Getting Bigger
Dear Niche Audience:
Tim Craig’s article, “Biking Getting Bigger in DC,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/26/AR2010112604794_pf.html,
contains one telling statistic that contradicts and undermines the
entire story, though it is spun in the way most favorable to bicycling:
“According to census data, the number of Washington residents who
commute to work by bicycle has nearly doubled, to 2.2 percent, in the
past ten years.” Wouldn’t a more accurate title for the article have
been, “Few People Bike, Despite Many Government Incentives,”? It
turns out that I’ve been exaggerating the importance of bicycling,
since I’ve been using 3 percent as the percentage of commuters who
travel by bicycle; in the future I’ll use 2 percent instead.
Bicycling, as a practical mode of transportation rather than as a sport
or hobby, is a niche enthusiasm. If urban and transportation planners
wanted to encourage practical alternatives to automobiles, instead of
wanting simply to burden drivers, they would try to make commuting by
mass transit easier, more convenient, and cheaper. If planners were even
more practical, they would concentrate on making carpooling easier and
more convenient, since in metropolitan DC more people already carpool
than use all forms of mass transit (15.8 percent versus 13.7 percent, http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/journey/msa50.txt),
carpooling programs cost governments nothing, and carpooling gives
people more individual control over their travel plans and costs. On
second thought, maybe government planners should stay out of carpooling,
since if they were in charge their “improvements” would consist of
imposing carpooling licenses, fees, and taxes; dictating approved routes
for carpooling; and regulating how much carpoolers would pay for rides.
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There’s trouble ahead: two bills that are certain to be merged and
to pass the city council, most likely unanimously, are Bill 18-770, the
Bullying Prevention Act of 2010, which was introduced by Michael Brown
and Gray, and cosponsored by Alexander, Berry, Graham, Cheh, Bowser,
Thomas, Mendelson, Evans, and Kwame Brown; and Bill 18-1057, the
Harassment and Intimidation Prevention Act of 2010, introduced by Harry
Thomas, Jr., and cosponsored by Graham, Cheh, Michael Brown, Kwame
Brown, Mendelson, Catania, Wells, Bowser, Alexander, Evans, and Gray.
They’re very similar, and similarly foolish. Both of them outlaw
physical bullying and harassment, which is already illegal under other
laws, and require schools (and, in the case of Thomas’ bill, DCPS,
DCPCS, DPR, DCPL, and UDC) to write “harassment” and “bullying”
policies. Both bills define bullying in a way that is broad and vague,
so that the resulting policies are likely to be speech codes that will
catch in their nets any kind of speech that anyone may object to or that
may be considered politically incorrect. Is there any provision in the
Bill of Rights that this council doesn’t want to nullify? Has anyone
asked school officials whether they have been unable to deal with
incidents of real bullying, whether there is a growing problem with
bullying, or whether they need a council law to address bullying?
#####
It’s time for me to opine on the Diane Groomes scandal. She
demanded strict enforcement of Metropolitan Police Department rules for
the lower ranks, but she not only countenanced top police officials’
cheating on a test; she encouraged them to cheat. She gave them the
answers to the questions. The MPD has to send a clear signal that it
strongly disapproves of her behavior, unless it wants the public to
perceive it as institutionally corrupt. Diane Groomes recognizes that;
she issued a statement admitting that she did what she was accused of,
that it was wrong, and that it brought shame on the MPD. Her supporters
should recognize that, too, rather than trying to excuse or diminish the
seriousness of what she did. Then, after it has been determined whether
this were an isolated incident and a solitary lapse in judgment, it is
time to take into account what her many supporters say — that she has
been an approachable and responsive police official and a community
favorite. That may properly influence the punishment she receives, but
it shouldn’t influence whether or not she deserves punishment.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Transition Leadership
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com
In addition to having growing concerns about Vincent Gray’s “very
secret” (http://www.dcwatch.com/themail/2010/10-11-21.htm)
and “slow-paced” (http://tinyurl.com/24qlpj2)
transition, some Gray supporters are becoming increasingly alarmed about
the composition of Gray’s transition leadership team (http://www.dcwatch.com/election2010/101103.htm)
and its staff. As I have previously written, when Gray’s transition
leadership team was announced on November 3 it did not include a single
labor or civic/community leader, and these two constituencies played
pivotal roles in Gray’s successful campaign. However, within a few
days of the November 3 press conference the Gray transition, after some
protracted negotiations, extended an invitation to Joslyn Williams,
president of the Metropolitan Washington Council of the AFL-CIO, to join
Barbara Lang and Stephen Trachtenberg as a third co-chair of the
Economic Development Committee of the transition.
