Show on the Road
Dear Road Trippers:
An article by Tim Craig and Mike DeBonis, published Saturday in the Washington
Post, describes an upcoming report by DC’s Inspector General,
Charles J. Willoughby: “No legal, ethical wrongdoing in DC Council
lottery deal, inspector general concludes,” http://tinyurl.com/879fnh5.
Another way of describing the findings of the IG’s report, at least as
far as Craig and DeBonis have written about it, is that the IG believes
the city council members acted in accordance with their usual ethical
standards when they passed the Internet gambling bill. In other words,
the councilmembers didn’t act any more disgracefully than usual and
didn’t screw the citizens and taxpayers of the District of Columbia
and practice favoritism any more than is their common practice. I can’t
wait until the IG releases the report, to judge for myself how thorough
and complete his investigation was and how good his judgment is in
giving councilmembers a pass on this very aromatic deal.
Patrick Thibodeau, below, describes the predictable consequences of
the Internet gambling law and gives some cogent reasons — “campaign
contributions, lobbying dollars, and jobs for the politically connected”
— why the councilmembers are likely to live down to our lowest
expectations for them and are unlikely to do the right thing and repeal
a law that is such a fertile ground for corruption.
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Deborah Simmons asks the right question in her column, “Mayors Must
Accept Some Responsibility for Cities’ Ills,” http://tinyurl.com/7hnh4sk:
“Here’s yet another reason why the mayor deserves an ‘ahem’
instead of ‘amen’ for his latest spending request. A trip to New
England to push for DC statehood has been rescheduled for January 27,
and the map has a stickpin in Florida, too. Who, precisely, is picking
up the tab for elected officials to take their show on the road?” We
know that the mayor and councilmembers aren’t picking up the tab
themselves — it’s against their principles to pay their own bills.
So is the money for these junkets coming from some well-hidden slush
fund or from those well-known slush funds, the councilmembers’
laughably misnamed “constituent service funds”?
Gary Imhoff
gary@dcwatch.com
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Irreparable Harm: The HTJ Scandal
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com
Last week, a parent whom I didn’t know, but who recognized me,
asked me a question. He said that his sons had been coached in sports by
Harry Thomas, Jr., and had looked up to him, and were now disconsolate
and disillusioned. “How do I explain this to my kids?” he asked. At
some point in the future, the current chapter on corruption in the
District of Columbia will close. Until then, you can expect the Harry
Thomas embezzlement scandal to result in further investigations and
reviews by a host of government entities (including the US Attorney’s
Office, the FBI, the IRS, the council, and the DC Attorney General,
Inspector General, and Auditor). Indictments and/or plea agreements, mea
culpas, whispers, and recriminations. In addition, the future of
several District entities will forever change and result in a new
councilmember for Ward 5, the demise or overhaul of the Children and
Youth Investment Trust Corporation (CYITC), heightened involvement by
the US Attorney’s Office in every aspect of the District government,
improved oversight of council offices and staff, as well as efforts to
better manage and audit government funds.
Largely unmentioned to date is the impact the scandal is having on
young people and youth programs in the District. Two of the individuals
who have already pled guilty, Harry Thomas and James Garvin, were for
many years directly involved in youth programs that touched the lives of
hundreds of young people in the District and the region. Prior to
joining the council, Harry Thomas’s major source of income was as a
sports coach. As Alan Suderman notes in his January 13 column in the Washington
City Paper (http://tinyurl.com/6rychto),
Harry Thomas received more than $220,000 in no-bid contracts from the DC
Department of Parks and Recreation. According to Suderman, from 2004 to
2006 Thomas was a “regular contractor with DPR to provide sports camps
and coaching clinics at recreation centers around town.” Meanwhile,
James Garvin, who was the president of the Langston 21st Century
Foundation (the major entity through which Thomas laundered the
embezzled funds), also served as the president of Langston Legacy Golf,
a program based at the Langston Golf Course in northeast, which coached
more than six hundred young people annually. Over the years, both men
served as both coaches and mentors to hundreds of young people in the
District who are now angry and bewildered.
