Mother’s Day
Dear Sons and Daughters:
Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not going to complain about
anything today. It’s Mother’s Day; it finally stopped raining and
the weather was nearly perfect; at yesterday’s Europe-in-DC event,
Dorothy and I had a good time touring some embassies we had never been
in before; for the past month we’ve been experimenting with a variety
of homemade Thai smoothies (fruit, milk, condensed milk, ice, an
optional touch of vanilla, sugar to taste, blended until smooth; we’ve
tried making mango, banana, strawberry, and, best of all, avocado); the
azaleas that we planted last fall bloomed spectacularly this spring, and
the blooms are still hanging on.
As I’ve said frequently, but not recently, life in DC can be a real
treat, a privilege, if you’re not dealing with the government.
Now, on to messages from people who have been dealing with the
government.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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On Tuesday, the city council’s Committee of the Whole will consider
and vote on the District’s Fiscal Year 2010 budget — both Bill
18-202, the Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Request Act of 2009, and Bill
18-203, the Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Support Act of 2009. A major focus
of the deliberations will be the spending earmarks individual
councilmembers have inserted into the budget in order to fund specific
politically connected organizations.
As of Friday, an incomplete list detailed 140 “grants” totaling
$22.5 million, http://www.dcwatch.com/council18/090508earmarks.xls.
Representative earmarks include: $50,000 to the High Tea Society;
$25,000 to the Mt. Pleasant Neighborhood Alliance; $25,000 to the
Northwest Columbia Heights Community Association; $250,000 to the Ward 4
Georgia Avenue Collaborative; $50,000 to the Cleveland Park Business
Association; $250,000 to Fort Dupont Kids on Ice; $250,000 to the
Mid-City Business Association; $250,000 to the National Building Museum;
$1,000,000 to the national Council of Negro Women; $125,000 to the North
Tivoli Business Association; $250,000 to the Parents Association of Boys
and Girls Club No. 10; $125,000 to the Park Road Business Association;
$1,000,000 to the Phillips Collection; $325,000 to the Textile Museum;
$500,000 to the DC LGBT Center; $100,000 to the Greater Washington
Fashion Chamber of Commerce; $150,000 to the Crystal Meth Working Group;
$75,000 to Ward 8 Clean and Sober, Inc.; $1,000,000 to the African
American Civil War Museum; and $1,000,000 to the DC Historical Society.
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Two Cities, Two Years
Trish Chittams, mintrish@gmail.com
On Tuesday, April 24, Crista Marie Spencer was killed while in the
crosswalk of 6th and Orleans Streets, NE. On April 24, promises were
made, the city paused, the family and friends mourned. The mayor, Chief
of Police and other dignitaries stood in tribute to a life cut off too
quickly. In the weeks that followed, the promises were kept. Stop signs
were put in place. Tommy Wells, the Ward councilmember, appeared and
assured the public that this would not happen again on this street, not
on his watch. The city can relax, the politicians have spoken.
On Friday, April 13, 2007, Merita Covington was hit while in the
crosswalk of Minnesota Avenue and M Street, SE. On Saturday, April 21,
2007, Merita Covington died as a result of her injuries. The family and
neighborhood mourned. Her funeral was marked by a stirring sermon,
comments from loving family, neighbors, and friends, but by no Mayor, no
Chief of Police, no politicians, no political promises, no Ward 7
councilmember. But the people did not forget.
Within two months of Ms. Covington’s death the neighborhood
coalesced. “Enough,” the people cried, “traffic on Minnesota
Avenue must slow down!” Several community meetings were held, the
mayor, representatives from MPD and DDOT spoke and made promises.
Traffic calming would occur. A traffic light at G Street would be put
in, the mayor said; we had his word on that. The fact that Ms. Covington
was killed at M Street wasn’t really important. “You will get a
traffic light where I, the Mayor, say it will go.” The funds for the
traffic light would come from District coffers, the mayor promised; “the
money is already there,” the mayor explained, therefore there would be
no delay in having the traffic light installed. Speed cameras would also
be in place; better signage at crosswalks would provide safety. So it
was written, and so it would be done.
Two years later, there have been no significant traffic calming
measures implemented between Randle Circle and Pennsylvania Avenue, SE.
Some crossing signs were put up. Some crosswalks were repainted.
