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May 29, 2011

Do Business in the City

Dear Business Owners:

Politicians, as I believe I’ve said before, are lousy at business, and should stay out of it. I don’t believe that any councilmember or mayor in the District of Columbia has ever started or run a successful business, or has even tried to. That doesn’t stop our politicians from imagining themselves to be brilliant business planners and developers, which leads them to waste a lot of time, development opportunities, and taxpayer money.

Here’s the latest example. WJLA reports that, “at a retail convention in Las Vegas, Gray and five DC council members met with Wal-Mart executives Monday. He says the company should build a fifth store to redevelop the Skyland complex in southeast Washington — beyond the four sites Wal-Mart has proposed. Gray told the company it could build five stores or none at all. Two sites chosen by Wal-Mart are on publicly owned land. That gives the city some control. Gray said he could also consider nixing Wal-Mart’s requests for building permits on privately owned sites,” http://tinyurl.com/3vtf55m. Gray later claimed he was only joshing; I’m sure that the Wal-Mart executives appreciated the joke. But what would make the mayor and the five councilmembers want to threaten a big business that they want to lure to the District?

The answer is that the mayor and councilmembers saw Wal-Mart as a solution for a long-standing business problem that District politicians created. Several years ago, the Skyland Shopping Center was a profitable and fully occupied shopping center in Ward 7. But it was also shabby and run down, with a lower class clientele. So the city government pretended that it had grand development plans for it and seized it through eminent domain, http://tinyurl.com/g36a4. (See a description of the eminent domain case here: http://tinyurl.com/3lms86m) The city’s argument was that the area was blighted because after it seized the shopping center the government could give it to developers with more money, who could lease the stores to businesses with more money, who would cater to shoppers with more money, rather than to the unsightly people who patronized the stores that were there. The city’s development plans, run first by the now-defunct National Capital Revitalization Corporation and now by the Rappaport Companies, have been heavily subsidized by taxpayer funds to seize the land and businesses from their legitimate former owners and will be even more heavily subsidized in the future to bribe new companies to occupy the spaces, when and if it is ever built. But the grand plans have gone nowhere. The city’s demonstrated lack of respect for private property rights has not yielded any concrete results. The vision of a new “Skyland Town Center” remains what is described even on its own web site as “a 20-year-old dream,” http://www.skylandtowncenter.com/vision.html.

Wal-Mart must have seemed to the city’s “leaders” as a solution to their problems, a way to disguise their long-running ineptitude at economic development and to justify their disrespect for private property. Just twist a few arms, make a few threats, muscle a big company, and all the politicians could claim they were development geniuses. And look at how they would have done it; look at the improvement they would have made. They wiped out all the small, locally owned stores at Skyland that served a clientele the city saw as undesirable and poor, in order to replace them with — wait for it; drumroll — replace them with Wal-Mart. How’s that for bragging rights? And how will the city’s treatment of Wal-Mart encourage other companies, that aren’t as rich and powerful and able to protect themselves as Wal-Mart, to locate in DC and deal with our city’s government?

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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Change in DC Auditor’s Office
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com

After months of rumors and widespread speculation, Council Chairman Kwame Brown confirmed last week that he would not reappoint Deborah Nichols to a new six-year term as the DC Auditor. In a press release dated May 26, http://www.dcwatch.com/auditor/audit110526.htm, Brown announced “the selection of Yolanda Branche as acting auditor, effective June 2, 2011.” The Office of the DC Auditor is within the Council, http://www.dcauditor.org. It serves as the District’s equivalent of the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), which serves as the investigative arm of Congress. The Office of the DC Auditor was established by Section 445 of the District’s Home Rule Act and, under DC Code 1-204.55, the Auditor “shall be appointed by the Chairman, subject to the approval of a majority of the Council.” The DC Auditor, whose term of office is six years, is required by the Charter to “each year conduct a thorough audit of the accounts and operations of the government of the District.” The mission of the office also includes assisting the council to perform its oversight responsibilities and reviewing revenue estimates in support of annual budgets and municipal bonds.

