Council Antics
Dear Washingtonians:
Two recent city council meetings have left me dispirited about the
possibility of good government in DC. The more recent hearing was held
yesterday, and was chaired by Councilmember Mary Cheh. The DC Inspector
General had issued a report on the numerous failings of DC’s automated
traffic enforcement (see
http://tinyurl.com/onqlt78 for the IG report itself; Ashley Halsey,
III, “DC Is the Wild West when Enforcing Tickets for Traffic Violators,
Audit Finds,”
http://tinyurl.com/kshpmce; a Washington Post editorial
critical of the report, “Automated Cameras Mean Safer Streets in the
District,”
http://tinyurl.com/pg7ggbv; and a Dr. Gridlock column supportive of
one of the report’s main points, Robert Thompson, “Location Always
Important in Placing DC Speed Cameras,”
http://tinyurl.com/l34ddy3).
Even before Ms. Cheh called for the city council hearing, she had
already made up her mind, and rejected the IG’s criticisms of the
program. She told reporter Ashley Halsey, “I wish there were a red-light
camera on the corner of every intersection in the District of Columbia,”
http://tinyurl.com/odoppet, and
accused the IG of creating citizens’ dissatisfaction with red light
cameras, speed cameras, and parking enforcement, asserting that all the
citizens she talked with supported the cameras and wanted more of them.
Councilmembers Cheh, Wells, and Grosso all used the council hearing
of September 24 to attack and attempt to discredit the Inspector General
for honestly pointing out the government’s use of speed cameras as a
revenue-raising program, and strongly said the IG’s report undermined
credibility in government and in speed cameras — not recognizing that it
was their refusal to admit what every citizen knows, that the government
games the system to raise money — that undermines the credibility of
government. Councilmember Cheh was particularly hostile and antagonistic
to the witnesses from the IG’s office, and hectoring toward them. She
stated her preference for a zero tolerance policy toward all speeding.
Of course we understand, the councilmembers said, that some small number
of tickets are issued in error, and we should take some small palliative
measures to make the use of speed cameras less controversial.
Wells asked Blanche L. Bruce, the Interim Inspector General, about
the Republican members of Congress who were listed on the IG’s standard
distribution list, attempting to imply something suspicious about their
receiving copies of the report. Grosso raised doubts about why the IG
would initiate its report based just upon citizens’ complaints, and
questioned whether there were enough complaints to justify doing a
study. Grosso said that he believed speed cameras should not have to be
justified by safety concerns, but should be placed “prospectively” where
safety concerns could arise in the future. Wells spoke about his — and,
he claimed, most councilmembers’ — strong support for automated traffic
enforcement methods like speed cameras, and he said that raising any
doubts about those programs was a “political and ideological position”
that undermined confidence in the government. Cheh’s hectoring and
shrill closing questions to the IG’s witnesses emphasized same quotation
in the report from a senior District official that she raised in her
opening comment: “One of the beauties of parking, it’s like the
[Internal Revenue Service]. If you get a parking ticket, you are guilty
until you have proven yourself innocent . . . and that’s worked well for
us.” Cheh said that in fact the burden should be on the citizen to prove
his innocence rather that on the government to prove his guilt and that
guilty until proven innocent was the correct legal standard for a civil
citation. David Alpert, of Greater Greater Washington, said in his
testimony that, “We do need to grow our camera system and increase the
amount.”
#####
The second discouraging council meeting was the vote on legislation
to set up a program by which the government could comply minimally with
which the court had ordered, an end to the city’s blanked prohibition of
taking any already licensed weapon out of the owner’s house. Mayor Gray,
City Council Chairman Mendelson, and Attorney General Nichols had
already announced their agreement about the limited extent to which the
Bill of Rights should apply to citizens of DC, and that agreement was
ratified by the city council’s unanimous approval of a concealed carry
bill on Wednesday. Under the new law, a citizen of DC who feels that he
or she has a clearly articulable need to exercise Second Amendment
Rights, one of the fundamental rights of the Bill of Rights of the
Constitution may apply to the chief of police of DC for a permit to
exercise that right. If the chief of police agrees that the DC citizen
has a good enough reason, she may at her discretion issue a permit to
the citizen to exercise that right under severely limited circumstances.
