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(2001-2002 Correspondence edited for conciseness; Listed Most Recent First)
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 : The key ones from 2001-2002 are listed below, starting with the most recent. 2002
2001
My organization** respectfully urges the leadership of the 108th Congress to consider some reorganization of its House and Senate committee structures to address two similar problems of substance. The narrower issue involves the continuing financial difficulties of our national capital city. This is, however, part of the much broader national problem of festering inner city poverty and its corrosive effects. DC faces two debilitating circumstances. First, the financial needs of the 29% of the metro area's poor living in DC cannot be met with DC's 11% of the region's taxable income. Far from unique, this problem plagues many other US inner cities: too much poverty for so small a local tax base. Second, Congress has an undeniable constitutional obligation to oversee District affairs, but the four separate, low-ranking DC oversight subcommittees focus on micro-managing DC's local government, not addressing its root problems. Subcommittee members have had clear conflicts of interest impacting on DC's financial security. We submit that Congressional oversight of DC should be at a far broader policy level, and exercised by a single committee. On the national scene, metro areas now define the quality of life for most US households. But metro areas per se have no high-level champion in Congress. It is time to assure that significant groups of Americans, including those of the nation's capital city, are not discriminated against because of inadequate high-level attention in the halls of Congress. For both situations, then, we urge the revitalized Congressional leadership to disband the four DC oversight subcommittees and replace them with a single, more senior
charged with adopting federal policies and funding procedures aimed at leveling the socio- economic playing field between America's struggling inner cities and their prospering but unsympathetic suburbs, including the national capital metro area. For substantiation of our concerns, please call us, or visit our web site at www.narpac.org. ** NARPAC works to restore pride in America's capital city. We do not support "statehood" for DC. We do not endorse an annual federal payment simply because DC hosts the national capital or is "stateless". We do encourage full voting rights for DC's one duly elected House delegate. Please refer to analysis under DC Long Range Projects. Please refer to analysis and commentary at 25 Vacant Schools. Some DC voters may well go to the primary elections on September 10th with very unrealistic ideas of what is involved in managing the city's finances. Naive candidates express fanciful notions of where DC's government funds should be spent and even less realistic visions of where those funds come from. In most inner cities, getting the money is much tougher than spending it, and that dictates how the mayor must spend much of his time. Here are some jiffy facts: In FY03, DC intends to spend $5,800M (that's $5.8 billion) in its operating budget. $2,465M will go just for human support services, and another $1,275M for all aspects of public education. At least 65% of the total will be directed towards those in poverty, or the consequences of that poverty. Perhaps $250M will go to protect tourists, commuters, the federal presence, and business properties. The rest, $5,550M, will be spent on DC residents. Where does it come from? 30% of DC's operating budget, some $1700M, will come from federal grants. Another $450M will come from private sources, "intra-District transfers", etc. The remaining $3,650M must come from various DC-levied taxes. Residents, sharing some 9500 acres of scarce taxable DC land, will provide $2,300M, and businesses will yield $1,350M from 2100 commercially-zoned acres. But here is the key issue. Federal payments aside, residents now consume $1,200M more in services than they pay in taxes, while businesses provide $1,200M more in tax revenues than they get back in services. Only a few, very rich, high density residential areas yield more than $0.1M positive net income per acre. In all, DC loses over $0.1M on each residential acre, and nets about $0.6M on each commercial acre (over $1.3M downtown). To spend more on communities, DC must raise more money from tax-paying businesses. Assuaging poverty requires attracting more businesses to DC, and that's where much top level city effort must focus. Don't knock it! It is a safe bet that no other poverty-ridden inner city in the US has undertaken to build more than 10,000 low- and moderate-income houses in its most blighted areas within the last few years. In addition, DC has boarded up thousands of squalid dwellings, and torn down hundreds, if not thousands, of others. Anywhere else, such actions would be highly commended as a major managerial accomplishment melding government grants, private sector partnerships and local politics. But DC's mayor is branded by various activists as an uncaring scoundrel for his efforts. There seem to be four reasons (all specious) why the mayor should cease and desist: 1) By raising the living standards for many, he is being victimized by the clergy and other demagogues for making it more difficult for others to continue to live in squalor. Those who de- gentrify a neighborhood should have the right to prevent its re-gentrification, right? 