Park Land
Dear Washingtonians:
Yesterday, Dorothy and I visited for our first time the Rosedale
Conservancy, a three-acre community park located in Cleveland Park, just
north of Georgetown,
http://www.rosedaleconservancy.org, which was holding its eighth
annual community barbecue and picnic. It’s privately funded, supported
entirely by neighborhood contributions, and therefore isn’t endangered
by the threats posed to the very existence of government “supported”
parks like McMillan or to privately supported events on public parkland,
like the Fort Reno concert series,
http://www.tinyurl.com/pqo96wo.
For communities that can afford it or that have wealthy benefactors,
the Rosedale Conservancy provides a good model. For neighborhoods that
can’t afford it, the whole city has to provide support to them to
preserve the park resources they do have and to protect them against
politicians who see parks as nothing but wasted opportunities for
economic development and against planners who see city parks as empty
holes in the population density they desire.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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The Arrogant City Council — an Update
Dorothy Brizill,
dorothy@dcwatch.com
On Friday, June 27, with little public notice, Councilmember Kenyon
McDuffie convened a meeting of his Governmental Operations Committee to
consider and vote on the nominations of Willie Phillips to the Public
Service Commission (PR 20-811) and Keith Washington as a “neutral”
member of the Public Employee Relations Board (PR 20-724). The
reappointment of Betty Ann Kane (PR 20-812), the current chair of the
PSC, was not considered at the meeting because a number of
councilmembers raised concerns regarding her record during he seven-year
tenure on the board.
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The Budget Support Act and Its Challenges
David Schwartzman,
dschwartzman@gmail.com
The Fiscal Year 2015 Support Act of 2014 (Bill 20-750), passed by the
council on June 24, is a continuation of TINA: “there is no alternative”
to accepting crumbs from trickle down, while the one percenters, wealthy
individuals, and the corporate sector, continue to enjoy huge privileges
at the expense of the majority of DC residents. Here is some evidence.
If fully phased-in, B20-750 would leave the top 1 percent of families,
averaging $2.4 million annual income, paying an effective rate of 6.3
percent of this income in DC taxes, while families earning an average
$50,200 will continue paying the highest rate, 10.1 percent, getting tax
relief equal to $351 a year, while those families earning $12,600
(average of the bottom 20 percent) will get relief equal to $189,
leaving many if not most in poverty. Yes, it should be acknowledged that
some residents will benefit more, e.g., a single worker earning
$18,000 a year will ultimately get $635 in tax relief, but $189 is the
average for the bottom 20 percent once the provisions are fully phased
in after four years, but the full benefit is contingent on the amount of
budget surpluses, because of the triggers required by the CFO for his
certification of B20-750. The ITEP simulation of this bill, fully
phased-in, is posted on the home page of
http://www.dcctj.org/.
B20-750 also provides for tax cuts for businesses, estates, and
wealthy individuals amounting to $138 million assuming a full phase-in.
These tax cuts for businesses are completely unjustified, noting that
even the Tax Revision Commission didn’t even pretend there was any
empirical basis for doing it, with their own expert saying the tax
burden for corporations in DC was not significantly different from MD or
VA. In his June 23 letter to council Chairman Phil Mendelson, Jeffrey S.
DeWitt, the CFO, set out this requirement for certification: “Any future
savings or additional revenue for FY 2015 or FY 2016 must be preserved
to ensure a balanced budget in FY 2016. In addition, my office will be
issuing shortly the June quarterly revenue estimate which will likely
reflect no change since the previous forecast. As a result, given the
efficiency savings required in FY 2016 and the tax policy priorities of
the Council, additional actions that would put further pressure on the
District’s financial plan, such as a contingency priority list, should
not be considered by the Council at this time [bold added].”
Thus, assuming it will not be successfully vetoed by the mayor,
unless the council revises this legislation in the near future there
will be likely little chance that any future surpluses would be used to
significantly boost what are now severely underfunded low-income
programs in the budget, far short of what is needed to confront the
challenges of DC’s very high income inequality and child poverty level
and severe shortage of affordable housing for the majority of our
residents (see my testimony to the Committee of the Whole, May 9, posted
at:
http://davidschwartzman.com/Testimony_COW_Budget_May_9_2014).
There is a remedy if the council is compelled to act: cancel the
yearly gift of $42 million to profitable businesses and the reduction in
estate taxes for wealthy DC residents. Provide a progressive sales tax
rebate in the DC income tax structure, expand tax relief for the low and
moderate income majority, hike the DC income tax rates for the top 5
percent and especially for DC millionaires, with a big boost of funding
for low-income programs in DC’s budget. This approach was advocated by
the Fair Budget Coalition in its Tale of Two Cities lobby on March 12,
calling for 9.5 percent for incomes between $150,000 and $350,000 and 10
percent for incomes over $350,000, giving $93 million more revenue over
the present tax structure (see simulation on home page of
http://www.dcctj.org/). Lets join
forces to build a movement to achieve these goals, rather than accept
crumbs left on the steps of the corporate-occupied Wilson Building. We
are not pigeons! For more on this issue, go to “Tax the rich, not yoga!”
posted at
http://eugenepuryear.com/yoga-tax.
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Stand Against Negative Attacks on Neighborhood
(Black) Youth
Carolyn Steptoe,
csteptoe@verizon.net
As the ANC commissioner where Noyes Park is located (5B04), and on
behalf of our city’s and community’s great youths and young adults, I
would be remiss not to note my observations to the author of the June 11
piece in themail, “Unruly Pre-Teens at Noyes Park and the Corporate
Giveaway of McMillan Park,” by Daniel Goldon Wolkoff, amglassart@yahoo.com.
I will say, unfortunately, my read of the thread [about Noyes Park in
the Brookland listserv] is that a grown man felt afraid of and
intimidated by after-school preteen kids while at Noyes Park. (What is
the age of preteens anyway? 10? 11? 12?) His fear was so strong that he
went home and, feeling compelled to justify his fear of these preteens,
then posted what he did.
Then, another person wrote about their own fear and objected to teens
at Noyes Park under the belief that they “could be potentially armed.”
This is actually bigger than your [Wolkoff’s] piece, and I greatly thank
you for it. However, a more formal reply to this profiling by those
irrationally fearful of neighborhood (black) youth is in order. What I
have seen and know as consistent on the Brookland listserv is that
listserv members have made a sport of attacking neighborhood (black)
youth recently. (After fifteen years of membership on the Bland
listserv, I unsubscribed; too much idle foolishness on it; but folks
still forward posts to me.) Of course, we have issues with some youths
and some college students with which our community must contend. The
better alternative is for us to join and create volunteer community
substantive enrichments, similar to what you mention, which support and
help our neighborhood youth.
However, what is unacceptable and inappropriate is this ongoing,
wholesale, public listserv maligning, denigrating, and negative
profiling of black youth in this neighborhood by those fearful of their
very existence and mere presence. p.s.: I agree with you one thousand
percent about McMillian.
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