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Today's edition:
Census Violence: Redistricting Ward Boundaries Could Fracture D.C. Council
Washington City Paper
Candidate Forum: D.C.'s "At Large" Race
The Kojo Nnamdi Show (WAMU: 88.5)
Questions for 'Team Thomas'
Washington PostElected attorney general charter amendment
Washington Post
Union Yes! for David Wilmot’s Nonprofit
Washington City Paper blog
"Better Choices" movement would mean higher D.C. taxes
Washington Business Journal
D.C. teachers union president faces election runoff
Washington Post
Washington Post
D.C. arts magnet may slip a year
Foreclosure Help Afoot at the Wilson Building
Washington City Paper
FULL STORIES BELOW
Census Violence: Redistricting Ward Boundaries Could Fracture D.C. Council
Washington City Paper
The 2010 Census wasn’t just a convenient source of temporary jobs, or a controversial Super Bowl advertiser. If the last few counts are any guide, it could also be the source of some of the harshest in-fighting the D.C. Council has seen in, well, a decade.
The feds will turn over the results of their count of District residents to city officials this spring. And then, most likely, things all go downhill from there. If the city’s population is evenly distributed among all eight wards as they currently exist: no problem. But that’s not likely. Which means we can expect bloody turf battles between the ward councilmembers as each one tries to come out the winner in a complex, zero-sum game that has many moving parts. If history is any guide, then we’re likely in store for plenty of hard-core politicking, community outrage, charges of racism, hurt feelings, and, eventually, lawsuits.
In other words, lots of fun!
“Changing ward boundaries …causes a lot of angst,” says Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans, who has been on the council during the last two redistrictings. “People get very angry.”
The main event in this year’s battle royale could very well be between Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells and Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry.
Barry frequently decries the income gap between white households and black households in the city, and he says he plans to mount a campaign to draw new lines that make wards more economically diverse. He says the wards, including his own, need to get more racially diverse, too. Redistricting, Barry says, is a good way to do both.
“This is an excellent opportunity to become one city for real,” Barry tells LL, referencing Almost Mayor Vincent Gray’s campaign slogan. Barry points to the last redistricting—which expanded the predominantly black Ward 4 west across Rock Creek Park to include whiter, richer residents—as a model.
“This is going to make for a beautiful city,” Barry says.
Barry says his home ward, which is almost entirely African American and has extremely high poverty and unemployment rates, has long been the city’s “dumping ground.” Making it more diverse will likely involve expanding across the Anacostia into the whiter, richer Southwest, Barry said.
“We can’t go south,” Barry joked.
There’s some speculation in the Wilson Building that Barry wouldn’t mind expanding his political influence over the Southwest Waterfront development, a $2 billion development that’s well underway to transform the area into a glitzy urbanist dream that people actually visit. That would let Barry take credit for the project, even though the groundwork was already laid. And it would also let him hit up developers for campaign contributions as the councilmember who represents the ward. (Adding some white voters to Ward 8, though, could give Barry new political problems to deal with.)
Wells says Barry has already told him in casual conversation that Barry would like redistricting to bring more “economic diversity.”
“I think what he meant was he wanted to take some from Ward 6 for Ward 8,” Wells says.
Wells gave LL a bunch of reasons why moving parts of Southwest to Ward 8 wouldn’t be a good idea, including the fact that the neighborhood was just subsumed by Ward 6 from Ward 2 during the last go-round. (It wasn’t entirely clear to LL why switching wards twice in 20 years would be so bad for the neighborhood.) But the basic message seemed to be: over my dead body.
For his part, Barry says he’s going to let only cold hard census data guide his thinking (“I’m a scientist,” he says). He bristles at any notion that politics could be a motivating factor (“Absolutely not, that’s ridiculous,” he says) before adding that his political popularity is such that he could give any of his colleagues a run for their money, save for in Ward 3.
Whether Barry’s ward will actually need to expand is still a big question. Last redistricting, the city had to deal with a declining population, particularly east of the river. This time, the city’s census numbers will reflect a growing population.
