Since NARPAC, Inc.'s inception, we have communicated with individuals in the Washington area who have the authority to make the District a better place. Each letter or fax has contained some suggestions consistent with the overall objectives of the organization.

Correspondence is also available on line for :

• 70. Posting to 'Themail' re Misstating DC Exodus
• 69. Speaker of the House re Revised DC Oversight
• 68. Chair, New School Bd re School Redesign
• 67. Posting to 'Themail' re Congressional Relations with DC
• 66. Chair, Control Board re Congressional Relations with DC
• 65. Chair, Control Board re 'Scenario 4' for DC's Future
• 64. Posting to 'Themail' re Wasting Scarce Space and Resources
• 63. Posting to 'Themail' re Problems with Infill
• 62. Posting to 'Themail' re Ackerman's Resignation
• 61. DC Office of Planning re Anacostia Waterfront Initiative
• 60. Tom Brokaw, NBC re Inaccurate "Fleecing of America" Segment on DC
• 59. Posting to 'Themail' re Inflated Voter Registry
• 58. Postings to 'Themail' re An Official Mayoral Residence
• 57. Posting to 'Themail' re "Saving DC's Kids"
• 56. Chairman, DC Subcommittee, House Gov't Operations
• 55. Editors, Washington Post re National Harbor Project

There are two larger issues which deserve your attention as the 107th Congress puts together its operational plan, and as the DC Control Board phases out:

1) The Constitution may oblige Congress to oversee DC affairs and budgets, but it surely does not require it to exercise that oversight through four disparate subcommittees made up of members with clear conflicts of interest, and idiosyncratic personal political agendas.

2) Many of DC's fundamental problems flow not from their inability to govern themselves, but from the uneven socioeconomic playing field within the national capital metro area. The Congress lacks any focal point for ameliorating common US inner-city- vs-suburbs inequities.

NARPAC has long proposed that Congress replace its four DC oversight subcommittees with a single Joint Committee on Metro Areas and DC. We now recognize that this may pre-empt other more practical solutions.

Hence, we urge you to authorize a Congressional Commission on Federal Relations with DC and US Metro Areas, to find a mechanism for resolving these both local and national ills.

68. Letter to New Chair, DC School Bd re Redesigning DC Schools, Dec 15, 2000

NARPAC, Inc. congratulates you on your election as president of DC's new Board of Education. As a non-profit organization dedicated to restoring pride in America's capital city, we believe all Americans should be able to take pride in DC's public schools.

We share your views on school modernization: you were recently quoted in the Washington Post as favoring adding civic functions to modernized DCPS facilities rather than reducing the number of under-utilized schools. NARPAC supports that approach.

We have supported changing the school board, creating charter schools, and rebuilding the inefficient DCPS physical infrastructure. We have also suggested that school maintenance become at least in part a city rather than school system responsibility. Most of our views are expressed on our educational web site at www.narpac.org.

NARPAC believes school system can only overcome DC kids' difficulties in learning if much more is done to ease their difficulties in living. Hence we espouse integrating neighborhood blight removal with schoolroom blight removal. We suggest that DC's reconstructed schools become integral parts of their communities, not only educating the kids, but providing adult education, workforce retraining, good health/family practices, park maintenance, and/or public safety training--perhaps even with integral police substations.

The only way to maintain relatively low-enrollment schools at a reasonable cost may be to share facility and staff costs with other civic functions that can pay their way. This might include, say, off-duty nurses and cops acting as coaches and counselors, or school staff helping with other on-site city government functions.

67. Posting to 'TheMail' re Congressional Relations with DC Oct 29, 2000

A Rare Opportunity Lies Immediately Ahead

The short-term future of DC lies in the ability of the current DC Government to get its management act together and make demonstrable progress in reducing the still- evident dysfunctionality of its bureaucracy. But the long-term future of DC lies in the hands of Congress. As a result of the Supreme Court ruling, we now know that only Congress can improve DC's voting representation in Congress. Only Congress can take the overdue steps to revamp its oversight processes and stop treating DC like its whipping boy. And only Congress can take the steps needed to eliminate the conflicts of interest that deny a level playing field between our core city and the rest of the metro area. There is as yet no single recognized solution to these three interrelated issues, though several partial fixes are being proffered.

