Spectacles
Dear Watchers:
If anyone is still sitting back and waiting just to see what will
happen in next year’s city council primsary and general elections, or
is wondering whether the elections are important, please read and reread
Colbert King’s op-ed article last Saturday, “Ethics in Short Supply
on DC Council,” http://tinyurl.com/3pjqfey.
“Residents are sick of puffed-up, self-serving, marginally effective
council members. And they are tired of being embarrassed,” King
writes. “There are some promising new names and faces out there on the
hustings. They want to be heard. Civic associations and community groups
ought to invite them in. Schedule candidate forums. Listen to what they
have to say and, by all means, ask away. Maturity? Civility? Integrity?
What do they inspire? Match them up against what we have now. Are they
any better?” Can they be any worse? King’s judgment is hard, but in
light of the facts it is not too harsh: “Some current members of the
council have made spectacles of themselves. Sadly, they are too
self-absorbed and too obtuse to know it.”
As if to prove King right, Councilmember Jim Graham’s own op-ed was
published in the Post the next day, “Stop Calling It a Bribe,”
http://tinyurl.com/4x22ggv, a
self-deluded and embarrassing non-apology. It would be embarrassing,
that is, if Graham or other councilmembers were capable of
embarrassment.
Citizens and civic associations need to get busy, since the special
interests are way ahead of us in organizing, both to reelect some of the
current members of the city council and to replace others with their own
nominees. Even Mayor Fenty is plotting a comeback with the support of
his most faithful followers, who are heading the recall movement aimed
at unseating Mayor Gray. It’s a pivotal time for DC, one that stands a
chance of substantially improving DC’s governance, but also one that
poses huge dangers.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
###############
Robert Mallett’s Nomination to the BOEE
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com
On Friday evening, Mayor Gray’s press office sent the following
E-mail message to members of the DC press corps and me regarding his
nomination of Robert Mallett to the DC Board of Elections and Ethics:
“Mayor Gray will not be sending Mallett’s name forward [to the
council]. He is very disappointed that he is unable to send the
nomination. As you know, Mallett would have been a tremendous asset to
the city and would have provided great leadership to the BOEE. The other
two names [Devarieste Curry and Stephen Danzansky] will move forward.”
Gray was forced to withdraw Mallett’s nomination after Muriel Bowser,
chair of the council’s Government Operations Committee, indicated that
she would not support legislation to exempt Mallett from the legal
eligibility requirement that he reside in the District continuously for
three years prior to his appointment (DC Code §1-1001.04). (Mallett,
who had served as City Administrator during Sharon Pratt Kelly’s
tenure as mayor (1991-1995), had lived in New York City for ten years,
and had returned to Washington only in May 2010.) In a statement, Bowser
argued that a waiver from the eligibility requirement wasn’t warranted
because “the District enjoys an abundance of qualified potential
nominees.”
Perhaps the most shocking aspect of the Mallett debacle is the
acknowledgment by Gray’s office that it was still not properly vetting
appointees to senior positions. In an E-mail sent to me last Thursday,
the mayor’s press secretary explained the vetting changes that the
mayor’s office was going to institute: “The Chief of Staff (COS)
[Christopher Murphy] met with Ron [Collins, Director of the Mayor’s
Office of Boards and Commissions] this morning and in an effort to bring
more resources to support his workload, they’ve decided to review all
nominees for legal sufficiency review before they are announced.
Typically this has taken place after the announcement. By moving that
review up on the timeline, we should be able to help catch any legal
issues before we go public with a nominee. Going forward, the COS will
not sign off on any nominees and will not allow any nominees to be
announced until we’ve completed this important process step. Among any
other things, the OAG [Office of the Attorney General’ will help us to
catch statutory requirements like the residency issue that came up
yesterday.”
###############
The Washington Post
Protests
a Modest Tax Hike for the Rich
David Schwartzman, dschwartzman@gmail.com
The Washington Post editorial of September 20 [http://tinyurl.com/67ynctp]
condemning the city council’s very modest tax hike on income over
$350,000 comes as no surprise, since the Post has long stood
behind protecting the privileges of the wealthy. Hiding behind rhetoric
for “fiscal discipline” we now hear from the Republicans in
Congress, the Post once again stands for austerity for those
least able to bear the burden during the nation’s economic recession,
a depression for low income residents in our community. Fiscal
discipline indeed, how about curbing corporate welfare such as hundreds
of millions of dollars spent for tax abatements? DC has the highest
income gap between rich and poor in the nation, the highest fraction of
households making over $200,000 per year, the lowest overall tax rate
for families making over $100,000 per year in the region. DC
millionaires’ overall effective DC tax is 6 percent of family income,
the same as the poorest families, while working/middle class families
pay 9-10 percent (see this data at ITEP, Who Pays? and reports from the
DC Fiscal Policy Institute; note that the overall tax burden consists of
income, property and sales tax payments). DC’s child poverty rate is
now over 30 percent, unemployment rate 11 percent.