Pedestrian crossing street signs became targets for speeding cars, and
only a few remain. No traffic signal, no speed camera on this stretch of
Minnesota Avenue. MPD’s mobile speed camera has been consistently in
place, but consistently facing against the speeding AM rush hour
traffic. There is still no traffic light at G Street, but the base for
the light has been there for the past eighteen months. In January 2009,
the mayor’s office and DDOT blamed the installation delay on PEPCO.
The intersection has to be energized. The blame game is in full effect.
On Tuesday, May 5, there was another accident at Minnesota and M Street,
SE. And so it goes.
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Fun with DC Parking Tickets
Gabe Goldberg, gabe at gabegold dot com
A while ago, I received a bogus parking ticket. I was ticketed for an
“expired meter” when neither the meter nor any street sign indicated
that metered parking was in effect. There was no hours-of-operation
sticker on the meter — I checked carefully. I obeyed the only adjacent
street sign, which indicated that parking was legal after 6:30 p.m.
I marked the ticket Not Guilty and stated my case. After a long
delay, last June I was told, “tough luck,” pay. So I paid the $25
— along with a $10 “Appeal fee,” restating the argument that my
meter and the adjacent sign did not indicate metered parking was in
effect. Having not heard anything by this past February, I nudged them.
Still nothing.
Running an alleged appeals process for a $10 fee and then not
responding in almost a year is a scam that adds insult to injury by
keeping the initial bogus $25 fine plus the useless appeal fee. Has
anyone appealed a parking ticket and actually received a response? With
what outcome?
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The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities is pleased to announce
the release of its 2010 applications for funding. We invite you to
explore artistic opportunities to showcase your creativity! Go to http://tinyurl.com/o9r5n8
to see the “FY 2010 Guide to Grants” in PDF format. For more
information, please go to http://www.dcarts.dc.gov.
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A final thought on the issue of initiatives. Many of the government
reform initiatives that have passed and were then overturned by the
council, like term limits and campaign finance, would have been more
appropriate as charter amendments. The problem is, the Charter cannot be
amended by initiative. There are only two ways to amend the Charter: by
Act of Congress (which curiously does not require a ratification vote,
even though the District Charter is the closest thing it has to a
constitution, and no state or territory legislature can amend its
constitution without either an intervening election or a ballot
question, or both) or by referendum pursuant to an Act of Council. The
only way to get real and lasting change is to add Amendment by
Initiative (and mandatory ratification of congressional amendments), and
the only way to do that is to make charter reform an electoral issue.
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CLASSIFIEDS —EVENTS
Department of Parks and Recreation Events, May
13-15
John Stokes, john.astokes@dc.gov
May 13, 10:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m., National Museum of American History,
14th Street and Constitution Avenue, NW. Seniors aged 55 and up will
take a trip to the National Museum of American History to see the
Scurlock Studio photography collection. “Portraits of a City” are
photographs from the original Scurlock Studio on U Street, the Custom
Craft Studio and the Capitol School of Photography. This collection is a
showing of Black Washington, DC, picturing the life and people of this
great city. Please call for reservations, Louis Jones at 541-3752.
May 15, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Turkey Thicket Aquatic Facility, 1100
Michigan Avenue, NE. CPR Class, ages fifteen and up. To learn the role
of a Professional Rescuer in providing emergency care to the patrons in
the Aquatic Facilities, to perform specialized skills and techniques in
the proper and safe use of the Automatic External Defibrillator (AED).
May 15, 11:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m., Kenilworth Parkside Recreation, 4300
Anacostia Avenue, NE. Fashion Hats and Luncheon celebrates spring in May
with United Planning Organization (UPO) senior groups. The luncheon
includes speakers, entertainment and modeling hats. Lunch provided by
UPO. Seniors ages 55 and up should make reservations as seating is
limited. For more information, call Cassandra Brooks, Recreation
Specialist, at 724-8934.
May 15, 2:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m., Kennedy Recreation Center, 1401 7th
Street, NW. String them up and get ready to fly! Bring your own kite,
big or small, and let’s brighten the sky while participating in this
kite flying event. For more information, call Rochelle Bradshaw at
671-4794.
May 15, 5:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m., King Greenleaf Recreation Center, 201 N
Street, SW. Mother’s day muffins and tea for ages six to twelve. The
children will come in with their mothers and discuss the importance of
having a mother. Other activities of this program include games, food,
and fun. For more information, call Henry Moton, Site Manager, at
645-7454.
