Campaigns

Dear Campaigners:

Now that the Superbowl, American Idol, The Voice, The Bachelor, and Dancing with the Stars are all either over or on hiatus, it’s time to turn our attention to lesser matters.

Doesn’t anyone want to comment on the primary races in April? Any candidates about whom you’re enthusiastic?

Gary Imhoff
gary@dcwatch.com

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The Yvette Alexander Campaign
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com

By the close of business on Monday, February 6, the DC Board of Elections and Ethics must decide whether Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander’s name will appear on the April 3 primary ballot. The Board’s action stems from a challenge filed by Dawn Matthews on January 17 to Alexander’s nominating petitions. In her challenge, Matthews (a volunteer in candidate Tom Brown’s Ward 7 council campaign), alleges that Alexander’s campaign submitted petitions sheets that contain 1,383 signatures (the legal minimum for a ward race is 250 signatures), but that the great majority were gathered by just two individuals (Derek Ford and George B. Browne, Jr.), who gathered 904 and 422 signatures, respectively. By signing the petitions sheets as circulators, these two accounted for 95.8 percent of all the signatures submitted by Alexander, Ford and Brown both claimed to have secured an unrealistic number of signatures in a single day. Ford, for example, claimed to have secured 108 signatures on November 20, 119 on November 21, 173 on November 25, and 300 on November 26. Ford and Brown signed the affidavits as circulators for petitions that they did not, in fact, circulate and on which they didn’t witness the voters’ signatures. In addition, during the course of the Board’s consideration of Matthews’ challenge, Alexander’s campaign admitted that it had paid individuals for each signature that they had secured and that the campaign had dispatched these “petition signature assistants” throughout Ward 7 in teams. In the written challenge, Matthews asserts that “Mr. Browne and Mr. Ford signed as circulators for petitions that they themselves did not circulate.”

In its decision, the Board will focus on the manner in which Alexander’s petitions were circulated and the affidavits of each of the petitions. Under District law, in order to circulate a nominating petition, an individual must be a qualified register voter in the District, watch each voter sign his or her name on the petition, and complete and sign the circulator’s affidavit on the back of each petition, attesting to having “personally witnessed each signature on the petition.” In the past decade, the BOEE has made two precedent-setting decisions in petition cases. The first was in 2002, Dorothy Brizill et al. v. Anthony Williams, BOEE Administrative Hearing No. 02-016, in which the Board removed Mayor Williams’ name from the primary ballot because of “widespread obstruction and pollution of the nominating process as it pertained to the nominating petition sheets circulated” by three individuals in the Scott Bishop family. The Board’s decisions, which was subsequently upheld by the DC Court of Appeals (Williams v. District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics, Appeal No. 02-AA-854 (DCCA, August 7, 2002), resulted in a civil penalty of $277,700 being imposed against Williams and his campaign. The second case is generally referred to as the “slots” case. It was decided by the BOEE in 2004. Ronald Drake, DC Against Slots, and DCWatch v. Citizens Committee for DC Video Lottery Terminal Initiative of 2004, BOEE Administrative Hearing No. 04-020. In its decision, which was also upheld by the DC Court of Appeals, the BOEE held that, “The testimonial and other evidence revealed substantial irregularities in the petition circulation process at the Red Roof Inn, the cumulative effect of which was to extend the impact of the improprieties beyond the individual examples of wrongdoing to a general pollution of the process that casts doubt on the validity of the signatures gathered during the petition drive. The evidence of circulator affidavits being signs by individuals who did not circulate the petition sheets, forgeries of circulator affidavits and petition sheets, and false advertising of the Initiative placed the veracity of the affidavits in doubt.”

