Turnaround
Dear Fans:
Think of it this way: after several seasons of bad games and sloppy
plays, who do you know who speaks enthusiastically about the Redskins?
Who even raises the subject except to complain about the team, its
management, and its owner?
It’s the same in DC politics. After years of disappointment, who do
you know who’s enthusiastic about politics, excited about a candidate,
convinced that 2012 will mark a new start, a turnaround in DC
government?
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
###############
Late Friday afternoon, just prior to the start of the long New Year’s
Eve holiday weekend, Mayor Gray held a press conference with Police
Chief Cathy Lanier at the Joint Operations Command Center at MPD
headquarters. According to the mayor’s office, the stated purpose of
the press conference was to announce “a plan to improve the delivery
police services in the District of Columbia and highlight crime-fighting
successes from 2011.” During the press conference, Gray and Lanier
focused largely on the 18 percent decline in homicides in the District
in 2011 (108 homicides in 2011 as opposed to 132 in 2010) and MPD’s
homicide case closure rate of 94 percent (the national closure rate is
58 percent). And, with little advance notice to the community, Lanier
also announced that her “realignment” plan to redraw the boundaries
for the seven Police Districts and the Patrol Service Areas (PSA’s)
would be implemented in less that thirty-six house, at midnight on
Saturday night on New Year’s Eve. (See Peter Wolff’s article below
regarding the maps detailing the new boundaries.)
Leaving MPD headquarters, one was left to wonder why the mayor had
scheduled a press conference as opposed to simply issuing a press
release. It was obvious that Mayor Gray and his spin doctors (Chief of
Staff Christopher Murphy and press secretary Pedro Robeiro), thought
that Gray’s public image would benefit from an end-of-the-year “good
news” press conference with Lanier. Gray and his staff and still
smarting from the poll by the Clarus Research Group in early December
that showed that only 34 percent of District voters approved of Gray’s
performance in office, while 78 percent approved of Police Chief Lanier’s
performance. Moreover, within two hours of the press conference, Gray’s
staff released a report detailing the less-than-stellar accomplishments
of his first year in office (press release, http://tinyurl.com/6qto52s;
report, http://tinyurl.com/72embbl).
Clearly the reduction in the District’s homicide rate, which is
attributable to a large number of factors, is a singular public safety
accomplishment what Gray could take for, since it reverses the District’s
standing as the murder capital of the US.
###############
Breaking News: Police District Boundary
Changes Now in Effect
P.L. Wolff, intowner@intowner.com
This is to advise that we have posted at the top of our home page
breaking news reporting that effective today, January 1, police district
and PSA boundaries have been realigned, with links to maps showing the
realignments.
###############
School Closures Continue without Rhee
Liane Scott, liane@empowerdc.org
The Latino Media Collective, a radio program that airs every
Wednesday evening on WPFW, covered the issue of school closings in their
December 28, 2011, broadcast. The show was co-hosted by Oscar Fernandez
and Daniel del Pielago. Education activist Alicia Rucker was their
in-studio guest and Diana Onley-Campbell joined them on the phone. If
you think school closings ended in DCPS when Michelle Rhee left, you’re
wrong. If you think school closings are good for DC’s historically
Black communities or for DCPS students then this program may prove
enlightening.
The entire broadcast is posted at http://www.grassrootsmediaproject.org/2011/12/how-school-closures-hurt-our-community/
###############
Why Isn’t Smoking Ban Outside Buildings
Enforceable?
Joan Eisenstodt, jeisen@aol.com
It’s great DC has non-smoking laws to protect diners and staff in
restaurants and bars. It’s not great that the law banning smoking
within 25 feet of a building’s entrance is not enforceable. Walking
the secondhand smoke gauntlet in our neighborhood is horrific. What can
we do? Complaints to the businesses and Fed offices seem to go nowhere.