The way the redistricting law works is that once the city’s total population is official, that number is divided by eight. Each ward has to have a population that’s within a 5 percent range, plus or minus, of that average. The city’s most recent count was 599,657, so the average would be 74,957—which means each ward would have to have between 71,209 and 78,704 residents. District law also requires that wards be “compact and contiguous” and conform as much as possible to census tract boundaries.
One set of projections based on recent counts floating around the Wilson Building has Ward 8’s projected population falling just inside the 5 percent cushion. Ward 6’s projected population, on the other hand, would require it to add at least 4,600 residents. (Despite the development and population growth of Southwest, Ward 6 came out of the last redistricting with the smallest number of residents, so it starts with lower numbers than the other wards.)
When told that his ward might have to add people, Wells gave a quick quip that shows Barry’s not the only councilmember whose got an eye on another’s turf.
“I would love to redistrict the Anacostia back into Ward 6,” Wells says, before launching into a pitch that includes his good work in revitalizing the long neglected H Street NE corridor and his expertise in multimodal transportation.
Though every councilmember will get a chance to vote on the final plan, the councilmember who gets to head the committee that draws up the first draft of a redistricting plan will likely have a bigger say in what the next map looks like. So far, Almost Council Chairman Kwame Brown has been mum on future committee appointments (except to say that Barry, who was stripped of a committee chairmanship by the current council, would get some kind of post back).
There’s some speculation that one of the four at-large councilmembers, who wouldn’t have any dog in a ward boundary fight, will be picked to head the redistricting effort. But whether anyone wants the job is another story. A politically adept councilmember might be able to use the committee to score political points, but most likely whomever gets the gig will find it a pretty thankless task that is a surefire way to make enemies.
A decade ago, then-rookie At-Large Councilmember Phil Mendelson was in charge of the redistricting process. Mendelson says redistricting wasn’t the most contentious issue he’s ever faced—but it ranks up there.
The plan Mendelson oversaw drew a lawsuit from the Kingman Park Civic Association, alleging racial discrimination. The association’s complaint said that transferring 1,840 predominantly black voters in Kingman out of Ward 6 would dilute the power of the black vote there and “waste” black votes in Ward 7, court records show.
As part of the same suit, the association also teamed up with the Chevy Chase Civic Association, whose members were unhappy about having to switch from Ward 3 to Ward 4, to allege that the entire citywide redistricting had violated the federal Voting Rights Act. The lawsuit was dismissed by a federal district judge.
Not every unhappy constituent group sues, or makes lofty claims of injustice. But they still complain. Evans says a group of residents in parts of Palisades was unhappy about being moved from Ward 2 to Ward 3 because of their zoned parking passes.
“A lot of them worked in downtown Washington, so they could drive to work and park” using their residential zone stickers, Evans says.
And finally, there’s the prickly issue that sometimes comes up of councilmembers being zoned out of their own ward. Ward 4 CouncilmemberMuriel Bowserfaces a slight chance that her residence in Lamond-Riggs could move into Ward 5.
That sort of dilemma can lead to unusual outcomes. Twenty years ago, when most of Georgetown went from being part of Ward 3 to Ward 2, the council approved a plan to keep just two blocks in the neighborhood in Ward 3. As it happens, then-Ward 3 Councilmember Polly Shackleton lived on one of them.
All politics is local, former House Speaker Tip O’Neill used to say. He just never knew how local.
WHERE’S THE BEEF?
Campaign season is a great time to learn about political candidates’ dirty laundry, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Political operatives have the time—and more importantly, resources—to dig deep into an opposing candidate’s past, sometimes unearthing stuff that overworked or lazy beat reporters miss.
Republican challenger Tim Day’s recent look-see into a non-profit run by his opponent, Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr., which Day alleges is a city-funded slush fund, led to a story and an editorial in The Washington Post, and then a probe by Attorney General Peter Nickles.
But where Day scored a solid stand-up double with his opposition research, D.C. GOP Executive Director Paul Craney whiffed badly when he recently sent LL what he described as “juicy” court records related to Ward 3 CouncilmemberMary Cheh.
After the Post reported that Cheh’s Republican challenger, Dave Hedgepeth, had a lien filed against him for owing back taxes, Craney sent LL an e-mail promising dirt on Cheh.
