Well Founded

Dear Founders:

Mayor Adrian Fenty continues to morph into this generations’ equivalent of Mayor Marion Barry. Fenty’s account of the successes of his administration consists of listing one construction project after another, and of having nearly daily photo opportunities at groundbreakings or project openings in order to praise himself. On Jonetta Rose Barras’ DC Politics Hour on WPFW last Thursday, he answered the charge of cronyism and favoritism and of giving out sweet deals for construction projects to his friends by saying that, “There isn’t any specific allegation of anything,” and that the media should stop talking about his chronic cronyism. If there isn’t proof of an indictable crime, Fenty argues, there isn’t anything to complain about. This was Marion Barry’s defense throughout his history of favoritism. Of course, there is almost never sufficient proof of an agreement to exchange favors with a politician; nobody signs a written contract agreeing to give a campaign contribution or throw a fundraising party in exchange for government contracts. But the mayor submitted a proposal — if anybody has such proof, he should give it to Attorney General Peter Nickles so that Nickles could decide whether to bring a legal charge against Fenty (http://wpfw.org/archive/odplayer.php?line=DCPolitics03-11-10Comp.mp3, at the 53:00 minute mark). Who would be foolish enough to trust Nickles to do an honest investigation of a charge against the mayor? Nickles sees his client as being Fenty, not the city government and certainly not the citizens. But neither Jonetta nor her cohost, DC Vote’s Eugene Kinlow, Jr., laughed at Fenty’s joke at the expense of honest government; they seemed to take it seriously, and Kinlow went on to cover for Fenty, assuring him that all the charges against him were unfounded.

Well worth reading: 1) Eric Wemple’s farewell substantive piece for the City Paper, a takedown of the Post’s whitewashing of Kevin Johnson, the mayor of Sacramento and Michelle Rhee’s fiance, http://tinyurl.com/yggy746. 2) Colbert King’s take on the DC Auditor’s report (http://dcauditor.org/DCA/Reports/Earmarks 3_2_10_001.pdf) on city council earmarks, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/12/AR2010031203148.html. 3)WMATA has come in for its share of serious criticism for its recent accident record and maintenance problems, but this has distracted from complaining about its less important annoyances. Ike Brannon minds the gap in “Hop Aboard the Nanny Train,” http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/metros-inherent-liberalism: “Metro bombards riders with announcements, ranging from the banal, the irrelevant, to the redundant, from the moment they step into a station until they walk out. I admit, despite the helpful announcements, I have made mistakes: I have left my cell phone in a train, and I’ve coughed in a crowded train without covering. The various announcements warning me not to do these things did me no good, of course, because like every other sentient being who’s not on the train for the very first time, I long ago stopped paying attention to whatever comes out of Metro’s speakers. While I may occasionally miss the occasional tidbit of useful information (which is rare, since Metro is notoriously slow to give riders info on derailments and other tidbits that are actually useful to a commuter), I’m not sure there’s a brain out there that would not react to the high concentration of banality emanating from Metro’s loudspeakers by shutting it out entirely. It’s not just the information they give us that tells us what they think of us — it’s also the information they’d rather not give us. Metro procrastinated in providing riders with arrival times online because the previous head of Metro fretted that it would lead to riders running and hurting themselves in an effort to catch trains.”

Thank you to all the people who sent notes consoling me for the computer failure that led to my not being able to send an issue of themail last Wednesday. It struck me how much the demise of a computer is like a death in the family, or at least the death of a family pet, to many of us. Don’t mourn for my laptop, however; it is just a machine, even though everything important in my life was on it.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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Will the DC Council Ever Hear the People’s Voice?
Eric Woods, ewbushdoctor@gmail.com

Reading the March 7 issue of themail left me shaking my head in disgust as a resident of the District. The well-written contributor arguments, supported by the Washington Post columnists King and Pearlstein, infuriated me because I felt like I live in a city where elected officials put their support behind initiatives designed to ensure reelection; city council members act like the council is their fiefdom and the people exist to serve them; it would be political suicide for councilmembers to work to change laws that would facilitate referendums to check the will of the people on issues like gun control, taxes and fees, same sex marriage, rainy day fund usage, school reform ownership, etc.; elected officials lack common sense, as demonstrated by offering tax breaks to Northrop Grumman in the midst of a season of budget shortfalls; elected officials lack good judgment by allowing the mess over contracts, earmarks, and members’ discretionary funds that is playing out right now; the council abdicated any oversight over the education of DCPS students when it allow the mayor total authority without any accountability or recourse; and the citizens are taxed without representation — definitely at the federal level and a good case might be made at the local level as well.

