Community Happenings: Ward 2 townhall with Mayor Gray; Book Event with U Street Historian; DC Scores art gala

A few community notes of interest to pass along:

This Monday, May 9, DC Councilmember Jack Evans and all Ward 2 ANCs will co-host a town hall meeting with DC mayor Vince Gray to discuss the mayor's 2012 budget proposal. The event will take place Monday, May 9 at 7 PM at the Immaculate Conception Church at 1315 8th Street NW in Shaw.

An email distributed by ANC2F had this to say abot the event:

This coming Monday, May 9, 2011, our Mayor is holding a town hall meeting to present and discuss his 2012 budget for the District. Your Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2F is co-hosting this meeting and urges your attendance. This will be an opportunity to show our concern over the budget and to give the Mayor our thoughts on it.

I believe it holds several serious defects:

1. Our police chief, Kathy Lanier, whom we generally hold in high regard, has chosen to make cuts in prostitution enforcement throughout the City. As you know, our area is a center for prostitution in D.C. Far from being a victimless crime, prostitution plagues our community with its associated crime and health problems. MPD has already abolished the central prostitution unit, which had become increasingly effective. Despite MPD assurances to the contrary, enforcement efforts will decline, particularly when we move into the prostitution spike which comes each summer.

2. The education budget includes funds to reinstall most of the middle management personnel who in fact do very little in the school system. Education in our community is a number one priority; we want to see the money go for front line facilities, good teachers and refurbishing of the decaying structures of the schools in our area.

3. The income tax increase is insupportable. DC Residents already bear one of the highest tax burdens in the nation. Increasing taxes in D.C. adds injury to the insult already visited on us by a Congress which will not even permit us to vote.

Whether or not one agrees with the points raised by ANC2F above, this is a unique opportunity to express your opinions on these and other important issues facing the District. For more information, please contact Kenyon Churchwell at 202.727.2822 or kenyon.churchwell@dc.gov.

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Can't get enough Jack Evans and DC politics? Congratulations--you're in luck! Next Monday, May 16, the Ward 2 Democrats will be hosting a meeting with Councilman Evans to discuss the District's upcoming redistricting plan. Every ten years, like other jurisdictions, the District examines census data in each of the city's eight wards and sets ward district boundaries accordingly. Although, as with most politically sensitive issues, things are rarely that simple.

According to the Ward 2 Dems statements about the event:

At the meeting Jack Evans will give us a briefing on the status of the re-districting as a result of the 2010 census and will take your questions and comment on the process. Re-districting will affect the boundaries of Ward 2 and the ANCs and is of interest to all of us involved in politics, so it should be an interesting and lively meeting.

(Note: "Lively" meeting is codespeak for "expect the expression of more strong opinions than at an ANC liquor license protest.")

The Dems are asking for comments or questions in advance of the meeting for issues that residents would like to discuss. You are encouraged to contact Chairman Patrick Allen (pallen39@verizon.net) with your ideas.

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Those of you who are curious about the history of our neighborhood--particularly U Street--would be well-advised to seek out local historian Blair Ruble's book, "Washington's U Street: A Biography," an intensely fascinating and thorough examination of the history of our neighborhood.

Mr. Ruble will be in attendance at this week's U Street Neighborhood Association meeting to talk about his book. The discussion will take place from 7:00 to 7:30 PM, after which time the USNA will hold their regular meeting. Meetings are free (although donations are accepted) and held at the Thurgood Marsahll Center at 1816 12th Street NW.

More information can be found at the USNA's website.

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Finally, next Wednesday, May 18, local nonprofit DC Scores! will host their Inspired Art Gallery at the Corcoran. The event will feature the works of local and national artists, including U Street's Isabelle Spicer.

More details can be found below, and at DC Scores website.