The council’s rather small rate hike for those making over $350,000
will actually have a very minor impact on our revenue stream because it
was coupled with an exemption on taxing out of state bonds purchased
before January 1, 2012. Gandhi estimated the future net revenue increase
after four years at $8.4 million. Nevertheless, this minor tax hike on
the wealthy should be welcomed, since it finally broke the ice, i.e.,
the long-standing refusal of the city council to pass such a tax hike
since it reduced the income tax rates by enacting tax parity in 1999,
with most of the benefit going to the wealthy. Tax parity was part of
the neo-liberal package deal “urban structural adjustment,” greasing
the wheels of finance capital at the expense of the great majority of DC
residents. The other components have included privatization of public
services, cuts in the so-called safety net, eroding democratic
governance and public education with the closure of neighborhood schools
and the growth of charter schools, firings of teachers and other public
workers., and massive subsidies to the corporate sector from the
District budget.
According to the IRS, in 2009, the year with the most recent data
available, DC taxpayers with incomes over $100,000 had a taxable income
of $11.1 billion; for over $200,000 the taxable income was $7.5 billion
(it is likely higher now). As an example of potential revenue
enhancement using the 2009 data, a modest 2 percent increase in the DC
income tax payment for those making $200,000 or more would generate an
additional $150 million per year. A 2 percent increase in DC income tax
payment, 2 cents more per dollar income, for DC’s wealthy, would go
far to restore the $200 million of cumulative cuts in low-income
programs in DC’s budget since 2008, especially in affordable housing
and child care. Of course even a somewhat more modest increase could be
supplemented by curbs on corporate welfare, tax abatements, and
subsidies, as well as other progressive steps such as establishing a DC
Public Bank, following the example of North Dakota, which could leverage
incoming tax revenues into investments boosting green economic
development, living-wage jobs, and affordable housing.
Of course, we hear the oft repeated objection by those who empower
our regressive tax structure and growing income inequality such as the
Councilmembers Evans, Catania, and the Washington Post that even
modest tax hikes on our wealthy residents would drive them out of the
District thereby reducing our tax base. However this argument ignores
the fact that the wealthy have been steadily moving into the District in
the last two decades, despite the lower tax rates of suburban Virginia
(Maryland had until recently a lower tax rate for the top 5 percent
income bracket, but now it is about 1 percent higher than DC). The
advantages for living in the District, in particular lower commuting
costs and especially time, justify a modestly higher tax rate for
wealthy residents than what the same income residents would pay in the
suburbs, at least 1-2 percent higher, judging from historical
comparisons for the last few decades.
###############
Meet Vijay Ravindran, Chief Digital Strategist
at the Washington Post
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com
Since Vijay Ravindran, the chief digital strategist at The
Washington Post, is not present here in themail@dcwatch.com, I
wanted to take this opportunity to welcome him here and introduce him
via this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Noii92hncag#t=13m15s
Welcome, Vijay. One of the best ways of engaging the public is
probably to continue inviting people over to your forum rather than
engaging in outreach to existing (sixteen years old) digital civic
forums in DC. “On our terms” is a smart strategy. A sustaining
strategy.
###############
Zoning Reporting at Capital Community News
Andrew Lightman, andrew@hillrag.com
Mr. Layman [themail, September 21] may not be aware that the Hill
Rag has served for more than a decade as the newspaper of record for
all four Ward 6 Advisory Neighborhood Commissions. Our ANC reports,
which typically total more than four thousand words monthly, are mostly
devoted to historic preservation and zoning concerns. In addition, we
have reported extensively, for example, on the development plans for
Hine School, the controversy surrounding the Apple Tree Charter school
on 12th Street, and the redevelopment of the southwest Waterfront.
Our East of the River publication, the only city publication
devoted to Wards 7 and 8, has covered issues such as St. Elizabeth’s
development, Skyland, and most recently the Big K properties in detail.