I would love to vote the entire council and mayor out of office this year and start from scratch. Yet the model of democracy in this federal city does not lend itself to suitable and readily available replacements, and the elected officials know this. Even Wyoming, with its smaller population, and Vermont and North Dakota, with their slightly larger number of people, have legislatures consisting of scores more people in a Senate and a House of Representatives (like the US congressional model). In those states, the voice of the people can be heard in the larger House whose members offer two qualities to the Senate that our model of democracy lacks: 1) a check and balance to proposed legislative actions; and 2) a roster of competitors for future election battles.

Previously I heeded the cry for DC Statehood and voting representation in the US Congress. That’s still important. However, more immediately, I would like to see the District move beyond a one-house legislature of thirteen members to a more true participatory political system that, I believe, will positively impact the quality of life of the citizens.

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A City of Mayoral Dopplegangers?
Ashaki Goodall, ashakigoodall@aol.com

Oh my! The March 2010 Washingtonian Magazine (http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/people/15092.html) told me some things I never knew about myself! According to William Lightfoot, Mayor Adrian Fenty’s campaign chairperson, I am one of those “Blacks below the age of 50 [who] don’t just like Fenty . . . [they] want to be Fenty. . . . [They] are about being green. That’s not a black thing.” Hmmm. So, at a just a few months younger than Fenty, and a few years below the age of forty, I want to be Fenty because I couldn’t possibly want to be, let’s say, me? And I couldn’t possibly know anything about “being green” — whether that means environmentally conscious or understanding our economic system and the value of money. The nerve, arrogance, and immaturity of our city’s mayor and his staff is appearing in leaps and bounds these days. And what is so disturbing is that Mayor Fenty really doesn’t think there is the slightest problem. Whether it is on his weekly appearances on NBC 4 Connecting with the Mayor, where he dismisses Eun Yang when she points out her DC neighborhood street wasn’t plowed --- I guess he didn’t think she was fully awake at 6:45 a.m. — or his comments to the reporter in the Washingtonian Magazine, Adrian Fenty and his circle are totally lost in an egocentric world. Fenty says, “I don’t know what the polls say, and neither do you. . . . You don’t have any idea what the people of the District of Columbia think. And neither do I.” Hmmm. So tell me again why, at the tender of age of close to forty, I want to be Fenty? I think I will stick with the one of the oldest rules in successful business, politics, and life: “Know your audience.” Clearly, Fenty doesn’t think he needs to or wants to know the 88 percent of African-American or 49 percent of Caucasian voters in the District of Columbia who would not cast a ballot for him if the election were held today because, as Tom Lindenfeld, Fenty’s political adviser, puts it, “Adrian believes consensus building is overrated.”

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The Spirit of Judas Is Alive and Well
Joyce Little, jalittle2010@yahoo.com

Sunday past was the first Sunday since homosexual marriage became legal in Washington, DC. I, like the rest of the world, was forced to watch while photographs and news footage of homosexuals kissing in the streets were beamed and streamed all over the country and the world. In any case, I could not wait to get up and attend church on Sunday morning. I could not wait to hear what morsels of spiritual enlightenment the DC pastors would preach on from the pulpit. I had already bet a friend that the pastors would preach on one of the three subjects: 1) reconciliation, 2) poverty, or 3) saving a generation from drugs and crime. In the church I attended the pastor preached on poverty in the black community. What did your pastor preach about?

Ministers all over town preached in the pulpit as if Tuesday never happened and yet something did happen in DC. In fact something profoundly unbiblical took place in DC: same-sex marriage. On Tuesday, March 9, hundreds of same-sex couples were married in the District of Columbia. Throughout this yearlong battle to try to beat back same-sex marriage from becoming legal in Washington, DC, the ministers in my opinion behaved deplorably. They bowed at the alter of Baal, and in this case Baal was the government. Was your minister or your church out there on the front lines fighting hard to stop same-sex marriage from becoming legal? Just as Judas sold Jesus out for thirty pieces of silver the church sold the citizens out for thirty pieces of silver by not demanding that their congregations stand up to our pagan government.

In exchange for thirty pieces of silver in the form of a few cheap government contracts the government was able to buy the churches’ silence. The question of the week is where in the world is Judas Iscariot? The answer is you may find Judas Iscariot on any given Sunday firmly planted in any or all of the 1,200 churches preaching in the pulpit in Washington DC. Can I get an Amen?