Even though it isn’t possible to indict an organization, the CYITC,
including its past and present board (John Hill, Lisa Simpson, and Wendy
Carson-Smith), current and former senior staffers (Greg Roberts,
Millicent West, and Ellen London), as well as District officials charged
with council oversight (Councilmembers Tommy Wells and Jim Graham)
should be investigated and publicly derided for their roles over the
years that this embezzlement took place. In a 2008 press release, CYITC
described its mission as follows: “The Trust is a public-private
partnership chartered by the District to help a wide variety of
organizations improve the quality, quantity and accessibility of
services and opportunities for every child in the city. The Trust works
to increase resources and invest in the people, programs, and systems
that serve children, youth, and their families in the District of
Columbia. The partnership includes public schools, city agencies,
funders and employees, including nonprofit providers. Since its
inception in 1999, the Trust has provided grants, technical assistance,
youth worker training, capacity building, and partner strategy
opportunities.” The CYITC must ultimately be held accountable for the
theft and misuse of government funds that were specifically intended to
serve young people in the District.
As a community, how do we measure, address, and repair the harm that
the Harry Thomas scandal has done not just to adults and taxpayers, but
to young people in Washington?
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Historical Society of Washington
Stephanie Clipper, cyradaria@yahoo.com
Prepare to be amazed: good things are happening in DC! Especially
with regards to the Historical Society of Washington, which many of you
may or may not know is located near the Convention Center in a gorgeous
white temple at Mount Vernon Square. You’ve passed by it a million
times. For a few years, the Society has been like an car that starts
then spits and sputters but now shows every sign of having a performance
engine that runs like a Ferrari, thanks to its leadership and a
responsive board.
The Society now has a collaborative arrangement with Events DC, the
city’s official convention and sports authority. Events DC will
install and operate a DC Visitor’s Center that will focus on
Washington’s past and present. The Society now has an 88-year lease to
share use of the Library portion of its Mt. Vernon Square facility. This
is a cost reduction move that will allow raised funds to go toward
programming. The Society will continue to sponsor Washington History
(two times a year) and operate the Kiplinger Research Library. Programs
and exhibitions will continue to take place in a number of spaces.
The famous Kiplinger Washington Collection, more than four thousand
items, has found a new home in the Historical Society of Washington. It
is the largest such collection ever assembled in private hands, and its
transfer to the Society has been called the single most important
donation in the Society’s history. The Society has also been working
with consultants on creation of a sustainable business model that
broadens the role of HSW in the community. Much of the Society’s
administrative and management load will now be taken up with an
executive management team that will take up staffing, PR, fundraising,
marketing, board relations, and community engagement. Feel good, people,
feel good. And check out your city’s history!
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Cheh: Regulate Nonprofits but Not Limos
Frank Winstead, Forest Hills, frank.winstead@gmail.com
Councilmembers Mary Cheh and Muriel Bowser (for identification
purposes only: they routinely voted in lockstep with former
Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr.) introduced and successfully passed one
hundred pages of laws last February, B18-500, “The District of
Columbia Official Code Title 29 (Business Organizations) Enactment Act
of 2009.” This Act took effect as of January 1, 2012. The law places
many new paperwork and notification requirements on nonprofits that will
cost money to administer, lawyers to understand and to defend against in
court (typical bylaws provisions have now been incorporated into law,
making it easier to take nonprofits to court), and additional work to
maintain dues paying members (now under law any member of a membership
nonprofit is entitled to a list of all members’ names and addresses).
The law places burdensome administrative and legal costs on many
small nonprofits, but it should provide a steady income for many
lawyers. Some of these lawyers are by no doubt execreted from the George
Washington Law School, where Cheh is a $280,000 a year professor. But,
Mary Cheh is far more Libertarian in her views on taxicab regulation. I
quote a posting made by her on a local Yahoo list concerning the Uber
limousine company sting: “To put your point another way, we shouldn’t
regulate for the sake of regulating. We should have a clear idea of what
the problem is, if there is a problem, weigh that against the effects of
different forms of regulation and then fit it into a coherent
transportation plan. Sometimes officials act first and then think later
— usually without good results.” Several local law firms have pages
up about the changes; try a Google search on “new dc nonprofit law.”
