Planners Versus Residents
Dear Residents:
I wrote for months before the primary election that Vincent Gray and
Adrian Fenty actually shared the same position on many of the issues
that their supporters thought divided them. Gray, as he has said all
along, is likely to continue with few alterations the questionable “school
reform” that Gray’s supporters largely opposed and Gray’s
opponents largely supported. He is likely, therefore, to alienate many
of his supporters by continuing Michelle Rhee’s program of preferring
inexperienced over experienced teachers, of breaking the teachers’
union, of relentless yet ineffective testing and evaluation of teachers
and students — and he is unlikely to get any credit from Fenty’s
supporters for continuing these policies introduced by Rhee.
Another battle for the mind and soul of Vincent Gray that has not
been decided is over his position on the kind of urban planning that has
been taking place under Adrian Fenty. The faddish preference among urban
planners today, under the guise of “Smart Growth” is for congestion
and crowing in urban centers — planning for apartment buildings rather
than single-family houses, for small houses rather than large ones,
eliminating yards and other “unnecessary” green spaces in city
centers, eliminating height limitations to encourage high rises and
skyscrapers, discouraging car ownership and making driving difficult for
residents and commuters. Urban planners are being trained to impose
these choices on residents, rather than to defer to the preferences of
residents, because residents are too dumb to know what is best for them
and their cities, and experts know best what those residents should
want. (This kind of sneering contempt for the wishes and desires or
residents who resist the march toward Manhattanization is well
represented by blogger Matthew Yglesias, for example at http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/11/the-district-of-short-buildings/
and http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/11/the-unrepresented/)
Over the past century, vigilant protection by neighborhood activists
has preserved many of the best things about the District of Columbia. In
the early decades of the twentieth century, neighborhood associations
and residential groups introduced and kept the height limitation that
made DC a livable city of pleasant residential neighborhoods, rather
than an overbuilt concrete jungle. (Yes, the height limitation was
passed by Congress, but the impetus for it came from the city’s
residents.) In the middle of the twentieth century, neighborhood
activists fought the urban planners whose faddish expertise then called
for crisscrossing the city with freeways that would cut up and divide
neighborhoods. Now neighborhood activists are again fighting the urban
planning experts — in this case Fenty’s director of the Office of
Planning, Harriet Tregoning, and his director of the Department of
Transportation, Gabe Klein — who want to impose their vision of a
densely populated urban center served by public transportation, with
only minimal provision for driving and parking, on the city’s
residents. In the primary, Gray benefited from residents’ dislike of
the planning decisions made by Fenty, Tregoning, and Klein, but he never
pledged to reverse or even significantly alter any of those decisions.
For example, when he was asked in a primary debate about extortionate
rates for parking at city meters, he basked in the enthusiastic audience
applause at the question, but he never said he would do anything about
it; on the contrary, he said that something had to be done to discourage
residents from owning and driving cars.
The debate is well laid out by the Committee of 100, representing
neighborhood activists; David Alpert of Greater Greater Washington,
representing anti-car bicyclists and top-down urban planning; and the
Ward Three Democrats, again representing city residents, in their
letters to Gray about Tregoning and Klein, at http://www.dcwatch.com/election2010/101115.htm.
Gray’s decision will soon become clear — will he support the
neighborhood and civic organizations that largely supported him, or will
he support continuing Fenty’s planning policies?
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Inside Gray’s Very Secret Transition
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com
Since the November 3 press conference that Vincent Gray held to
announce his “transition leadership team,” http://www.dcwatch.com/election2010/101103.htm,
there has been no announcement of appointments and very little
information forthcoming from Gray’s transition. Indeed, Freeman
Klopott’s November 16 article in the Washington Examiner, “Gray’s
Quiet Transition,” http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/capital-land/2010/11/gray-s-quiet-transition,
noted that “Gray’s transition has so far been more notable for what
hasn’t happened than what has.”