Over the past thirty years, the District has been well served for four Auditors — Otis H. Troupe, Russell A. Smith, Anthony S. Cooper, and Deborah Nichols. Each worked tirelessly to identify waste, fraud, and abuse in the District government. Ms. Nichols, an attorney, has been at the DC Auditor’s Office for more than twenty-six years, working as a junior and senior field auditor, agency controller, and deputy auditor until she was named Director in 1999 by Council Chair Linda Cropp. Over the years, Ms. Nichols has been a consummate nonpartisan professional, producing quality reports even though her office has been hampered by limited resources. With a small budget ($4.6 million in FY2011) and staff (thirty-five full-time equivalents in FY2011), Ms. Nichols has produced an endless stream of reports that should embarrass the well-financed ($16.43 million in FY2011)and highly staffed (118 FTE’s in FY2011) Office of the Inspector General. Moreover, Ms. Nichols never shied away from controversial issues and subjects, whether they were an incumbent mayor, a powerful City Administrator, an imperious Attorney General, community-embedded Advisory Neighborhood Commissions, or well-established government contractors with long political tentacles.

It is not clear why Nichols is not being reappointed, but Kwame Brown’s motives in replacing her with Yvonne L. Branche need to be explained. Brown’s press release claims that Branch “is an attorney admitted to the District of Columbia Bar.” However, the records of the DC Bar Association show that Ms. Branche’s legal license in DC has been suspended. In an E-mail to me last Friday, Ms. Branche stated, “I passed the DC Bar but I am not authorized to practice law in the District.” In her resume, that accompanied Brown’s press release, Branche gives her address as being in the District, on Banneker Drive in the Fort Lincoln section of Northeast. However, she isn’t registered with the DC Board of Elections and Ethics to vote in the District, so I queried Brown’s office about her actual residence. In response, Ms. Branche E-mailed me that, “I am not a DC resident,” although she pledged to move into the District within the 180-day limit. Ms. Branche is not an auditor, though she began working in the DC Auditor’s Office in the past year as a senior analyst. Prior to that, she owned and operated a greeting card company, Bayview Cards (http://www.bayviewcards.com) in St. Leonard, Maryland, where she actually lives. Ms. Branche does have good political ties to the old Control Board, however. Brown says that she was chosen by a search committee headed by Anthony Williams (who was chosen by the Control Board to be DC’s Chief Financial Officer), and she has worked at a succession of jobs with John Hill (who was the Control Board’s Executive Director, and who is now the CEO of the Federal City Council). Over the years since 1996, Branche has worked for Hill at the Financial Control Board, In2Books, and the Mayor’s Task Force on the Future of the DC Public Library System.

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Really?
Ralston Cox, Dupont Circle, rcoxdc@gmail.com

The Washington Post reports (http://tinyurl.com/3jovzb4) that Mayor Gray, Deputy Mayor Vincent Hoskins, and five members of the council met with representatives of Wal-Mart on Monday in Las Vegas. The topic of their discussion was Wal-Mart’s interest in building four stores in the District. The Mayor and his posse told Wal-Mart that the approval for their four stores depended on Wal-Mart deciding to open a fifth store at Skyland Shopping Center in Ward 7. According to the Mayor, “. . . [Wal-Mart] hemmed and hawed, and it ultimately came down to — you have a choice. You can do five stores or you can do no stores.” Really?

So either Wal-Mart agrees to put a store on a site that the city doesn’t even own (despite years of legal wrangling and efforts to take the site by eminent domain) or the city won’t let them build elsewhere. According to the article, the mayor would be willing to go so far as to nix the company’s request for building permits on privately owned sites. Quoting the mayor: “We had five council members and the mayor and the deputy mayor sitting in the room at the meeting . . . so it was a pretty compelling argument. They have to get building permits, don’t they?”