2) He is being accused of taking credit for some housing actually initiated while the DC Housing Authority was under a court-imposed receivership -- because his predecessors had so badly neglected the living conditions of the poor. Obviously not fair to his predecessors, agreed? 3) One reason there is so little affordable housing around the US is that many occupants of low-income and subsidized housing choose not to move to better quarters when their finances permit it, thus preventing the worse off from taking their place. Is that unAmerican, or what? 4) Low to moderate income households cost the city more than they provide in revenues anyway. For instance, 10 households earning $45,000 per year on average, living in homes assessed at $180,000 on average will provide no net revenues to the city (after paying for city services) if there are two school-age kids among them; two are below the poverty line, one of them is headed by a single female, and together, they live on more than half an acre. So why try? The nation's capital city is well into another embarrassing election season. Local pundits, demagogues and paranoiacs are working overtime abusing their keyboards, microphones, and pulpits to inflame racial tensions and petty vendettas, ignoring the real issues. The notion that DC's problems arise from insufficient attention to poor blacks, and that all blacks should rise to rectify this injustice based on skin color and old history seems pathetically simplistic. DC's overriding, if not crippling, problem is that it has too many poor households that need more government assistance than can be provided by projected city revenues. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that the poor want more help. Listening to those cries over and over again doesn't produce a solution. Clearly, any mayor, agency head, Council member or candidate needs to solve five problems: 1) what do the poor really need to alleviate their poverty over the long run; 2) how can DC use its existing resources more effectively to that end; 3) is the Federal Gov't doing all it is legally obliged to do; 4) how can DC raise additional revenues to alleviate that poverty sooner; and 5) how does DC get its far wealthier neighbors to share these burdens? This administration's efforts to improve the health care of the poor is a prime example, where it has addressed the first four challenges by: 1) stressing better primary care, not more fire truck and ambulance rides to trauma centers; 2) shutting down hopelessly inefficient, swindling hospital facilities; 3) getting the Feds to transfer to DC some potentially productive property; and 4) drawing up plans (with neighborhood inputs) to generate revenues from that property. They failed only to seek cooperation from Montgomery and Prince George's Counties in sharing some of DC's indigent health care costs. The claim that DC's health care is getting worse is disingenuous. Recent concern for literacy in DC (themail, 8/14) based on Courtland Milloy's recent article in the Washington Post is a valid one which we have addressed several different ways on our NARPAC web site. The five levels of "functional literacy" were established by the federal government in 1988, and the results of the first national survey (1992) were published by the National Institute for Literacy (NIFL). The gauges are more than just 'reading'. For instance, at the lowest level (Level 1), a person can "locate the expiration date info on his driver's license", but "can't locate two pieces of information in a sports article." 37% of DC residents were judged to be at Level 1 and another 24% at Level 2. Only the state of Mississippi was worse with 30/34. This has clear implications for DC's electorate and workforce. Nationwide, Level 1 included 43% of all below the poverty line and 70% of all prisoners, while 75% of all food stamp recipients were at Level 1 or 2. The 2002 survey is ongoing. But we believe the correspondent is right to say this can't be blamed just on poverty: after all, the poor do not pay for their kids' education. NARPAC concludes that poverty and illiteracy are both 'effects', and that the 'cause' of both is the lack of education of the parent(s). There is near perfect correlation between (total) household education level and (total) household income across the US (with no distinctions for race), and there is a high correlation between kids' performance in school and poverty (i.e., lack of education) at home. . Tragically, this is frequently a self-perpetuating cycle (not always, of course). It has led to very high school drop-out rates, high crime rates, very high teen pregnancies (and more school drop-outs), and a staggering number (near 70%) of out-of-wedlock births . This often results in several DC kids being raised by a single, functionally illiterate mom, and they go on to repeat the cycle. While one can properly cluck about the lack of any adult education program in the DC School System for many years, (i.e., no attempts to 're-call' its 'defective