MORE DC NEWS
MAY 2002
DC LEGENDS
It is one of the most popular myths in town that life has gotten demonstratively better since Marion Barry left office. This myth, a favorite of the Washington Post, will undoubtedly get a real workout between now and election day, so it is worth examining a little more closely.
For example, here are a few things that have clearly gotten worse: the ability of poor folk to stay in the city, public health services, the treatment of demonstrators by the MPD, the willingness of government to give away the city to a few developers (and subsidize them for the privilege), and the administration of the Fire Department.
Here are a few things that have seem to have gotten worse: service at the Department of Motor Vehicles, public recreation and libraries (owing to lack of funding), public schools, and anything that has a computer attached to it.
Now here are a few things that seemed to have gotten better: trash pickup and street surfaces.
And one thing that has clearly gotten better, albeit true of most big cities: the crime rate.
Barry was never as bad a mayor - even during his worst personal crises - as many like to say. Perhaps the fairest way to describe Barry is to say that he was better at getting the things done he wanted to get done than was his successor. The problem was that what he wanted to do was not always right or enough, he took too much off the top, and too much time off for the wrong things.
One reason people think Barry was worse than was actually the case is because he became a code word for "black" and those who didn't like the extent of black power in the city could say "Barry" and others of their ilk would understand just what they meant.
Another way to look at this issue is to go to a major source of the myth, the Washington Post, and see what it said people said about the city in its own polls during the last months of the last Barry administration and the same period of the first Williams administration. What follows is the percentage point change in people who felt services were good or excellent in each category in May 1998 and May 2002:
Police + 16
Schools + 8
Streets + 22
Trash pickup + 11
Parks and recreation + 5
DMV + 6A plurality of residents still feel DMV is doing a poor or not good job, 55% feel that way about street repairs, and 59% about the schools.
In short, going from the world's worst mayor ever - so we were told - to the expert, the manager, the ever accountable Anthony Williams has produced at best only a moderate improvement in residents' satisfaction.
THE TRUTH ABOUT
WASHINGTON'S TRAFFIC JAMSCHANA R. SCHOENBERGER, FORBES - We have the technology to reduce traffic congestion. We just don't have the politics. A commute from the Maryland suburbs into Washington, D.C. that should take 60 minutes takes 103 during rush hour. For this waste of time and money you can thank the American Automobile Association. The motorist lobby, along with other militants, last year strong-armed Maryland Governor Parris N. Glendening into killing a plan to charge drivers extra to travel during peak traffic times on the most clogged highways. "It strikes a raw nerve to charge people for these existing facilities," says Mahlon Anderson, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic
. . . "Most people believe--and it's not just politicians--that the roads are out there, we paid for them, it's a public good, and therefore the use of them should be equitable and some people shouldn't get preference in use of the roads relative to others," says Patrick DeCorla-Souza, head of highway pricing at the Federal Highway Administration, which administers $10 million in funding for congestion-pricing pilot projects. DeCorla-Souza figures congestion pricing in the Washington area could bring in $400 million a year in toll revenues while saving drivers $4 billion in time, fuel and repairs over 20 years. Far from penalizing the poor, it could benefit them if (and this is a big "if") the revenue were used to reduce other driving costs, like gasoline taxes. Others would also benefit. Parents racing to avoid a day-care late fee of $1 per minute would gladly pay a $4 toll to save 15 minutes.
LIGHTFOOT THE FAINT HEARTED
Loose Lips has a good run-down this week on William Lightfoot's history of political vacillation that has made him the Bigfoot of local political candidates - oft sighted, but never found.