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DC Fire and EMS Service at Risk
Daniel Carozza, dnickc@live.com
Firefighters and EMTs in the District of Columbia currently work an
average of 42 hours per week, with a schedule of twenty-four hours on
duty and seventy-two hours off duty (24/72), with four shifts in each
tour. The fourth shift was created as part of a legal settlement
in the 1987 case Hammon v. Barry as an effort to create more
promotional opportunities for minority firefighters. As a result,
approximately 180 new officer positions were created and the percentage
of minority officers was increased. According to the Bureau of
Labor Statistics, the 24/72 shift is one of the most commonly used
schedules for firefighters in America (see http://www.aspiringfirefighters.com/firefighters-schedule.html).
This has been the successful firefighter schedule in DC for more than
two decades, and most major cities across the US have gone to some form
of 24-hour shift.
Fire Chief Kenneth Ellerbe has decided that he would prefer to return
to the 1960’s and 70’s by entirely eliminating the fourth shift and
ultimately abolishing about 426 firefighter/EMT positions (25 percent of
the department) while requiring those who remain on the job to report to
work on what is known as a 3-3-3 shift. They would come to work for
three twelve-hour days, followed by three twelve-hour nights, and then
three days off duty, which will increase their labor negotiated work
hours to as much as fifty-six hours per week with no pay increase. The
city has refused any increase in pay for firefighters since 2006, so
with the rising costs of insurance, the firefighter’s paycheck has
literally decreased each year since then.
Chief Ellerbe is well aware of the hazardous impact a rotating shift
such as this can have on the firefighters, paramedics, citizens, and
visitors of this city. There are still several older members of the
department as well as the recently retired members who have explained to
him the vast improvement in their ability to concentrate, their working
conditions, family life, health, and morale brought about by the change
from the 3-3-3 schedule of the 60’s and 70’s to a twenty-four hour
schedule, not to mention the greatly reduced firefighter fatigue and
related injuries. They have emphatically stated this schedule of 3-3-3
is much more difficult because the natural circadian rhythm is disturbed
and the sccleep they do get when they leave work in the morning is much
lighter and shorter, leaving them feeling sleepy and less alert both at
work and at home.
Firefighters need to think and act quickly; lives depend on their
ability to do exactly that. At first glance it may appear the
twelve-hour shift is less stressful, but it is a well-known fact that
the human body does not shift from day work to night work and back again
without great difficulty and immense risk to everyone.
“Because most night workers often return to a day schedule,
they never completely allow their sleep and body rhythms to adapt to
being awake at night. They also sleep less during the day, so they don’t
recover from fatigue. This fatigue can carry over from day to day. Over
several days, fatigue can accumulate to unsafe levels.” (Center for
Disease Control) This fatigue and the risks of a quickly rotating shift
translates to a greater potential for injury and even death to not only
the members of DCFD but to those whom they serve — us. Most
twelve-hour shift workers, such as those in hospitals, stay on one
shift. They always work the day or the night shift, which allows their
bodies to adjust to a particular schedule.
Many DC Firefighters, especially the younger ones, need to work a
second job to make ends meet, Not only will a shift change place the
city at risk, it will also cause most of them to lose their second job
potentially putting their financial situation in jeopardy. For decades,
firefighters and their families have structured their commutes, their
childcare arrangements, their other work and family commitments around
this schedule. The switch to a 3-3-3 shift will wreak havoc in their
lives and it’s unfair to deprive thousands of firefighter/EMTs of
their ability to participate as often as possible, in family activities
such as homework, sports, and dinners together.
Someone needs to be on duty twenty-four hours a day, and regardless
of who it is, it is a stressful position to be in. Instead of one or two
round-the-clock shifts per week, each followed by three days off, the
chief expects firefighters to work three consecutive night shifts (after
having worked three consecutive daytime shifts) before they get any full
days off. A quickly rotating shift does in fact make it much harder to
provide quality medical care or fire suppression services to the city
because firefighters and EMT’s have no time to rest and recharge. The
department is losing experienced Firefighters and Advanced Life Support
(ALS) providers at an alarming rate because of this proposed change.