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Office of the People’s Counsel Update
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com

On Thursday, March 11, Mayor Fenty signed Mayor’s Order 2010-47, appointing Brenda A. Pennington to a 180-day term as the Interim People’s Counsel. Under the order, Pennington will replace Betty Noel and serve “at the pleasure of the mayor for a term to expire no later than September 10, 2010.” Currently, Pennington is a staff attorney in the Office of the People’s Counsel.

Noel’s term expired on March 10, when the mayor refused to sign emergency legislation, the People’s Counsel Holdover Extension Emergency Amendment Act of 2010,” Bill 18-689, that the council had adopted on March 2.

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Emerging, Potential, and Current Leaders Have a Lot to Debate in 2010 Elections
Kathryn Pearson-West, kap8082@aol.com

As evidenced by the telephone robocalls that went out recently in Washington, DC, on behalf of 2010 potential candidates supporting traditional marriage, the definition of marriage will rightly be an issue on the minds of voters in this year’s elections. The matter is still in the court system. The Supreme Court denied a stay or injunction on the case because the matter is still in the appeals court and therefore did not rule on the merits of the care. The citizens will have to wait on a final ruling on their desire to see the matter on the ballot, like thirty-one states have done so far. However, that is not the only key issue that is of interest to DC residents. While national leaders focus on health care, some in local DC communities are focusing on other pressing needs as well. Advisory Neighborhood Commission 5A held a meeting on Northeast Brookland’s Small Area Plan and its Planned Unit Development (PUD). The Director of Planning was there to give remarks and answer questions. There was also a panel discussion with community stakeholders who examined the issues of the day. What was interesting was the range of issues that came up during this meeting, which were not strictly pertaining to development. The questions and comments touched on quality of life and environmental issues as well.

Clearly residents were concerned about the impact of the proposed level and density of development in the community and surrounding area and there was opposition to it, but the questions and issues went beyond the expected. Some citizens want to decrease the use of cars and would like to see more policies to that effect. Others want the option to be able to use their car when and when they want to and to have has many as they are able to have if they choose, too. But certainly none of the residents is inviting suburban commuters to take up parking spaces on their streets or to add to the current traffic congestion. Some citizens seem really opposed to cars, but perhaps they have never had to experience taking young children around while running lots of errands and having to carry shopping bags at the same time on public transportation. Maybe the thought is unimaginable and is only a worry for suburban soccer moms. Or they may not have to drive a far distance to work in the suburbs where public transportation can be a nightmare commute to and from work in a reasonable time frame. The bottom line is that many people would like to be able to easily get to quality public transportation if they want to use it, shop in nearby stores that meet their needs and standards in life, and park their cars on their streets without a lot of problems. In Brookland and nearby communities, all should be possible ensuring the quality of life for its long and short term residents.

Voters want to see policies that favor families and not just the well-to-do or upwardly mobile singles or couples. Some voters want to see policies that help enable another generation of young people that were born and/or raised here to be able to live here in the future with their current or future families. To say that a family can give up their car to be able to struggle to afford a $300,000 to $400,000 house in a relatively safe neighborhood misses the point. It is sad to see that so many people that were born or raised in Washington, DC, feel that they have to move to the suburbs to get comparable or better housing at more reasonable prices. Additionally, voters want to see local, small and disadvantaged businesses get a stake in the American Dream in DC. They don’t want to see all the commerce going to the suburbs and elsewhere. Citizens want to see traffic and parking problems resolved. They don’t necessarily want to be forced into parking in expensive parking garages in the evening because the city has extended its parking meter hours to 10:00 at night and has started making citizens pay for parking downtown and elsewhere on the weekends. They not especially impressed with “bump-outs” on streets like Brookland’s main street — 12th Street — where the street change seem to cause more problems than encourage more pedestrian use. Some citizens think that no one in power seemed to notice how close DC is to the suburbs where in most cases parking is free in the evenings and on weekends. Citizens want to see policies that favor them and that seek to retain them as residents and not focus solely on new residents. Some are not keen on the grocery bag fee, which it is said has people bringing unclean reusable bags to the stores that have pests or bacteria in them rather than buy bags for their groceries. There is concern about green space. How much and where is it wanted and how can policies ensure that there is ample while not thwarting reasonable development? Will there be enough play areas for children? There are other types of issues. What about the environmental hazards that are produced by waste transfer stations or dumps next to residential communities? Is there a touch of environmental racism?