products'), there is no way to hold the school system responsible for the kids' home environment. Often the schools are trying to produce a successful kid from 'faulty input materials' (excuse my crude parallels). The Williams administration clearly understands this and is trying to improve schools and neighborhood environment together. The real question is, where are the local leaders that could better influence community sociological development, and why are they trying to blame local government for their own neighborhood failures? This would be a really good time for the appropriately vested DC authorities to demonstrate their ability to mete out prudent justice and avoid "overkill" in a case that has already brought scorn and ridicule to the nation's capital city. There is no question that the mayor's campaign staff committed egregious errors that violated a basic tenet of our basic democratic process. But there are lesser questions: o Was this a case of malicious, premeditated intent to defraud, or simply another case of monumental stupidity? (roughly the difference between Murder I and Manslaughter) o Will the Board recognize and resist the self-righteous indignation and excesses of fundamentalist activists involved in personal vendettas? o Should the Board acknowledge that there is some implicit maximum penalty related to the fact that only 2000 petitions are required? o Should the Board somehow acknowledge that they have applied "guilt by association", not proof, to over 2000 of those petitions? We believe that any fine in excess of roughly $100 for each of 2000 "tainted" petitions will be viewed as just another example of rampant incompetence in our American capital city. ......The school itself is truly a fascinating structure and impressive from the outside, but I see little attraction to the inside. It is awkward to enter, the ceilings are too high and stairs too long for most modern uses, and the third floor great hall seems to have limited practical value. I doubt its success as a restaurant, particularly if the rest of the building is dark at night. My initial bias was that the building should be used to help satisfy some crucial need of the public school system. I am convinced the DCPS cannot solve its student educational problems without improving the receptivity of the "raw materials" it is obliged to work with. I am a big proponent of "recycling" the large numbers of school drop-outs that tend to perpetuate the cycle of poverty with (unwed) kids having kids. I wondered if the Franklin School should be converted into some sort of adult/parent/kid live-in learning center, or even perhaps an administrative center for adult education (like the Marine Corps' Barracks is for its very large, continuing-education program). But I concluded the facility is not located in the right place, or well-suited to such use. My next reaction was to play up the Ben Franklin connection, somehow integrating the sizable adjacent park and this building into a living tribute to this unusual, forward-looking, relatively "hi- tech", early national figure. I wondered if the Franklin Institute might be induced to open a Washington branch. My mind then drifted over into new technologies which are changing the nature of "cultural/educational" facilities. ...I wondered if some combination of Disney, the Smithsonian, and the Kennedy Center could generate some new kind of high-brow educational entertainment centers from "virtual operas", simulated moon landings, and re-living the Continental Congress, to remotely performed surgical procedures, underwater exploration, and so forth. This is probably a non-transferable idiosyncratic notion, but it is my only idea for combining the very old and the very new, with evening as well as daytime uses. My final conclusion is that the building should be converted to the most economically-productive commercial uses possible {probably offices over retail), preserving the outside of the building, but revamping the inside to whatever makes it most productive (including an additional floor or gallery in the great hall). The owner could create a photo gallery or scale model of its prior life for historic purposes, if so desired. But the symbolic virtues of the conversion would be to maximize its economic return to the school system (i.e., a small "oil well"), perhaps publicly earmarking the resulting revenues to some essential unfilled DC need such as adult/parent education. Improving the health and welfare of the poor is an expensive business that requires additional city revenues, efficiently spent. One good way to raise revenues is to increase the amount of land available for DC to develop, and put it to revenue-productive use. The highly desirable 67-acre river front parcel of federally-owned land on which DC General squats is capable of generating tax revenues of $200-$400M per year if turned over to DC and devoted to high density mixed commercial/residential use. It would also be a significant step towards greater DC revenues from its limited tax base. A good share of any increased revenues should probably go towards improving public health care. But the city needs several smaller sites centrally located in poor neighborhoods to efficiently provide much-needed clinical medical services. The oversized