Dear Washingtonians:
Sticking with the topic of how politicians and planners are trying to
lower the expectations of Americans and demolish the traditional
American dream, I recommend an article by Henry Grabar, “America Is So
Over Homeownership: Why a Shift to a Renting Economy Might Actually Be a
Good Thing,” Salon,
http://tinyurl.com/menfkcw. The article doesn’t actually deliver on
the promise of its title; it doesn’t enumerate many advantages of
reducing the possibility that people will be able to own their own
homes. Here’s the closest it comes: “But as a long-term development, it
signifies an emerging model of American life released from the cult of
homeownership. It would make Americans more mobile (as we once were),
and more able to adapt to economic changes.” That’s like claiming that
its good for people to have less money in the bank, because it makes it
easier to switch banks. Small consolation.
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Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Final Hearing on DC’s Plan to Underground Power Lines
Dorothy Brizill,
dorothy@dcwatch.com
As I have written in recent issues of themail, next spring the city
will begin a billion-dollar project that will span seven to ten years to
place underground sixty of the worst-performing electrical feeder lines
in the city, in an effort to address the problem of power outages and
improve the reliability of the District’s electrical distribution
system. The plan calls for the DC Department of Transportation to
excavate certain streets and/or sidewalks in order to dig trenches and
construct conduits so that Pepco can install a new underground
electrical distribution system in parts of Wards 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8.
As the single largest capital improvement project by DDOT over the
next ten years, the project will have a dramatic impact on residents,
businesses, and visitors to those neighborhoods as a result of the
excavation, the loss of street parking, occasional street detours, the
need for construction staging areas, attendant construction noise, and
the increased presence of dirt and dust, as well as vermin activity.
During the heart of the summer, from July 21 through July 29, the
District’s Public Service Commission held community hearings in each of
the city’s eight wards to receive comments on the plan. However, few
people attended the hearings because a detailed information on the plan
(e.g., street maps showing where the excavation would occur) and
the dates and locations of the community hearings were not widely
disseminated. After I applied a great deal of pressure, an additional
community hearing will now be held on September 9 at 6:00 p.m. in the
7th floor hearing room of the DC Public Service Commission, 1333 H
Street, NW. Individuals and organizations can testify at the hearing by
contacting the Commission Secretary at 202-626-5150 or
psc_commissionsecretary@dc.gov. Written statements may also be submitted
by September 15 to the Public Service Commission of the District of
Columbia, 1333 H Street, NW, Suite 200, West Tower, Washington, DC
20005.
The online site with the best detailed information on the
undergrounding plan is the web site of the Office of Peoples Counsel at
http://opc-dc.gov/index.php/consumer-topics-a-z/dc-undergrounding-updates.
You can also review the material filed in the two related electric
system reliability underground cases (FC1116 and FC1121) before the
Public Service Commission on the commission’s web site,
http://www.dcpsc.org.
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