The dirt, it turned out, wasn’t to be. In 1988, a woman who was living in a rental property in Linden, N.J., that Cheh co-owned with her brother apparently tripped on a piece of broken sidewalk on her way down the staircase in front of the house. She broke her ankle, and then sued the Chehs for negligence. Court records show they settled.
Yawn!
Cheh seemed pretty annoyed when LL told her of the GOP’s research (and even more annoyed when he told her he was writing about the lawsuit). “This is what we’ve come to, huh?” she said. She’s got a pretty good point.
Like any political reporter, LL doesn’t have any moral objections to opposition research. But he does object when it’s done badly. You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, D.C. Republicans. Otherwise, you just look dumb.
Candidate Forum: D.C.'s "At Large" Race
The Kojo Nnamdi Show (WAMU: 88.5)
WEDNESDAY, OCT 27, 2010 AT 12:06 P.M.
Two at-large seats are up for grabs on the D.C. Council. We sit down with the four candidates on the ballot -- and find out what voters need to know about their positions on everything from public safety to economic development.
Guests
Tom Sherwood
Resident Analyst; NBC 4 reporter; and Columnist for the Current Newspapers
David Catania
D.C. Councilmember (I-At Large); Chairman of the Committee on Health
Phil Mendelson
D.C. Councilmember (D-At Large); Chair of the Public Safety and Judiciary Committee
David Schwartzman
Statehood Green Party Candidate for DC City Council (At-Large)
Richard Urban
Independent Candidate, D.C. Council (At-Large)
Questions for 'Team Thomas'
EditorialWashington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/27/AR2010102707696.html
Thursday, October 28, 2010; A18
D.C. COUNCIL member Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5) said it is "abusive political tactics" for Attorney General Peter J. Nickles to launch an inquiry so close to the election into the organization that bears Mr. Thomas's name. On the contrary: It's an abuse of his ward's voters for Mr. Thomas to ask them to go to the polls without full information. In the days since Mr. Thomas's Republican opponent first raised issues, we have uncovered more, and troubling, discrepancies regarding Team Thomas.
Founded in 2000, the group is billed by Mr. Thomas as a "non-profit organization for social change, citizen empowerment, community development, and youth and senior program development." The organization is not registered with the Internal Revenue Service, and its registration with the D.C. government has been revoked. There's been no public accounting of how much money it has received or spent. Mr. Nickles launched his inquiry after the media reported charges by Tim Day, who is challenging Mr. Thomas in the Nov. 2 election, that the group is a "fake organization." Mr. Thomas missed Tuesday's deadline for voluntarily producing records about the charitable solicitations and expenditures of Team Thomas and now is under subpoena to produce the material by Friday. He says his attorney is working to comply.
Mr. Thomas has denied any wrongdoing, saying he never made false claims about the group. He stresses that he has been mindful of ethics and, since joining the council in 2007, has tried to be careful about how the organization has operated. He stressed, for example, that the group has not received city funds since he joined the council. He depicted the group, in interviews with us as well as with Fox TV reporter Matt Ackland, as dormant in the years he has been on the council. He told Examiner columnist Jonetta Rose Barras that he established Team Thomas and another group under scrutiny before joining the council and "[hasn't] used them and [I] don't want to use them."
How, then, to account for donations actively being solicited as late as 2008? There was a May 2008 news release from Mr. Thomas's office touting a golf tournament to benefit the group. And we have learned of at least two donations Team Thomas received in 2008. According to sources, there was a Jan. 8, 2008, contribution from Rhode Island Avenue Metro LLC, developer of a project near the Rhode Island Metro station in Ward 5, to Team Thomas for $2,000; and a $2,600 contribution on Jan. 29, 2008, from Capitol Paving of D.C. Inc., a Ward 5 business. A spokeswoman for the development group confirmed the donation; she said she didn't know how it came about, only that there was a belief that Team Thomas did good work in the community.