Wowza! If the Washington Post got it right (always a big “if”) that sure sounds like extortion to me. And here I thought the city had to issue permits based on whether or not the plans met various code requirements, rather than whether or not the developer had met the Mayor’s requirements for building elsewhere. What’s next? Cash payments to reelection committees in exchange for permits?

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Mendelson, Man of the People
Bryce Suderow, streetstories@juno.com

Members of the city council are fond of protesting the fact that DC does not have a vote in Congress. However, three members — Phil Mendelson, Jack Evans, and Michael Brown — have displayed the same contempt for voters on the matter of redistricting. These three have presented as a fait accompli their plan to transfer over eight thousand residents at the eastern end of Ward 6 into Ward 7. All three claim that the council is legally required to make changes in ward boundaries after populations grow or diminish. However, this does not seem to be the case.

Here is the reaction of Phil to a reasoned argument, as “Alaina” wrote to the Hill East listserv: “I told Mendelson what the Supreme Court rulings had been in these more recent cases, and said that it appeared from this that the council is actually not legally required to make any changes to the size of DC’s wards. Mendelson listened patiently as I went through all this. When I finished, he said (and this is a direct quote): ‘Even if you’re right, I don’t care.’ He then went on to say that he thought the new plan was fair, and he had to leave for another engagement. And took off.

“I found this truly amazing. Not that ‘he didn’t care’ — that did not surprise me, given what I’ve seen of his attitude so far. What did amaze me is that he could stand in front of about one hundred fifty very upset constituents for two hours and tell us over and over that he’s sorry, but the law is basically forcing him to do this to our neighborhood, no matter how damaging it is. And then, just the next week, tell one of those same constituents that he wants to do this to us anyway even if the law doesn’t require it, and that’s that. He thinks it is fair. And the more than two thousand residents who signed petitions, phoned, E-mailed, attended meetings and rallies, etc., because we were so upset about the harm this would do to our neighborhood can basically just pound sand. He is the councilmember, so he gets to decide what should happen to our neighborhood — not us.”

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Let Ward 8 Extend Across the Anacostia
Kathryn Pearson-West, wkpw3@aol.com

Councilmember Marion Barry was right. It is time that Ward 8 move beyond the restrictive and dividing Anacostia River. I was alarmed and disappointed to see members of the DC Council at the redistricting hearing treat Ward 8 Council member Marion Barry like a naive junior council member instead of like the elder statesman that he is. He may be older and appear less threatening but he is no fool and still has a voice that can be heard and respected around the city and beyond. What I observed on the TV news clip, was that Barry was speaking up for his ward, and his fellow council members seemed to act like he was a terrorist or had said something totally bizarre. I may not always agree with the former mayor, but I do think he deserved more time, attention, and respect because he was standing up for his ward and giving a voice to the voiceless. Barry has a valid argument for trying to expand his ward across the Anacostia River. Frankly, the ward needs to become more diverse racially, socially, and economically to change perceptions and stereotypes of it. However, those young professionals looking for housing with approachable prices know that it is a gem, a diamond in the making. Moving across the river might expedite the change that Ward 8 needs to become more powerful and influential in a nonviolent way. It is time to see past any negative statistics and focus on the positive.

It seemed to be all right for one ward to jettison off its not so wealthy section of the ward and to make it more homogeneous and home to many “big ballers,” as the young folks call people with money. Yet when Barry wants to diversify his ward a little he is shot down like his opinion and the citizens of his ward do not matter. The redistricting maps were just posted and there is a public hearing on June 1, with a final vote shortly after. That’s not much time to get a groundswell of people to help Ward 8 advocate for the change they seek and need. It seems like only Ward 6 gets to shout and be heard, but Ward 8 citizens are proud residents of the nation’s capital, too. [Finished online at http://www.dcwatch.com/themail/2011/11-05-29.htm#west]

