End of the Year
Dear Year-Enders:
I’m celebrating the end of the year by taking a break from writing
an introduction to this issue. Celebrate with me and take a break from
reading my introductions. Happy New Year.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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As Vincent Gray prepares to be sworn in on Sunday, January 2, as the
District’s new mayor, there is widespread concern and speculation
about a Vince Gray administration and specifically about "what kind
of mayor he will be." I can only hope that the manner in which the
transition team distributed tickets to the inauguration gala today at
the convention center is not a harbinger of the future administration,
because it showed both poor planning and an arrogant staff.
Although tickets are not required to attend the 8:00 a.m. prayer
service or the 10:00 a.m. swearing-in ceremony at the Convention Center,
tickets are required to attend the inauguration gala in the evening.
According to Gray’s transition office, 7,500 tickets were available to
the general public and would be distributed, two to a person, on
December 22, 28, 29, and 30 from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in room 145 at
the Convention Center. This morning, a slowly moving line of more than a
hundred fifty people crawled through the small distribution room. The
delay was caused by the Gray teams’ requirement that individuals not
only show a picture identification card, but that the transition had to
record the name and address of each person — and by the fact that the
transition provided only two volunteers to process the line. When I went
to a corner of the room and began to take photographs and notes, an
individual from the transition team, Greg Meeropol, approached me and
demanded to know who I was and what I was doing. I responded that I was
at the Convention Center to report on the preparations for Sunday’s
inauguration and that I was concerned about the very long lines and the
lack of adequate staff to process ticket-seekers. Meeropol, who
indicated that he was in charge of the ticket distribution and was the
volunteer coordinator for the Gray transition office, then left the room
and returned five minutes later with two Convention Center security
officials. I was told that I could not stand in the corner, from which I
had a good view of the waiting lines and ticket processors. With
Meeropol egging on the Convention Center security staffers, I was then
told to leave the room or that I would be escorted out of the building.
The Gray transition’s self-importance, arrogance, and eagerness to
wield petty power over citizens lined up and kept waiting unnecessarily
and over the press reporting on it reminded me strongly of the early
days of the Fenty administration and how Fenty staffers handled his
inauguration.
By 10:40 a.m., signs were posted on the exterior doors of the
Convention Center that all tickets to the inaugural gala were "sold
out," and that all ten thousand tickets to the gala had been
distributed.
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DPW’s Post-Holiday Schedule
Kevin B. Twine, Kevin.twine@dc.gov
The Department of Public Works reminds residents that we will follow
the normal trash/recycling collections schedule on Friday, December 31.
If Friday is your collection day, please have your materials out by 6:00
a.m. Friday and return your containers to your property by 8:00 p.m.
Friday. DPW will collect holiday trees (please remove ornaments, lights,
tinsel, etc.) between Monday, January 3, and Saturday, January 15. Place
your trees in the tree box space in front of your home, or adjacent to
the curb (but not in the street). Please put your tree out for
collection between Sunday, January 2, and Sunday, January 9. After
January 15, you may put your tree where you put your trash and recycling
and we will collect it from there, depending on the truck’s capacity.
DPW will suspend enforcement of parking meters, residential parking,
and rush hour lane restrictions on Friday and Saturday, December 31 and
January 1. Also, DPW will not tow abandoned vehicles. Saturday, January
8, is the next Household Hazardous Waste/E-cycling/Document Shredding
day. Please bring these materials to the Ft. Totten Transfer Station,
4900 John F. McCormack Road, NE, between 8:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. The
February drop-off day is February 5. Directions to Ft. Totten: Travel
east on Irving Street, NW, turn left on Michigan Avenue, turn left on
John F. McCormack Road, NE, and continue to the end of the street.
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Sixteen US Cities That Could Face Bankruptcy
in 2011
Dino Drudi, drudi.dino@bls.gov
DC is on this list: http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/16-u.s.-cities-that-could-face-bankruptcy-in-2011-535744.html?tickers=%5Edji,%5Egspc,%5Etnx,tlt,tbt
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Estate Tax Issues for Home Owners in the
District
William Haskett, williamhaskett@hotmail.com
I sent letters on the estate tax issue to Mary Cheh and all other
councilmembers on November 13. If I understand correctly, the Federal
level at which estate taxes are assessed was altered upwards in the most
recent lame-duck session of Congress, but DC has not taken any action to
remedy the discrepancy, which is now even wider, between that level and
that of the District. DC’s estate tax rates were last set in 2001,
just before the housing boom. This must have increased the total estate
for any homeowners who benefited from increased house values (and
assessments, of course) in the boom years of the past decade. I’d be
interested in finding out if my worries are shared.
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In Defense of Planners, Developers, and
Arlington
Len Sullivan, lsnarpac@verizon.net
Over the thirty-odd years I lived in northwest DC and worked down
south in Arlington County (commuting daily, alone, by car), I marveled
at how Arlington County reinvented itself as a major inner suburb of our
national metro area. From a run-down area once similar to DC’s Ward 8,
Arlington planners established development corporations at each planned
Metro stop, invited in competent (i.e., profitable) developers
and ended up with a combined set of thriving high-rise (not really
sky-rise) and upscale single-family residential communities. That county
is growing three times faster than DC, has far higher average housing
values, a current mean household income 33 percent higher than DC’s,
and a median household income 66 percent higher — indicating lesser
income disparities. Its school system educates half as many kids in a
third as many schools, with SAT’s scores substantially higher than DC’s
norm, or the US norm, and graduation rates over 90 percent for kids of
all races, versus DC’s 68 percent.
One of Arlington’s major advantages is a ratio of 23 households
paying taxes for every one below the poverty line. DC, by comparison,
has only nine taxpaying households for each one dependent on DC
municipal services (which consume well over half of all city
expenditures). By all rights, DC’s planning for revenue-producing
development should be for substantially higher density (i.e.,
taller) than those across the Anacostia. Like DC, a large portion of
Arlington’s land does not produce local revenues directly, but that
Virginia suburb has surely and consciously established a better of
quality of life for both its residents and its large daytime workforce,
albeit a trifle shadier on some days at some hours. Arlington’s movers
and shakers are, in fact, a far better representation of American
get-up-and-go than DC’s paranoid, change-averse, nimbys.
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
New Year’s Eve Gala at the Washington
Hilton, December 31
Michael Karlan, dc@prosinthecity.com
On December 31, join Professionals in the City at its Passport to the
World New Year’s Eve Gala at the Washington Hilton in Dupont Circle.
This gala includes an open bar, nine themed party areas each
representing a different city, live entertainment and more. The current
block of tickets starts at just $109. For more information, to see a
video of last year’s gala, or to purchase tickets, visit http://www.newyearseveindc.com,
E-mail dc@prosinthecity.com or
call 686-5990.
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