The check from Capitol Paving, employees there confirmed to us, was marked "C/O Vicky Leonard-Chambers, Office of CM Thomas Room 107." "CM" would be "council member"; Room 107 refers to an office in the District Building; Victoria Leonard-Chambers is Mr. Thomas's director of policy and strategic communication. When we asked how she was involved with Team Thomas, she said, "I'm not interested in speaking with you." When we told Mr. Thomas that a Capitol Paving employee remembers being solicited by Ms. Leonard-Chambers, he said either it was a mistake or we were making it up. That employee, office manager Terry Woodfolk, said that the money went to print an annual publication and that they were glad to give because of the good work done by Mr. Thomas in Ward 5. Mr. Thomas previously told Post reporters that any money raised went to "programming to sponsor young people's activities."
If there is nothing untoward, Mr. Thomas should welcome the opportunity to reveal who has donated to Team Thomas and how it has spent its funds. He should do so before Tuesday's election.
Elected attorney general charter amendment
Washington Post
Thursday, October 28, 2010; DZ22
Currently, the attorney general for the District of Columbia is appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the Council of the District of Columbia. This charter amendment, if passed, would amend the District of Columbia Home Rule Act to allow voters to elect the Attorney General for a four-year term of office. A candidate for the position of attorney general must meet certain qualifications and requirements, which include being a registered voter in the District of Columbia and a member in good standing of the District of Columbia Bar for at least five years prior to assuming the position of attorney general. If voters approve of this amendment and the U.S. Congress does not reject the measure, residents of the District of Columbia would begin voting for the attorney general in 2014.
Union Yes! for David Wilmot’s Nonprofit
Washington City Paper blog
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/looselips/2010/10/27/union-yes-for-david-wilmots-nonprofit/
Anybody remember Individual Development Inc., a nonprofit that operates 11 group homes for D.C.’s developmentally disabled residents and whose officers are some of the city’s most politically connected lawyers:David Wilmot, Fred Cooke Jr., and A. Scott Bolden?Brief back story: Last year, Attorney General Peter Nickles, citing safety concerns at two group homes run by IDI after three people died there, froze referrals to the organization and sought to have the two homes run by a court-appointed receiver. Advocates for the mentally disabled had been voicing concerns about IDI for years. Weeks after filing the lawsuit, Nickles entered into a settlement with IDI in which they pledged to do a better job caring for the city’s disabled. Wilmot, IDI’s president, also came under fire for the high salaries—up to $300,000 a year—IDI paid him. Wilmot said his pay was fair and he worked many years for IDI without a salary.
Now comes word from the Service Employees International Union that 150 IDI employees have voted to unionize—allegedly against Wilmot’s wishes.
“Wilmot sough to convince IDI employees not to form a union in a campaign of intimidation which included meetings with employees pleading for workers to give him another chance,” reads an SEIU press release. The union also says that they have filed an unfair labor practice charge against IDI for firing an employee for advocating in support of the union. LL has asked for a copy of the report and will post if he gets it.
SEIU official Avril Smith says IDI employees feel they are underpaid and unappreciated by management. She says most employees the union spoke with made $10 an hour during the week and $11 an hour on weekends. Smith noted that many IDI employees have to rely on Medicaid or other forms of government assistance to cover health care costs.
LL has tried unsuccessfully to contact Wilmot, a confidant to former Mayor-for-Life Marion Barry, and will update as necessary. For more info on Wilmot’s troubles with Still Mayor Adrian Fenty‘s administration, see an old LL columnhere, and for Wilmot’s woes with Anthony Williams‘ administration, seeanother old LL column here.
What’s interesting to this LL is the fact that Wilmot is a political adviser to Almost Mayor Vince Gray. Gray has spent most of his adult career trying to improve the conditions of the developmentally disabled, and is also perceived as a strong friend to organized labor. So LL wonders what he thinks of IDI’s past and current problems.
Next time LL gets a chance to quiz Gray, he’ll ask.
The District's economy
"Better Choices" movement would mean higher D.C. taxes
Washington Business Journal - by Michael Neibauer
Date: Wednesday, October 27, 2010, 12:42pm EDT
Familiar activists will launch a renewed push for higher taxes ahead of presumptive D.C. mayor Vincent Gray's Ward 6 Town Hall meeting Wednesday evening.
