Dear Celebrants:
African American Family Day was today, April 21, Easter Monday, at
the National Zoo. As in several recent years, the pleasant day of
picnics and zoo sightseeing ended with a gang fight. Some years are
worse than others. In 2000, a sixteen-year-old shot seven youths. In
2011, a gang of teens stabbed a boy repeatedly. Today, one or more
youngsters shot two teens.
The historical photographs of African American Family Day, starting
in 1891, show well-dressed men, women, and children, still in their
Easter finery, genteelly celebrating with an Easter egg roll down a hill
in the zoo.
There’s no lesson to be learned here. There’s only regret.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Gray’s Lame Duck Period
Dorothy Brizill,
dorothy@dcwatch.com
The change in the District’s primary date from September to April has
resulted in an unprecedented lengthy lame duck period in District
government. Vincent Gray will continue to serve as mayor for an
additional nine months after losing his bid for reelection in the
primary. During the lame duck period, until a new mayor takes office in
January, the business of government will go on, and Mayor Gray and his
administration will be making critical decisions regarding the
District’s budget and finances, the appointment of department and agency
heads, and the filling of vacancies on boards and commissions.
On April 3, Mayor Gray transmitted his Fiscal Year 2015 proposed
budget and financial plan of $10.7 billion to the council,
http://cfo.dc.gov/node/289642.
While it is a budget and plan that Gray’s administration developed, he
will not be in office to execute it. In the coming weeks, during the
period in which the council will hold hearings on the budget (April
9-May 9), and prior to the council’s final vote on the budget, it is
likely that the two leading candidates to succeed Gray as mayor, Muriel
Bowser and David Catania, will regard the FY2015 budget as a campaign
battleground, and both may try to reshape the budget to reflect their
goals and priorities if they are elected mayor.
In addition to budgetary issues, personnel matters will also consume
the Gray administration in the remaining months of his term in office.
Two key administration officials, Terry Bellamy (DDOT) and Nick Majett (DCRA),
have already announced their intention to leave the DC government, and
they will certainly be followed by many others. Forgoing the appointment
and confirmation process, many vacancies at department and agencies will
likely be filled by appointing interim or acting directors, most likely
the senior deputies now in place at departments and agencies. Another
serious personnel issue during Gray’s lame duck period will be the need
to appoint a new Inspector General. On May 19, the term of Charles
Willoughby, the District’s current Inspector General, ends. While it is
generally acknowledged that Willoughby has been an ineffective, weak IG,
the office could be an important, powerful force in the District
government. It has a fifteen million dollar budget, and is supposed to
play a critical role in the District government through “independent
audits, investigations, and inspections to detect and prevent fraud,
waste, and mismanagement.” Under District law, Willoughby cannot serve
as IG in a holdover capacity beyond May 19, the expiration of his term
in office (DC Code 1-301.115a). Moreover, as a result of Bill 15-183,
the Inspector General Qualifications Amendment Act of 2003, which was
authored by Vincent Orange in an effort to replace Charles Maddox, who
was then the IG, District law now requires the IG to be a member of the
DC bar for a least seven years (with seven years’ experience in the
practice of law) and to be a certified public account in the District of
Columbia (with seven years’ experience in the practice of accounting,
tax consulting, or financial consulting) prior to being appointed to the
position (DC Code 301.115(a). With these stringent requirements, finding
an individual who could be a good, effective IG to replace Willoughby
will not be easy.
