Going Underground

Dear Undergrounders:

The Power Line Undergrounding Task Force was created by Mayor Gray and PEPCO “to provide advice on actions that may be taken to reduce future storm-related power outages, including the undergrounding of power lines,” http://oca.dc.gov/node/22312. It is supposed to issue a final report by the end of the year, but after having an initial meeting on August 23 it has gone underground itself. Supposedly, the group has broken into committees and will be having future committee meetings, and those meetings are supposed to be open to the publis but the web site for the task force doesn’t list any further meetings. The last things listed on the web site are the Public Service Commission and PEPCO presentations that were made at the August 23 meeting.

See also the Flood Prevention Task Force, which was created by Mayor Gray and DC Water “to investigate the causes of these problems [flooding and sewer backups in Bloomingdale and LeDroit Park] and to develop recommendations for actions that may be taken by the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water), other District agencies, and residents to reduce the future likelihood of flooding and sewer system backups in these neighborhoods,” [http://oca.dc.gov/page/flood-prevention-task-force].

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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Statehood at the Democratic National Convention
Timothy Cooper, worldrights2008@gmail.com

Mr. Imhoff notes in the last issue [themail, September 5] that “there is one issue that the Democratic party thinks is too left-wing, too far out, too unpopular, to sell to the American people — statehood for the District of Columbia. That issue was dropped from the party platform.”

Not true. It wasn’t the Democratic National Party that dropped the word statehood from the platform language — it was our own congressional delegate — DC Delegate Norton. In fact, according to Ann Loikow, in 2011 the DC Democratic State Committee (DCDSC) had gotten the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to adopt its own statehood resolution, which was intended to serve as a basis for the 2012 party platform language. But evidently Norton stepped in in 2012 and knocked out the word “statehood” before the draft language was submitted to the DNC for consideration. She replaced it with equal voting rights language instead. Later, when it was reported that DC Mayor Gray and Delegate Norton sought to put the statehood language back in as a result of political pressure, it was too late to make the change. But this is not the first time DC Delegate Norton has undone statehood language at the national party platform level. She scrubbed any mention of it in 2008 and 2004 as well.

So the question begs itself: Why our own delegate? Because likely in her heart of hearts she may actually agree with Mr. Imhoff. Agree that the notion of statehood is “too far out, too unpopular, to sell to the American people.” But of course it’s pretty near next to impossible to sell any kind of political idea — statehood or otherwise — if you’re all over the map with your fundamental strategy. Which is what Norton is and has been. For a long, long time. One year statehood; another year equal congressional voting rights; yet another year a single vote in the House of Representatives; and now in another year, we’re back to equal voting rights and budget autonomy, and oh yes, what about statehood, too?

One can only hope that the day will finally come when the good delegate sticks with a longer-term strategy, if not shrewder tactics, to achieve equal DC rights, instead of hop-scotching from one to another as decades roll by, without achieving measurable success. Either that or perhaps one day another delegate, who truly believes in DC statehood and is willing to stand against unseasonable winds to promote it, will rise to take her place.

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A Tale of Two Capital Cities
Henry Callis, hankcallis1971@gmail.com

The Democratic Party, and President Obama personally, bent over backwards to ensure that language supporting Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel was included in the Democratic platform after it was briefly removed. The language reads: “Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel. The parties have agreed that Jerusalem is a matter for final status negotiations. It should remain an undivided city accessible to people of all faiths.”

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party and President Obama have ignored this nation’s own capital city, Washington, DC, and its residents who lack any voting representation in Congress despite paying more in taxes than millions of other Americans who do enjoy full representation. The refusal to voice even symbolic support for the voting rights of residents in our own capital city, while furiously scrambling to show support for the capital city of another country, is shameful.

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More On (Moronic) Speeding Tickets
Gabe Goldberg, gabe at gabegold dot com

Jack McKay (August 30 issue) described bogus speeding tickets being issued for revenue rather than safety. Couple years ago, driving E Street Expressway towards Virginia, a cop radared me, jumped out from the side, cited me for doing more than forty (forget exact speed) in a thirty mph zone. Where he stopped me, the Expressway is underground, straight, one-way traffic, has no cross streets, signals, pedestrians, stores, or anything but highway with excellent sight lines. It’s an acceleration road for bridge crossing the Potomac! So the posted thirty mph is absurd and doing thirty would be dangerous, would get you honked at and rammed from behind. So I researched contesting tickets and showed up ready for battle. To my surprise, the DC office was calm, with courteous and professional staffers. I overheard a lawyer/client discussion, including that if citing officer doesn’t appear, simply plead not guilty and ticket will be dismissed. When called to hearing room, “my” officer wasn’t there, I pled not guilty, and the ticket was dismissed. I suspect the cop knew he was abusing enforcement and didn’t want to bother defending his actions. Those tickets were sure not safety related.