Gray’s quiet transition stems, in large measure, from a bunker
mentality among Gray’s small inner circle. After a hard-fought victory
over an incumbent mayor, neither Gray nor his advisors were prepared for
the investigation of Reuben Charles’ background by the press nor for
the widespread opposition to him among Gray’s former campaign workers
and the larger community. In addition, immediately following the November
3 press conference, Gray was surprised when he was harshly criticized
both for failing to name representatives of labor and civic and
community leaders to his transition team and for the individuals he did
name to the team. This bunker mentality has resulted in a transition
that is neither open nor transparent. The transition operates behind
locked doors in a fourth-floor office in the Reeves Building. Virtually
every decision is made by two individuals, Lorraine Green, chair of Gray’s
campaign committee and his transition chairperson, and Reuben Charles,
former director of operations for Gray’s campaign and now executive
director of the transition. Moreover, only a handful of Gray’s
campaign workers and supporters have been offered work positions or been
invited to volunteer in the transition. Despite the fact that hundreds
of individuals have signed up on the Gray web site to work on the
transition, there is a secretive screening and selection process that
determines who will actually be “invited” to serve on a transition
subcommittee.
A veil of secrecy permeates the transition. Despite repeated press
requests, the transition will not provide a list of the individuals
serving on the various transition subcommittees, and no meetings of the
transition committee or subcommittees are open to the public or the
press, despite the fact that the transition operates in a government
building and uses government employees, supplies, and facilities. This
is a bad omen for Gray’s governing style as mayor. If he believes that
decisionmaking and discussion in the transition committee is best
carried out in secret, will be also believe that decisionmaking and
discussion in the mayor’s office should be closed to the public? All
transition volunteers must complete and sign two documents — a
four-page “code of ethical conduct for volunteers” and a “volunteer
disclosure form” (http://www.dcwatch.com/election2010/101118.htm).
According to the Gray transition, all volunteers for the transition team
must sign the forms before being allowed to participate in the
transition, in order to “prevent conflicts of interest” and “define
the scope of the volunteer’s authority.” Buried within the legal
jargon of the two documents is their true purpose: “the code of
ethical conduct outlines the scope of the volunteers’ tasks and
authority and makes clear that volunteers are not authorized to comment
on the transition or the Mayor-Elect’s policies unless specifically
granted such authorization by Doxie McCoy, Spokeswoman to the
Mayor-Elect.” In the past week, the Gray transition invoked this
confidentiality provision to admonish and even threaten individuals from
discussing any aspect of the transition, including transition
subcommittee meetings, with anyone outside of the confines of the
transition.
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Notice of Foreclosure
Everton Johnson, ej at eastwestfinancial.com
The new Notice of Foreclosure law, which was passed as emergency
legislation, delays residential foreclosures. Unfortunately it is badly,
if not fatally, flawed. It is was not well thought out and could easily
cause lenders to stop making loans in DC. On Thursday, November 18, the
mayor signed sweeping emergency legislation, Bill 18-1067 (also known as
Act 18-0599), requiring that Notices of Foreclosure not be filed unless
accompanied by a Certificate of Mediation issued by the Department of
Insurance, Securities and Banking. The mediation period can be up to
three months (the period is shortened if the occupant fails to request
the mediation or fails to participate), and affects all residential
owner-occupied properties, including those of four units or fewer if one
unit is owner-occupied. This emergency legislation will expire on
February 15, 2011. The permanent version, Bill 18-691 is pending.
The law is potentially flawed. It needs attention in the following
areas: 1) it has no sunset provision; 2) it was introduced and passed
rapidly, with no input from the financial institutions and title
insurance companies that it affects; 3) there are no forms or
infrastructure in place yet; 4) there is a danger of attribution to
foreclosures noticed or held before the effective data; 5) it equates
the trustee with the “lender,” subject to all penalties that can be
levied upon a lender, even though the trustee holds only naked legal
title and would not be able to control the lender’s responses to
mediation or other obligations; 6) it requires someone (who is
uncertain) to certify that the property is owner-occupied; 7) it fails
to define the “immediate family” whose residency may trigger rights;
8) it lacks a provision whereby the recordation of the filing of the
Certificate of Mediation is proof-positive that all requirements of the
statute have been met; and 8) any foreclosure not conducted in
accordance with the new statute is void, not voidable.
The Fiscal Impact Statement submitted in association with the bill
fails to anticipate the additional costs to and problems to be faced by
the consumer. Lenders will likely factor in a three-month holding period
when pricing loans. Similarly, the costs associated with conducting the
mediation and obtaining the Certificate of Mediation (including legal
fees) may somehow be shifted to the consumer. This legislation, coupled
with the Attorney General’s Statement, may prompt lenders or title
insurers to look closely at the pros and cons of making residential
loans in the District.