WHAT: Join DC SCORES for an evening of student voice and artistic vision at the second annual Inspired Art Gala, featuring a silent auction and showcasing the talents of DC SCORES youth and area professionals through spoken word performances. More than 200 guests are expected to attend the gala in support of DC SCORES' unique focus on creative expression and poetry for students across the District.

WHEN: Wednesday, May 18, 2011, 7-10 p.m.

WHERE: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 500 17th St., NW Washington, DC 20006

TICKETS: $200. See the event website for ticket and sponsorship information

DETAILS: The Inspired Art Gala provides artists with the unique opportunity to support the instruction and cultivation of creative expression through poetry among DC SCORES poet-athletes. The unique silent auction features works of art created by local and national artists inspired by the poetry of DC SCORES poet-athlete. Poetry readings by DC SCORES’ most outstanding students cap off the night.

The event will honor Beverly Perry, Vice-President of Pepco Holdings, Inc., and Congresswoman Mary Fudge as the recipients of the evening’s Inspiration Award recognizing individuals whose leadership in the Washington, DC community directly or indirectly inspires creative, athletic, and/or civic growth of Washington, DC youth.

"Navigating" DC's budget: What does $90,000 get you?

EDIT - 02/22: ...and Kwame keeps on digging. WCP's Loose Lips has more on Kwame's apparent confusion as to how two Lincoln Navigators ended up making their way to DC. Best quote? "It's a possibility that someone said hey, 'he wants it fully loaded,' and that's why I take full responsibility."

You just can't make this stuff up.

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EDIT: DCist's Martin Austermuhle has a similar piece today which delves into more specifics.

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DC is facing a $175 million budget shortfall for its FY 2011 budget. That the city is facing a shortfall isn't unusual in light of the ongoing economic turmoil: many jurisdictions around the country are facing similar budget crunches, and responding in myriad ways. But it's during these times of fiscal crisis that people start paying a bit more attention to the things our tax dollars are paying for. This is particularly true in local politics, where the use of tax dollars is more visible than at the national level.

One of the hallmarks of mayor Vince Gray's 2010 campaign victory over then-mayor Adrian M. Fenty was Gray's repeated calls for transparency, openness and an end to the cronyism he claimed was rampant in the Fenty administration.

In fact, I'll let Gray tell you himself. From his mayoral campaign website, which has been taken offline but which resides for all eternity in Google's cache (emphasis mine):

"If we’re going to accomplish any of our goals – real school reform, jobs for every District resident, and safer communities – we need to restore a public trust in the mayor’s office that has been shattered.

And with good reason.

It seems like every day there’s another story in the newspaper about mismanaged public dollars and shady deals.

...

We were promised transparency and openness, but instead see sweetheart deals and cronyism, and millions of dollars of contracts secretly funneled through back channels to prevent public scrutiny and Council oversight."

Kwame brown adopts a similar tone on his campaign website:

"As Council Chairman, Kwame will ensure that the D.C. City Council remains a strong, independent voice for District residents through open, transparent, and accountable governance. He will lead a unified Council to promote policies that improve the everyday lives of District residents across all eight Wards. By adopting a good, common sense approach to government, he is confident that the Council will remain accountable to those it serves."

Sounds great. After all, who wouldn't want to take a swipe at the mismanagement of public funds and cronyism? Gray and DC Council Chairman Kwame Brown seem ready to lead the charge.

Only, as they say, the devil is in the details. Or, in Gray and Brown's case, the devil is in the SUVs.

News broke this weekend, via the local politico tag-team of the Post's Mike DeBonis and the City Paper's Alan Suderman, that DC taxpayers are footing a bill for over $90,000 a year in lease payments for cars for both Brown and Gray. This includes a fully loaded Lincoln Navigator for Gray, along with a Lincoln Town Car for staff use, and two fully loaded Lincoln Navigators for Brown--including one rejected by Brown because it had the wrong interior color (gray, rather than the black he had specifically requested), but which DC is still on the hook for throughout the majority of 2011. Keep in mind, the $90,000 bill is simply for lease payments; it doesn't include things like insurance, maintenance, fuel and other costs associated with owning the vehicles.