It is time that Ward 8 be allowed to come across the River. During the last redistricting, Ward 4 was allowed to move to take possession of a part of Ward 3, crossing the Rock Creek Park dividing line. Ward 4 was allowed to go “West of the Park,” perhaps because the adjoining Ward 4 area was the Gold Coast, where many successful residents live in one of the top voting precincts in the city. Ward 8’s demographics may not be as exciting, therefore it may not be perceived as an inviting option to some areas. It is clear that many of the District’s poor are housed in Ward 8 and it has its share of problems. It is home to Blue Plains and to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, neither considered coveted showpieces. Ward 8 suffers from the stereotype of abject poverty, a little too much crime, and struggling students. It has high unemployment. However, Ward 8 also has some residents that are doing very well. Furthermore, there is a little so-called gentrification going on which announces that change is indeed coming. But no matter who comes, the residents there, young and old, well off and not so much so, deserve to have a chance to improve their environment and status in the city. One day Homeland Security will develop St. Elizabeth’s grounds and make a difference, but that might not be fully realized until the next redistricting. In some ways it is understood why Barry used the word apartheid to describe the what the redistricting process may be creating though that word may have been a little strong. The symbolism is understood by those that know the city and watch how some areas seem to be treated. And the word got people’s attention.

Apparently Barry does not have anything to trade or he would not be dismissed so easily. Maybe the perception of Ward 8 as somewhat powerless makes the city leadership think that it can be ignored and played. I did not even any of the at-large council members speak up for Ward 8 and support Barry’s effort to help his ward. Apparently it was easier for people to needle him and try to disrespect the Ward 8 council member to curry favor with the rest of the city. Clearly Barry was outnumbered on the council and people in other parts of DC seem to have a stronger voice. Other politicians must not need his support and that of his constituents. Where is the strategic alliance for the ward? Where is the support for East of the River? Barry is a hero in this instance for trying to look out for the least among us. He knew he would be ridiculed, but he knows that it is going to take a lot to get Ward 8 to move in the right direction without displacing the people living there in more affordable, cozy dwellings. Barry won’t be in office forever and who knows whether he will decide to stay on the council until the next redistricting. Don’t penalize the ward to get at him or disrespect the senior leader who still has people throughout the city that like him and pay attention to him. The more Machiavellian types might see moving Ward 8 across the Anacostia as a chance to possibly get Barry out of office with a new population of voters. After all, it has been said that voters on Capitol Hill have been responsible for voting in the council members for that ward. Perhaps another community of voters might have the same affect on a Barry reelection — nah, sorry!

Ward 8 should be allowed to move across The River to capture some of the prime real estate, if not people. Why shouldn’t Ward 8 be able to expand to capture the Navy Yard and/or Nationals stadium? At one point many leaders in DC were against evening having a stadium, and now no one wants Ward 8 to have it. South Capitol Street wasn’t such a great place unless going to the inspection station or Capitol area. The Navy Yard area used to be sort of a scary place, but now it is making the change to become a high priced coveted area. The entire baseball area has become so glamorous that the nudie bars, as Al Bundy of “Married with Children” used to call them, were chased away and encouraged to go to Ward 5 as if Ward 5 wanted them and was going to let that happen. Let Ward 8 have some of the Federal Buildings in Southwest or just put all of Southwest in Ward 8. Or put whatever is adjacent to South Capitol Street to a certain point in Ward 8. Ward 8 should have the option of taking over the Southwest Waterfront. Barry’s idea to move across the river — whether or not it is for altruistic or political or personal motives — the idea is sound.

The hope, dreams, and aspirations can elude the best of us when challenges in life make some grow weary and defeated and that why some of Ward 8 seems so depressing. It’s time to let Ward 8 move toward the Promised Land until they can make their own the land of plenty. In the words of the spiritual, “Let my people go.” Give Ward 8 some land that has the potential for mixed-use future development or that brings another socioeconomic dimension. Memorial Day honors those that fought for freedom. Can’t Ward 8 get a little freedom and be allowed to venture across the great divide, the Anacostia River? Go, Barry, and keep speaking up for your community and tell the other council members to back off. Then go and file a lawsuit to challenge the plan. Maybe the goal should just be to acquire land and/or businesses instead of lots of residences. Play the redistricting game well. By the way, some of the best people live in Ward 8 and I love going to that Morgan’s fish joint on Martin Luther King, Jr., Avenue to get inexpensive fish without having to pay parking.