In the short period between Election Day and Inauguration Day, the Congress often takes the major steps needed to change its modus operandi for the next four years. DC's Mayor, the DC Council, the DC Control Board, the DC Delegate, and sympathetic members of the 'dregs' DC subcommittees should all make it unmistakably clear that some changes in Congress's relations with the District are essential. At the very least, the Congress should empower a Commission to redefine Congressional relations with the District. At the most, they should immediately (by caucus) restore Delegate Norton's voting rights, and replace the four outdated oversight subcommittees with some other mechanism for overseeing the major problems that afflict DC and other US metro areas. As those who visit NARPAC's web site know, we prefer a Joint House/Senate Committee, but there are doubtless other approaches as well. It's high time to sort them out and upgrade the citizens of America's Capital City to first class.

66. Letter to Control Board Chair, re Congressional Relations with DC, Oct. 25, 2000

Just as the city's leaders should be thinking about the future directions for DC--(see letter immediately below)--NARPAC believes that Congress should be thinking about the future directions of its relations with DC. There are important issues to be resolved:

o providing some sort of meaningful DC vote in the Congress--since the courts won't;

o stimulating solutions to the crippling imbalance in "regional poverty sharing"; and

o mitigating the demoralizing impact of Congressional "micro-oversight" of DC affairs.

With the impending change in administration and Congress, the time seems right to consider major changes in the committee/subcommittee structure. This might be done by either some new majority caucus in the two months immediately following the election, or by establishing some sort of impeccable "Commission on Improving Congressional Relations with the Nation's Capital City".

Again, you are in a unique position to raise this key issue re DC's future, and there is a unique opportunity as the Administration and Congress regroup to start anew.

65., Letter to Control Board Chair, re 'Scenario 4' for DC's Future Oct 24, 2000

NARPAC wants to congratulate you on raising the fundamental questions about what direction the future economic demography of the nation's capital city should be encouraged to take. Since our inception, we have been pushing to shift the balance away from net tax consumers and towards net tax providers in order to reduce the providers' burden.

We agree with the three scenarios put forward in your recent NABE talk... But we believe there is a strong--albeit sensitive--Scenario 4, involving what we call "regional poverty sharing". With well under 20% of the region's taxpayers, DC now has over 50% of its biggest tax consumers.

We estimate that at most 20% of DC's revenues (excluding federal grants) is consumed by transients (commuters, tourists, business visitors, etc.) while at least 80% is spent on DC residents and businesses. However, at least three-quarters of that 80% (i.e., almost 60% of DC's total revenues) is consumed by the city's 150,000 poorest.

Hence DC could become financially competitive if its population were simply reduced by, say, half of its poorest residents. This would require a strong regional approach to poverty-sharing--through such measures as affordable housing near suburban commercial centers, etc. We think this alternative, difficult as it may be, needs airing too.

This is clearly a scenario that must be addressed by a regional body, probably at the instigation of the Congress. We believe you are in a unique position to raise this key issue and hope you will do so before stepping down next spring.

64. Posting to 'TheMail' re Wasting Scarce Space and Resources in DC, Oct 15, 2000

Wasting Scarce Space and Resources

While 'themail' regulars fret about the near-moronic TV version of "The District", the real world District is proving that truth is even weirder. In the last week, three new schemes have surfaced for wasting DC's limited space and consuming its limited home-grown and federal resources.

First, a respected DC city planner has suggested tearing down the SE Freeway (SEF) and burying it, while re-inventing Virginia Ave, but leaving the SW Freeway as it is. That 4.9 Zillion dollars (est) would be much better spent by: a) making the Freeway porous with under/overpasses; b) building a new Metrorail link from Navy Yard to Potomac Ave; c) building clever intermodal parking sites at the intersection of Rt 395 and SEF, and in the lost triangle between SEF and Water St (with gainful uses atop them); and d) burying South Capitol St to unite the SE/SW M Street Corridor.