US CAPITOL POLICE HARASS DC TOURISTS BECAUSE ONE IS WEARING A PALESTINIAN FLAG. AFTER SOME CONSIDERATION, THE OFFICERS DECIDED THAT WEARING A PALESTINIAN FLAG IS NOT A VIOLATION OF THE LAWCAPITAL OF THE FREE WORLD
TERESA DUTTON - I thought perhaps you might be interested in a little altercation with the Capitol Police my husband and I had this past Saturday. We travelled to DC from Baltimore on a bus trip arranged by the American Friends Service Committee. The police behaved well from all we saw throughout the day. We were to meet our bus in front of the Postal Museum across from Union Station. My husband Aaron and I made our way there late in the day and decided to get something to drink in the station before boarding our bus. We left Union Station, saw our bus waiting and crossed the street at which time I decided to buy a hot dog from a vendor on the corner. I was eating my dog and speaking to a very nice Lebanese gentleman when two policemen strode up to me and one with a very angry look said something to the effect "I am going to have to ask you to leave!" Very shortly thereafter my husband heard the commotion, came over to us and asked this cop why was he speaking to me that way to which this cop immediately said to him "come over to the car." One man in our group decided to take some photos of the brouhaha which I think made the cops back off. It was all very peculiar and surreal seeming; why me, I couldn't be more bourgeois looking. And then Aaron and I had a revelation. Aaron was wearing a Palestinian flag. No doubt, someone was offended by the flag and decided to start something. What they did not count on was that we were not alone but with a group and one of the people in the group would take photos. They probably came woofing at me to anger Aaron in the hopes of finding some pretext to arrest him. It was an interesting experience and the photos turned out great.
DC SHORTS
GUY TAYLOR, WASHINGTON TIMES - D.C. school officials are looking into the legal consequences of rehiring a Dunbar Senior High School teacher ordered fired because he violated the Hatch Act when he ran for a seat on the D.C. Council in 2000. . . Officials with the Office of Special Counsel - the federal agency that enforces the Hatch Act and last month sent the order for Mr. Briggs' removal - said rehiring him would be illegal. "If they rehire [Mr. Briggs], we would have to seek enforcement action again," OSC spokeswoman Jane McFarland said. "When you remove an employee, it's clearly not meant to rehire him again a week later."
PLANS FOR WASHINGTON MONUMENT
NATIONAL COALITION TO SAVE OUR MALL - The National Park Service has released an Environmental Assessment for proposed changes to the Washington Monument. The project includes walled walkways encircling the monument (intended to thwart truck bombers); an underground visitor center/security screening center entered through the lodge at 15th Street; and a 500-foot underground tunnel leading from the visitor center into the monument through the monument's 100-year-old concrete foundation. The public has until May 23 to comment. Many of us have serious concerns about the project. Is a tunnel is a wise security measure? Could tunneling into the monument grounds and foundation destabilize the monument (the foundation sits on sand and clay soils)?
NATIONAL COALITION TO SAVE OUR MALL
APRIL 2002
QUESTION OF THE DAY
GARY IMHOFF, DC WATCH - When you apply for a job with the District of Columbia government, you sign a certification on the employment application form that reads, in part: "I understand that a false statement on any part of my application may be grounds for not hiring me, or for firing me after I begin work. I understand that the making of a false statement on this form or materials submitted with this form is punishable by criminal penalties. . . "
That sounds serious. Unless, of course, you're Fire Chief Ronnie Few, or Few's three Assistant Chiefs from East Point, Georgia, or Robert Newman, or Kelvin Robinson, or Sam Kaiser. Unless, of course, you lie to the Williams administration, which temporizes and waffles and hunts for excuses not to enforce the law. . .When I apply for a job in DC government, I'll be sure to mention my Rhodes scholarship, my MacArthur genius award, and the years that I spent as president of IBM before I retired to become a wealthy philanthropist. Can you give me one good reason why I shouldn't?
ARE YOU A DC TERRORIST?
MARA VERHEYDEN-HILLIARD, WASHINGTON PEACE CENTER NEWS - Have you ever participated in nonviolent civil disobedience? Locked down and blocked traffic? Participated in a high-wire banner hang? Then according to the U.S. government, you may be a domestic terrorist. Have you ever been arrested and charged during a demonstration here in Washington, D.C., even when you weren't doing anything unlawful? Depending on the charge, under a bill being considered by the D.C. Council, you may face a minimum of ten years in jail next time around . . . The District of Columbia has introduced its own "anti-terrorism" legislation, though the final version of the bill has not yet been released. The original bill parroted the PATRIOT Act in substantial part and criminalized as "terrorist" non-violent violations of the law, easily encompassing acts of civil disobedience, as well as other violations motivated by a political viewpoint, regardless of the fact that those violations might never intend to, or in actuality, cause harm to human life.