Gray's fully loaded Navigator alone is costing taxpayers nearly $1,900/month in lease payments. (It's worth noting that Adrian Fenty's SmartCar, while paid for by the city, cost only $18,000--a practical pittance compared with the cost of the Navigators requested by Gray and Brown.) And this from the man who decried the "mismanaged public dollars" that led to a supposed shattering in the trust DC residents had with the mayor's office.

Aside from the general sleeziness of the Navigator requests (which includes Brown's refusal to own up to requesting the Navigator(s) in the first place. And really, Kwame? A full entertainment system? Aluminum wheels?), there's a deeper question here: why are DC taxpayers footing the bill for such perks for Council Members at a time when the District is facing such a mounting deficit? After all, Gray is making approximately $200,000 per year as mayor of DC, and Brown is bringing in $190,000--both well in excess of both the city and area's median incomes.

A recent Pew Research report examined the perks and costs of running the city councils of 15 major cities across the country. The annual operating costs for the DC Council, at over $19 million, make it the second-highest in the country, behind only Los Angeles, and its per-resident cost of over $32 squashes the competition. And while the report notes that DC does not provide a car for use by its councilmembers, it does provide a stipend and reimbursement--which works out to being essentially the same thing. There is an argument to be made that the DC Council must assume responsibilities that, in other cities, are handled by the state. But that doesn't absolve the Council from a close scrutiny of their expenses, including the provision of a stipend for the purchase and upkeep of cars for councilmembers.

The FY2011 DC budget includes a line item of $2.56 million for "Council Benefits," which includes items like car stipends. This represents a 2.5% decrease from the FY2010 budget. Meanwhile, the District's Department of Mental Health saw a 9.2% cut in its budget (and a cut of nearly 20% from FY2009 levels). In fact, buried within the FY2011 Human Services budget are all kinds of goodies: an elimination of an over $1 million fund for the Low Income Energy Assistance Program; a $3.4 million cut to the Interim Disability Assistance fund; a $292,000 cut to the General Children's Assistance fund; a transfer of over $1.7 million from reserves into the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, and so on.

In fact, in the Council's proposed FY2011 budget gap-closing plan, not one cent is devoted to cuts in DC Council Benefits.

All the while, the mayor who advocates sound fiscal management has been on a hiring spree of late, and according to a recent Washington Post story has been routinely exceeding the District's salary cap on senior staffers. This includes a $180,000 salary for Gray's interim Human Resources Director Judy Banks--who happens to be a personal friend of Gray advisor Lorraine Greene, and whose salary exceeds the District's cap for the position.

Gray argues that such salaries, and an increase in senior level positions, are necessary in order to recruit and retain competent people for the District government. But, one must wonder where "fiscal responsibility" and "recruitment of competent people" end, and profligacy and cronyism begins? With Gray and Brown, the lines seem to blur.

No one is arguing that Brown and Gray's auto stipends are driving the city into an economic crisis. But in politics, especially local politics, the so-called "optics" matter. What are we to make of a mayor who ran on a campaign of transparency and fiscal responsibility requesting that the city procure luxury vehicles for his and his staff's use, and who routinely hires friends and "confidants" for senior positions while exceeding the District's pay caps? What are we to make of the head of our Council--a Council which already boasts one of the highest operating costs in the nation--claiming ignorance as to how District taxpayers ended up footing the bill for two fully loaded luxury SUVs for his use, while presiding over a $175 million budget shortfall?

For the residents of the city who put Gray and Brown into office because they thought they would be better stewards of the city's resources, and believed they would be more receptive to their needs and concerns, $90,000 can provide an awful lot by way of city services. For the likes of Gray and Brown, it simply provides them a way to get around town.

Courtland Milloy's selective memory

Courtland Milloy wants us all to just get along.