Another serious personnel issue that will need to be addressed during
Gray’s lame duck period will be the need to fill vacancies and the
expired terms of many members of boards and commissions, although in
most instances District law allows board and commission members to serve
as holdovers until they are reappointed or replaced. Given the poor
performance of the DC Board of Elections during the April primary,
serious consideration should be given immediately to replacing the two
members of the BOE board whose terms have expired — Deborah Nichols on
July 7, 2012, and Devariste Curry on July 7, 2013. In addition, the DC
Board of Library Trustees, which is currently in the process of
approving a $250 million plan to renovate the Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Memorial Library, has three members whose terms on the board expired
years ago — President John W. Hill on January 5, 2009, Vice President
Bonnie R. Cohen on January 5, 2011, and Myrna Peralta on January 5,
2009. Moreover, Hill’s appointment to the Library Board should be
reconsidered because since last fall he has lived in Detroit, where he
serves as that city’s chief financial officer. Finally, Betty Ann Kane’s
term as chairman of the Public Service Commission (PSC) ends June 30,
2014. The three-member PSC, which regulates utilities in the District,
already has one seat that has been vacant since December 2011, when Rick
Morgan resigned. Under District law, Kane can serve as a holdover member
of the PSC for 180 days, until she is either reappointed or her
replacement is nominated and confirmed.
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Small Black Landlords Suffer Under Current
Rent Laws in DC
Jacques Chevalier, II,
jacques.chevalier@comcast.net
The next mayor and current city council chairperson must revisit the
archaic tenant-landlord regulations and laws that are heavily weighted
toward tenants and allow for abuse in DC courts. We black landlords have
small properties and smaller margins of profits, and we typically endure
three to six months of no rental payments, restrictions, court delays,
and discriminatory treatment, while the 83 percent of black tenants in
Landlord and Tenant Court skate and laugh at us by not paying rent. Of
course the pro bono attorneys from the Legal Aid Society enjoy
stealing our finances dry to satisfy the liberals wanting to protect the
professional tenants in DC.
Someone in the District Building needs to rescue us and change the
laws to ensure quick resolution for all. We need to amend the one-sided
laws that favor tenants who regularly stop paying landlords rent. While
landlords are not paid, we must still pay our debt service, taxes, and
maintenance. Financial protection has been eradicated for landlords and
reform now is warranted. Far too many black tenants are abusing us
daily. Come to court and see the mounds of blacks in the courtroom for
yourself if you think I am being racially motivated. The courts have
coddled deceitfulness perpetuated by black tenants far too long.
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Kathleen Sebelius has submitted her resignation to President Obama
and thanked him for the opportunity to have been selected to serve as
the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human. In some quarters,
Sebelius’ departure has been celebrated as confirmation of her
incompetence and the alleged disaster that is the Affordable Care Act.
In others, Sebelius was the flag-bearer for improved health care for
millions and the first major attempt in fifty years to revive the dream
of a national health care system comparable to that of other developed
nations. But I would like to thank Secretary Sebelius for her
inspirational example to DC’s local health care planners, and thank the
activists she inspired who kept CareFirst as a nonprofit without a
thirty-six million dollar slush fund.
In 2003, CareFirst submitted a petition to the insurance commissioner
of the state of Maryland for permission to convert from its nonprofit
status to a for-profit entity. The insurer has its headquarters in
Owings Mills. CareFirst’s petition was the local entry in the conversion
wave that was sweeping the national health insurance industry at the
time. According to the script, a large, corporate deep pocket would
negotiate a takeover of the “Blue” on the condition that the Blue would
become a for-profit company. Conversion was the first step.
Approval of the conversion by the governing state insurance
commission and legislature and subsequent purchase by the deep pocket
corporation was the two-step dance resulting in the effective
privatization of the insurer and the shift in its orientation from a
company concerned for the well-being of its policy holders to a company
concerned about enriching its shareholders and executives. [Finished
online at
http://www.dcwatch.com/themail/2014/14-04-20.htm#jordan]
In 2001, as insurance commissioner of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius
rejected the petition of Kansas Blue Cross Blue Shield (KSBCBS) to
convert as the first step in a purchase agreement with Anthem Insurance
Company of Indiana (Anthem). A win in Kansas would be added to Anthem’s
juggernaut through eight states in which it had successfully taken
control of formerly nonprofit Blues companies. Sebelius’ action signaled
the “end of the ‘trust-me’ era of nonprofit accountability in health
insurance” according to “States of Health” (Volume 11, No. 4, Summer
2002). In that era, the Blues and the deep pockets simply alleged that
bigger is better and that with the larger pool of capital represented by
the deep pockets, the Blues would be even more secure against financial
fluctuations that could threaten the insurer’s solvency.