The Council has indicated that it will not go forward with some of the most repressive measures, but the most recently disseminated working draft of the legislation still contains provisions that, if enacted, would jeopardize the ability of persons who engage in the democratic process to express their views without the risk of punitive repercussions. This is of particular concern to activists who participate in demonstrations here in D.C., where in recent years activists have been subject to repressive law enforcement. Paramilitary policing strategies, institutionalized against communities of color, are now routinely used against persons participating in mass demonstrations. In DC, hundreds have been subject to false arrest and preventive detention, others have been beaten bloody while peacefully protesting, while others have been drenched with chemical weapons. People have been arrested and overcharged by prosecutors, often for offenses they did not commit. Now the police and prosecutors may have a new weapon: a new class of political crimes.
The proposed legislation defines an act of terrorism as certain acts intending to "intimidate or coerce a civilian population," or "influence the policy or conduct of a unit of government." Thus the political content accompanying certain acts will trigger minimum ten year penalties. It is important to note that the underlying acts are already considered crimes. All this bill does is add additional penalties and mandatory minimums if certain crimes are carried out with political intent, taking away the ability of judges to evaluate the totality of the circumstances in determining sentencing.
The definitional language regarding influencing the "conduct" of a unit of government is noteworthy, and does not appear in the federal anti-terrorism legislation. It expands the scope of actions falling within the definition of "terrorist" in a way that can include situations between a civilian and an agent of the government, escalating some alleged crimes into acts of terrorism at the government's discretion.
In the working draft of the D.C. Council legislation, [a provision] elevates assault with a dangerous weapon to an "act of terrorism" if it is allegedly carried out with political intentions. Assault with a dangerous weapon - you would never do that, right? But one can imagine a demonstrator being charged for doing nothing more than holding a placard in what a police officer might later claim to be a manner intended to alter his course of conduct. At a demonstration last year, prosecutors charged assault with a dangerous weapon for the burning of a confederate flag. Would that now be terrorism?
[Other sections] define and criminalize as "terrorist" the "provision of material support or resources" in order to create a sweeping net for prosecution. Once a political act, or even a political violation of the law, has been deemed as "terrorist" at the government's discretion, this provision becomes an indiscriminate weapon in the hand of prosecutors. This can create a domino effect of prosecutions: loaning a person five dollars to purchase that confederate flag to burn, handing them a lighter, or perhaps even providing "expert assistance" about the legal ramifications of flag burning could become terrorist acts.
The government asks that we trust that these new laws will not be misused, and that we trust their discretion in applying them. Discretion in the past led to the closure of demonstrators' meeting spaces in April of 2000 with the announcement by Asst. Chief Terrence Gainer that puppet-making materials constituted a Molotov Cocktail and that ingredients for gazpacho in the kitchen was proof of a pepper spray making factory. What if these laws had been on the books then? Would IMF/World Bank demonstrators have been charged as terrorists making weapons of mass destruction?
AS OTHERS SEE US
BRITISH JOURNALIST ROBERT FISK - American college students are tough as nails and bored as cabbages, and in some cities - Washington is top of the list - I might as well talk in Amharic. If you don't use phrases like "peace process", "back on track" or "Israel under siege", there's a kind of computerized blackout on the faces of the audience. Total Disk Failure.
DOWNTOWN BOSSES WANT
ANOTHER SCHOOL BOARD PRESIDENTWASHINGTON POST - It probably came as quite a shock to D.C. School Board President Peggy Cooper Cafritz when business leader and mayoral confidant Terence Golden told her more than a week ago that he and other civic leaders have decided to recruit another candidate to run for the school board presidency in the fall. It must have been equally startling for her to surmise, as she later did, that a possible opponent might be former at-large D.C. Council member William Lightfoot, especially since he had not expressed any interest in running . . . While the mayor publicly says he is "very supportive" of Mrs. Cafritz, his friend and adviser Mr. Golden has described the mayor as being "neutral" on her unseating. Speculation concerning the mayor's position is hardly put to rest when his close confidants, disenchanted with Mrs. Cafritz's stewardship, approach Mr. Lightfoot about becoming a candidate for school board president. And things become all the more intriguing when Mr. Lightfoot expresses, as he did to this page yesterday, an eagerness to run for school board president "if the mayor wants me to." It apparently turns on Mayor Williams.