It's a familiar dilemma in the down economy: Higher taxes, deep cuts, all of the above. As the D.C. Council and Mayor Adrian Fenty prepare to close a minimum $200 million shortfall, groups are lining up on one side or the other -- or staking a middle ground.
The "Better Choices: Funding D.C. Forward" campaign has its eye on tax hikes. The D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, Save Our Safety Net, D.C. Jobs With Justice, and the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO will launch their bid during a 6 p.m. press conference at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H St. NE.
The campaign is calling for a "balanced approach that includes new revenue, rather than taking a devastating cuts-only approach." Its chief proposal, to raise taxes on the income of the city's top earners, has been rejected repeatedly in recent years. It has a much better chance this go round.
The District's fiscal situation is more dire than any time in the previous two or three years. And, perhaps more importantly, the election will have passed by the time any vote is taken. In six days, Gray, the D.C. Council chairman, will add "mayor-elect" to his title.
Mayor Adrian Fenty, throughout his lone term, was steadfast against raising the three major taxes -- income, sales and property. Gray's position, however, is, "Everything is on the table."
The District's sales tax is 6 percent. Its income tax tops out at 8.4 percent for those earning $40,000 a year. Its residential real estate tax is 85 cents per $100 of assessed value, one of the lowest in the region. And its commercial property tax is $1.65 for the first $3 million of assessed value, and $1.85 per $100 more than $3 million.
D.C. teachers union president faces election runoff
By Bill TurqueWashington Post Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/27/AR2010102709065.html
Thursday, October 28, 2010; B4
Washington Teachers' Union President George Parker, who negotiated a contract with Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee that triggered significant changes in how teachers are managed and paid, finished second in balloting for a third term Wednesday to his former running mate turned vocal critic.
Parker, president of the union since 2005, was edged out by General Vice President Nathan Saunders, 334 to 313, in a contest in which only 881 mail-in ballots were cast by the 4,200-member union.
Saunders fell short, however, of the 51 percent majority required to win outright. Phelps High School teacher Elizabeth Davis finished third with 197 votes; H.D. Cooke Elementary teacher Christopher Bergfalk had 37 votes.
Teachers approved the contract, which included a 20 percent pay raise over five years, by a healthy margin this past summer. But Saunders, Davis and Bergfalk all contend that Parker ceded too much ground at the bargaining table.
The pact gives school principals more control over teacher hiring and establishes a pay-for-performance system. Such systems have traditionally been unpopular with unionized teachers.
Parker has also been criticized within the union for the advent of the IMPACT evaluation system, which uses improvement in student test scores to assess the effectiveness of some teachers. But Rhee was not legally required to negotiate the evaluation system with the union.
Saunders said Wednesday evening that the results reflect teachers' unhappiness with Parker. "I'm looking forward to the next round in a runoff," he said. That vote will take place by mail sometime in November, but ballots may not be tabulated until December.
Parker said the turnout was the lowest the union had ever seen and reflected apathy more than any repudiation of his leadership.
"We've got to do a better job getting our message out and getting teachers inspired for the runoff," Parker said.
The election, originally scheduled for this past May, has been contentious and protracted, slowed by internal disputes over nominating petitions, voter eligibility and a controversial decision by the union's executive board to strip Saunders of his vice presidential duties, charging that he had neglected his responsibilities. Saunders has denied the charges.
The strife caused the parent American Federation of Teachers to take control of the election.
D.C. arts magnet may slip a year
O'Brien noted that some panel members had been leaning in that direction since the group's meeting in June. She quotes actor Eric Booth, who said the "extra months will allow time to clarify the school's identity, goals, and design with an inclusive process that taps the best knowledge and most promising practices in the field, enabling the school to become a national leader from the outset."
A couple of more practical factors are also in the mix. One is the city's parlous financial condition, with the possibility of a $400 million budget shortfall by 2012. School officials said last spring that $20 million had been set aside in the DCPS capital budget for building renovations, but it's not clear whether that money is still there. Even if it is, the other problem is that Rhee is gone--Friday is her last official day--and mayor apparent Vincent C. Gray has never liked the idea of a middle school arts magnet. He's said that the existing middle schools should have their arts programs upgraded instead.
