Impatience
Dear Patient Readers:
Impatience and a full-speed-ahead, damn-the-torpedoes attitude is no
substitute for good management. School Chancellor Michelle Rhee spoke at
a Ward 4 meeting on education recently, and “said her own employees
have fallen into the trap of tolerating senseless inefficiency. She said
she admonishes them and reminds them they should focus exclusively on
students’ needs, and if they need to break or circumvent a rule, so be
it. ‘I refuse to be hamstrung by rules and regulations that are not
serving our students,’ Rhee said” (Ian Thoms, “Rhee Blasts School
System for Tolerating Inefficiency,” http://www.currentnewspapers.com/admin/uploadfiles/NW8.15.07p1-15web.pdf,
page 5). Although Thoms reports
that Rhee got an enthusiastic response from her audience, this sentiment
is completely wrong, and it is a recipe for future disasters. Aside from
the fact that good and prudent school managers will not break or ignore
the rules and regulations on the off chance that their superiors will
support them if their illegal shortcuts go wrong, it gives license to
bad and corrupt school managers to ignore the rules and regulations that
try to bind them, and to evade the supervision of their superiors. What
happens then has been shown recently by the cautionary tale of DCPS
senior administrator in charge of charter schools Brenda Belton, most
recently told by Colbert King (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/17/AR2007081701580.html)
and Carol Leonnig (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/18/AR2007081801181.html).
If Belton had committed her crimes under Michelle Rhee’s reign, she
would have a good excuse ready: “The Chancellor told me to break and
circumvent the rules; she said she wouldn’t follow them herself.”
No, the answer to bureaucratic inefficiency isn’t to give bureaucrats
free reign to break and ignore the rules that keep them honest; it is
for their supervisors to revise, streamline, and improve the rules so
that inefficiency is reduced, but oversight and good management is
maintained. That’s Rhee’s job, and she shouldn’t shirk it by
telling her subordinates to gamble their careers by betting they won’t
be punished if they deliberately break rules and regulations.
The Washington Post has partially redeemed its ill-advised
editorial position supporting the destruction of government electronic
communications (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/11/AR2007081101054.html),
which I wrote about in the August 12 issue of themail, by publishing the
wise advice of John Chelen today (“An E-Mail Land Mine for DC’s
Government,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/17/AR2007081701633.html).
Chelen is a former special counsel in the Office of the Chief Technology
Officer, and his article is filled with good recommendations, including
this: “All DC government e-mail should be retained for at least
several years for two reasons: productivity and accountability. The
price of storing E-mail is not very high and is rapidly decreasing,
while our need to rely on and analyze electronic data is rapidly
increasing. Moreover, we citizens lose important protections when E-mail
is destroyed. While Mayor Adrian Fenty is on the right track in trying
to reduce costs at the office of technology, he would strengthen his
administration by protecting these vital records.” Mayor Fenty and the
councilmembers should read the whole article. If Fenty won’t rescind
his executive order and issue a new one requiring the government to save
its electronic records, rather than to destroy them after six months,
the city council should pass a law to protect the legal and historic
record of our city.
A scandalous story has broken out of the street whispers, gossip, and
rumors stage, and unto the pages of a usually reliable web site: http://www.mediatakeout.com/10229/move_over_superhead_-_mya_to_release_a_tell_all_book.html.
The Afro-American is reporting this story aggressively and asked
for an official comment a couple days ago. Look, I told you it was
scandalous gossip, so don’t get all scandalized and offended. Your own
curiosity made you click on the link; I didn’t. You don’t read every
Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears story in the newspapers,
do you? Yeah, so do I.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Two years ago my Dell laptop was stolen by a man named John Mayberry.
I met with a police detective and identified Mayberry’s picture from
half a dozen he presented to me. He took a report. The case was never
solved because the police discovered that Mayberry was homeless and they
claimed that could not be located.
Today while at 14th and H, NE, I saw Mayberry. I phoned 911. It took
an hour for a police car to arrive. The officer told me, “He’s gone,
man. I’m not gonna chase a bus. You got a detective? You work with
him.”
So much for DC’s finest.
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Voting Hours and Locations for August 21 Special Election
Bill O’Field, wofield@dcboee.org
District of Columbia voters who reside in Wards 1 and 2 are reminded
that their polling places will be open on Tuesday, August 21, during
regular voting hours from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. for the Special
Election for District I Member of the Board of Education. All registered
voters in Wards 1 and 2 may cast a ballot in this special election.