DC ON ROUTE TO YUCCA MOUNTAiN
TOM RAMSTACK, WASHINGTON TIMES - Federal officials are re-examining their plan to ship nuclear waste to the new Yucca Mountain storage site through major cities, including Washington and Baltimore. The shipments to the storage facility in the Nevada desert would include 312 rail cars that could pass along the CSX Corp. tracks that run beside Washington's L'Enfant Plaza, only blocks from the Capitol. Other shipments could run through a main rail yard on the east side of Baltimore . . . A map of "preliminary routes" chosen by the Energy Department shows that the nuclear waste would travel by rail through the Washington and Baltimore areas and by truck near Baltimore and Richmond. Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said their plans for transporting the nuclear waste were prepared before the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. "We are doing a top-to-bottom review of all of our security requirements, which includes a review of transportation cask vulnerabilities to terrorism," spokeswoman Sue Gagner said . . . Bob Halstead, transportation adviser to the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said he will testify tomorrow that a 1998 test at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland shows that an armor-piercing anti-tank TOW missile could blast a hole in even the strongest of nuclear-waste transportation casks. The missile cut a 4- to 6-inch diameter hole in a rail cask, he said. The smaller truck casks are even more vulnerable. A TOW missile penetrating a nuclear-waste storage cask "could cause 3,000 to 18,000 latent cancer fatalities" in an average urban area, Mr. Halstead said in testimony submitted to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. "Cleanup and recovery costs would exceed $10 billion." material. A 120-ton rail cask would carry about 10 tons of spent radioactive fuel.
DC BLOWS TOBACCO MONEY ON DEFICIT
MILES BENSON, NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE - Squeezed for revenue because of the economic downturn, many state governments are diverting tobacco settlement funds to fill budget gaps instead of spending the money on anti-smoking programs that health experts say would prevent many deaths, much suffering and huge future medical costs to taxpayers. As of the end of 2001, only seven states were financing smoking cessation efforts at the minimum levels recommended by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile, critics complain that promises about how the tobacco money would be used have vanished like smoke in the wind. "I call it moral treason," said Mike Moore, the Mississippi attorney general who launched the lawsuit that forced the tobacco industry to agree to pay the 50 states and the District of Columbia $246 billion over a 25-year period. "We won this huge victory against the tobacco industry and all of a sudden it becomes a hollow victory because most of the states are just spending the money on highways or tax relief or whatever the political item of the day is, and that's not what this lawsuit was about," Moore said.
It happens because decisions about the way the funds are used were left to "political processes" in each state, said William H. Sorrell, the Vermont attorney general who heads the tobacco committee of the National Association of Attorneys General. "It's a big cookie jar," Sorrell said. The settlement payments are legally unfettered, so "the political appetite is to use the money for today's problems," he said. "I think it's really unfortunate, but it's what legislators and governors are doing. It's their authority to do it." . . .
The CDC recommends that states spend between 20 percent and 25 percent of their tobacco settlement funds on tobacco control programs. By that standard, "the most disappointing" jurisdictions, according to the nonpartisan Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, are Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.
"As they face budget shortfalls, some states are using settlement funds previously committed to tobacco prevention to balance their budgets," said Joel Spivak, a spokesman for the campaign. "These are penny-wise, pound-foolish decisions that ignore the conclusive evidence that tobacco prevention programs not only reduce smoking and save lives, but also save far more money than they cost by reducing smoking-caused health care expenditures."
