Bad Idea

Dear Thinkers:

The award for worst bad government idea this week goes to
Councilmember Mary Cheh. I hope that she said what she said in a fit of
momentary resentment and pique, and now regrets it. But I doubt that, so
I think it is worth pointing out how wrong she was. Cheh actually had a
good week. On July 17, the Office of Campaign Finance released its final
report and order in a complaint about her campaign that had been filed
by Jonathan Rees. The order is available in PDF format by going to http://ocf.dc.gov/cfd/cfd.asp,
and clicking on Mary Cheh (you may have to use Internet Explorer to get
this page to work). The complaint had essentially two parts. The first
was not a complaint against Cheh, but against Joe Sternlieb and Linda
Singer, whom Rees accused of creating a political action committee (PAC)
to raise campaign funds for Cheh, and failing to register the PAC or
file financial reports for it. The second was a charge that Cheh paid an
unusually low rent for her campaign headquarters space, and that the
difference between the low rent and the market rate rent constituted an
illegally large campaign contribution from the realty company, P.N.
Hoffman, that managed the building.

Joseph Sternlieb and Linda Singer are a married couple who are
politically active in Wards 3 and 4. They were prominent supporters and
fundraisers both in Mayor Fenty’s primary and general campaigns and in
Councilmember Cheh’s primary and general campaigns in Ward 3.
Sternlieb is a developer whose career began as the committee clerk for
Charlene Drew Jarvis on the Committee on Economic Development. He helped
write the legislation that established Business Improvement Districts,
moved from that position to become a senior official of the Downtown
BID, and left the BID to enter development. His current company,
EastBanc, is the sole-source beneficiary of the mayor’s and council’s
“emergency” giveaway of the West End Library, fire station, and
police office. Linda Singer, who had been executive director of DC
Appleseed, was appointed by Mayor Fenty as the District’s Attorney
General, at a time when she was not a member of the DC Bar. Rees charged
that Sternlieb and Singer called together a group of people to interview
Ward Three council candidates, that the group selected Mary Cheh as its
preferred candidate, and then raised money to support her campaign,
which would fit the definition of a PAC. Rees called the group
“Friends of Joe Sternlieb,” and the OCF makes a big point of the
fact that the group was called “Ward 3 Action,” and not “Friends
of Joe Sternlieb.” The OCF wrote letters to several members of this
group and interviewed a few, whose interviews it summarizes in its
report. It did not receive a reply to its letter inquiry from Attorney
General Singer, and did not attempt to interview her, but accepted the
representation of her husband that she was not involved with the group
or in any of the group’s activity. Sternlieb, whom the OCF identifies
as a developer and "community leader," an honorific it doesn’t
accord to anyone else in its report, represented that the group did not
raise money for Cheh as a group, but as individuals, and that he did not
collect contributions from others, but merely loaned his name to
fundraisers for her and informed others of how they could contribute to
her campaign. On this evidence, the OCF came to the conclusion that the
group was not legally a PAC.

The amount of office space occupied by the Cheh campaign is at the
heart of the second controversy. Rees and two workers in the Christian
Science Reading Room next door to the campaign headquarters said that
the campaign occupied the entire space vacated by its former occupant.
People associated with the rental company and the campaign, however,
testified that the campaign used only two or three rooms in that space,
and paid an appropriate rent for that amount of space. OCF credits their
testimony, and again rejects Rees’ charge. The OCF did find that the
Cheh campaign published a campaign flyer without the required
identifying notice that the committee paid for the flyer. It fined Cheh
$500 for the violation, and suspended that fine.