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Precarious Predicament For Instructional
Coaches
Candi Peterson, saveourcounselors@gmail.com
Last week, DCPS Instructional Coaches (IC’s) found themselves in a
precarious predicament, being government employees manipulated at
taxpayer’s expense. The Washington Teacher blog confirmed that
Instructional Coaches were required to attend a mandatory November 19
afternoon meeting with holdover WTU president George Parker during
instructional time instead of their previously scheduled training. It
was reported that Parker was a “no show” at the November 19 meeting.
This was the second hastily called Friday meeting for IC’s with Parker
at taxpayer’s expense and had some IC’s feeling miffed about the
misuse of instructional time and directive to meet with Parker last
week.
In a November 18 E-mail to Jason Kamras, one Instructional Coach
wrote: “In all my years as DCPS employee, I have never worked under
administrators who disregarded the sanctity of instructional time. The
last such meeting was a total sham! George Parker and Mary Collins
presented nothing of educational, or professional value to teachers.
Needless to say, I am shocked and disappointed by this administration’s
callous disregard for instructional time. I have no recourse but to
respond to (Washington Post) Bill Turque’s queries about this
meeting, as many WTU members have forwarded the E-mail notices about
this meeting to him. Please explain why this meeting is preempting one
half day’s training for Instructional Coaches for a union meeting. I
pay taxes in DC and I know that you and Kaya do too; thus, I do not
believe that DC tax payers will look favorably upon this misuse of
learning time for teachers and students.”
Another union activist complained to Parker last week in a terse
E-mail: “Despite the recent meeting with DC teaching fellows, you have
not called a union meeting in six months. This violates our Constitution
and you (Parker) are directly responsible for this ongoing destruction
of unionists’ democratic rights.” One has to wonder how important
these IC’s issues really are to Parker, given that he hasn’t
conducted any union meetings (representatives assembly or membership
meetings), as the WTU Constitution requires. Perhaps Parker’s meeting
with IC’s is as Washington Post writer/blogger Bill Turque
suggested about Parker’s recent meeting with TFA/DC teaching fellows,
an attempt by him to reach out to a less active segment of the
electorate to garner votes in the runoff election against the Nathan
Saunders’ slate who received the most votes overall. I was in
attendance at the TFA/DC Teacher Fellows’ Monday meeting and the menu
piled on crab cakes, London broil, and quesadillas while Parker promised
to work on the DC fellows’ job related issues (i.e., not being
paid, exorbitant costs for private certification to the tune of $4000, etc.)
and provide special IMPACT training.
Given that the city is demanding that teachers be held accountable
for students’ performance — was the Instructional Coaches meeting an
appropriate use of their time or was it payback of Interim Chancellor
Henderson to Parker? As a Washington Teacher commenter wrote to me: “I
expect this from Parker, who has pulled every trick out of the book to
stay in office, but I’m feeling abused by Kaya Henderson right now.
Gray better watch these actions.”
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Unequivocal Support for MPD Assistant Chief
Groomes
Mary C. Williams, Mslaw1121@aol.com
I met Assistant Chief Groomes only a few years ago when she was named
our Police Commander. During her brief tenure in the First District, she
proved to be not only a dedicated and hardworking public servant, but
one of the most decent and compassionate human beings on this earth. Her
community policing efforts contributed largely to a dramatic reduction
in crime in my Southwest neighborhood, and I know that she has almost
single-handedly worked just as hard in transforming other neighborhoods
as well. Her commitment to the residents of this city is unquestioned.
So, I feel confident in saying that I know that she would not
intentionally violate an MPD rule or policy, nor would she compromise on
ethics. While the facts surrounding her recent suspension have not been
made public, this is one person in this city who has earned our trust
and deserves the benefit of doubt. Knowing that she has dedicated her
life to this job, I can only imagine her pain when this allegation of
impropriety was raised. I am certain that she will be cleared
eventually, but in the difficult meantime and the unknown length of
police internal investigations, I would hope that those of you who know
her, as I do, would take the time to write or call her to lend support.
She has done so much to make this city a safer place for all of us to
live, it’s the least that we can do for her. Also, send a message to
the mayor and MPD Chief Lanier that we want a speedy investigation and
an even faster resolution.
