occurred during WW I and where chemical munitions are being
removed today. Online registration required at http://www.culturaltourismdc.org/calendar2532/calendar_show.htm?doc_id=124298
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Chess Challenge for Youth (K-12) at MLK
Library, September 19
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com
Details and registration at http://tinyurl.com/lhhs7t
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National Building Museum Events, September 21
Jazmine Zick, jzick@nbm.org
September 21, 12:30 p.m.-1:30 p.m., Smart Growth: Beyond Zip Car:
Using Technology to Share Time, Space, and Information. Robin Chase, CEO
of GoLoco and founder and former CEO of Zipcar, offers a fresh look at
sharing — time, space, assets, and information — which can deliver
an exciting future in this time of burgeoning world populations,
increasing urbanization, and tightening wallets. Free; registration
required.
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