DC SHORTS
LISA 'TOO FIERCE' FOSTER
JOHN WILSON III, DC CHRONICLES - Washington, DC's own Lisa "Too Fierce" Foster has signed to fight for the IFBA Women's Junior Featherweight Championship May 15th in New Orleans, the culmination of five long years of training and fighting. The fight will be televised on Fox Sports Net. Lisa will fight the former Canadian Amateur Champion and former IFBA Junior Bantamweight Champion Kathy "Thunder" Williams . . . Foster, 34, is a very busy woman. She owns Too Fierce Boxing & Fitness at 5517 Colorado Ave., NW in Washington, DC, where she conducts classes in boxing, body sculpting, and cardio kickboxing. An accomplished and in-demand personal trainer, her clients are primarily professional women . . . After watching a fight in 1997 featuring well-known female boxer Christy Martin, she found her calling. All she needed was a gym in which to work out and to be trained. After three months of trying, often being refused permission to train to box because, she was told, boxing was "not for women" she found a gym in midtown Washington, DC. Nine months later she had the first of her two amateur fights. Her second fight got her into the quarter-finals of the 1998 Women's National Championships. FOSTER
EARNING CASH ON THE HILL
STACIE SPENCER, DC CHRONICLES - In need of extra cash, Precious McDaniels, a 29-year-old office assistant and Maryland resident, took the advice of a friend and joined a world unknown to many--linestanding . . . Linestanders wait in line to enter congressional hearings at any one of the senate or house office buildings located on Capitol Hill. Their job is to reserve space for lawyers or lobbyist who are unable to stand in line for long periods of time . . . Linestanders are paid $10-$14 per hour . . . At any time during the day or night, a linestander can be called . . . A linestander can wait in line anywhere from a few minutes before a hearing to a few days.
GETTING COPS TO BEHAVE I
From our national editionONE OF THE ASTONISHING THINGS about the recent demonstrations in Washington is how much better the Metropolitan Police Department behaved compared to its unconstitutional, abusive, illegal, and counterproductive handling of the last large protests in April 2000.
The story, while local in nature, has more general applicability for two reasons: (1) we don't get that much good news these days and (2) the good news in this case appears to have occurred because of some important but little noted developments that may be instructive to others around the country. These developments suggest the importance of a community response to police misbehavior that is aggressive, multi-partisan, thoughtfully conceived, repetitive, and well organized.
The DC police outrages of April 2000 have been far from its only problems. For example, a Washington Post investigation found gross overuse of guns by DC cops. Another story revealed thousands of e-mails sent within the department that contained language that was ethnically or sexually insulting. And serious questions were raised about the training of officers and their behavior on the streets, including the treatment of blacks and gays.
Responding to these problems were a number of organizations including the local ACLU, the Gay and Lesbian Activist Alliance, and a taskforce of the NAACP. The latter group, on which I sit, has been particularly interesting because in this often balkanized capital, the taskforce - organized by black talk show host Mark Thompson - has brought together a variety of interest groups such as the ACLU, GLAA, and NAACP, but also including Ron Hampton, director of the National Black Police Association, organizations involved in justice issues, and, for a while, even a couple of recently forced-out top officials of the department. This eclecticism has been useful, not just to add political clout, but also to vary the perspectives within the group. In one case, I was severely chastised for my criticisms of the police handling of April 2000 by the representative of the GLAA whose constituency includes urban gentrifiers who were quite content with the MPD actions during the protests. Another example: matters that might inspire undirected anger are given a legally remedial focus by the ACLU's participation.
Among the achievements of the reform effort has been the creation of a civilian complaint review board, which - though not as strong as some of us would like - adds another watchdog. Further, the problems of the department became so serious that they have also forced it to deal with the Justice Department which recently assigned a federal monitor to oversee the department's use of force for the next five years. Finally, the city is blessed with a number of fine civil liberties lawyers - including those from the National Lawyers Guild and the Partnership for Civil Justice - who are still pressing the case against the department for its April 2000 abuses.
In short, the department has been bracketed so that wherever it turns someone is on their case. This despite a local media that generally fawns over Chief Charles Ramsey and his assistant, Terrance Gainer; a mayor generally indifferent to issues of police misbehavior; and a president and Congress who think that anything a cop does short of mainlining cocaine on the beat is just fine with them.
As noted here before, Ramsey and Gainer are Chicago imports, the latter having gained some of his training during the notorious 1968 Democratic convention police riot. Their handling of April 2000 brought shame not only on the city generally but on a department that had usually - the police riot of May 1971 being the one exception - treated demonstrators with the respect and care they deserved. Further, they hired out of town officers used to a more bullying form of policing than was the tradition in DC. One group of latino citizens were told by an officer, "We own the street."
