themail.gif (3487 bytes)

January 1, 2012

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

###############

Public Safety
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@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

###############

2012 List of Campaigns for themail Subscribers
Samuel Jordan, Samuel.Jordan@msn.com

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.

 


Send mail with questions or comments to webmaster@dcwatch.com
Web site copyright ©DCWatch (ISSN 1546-4296)