More than twenty ALS providers have taken jobs in other cities and there
are many others who are in the process of applying to other fire
departments. The seasoned, experienced firefighters, many of whom have
worked the 3-3-3 shift and who lead and teach the trade to the younger
members, are retiring en masse.
The benefits of change must outweigh the negative impacts on our city
before our firefighter/EMTs should be asked to face dangers beyond what
their job fundamentally presents. And, before so many families’ lives
can be thrown into turmoil, the chief needs to make the case that
altering the work schedule is imperative to the proper functioning of
the DC Fire Department. He has failed to do so.
It’s particularly galling that the same Chief who expects
firefighters to sacrifice their health, morale, and home and family
lives and significantly increase their hours at a time when take home
pay has been decreasing for years and court-ordered overtime hasn’t
been paid, is the same guy who, a couple years ago, created a special
arrangement for himself to become the Fire Chief of Sarasota, Florida
while remaining on the DC Fire Department so as to complete the time
required to obtain a DCFD pension. According to The Washington Times,
this arrangement would have provided him with more than a half million
dollars in additional pension benefits he was not entitled to receive.
Only after being exposed by the newspaper did Sarasota Fire Chief
Ellerbe, resign his position as a Deputy Chief with the DC Fire
Department. Chief Ellerbe has demonstrated that he does not have the
public’s interest at heart, and he does not have the firefighter’s
interest at heart.
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Hearing on Gambling, January 26
Patrick Thibodeau, dcblogs@gmail.com
Three separate groups in Adams Morgan, my neighborhood, have asked
the council to repeal its online gambling law. They are ANC 1C, the
Kalorama Citizens Association, and the Reede Cook Neighborhood
Association. Their resolutions are critical of the council’s decision
to approve this gambling law without public hearings or committee
review. Neighborhoods have good reason to be concerned about DC’s new
Internet gambling law. This law was never just about gambling online. It
was about creating neighborhood casinos.
Under this law, neighborhoods may soon see bars and restaurants
transformed into casinos. Imagine large screen monitors throughout a bar
showing fantasy sports league action, bingo, poker tournaments, and
games like roulette. Players may be even able to sit at a table and play
against one another and a remote virtual dealer. DC Lottery will be
running poker tournaments and “special bingo draws,” according to
the city’s agreement with its gambling contractor, Intralot. This law
sets no limits on the number of neighborhood casinos that DC Lottery and
the CFO can approve. Neighborhoods have no say in their location or
hours. District officials have failed to fully explain how this proposal
will impact neighborhoods.
The law’s backers had ample opportunity to hold hearings before
adoption, but did not. It was a deliberate and calculated deception. The
same people who support this law are now underselling its impact to
prevent repeal. This breach in honesty with the public was, and
continues to be, necessary. Neighborhood casinos, as they multiply in
number, will be a source of campaign contributions, lobbying dollars,
and jobs for the politically connected. The District will hold its first
ever public hearing on this law on January 26. It will consider a motion
to repeal. Here is a link to the hearing notice: http://www.jackevans.org/events/committee_on_finance_revenue_hearing_on_i_gaming/.
For more information about this law and access to documents, see http://stopdcgambling.com.
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Kids and Technology Meetup, February 4
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com
My friend Yusuf Abdi and I are starting a regular meetup for DC-area
people interested in the use of computers for children’s learning and
creativity. These meetups are primarily for parents, teachers,
counselors, librarians, etc. — but kids are welcome if they are
well-behaved. The first meeting will be at Watha T. Daniel-Shaw Library
on February 4 at 1:00 p.m. Register for the event and get further info
at http://www.meetup.com/Kids-and-Technology/events/44852952/
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CLASSIFIEDS — GRANTS
Funding Availability for Senior Facility
Darlene Nowlin, darlene.nowlin@dc.gov
The Office on Aging (DCOA) has released a Notice of Funding
Availability (NOFA) for the newly constructed Hayes Senior Wellness
Center located at 500 K Street, NE. A pre-application conference webinar
will be held on January 26 at 10 a.m. To receive an invitation for the
webinar, E-mail your request to executive@dcoa.dc.gov The NOFA and RFA
are available on the DCOA web site at http://www.dcoa.dc.gov.
For more information, call 724-5622 or see http://tinyurl.com/7ltjv45.
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