In recent days, a group of citizens representing a host of community
and civic groups delivered a letter to Gray and transition chair
Lorraine Green indicating that they are “troubled by the announcement
of your transition team and the exclusion of respected community leaders
and representatives.” The letter goes on to state that “from our
perspective, the profile of your transition team is far too elite,
affluent, and privileged, with only well-connected from finance,
politics, business, and government.” To date, Gray has not replied to
this letter, and the civic and community leaders who wrote to him have
not been successful in securing the meeting they requested with Gray,
although Gray has had several private meetings with supporters of former
Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and dinners with business leaders
organized by DC Chamber of Commerce President Barbara Long.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Gray’s transition leadership
is its composition. Sixteen individuals comprise the “team,” and
their ward residency is distributed as follows: Ward One, 1; Ward Two,
2; Ward Three, 5; Ward Four, 2; Ward Five, 1; Ward Six, 3; Ward Seven,
0; Ward Eight, 1. In a city that Gray hopes to govern under a big “One
City” tent, perhaps he doesn’t consider the residency distribution
of his transition leadership team to be that important. But in general,
the wards that supported Fenty in the primary were rewarded; the wards
that supported Gray got stiffed. Only one member of the team, John
Parham, lives east of the river. Most disturbing, given the importance
of education policy in the campaign, is the fact that Gray chose as
co-chair of the Education Committee Michael L. Lomax, whose voting
residence is in Atlanta, Georgia. Lomax is president of the United Negro
College Fund, headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia. His co-chair of the
Education Committee is Katherine Bradley, whose City Bridge Foundation
promoted and helped underwrite Michelle Rhee’s “reforms” as
chancellor.
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DeBonis Claims the DC Statehood Green Party Is
Withering Away, Wishful Thinking
David Schwartzman, dschwartzman@gmail.com
The Washington Post’s endorsements have not been decisive in
several races in the past election; Gray, Mendelson, Cheh, and Thomas,
Jr., were winners by wide margins but were not favored by the Post’s
Editorial Board. But our local newspaper of record clearly has an
ongoing agenda. First, the Post continues to support the urban
structural adjustment program put in place by the Control Board regime,
so essential needs like affordable housing and child care continue to be
woefully underfunded in our budget, while the Democratic/Independent
(formerly officially Republican) team of Councilmembers Evans and
Catania stand firm against higher taxes for their top 5 percent income
bracket. And yes, continue to blame the poorest of our residents for our
budget deficit, while hundreds of millions of dollars go to unjustified
corporate tax favors every year.
And we again witness the Post’s continued marginalization of
the only DC Party with ballot status challenging this program, the DC
Statehood Green Party. Neither I nor any other of our candidates got any
real coverage by the Post in the campaign for the November 2
election. Mike DeBonis coined the phrase “token opposition”
referring to my campaign and the editorial page adopted it. Now, DeBonis
claims the “Statehood Green Party has withered into near-oblivion”
in his column “DC Might Be Much Better Off Without Pointless Party
Politics” (November 26, http://tinyurl.com/2bla6po).
Really? Do the readers of the Post know that total number of
votes our candidates received on November 2 for all races was 42,430,
with four At-Large races, to 30,450 for the Republicans, with two
At-Large Races? Is the Republican Party the party that is really
withering away? (Not too much a surprise, when its economic policies are
so user friendly to so many of our local Democrats). My own vote
percentage increased from my run in 2008, especially in my own Ward 4
and east of the river in Wards 7 and 8. For the same percentage of the
vote, if the turnout had been the same as November 2008, I would have
received over 24,500 votes (based on the Pre-Certified Results of the DC
BOEE). I got 22 percent of the vote of my opponent David Catania, who
outspent me by over 20 to 1.
And as far as the election of Patrick Mara, who receives so much
praise from DeBonis; he outpolled Dotti Love Wade by a mere margin of
1.15 to 1, while outspending her by 7.7 to 1, with Mara raising $16,802
(latest figures from DC BOEE and OCF). Maybe Mara did more canvassing
than Wade, but the huge margin in campaign funds surely helped. So why
not have nonpartisan elections indeed, as DeBonis advocates, when big
money, especially from the corporate sector, will likely choose the
winners in most cases anyway?