While the mayor, chairman, and attorney general continue to hope that
the courts will reverse their position and find that the Bill of Rights
does not apply in DC, they hope that this “concession” will be enough to
convince the courts that they are obeying their Constitutional duties.
Mayor Gray, Chairman Mendelson, and Attorney General Nathan are showing
that they were good students of the southern states’ strategy of massive
resistance to Constitutionally mandated desegregation, and that they
will follow that strategy as long as possible with respect to the Second
Amendment, until the courts force them to respect the rights of DC
citizens. Until then, they will grudgingly give minimal signs that they
are trying to respect Constitutional rights, meanwhile forcing DC
citizens to continue to sue every step of the way as they trample on
those rights.
At the council vote on the legislation, all councilmembers announced
their opposition to allowing any citizens of the District to possess any
guns, much less carry guns in public. Councilmember Grosso, Cheh,
Catania, and Alexander all spoke in favor of Grosso’s amendment to the
bill that would have the District government make public the names of
those people who successfully convinced the chief of police that they
had a substantial reason to carry a gun to protect their safety, and
when it was pointed out that Grosso’s amendment may increase the danger
to citizens who were successfully able to convince the chief of police
that they were already in danger, Grosso acknowledged that with
pleasure, since the primary purpose of his amendment was to use public
disclosure to discourage citizens from applying for a permit to carry
weapons for their own protection. Grosso was convinced, finally, to
withdraw his amendment temporarily and to introduce it at a later date
Gary Imhoff
[email protected]
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Hooray for Ward 5’s 5B04 200-Footer Residents
Carolyn Steptoe,
[email protected]
As the former three-term Ward 5 ANC commissioner of the district
within which the 901 Monroe/Col. Brooks project is/was slated — and
especially as the former ANC rep of residents who withstood much
ridicule, mockery, and criticism for their objections to this behemoth
development, I am thrilled to read that the DC Court of Appeals remanded
this case back to Zoning Commission (Michael Neibauer, Washington
Business Journal, September 11, “Court Remands Brookland Project to
Zoning Panel in Ruling that Could Set Precedent for Future Development
Bids”).
Based on this Appeals Court order, the 5B04 200-Footers property
owners, the majority of whom are seniors, along with the indomitable,
unyielding, Mrs. Barbara Kahlow, who supported them for more than three
years as a volunteer, have been publicly vindicated in their staggering
fight to protect their property, their quality of life, and the
character of their neighborhood against an infrastructure Goliath.
Kudos to the 200-Footer residents and Mrs. Barbara Kahlow for this
phenomenal victory! May we all clip a page out of this precedent
achievement of average citizens to never give up, irrespective of what
appears insurmountable odds. Continue your fight citizens!
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Shift to a Renting Economy?
Marcia Rucker,
[email protected]
Would a shift from a homeowning economy to a renting economy be good
or bad? Whether you plan to rent or plan to buy, you can only do that if
housing to rent or to buy is available — and at a price you can afford.
And whether you rent or you own, you pay, directly or indirectly, for
utilities and maintenance. My sense is that we can’t have a rational
discussion of the rent/buy question until we know what kind of housing
we allow builders to develop or redevelop. We can only talk about
renting versus buying when we have answers to some questions. Who are we
building for? The affluent, the average family, low-income family? Will
all new housing be built for maximum energy efficiency and lowest
utility bills? Will all new housing be built to maximum standards of
durability and lowest maintenance costs?
Another question needs to be answered, of course. Who is “we?” And do
we plan to demand that our elected officials do what “we,” the folks of
every segment of the people they are supposed to represent, need them to
do for our well-being as individuals and members of the entire
community?
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Streetcars and Gun Rights
Richard Rothblum,
[email protected]
I have to comment about streetcars and gun rights (themail, August
14). First, why are people surprised that the streetcar right-of-way on
H Street is often blocked? Second, in calculating the economic effect of
streetcars, did they include the cost of tearing up the track and
restoring the street? That is the fate of virtually every streetcar
system in the world.
