Exoneration
Dear Party Regulars:
He’s received too much publicity from it already, but I can’t
help noting that Ronald Moten, the cofounder of the Peaceoholics, has
joined the Republican party in order to run for the DC city council seat
in Ward 7 as a Republican. It’s a purely opportunistic move, but
opportunistic moves are exactly what we’ve come to expect from Moten.
On October 3, Moten appeared at a city council hearing (themail, October
5) to answer questions about the DC Auditor’s report on millions of
dollars of city grants to Peaceoholics, but he didn’t face any hard
questions because Councilmember Jim Graham, the chairman of the
Committee on Human Services, declared his solidarity with and support of
Moten, and distorted and misinterpreted the auditor’s report as
exonerating Peacoholics (just as Graham had misinterpreted the US
Attorney’s failure to seek his own indictment in the taxicab case as
exonerating him, and as Harry Thomas, Jr., has interpreted his agreement
with the DC Attorney General to repay three hundred thousand dollars of
city funds as exonerating him). Since then, Graham has been actively
lobbying the Gray administration to resume funding Peaceoholics. If
Moten had announced that he was joining the Republican Party before that
hearing, the tone and content of the hearing would have been very
different.
On Saturday, the Washington Post published an article
ghostwritten for Moten titled “Why I’m Running for the DC Council as
a Republican,” http://tinyurl.com/3s6rtyh.
The article captions Moten as a “Civil Rights Republican,” which he
has written in as his party on a copy of his voters registration form
that he gave to the Post (http://tinyurl.com/3hgqang;
the official card at the DC BOEE simply has the Republican Party
checked, without “Civil Rights” written in). Moten’s article
follows the line of the DC Republican Party, which is to repudiate and
disown the national Republican Party, and disclaim most of the
principles of the party, but still to claim to be an alternative to the
Democratic Party in DC. It accurately states the history of the
Republican Party as the champion of the anti-slavery movement and as the
leading party supporter of passing civil rights bills, but it doesn’t
identify any current Republican causes that Moten agrees with.
What is surprising is that the Republican Party has embraced Moten as
its Ward 7 council candidate, without even the formality of a
competitive primary. Its chairman, Bob Kabel, has issued a statement
trumpeting Moten’s change of party affiliation, http://dcgop.com/blog_post/show/86,
and the party’s fingerprints are all over his candidacy. But the
Republicans’ sole selling point in DC for the past several years has
been their advocacy of clean government, their stated opposition to
favoritism and corruption in government. Since DC Republicans don’t
differ from Democrats on social issues or economic issues, their only
distinguishing point has been that, because there aren’t any
Republicans elected to office (school board member Patrick Mara was
elected in a nonpartisan election, and Councilmember David Catania left
the Republican Party in a bitter split several years ago), there aren’t
any Republican politicians involved in any political scandals. But how
will other Republican candidates in the upcoming elections stand on the
same platform as Moten and claim that they are for honest, clean
government, that they oppose favoritism in awarding city contracts, that
they support competitive bids and open, transparent reporting on how
city money is spent? How will the Republican Party find other candidates
willing to link arms with Moten and keep straight faces as they campaign
on a good government platform?
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
###############
Advisory Neighborhood Commission Redistricting
Continued
Jack McKay, jack.mckay@verizon.net
The eight ward task forces have sent to the District council their
recommendations for ANC redistricting. How many of these proposals call
for shifting residents from one ANC to another, not because it makes
"neighborhood" sense, but because the Office of Planning is,
as Richard Holzager commented in the October 11 issue of themail,
"obsessing over the 2,000 figure," demanding that all
single-member districts have populations within 100 of that 2000 value?
The DC Code makes it clear that ANCs should be defined first, and
then SMDs fit into those ANCs, rather than the other way about:
§ 1-309.02. Advisory Neighborhood Commission areas. There are
hereby established in the District of Columbia Advisory Neighborhood
Commission areas, . . .
§ 1-309.03. Single-member districts.
(a) The Council shall, by act, establish single-member districts for
each of the neighborhood commission areas in § 1-309.02. . . .
But the Office of Planning reverses this, instructing the task forces
to define SMDs according to that 1900-2100 population criterion, with no
reference to any "Advisory Neighborhood Commission areas." As
one Ward Five participant wrote, "there would be no reference to
existing commission lines, and the process would be data-driven."
The ANCs should then consist of a patchwork of these SMDs, rather than
being defined by "neighborhoods." Our Ward One task force
chairman was explicit: neighborhood boundaries are uncertain and change
with time, and so are to be ignored. The Ward One task force thus tried
to shove pieces of Columbia Heights or Adams Morgan into Mount Pleasant,
and Columbia Heights into Adams Morgan, to get ANC populations to come
out to even multiples of 2000, so the 2000-population SMDs would fit.