DC General site, backed up against the river, is not readily accessible to many who most need its services. However, DC owns as many as 300 acres of surplus land scattered around the city, mostly in poor neighborhoods but protected by other possessive activist groups. The DC Public School System is hanging onto, and planning the modernization of, enough school facilities for 100,000 students. But current enrollment has dropped to 66,000 and is preordained to drop close to 50,000 by a) the decline in city birth rates already realized over the past five years, and b) the migration to charter schools. Productive use of surplus DCPS properties could pay for a lot of its skyrocketing school system costs and make available properly situated public health clinic sites as well. Creative planning could develop much-needed synergism between improving health and improving education for the city's underprivileged kids, and its underprivileged adults as well. It's high time to replace negative emotionalism with constructive rationalism on this key issue. First, let me note two omissions in the bill: #1: The bill makes no specific mention of good old fashioned railroad rights of way, even though several active and abandoned lines crisscross the city and exude both visual and physical blight. There is a huge imbalance between the condition of federal highway rights of way, and of private railroad infrastructure that has not been properly maintained and modernized in 40 years. The new DoT Rights-of-Way Mgmt Admin should be authorized to abate of these eyesores. #2: The bill states clearly that DoT should "ensure the safe movement of people, goods, and information along public rights of way." But what about the need for safe, efficient movement of trash and garbage? Proper retail trash collection, suitable trash transfer sites, and wholesale trash removal from the city constitute a real "intermodal transportation problem". The new DoT Traffic Services Admin should have a major role in improving DC's trafficking in garbage. Second, and by far more important, an expanded transportation infrastructure is essential to DC's long-range economic growth and competitiveness. But the existence of a DoT Policy and Planning Admin will not, per se, improve the quality of long-range economic planning in DC. Assured fiscal solvency for our national capital city requires fundamental changes in the balance between revenues raised and government services provided. This cannot be done simply by bringing in more taxpaying residents, most of whom consume more in services than they contribute in taxes. 70% of DC's taxpayers provide 20% of its taxes. Less than 5% of DC taxpayers pay more than the costs of two public school kids. Only two of DC's eight wards "make a profit" needed to offset the deficit from the other six. Nor can DC resolve this by taxing commuters or billing the Feds. DC's limited land must produce more revenues--regardless of who owns it. The least productive third of the city lies East of the Anacostia. It has no long-range economic development plan; no plan to substantially enhance transportation routes; no plan to add more Metro lines and stations for higher density development. Making DoT a separate department won't fix that. But it could help stimulate the foresight of the rest of the DC government, and of Southern Maryland as well. NARPAC is convinced that a bold, long-range economic development plan for the Southeast Quadrant of the District--and for the Southeast Quadrant of the Metro Area--is long overdue. The Council should require--and fund--development of such a plan, either as a rider to this bill (if you want to mimic Congress) or as a separate bill. The longest tent pole in DC's permanent economic solvency is a firm plan to expand DC's transportation infrastructure East of the Anacostia. The Council should oblige the city to get started on it. Thank you for letting me present our views. Please feel free to visit our web site. Is DC out of the financial woods? Certainly not if it follows its current path. The city is relatively recession-proof since its major industries are government, government-lobbying, and government services. But it cannot indefinitely support well over half of the region's poor with well under one-quarter of the region's wealth. It is a formula for relatively high crime, poor education, and decaying infrastructure. And it cannot solve this problem through the romantic fantasy of simply adding more middle class neighborhood-friendly families that consume at least as much in city services as they generate in revenues. Until DC recognizes that businesses are more net revenue- productive than residents per acre of scarce land, it will continue to compound its long-term financial risk 1. We are well aware of your need for a major facilities modernization effort (and have pressed for its development). Our review of the current FMP, however, suggests that it is more of a "poll endorsed by an advocates' committee" than a "business plan vetted by management". We are primarily concerned that the enrollment projections may be overstated by a factor of two--which could soon become very awkward. 