Jonathan Rees is controversial. I know that because every time I
publish one of his messages in themail, I get E-mails saying I should
never publish anything by him, and saying that the writers will never
read or submit anything to themail again because I used a message by
Rees. But his suspicions and charges of campaign irregularities in this
matter seem perfectly reasonable to me, even if they were not upheld by
the Office of Campaign Finance. Now, here’s the worst bad government
idea that Cheh promoted, from the Post article about the OCF’s
report (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/17/AR2007071701843.html):
“Cheh said she was outraged about the time and money spent by
the city because ‘one misguided individual, Jonathan Rees, thought he
could make mischief.’ Cheh said Rees should have to repay the city for
the waste of time resulting from his ‘malicious charges.’” On the
contrary, a citizen who witnesses what he believes to be misconduct in a
political campaign should be encouraged to report it to the Office of
Campaign Finance. Cheh, instead, wants to discourage it — to wreck
retribution on citizens if the OCF doesn’t support their complaints.
This is nothing but a politician’s protection racket. What citizen
would dare to report misconduct at the risk of being charged tens of
thousands of dollars or more if the investigating agency doesn’t
support the complaint? What Cheh’s proposal would do is shut OCF down
as an investigative agency. If anything qualifies as malicious,
misguided mischief, it is this.

Gary Imhoff

[email protected]

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Restaurants or Taverns?

Jack McKay, [email protected]

There’s a rush of restaurants filing for tavern licenses as a
deadline for meeting food sales requirements approaches. What’s not
made clear in the media reports is that this rush is not about
restaurants overnight deciding to transform themselves into bars, but
about restaurants that face extinction due to these requirements.

The DC Code requires a restaurant liquor licensee to have 45 percent
of its gross receipts be for food, or to sell $2000 of food per
“occupant” (not per seat, as the media insist on saying) per year.
Restaurants have certificates of occupancy with numbers well above the
number of seats, so this criterion implies over $3000 per seat, which is
no doubt trivial in Georgetown, but unthinkable in lower-income
neighborhoods. So the focus is on the 45 percent number. This sound
sensible, but a large number of restaurants here in Ward 1 don’t meet
that number. It’s not because they’re simply bars in disguise, but
because their customers insist on doing more drinking than eating. Maybe
they’re not the model of white-tablecloth, cloth-napkin restaurants,
but they’re not bars, either. They’re something in between, urban
pubs.

What is such a restaurant to do? “Sell more food,” say the
critics, as if the restaurateurs can simply force their customers to eat
more. “You can get a tavern license,” certain politicians assured us
in 2004, when this problem was on the horizon. But now that the time has
arrived, that assurance is forgotten, and politicians object to giving
these restaurants tavern licenses, as if that would in fact transform
them into bars. The District Council has now stopped, by law, the
issuance of new tavern licenses in Adams Morgan. But if these
restaurants cannot meet the 45 percent criterion, so their restaurant
liquor licenses are terminated, and they’re also denied conversion to
tavern licenses — well, what happens next? A restaurant without a
liquor license is not viable, so it goes bust. That does the community
no good. Councilmember Graham has led the way to a six-month
postponement of this onerous condition, while the council investigates
its consequences for low-cost restaurants. Good for him, I say.

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The Bills Aren’t in themail

Dorothy Brizill, [email protected]

On Tuesday, July 10, at its final legislative session prior to summer
recess, the city council adopted forty-four separate bills as
“emergency” legislation. This past Friday, however, ten days after
their passage, most of these bills were not available from the council’s
Office of Legislative Services. Most of them were still being drafted
and reviewed by the General Counsel’s Office.

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Upcoming Council Elections

Tanya Washington, [email protected]

In 2008 there will be elections for several council seats, including
Wards 2, 4, 7, 8, and Kwame Brown’s and Carol Schwartz’s at-large
seats. I don’t live in Ward 2, but I’ve been keeping track of the
controversy about the emergency disposition of the West End library, and
the police and fire stations. Jack Evans’ seat is one of those up for
election. I don’t know if Councilmember Evans plans to run for
reelection, but next year’s election is an opportunity that all Ward 2
residents will have to make their sentiments known about who should
represent their ward’s interests.

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Voter Registration Deadline

Bill O’Field, [email protected]

Residents of the District of Columbia who are not registered to vote
must register by the close of business on Monday, July 23, in order to
be eligible to vote in the August 21 special election for the District
One (Wards 1 and 2) member of the Board of Education.

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Contractor Misconduct Database

Ernesto Gluecksmann, Eglue @ webconsultingdc.com

On July 18, Project On Government Oversight, a federal watchdog
group, released their improved Federal Contractor Misconduct Database (http://www.contractorsmisconduct.org).
It lists instances of misconduct of the top fifty federal contractors
that, despite their troubles, continue to be awarded with millions in
taxpayer funds. Is there something similar, a list of DC contractors
with histories of misconduct? If not, wouldn’t it be nice if there
were?