Ward 1 and Ward 2 voters should go to their assigned voting location.
Any voter who has moved since last voting, who does not know his or her
assigned voting place, or who wants more information about the upcoming
special election should visit the Board’s web site at http://www.dcboee.org
or call 727-2525 (TTD 639-8916).
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Unnecessary Loudness and Unnecessary Noise
Jim Champagne, remyjec@aol.com
Is it just me? It seems that since 9/11 the official side of DC
public safety has gotten increasingly louder with each passing day.
Police sirens have ratcheted-up their volume even when not on an
official mission. Ambulance drivers too have become louder, even when
there is a green light in their favor and no traffic at the intersection
(usually the case at 2:30 a.m.) as they speed to GW Hospital, presumably
with a patient in dire need of quick care. Fire trucks, and the
personnel who work on them, win the booby prize, however. In addition to
upping the loudness quotient by what must be the highest of multiples as
they race to McDonald’s on M Street, NW, for take-out lunch (I have
personally witnessed this), certain DC fire personnel have scaled new
heights. Indeed, I must say that Friday night, August 17, took the cake
when the inhabitants of the fire station at 23rd and M Streets, NW,
decided to cut the grass at 9:00 p.m. with a power mower; followed that
with a motorized edger at 10:30 p.m.; and trumped it all with a
motorized leaf blower at 11:45 p.m.
Finally, my wife (we live across the street from the offenders’
place of work) got out of bed and walked over to the station to inquire
about the sanity level of the personnel working there. She was told that
it was a rookie. I guess that makes everything all right.
Really, I understand the need for public safety vehicles to announce
their presence in order to fulfill their mission of saving lives and
property. But the noise levels do not seem warranted or justified in
every instance. So who is going to save us from them?
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DDOT Has a Marvelous Sense of Humor
Kerry Stowell, kerrystowell@mac.com
"The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) and its
partners who operate the DC Circulator announced today that the
Circulator transported its 4 millionth rider this week, marking a
significant milestone for the increasingly popular two-year-old transit
service."
This notice was sent out last week, and I am still laughing. Four
million riders? Anybody seen the red Circulator buses lately? I have,
daily, and I cannot imagine how they were able to get to this figure.
Perhaps they could share the financial numbers with us?
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Call in the Exterminator
Ed T. Barron, edtb1@macdotcom
When your house is full of nasty bugs you call in the exterminator to
terminate those pests. In the case of the school system Central Office
that’s exactly what school chancellor Rhee should do. Colbert King, in
Saturday’s Post, has accurately described the fraud,
corruption, and nonperformance of the Central Office which reigned
above, and outlasted, all the school system reformers in the past. The
only way to assure that all the bad bugs are gone is to get rid of them
all. If there were any good folks in that office they’d have come
forward and exposed the mess a long time ago. Since no one has come
forward, they are all accomplices to the crimes committed. Fire them all
and start fresh. As questions come up that need someone on a Central
Office position establish an ad hoc team to work on that question
or problem. Over a period of time you’ll find that a very small
Central Office is really needed to keep the school system running
smoothly. The Central Office should work for all those it serves. It
should not act like everyone in the system works for the Central Office.
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DC’s Most Influential? Whom Would I Mention?
Kathleen Wills, koltwills@aol.com
Hands down, Ann and Larry Hargrove. Ann, formerly head of the
Committee of 100, is the most knowledgeable person in town when it comes
to zoning and planning matters, and her husband Larry is a talented,
retired attorney. For decades, these two have been doggedly fighting the
good fight here in DC almost full-time on behalf of the city’s
residents, slogging through mountains of regs, ordinances, and legal
briefs, battling city hall: the mayor’s office, the Office of
Planning, the Board of Zoning Adjustment, and this and that favored
developer.
Those of us who seek to protect the integrity of our neighborhoods
and hold the feet of city officials and petty bureaucrats to the fire to
do their jobs with, if not vision, certainly integrity, to follow the
laws and act in the interests of everyday residents, know just how
difficult it is to stop the juggernaut of arrogance and incompetence
that bulldozed its way through DC communities during the Williams
administration and which shows no signs of abating under Fenty. This is
a town where the mayor and other city administrators have abjured
responsible planning and instead written blank checks to developers and
other moneyed interests, where the city council all too often simply has
rolled over and green-lighted appallingly wrong-headed and sometimes
illegal projects, doing so at the expense of the integrity and safety of
our neighborhoods, healthcare delivery system, and now our schools,
parks and public libraries.