Second, three Council members want to replace the run-down DC General Hospital with a much smaller non-PBC unit, merged with a private hospital, but still located on the city-owned oversized DC General campus. Surely there is a more productive use for that prime real estate: maybe a baseball stadium with paying fans or a highrise business/residential riverfront complex. The revamped hospital could go on the Southeast bank of the Anacostia, or become an adjunct part of a major medical facility on the equally wasted St. Elizabeth's site.

Third, a panel is about to recommend building a huge new garbage transfer site at DC's southern tip bordering the Potomac and Oxon Cove (currently the impounding lot), and wafting over to Maryland's planned upscale National Harbor Project. Surely such transfer sites should become common regional assets away from prime potentially productive DC real estate.

63. Posting to 'TheMail' re Problems with Infill in DC, Sept 13, 2000

More on Infills--One Ingredient in the Good Witch's Brew

John Neisen raised an interesting question (9/03) about whether infill is a good or bad witch: I think it is an essential ingredient in the larger brew needed to cure the District's ailments. To remain economically solvent, competitive, and give tax relief to its relatively few taxpayers, DC must attract more upscale homeowners and taxpaying businesses onto its limited landspace. Neighborhood initiatives must include a mix of options for increasing public revenues, not just increasing public spending. The easiest and quickest of these options is infill, and residents need to find ways to accept it--within realistic limits to avoid 'overfill'. But the best 'witch's brew' will require other strong ingredients as well.

The problem, of course, is that every acre is somebody's adopted backyard, and every neighborhood wants to stay the way it is (or once was). But several approaches now require positive neighborhood consideration: besides a) adopting realistic zoning limits for 'infill', these include: b) actively pressing the city to eliminate the vast number of junk properties marring the city's landscape and to make those spaces available for 'refill' by replacement or upgrading; c) encouraging rather than fighting off high-density, high-productivity business and residential 'upfill' developments around metro stations (and expanding those stations as needed); and d) encouraging government agencies, non-profits and embassies to increase indirect revenue generation by inviting public access and use of their properties and installations (viz., the tax-exempt Smithsonian and FBI help bring millions of visitors to DC). Finally, e) constituents must urge elected officials to demand more poverty-sharing (viz., affordable housing). from DC's wealthy suburbs. One way or another, DC must continue to 'defill' the areas overwhelmed by poverty and all that comes with it--and runs from it.

62. Posting to 'TheMail' re DCPS Superintendent Ackerman's Resignation, May 19th, 2000

Activists: One, DC Kids: Zero
Score one for the activists and political grandstanders who think Ackerman's number one job was to embrace cockamamie short-term panaceas from amateurs in the gallery and the legislature, rather than to save DC's kids over the long haul. Mrs. Ackerman may not have been the best superintendent in the subset eligible for senior jobs in DC, but she may well have been the best professional academic willing to take it. The chances of doing better next time are surely reduced. Some loss in reform momentum appears inevitable, and a few thousand more kids could well slip down the drain.

61. FAX to Ms. Toni Griffin, DC Office of Planning, re Anacostia Waterfront Initiative, May 3rd, 2000

I was both pleased and disappointed by Saturday's Anacostia Waterfront Initiative meeting. Clearly, it is a terrific initiative and can play a prominent role in DC's near- term development. But the growing mantra that neighborhoods should have the last (only?) say in urban development seems impractical. Surely neighborhood inputs are necessary but not sufficient without some overarching city/region-wide long-range goals: these seemed to be missing from the agenda, representation at the briefing, and the questions posed.

We believe DC will become economically self-sufficient and competitive only when: a) DC develops cooperative mechanisms for wealth- and poverty-sharing with its richer suburbs; b) Wards 6, 7, and 8 produce as much tax revenue as they consume; and c) the metro area's "Southeast Quadrant" (SEQ) is targeted for development.