There is a better, more democratic way: public funding of local
elections, proportional representation, and/or preference voting. And
the Washington Post might try earning its reputation as the
newspaper of record and fulfilling its responsibility to the electorate
by making even the political playing field with meaningful coverage of
issues, including voices of dissent from its own big corporate-driven
discourse. And can we even dream the unthinkable, as a demonstration of
born-again journalistic impartiality, that the Post’s Chairman
of the Board, Donald Graham, announces his resignation as Vice President
for Membership and Finance of the Federal City Council?
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DC Board of Elections and Ethics and the
November 2 General Election
Bill O’Field, wofield@gmail.com
The DC Board of Elections and Ethics will hold a special meeting
tomorrow, November 29, at 5:30 p.m. to certify the results of the
November 2 general election. The open meeting will be held in Room
280-North of the One Judiciary Square Building at 441 Fourth Street, NW.
For more information, the public is instructed to call the Board’s
General Counsel’s office at 727-2194.
And the next day, Tuesday, November 30, at 10:00 a.m., the City
Council’s Committee on Government Operations and the Environment,
chaired by Councilmember Mary Cheh, will hold a public oversight
roundtable on the administration of the November Election. According to
the Committee’s public notice, roundtable topics will include the
adjustments made by the Board in pollworker training and functioning of
precincts, technological fixes, and the handling of electronic media,
between the September primary election and the November general
election. The public notice further states that there will be a
discussion about how those adjustments ameliorated problems experienced
during the September Primary Election and what further adjustments are
still necessary to improve voting in the District of Columbia. The
roundtable will be held in room 412 of the John A. Wilson Building at
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW. Anyone wishing to testify should contact
Committee staff at 724-8062.
It will be enlightening to hear about the “adjustments” made by
the Board to “ameliorate” the problems experienced in September.
Will they be the same or some of the same problems that the public
brought to the attention of the Board’s Chairman Togo West and
Councilmember Cheh? Or do those problems remain?
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There is a profile of [Washington Post Metro columnist]
Courtland Milloy in this week’s City Paper. It’s important
because he has written a number of recent polarizing columns on race and
the DC mayor’s election from the perspective of the black
neighborhoods. Here is a link: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/40086/whats-tweeting-courtland-milloy
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It is time, indeed, past time, to open up the conversation on the
greatest uncovered story in DC — the current rewrite of our city’s
zoning laws. Yes, there have been Office of Planning working group
meetings on bits and pieces of the rewrite, but most of this has been
under the radar for most citizens. Is there a master plan? Most people
are turned off by the details of zoning, but the concepts behind the
rules are quite understandable, and they have a lot to do with the
livability and uniqueness of our communities. Just a few short years
ago, a new and readable DC Comprehensive Plan was introduced with much
fanfare. What’s wrong with it? Are we abandoning it? About the same
time a major meeting, sponsored by the Committee of 100, heard a host of
aspiring councilmembers endorse the idea of an independent planning
commission. Why has that idea languished? The city is changing, and that’s
OK. But without citizen buy-in, tensions between the old and the new can
turn into virtual fist fights. Let the conversation begin.
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Planners Versus Residents? Residents Versus
Residents? Or Tregoning Versus Residents?
Tom Grahame, tgrahame@mindspring.com
I was very impressed by George Clark’s eloquent letter, as chair of
the Committee of 100, to the Mayor-elect [http://www.dcwatch.com/election2010/101115.htm].
The Committee’s major criticism’s were that Tregoning and the
outgoing Administration run roughshod over zoning and land use processes
in general, over the Comprehensive plan (a crucial tool of urban
planning), over historic preservation precedents, and in general that
they took the view that neighborhoods per se have little worth in
their particular definition of smart growth.
Jesse Rauch (“Residents vs. Residents,” themail, Nov. 24) quite
properly evokes the name of Jane Jacobs in his defense of current
transportation policies. Jane Jacobs was a strong proponent of walkable
neighborhoods, as am I, but she would be aghast at the notion of
diminishing both neighborhoods and sense of local community. Her idea of
a livable city is one where people know their neighborhood and
neighbors, not one of dense apartment blocks where people are largely
anonymous.
There are certainly some sections of the city where higher density is
not just appropriate, but called for, generally near some (but not all)
Metro stops, where residents of new, dense structures would be less
inclined to own a car. If the adult population is going to rise, it’s
a good idea to minimize the number of new cars, to minimize traffic jams
and on street parking congestion. I buy this part of what the city is
doing — incentivizing new residents to either not own a car or use it
very little; it is just common sense when you have crowded streets. Zip
Cars are great because they have the potential to reduce parking
congestion and traffic congestion. I don’t want the new Administration
to be hostile to those of us who own cars, but I don’t see Zip Cars as
hostile. I understand why many young residents would want to bicycle for
transportation, yet I also know too many people who have broken
collarbones or broken shoulders. A close friend’s brother died in a
bicycle accident in his 30’s, leaving his wife and two young children.