I started to write that the Hargroves are the E. F. Hutton of DC city
planning and community development: when they talk, people listen —
although those in power often don’t like what they have to say. But
their unassuming posture, temperament, and influence actually are closer
to that of James Stewart’s George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful
Life.” We know just how much closer DC would be to Pottersville than
Bedford Falls without Ann and Larry’s myriad, selfless contributions.
And for that we all owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude. They belong
on the list.
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Inverted Logic
Tom Blagburn, ztburn@msn.com
I’ve lived in this city all my life and been a part of city
government, directly and indirectly, for about three decades. Influences
ebbs and flows, and it is exceeding fleeting. Often it is an illusion.
During my time in government I’ve seen influence peddled, borrowed,
and stolen.
When I first came into the government the most influential men I was
privileged to meet were Walter Washington, Julian Dugas; Jimmy Jones,
Joe Yeldell, Carver Leach, and the members of the DC city council. I
also quickly learned that it also included members of the US Congress on
both the House and Senate side as well as key staffers. The Reverend
Lewis Anthony, whom I met when he was an intern before he left for
Harvard University. We were both young and awed by what we saw daily. On
any given day a celebrity would visit the District Building, as it was
called then. I remember meeting Redd Foxx, Pearl Bailey, George Allen,
and Dick Gregory, whom I am still friends with today.
People like Julius Hobson and Lillian Huff always had a presence
inside and outside of District government. Today, so-called influential
people come and go much like women’s hem lines. We tend to
compartmentalize influence and generalize about it even more. The real
people who work very hard to make this city better too often go
unnoticed. Too much of being able to draw attention and influence,
unfortunately, is based upon class, money, job title, and zip code! The
notion of having real influence should be bestowed upon those who place
humanity and the helping of others as our city’s highest value.
Tragically, the field of choice is very narrow; there are simply too few
of those people to pick from.
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I think Dorothy’s question of what names come to mind [themail,
August 15] can also be asked of DC’s huge nonprofit sector,
particularly those organizations and individuals working exclusively on
behalf of the city’s poor, ill, inadequately housed or homeless,
poorly skilled and/or jobless, etc. In a city with such an enormously
high poverty rate, surely some folks who spend their days toiling on
these issues will find their way onto the list (public school advocates
notwithstanding).
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Dear Dorothy, you scored. I read your counterpoint reply to M.
Austermuhle [themail, August 15]. You poignantly distinguished between
(notorious) influentials and city leaders (very few) who are dedicated
to prosperity for all, for local business, for homegrown ownership and
for all our residents, not just private profiteers. The gap between rich
and poor grows wider (locally and nationally) as more of the city’s
resources are undercut or privatized.
We all know the list of public buildings and services washed out with
the “economic development” tide and landed on a shore outside the
city or appropriated by corporations. Exploiting this ripe territory . .
. has been very rewarding for some years, until there is nothing left
worth plucking. Gentrification has been a tsunami, and Fenty is no
better than Williams (who gave it away as fast as he could — sometimes
in emergency legislation).
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Salvadorans’ Temporary Protected Status Extension
Michael Spevak, mspeva02 at georgetown dot edu
I am writing to themail out of some desperation. Although it’s a
national, federal issue, DC’s large Hispanic population is largely
Salvadoran, and so it may not be inappropriate: Secretary Chertoff
announced an extension of Temporary Protected Status on May 2, for
Hondurans, Nicaraguans, and Salvadorans, and the former, whose TPS
expired in July, have been processed. A grant of TPS is needed to have a
current, valid employment authorization document, or work permit.
Salvadoran TPS expires on September 9, and there is still no
administrative process in effect for Salvadorans. There has been no
media coverage of the lapse, which affects some 236,000 Salvadorans and
their families in the US, very many of whom live in the DC area. When
their work permits expire in a few weeks, their employers will be under
great pressure to fire them, as they will have joined the undocumented
through no fault of their own. I have contacted the Salvadoran embassy,
and they tell me they know nothing. I’ve contacted Immigration and was
told to check a couple of times a week. My phone messages to the Washington
Post, NPR, and the Post’s and NPR ombudsmen have gone
unanswered. Why is the press giving the administration a free ride about
this? Might Eleanor Holmes Norton be able to help?