The department has paid for it in law suits, investigations, major exposes, a formal memorandum of understanding with the Justice Department, and a federal monitor.
Still, the recent demonstrations provide confirmation of what others have found on less dramatic matters: Ramsey and his department can learn and will respond given enough well applied pressure. And, as one of his severest critics, for that I give him credit.
For example, a few weeks before the protests, I reluctantly attended a NAACP task force meeting called - somewhat futilely I thought - to discuss the use of force with two officers assigned to the issue: Assistant Chief Kim Dine and Inspector Joshua Erderheimer, commanding office of the force investigation team. To my surprise I found two men who spoke as plainly, reasonably, and directly as any I have run across of late in either local or national government. They clearly took their job seriously and they dealt with the facts and our discussion straight forwardly, which something of a lost art in government these days.
And it was the department itself that went to the Justice Department and asked for help. Law Enforcement News reported, "Unlike other cities which have accepted federal monitoring of local law enforcement only as a way of staving off litigation by the Justice Department, the District of Columbia welcomed government oversight that for the next five years will monitor excessive-force incidents by its Metropolitan Police Department . . . A series by The Washington Post reported that D.C. police officers had shot and killed more people per resident during the 1990s, a total of 85, than any other major city in the nation . . ."
The Washington Post explained, "By agreement between the police and the U.S. Justice Department, an independent monitor was appointed last year to oversee the police force for five years. The agreement includes an elaborate computer program to track officers' conduct, changes in training programs, mandatory firearms training sessions and creation of a force investigation team in the police department. If D.C. police violate the agreement, the Justice Department can sue."
Whether Ramsey changed his way of handling demonstrations because of outside pressure - such as from the Justice Department monitor - or whether he had decided on his own to try a different approach is not clear. But it represents a major shift in tone, attitude and substance and, at least in part, reflects the efforts of a large number of local individuals and groups to make the police behave at least as well as they expect us to. And if it can happen here, it can happen elsewhere. - SAM SMITH
GETTING COPS TO BEHAVE II
ALEXANDER HAMILTON, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY [to the first officers of the Revenue Marine, forerunner of the US Coast Guard] - While I recommend in the strongest terms to the respective officers, activity, vigilance and firmness, I feel no less solicitude that their deportment may be marked with prudence, moderation and good temper . . . They will bear in mind that their countrymen are freemen, and as such are impatient of everything that bears the least mark of domineering spirit. They will, therefore refrain, with the most guarded circumspection, from whatever has the semblance of haughtiness, rudeness or insult. If obstacles occur, they will remember that they are under the particular protection of the laws and they can meet with nothing disagreeable in the execution of their duty which these will not severely reprehend . . . This reflection, and regard to the good of the service, will prevent at all times a spirit of irritation or resentment. They will endeavor to overcome difficulties, if any are experienced, by a cool and temperate perseverance in their duty -- by address and moderation rather than by vehemence and violence.
THEN MAYBE THEY SHOULD HAVE PICKED
RABBITS AND DINOSAURS INSTEADLETTER TO WASHINGTON POST - The "Party Animals" project featuring artistic sculptures of donkeys and elephants to be displayed starting next week is all about art, not politics, as some have suggested. Through our partnership with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Washington, more than a dozen children spent their entire spring breaks painting two of these sculptures. They dreamed about the careers they want to pursue and painted them on the sculptures. More than 3,500 associations in this region represent all these careers, so it's a great tie-in to our community. It will be a shame if these children are denied the opportunity to participate in this project because of politics. Susan Sarfati, President and CEO, Greater Washington Society Of Association Executives
MAYBE THE MAYOR COULD CLAIM HE
ISN'T A POLITICAL ANIMAL, EITHERLOCAL DEMOCRATS are upset with Mayor Williams for hosting a party for Connie Morella, but that's only because they think he's a Democrat. After all, he ran as a man with no fixed residence, so having no fixed party isn't much of a step. And, as we mentioned before, we hear reports that he hopes to line up a job with the Bush administration.