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Let’s Have a Parade

Gabe Goldberg, gabe at gabegold dot com

Friday about 1 p.m. I saw a parade — marchers, banners, police
escort, traffic blocked — marching up 14th Street, NW, around Freedom
Plaza. Naturally, traffic was mightily bollixed. The banners were in an
Asian language and I never did figure out what it was about. Matters
weren’t helped by a repaving project on 15th Street. I understand
midday repaving, but what possessed the city to allow a parade in the
middle of the day in a high-density traffic area? Does anyone know who
was parading, or for what?

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Lawsuit Against Dorothy Brizill Dismissed

Art Spitzer, ACLU of the National Capital Area,
artspitzer at aol dot com

As some readers know, Dorothy Brizill was sued in the Superior Court
of Guam last summer, for defamation, invasion of privacy, and
“tortious interference with prospective business advantage,” by the
sponsors of a ballot initiative that would have legalized slot machine
gambling on Guam. The lawsuit was based on Dorothy’s statements, in a
telephone interview with a Guam radio station, about the 2004 slot
machine initiative here in DC, which had been backed by the same
financial interests that were backing the initiative on Guam.

I have had the pleasure of representing Dorothy in that lawsuit. I’m
pleased to report that on July 19 the Guam court granted our motion to
dismiss the case. Judge Elizabeth Barrett-Anderson ruled that Dorothy’s
statements were fully protected by Guam’s “Citizen Participation in
Government Act,” an excellent statute that immunizes from civil
liability all public statements made “in furtherance of the
Constitutional rights of petition, including seeking relief, influencing
action, informing, communicating and otherwise participating in the
processes of government . . . regardless of intent or purpose, except
where not aimed at procuring any government or electoral action, result
or outcome.” As the court noted, “It is not uncommon in public
debate . . . that the moral character and personal or professional
background of proponents, and opponents, becomes the focus of
discussion. . . . The Guam Act is intended to allow for such discussion
. . . no matter how painful or potentially harmful.”

Nevertheless, the plaintiffs’ lawyer has stated that an appeal is
likely. A copy of the Guam court’s ruling will soon be posted on the
ACLU of the National Capital Area’s web site, http://www.aclu-nca.org.

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Tinted Car Windows

Carolyn Long, [email protected]

Thanks to those who elucidated DC’s laws regarding excessively
tinted automobile windows [themail, July 18]. As a pedestrian, when
crossing the street I want to be able to look at the driver approaching
the crosswalk to make sure he or she sees me and is prepared to give me
the right-of-way. Then, when I cross in front of the car, I wave a
thank-you to the driver.

There are probably all sorts of legitimate reasons why people want to
darken the windows of their cars, but if the windows are so dark that
the driver and passengers cannot be seen, it makes one suspect that they
are up to no good.

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DC Library in the West End

Jim Champagne, [email protected]

People seem to have overlooked the obvious. To wit: Nader writes to
the city attorney about the problematic legal status of how some city
council members gave away the land to a developer in the dark of night.
Unfortunately, the developer is married to the city attorney.

Also, their names (the city attorney and her husband the developer)
figured prominently in the case involving possible illegal campaign
contribution to the ultimate winner of the Ward 3 Council seat in the
last election. Does anyone care that the erstwhile "leaders"
of the city have no sense of duty or honor? Very internecine indeed.
Very internecine indeed.

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Message to MacFarlane

Ed Delaney, [email protected]