The venerable Post columnist, who blasts users of social media while maintaining a Facebook profile, questions today why it takes a tragedy like the Tucson shootings to ostensibly bring people together and bemoans the fact that DC residents don't take heed of the killings going on right at our doorstep.

The homicide of a little-known Hispanic man has about as much chance of generating widespread sympathy as, say, the death of a resident of Juarez, Mexico, by people wielding firearms bought in the United States. We just don't see the connection to us, as if they are not part of our human family.

For most of us, the lives of the Morenos of the world aren't worth so much as a blip on our emotional radar. We discount their deaths as easily as we do those of civilians in Afghanistan who get killed by our missiles, fired from drones as easily as we fire off nasty anonymous notes via e-mail.

TBD has already performed a rather thorough takedown of Milloy's apparent technological inadequacies, but that's not my point. The man who today laments "that our current state of goodwill is not expected to last" is the same man who, only four months ago, decried the "myopic little twits" (affluent Fenty supporters) who patronize "chic new eateries" and "(fired) up their "social media" networks" whenever Adrian Fenty was supposedly under attack.

In the wake of Vince Gray's defeat of Fenty in the Democratic primary, it was Milloy encouraging those who "need more time to gloat and wave their fists" to, in his words, "take it".

One wonders whether the January 2011 Courtland Milloy, with his calls for a toning down of political rhetoric and an increase in restraint and civility, would be at all bothered by the September 2010 Courtland Milloy, who accused Fenty and his supporters of seeking to "re-create a more sophisticated version of the plantation-style, federally appointed three-member commission that ruled the city for more than a century."

Death panels? Fenty the Plantation Master? Both to me seem to be branches of the same rhetorical tree.

Not that the January 2011 Courtland Milloy doesn't have a point. Yes, the Tucson shootings were indeed a tragedy, but so is the fact that Prince George's County is averaging practically a homicide a day, as is the fact that the nation's capital--despite tremendous improvements--maintains one of the nation's highest murder rates. It shouldn't take the tragic murder of six people, and the shooting of 14 others, including a congresswoman, to remind us that all human life is valuable, argues Milloy.

No, it shouldn't. But, pray tell, what separates the charged rhetoric at the heart of the current national debate--the us-versus-them mentality, the vilification of those with whom we disagree as not simply different from us, but as people who actively seek to do harm and who must be stopped--from the heated rhetoric and "suck on it" attitude adopted by the likes of Milloy to describe the recent mayoral race and its implications on the city's ongoing metamorphosis?

If there's a line there, it's blurred beneath a cloud of inciteful, overheated rhetoric.

Do as I say, not as I do, Courtland?

Vince Gray = Tea Partier?

Yeah, seems a bit of a stretch to me too.

But you tell me what this screenshot from the Huffington Post this morning is implying:

O Street Market to Break Ground Wednesday

Holy mixed-use developments, Batman. One of the city's most long-awaited projects is set to break ground tomorrow.



Via DC Mud, "Citymarket at O" developer Roadside Development will officially break ground on the project, located at O and 9th streets NW in Shaw, tomorrow afternoon. This being election season and all, it seems that a number of city politicos--including mayor Adrian Fenty and mayoral candidate Vincent Gray will be in attendance, along with other neighborhood and community leaders. (Over-under that Fenty and Gray get in a shoving match over the rights to overturn the first spade of dirt?)

We've written in depth about this project before, but here's the quick recap:

Back in 2007, Roadside sought--and received--HPRB approval for their nearly 1 million sf project bounded by 7th, 9th, O and P streets. The project will feature a new 71,000 sf Giant store, over 600 residences, senior housing, a boutique hotel, and other commercial space.

The Giant store is scheduled to close in January 2011, and will reopen in early 2013.

In short, this project is immense and has the potential to be the single greatest catalyst for change in Shaw to date. In the meantime, expect to see a substantial amount of construction going on at the site for the forseeable future.