[“Statement by Assistant Chief Diane Groomes to FOX 5: ‘I am
sorry for my actions and bad judgment . . . and bringing discredit to
the best chief . . . police department and city,’” http://tinyurl.com/22mf2ms
— Gary Imhoff]
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Gary [themail, November 17] could not have better expressed my view
of so-called electric cars and the ridiculous Volt in particular. This
car costs upwards of $42,000 before taxpayer subsidy and is little
better than a Chevy Malibu or even an Impala in terms of its
appointments, cars that cost thousands less. The car is simply not worth
the price no matter how you posit its benefits. Were it not for
government subsidies and purchasers who believe either that the car
carries a certain élan or will somehow save the planet, this car would
or should not have left the drawing board. Although, as an aside, a
friend informed me that GM was working on fully electric cars decades
ago, but gave up on the effort in favor of the Saturn. Frankly, if you
want a eco-friendly car for a lot less money, buy a Toyota Prius which
even comes equipped with Obama-Biden bumper stickers.
This government seems to be unable to embark upon anything sensible
in terms of meeting our transportation needs. Five hundred spaces
devoted to a car that will number probably in the dozens in the DC area
for the foreseeable future, while leaving the rest of the parking public
out in the cold, simply seems almost irrational. The governing folks in
this city demand utopian unworkable schemes like the ineffective gun
laws and welfare ( and poverty) forever, and overlook the obvious and
workable plans like building public parking garages and demanding that
folks work for any benefits provided by the taxpayers. It seems anything
that has any connection to the practical and even pragmatic never sees
the light of day.
So, for now, we face a $175 million short fall and what do we do?
Plan for the installation of charging stations that have no patrons.
This field of dreams approach to governance — build charging stations
and the Volts will come — is killing us.
[See also “Five Reasons Electric Cars Will Disappoint,” US News
and World Report, http://tinyurl.com/23k4zwe
— Gary Imhoff]
###############
Gasoline Versus Electric Car Drivers
Richard Layman, rlaymandc@yahoo.com
Interesting that you draw out the argument that providing parking
spaces dedicated for electric car charging pits gasoline-based drivers
against electric car drivers in competition for precious street space. I
haven’t seen that discussed anywhere else. As one of the soldiers in
the sustainable transportation “army,” it’s good to see the
possibility of internecine war breaking out amongst automobilists. I won’t
argue the point about gasoline versus electric cars and subsidy but I do
think you are looking at the question in extremely narrow terms.
Recognizing that the US consumes 25 percent of the annual production of
the world’s oil, and that the US comprises less than 5 percent of the
world’s population sets the stage for asking better questions.
If you want to maintain an automobile-centric way of life in the US,
as you advocate in your editorials, then the issue comes down to
planning for resiliency in a future that likely involves increased
demand for likely dwindling oil resources. Don’t forget that China’s
annual sales of automobiles is expected to surpass that of the US around
2015. Sure you have to burn coal to get electricity — for cars or
fixed rail transit — but the US has adequate supplies of coal to last
hundreds of years. (But don’t forget the pesky battery questions, and
the fact that China controls many of the precious and scarce minerals
needed for battery production.)
Where I think the real question is, and the one you didn’t pose, is
what is the best way to provide access to electric car charging in the
city. How much demand is there for what we might term “regular”
charging — people who travel in a particular pattern every work day
— versus serving “occasional” trips — people who don’t travel
to and/or around DC on a daily basis, but who may need access to
charging stations while they are here. In a conversation with a utility
executive with regard to a bid for a project in Chattanooga, we
discussed this and opined that about 80 percent of the demand for this
service would be for people making regular/repetitive trips. Do people
who own electric cars want certainty and predictability for access to
charging facilities, and therefore, would they prefer reserved
(guaranteed) spaces in a parking garage, rather than a street space? I
think they do. Would a car in a street space take up the space for hours
after it has finished charging, thereby denying access to other cars?
Now, I haven’t paid attention to these issues with regard to DC,
and maybe the questions have been answered, e.g., how much demand is
there for charging equipment at home, and in particular in multiunit
buildings and how to provide it; how much demand is there for charging
equipment at the workplace to serve commuters and how to provide it; and
how much demand is there for casual or intermittent access in
street-accessible locations? Those are the questions that interest me as
a planner and advocate. But I am all for you “sparking” a war
between electric car owners and gasoline powered car owners in the
meantime.