We often work in tandem with bloggers, such as Will Rich, Veronica
Davis, John Muller, and Elise Barnard, who maintain blogs independently
while simultaneously contributing to our publications. In fact, our
extensive employment of bloggers as print freelancers indirectly
subsidizes their online activities, contributing to the diversity of the
District’s civic voices.
###############
ANC Single Member Districts and “One Person
One Vote”
Richard Layman, rlaymandc@yahoo.com
With regard to Jack McKay’s comments [themail, September 21] about
variable population sizes for ANCs and Single Member Districts being
desirable as a reflection of neighborhood or community desires, as far
as the 14th Amendment of the Constitution’s “equal protection under
the law” clause is concerned I believe he is missing the point. The
equal protection clause is concerned with the composition of the
election district specifically. In the case of the city it is a ward, in
the case of an ANC, it is the SMD. SMD’s or Wards (or Congressional
Districts or State House and Senate districts in states) are supposed to
be roughly equal in population so that every resident (presumed to be a
citizen) has an equivalent unit of representation within the body in
which the elected official serves.
While “gerrymandering” is legal, it is a geographical not
population-based construct. Each election district that is created, such
as Congressional Districts for the State of Maryland, is equal in
population size even if the geographical organization of these districts
is structured in ways that counter normal and typical “community”
connections based on other factors.
With regard to ANC’s, the issue isn’t the number of SMD’s
within the ANC, it’s the number of residents that each SMD and
Commissioner represents. If the districts are drawn in a manner where
the population is widely disparate, the 14th Amendment clause trumps
sentiment. The districts need to be roughly equal in terms of population
to meet the standards expected by election law. And while gerrymandering
is legal, dividing up population of particular areas in ways that dilute
citizen representation, such as what is proposed for the SMD’s serving
the resident student population of Georgetown University should be
opposed, because it is “undemocratic” and something that, as
citizens, we should find equally odious.
###############
New Ideas for Funding Libraries
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com
Regarding the news that MLK Library will be closing on Sundays [themail,
September 21], maybe it’s time for public libraries to get creative.
See http://tinyurl.com/33e32u9
Bill Gates, who has an interest in libraries and who is now the richest
American again (net worth of $59 billion) could put up $100,000 for DC
to pilot a “collaborative creativity” project on Sundays at MLK for
twenty-five Sundays (i.e., half a year). What is $59 billion
minus $100,000? The answer? A number very, very close to $59 billion.
This is assuming that MLK Library could be kept open for $4,000 a day
on Sundays. Maybe a DC librarian on this list can share with us the cost
of keeping MLK open on a Sunday? Could part of the building possibly be
opened, rather than the full building? Could part of the building be
rented for special events (such as mini national conferences) to fund
another part of the building staying open on Sundays? Could part of MLK
Library become a financially self-sustaining hackerspace on Sundays?
(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackerspace)
What are the reasons in favor of public libraries hosting hackerspaces?
“Wisdom begins with wonder,” Socrates.
###############
Closing MLK on Sundays
Richard Layman, rlaymandc@yahoo.com
Eliminating a weekend day of service for the DC central library is
actually a drastic cut. George Williams writes [themail, September 21]
that DCPL had to cut Sunday service at the Martin Luther King Library
because of budget cuts. But eliminating Sunday service at the only
library that provides it is not merely a matter of tweaking open hours,
it’s eliminating an entire day of service, therefore eliminating the
ability to serve at least two segments of the library audience, 1) the
group that because of work and other reasons, finds it difficult to go
to a library during the week, especially during the day, when most of
the libraries are open; and 2) people who have the same time-of-day
restrictions, but also need access to the special collections (such as
Washingtoniana) that are only available at the main branch.
Before making this drastic cut to the service profile of the library
system, the library system should have evaluated the service profile in
at least three dimensions: 1) main library versus neighborhood branches,
2) days of the week (weekday, Saturday, Sunday), and 3) by day part
(time and segment of the day, i.e., morning, afternoon, evening).
The point should have been not to eliminate an entire day of service for
the entire system, but to maintain the breadth of service, that is the
number of days the library system has at least one library open, while
tweaking the service profile to save money.
Eliminating an entire day of service that the entire library system
is open should be seen as comparable to eliminating or significantly
changing a bus route, and should have triggered hearings, just as it
does for transit service.