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Tommy Wells and Redistricting
Tom Grahame, tgrahame@mindspring.com

Bryce Suderow [themail, May 25] raises the issue of whether the eastern edge of Capitol Hill is upset with Tommy Wells and whether Wells is retaliating against Hill East by cooperating in getting Hill East put into Ward 7 (the rest of which is on the other side of the Anacostia River). As a general matter, I’m not a defender of Wells, but in fairness to him, the story is more complex. I can see why Hill East people would be upset with the continuing social services mix and ensuing crime at the old DC General site — this is on Reservation 13, which was supposed to have been redeveloped by now, but redevelopment is in abeyance for a while. Too bad, because it would add to tax revenues and fix the area in other ways (although it would add traffic, the Hill East bugaboo).

What is missing from Bryce’s description is how Hill East several years ago saw its interests as very different from that of the rest of Capitol Hill (wrongly in my view), and pressed hard for them. Hill East was the part of Capitol Hill that campaigned for the 11th Street Bridge expansion. That expansion will increase traffic over the new 11th Street bridges by fifty thousand vehicles per day, some of which will spill out into the rest of Capitol Hill. DDOT sold Hill East on the idea that the new 11th Street bridges would reduce traffic on 17th and 19th Streets in Hill East, but if Hill East had listened closely, they would have seen that this assertion by DDOT was dependent upon another costly project — one which would have made commuting on 17th and 19th Streets more time consuming — also going forward. That other project is separate from the 11th Street bridges redo, and in today’s financial climate won’t happen. Hill East’s insistence on behalf of the 11th Street bridges project caused a rift with the rest of the Hill. Tommy Wells carried their water, probably because he had publicly sided with them before the issues became known to the rest of the Hill. Wells’ stance for the 11th Street bridges project caused others on the Hill to be upset with him. So I wouldn’t blame Wells if at this point he decided that he didn’t want to have any more disputes which would cause him to have to chose to side with one side of the Hill or the other. In other words, Hill East may have sowed the seeds of its own demise as part of the Hill. This is just one view, of course.

Bryce also says that some bordering residents are upset with the scale of proposed redevelopment at the former Hine Junior High. That is true, but it is also true that many more residents want that site to be redeveloped, and that almost all public comment to DC agencies has been along the lines of, “We like the idea, but scale it down a bit, and make the design fit the architectural fabric of the Hill.” I don’t think Wells will lose many votes for supporting the project per se, unless he were (very unlikely) to come out and defend the latest specific design idea, which is in any case undergoing changes as we speak.

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Metro Justice
Elizabeth Howard, miriam4oes@yahoo.com

I’m not quite sure what Deborah Bradford [themail, May 25] was seeing in the video regarding the Metro Police and the elderly handicapped man in the wheelchair. What I saw was, as P. L. Wolff described, “officers who are so unqualified emotionally that they go nuts over small things and create havoc.” While I don’t condone the man for his public drinking or that in his “condition” he was disorderly, but there is a way to handle every situation. Yes, I will concede that as the riding public demands more from Metro in protecting their ridership. But I think in police training it is important to understand that not every citizen is a “criminal” and for their situational training there was a better way this arrest could have been handled. Compare this incident and the tragic car-jacking that took place in broad daylight in Largo, where a father and daughter were assaulted and shot. Where were the Metro Police then? In the scheme of things, the wheelchair incident is receiving more publicity than the incident in Largo. I’m not saying the wheelchair incident is not important, but the protection of life and limb is quite a bit more important in my book!