These conditions will require substantial changes in DC land use--particularly in arbitrarily-held municipal and federal properties (mostly east of the river), and a far more robust SEQ transportation plan radially, circumferentially, and transversely. Both of these impact significantly on the AWI and the issues the neighborhoods need to address.

60. Letter to Tom Brokaw, NBC Nightly News re Inaccurate "Fleecing of America" Segment on DC , March 17th, 2000

My organization is working very hard to try to restore pride in America's capital city through our all-volunteer, non-profit, educational web site at www.narpac.org. Our objective is to encourage Americans everywhere to help make their national capital city and metro area a truly outstanding symbol of America's future. We also press federal, regional, and local officials to assist in this process. Admittedly, lots remains to be done.

However, we were more than a little dismayed at your "Fleecing of America" segment on NBC Nightly News on February 22nd. It made a series of erroneous allegations about your nation's capital city which are thoroughly misleading to the American people, and counter-productive in trying to attract both national and local support. In fact, better information is readily available from our web site.

The attached summary of your inaccuracies will be posted on our web site next month, but we thought you and your producers might benefit from the facts as we know them. You could have made an equally appealing scandal out of the fleecing of DC's citizenry by other Americans--ones fully represented in the US Congress!

Perhaps more important in the overall scheme of things is that a great many inner cities are being fleeced by their surrounding, sprawling suburbs. It is the major source of US socioeconomic inequity. It deserves highlighting--and serious Congressional attention.

NBC could perform a valuable public service by addressing this issue properly. We are willing to offer any help that we can.

59. Letter to 'Themail' concerning Inflated Voter Registry in DC, March 19th, 2000:

Re voter registration, I fully subscribe to Mr. Binder's exhortation to "prune the voter rolls" in DC. Our NARPAC estimate is that the rolls may be overstated by 20-25%. If 1998 claims for increasing registration and decreasing population continued, there would be more registered voters than adults by about 2002, and ore voters than total adults and kids by about 2012. Wouldn't say much for the responsible exercise of local democracy!

58. Letters to 'Themail' concerning an Official Residence for the Mayor: March 13th and 19th, 2000:

(March 13th) The USA is the world's most successful--and envied--democratic market economy. It provides almost limitless opportunity, and handsomely rewards earned success, competence, and popularity in all its forms. Americans greatly admire--and covet-- the material symbols made possible by success. The mayoralty of the core city of the soon-to-be world's greatest national capital metro area probably does not need its own Air National Guard. But it surely deserves an official residence as a symbol of the rightful authority and dignity befitting that elected office. It can be an important instrument for carrying out valid official responsibilities which are now being neglected--to the city's comparative disadvantage. I would opt for an official residence located squarely on Capitol Hill, and have no qualms about asking 120 million American taxpayers to foot the bill (about two-bits apiece).

(March 19th) The editor sagely questioned my support for an official mayoral residence by asking how many other US cities provide them. Calls to the mayor's offices in 32 US cities above 300,000 in population produced only three: New York, Los Angeles, and Detroit: none in cities below 1 million in population. Governor's mansions, of course, would be a different story, and might be a valid reason to pursue statehood! A poll of foreign capital cities might yield more encouragement for my position, but not on my phone card!

57. Letter to 'Themail' concerning "Saving DC's Kids", February 26, 2000 (abridged)

Here is a scenario in which democratically-based education of DC's kids might eventually become something better than a national embarrassment--even without two senators in the Congress. One of the greatest democratic arts is to frame useful compromises that diverse factions can support rather than deplore. Clearly, the mayor and council have not yet found one for DC's school board. It is generally a cumbersome, time-consuming process. The key may lie in comparative school district data, which show DCPS/BoEd departures from the US norm. For example, the single DC school district is 25 times larger (studentwise) than national average, schools are 20% smaller, per students costs are 56% higher, and 66% more kids live in poverty. Structural reform may not always help contain personality shortcomings, but it may well help reinforce community individuality. Here then is an upbeat scenario:

The mayor and Council read 'themail' and discover right here that DC should have at least 4-8 school districts, each with 5-9 ELECTED school board members, thus satisfying the belief that the health of local democracy is directly proportional to the length of the ballot. Moreover, to match the national model, they should be overseen by a 5-9 member (usually state-level) Board of Education, APPOINTED by the highest elected official (usually a governor), thus satisfying the need for checks-and-balances. In this solution, the local school district boards would fine tune the special educational needs of their communities 'from the bottom, up', while the DCwide board would assure that the local boards meet citywide education standards 'from the top, down'. The latter would also press the mayor to eliminate the underlying causes of a) poor student performance--the blighted neighborhoods which spawn dysfunctional kids; and b) excessive per-student spending--the fixed costs of poorly utilized, antiquated school facilities. By the time the student enrollment drops below 50,000 ten years hence, DC student performance might rise to, and the per-student costs drop to, the national averages. If they don't, DC could always try contracting out its public education functions to neighboring school districts, thus removing one incentive to emigrate.

56. Letter to Chairman Davis, DC Subcommitee, House Gov't Operations Committee re Changing DC Oversight January 18, 2000

NARPAC, Inc. was delighted to see you quoted in today's WASHINGTON POST as recognizing the need for Congress to review its future role in overseeing DC affairs. We believe elevating--not eliminating--Congress's oversight role is key to restoring national pride in our capital city. We see two distinct but closely related issues converging to justify a major change in Congressional focus:

On the one hand, DC's underlying problems deserve attention at a higher policy level than bickering over budget details within--and between--four separate subcommittees. The fundamental issue is how to level the socioeconomic playing field within the DC metro area, and find acceptable ways to share the region's health, wealth, and poverty.

On the other hand, there are national socioeconomic problems resulting from many metro areas outgrowing antiquated local jurisdictional boundaries. Most urbanologists agree the federal government must provide some incentives for state and local actions to redress imbalances in the availability of, say, affordable housing and equitable health care. In short, DC's chronic problems have clear parallels across the US.

Hence NARPAC recommends the next Congress celebrate DC's bicentennial-- and 21st Century demographics--by replacing the four DC subcommittees with a single Joint Committee of the Congress for Metro Areas and the District of Columbia..

We would appreciate an opportunity to elaborate on this significant change with you and to make our views known for the record.

55. Letter to the Editors, Washington Post, re transportation needs of National Harbor Project, published (slightly abridged), January 14, 2000

PG County's huge National Harbor Project (WPost: 1/11,12/00) has the potential to trigger the long-overdue economic development of the entire Southeast Quadrant of the Greater Washington Metro Area, from the Anacostia River to Charles County. It seems tragic that such a prime development is getting underway before the transportation infrastructure has been laid out, or the future uses for nearby public lands properly explored.

Why is there no Metrorail access to Nat'l Harbor, both across the Potomac from say, Eisenhower Avenue station in Alexandria, and from the Anacostia, Branch Avenue or Addison Road stations in DC and Maryland? Why is there no Metrorail provision on the new Wilson Bridge? What radial road upgrades from downtown DC are planned for Pennsylvania Ave SE? Suitland Parkway? Branch Avenue? Indian Head Parkway, and Anacostia Freeway ? What are the future economically productive uses (and transportation needs) for Andrews and Bolling AFBs, St. Elizabeth's Hospital grounds, or the Naval Research Lab and Air Station?

Looks like we're buying into the hot dogs with no mustard, buns, or game plan!

NOTE: The following important correction was received from PG County Executive Wayne Curry in his letter of February 8th:

I was surprised to see your letter to the editor in the Washington Post recently regarding your perceived shortcomings to the planning of the National Harbor Project. Contrary to your assertion, the transportation infrastructure needed to serve the project will be in place for the opening of the first phase. National Harbor is scheduled to open in 2004, concurrently with the completion of construction of the necessary interchange and road improvements to serve the project. As for public transportation, both water taxis and buses will adequately serve the project. Further, the new bridge is being designed to accommodate a Metro rail crossing which will allow for the option of bringing mass transit to the site in the future.

This page was updated on Aug 5, 2005