See http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2010/07/26/daily11.html
###############
We all have our lists. Mine for 2012 include quite a few of the items
that were on my 2011 list. Nevertheless, I’ll try a new tack for 2012
and announce -immediately before you civic activists, thinkers,
committed environmentalists, human rights defenders, livability
proponents, and good neighbors decide what you will achieve in the new
year— a few campaigns I’d like you to help me win. Can’t beat
trying. The list: 1) Save UMC, 2) an independent trust for the Anacostia
River restoration; 3) Fair Pay for DC, and 4) DC Basics Plus health
insurance savings plan.
1. Save the United Medical Center (formerly Greater Southeast
Community Hospital) from the auction block. In spite of the fact that
UMC has finally generated millions in net revenues as a not-for-profit
corporation, there are those ideologues among the city’s elected and
appointed (un-elected) leadership who, as knee jerk privateers, want to
downgrade the hospital and sell it back to the private for-profit
sector, which has kept it bankrupt for twelve of the last thirteen
years. Go figure. We revere for-profit; we don’t analyze for-profit.
It just happens that, locally and nationally, health care has exposed
the for-profit sector at its most profitable and least efficient and the
public gets pennies in value for the millions earned in profits. It’s
a Wall Street thang. Wall Street says the hospital threatens the city’s
bond rating. Isn’t it peculiar that Wall Street doesn’t say that
about the baseball stadium that the city built for $672 million and
handed over to the Lerner family that immediately refused to pay the
first year’s rent – a stadium not even meant for DC residents which
stands empty at least six months each year.
I’m hoping that we can build a strong, informed community base that
will review the facts, assess the hospital’s value to the community,
and insist that alternatives to for-profit ownership, including
community and employee ownership, be studied before a decision is made.
E-mail me. Tell me you’re in. Believe me you can help.
2. Create an independent trust to collect, manage, and allocate funds
raised to save the Anacostia River. As expected, the plastic bag fee has
shown limits to its ability to collect monies to restore the Anacostia
River. Because the fee modifies the behavior that generates the money,
it is a self-extinguishing fund. Since 1996, I have proposed to DC
council a Save the Anacostia River Trust and license tag program
(START). The plastic bag legislation actually enacted several of the
measures I have advocated over the years: a license tag and an income
tax form check-off box. Problem is you haven’t heard of either of them
since there’s been little promotion. There are two other measures I’ve
advocated that can make a real difference: a) a development program that
promotes, accepts, and secures donations from individuals, corporations,
foundations, and testamentary gifts for use in river educational,
restoration, and environmental protection activities.
The DC Department of the Environment is not well equipped to track
all the money and legally assure donors that their money will in fact be
used as intended. b) Creation of an independent trust, modeled after the
Chesapeake Bay Trust, that will collect, manage, and allocate funds
raised to save the Anacostia. Only an independent trust can prevent
diversion of funds raised for the river from being used in other
projects. Mayor Fenty wanted to use the river money to buy street
sweepers for Ward 3, which drains into the Potomac, not the Anacostia. I’m
hoping themail subscribers and many others will form the core of a
citywide lobbying effort that will advocate for an independent trust to
save the Anacostia River. E-mail me. Tell me you’re in. Believe me you
can help.
3. Fair Pay for DC. You’ve seen the data. It’s true. Each year,
about $2.6 billion is lost to the District because of Congress’
opportunist insistence that constitutionally the District does not have
to be treated fairly. The District may not tax the incomes of all who
earn salaries within its borders (a loss of $1.9 - $2.3 billion)— the
rule everywhere else in the nation. The constitution says nothing of the
sort. The Home Rule Charter says that. Why? Well not everyone who
drafted the legislation wanted to see the District become a viable,
solvent jurisdiction. Who could they be? Who would want to maintain the
fiction of the District as a basket case beggar? Some were “our
friends” who support one useless vote for the District in the House of
Representatives, but don’t support justice for District residents
where it counts— funds for social services. Instead, residents of all
the states of the nation, not just the closest, Maryland, Virginia, West
Virginia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania who account for most of the
free-ride commuters, are not required to pay income taxes to the
District. Ask O’Malley, Mikulski, Hoyer, Edwards, Cartin, Van Hollen,
Caine, and Moran and their House and Senate colleagues why do they
support “one vote” but insure that not “one penny” goes to the
District for the lost reciprocal tax, real estate taxes lost to
embassies, military stations, etc. In recent history, Saddam Hussein
accused the US oil industry and Kuwait of “lateral drilling,” a
method used to drill for Iraqi oil under Iraq’s border with Kuwait.