My experience fighting bogus parking tickets is another matter; that part of DC is surely revenue driven rather than by any semblance of objective hearings. I have a couple tickets pending for many years, taken through multiple levels of appeal (costing various fees, hardly encouraging the process even when you know you’re right!), with nothing but nonsense responses.

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Speed and Accidents, Part 1
Michael Overturf, mike@overturf.info

As a pedestrian who lives downtown DC, have been hit once already by a driver, and also a driver myself for the last thirty years, I have spent a great deal of time thinking about this issue. And, by the way, the driver that hit me was in his 50’s, and the driver that nearly hit my wife in the crosswalk two weeks ago was also not young, nor (I presume) inexperienced. This is of relevance because the new wave of intersection cameras will also intercept drivers who’d rather kill or maim someone than not sit in line at the next red light because of having to wait for a pedestrian to cross.

First, let’s consider our (drivers, as I am also one of those) rights on the road. Drivers have no rights whatsoever. A license to drive is a privilege granted by the state, subject to constraints and regulation. You have no ‘right to drive’ anywhere on public roads. Most drivers, because we are all human beings, forget this. Try this test. Sit quietly somewhere without distraction, so that you in tune with your emotions. Then say to yourself slowly: “I have no rights as a driver of my car on public roads”. Say this three times. What do you feel? Probably frustration or anger of some sort, however subtle. Nobody likes being told they have no rights. But this is a legal fact.

Pedestrians, on the other hand, have a fundamental right of locomotion in public spaces. The state would be hard pressed, although as of late this may be changing, to arrest you because you were walking somewhere. Jaywalking is fined because it is an obstruction to other lawful drivers, not because you have no rights to do it. To argue that cameras have no impact on accidents is to whistle past the graveyard. It is obvious that cameras are placed where the majority of drivers will tend to speed. The gall! The state has every right to do this, and you have no inherent rights to have your complaint acted upon. If you don’t like it, the remaining avenue is the legislative process, see how far that gets you. Yell, gnash your teeth, stomp your feet all you want. You have no inherent right to break speed laws, or even to be there when you do. No injustice has been served. [Finished in the next issue of themail]

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Repudiate the IFF Study and Recommendations
Erich Martel, ehmartel at starpower dot net

I have written a letter to DME (Deputy Mayor for Education) De’Shawn Wright requesting that he repudiate the IFF (Illinois Facilities Fund) study of the DC Public Schools and Public Charter Schools and its recommendations that thirty-seven DCPS schools be closed, placed in turnaround status, or transferred to charter operators [http://www.dcpswatch.com/martel/120824.htm. If implemented by Chancellor Henderson, hundreds of teachers with effective evaluations will be excessed and face termination.

The letter requests answers to nineteen questions. The most important are: why did he commission a study that uses student test results at a time when those test results are under investigation for having been corrupted by cheating? Why is there no acknowledgment that DC charter high schools enroll large numbers of students in grade nine, but transfer out an average of 40 percent each year, just before they take their tenth grade tests?

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

The Impact of Transit-Oriented Development on Residential Neighborhoods, September 18
Anne Renshaw, milrddc@aol.com

The Federation of Citizens Associations of the District of Columbia will hold a citywide briefing on “Transit-Oriented Aspects of DC Rezoning” on Tuesday, September 18, 6:45-9:00 p.m., at All Souls Memorial Episcopal Church, 2300 Cathedral Avenue, NW. Featured speakers will include Harriet Tregoning, Director, DC Office of Planning (OP); Tom Harrington, WMATA’s Director of Long-Range Planning; and Sam Zimbabwe, DDOT’s Associate Director of Policy, Planning and Sustainability Administration. OP’s Jennifer Steingasser, Deputy Director, Development Review and Historic Preservation; Joel Lawson, Associate Director, Development Review and Dan Emerine, Transportation Planner will contribute to the public discussion of proposed zoning changes affecting transit-oriented development (TOD).

Community leaders across the District are preparing to testify before the Zoning Commission about projected changes to DC’s zoning code including, but not limited to, transit-oriented development and the impact of transit zones on abutting residential neighborhoods, parking, traffic and mass transit.

The entrance to the off church parking lot is on Woodley Place, NW; the closest Metro stop is Woodley Park on the Red Line. For further information, e-mail Anne Mohnkern Renshaw, Federation President, at milrddc@aol.com.