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DC for Democracy, May 14
Kesh Ladduwahetty, keshinil@yahoo.com
Join DC for Democracy, the District’s largest unaligned progressive
grassroots organization, at our monthly meeting on Thursday, May 14,
8:30 p.m., at Busboy’s & Poets (14th and U Streets, NW) to welcome
special guest, DC Council Chair Vince Gray. DC4D is the Washington, DC,
affiliate of Democracy for America (DFA) and was the first DFA group in
the nation to endorse Barack Obama. We worked all last year on his
campaign, and now we’re getting active on a range of local issues,
from marriage equality to environmental initiatives, from local election
reform to housing/homelessness. We are also respected members of the
DCVote coalition who have recently joined the growing campaign for DC
statehood. Come enjoy an informal Q&A with DC’s chief lawmaker as
we question him on these issues and anything else that interests you.
Please RSVP at Facebook or E-mail us at dcfordemocracy@gmail.com.
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UDC 2.0: The Future of the District’s Public
University, May 15
Roger Newell, rnewell@teamster.org
Can the District’s flagship state university compete with other
state systems? What are its plans for the future? Are they achievable?
Come hear the answers and ask your own questions on Friday, May 15,
12:30 p.m.-2:00 p.m., at Wiley Rein, 1776 K Street, NW (Farragut North/
Farragut West Metro). The panelists will discuss their vision of the
District’s public university of the future and its potential impact on
the District’s economic future and the future of its citizens. They
will address specific implications of the plan for the District’s
residents and businesses, if UDC forms a two-year community college
under the DC umbrella alongside a restructured four-year university.
They will also examine how the new structure may affect the university’s
finances and those of the District government, how the proposed changes
may impact the employability of the District’s youth, and changes that
may have to take place on the university’s upper northwest campus.
Panelists will be Dr. Allen Sessoms, President, UDC; Jim Dyke,
Esquire, Vice Chair, Board of Trustees, UDC; and Kim Michelle Keenan,
Esquire, Vice Chair, Board of Trustees UDC, President-Elect, DC Bar.
Free (bring your own brown bag lunch). RSVP by May 14 to Sally Kram at
Kram@consortium.org.
This public outreach event is sponsored by the District of Columbia
Affairs Section of the District of Columbia Bar, in co-sponsorship with
the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area; the
Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington;
the DC Chamber of Commerce; the Hotel Association of Washington, DC; the
Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington; and the Washington,
DC, Association of Realtors. You need not be a member of the Section to
participate. For more information, please visit https://www.dcbar.org/for_lawyers/events/details.cfm?sessionAltCD=060805&link=email
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Scratch Day 2009 at Takoma Park Middle School,
May 16
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com
Families with elementary and middle school children who like
computers might enjoy this free drop-by event on Saturday, May 16, 10:00
a.m. to 3:00 p.m., at Takoma Park Middle School. Further information is
at http://day.scratch.mit.edu/event/120
Scratch is a free programming tool from MIT that lets kids create
their own interactive games, animations and digital stories. An overview
article about Scratch appears at http://tinyurl.com/d3lgxa
A Scratch Day event will also be taking place at the Arlington Career
Center in Arlington from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Details at http://day.scratch.mit.edu/event/100
We can use free software to build a more inclusive society. Today is the
day to start doing that.
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Residential Permit Parking Reform (Continued),
May 21
Jack McKay, jack.mckay@verizon.net
Recently I wrote of a novel program in Mount Pleasant that would
permit commuters to our neighborhood to park, for a modest fee, on
streets zoned for Residential Permit Parking (RPP) (themail, April 20).
RPP is intended to prevent commuters from using our neighborhood streets
as all-day parking lots, so this might seem contradictory. But the
parking problem in Mount Pleasant, and perhaps in other DC
neighborhoods, isn’t as simple as commuters taking up residential
parking space.