Re Gun Rights, Democratic Rights, and Second Amendment
Interpretation: Both Jack McKay and Andrea Rosen confuse democratic
rights (the right to be governed by laws passed by simple majority) and
the human rights guaranteed to us by the Constitution regardless of
majority will. It may be true that the citizens of the District of
Columbia “should” have the right to pass whatever laws we (a majority)
please. Fortunately for all of us, those who disagree are still
guaranteed our fundamental rights by the Constitution, and in
particular, the Bill of Rights. All ten of the amendments that
constitute the Bill of Rights are individual rights, with possibly the
exception of the footnote at the end of the Tenth.
The problem with the wording of the right to bear arms is that it was
composed in the context in which the states were considered to be at
risk of subjugation to a totalitarian central government. To ensure that
states would have the wherewithal (arms) to resist an overweening
federal government, it made sense to ensure that individual citizens
would have the right to keep and bear arms, the unstated potential enemy
being the federal government, to be resisted by state militias. Then,
after the Civil War, when the 14th Amendment was passed, citizens were
given the same rights against their state governments as they had
against the Federal Government. This event is what makes the wording of
the Second Amendment a bit awkward. The Fourteenth Amendment expanded
the rationale for the original individual rights to include state
governments in the same category of potential adversary as the Federal
government.
Citizens were originally given the right to bear arms at least partly
and ostensibly so that state militias would be able to resist the
central government. Then the Fourteenth Amendment deemed citizens rights
to be protected from the states as well as from the Federal government.
This made sense in the context of a reaction to the Civil War, in which
states denied fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution to some
of their citizens using a perfectly “democratic” process.
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InTowner
September Issue
P.L. Wolff,
[email protected]
The September issue content can be viewed at
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, “The
Fosters: Three Generations of Secretaries of State.”
This month’s lead stories include the following: 1) “Growing Push to
Increase Development in Lanier Heights Roils Neighborhood”; 2)
“Corcoran’s Takeover by National Gallery and GWU Now Complete; DC
Judge’s Ruling in Favor Analyzed”; 3) “Adams Morgan Residents
Participating in Initiative to Plan for the Future.” The Community News
page at
www.intowner.com/community calls attention to Attorney General
candidates forums, concerts, and various neighborhood-focused events; it
is updated during the course of the current publication period. As for
the museum reviews found on PDF pages 7 and 9, these highlight
exhibitions at The Corcoran and the National Gallery’
The title of our editorial, “Push to Bring Olympics to DC Pure
Folly,” speaks for itself. Your thoughts will be most welcome and can be
sent by clicking the comment link at the bottom of the web page or by
E-mail to [email protected]. The next issue PDF will publish early
in the morning of October 10th (the second Friday of the month, as
usual). For more information, either send an E-mail to [email protected]
or call 234-1717.
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Ward 2 Solar Co-op Launching; Solar for DC,
October 7
Susana Baranano,
[email protected]
Want to go solar? Want to connect with neighbors and people in your
community who are also interested in solar? Want to start a Ward 2 Solar
Co-op? Come listen to Anya Schoolman, Executive Director of DC SUN (DC
Solar United Neighborhoods), a network of fifteen neighborhood co-ops
that are working to make solar energy accessible and affordable for all
DC residents. She started the first solar co-op, Mt. Pleasant Solar
Co-op, in 2007 with her son and in less than a decade, she has helped
create fifteen DC neighborhood coops and assisted more than three
hundred DC residents go solar. Anya Schoolman has received several
awards since 2009, and is known as one of the top ten amazing activists
in the Name of Solar. Her latest award was in the White House Champions
of Change for Solar Deployment, which she received in April 2014.
At the Woman’s National Democratic Club, 1526 New Hampshire Avenue,
NW, October 7, 6:00-8:30 p.m. $20 members; $25 nonmembers, with one
complimentary drink. Reserve by telephone at 232-7363, ext. 3003. or
online at
www.democraticwoman.org
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