As to Bradford’s comment about Mayor Gray not being around on police crackdowns, it is not necessarily in his job description to get on camera for every police action, like former Mayor Fenty managed to do throughout his tenure. Former Mayor Fenty’s desire to be on camera for every such incident was not that he really cared about people (remember all his distrustful actions in other areas), but his insecurity in reminding the public that he was the Mayor. Mayor Gray’s ego doesn’t compel him to be on camera for every such incident. As appropriate I’m certain he will as necessary appear on camera. But to say he doesn’t care about the citizens is being a bit naive!

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Hmm, Is This the Correct Term?
Star Lawrence, jkellaw@aol.com

You say [themail, May 25] — “Some urbanists are so divorced from nature that they’re paralyzed by a fear of all animals.” “Urbanists?” Out here in Arizona we call them a-holes. Crazy lunatics that we are, we let kids play with dogs.

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

Adams Morgan Summer Concert Series, June 4-July 9
Peter Meinecke, meinecp@allegheny.edu

The Adams Morgan Partnership Business Improvement District (BID) is pleased to announce the third annual free summer concert series will begin on Saturday, June 4, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. in the public plaza in front of BB&T Bank at the northeast corner of Columbia Road/Adams Mill Road/18th Street, NW, in Adams Morgan. We are appreciative of the generous financial support for this year’s concert series from BB&T Bank. The free summer concert series will continue through July 9 every Saturday night from 5 to 7 p.m. We will have a limited number of chairs for audience members. Please feel free to bring your own beach chair. In the event of rain, the concert will be canceled for that day. Due to the nature of the series, there will not be a rain date.

Here is the schedule of bands to perform: June 4, Kid Goat. Kid Goat is a real American rock and roll band based in the very unreal American environment of Washington, DC. With beautifully penned songs that bring to mind the likes of Steve Earle and John Hiatt, it would be easy to simply call Kid Goat an Alt-Country band, but the melding of the backgrounds and styles of its members create a sound that can only be described as straightforward rock and roll. Kid Goat’s music takes you on a journey through blues, country and rock-n-roll to a place that is pure Americana, complete with brutal honesty, familiar stories and social conscience. Whether it is the tension of edgy rock and roll, the longing and sadness of a country number or the humor in just a damn clever tune, Kid Goat is songs that feel like home played by musicians who feel at home. Their music can be heard at http://www.myspace.com/kidgoat

June 11, The Black Sparks. The Black Sparks are a punk band made up of five middle schoolers serious about their music and the alternative rock scene in DC. Their music is high energy, all original, post-punk that promises to be both dynamic and engaging. The Black Sparks have performed at the 9:30 Club (winning multiple Battles of the Bands), the Black Cat, Fort Reno, Fredericksburg All Ages, and other venues throughout the DC area. Not to be missed, the Black Sparks can be found at their web site (theblacksparks.com), and on MySpace and Facebook.

June 18, Aubriot. Aubriot (“aub-ree-oh”) is a DC-based, pop-rock band that performs original rock songs and pop covers from the 80s, 90s, and 00s. They perform at clubs around town, including DC9, the Velvet Lounge, and the Wonderland Ballroom. Their influences include U2, Death Cab for Cutie, The Cure, Radiohead, Sigur Ros, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, The Velvet Underground, Explosions in the Sky, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and The Gloria Record. Their songs are built around strong melodies, atmospheric guitar riffs, driving bass lines, and textured drum patterns. Their music can be heard at http://www.myspace.com/aubriot

June 25, Honeyguns. Having formed in December of 2009, The Honeyguns have quickly risen to become one of Washington, DC’s, hottest bands. Over the last year, the band has been building a loyal following as the appreciation for their unique style of high-energy soulful, dance-rock music takes hold. Pulling influence from rock, funk, soul and punk music, The Honeyguns deliver electric live sets. Their first show at Black Cat in April was met with a rousing reception and their highly anticipated debut EP, simply entitled, ‘EP’ will be released in Adams Morgan on June 25. Check out their music at http://www.myspace.com/thehoneyguns