That's what comes from a process that is "data-driven,"
instead of being "neighborhood-driven." But the response from
the affected residents was unequivocal: we know what neighborhood we're
in, don't force us into some other neighborhood's ANC.
An ANC 3C correspondent has this to say: "One of the problems is
that while the council and their staff have described some reasonable
policies about this, the Office of Planning has gone out of its way to
denigrate the value of neighborhoods and instead to hold the 2,000 rule
above all. And it is the Office of Planning that has taken the lead in
advising the Task Force chairs in what is expected of their task forces.
So we should consider changing this by legislation." Indeed, and
now is the time for the District council to do that.
###############
I have always associated this kind of thought with a former
(Socialist) mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut, Jasper McLevy, whom
Wikipedia credits with saying "[w]hen asked, after a snow storm,
when the City would begin plowing snow, McLevy . . . 'God put the snow
there, let him take it away,'" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper_McLevy
However, similar thoughts are attributed to other mayors and governments
in the Northeast, as Google will demonstrate.
###############
It was Boston's infamous Mayor, Michael J. Curley, according to urban
legend, who said after a very heavy snow fall around the turn of the
twentieth century, "God put it there, let God take it away."
###############
Marion Barry and Snow Removal
Brigid Quinn, brigidq@comcast.net
If my memory serves me well, I recall that Mayor Barry's first
encounter with snow removal came in the early months of his first term
— February 1979. The snow was at least knee and maybe thigh high and
remained that way for a very long time. As you can imagine, the city
came to a standstill and while I don't remember them, I'm sure Mayor
Barry had a few quotable words to describe the event . . . perhaps even
some version of “spring removes snow.”
###############
Graduation Requirements in DCPS
Bryce Suderow, streetstories@juno.com
I got this link in response to my post [themail, October 19] about
language requirements in DC Public Schools: http://www.dc.gov/DCPS/College+and+Careers/High+School+Planning/Graduation+Requirements
###############
CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Environmental Health Group (EHG) Events,
October 26
Allen Hengst, ahengst@rcn.com
World War I munitions, bottles filled with chemical warfare agents,
and contaminated soil have been found in and around the Spring Valley
neighborhood of northwest DC. The Environmental Health Group (EHG) seeks
to raise awareness of the issues and encourage a thorough investigation
and cleanup. Every Saturday at 1:00 p.m., please join the Environmental
Health Group for an informal discussion about Spring Valley issues. In
the cafe at the Glover Park Whole Foods Market, 2323 Wisconsin Avenue
(one block south of Calvert Street). For more information, visit the EHG
on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Washington-DC/Environmental-Health-Group/67807900019.
On Wednesday, October 26, at 6:30 p.m., the Army Corps will host a
public meeting on its "Proposed Plan" for cleaning up WW I-era
chemical munitions and laboratory waste at 4825 Glenbrook Road on
October 26 at the Tenley-Friendship Library. The meeting will be divided
into two, separate formats: an Open House/poster session and a more
formal presentation format with questions. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes
Norton and USACE Baltimore District Commander Col. David Anderson will
introduce the formal public meeting, held from 6:30-8:00 p.m.), while
the informal Open House/poster sessions will be held from 4:00-5:00
p.m., and again from 8:00-9:00 p.m. Attendees of the public meeting may
provide oral comments or bring written comments to the Meeting Recorder,
who will be in an area reserved for this purpose (from 4:00-9:00 p.m.), http://www.nab.usace.army.mil/Projects/Spring%20Valley/.
###############
Interview with John Hanrahan, October 26
Peter Tucker, pete10506@yahoo.com
On Wednesday, 4:00 p.m., at Occupy DC at Freedom Plaza, journalist
John Hanrahan discusses DC Councilmember Jack Evans' potential conflicts
of interest with Pete Tucker of TheFightBack.org. (The interview will be
live streamed at October2011.org).
###############
DC Primary Care Association Annual Meeting,
October 27
Sharon Baskerville, sharon.baskerville@dcpca.org
The District of Columbia Primary Care Association (DCPCA) is hosting
its 2011 annual meeting from 8:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. on Thursday,
October 27, at the Kellogg Conference Center at Gallaudet University,
800 Florida Avenue, NE. DCPCA's conference will showcase our
groundbreaking work in health care quality, technology, capital
development, and workforce initiatives that make us a leader in the
movement to achieve health equity for all in the District. Our event
theme — "Labor Pains: The Birth of a New System of Health
Care" — symbolizes our long-term commitment to realizing a health
care system with guaranteed access to primary care and no disparities in
health outcomes for anyone in our city.
