Watch the Skies
Dear Sky Watchers:
As far back as October 2012, the Raytheon Company issued a press
release that got almost no attention announcing its Joint Land Attack
Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor (JLENS) System,
http://tinyurl.com/m32y8vd. On February 1,
Reuters published an article that said that JLENS would get a test in
Washington: "A pair of big, blimp-like craft, moored to the ground and
flying as high as 10,000 feet (3,000 meters), are to be added to a
high-tech shield designed to protect the Washington, DC, area from air
attack, at least for a while. . . . Operating as high as 10,000 feet for
up to 30 days at a time, JLENS is meant to give the military more time
to detect and react to threats, including cruise missiles and manned and
unmanned aircraft, compared with ground-based radar. The system is also
designed to defend against tactical ballistic missiles, large caliber
rockets and moving vehicles that could be used for attacks, including
boats, cars and trucks,"
http://tinyurl.com/kbb5hwg.
However, even this article didn’t get much pickup until yesterday, when
a brief article in Gizmodo, "A Fleet of Blimps Will Soon Serve as a
Missile Shield Over Washington,"
http://tinyurl.com/k7h3hb5, started a flurry
of articles in the tech press.
What hasn’t been emphasized in the articles, however, is that the
JLENS system has just as great a potential for policing and spying on
Washingtonians on the ground as for protecting Washingtonians from air
attacks. Be forewarned; starting in October, when the JLENS test is
scheduled to begin, there’s no more topless sunbathing in your backyard
or apartment roof garden. There’s no more privacy.
#####
Real-world lessons that Washington politicians don’t feel they have
to learn from include the warnings they should be getting from the
misgovernment of Detroit and its resultant bankruptcy. ABC’s John
Stossel writes about Detroit in Reason: "Detroit has been a ‘model city’
for big-government! All Detroit’s mayors since 1962 were Democrats who
were eager to micromanage. And spend. . . . Politicians think they know
best, but they can’t alter the laws of economics. They can’t make
mismanaged industries, constant government meddling, welfare, and
bureaucratic labor union rules (Detroit has 47 unions) into a formula
for success. . . . On my TV show, I confronted the council’s second in
command about his refusal to let Detroit sell land. He says he voted
against it ‘because the developer wants to grow trees. ‘We don’t need
any more new trees in our city.’ The politicians micromanaged themselves
into bankruptcy, and they want to keep digging. . . . As usual, the
politicians want to try more of the same. They constantly come up with
plans, but the plans are always big, simple-minded ones that run
roughshod over the thousands of little plans made by ordinary citizens.
Politicians want new stadiums, new transportation schemes, housing
projects. Andrew Rodney, a documentary filmmaker from Detroit, says many
bad, big-government ideas that have plagued the US were tried out first
in Detroit. ‘It’s the first city to experience a lot of the planning
that went into a lot of cities.’ Home loan subsidies, public housing,
stadium subsidies, a $350 million project called ‘Renaissance Center’
(the city ended up selling it for just $50 million), an automated People
Mover system that not many people feel moved to use (it moves people in
only one direction), endless favors to unions — if a government idea has
failed anywhere in America, there’s a good chance it failed in Detroit
first."
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
###############
A New Soccer Stadium in DC?
Dorothy Brizill,
dorothy@dcwatch.com
On Thursday morning, July 25, Mayor Gray will hold a press conference
to announce the framework of a complicated deal that will result in a
three hundred million dollar soccer stadium’s being constructed for DC
United at Buzzard Point in southwest Washington near the Washington
Nationals baseball stadium,
http://tinyurl.com/kn846a9.
Because of a cap on borrowing by the District, it appears that the cost
of the project will be split between the city and the team, with the
District government assuming responsibility for preparing the site and
assembling the land parcels (currently owned by Pepco, developer John
"Chip" Akridge, and Washington Kastles owner Mark Ein). DC United would
then bear the cost and responsibility for constructing a new 20,000 to
25,000-seat stadium along the waterfront.
While on the surface the development deal seems masterful, it is
extremely complicated, with a lot of moving pieces that would need to
fall into place and fit together. Because the District cannot put any
money in the project, it plans to entice the current landowners to
relinquish their property at Buzzard Point by exchanging or swapping
them for other land or buildings currently owned by the District
government — for example, the Reeves Building on 14th Street, One
Judiciary Square, and the Daly Building at 300 Indiana Avenue, NW.
However, all these buildings are currently occupied, and new offices
would either have to be built or leased at government expense. For
example, MPD offices that currently occupy the Daly Building would have
to relocated to a new, unbuilt "public safety campus" in the District.
According to the plan, District agencies that are currently in the
Reeves Center would be relocated to a new office building to be
constructed at the Anacostia Gateway Project on Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Avenue.
Perhaps the most troubling issue is the sheer cost of the project and
the question of whether the best use of government assets and resources
would be a new soccer stadium. In the 2013 playing season, DC United
will play only eighteen games in the District at RFK Stadium, and each
game will attract an average of only 13,645 fans from the metropolitan
region. Will a stadium that is used only eighteen days a year for 13,645
fans generate any additional economic development? Will any stores or
restaurants open because of the prospect of such skimpy attendance? Is
it worth a three hundred million dollar investment? Moreover, public
discussion of a new stadium will reawaken the bitter public debate over
the construction of the Nationals ballpark and the phony, exaggerated
promised that were made about its economic advantages. The "guaranteed
maximum price" of the stadium was supposed to be $320 million and ended
up being $700 million, and it didn’t fulfill any of its promised
benefits.
Perhaps the biggest stumbling block the soccer stadium proposal will
face is sheer politics, both the normal politics of the District
government and the special politics of the 2014 election. Because the
stadium will be built in Ward 6, mayoral candidate Tommy Wells will
surely weigh in to try to use it to his political advantage, and will
want to have a say in what replaces the Daly Center and One Judiciary
Square in Ward 6. Because it is an economic development project, it will
be reviewed and considered in mayoral candidate Muriel Bowser’s Economic
Development Committee. Other councilmembers will also be key players in
the debate and council discussion: Jim Graham, because of the loss of
the Reeves Building in Ward One; Jack Evans, who chairs the Finance and
Revenue Committee and has championed every sports and entertainment
capital project in DC, including the Verizon Center and Nationals
Stadium; Vincent Orange, who will express concern about the CBE
participation in the deal; Kenyan McDuffie, chairman of the Government
Operations Committee, which oversees the DC Department of General
Services, will have to approve the construction and/or leasing of new
government offices; and Marion Barry, who had strenuously lobbied for
the construction of the soccer stadium at Poplar Point, will surely be
disappointed. The wild card will be Council Chairman Phil Mendelson.
###############
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.
|