Sebelius was the first insurance commissioner who successfully
challenged Anthem to prove its assertions. With unexpected opposition,
KSBCBS/Anthem failed to demonstrate that the conversion and purchase was
in the best interests of Kansans. KSBCBS and Anthem were so arrogant in
pursuit of the conversion that neither company even had an executive
summary describing the proposed deal.
In denying the petition for conversion, Commissioner Sebelius cited
research indicating that with every percentage increase in the price of
premiums, over four thousand policy holders would lose coverage. Anthem/KSBCBS
had announced that premium increases of at least seven percent were
projected in addition to the 15-20 percent industry wide increases
expected over the following several years. Kansans could have
experienced a 22-27 percent increase in health insurance costs. In 2003,
then-Governor Sebelius again explained her decision, “Anthem of
Indiana’s need for big profits would have subjected the people of Kansas
to millions of dollars in additional health insurance premiums.”
(4State.com March 6, 2003). She lectured across the country on the need
for vigilance and compassion in the conversion process.
When CareFirst submitted its petition for conversion, local
advocates, foundations, and health care providers formed CareFirst Watch
with the leadership of the DC Appleseed Center. Their mission was to
monitor the conversion process for its impact on the area’s health
insurance market. CareFirst held 85 percent of market share in the
District, Maryland, Delaware and northern Virginia. Outfitted with a
$36.0 million slush fund, the company saw no insurmountable obstacles to
its conversion and subsequent purchase by WellPoint Healthcare of
California.
Health Care Now! (HCN), a charter member of CareFirst Watch studied
the conversion process carefully and its impact history over the
previous decade. HCN sought a more purposeful advocacy. As its executive
director and with the help of HCN members and Congressman Jim Moran of
northern Virginia, we organized the Cross Border Coalition to Keep
CareFirst Non-Profit. The Grey Panthers, Stand Up! For Democracy in DC,
and the Parents of Children’s (Hospital) were among the activists who
saw the threat residing in conversion and joined the coalition.
Employing the Sebelius model, research showed that with the expected
premium increases and WellPoint’s history of very aggressive claim
denials, at least fourteen thousand to nineteen thousand policy holders
in the District alone would lose their health insurance coverage.
Among its most endearing actions while awaiting the conversion
decision, CareFirst threatened Children’s Hospital with loss of its
business unless the hospital offered greater discounts in its pricing
(the hospital in turn told patient families they might go to Johns
Hopkins.); CareFirst then told Children’s families they would have to
find a new carrier, while knowing prior existing conditions would
disqualify them. It also shushed the DC Council, whose members refused
to attend a catered lunch at J.W. Marriott to hear Maryland’s Speaker of
the Assembly, Michael Busch, discuss why Maryland would deny conversion.
(Imagine if the DC council chair went to Annapolis to discuss a regional
crisis and no one listened. Several DC Council members are on
CareFirst’s board and committees and may be even more supportive next
time. The Maryland legislature imposed a five-year ban on CareFirst
conversion petitions. CareFirst announced seven percent premium
increases to follow conversion/purchase through its consultant,
Accenture, the legatee of disgraced Arthur Andersen. (This strategy was
lifted directly from Anthem Indiana’s play book. It discontinued several
lines of small group plans in Maryland in anticipation of a more
lucrative catalogue of plans; and it offered a nineteen million dollar
bonus to CareFirst CEO Bill Jews upon approval of conversion.