2. We think it very premature to talk of reducing the mandatory schooling age to 3 years. While we fully agree that the school system's student "output" is often biased by neighbor- hood environmental influences on student "input", it is by no means obvious that an enlarged "school-based foster day care system" should be a DCPS-managed effort. However, it seems far more obvious that the DCPS does have a residual obligation to "recall" the parents of these disadvantaged kids, and try again to prepare them for productive lives. A quid pro quo might be developed between early childhood help and compulsory adult education in those neighborhoods most needing both. The primary framework for this growth must be an enriched rail and road transportation infrastructure with improved movement capacity both East-West from Virginia to Maryland without going through downtown choke points and North-South across the Anacostia to developing destinations in Maryland. In addition to your customary neighborhood responsibilities, we hope you will take an interest in the long-range transportation planning that DC and Maryland have yet to address even in the new Anacostia Waterfront Initiative. In Ward 6, these range from upgrading the CSX railroad right of way and M Street, to rebuilding Capitol Street South and providing additional Anacostia River crossings for roads, metrorail, and foot/bike paths. Somehow, these regionwide and citywide necessities must be encouraged and incorporated into Ward and Council planning, well beyond anything the City or its communities have faced up to yet. This applies as well to Wards 7 and 8. I was intrigued by a reader's suggestion that we need term limits on our elected Council members so that the elected mayor's privatized health care plan for the poor (which I fully support) can be enacted. I don't know why he thinks a new set of Council members would be any different than the current ones, given the current local rules of the game. The problem looks different from my semi-detached vantage point. To make democracy work better in DC, I would focus on achieving more balanced middle-of-the-road representation, less susceptible to capture by local special interests of any persuasion. At this once-a-decade time for re-districting, the Council balance should be shifted from those representing single-ward interests toward those elected citywide to focus on broader citywide interests. Either reduce the wards from eight to four (as has been done on the new hybrid School Board) or increase the number of at-large seats from four to eight. To further avoid electing spokesmen of highly organized but small special interest groups and demagogue-followers, primary run-offs should be required for all candidates; election financing rules should be tightened; outside pay of elected members should be limited; and redistricting should be based on voting-age adults to avoid giving extra voting weight to kids' parents (if that's legal!). 'Faith-based leaders' should declare themselves as political lobbyists if they abuse their pulpits; voter registration rolls should be cleansed of those who have already voted with their feet; and participation should be stimulated from DC's unusually small, middle class, private sector-employed, home-owning taxpayers who comprise the solid majority in most parts of our American democracy. A modest property tax break for residents who vote might be appropriate. If after all that, a new DC Council majority still insists on public sector management of DC's public health care, then, by George, we ought to do it. I was disappointed by the anemic response to themail's query on the mayor's performance. I take a far more upbeat view. I think DC is on the verge of a major reconstruction, with many of the underlying bureaucratic/administrative foundation stones slowly being put in place. The essential economic revitalization is well underway. And since DC is still the nation's capital city, the barriers won't need to be lowered very much before energetic, positive-minded, prosperous people flow in. Improvements in local services are indeed proving slow, but that should not be surprising since their remedies require the deepest penetration of an entrenched bureaucracy. And the mayor (even with over 30,000 employees) should not be expected to purge the city of all those who litter parks, dig up streets, knock up teenagers, foul up schools, shoot out street lights, dope up unborn babies, sign up union obstructionists, hold up essential city improvements with petty protests, or whine about communities' self-made shortfalls. Communities must accept a big role in solving these problems. The mayor's biggest mistake may well have been promising to fix up all the neighborhoods so quickly--and the neighborhoods' biggest mistake may have been assuming they could just watch him do it. Surely they can help themselves more, and help the mayor shape up a motivated city workforce. Furthermore, DC elects other officials who have neighborhood responsibilities without the mayor's bigger burdens--as well as officials who limit the mayor's ability to act. Concerned citizens should turn up the heat on the ANCs, the School Board, and the Council, and not just beat up on the man responsible for building up the city's image to the rest of the world.
This page was updated on Aug 5, 2005
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