###############
Tax Increases and Municipal Bonds
Ari Weisbard, grokeden@gmail.com
I’m confused about where you got the numbers for your lead tax
piece [themail, September 21], specifically, the $160 million for the
new income tax rate. Is that over several years? Your $13 million for
the bond tax change is for one year, so it makes it seem like a huge
hike, when actually I think the income tax raised just barely more than
the bond tax over the next four years and then sunsets, raising a lot
less than the bond tax in the years after that (assuming it’s not
extended, which I realize is hard to predict).
[Opponents of the tax increase argued that it did not have to be
passed this year, since a small part of the $89 million surplus could be
used to cover the $13 million that owners of tax-free bonds from other
states would not have to pay this year, and the city council could then
have time to develop a multi-year strategy. (The savings realized by
municipal bond holders will naturally fall over the years, since they
will not be able to refresh their bond portfolios by buying new tax-free
bonds from other states.) The advocates of the tax increase, on the
other hand, insisted that a multi-year tax increase be passed
immediately; the provision sunsetting the increase after four years was
offered by Councilmember Cheh as the price for her support.
[Another reader who wanted to remain anonymous wrote that, while it
may have been true that at one time DC did not offer a good variety of
its own tax-free municipal bonds, and fewer still that would be
considered good investments, the situation is different now, and that
someone who wanted to invest in tax-free municipals could build a good
portfolio of DC bonds now. What do readers think? Are you willing to put
your retirement savings, or a good portion of them, into DC munis? —
Gary Imhoff]
###############
CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
DC Campaign’s Celebrity Auction and
Fundraiser, October 13
Erica McKinney, emckinney@dccampaign.com
The board of directors of DC Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy and
the celebrity auction steering committee cordially invite you to our
annual fundraiser, Thursday, October 13, at DLA Piper, 500 8th Street,
NW. Cocktail reception at 6:00 p.m., live auction at 7:30 p.m. Tickets
$150 per person, $275 per couple.
A very special award will be presented to Mayor Vincent Gray, DC
Campaign’s founding treasurer. For more information, contact bmiller@dccampaign.org
or 789-4666 x11.
###############
CLASSIFIEDS — DONATIONS
Donate for Earthquake Repairs to Affordable
Housing Cooperative for Activists
Parisa Norouzi, parisa@empowerdc.org
The Ella Jo Baker Intentional Community Cooperative is a fifteen-unit
affordable housing cooperative and intentional community consisting of
people who share a history of community activism and fighting for social
justice. The Cooperative was founded in 2003 and is legally restricted
to be affordable to people of low and moderate incomes for one hundred
years. As a “limited-equity” property, the property can not be
converted to condo or sold at market rate, preserving badly needed
affordable housing in the Columbia Heights community. Ella Jo Baker
Cooperative members include community organizers, holistic health
practitioners, and artists who have dedicated themselves to community
issues in the immediate area as well as citywide.
When the earthquake struck on August 23, part of the cooperative’s
property was badly damaged. The damage was both structural and cosmetic
in nature, causing the displacement of three members. It will cost over
$15,000 to repair the damage, and none of the expenses will be covered
by insurance due to the damage originating from the earthquake.
Please help us repair the Cooperative, bring the three displaced
members home, and save this important affordable housing community for
future residents. Checks can be made out to Ella Jo Baker Cooperative
and sent c/o Empower DC, 1419 V Street, NW. You will receive a letter
acknowledging receipt of your donation. Questions may be directed to
Parisa Norouzi of Empower DC (a cooperative member — not one of the
displaced) at Parisa@empowerdc.org
or 234-9119. Thank you to everyone who has supported our fundraising
drive thus far. We have raised $2,000 of the $15,000 needed for repairs
to our building. Donations of any amount are appreciated, and can be
given online at http://www.gofundme.com/7rvoo?r=3696
###############
themail@dcwatch is an E-mail discussion forum that is published every
Wednesday and Sunday. To change the E-mail address for your subscription
to themail, use the Update Profile/Email address link below in the
E-mail edition. To unsubscribe, use the Safe Unsubscribe link in the
E-mail edition. An archive of all past issues is available at http://www.dcwatch.com/themail.
All postings should be submitted to themail@dcwatch.com, and should
be about life, government, or politics in the District of Columbia in
one way or another. All postings must be signed in order to be printed,
and messages should be reasonably short — one or two brief paragraphs
would be ideal — so that as many messages as possible can be put into
each mailing.