Surely in other types of forums and venues this year, there will be more dialogue on issues such as jobs (unemployment, underemployment, workforce training), procurement, economic opportunities for citizens, quality education for all and the leadership that ensures it, libraries, neighborhood shopping centers, community amenities and benefits packages based on development, open and transparent government, integrity and character of leaders, perceived race and class issues, promotion of male and female condoms in perhaps not the best places, the challenges to neighborhoods when development is planned for it, the digital divide and technology in general, utility costs, snow removal, youth and senior citizen programs, recreation, and on and on. And of course, there will continue to be a need to push for a vote by the people at the ballot box on the definition of marriage. That issue will remain alive, especially now that citizens see the pros and cons of it with the law enacted for alternative marriages. And still there will need to continue to be discussions on where the local Democratic and Republican parties are headed and the role for the people to impact them to keep them voter-driven and voter- friendly and not beholden or limited to special interests only.

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Evans, Patton Boggs, and Northrop Grumman
Peter Tucker, pete10506@yahoo.com

Councilmember Jack Evans is one of DC’s most powerful elected officials. While the mayor is in charge of the executive branch and the DC council chairman heads up the legislative branch, Jack Evans quietly maintains control of the city’s money. For more than a decade, Mr. Evans has chaired the Committee on Finance and Revenue. When he wants a deal done, it gets done, regardless of the cost to taxpayers. Some examples of the projects Mr. Evans has pushed through that use public funding to assist private interests include: the baseball stadium (more than $800 million), the convention center ($850 million), the proposed convention center hotel ($272 million), and the proposed package for Northrop Grumman ($25 million).

In addition to being a councilmember (where he earns $125,000 a year), Mr. Evans works for the law and lobbying firm Patton Boggs (where he earns an additional $240,000 a year). It is not entirely clear what Mr. Evans does for Patton Boggs, nor which of the firms’ clients he works on behalf of; when questioned about this, Mr. Evans has consistently refused to state what he does to earn his Patton Boggs salary.

For several years, Mr. Evans advocated for and then structured a deal to use $272 million in public funding to assist Marriott in building an 1,167 room hotel alongside the convention center. Yet, as reported previously, when Mr. Evans was asked on June 24 if Marriott — or any of the other interests involved in the convention center hotel deal — is a client of his firm, he refused to respond. Only two days later, however, at a hastily scheduled markup for the convention center hotel deal, Mr. Evans began what became a series of four recusals on the issue. Despite numerous requests asking for both an explanation of his recusals and information regarding any role that he may have played on behalf of private interests, Mr. Evans has said nothing on the matter. Furthermore, joint letters sent in July and September from two of DC’s most respected civic organizations — the DC Federation of Citizens Associations and the Committee of 100 on the Federal City — have been ignored. By remaining silent, Mr. Evans has kept the conflict-of-interest charges over the Marriott deal out of the press, at least so far. With the Northrop Grumman giveaway, however, he may not be so lucky.

Northrop Grumman is looking to move its headquarters from Los Angeles to the Washington area, and Mr. Evans has proposed using $25 million in tax abatements and grants in an effort to land the defense contractor in DC, rather than in northern Virginia or suburban Maryland. If $25 million is not enough, Mr. Evans is prepared to offer more to the Fortune 100 company, which posted a 2009 profit of $1.7 billion. “Whatever someone else puts down we’re going to match it and we’re going to beat it,” said Mr. Evans, openly inviting a bidding war that will benefit a client of a company that has a relationship with Patton Boggs.

On “The Influence Industry” page of Thursday’s Washington Post, staff writer Dan Eggen wrote (“Patton Boggs could get even bigger with Breaux-Lott acquisition”): “Washington’s biggest lobbying firm is on the verge of getting even bigger. Patton Boggs, LLP, which ran up nearly $40 million in lobbying last year, is in negotiations to purchase the Breaux-Lott Leadership Group, according to sources familiar with the talks.” Eggen continued, “Breaux-Lott — named for its founders, former US senators John Breaux (D-La.) and Trent Lott (R- Miss.) — already has a close relationship with the Patton Boggs behemoth, with the two firms operating in a ‘strategic relationship’ for the past two years. Thomas Hale Boggs Jr., the larger firm’s chairman, has particularly close ties with Breaux, who left Patton Boggs to partner with Lott” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/10/AR2010031003977.html).