When he objected, the US made a war of it. In like manner, Maryland,
Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia are engaged in
lateral drilling in the District for the income taxes from over 630,000
commuters who pay nothing to the District. But then, why have a colony
if it is not profitable? The District is a cash cow for the federal
government and those commuter states where “our friends” live.
I’m hoping a) the DC Council should put the theft data in an
appendix to the budget sent to Congress each year; b) the DC Council,
the mayor and our delegate to Congress should put capture of the money
stolen from us on their agendas in every contact with any member of
Congress; c) the DC council and the mayor should initiate and support a
grassroots “Fair Pay for DC” campaign that explains the economics of
the District’s orphan status to District residents and the rest of the
nation and the international community. From that campaign will come an
energized, informed local base for full equality and fairness for the
District to be treated as all others paying federal taxes and to be
compensate for the burden we bear as the national capital. E-mail me.
Tell me you’re in. Believe me you can help;
4. Institute a DC Basics Plus Health Insurance Savings Plan. In 2005,
as a member of the mayor’s Task Force on Expanded Insurance Coverage,
I accepted the challenge to design a plan that could save millions for
District residents. I call it “DC Basics Plus.” The District’s
employees would be enrolled into a self-insured risk pool with premium
rates determined by actual costs for health care services for city
employees averaged over the previous five years. Actual costs, not
premium costs. The District would pay for the health services covered in
the Basics Plan. DC employee premiums, rated by income, would be paid to
the District. Savings would come from a single administration of the
plan and from the lower premiums based on actual costs. In addition, the
DC Healthcare Alliance would continue to operate for those DC residents
without insurance and who meet the income test. Non Alliance residents
who are within 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level could buy into”
the plan on an ability-to-pay scale. Small employers who may be
eliminating insurance as a benefit or struggling to keep the benefit,
could also buy into the plan. However, they would not realize all of
their savings. A fixed percentage would be deposited into a catastrophic
fund, thereby limiting the requirements for reinsurance.
The plan is called DC Basics Plus because private health insurance
carriers are not completely locked out of the market. If for example, a
member of the Basics Plan wants five days infant delivery coverage
instead of the three days that may be offered by the Basics Plan, the
family can purchase the extra coverage from a private carrier certified
to operate in the District by our own Insurance, Securities and Banking
Department. Hence, DC Basics Plus. “Plus” is for private carriers
who offer coverages beyond those available in the Basics Plan. For
reference, a number of nearby Virginia counties are self-insured.
I’m hoping the DC council and the mayor actually take savings on
health care seriously and not engineer economies through cuts to vital
social services, as is the custom. The coming federal health care
program, due in 2013, does not prevent states and the District from
taking their own initiatives to make savings in health care costs. Any
state, like Massachusetts, may implement a single-payer or universal
health care program. Remember, “single-payer” is not universal
health care. It merely channels the administration and bill-paying to a
single agency. Private carriers will still determine premium costs.
Remember also that paying for premiums will always be more expensive for
the collective than paying just for the health care actually provided.
If you’ve been accepted by a carrier, it is because your profile
indicates that you will not cost more than the total of your premium
payments in any given year. Give DC Basics Plus a chance. E-mail me.
Tell me you’re in. Believe me, you can help.
###############
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.