Dr. Marilyn Hughes Gaston will deliver the keynote address between
9:30 and 10:00 a.m. at DCPCA's fourteenth annual meeting. Dr. Gaston is
the first African American woman to direct a Public Health Service
Bureau and only the second African American woman to achieve the
position of Assistant Surgeon General and rank of Rear Admiral in the US
Public Health Service.
This annual event attracts high level speakers who are experts in
health reform, quality improvement, heath information technology, policy
issues, and other key topics affecting health care delivery and
transformation. Speakers include Dr. Alice M. Rivlin, Senior Fellow, The
Brookings Institution, who will lead a panel discussion on a report by
The Brookings Institution — "Expanding Health Coverage in the
District of Columbia: DC's Shift from Providing Services to Subsidizing
Individuals and Its Continuing Challenges in Promoting Health,
1999-2009." Register online at http://tinyurl.com/694resn
###############
Isabel Wilkerson at Woman’s National
Democratic Club Luncheon, October 27
Patricia Bitondo, pbitondo@aol.com
Isabel Wilkerson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who is currently
Professor of Journalism and Director of Narrative Nonfiction at Boston
University. She will discuss her first book, The Warmth of Other
Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration (Random House,
September 2010, paperback to be released October 4). Fifteen years in
the making, her book follows the intimate and moving stories of three
African-American families who left the only place they'd ever known —
the rural and small-town South — to find a better life in the urban
North and West. It is the first major work to chronicle the Great
Migration and its aftermath on a national scale, over the course of
nearly a century. Toni Morrison calls the book "profound,
necessary, and a delight to read." Tom Brokaw praises it as
"an epic for all Americans who want to understand the making of our
modern nation." The New York Times Book Review acclaimed The
Warmth of Other Suns as "a massive and masterly account . . .
immensely readable.” The New Yorker: "A deeply affecting,
finely crafted and heroic book." The Wall Street Journal:
"a brilliant and stirring epic." Wilkerson was born and raised
in Washington, DC, where her parents settled after journeying from
Georgia and southern Virginia during the Great Migration. She attended
Howard University and graduated with a degree in journalism. She served
as the editor-in-chief of her college paper, The Hilltop, and
landed prestigious internships at the Los Angeles Times and the Washington
Post that led to a prolific and distinguished career in journalism,
most of it spent at The New York Times. She won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize
for feature writing for her pieces on the rural heartache of the Midwest
floods and her profile of a ten-year-old boy growing up with a man's
obligations on the South Side of Chicago. She was awarded a John Simon
Guggenheim Fellowship to complete the research for The Warmth of
Other Suns.
Bar opens at 11:30 a.m., lunch 12:15 p.m.; presentation 1:00-2:00
p.m. $25 members; $30 nonmembers; $10 lecture only. At the Woman's
National Democratic Club, 1526 New Hampshire Avenue, NW. For more
information, call 232-7363 or write pfitzgerald@democraticwoman.org.
###############
Office on Aging Ribbon Cutting, October 27
Darlene Nowlin, darlene.nowlin@dc.gov
The DC Office on Aging and its Aging and Disability Resource Center
have relocated to 500 K Street, NE. A dedication and ribbon cutting will
be held on Thursday, October 27, at 11:30 a.m. Following the ceremony,
tours will be conducted of the new Office on Aging Headquarters and the
Hayes Senior Wellness Center. The event will also include information,
health screenings, and fitness and cooking demonstrations. To RSVP, call
724-5626.
###############
National Building Museum Events, October 27,
29
Stacy Adamson, sadamson@nbm.org
Thursday, October 27, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m., 2011 American Institute
of Certified Planners National Symposium — Cities in Transition: Today’s
Realities and the Next Economies. $12 museum, APA, and AICP members; $12
students; $20 nonmembers. Prepaid registration required. Walk-in
registration based on availability. Cities are always transitioning,
requiring planners to reinvent techniques for new economic development.
This year’s AICP Symposium provides examples of initiatives from
around the country that are creating opportunities for effective and
equitable development.
Saturday, October 29, 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Haunted Halloween Pop
Ups. $10 per child, members; $15 per child, nonmembers. Prepaid
registration required. Celebrate the spirit of Halloween as you build
and design your very own pop-up haunted house. Learn the pop-up
architecture technique from guest artist Carol Barton. Decorate a spooky
haunted house scene to place on your window sill. Fun for the whole
family. The festivities include crafts, treats, and ghost stories (more
silly than spooky) about the Museum. Recommended for ages six and up.
All children must be accompanied by an adult.
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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