Many Mount Pleasant residents have cars registered in their home
states, not in the District. Basement apartments, group homes, and row
houses divided up into rooming units support a large transient
population. These short-termers quickly discover that, if they stow
their cars on blocks not zoned for RPP, they can get away without
registering the cars for many months. One day recently, on just three
unzoned blocks I counted sixty-six non-DC-tagged cars, only one of which
had a failure-to-register ticket. Spread around the neighborhood, this
wouldn’t matter. These are residents, they’ve brought cars, what
does it matter to our parking situation if those cars are registered
here or not? But more than 80 percent of Mount Pleasant blocks have been
zoned for RPP, so these non-DC-tagged cars, as well as all those
commuters, are concentrated on the few blocks remaining unzoned. I
estimate that one-fourth of all the parking spaces on three unzoned
blocks are taken up by these resident-owned, but non-DC-tagged, cars.
Unlike the commuter cars, these cars don’t leave the neighborhood at
night, so residents of these blocks find their parking space worse than
scarce, day and night.
RPP-zoning these last blocks will take care of the non-DC-tag
problem. The only thing that has stopped RPP zoning is concern for the
people commuting to Mount Pleasant to work in the local elementary
school, or the nursing home. Hence, residents are happy to provide
commuter parking passes, specifically for the benefit of these folks,
thus removing the last obstacle to their filing for RPP zoning.
Are these commuters grateful for not being forced off our streets
altogether, as RPP without the commuter passes would do? Well, no, not a
bit. The daytime passes are currently set to cost $160 a calendar
quarter, equivalent to about $2.50 a day. Anyone who has to park in a
commercial garage or a Metro park-and-ride lot would consider this a
bargain. But these commuters to Mount Pleasant, accustomed to using our
streets as free parking lots, object. Why can’t these passes be free,
they ask. Well, perhaps we should talk about who pays taxes to the
District and who does not. If there were a commuter tax, then one could
argue that these folks had paid a fair share and could be permitted free
use of our scarce curbside parking. But there’s no commuter tax, these
suburbanites aren’t paying a dime in taxes to the District, so why
should they be given free curbside parking on District streets?
There will be a “community meeting” on this topic — should
commuter parking be free, or not; should there be commuter parking at
all? — on May 21, at 6:30 p.m., at Bancroft Elementary School, on
Newton Street, NW, at 18th Street.
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CLASSIFIEDS — HELP WANTED
Smithsonian Seeks Drivers for Folklife
Festival
Ann Carper, rochester54 at verizon.net
The Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage needs a few good
drivers to operate the passenger vans taking Smithsonian Folklife
Festival participants to and from their hotel, the National Mall, and
area airports from June 20 through July 7. Benefits include the
opportunity to interact with Festival participants from around the
world, as well as a modest stipend for each six-hour driving shift.
Potential drivers need not be available for the entire two-week period
to help. If you are at least 25 years old, have a clean driving record,
and interested in driving for the Festival, please contact
Transportation Coordinator Rebecca Berlin at berlinr@si.edu
or 633-7486. She is hoping to have all the drivers recruited by
Wednesday, May 13.
For more information on this year’s festival, visit http://festival.si.edu.
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CLASSIFIEDS — DONATIONS
WPFW Membership Drive, May 12
Jonetta Rose Barras, rosebook1@aol.com
Dear DC politics connoisseurs, last week, WPFW-FM returned to the
airwaves the show for you: DC Politics with Jonetta. You have been
craving a one-hour talk-show that gets to the heart of what’s
happening in local affairs in the nation’s capital. Now you have it.
But to keep it, your supported is needed. I am asking you to call into
the station — 588-9739 or 1-800-222-9739 — and become a member of
WPFW or renew your membership. Your contribution during the time of my
show, 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on Tuesday, will help ensure the
continuance of DC Politics with Jonetta.
I know you want it to continue. Your support of $75 or more is
greatly appreciated. If the economy has a hold of your wallet, you can
also make a basic membership contribution of $35. The most important
thing is that you call 588-9739 or 1-800-222-9739 on Tuesday, May 12,
from 11:00 to noon and make a contribution. Thank you for your support
over the years. Your response to this E-mail will help determine the
success of my new venture, DC Politics with Jonetta, and its longevity.
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CLASSIFIEDS — IN SEARCH OF
12th Street YMCA Summer Day Camp
Lew Berry, photolewie@aol.com
I am trying to locate any of my fellow campers who were at the 12th
Street YMCA Summer Day Camp from 1952-1964. I was a camper during then,
and have only run into a few from those years. It seems to me that there
must be more of you out there in DC still. Send contact info to Lew
Berry, photolewie@aol.com
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