One of Breaux-Lott’s biggest clients is Northrop Grumman, which paid the firm more than $1 million in lobbying fees over the past two years, according to OpenSecrets.org. Thanks to Mr. Evans’ fueling of the bidding war, Northrop Grumman stands to receive a better package of incentives, weather it ends up in DC, Maryland or Virginia. Patton Boggs may benefit indirectly from this bidding war through its “strategic relationship” with Breaux-Lott. Additionally, there is the potential that Patton Boggs may receive a better deal on the purchase of Breaux-Lott if the smaller firm returns the favor Patton Boggs — or Mr. Evans, to be more precise — did on behalf of its client, Northrop Grumman.

A closer examination of the giveaways that Mr. Evans has engineered on behalf of Marriott and Northrop Grumman reveals a pattern of behavior that raises questions. There is at least the appearance of a troubling confluence of interests surrounding Mr. Evans’ dealings. Whether Mr. Evans’ actions amount to violations of the District of Columbia Official Code is a question best left to an ethics investigation, which is long overdue.

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Another Raw Deal For DC’s Teachers
Candi Peterson, saveourcounselors@gmail.com

DC’s 266 laid off teachers got a raw deal when they were terminated in November 2009 by the Rhee administration after school began. Given that layoffs in our public schools have historically taken place at the end of the school year in June, RIF’d teachers were hit with a double whammy of having to search for new jobs during a economic down turn after school had already begun. An ousted teacher recently contacted me to say that she attended the March 12 meeting for laid-off teachers with hopes of hearing some good news from our union president. This meeting was conducted by the Washington Teachers Union to address laid-off teachers’ appeals and legal matters, etc. One of the issues that was addressed in the meeting was that ten to twelve RIF’d teachers had been rehired by DC schools. According to George Parker, WTU President, these RIF’d teachers were required by DC Public Schools’ administration to sign a contract so that they could be rehired as temporary teachers in an at-will status until the end of the school year in June. Other draconian conditions reportedly have been imposed include lesser pay and a clause that would subject these teachers to immediate termination should they receive a poor IMPACT rating score, unlike their teacher counterparts.

It doesn’t sound much like these teachers will be bona fide members of our union any longer, and certainly they do not retain the due process and contractual rights of other newly hired WTU teacher members. I can’t help but wonder what WTU president George Parker is doing to address this matter. Unfortunately the WTU Executive board has not been apprised of this situation and discussions have not been held, since no board meetings have been called in months by Parker.

Refusing to rehire certified and qualified teachers in regular full-time teaching positions while scaling back employee rights certainly will harm retention of teachers and future recruiting efforts. Ultimately it will have an adverse impact on our union membership. Perhaps that’s the point. As I see it, this ongoing torrent of abuse inflicted upon DC’s teachers is just another raw deal.

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Piling on Earmarks, Still Missing the Point
Richard Layman, rlaymandc@yahoo.com

From my blog, Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space, http://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2010/03/piling-on-earmarks-still-missing-point.html

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A Review of Verizon’s One-on-One Droid Training
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com

Cell phones are becoming a larger and larger part of our communications life, yet they are by no means easy to use. I recently attended a free training for my Motorola Droid phone — and wrote up a review of this training. See http://tinyurl.com/ybm2myo

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Burning the Boats
Kathy Sinzinger, cooperator@starpower.net

If you are concerned about newspapers’ role in our democracy, please try making the argument that they need to educate people (like they used to, but forgot how when the big corporate minds took over) about why print newspapers are vital in our society.

A large portion of keeping a free press “free” is owning the means of production. That’s the actual press. The government, ultimately, controls our Internet access, so there can be no real “free press” if news organizations don’t control their means of production and distribution.

Remember: electronic media have never been wholly a part of the “free press” (ever wonder why there are separate business-related organizations?), because they are operating on public airwaves controlled by government licensing. If they do not meet the government’s requirements, they may lose their license. The same government control, thanks to the First Amendment, does not exist for “the press” (i.e., print newspapers).

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March InTowner Issue Now Online
P.L. Wolff, intowner@intowner.com

This is to advise that the March 2010 on-line edition has been uploaded and may be accessed at http://www.intowner.com. Included are the lead stories, community news items, 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 Selected Street Crimes feature which presently covers the period through January 31 will be updated later on, at which time we will send an advisory to our new content upload notification list recipients.

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 9 (the second Friday of the month, as usual). 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: “Dupont Circle’s St. Thomas’ Parish Planning to Build Anew”; “Highly Regarded Mt. Pleasant Supper Club Restaurant Request for Nightclub License Opposed.”