It is interesting to note the history of the individuals in Alexander’s petition debacle. David Wilmot, who represented the campaign in the BOEE proceedings, and Derek Ford are both lobbyists for Walmart in the District. For those residents in Ward 7 who are concerned about why Alexander has turned a deaf ear to their concerns about Walmart’s activities, this may warrant their further investigation of its involvement in her campaign. In addition, Howard Gist and his company, The Lancer Group, were paid by the Alexander campaign to oversee the circulation of the petitions and to hire the “assistants” who worked in teams. On Thursday, the BOEE asked the Alexander campaign to provide financial records and documentation of expenditures to Gist, the Lancer Group, and petition circulators. Gist and his company received in excess of $190,000 from Kwame Brown’s past campaigns, and that relationship and how that money was distributed is currently the subject of an investigation by the US Attorney for the District of Columbia.

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No to the Highly Effective Teacher Incentive Act
Erich Martel, ehmartel@starpower.net

[Testimony on the Highly Effective Teacher Incentive Act of 2011, Bill 19-576] The Council of DC is charged by law with oversight of the DC Public Schools, not with defining how DCPS should address the achievement gap or how to tweak the IMPACT teacher evaluation instrument. I urge you to withdraw this bill. I urge you, instead, to lead the council in fulfilling its mandated oversight role by investigating the validity of IMPACT.

This bill incorrectly accepts as fact three false claims made by the two chancellors about IMPACT and teacher incentives: False Claim One: IMPACT accurately differentiates between highly effective, effective, minimally effective and ineffective teachers. False Claim Two: These differentiations are accurate reflections of the growth of learning in the students of the teachers. Please require the chancellor to provide the council (and post on the DCPS web site) the fully documented evidence that support claims one and two. False Claim Three: As Roland Fryer, the Harvard economist who studied monetary incentives wrote: “Providing incentives to teachers [based in part on students’ performance on standardized tests] did not increase student achievement in any statistically meaningful way. If anything, student achievement declined.”

As you know, Prof. Fryer backed out of evaluating the DCPS IMPACT, because the chancellor would not agree to allow random assignment of teachers into “treatment” and “control” groups. Notice the double standard: The two chancellors were uncompromising in using the federal law that excludes teacher evaluations from DCPS-WTUF contract negotiations; however, when the chancellor was asked to submit IMPACT to an objective evaluation of its validity (or whether it accurately measures what it says it measures), whose procedures and outcome she could not control, she refused. If IMPACT were the accurate measure of teacher effectiveness that is claimed for it, why did the chancellor terminate teachers with “effective” or “highly effective” evaluations just because no principal would agree to place them? (Note: the contract with the WTU allows, but does not require, principals to make the final decision in placing a teacher. That authority remains with the chancellor.)

Why does the chancellor terminate teachers with two “minimally effective” evaluations (two strikes and you’re out!), when it takes three to five years to become effective? Why is there no commitment to nurture a promising teacher, who may have been stuck with a particularly unprofessional principal or difficult class of students? Since a principal is given the authority under the “mutual consent” provision of the DCPS-WTU contract to accept a teacher, why is the principal not held accountable for teachers with low scores in the ineffective or minimally effective range and only gets credit for retaining teachers with scores of 300 or higher? See http://tinyurl.com/6rqsr4m (pp. 8, 39)? Why does the chancellor allow principals of schools like Ron Brown MS, Phelps ACE HS and Columbia Heights EC to maintain toxic, intimidating, and even abusive anti-teacher environments that lead many of our promising first and second year teachers to resign?

At Phelps, since August 2010, twenty-six teachers, counselors, and support staff, almost half the faculty and professional support staff left, all but six by resigning or transferring, including the entire science and guidance departments: Twelve in their first year at Phelps, twelve in their second year, seventeen in their first or second year in DCPS. Six resigned during SY 2010-11, and four have left since the start of SY 2011-12. [Finished online at http://www.dcpswatch.com/martel/120123.htm]

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

Mayor Gray Scheduled to Attend DCCA Meeting, February 6
Debbie Schreiber, President@dupont-circle.org

We are pleased to announce that Mayor Vincent Gray is planning to attend our next DCCA Membership Meeting on Monday, February 6, at 7:30 p.m. at the Church of the Holy City National Swedenborgian Church, 1611 16th Street, NW. Along with Councilmember Jack Evans and other community leaders (including Dave Mallof of the Federation of Citizens Associations of DC and Robin Diener reporting on Councilmember Graham’s ABC working groups), Mayor Gray will take questions and discuss issues of interest to us in Dupont Circle.