From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/20/AR2007072002470.html:
“Evans said another option that had been discussed is construction of
a soccer stadium next to RFK, which would then be torn down.” These
discussions are puzzling in view of the baseball brigade’s assertions,
when the cost cap was exceeded at the M Street, SE, ballpark site that
an environmental impact study of the RFK Stadium site would uncover
“heavy environmental problems that would trigger [stadium
construction] delays of up to three years” (Washington Times,
December 7, 2005) and “federal and congressional approval, [including] approval from the Park Service, the National Capital Planning Commission
and the US Commission of Fine Arts,” (Washington Post, December
2, 2005). (The ironic postscript to the Brigade’s deceit, all of which
was whitewashed by the usual suspects in the local newsrooms, was that
the RFK Stadium site already had an independent and extensive
environmental impact study done on it, unlike the M Street, SE, site,
which reportedly had at least fifty-three oil tanks, many of them
leaking, and asbestos at the site — yet none of that ever yielded a
single independent environmental study, let alone a call for one made by
the major local media.) I guess now that the Brigade isn’t trying to
artificially inflate cost and delay times at the RFK Stadium site, and
because they now want to put something there, the land is suddenly
viable? At least be consistent in your publicly financed stadium
pitches, Evans!

“During the negotiations, DC United officials suggested they would
consider moving if the District was unable to help build a new stadium,
the sources said. ‘We’re keeping our options open,’ said Julie
Chase, a spokeswoman for MacFarlane. ‘We need a new stadium somewhere
in the DC area. I can’t put parameters on that.’” Before we let
MacFarlane, et al., run wild with relocation threats and
blackmail (which the Post article sets up perfectly for him while
failing to note any weakness of his stance or strength of the city’s
stance), everyone associated with this issue, especially those in city
government, ought to take note of the following excerpt from the
December 25, 2006, Washington Business Journal: “It’s a
little too early in the development cycle, but MacFarlane says he also
has his eyes trained on some of the city’s largest redevelopment
opportunities, including the National Capital Revitalization Corp.’s
25-acre McMillan reservoir site and the Anacostia Waterfront Corp.’s
100-plus acres at Poplar Point and 67 acres at Reservation 13, both
along the Anacostia River. It’s not all smooth: MacFarlane already
suffered his first defeat. Herb Miller had partnered with MacFarlane to
finance a $300 million condo and retail complex, around a 900-space
parking structure at the new $611 million baseball stadium. The deal
eventually collapsed in the fall and Miller sued. MacFarlane has moved
on. He says the episode didn’t scare him off. ‘It would give me
pause if that was the only opportunity available in D.C.,’ he says.
‘But when you are talking about having — pick a number — $5 billion
to $10 billion in public-private opportunities just in D.C. — it’s a
huge amount.’”

MacFarlane is wrong if he thinks he can make the city meet his
demands by threatening relocation. Putting aside the magnificence of
certain bastards for the moment, here’s MacFarlane’s playbook right
in front of us — one that’s eerily similar to the antics of his
partner and Evans’ close personal friend and city sue-er [wink] Herb
Miller! This is not the end but the beginning of MacFarlane’s
negotiations with the city and the likes of Jack Evans, but the city has
clear leverage due to MacFarlane’s stated intentions, and therefore
the city needs to stop the relocation blackmail game immediately. If
MacFarlane really wants to risk all of those $5 billion to $10 billion
public-private opportunities that he could be in on, that’s fine.
However, the city should let him know in no uncertain terms that an
out-of-town developer who’s been making hollow gestures of community
support will not be welcome as a development partner with the city in
any project if he holds our soccer franchise hostage for any length of
time.

Not only that, but Major League Soccer values the presence of a team
here and isn’t likely to let someone who was looking for a public
handout from the get-go in the form of development and stadium subsidies
bolt from one of the league’s most successful markets. It is
conceivable that a deal could be worked out that gives the team a more
favorable leasing arrangement at RFK Stadium, a stadium with tens of
millions of dollars in recent renovations and terrific parking and
Metro/roadway access, combined with the ability to house large-scale
soccer matches and concerts for many more years. Let’s see the city
move on a project like this for once that’s prompted not by a
developer with his hands out for public money but by concerns for the
good of the city! (I know it’s not the hoped-for dinky
twenty-five-thousand-seat open-air facility that’s virtually useless
for other sports or for concert functions in an area where Nissan
Pavilion, Wolf Trap, etc. have the open-air venue market cornered, but
it’s a lot better deal than MLS is likely to get anywhere else!) The
previous ownership group (Global Development Partners) who attempted to
get the city to help finance a stadium project simply sold the team
rather than engage in relocation blackmail, and MacFarlane should be
told to do so ASAP if he wants to be part of the city’s other
development opportunities.