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

Blacks in Wax, March 17
Alexander M. Padro, PadroANC2C@aol.com

The DC Department of Parks and Recreation, Friends of Kennedy Playground, and Shaw Main Streets present the second annual Blacks in Wax Museum on Wednesday, March 17, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Kennedy Recreation Center, 1401 7th Street, NW. The ribbon cutting will take place at 6:00 p.m.

The theme of this year’s Blacks in Wax Museum is “Contributions to Our City, Our Nation, and Our World.” Students in costume will present information about the historymakers they have chosen to research and portray, including DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., aviatrix Bessie Johnson, blood plasma pioneer Dr. Charles Drew, and inventor Garret Morgan. Students will be waiting for visitors to “press the button” so they can come alive and make their presentations.

This event was originally scheduled for Black History Month, but twin blizzards made rescheduling to March necessary. For more information, contact Pamela Pugh at 671-4794.

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National Building Museum Events, March 18
Johanna Weber, jweber@nbm.org

March 18, 12:30-1:30 p.m., Maryland’s Smart Growth Experience: Assessing the Impact. Gerrit Knaap, director of The University of Maryland’s National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education, describes the challenge of making Maryland’s innovative smart growth policy a statewide reality. Free; registration required. Walk-in registration based on availability. At the National Building Museum, 401 F Street, NW, Judiciary Square Metro station. Register for events at http://www.nbm.org.

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Morehouse College Glee Club Performs at DC Public Library, March 19
George Williams, George.Williams2@dc.gov

At noon on Friday, March 19, the DC Public Library will host a free concert by the Morehouse College Glee Club honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Morehouse College Glee Club embraces a ninety-year tradition of musical excellence. Directed by Dr. David Morrow, the Glee Club has performed around the world, sharing the stage with singers like Natalie Cole, Stevie Wonder, Gloria Estefan and Trisha Yearwood. This year’s performance will include classical pieces, spirituals and traditional African songs. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library is located at 901 G Street, NW, near the Metro Center and Gallery Place subway stations. For more information, call 727-1291.

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Microsoft Windows 7 Operating System, March 20
Barbara Conn, bconn@cpcug.org

Microsoft released its Windows 7 operating system in October 2009. Did all the release candidate features make it into the final product? Is now the time for you to get a new computer with Windows 7, or does the new operating system have more bugs than you have time to deal with? Can you look forward to using Windows 7 effortlessly after suffering through or working around the Microsoft Vista operating system? Is it true that some of the features of Windows 7 make it more like a Mac in appearance and functionality? Join us on Saturday, March 20, as longtime CPCUG member, PC and Mac user, and IT network pro Mark Mabee demonstrates Windows 7 and investigates its capabilities. Using Windows 7 now? Join us and share your experiences.

Gather your colleagues and neighbors, and your questions, and bring them to this Saturday, March 20, 1:00 p.m., gathering of the Capital PC User Group (CPCUG) Entrepreneurs and Consultants Special Interest Group (E&C SIG). These monthly events are free and open to all. This month's event is at the Cleveland Park Branch Library (first floor large meeting room) at 3310 Connecticut Avenue, NW (between Macomb and Newark Streets), just over a block south of the Cleveland Park Metrorail Station on the Red Line. For more information about the seminar, the speaker, and CPCUG (a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization), visit http://entrepreneur.cpcug.org/310meet.html. To RSVP, send E-mail to bconn@cpcug.org.

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Ward 3 Democratic Committee, March 25
Tom Smith, tfmsmith@starpower.net

The Ward Three Democratic Committee will hold a community dialogue with DC At-Large Councilmember Michael Brown on Thursday, March 25, 7:15 p.m.-9:30 p.m., in the Great Hall of St. Columba Episcopal Church, 4201 Albemarle Street, NW (one block off Wisconsin Avenue at Tenleytown Metro). Guests will be Councilmember Michael Brown and Elizabeth “Betty” Noel, former People’s Counsel of the District of Columbia. For more information, contact Thomas M. Smith, Chair, Ward Three Democratic Committee, 364-7130, tmfsmith@starpower.net, or see the web site at http://www.DCWard3Dems.org.

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CLASSIFIEDS — LOST PET

Black Cat
Bruce Snyder, besnyder@yahoo.com

Miss Lilly, a black cat, was lost on Porter Street in Cleveland Park. Big Eyes, pink and blue collar, “Miss Lilly” name tag, human friendly but not animal friendly. If you see a black cat rolling around wanting her belly rubbed or threatening a rottweiler, call 234-1250 or 994-9595.

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