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Online Chat on Parking in the District, February 7
Kevin B. Twine, Kevin.Twine@dc.gov

DDOT, DPW and DC DMV are the agencies that regulate, enforce and adjudicate parking in the District of Columbia. Terry Bellamy of the District Department of Transportation (DDOT), William O. Howland, Jr., of the Department of Public Works (DPW), and Lucinda M. Babers of the Department of Motor Vehicles (DC DMV) will address parking questions during a live web chat on Tuesday, February 7, 2012, from 2:00-3:30 p.m.

To participate in the session once it has begun, place ddot.dc.gov/chatlive into your search browser or visit any of the hosting agencies’ web sites at dmv.dc.gov, dpw.dc.gov, or ddot.dc.gov and select the online chat icon posted on the agency’s home page. A transcript of the chat session can be reviewed after the session by following the same instructions listed above to join the discussion. You may also follow @DDOTDC, @DCDPW, @DCDMV on Twitter and submit your questions using the hashtag #parkingchat.

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The DC Operating Budget Explained, February 9
Susie Cambria, susie.cambria@gmail.com

If you want to better understand the budget process, this is the workshop for you. Attend and you will learn the budget process, the roles of the various agencies, advocacy intervention points, key terms, what those darned acronyms stand for, and where to get a copy of the budget. Thursday, February 9, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m., at DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation, 1400 16th Street, NW, Third Floor Conference Room. Cost is $40 per person; fee includes materials and refreshments. For more information and to register, go to http://tinyurl.com/7ocejwx.

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Hayes Senior Wellness Center, Ward 6, February 9
Darlene Nowlin, darlene.nowlin@dc.gov

The Office on Aging will be hosting a tour of the facility for persons interested in applying for the new Hayes Senior Wellness Center Operations Grant on Thursday, February 9 at 10 am. The wellness center is located at 500 K Street, NE and is housed in the new headquarters of the DC Office on Aging. Federal and District appropriated funds in the amount of $170,555 are contingently available to operate the facility. The Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) and Request for Applications (RFA) are available on the web site at www.dcoa.dc.gov. information can also be picked up at the facility or mailed out if requested. For more information, interested persons may call the Office on Aging at 724-5622.

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Joe Howell on Civil Rights Journey, February 16
Patricia Bitondo, pbitondo@aol.com

Joe Howell on his book, Civil Rights Journey: The Story of a White Southerner Coming of Age During the Civil Rights Revolution. Several years ago Joe Howell’s wife, Embry, discovered a dusty notebook in their attic in their Cleveland Park home in Washington. The notebook contained a diary describing their day-in day-out experience working for the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee — SNCC — in 1966 in southwest Georgia. Joe had no recollection of ever having written a diary but after reading it decided to wrap the diary in a memoir and civil rights history in an effort to answer the question as to how a young, Southern, white couple ended up in such a situation in the first place. The result is Civil Rights Journey, an account of what it was like growing up privileged in Nashville, Tennessee, during the last years of Jim Crow, how he got involved in the civil right movement while a student at Davidson College, and ultimately what it was like working of the front lines of the movement just when the term black power was introduced by Stokely Carmichael. Joseph Howell is also the author of Hard Living on Clay Street: Portraits of Blue Collar Families, a book in continuous print since 1973. His career in Washington has been in urban development where he has provided technical real estate development assistance, mainly to nonprofit affordable housing and long term care providers. He has taught at The George Washington University and The University of Maryland. In addition to a bachelor’s degree from Davidson, he holds masters degrees from Union Theological Seminary in New York City and the School of City and Regional Planning of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A book sale and signing will follow the program. At the Woman’s National Democratic Club, 1526 New Hampshire Avenue, NW, Thursday, February 16. Bar opens at 11:30 a.m., lunch at 12:15 p.m., lecture presentation and question and answer session from 1:00-2:00 p.m. Cost: members $25, nonmembers $30, and $10 lecture only. Register at http://tinyurl.com/8xq4abh

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