The one thing I don’t want to hear from the city is “We had to
give MacFarlane what he wanted, or else,” which is basically what they
cried out after caving on the lease deal when the city had significant
leverage and the ability to make a deal that worked for all involved,
including the public.

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

DC Public Library Events

Randi Blank, [email protected]

Monday, July 23, 6:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial
Library, 901 G Street, NW, Enhanced Business Information Center (e-BIC),
A-level, e-BIC Conference Center. How to Get an SBA 7(a) Loan. Learn how
to finance your business through the Small Business Administration (SBA)
7(a) loan guaranty program. Find out how it works, where to apply and
what lenders look for on your application. For more information, call
727-2241.

Monday, July 23, 7:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial
Library, 901 G Street, NW, Room 222. All the World’s a Stage Book Club.
We will discuss The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the
First Millennium, by Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger. For more
information, call 727-1161.

Tuesday, July 24, 2:30 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial
Library, 901 G Street, NW, Enhanced Business Information Center (e-BIC),
A-level, e-BIC Conference Center. Starting a Home-Based Business. This
session walks you through the tax and licensing requirements for a sole
proprietor consultant who is doing business out of his or her home.
Please call 727-2241 to reserve a seat.

Tuesday, July 24, 6:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial
Library, 901 G Street, NW, Enhanced Business Information Center (e-BIC),
A-level, e-BIC Conference Center. How to Find and Finance Commercial
Property. This class will teach a step-by-step process to finding
commercial real estate in Washington, DC. You will become familiar with
the DC real estate market and learn about the demographics of the
various business districts in the city. For more information, call
727-2241.

Tuesday, July 24, 7:00 p.m., Takoma Park Neighborhood Library, 416
Cedar Street, NW. Takoma Park Book Club. To find out what book will be
discussed, please call 576-7252.

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Akbar Ahmen at Politics and Prose, July 28

Jaime Fearer, [email protected]

There will be an author talk and book signing of Journey into
Islam: The Crisis of Globalization, by Akbar Ahmed, at Politics and
Prose Bookstore, 5015 Connecticut Avenue, NW, on Saturday, July 28, at
6:00 p.m. (http://www.politics-prose.com/calendar.htm#jj28).
In response to the events of September 11, Akbar Ahmed — a Brookings
Institution nonresident senior fellow, professor of Islamic Studies at
American University, and former high commissioner of Pakistan to Great
Britain — led a team of young Americans on an unprecedented listening
tour of the Muslim world. Journey into Islam: The Crisis of
Globalization (Brookings, 2007) is the riveting story of their search
for common ground in the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia. The
project — sponsored by American University, the Brookings Institution,
and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life — focuses its mission to
help Islam and the West move past the hatred and mistrust that have
characterized relations between the cultures.

Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American
University and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is
former high commissioner of Pakistan to Great Britain and has taught at
Princeton, Harvard, and Cambridge Universities. His many books include After
Terror: Promoting Dialogue among Civilizations, with Brian Forst
(Polity, 2005), Islam under Siege: Living Dangerously in a Post-Honour
World (Polity, 2003) and Discovering Islam: Making Sense of
Muslim History and Society (Routledge, 2002).

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CLASSIFIEDS — FOR SALE

Original 1887 Hopkins Maps For Sale

Paul Williams, [email protected]

I still have a number of original, 2′ x 4′ sized original, hand
colored GM Hopkins maps for sale if anyone is still interested. These
are rare to find anywhere, and they make a great gift when framed and on
the wall. They show all structures on the site or square built by that
date, wood frame, brick, stores, etc., along with many family names,
etc. (I also have full sized scanned prints of each map in original
size) They can all be found at http://stores.ebay.com/The-House-History-People_Historic-Rare-Maps_W0QQcolZ4QQdirZ1QQfsubZ9599910QQftidZ2QQtZkm.

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CLASSIFIEDS — PARTICIPANTS

Panelists Needed for Book Discussion Video

Phil Shapiro, [email protected]

I’m looking for two or three persons to join a panel discussion
about the book A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the
Future, by DC author Daniel Pink. The video from this panel
discussion will be uploaded to Google Video. Please send me an E-mail if
you’d like to be involved.

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