July 2, Down Tyme. Come ready to dance! Fronted by the soaring vocals of soulful songstress Alyce Walker, DownTyme also features Rob Orwin on keys and windsynth, Eric Carson on bass, Dwight Campbell on drums, and frequent guest artists that just happen by. Formed in 2009, the group has been delighting audiences with an infectious mix of R&B, neosoul, and smooth jazz from classic artists of the 70s and 80s (Luther Vandross, Anita Baker, Chaka Kahn) through contemporary artists of today (Jill Scott, Alicia Keys, Erika Badu), all infused with DownTyme’s own improvisatory flair. Their music can be heard at http://www.facebook.com/pages/DownTyme/271637024794

July 9, Batuque. Batuque (pronounced “bah-TOO-kee”) is a type of Brazilian music based on dance and rhythm brought by Africans to Brazil. Formed in 2010, this eclectic quintet also brews up fresh reinventions of familiar bossas and sambas plus high-energy biaios and forros, with a healthy heaping of Brazilian jazz. Fronted by Brazilian native Lucia Lima from the northeast city of Recife (home to the legendary singer/composer Luiz Gonzaga), Batuque also features Tom Kitchen on guitar, Rob Orwin on keyboard, Joe Lerner on bass, and Bruce Bond on drums/percussion. Check them out at http://www.facebook.com/batuqueband

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Advisory Council Event with Reince Priebus, June 7
Paul Craney, paul@dcgop.com

Please join the DC Republican Committee Advisory Council for a reception with Reince Priebus, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, on June 7 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the home of Phil and Diane Olsson, located at 3519 Lowell Street, NW. To join the Advisory Council and attend this event, you must become a member. Normal annual dues are $1,000, or $500 if you are 35 years old or younger. Quarterly payments may be arranged and all major credit cards are accepted.

The Advisory Council meets at least three times a year, often four times. This will be the first event of 2011. If you would like to join the Advisory Council, please download the membership form at http://www.votervoice.net/link/clickthrough/ext/163484.aspx, and mail it with your payment to 1275 K Street, NW, Suite 102, Washington, DC 20005. You may contact Paul at 407-7069 or E-mail at paul@dcgop.com with any questions. Reince Priebus will not be soliciting contributions during this event.

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National Building Museum Events, June 7
Stacy Adamson, sadamson@nbm.org

June 7, 10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m., Book of the Month: Clang! Clang! Beep! Beep! Listen to the City. Readings at 10:30 and 11:30 a.m. Free drop-in program. Recommended for ages three to five. Join us in the Building Zone for an interactive reading of Robert Burleigh’s Clang! Clang! Beep! Beep! and experience the sights and sounds in a big city.

June 7, 6:30-8:00 p.m., Modernism for the Masses. $12 NBM and Art Deco Society of Washington members. $12 students, $20 nonmembers. Prepaid registration required. Walk-in registration based on availability. Alexandra Lange, critic, architectural historian, and co-author of Design Research: The Store That Brought Modern Living to American Homes, and Russell A. Flinchum, Ph.D., archivist of the Century Association Archives Foundation, professor, and author of American Design, discuss the ascension of industrial design during the 1930s, its relationship to the democratization of “good design” in consumer products, and the contemporary version found in mass-market stores including Target and IKEA.

Both events 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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DC Statehood Teach-In at the Capitol, June 9
Ann Loikow, aloikow@verizon.net

Please join the American Civil Liberties Union of the Nation’s Capital and DC statehood activists — and bring your friends and neighbors — for a teach-in on the west lawn of the US Capitol, on 1st Street between Constitution and Independence Avenues, NW, on Thursday, June 9 from noon to 9:00 p.m. There will be information tables from noon to 4:00 p.m., testimonials from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m., statehood experts speaking from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m., and live music (the best of DC) from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m., with the day culminating in a candlelight vigil from 8:30 to 9:00 p.m. Come learn about why we need statehood to end over two centuries of disenfranchisement and to finally again become full American citizens. For more information, contact Johnny Barnes at johnny.barnes@aclu-nca.org.

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