The arts magnet was the stated reason that Rhee pulled Pope last year from Hardy, which has its own popular arts and music program. The move triggered huge pushback from parents who accused Rhee of meddling in an attempt to attract more neighborhood kids to the Georgetown school, which draws most of its enrollment from across the city.They regarded the whole arts magnet idea as a contrivance to ease the removal of Pope, who did not market the school to the surrounding neighborhood as aggressively as Rhee wanted.
Their protests caught the attention of Gray, who praised Hardy as a "one city school" and said at a March D.C. Council hearing that moving Pope was ill-advised. With the arts magnet apparently on a slower track, calls for his reinstatement could intensify.
Foreclosure Help Afoot at the Wilson Building
Washington City Paper
Firstly, Attorney GeneralPeter Nickles is trying to tackle the problem of foreclosure notices, the pieces of paper homeowners get when lenders plan to take back their properties. The issue is this: With the amount of buying and selling of mortgages that’s gone on over the last few years, many of those secondary transactions may not have been recorded in the District’s land records system, which means that the noteholder that shows up on your foreclosure notice may not actually have a security interest in your property. If it doesn’t, you’ll have a harder time finding a basis to challenge the validity of the foreclosure in court, which violates District consumer protection laws.
Enforcement actions haven’t yet been taken, but Nickels suggests that if enough people complain, he might sue the offending parties. So: If you’re being foreclosed upon, find out who actually owns your mortgage, and if there might be a way to quibble with the process. Get legal help if you can afford it. And never trust city databases.
The other foreclosure lifeline for homeowners comes in the form of a billpassed yesterday through Councilmember Muriel Bowser‘s Committee on Public Services and Consumer Affairs. The measure would mandate mediation between the lender and the homeowner before the foreclosure proceeds, and require lenders that do foreclose to offer to rent the building back to the original owner at a fair market rate. Short of a foreclosure moratorium, the first part would significantly slow the rate of foreclosures, giving homeowners a four-month-long shot at loan modification before the foreclosure can proceed.
The measure will come before the full Council on November 2.
http://www.dcwatch.com/themail/2010/10-10-27.htm
Dear Incorporators:
Last Thursday, October 21, the Gray for Mayor campaign committee filed articles of incorporation with the DC Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) for the DC One City Fund, Inc., http://www.dcwatch.com/election2010/101021.htm. The Fund is the nonprofit entity Gray will use to solicit contributions for his transition and inaugural expenses. The corporation will be governed by a board of directors that will consist of Lorraine Green, chairwoman of the Gray campaign; Thomas Gore; and Lloyd Jordan, legal counsel to the campaign.
In our introduction to Sunday’s issue of themail, we wrote that “on Friday night [October 22] Gray held a fundraising event” followed by a Saturday night fundraiser with former mayor Anthony Williams and development Jim Abdo. On Bruce DePuyt’s NewsTalk show Monday morning, Gray implied that we were completely wrong regarding both fundraising events. In fact, we made two minor errors. Gray did hold a fundraising event on Friday night, but he didn’t appear personally; Reuben Charles, the Gray campaign’s controversial director of operations, hosted the event instead. And the Saturday event occurred on Saturday afternoon, rather than Saturday night. The Georgetown Dish has an article about and photographs from that event: http://thegeorgetowndish.com/thescene/williams-day-vincent-gray-fundraiser.
Meanwhile, Kwame Brown and his campaign have not been forthcoming about how he will fund his transition and inauguration. Brown has asked Gregory McCarthy, vice president of Government and Municipal Affairs for the Washington Nations baseball team, to chair his transition committee.
Gary Imhoff, themail@dcwatch.com
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com
###############
DC Tax Dollars at Work
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com
Also: Washington Post's Local Living has candidate bios. If you're reading this, you already know this info, so I won't include it here. If you're curious, here is the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/print/community/dc/index.html
From yesterday:
Mike DeBonis: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/debonis/2010/10/demorning_debonis_oct_27_2010.html
Loose Lips (daily column): http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/looselips/2010/10/27/loose-lips-daily-gray-courts-the-waltons-edition/
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