HCN caravans took families and very sick children to the Baltimore
conversion hearings and helped to persuade the Maryland Insurance
Commissioner, Steve Larsen, to follow the Kansas example and reject
CareFirst’s petition. DC’s insurance commissioner subsequently
concurred. In 2000, health care costs per capita in the United States
were $4,550. By 2010, that expense had risen to $8,402 (Kaiser Family
Foundation 12.19.2013). Using the Sebelius methodology, District
residents saved $63.0-$86.0 million and kept fourteen to nineteen
thousand policy holders and household members off the District’s
dramatically tattered health care safety net.
###############
InTowner
April Issue Content Uploaded
P.L. Wolff,
intowner@intowner.com
The April issue content can be viewed at
http://www.intowner.com,
including the issue PDF in which will be found the primary news stories
and museum exhibition reviews — plus all photos and other images. Not
included in the PDF but linked directly from the home page is Stephen A.
Hansen’s “What Once Was” feature — this month about the Force Elementary
School in the 1700 block of Massachusetts Avenue and some of its
prominent personages.
This month’s lead stories include the following: 1) “Meridian Hill
Park and Adjacent Blocks Now Designated as an Historic District”; 2)
“Controlling Adams Morgan Nighttime Club Crowds, Enhancing Public Safety
Focus of Joint Undertaking Among All Stakeholders”; 3) “Dupont Circle
Community Group Fundraiser Success Ensures Further Outreach Growth.”
Also to be found on the web site pages are the “Reservations
Recommended” and “Food in the ‘Hood” columns, along with the recent real
estate sales feature, which will be posted on Tuesday.
On the Community News page will be found several short items of
neighborhood interest, including information about what promises to be a
fundraiser to benefit the Fund for Kalorama Park (22nd), Wonderland
Circus night in Columbia Heights (23rd), a public forum to brainstorm
ideas to be incorporated into the rehabilitated Martin Luther King, Jr.,
library (24th), free concerts at the Church of the Holy City (26th) and
at First Baptist Church (27th), both on 16th Street. Our editorial,
“Some Post-Primary Election Thoughts; Arrogance and Brushing Off Rent
Control,” might just be politically controversial; E-mail to
newsroom[at]intowner.com. The next issue PDF will publish early in the
morning of May 9 (the second Friday of the month as usual). For more
information, either send an E-mail to newsroom[at]intowner.com or call
234-1717.
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
CFO DeWitt to Speak to Federation of Citizens
Associations, April 22
Anne Renshaw,
milrddc@aol.com
DC’s Chief Financial Officer, Jeffrey S. DeWitt will speak on the
state of DC’s fiscal health at the Assembly of the DC Citizens
Federation. Entitled “DC’s Dollars and Sense,” the public meeting will
be held on April 22 from 6:45 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at All Souls Memorial
Episcopal Church Hall, 2300 Cathedral Avenue, NW, near the Woodley Park
Metro on the Red Line. CFO DeWitt left his position as Phoenix finance
chief to join the DC government in January, replacing the previous CFO,
Natwar M. Gandhi. Mr. DeWitt was selected after a seven-month national
search headed by former-mayor Anthony A. Williams and Alice M. Rivlin,
past federal budget director.
The Citizens Federation’s interactive Assembly will include a
discussion between CFO DeWitt and community leaders about local
government spending and DC’s $6.79B proposed budget for FY 2015.
Property tax relief, possible tax increases, DC’s estate tax, bond
ratings, FY15 “budget-busters” and DC budget autonomy will be various
topics under scrutiny during the April 22nd Assembly session.
All Souls Memorial Episcopal Church, 2300 Cathedral Avenue, NW (off
Connecticut Avenue), is near the Woodley Park Metro on the Red Line. The
front door church entrance will open at 6:30 p.m. Parking is allowed on
Connecticut Avenue starting at 6:30 p.m. Mr. DeWitt’s presentation will
begin at approximately 7:15 p.m., following opening announcements. For
further information, contact Anne Renshaw, Citizens Federation
President, at milrddc@aol.com.
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