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Don’t Let Near-Term Distractions Stymie DC’s Long-Term
Necessities
Len Sullivan, lsnarpac@bellatlantic.net
NARPAC sits back in the heat of summer and assesses DC’s progress
over the past decade. In its longer-than-usual monthly editorial, it
identifies six great successes in making our national capital city more
prestigious as well as six major areas in which the city government
appears to have made virtually no progress at all. The Fenty bullpen is
focused on short-term issues, often clumsily, as in the West End
development goofs. We strongly urge the DC council to get the ball
moving with kickoff legislation for appropriate actions on these key
long-term deficiencies. Our editorial is at http://www.narpac.org/EDIT.HTM#708.
Our summary of the potentially avoidable "West End
Disgruntlement" is added to our earlier analysis of the
energy-consuming GWU versus Foggy Bottom controversy at http://www.narpac.org/REXGWU.HTM#westend.
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
DC Public Library Events, August 21
Randi Blank, randi.blank@dc.gov
Tuesday, August 21, 12:00 p.m., West End Neighborhood Library, 1101
24th Street, NW. West End Book Club. We will discuss Tevye the Dairyman
by Sholem Aleichem. For more information, call 724-8707.
Tuesday, August 21, 7:30 p.m., Palisades Neighborhood Library, 4901 V
Street, NW. Palisades Stamp Club. Are you a philatelist? For more
information, call 282-3139.
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Public Property Action Day, September 18
Parisa Nourizi, parisa@empowerdc.org
City Council Action Day to save public property: Tuesday September
18, 9:00 a.m., Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW. Empower DC
will sponsor a rally, press conference, and convergence on the city
council. Our message: we demand a moratorium on public property
dispositions until our broken system is fixed. Change DC law and listen
to communities, not developers. Public property is for public use, not
private profit. No public property giveaways; there is always a public
use for public property.
Pledge your support by sending an E-mail or fax on your own behalf or
on behalf of your organization: “We endorse the September 18th Action.
I/we pledge to turn out ___ [number of people] to the action.” Return
to Empower DC, fax 234-6655, parisa@empowerdc.org.
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2007 Champions of Democracy Awards Reception, October 23
Ilir Zherka, info@dcvote.org
Join DC Vote as we honor our 2007 Champions of Democracy on Tuesday,
October 23, 6:30-9:00 p.m., at the National Music Center at the Carnegie
Library Building, 801 K Street, NW. US Congressman Tom Davis, The
Honorable Hilda Mason and Charles Mason, Royal Kennedy Rodgers and
Johnathan Rodgers. Special guest, Mayor Adrian Fenty. For more
information about purchasing tickets, becoming a sponsor, or donating to
our silent auction, please visit http://www.dcvote.org
or contact Danny Rose by phone at 462-6000 x14 or by E-mail at drose@dcvote.org.
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CLASSIFIEDS — RECOMMENDATIONS
Left Bank
Mark Eckenwiler, themale at ingot dot org
In the last issue, Paul Penniman asked for recommendations of local
banks. I’ve used Adams National Bank for over ten years now and am
relatively happy. There have been a few rough patches — several years
back they had serious problems getting printed statements mailed out in
a timely manner — but the problems seem to have been ironed out. There
are branches and ATMs around town (http://adamsbank.com/locations.html),
and from time to time Adams has offered a promotional no-interest
checking account that imposes no fee for use of non-Adams ATMs. (The
other bank may still impose a fee, although I’ve used my card free of
charge at ATMs from Chiang Mai to Crete.) My primary checking account,
which bears interest, albeit at a pretty low rate, costs nothing because
I have direct deposit set up through my employer. (I may be
grandfathered in; folks should check whether this benefit is still
available.) And account access and transactions are available both
online and via automated telephone system.
Disclosure: I have no ties to Adams National Bank other than as a
satisfied longtime customer. Also, I see that I wrote more or less the
same recommendation six years ago (http://www.dcwatch.com/themail/2001/01-09-05.htm),
for what that’s worth.
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