I wouldn’t do it, but I don’t begrudge people their choice of
transport. I think bike lanes are necessary for bicycling — even
though my most recent friend with a broken shoulder was in a bike lane
when the car door opened just as she went by. They are inconvenient for
drivers, but not so much that I would oppose them, because they do have
a purpose in livable neighborhoods.
Let’s not lump activities that are meant to reduce traffic and
parking congestion, and allow people to get around without a personally
owned car, with the far more pernicious policies of Ms. Tregoning. We
have seen that her policies throw out all the efforts — by citizens,
neighborhoods, and previous city planners — to develop comprehensive
plans. Thus urban planning should be done only by the “experts” with
minimal regard to citizen and neighborhood inputs. That was the Robert
Moses way of doing things — how many city neighborhoods did he
destroy? Ms. Tregoning’s apparent attitude is that DC should become
denser by any means necessary, such as diminishing the effects of zoning
— something Jane Jacobs would fight, as does the Committee of 100 —
or overriding historic preservation, or discounting the importance of
neighborhoods and community. Let’s not confuse such a damaging and
non-inclusive impulse with more appropriate aspects of “smart growth,”
such as making it easier for everyone, including those of us who own
cars in the case of Zip Cars, to get around.
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The Pitfalls for DC’s Planning and
Transportation Progressives
Nick Kaufmann, nicklynnkaufmann@verizon.net
It appears that all of the supporters of G. Klein and H. Tregoning,
and of their “progressive” urban views of transportation and
planning, fail to realize that they will still be deluged and threatened
by all those commuter vehicles when DC residents no longer have the
ability to own and operate their own cars in DC.
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Schools Are Not an Island
Richard Urban, rurban@rufordc.com
[In reply to Willie Schatz, themail, November 21] I would contrast
self discipline, or delayed gratification, with immediate gratification;
or doing things in the right order versus taking short cuts. For
instance, delay sex for the long-term goal of a stable family and a good
foundation for your future family. Or study hard instead of cheating. Or
avoid using performance enhancing drugs and train hard without drugs. If
you have sex before marriage it does not necessarily mean that you have
bad character. However, it could mean that you see sex as something that
is for your own pleasure without considering the happiness of and the
consequences for the other person. Giving the message to youth that if
you use a condom all kinds of sexual activity are okay, is a viewpoint
that encourages self gratification, and is not a character building
viewpoint. Encouraging waiting with the goal of marriage encourages
delayed gratification and thinking more about the future, and thus helps
develop good character.
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It is amazing how people tend to overlook unethical behavior when it
comes to people whom they like. What are we teaching our children?
Assistant Chief Groomes admitted that she provided answers to the test.
I am not saying that she should be fired, but she has admitted
wrongdoing. This is why people do not take DC residents seriously. We
tend to overlook misbehavior when it comes to people whom we like. Wrong
is wrong, and I believe that there should be some punishment that fits
the infraction. If it had been a rank-and-file officer I do believe that
action would have been swifter and harsher. Assistant Chief Groomes is
in the top leadership. What she did was dishonest, and honesty is one of
the strongest leadership qualities of a good officer. How can she go
back to the rank-and-file and regain her creditability? How can she be
trusted? That is a question that needs to be asked when so much of what
she does is about trust.
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Restore Chief Groomes Now and Without Sanction
Susan Meehan, smeehan@wap.org
I, too, cannot think of a person less likely to besmirch the name of
the Metropolitan Police Department than Assistant Chief Groomes. Many
years ago, I worked hard to get the police of this city to allow female
members to compete for all policing jobs rather than be limited to what
used to be known as “women’s” jobs. Our Police Chief and Assistant
Chief are exactly the kind of strong, competent and caring women I had
hoped would come forth. I have worked with Diane Groomes, admire her,
and consider her to be a jewel in the MPD’s crown. What is clearly no
more than a technical difference of opinion on what constitutes an
open-book exam needs to be resolved immediately with Chief Groomes
restored without sanction of any kind to official duty. This city needs
her.
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
National Building Museum Events, December 1
Johanna Weber, jweber@nbm.org
December 1, 12:30-2:00 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. The award ceremony includes a panel discussion with
experts from each community. Free. Registration required; register for
events at http://www.nbm.org.
Walk-in registration based on availability. At the National Building
Museum, 401 F Street, NW, Judiciary Square Metro station.
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