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Curbside Refilling — Take the Long View
Tom Grahame, tgrahame@mindsping.com
Gary, I think your view on electric cars and curbside electric
refilling [themail, November 17] are shortsighted. As a country, we don’t
seem to have much capability to take a longer view. Despite importing a
larger and larger percentage of our oil from abroad, despite knowing how
much money flowed from our country even when oil prices were lower,
governments in the US acted as if a party based upon cheap oil could go
on forever. The federal government kept CAFE (fuel efficiency) standards
low for thirty years. When oil hit $140 per barrel, and gasoline hit
five dollars per gallon, people with long commutes couldn’t buy much
else but gasoline. This lack of spending power was one of many reasons
our recession got so bad so fast, and why it is taking so long to
recover. Suppose that the US imported half as much oil in 2008 as we
actually did import. We might have kept something north of several
hundred billion dollars in this country, in our pocketbooks, to be spent
here and to create jobs here. (Yes, the housing bubble and Wall Street
malfeasance were larger triggers to the recession, I don’t mean to
suggest otherwise.)
Electric cars will take decades to fully develop. Most people who
look at oil markets think that prices will only go higher in coming
years, because all the cheap, easily found oil is being depleted, while
newer sources are much more expensive and have substantial environmental
costs — think deepwater drilling and tar sands, for example. The
phenomenon goes by the title “Peak Oil,” and it means that although
there is still plenty of oil in geological formations, the money and
time to produce from these new sources is such that new production can
barely keep up with depletion, and it will come with continually higher
costs. When accelerating demand from China and other countries meets
static supply, prices must go up.
So it isn’t crazy for governments to do what they can to prepare
for a time when electric cars might be cost competitive with gasoline
powered cars. It takes decades to prepare a new car industry. Will it
succeed? I don’t know, but I think governments should be prepared to
innovate, just as the private sector does. Some private sector
innovation works, some doesn’t — that doesn’t mean innovation per
se is bad. To the contrary, without innovation, where would we be?
So I don’t mind having a few plug-in locations. Lots of people want to
be part of the move to electric cars — so let’s make sure they have
the small amount of infrastructure they need.
I also wonder if perhaps the DC government might be a little less
hostile to car owners than you suggest, at least in some actions, in
particular their encouragement of Zipcars. If people can use a Zipcar
instead of owning one, then one Zipcar might take the place of many
personally owned ones, sitting unused much of the time at the curb. My
wife and I, somewhere near your age, both own cars. We drive them about
5,000 miles per year, mostly local errands, seeing friends, occasionally
driving out of town. My wife drives large pieces of art occasionally, so
Zipcars wouldn’t fit her needs. We aren’t part of the new E-world,
where you schedule everything and pay for everything from your iPhone,
but that seems to me to be a very viable model for living in an urban
area. Zipcars may well be the best thing that can happen for those of us
who increasingly have trouble finding parking spaces near our homes,
because it may mean that fewer people will own their own car. That isn’t
hostility toward car owners, to me at least — Zipcars might actually
help reduce the level of congestion that would actually occur on my
block, and it will be because people chose voluntarily to live that way.
And some Zipcars may turn out to be all-electric, and need curbside
refueling. That’s OK by me.
###############
I quote a segment of Richard Urban’s piece in the last issue
[November 17]: “. . . good character begins with self discipline and
sexual abstinence before marriage.”
So, two questions: 1) Who defines “self discipline”? 2) If one
has sex before marriage, does that tar one as not having “good
character”?
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
2010 National Award for Smart Growth
Achievement, December 1
Johanna Weber, jweber@nbm.org
December 1, 3:00-5:00 p.m., the Environmental Protection Agency
presents the 2010 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement, which
recognizes communities that use the principles of smart growth to create
better places. One winner will be announced in each of the following
categories: Smart Growth and Green Building; Programs, Policies, and
Regulations; Civic Places; Rural Smart Growth; and Overall Excellence in
Smart Growth. The communities honored this year range from a rural
coastal area to a historic reuse project. The award ceremony includes a
panel discussion with experts from each community. Free, preregistration
required at http://go.nbm.org/site/Calendar/1230043627?view=Detail&id=110081.
Walk in registration based on availability. At the National Building
Museum, 401 F Street, NW, Judiciary Square Metro station.
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