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Good morning, There's lots in today's clips. Enjoy.
Best, Karyn-Siobhan Robinson a/k/a DC Government Clips
D.C. Government/D.C. Council media clips: Thursday, November 18, 2010.
Missed yesterday? http://bit.ly/d6OB8v
Twitter: DCGovClips
As next D.C. mayor, Gray will have to deal with debt to unions - Washington Post
Gray keeps pledge to hold a jobs summit - D.C. Wire (Washington Post blog)
Gray told hold job summit, adds union rep to transition team - Examiner
Fenty's budget fix slow to come - Examiner
The Hacks’ Moment: D.C. Democratic Party Insiders Get to Pick a Councilmember - Loose Lips (Washington City Paper)
Wal-Mart plans to open 4 stores in the District - Washington Post
Wal-Mart to open four D.C. stores - Washington Business Journal
Wal-Mart lays political groundwork for D.C. stores - DeBonis (Washington Post blog)
Wilmot, Meet Walmart - Loose Lips (Washington City Paper)
Wal-Mart says it's coming to D.C. - Examiner
Welfare in the District - Washington Post
Marion Barry: White Advocates Want to Continue Enslavement of Blacks - Loose Lips (Washington City Paper)
Councilwoman fighting EPA over contaminated riverfront property - Examiner
Board of Trade, Council of Governments fault Metro governance - Washington Business Journal
Task force: Board contributing to Metro’s decline - Examiner
Committee voting on DC streetcars - Dr. Gridlock (Washington Post)
Walk This Way: Expanding pedestrian and bike safety to the whole District won’t be easy. - Housing Complex (Washington City Paper)
Researcher finds good data scarce at DCPS - D.C. Schools Insider (Washington Post)
Lower Barracks Row to Get Religion, Coffee - Housing Complex (Washington City Paper)
Woodies," the sentimental favorite - Greater Greater Washington
Background (Story not included: follow link):
Waltzing With Wal-Mart: Can D.C. convince the world’s largest retailer to take up urbanism?
Housing Complex (Washington City Paper): http://bit.ly/aYGGdD
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As next D.C. mayor, Gray will have to deal with debt to unions
By Mike DeBonis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 17, 2010; 10:34 PM
After three years on the political margins, organized labor has a seat at the table. It did not come easily.
Unions delivered a barrage of phone calls, direct mail and door-to-door canvassers to help D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray complete a stunning upset of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty in this year's city elections. But even that wasn't quite enough to earn labor a top role in Gray's transition.
A day after Gray introduced his 16-member transition team - which included a former mayor, a nationally recognized budget expert, a philanthropist and a former university president - Joslyn N. Williams, president of Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO, said he was "concerned" that no labor leaders were among the senior members of Gray's transition team.
Now, Gray has quietly added Williams to co-chair the economic development team, joining D.C. Chamber of Commerce chief executive Barbara Lang and former George Washington University president Stephen Joel Trachtenberg.
The appointment reflects the balance Gray has tried to strike between acknowledging the contributions of unions to his election and facing up to the governing decisions that await him in the months ahead. On one hand, unions gave his campaign a volunteer base that helped offset Fenty's fundraising advantage. On the other, as mayor, he must tackle a budget deficit that could balloon to $500 million before his four-year term is up.
Williams said that he is now "satisfied that everybody's in the room" but that he still expects broader labor participation in the Gray transition and administration. "I want to make sure we have input in every one of the groups," he said.
But it is unlikely that every labor demand will be so easily met. Leaders of public employee unions, in particular, are hoping for a sympathetic ear; many city employees, including police officers and firefighters, have been working under expired contracts and are hoping for a more responsive negotiating partner.
Gray said unions will not get special treatment. "Contrary to any popular belief, there were no promises of anything," he said of organized labor's support.
About a year ago, the leaders of the city's largest public employee unions made the first of several private visits to Gray. They felt marginalized by Fenty, who was elected without broad union support in 2006, doubted labor's political clout in the city and had raised millions for his reelection bid.
Four men - Kristopher Baumann of the Fraternal Order of Police; George Parker of the Washington Teachers' Union; Ray Sneed of the International Association of Fire Fighters; and Geo T. Johnson of District Council 20 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees - put the hard sell on Gray. They wanted him to give up a sure thing - reelection as council chairman - and run against Fenty in the Democratic primary only 10 months away. Johnson took to calling the group the "gang of four."
In March, their wish became reality.
Gray's victory has union leaders enjoying a new appreciation of their political relevance.
"The common wisdom going into this thing was, the mayor has all this money, there's no way you can beat him - that was proved wrong," said John Boardman, executive secretary-treasurer of Unite Here Local 25, which represents 8,000 city hotel and restaurant workers. "We can turn someone out who we think is not serving the interests of all the people."
Now Gray has the job of reconciling an ailing city budget with the wishes of the newly empowered labor community. His strongest supporters - the public employee unions - place a premium on preserving members' jobs, hundreds of which have been cut in recent years. And Fenty supporters fear that Gray won't have the stomach to fire bad employees because he is beholden to unions.
"I think they've got a chokehold on the chairman," said Attorney General Peter Nickles, a Fenty confidant. "I fear for the return of a culture of complacency. . . . It's the question of what people think every day, every hour, every minute what they can get away with."
Johnson and others said labor is merely looking for some respect and recognition.
"The workers are not above making some sacrifices, but what we are universally opposed to are unilateral decisions," he said. "I'm open to sit down and explore how we can save. . . . Anything that would keep people's jobs."
Gray said that he shares labor's goal of saving as many jobs as possible and that he is optimistic that union leaders will be open to other concessions. "I think you've got to sit down and say, 'Look, here's the reality of our financial situation.' You try to do what you can to save jobs, first and foremost," he said. "Giving raises is just not something that's even an option at this point."
Gray, however, dismissed the use of employee furloughs, which other jurisdictions have turned to in budget crunches, as a measure that "doesn't solve the long-term problem."
Labor leaders have political imperatives apart from jobs. Sneed and Baumann have clashed with the fire and police chiefs, respectively, and have pressed for management changes. Parker, who finds his union amid a national battle over education reform, wants modifications to a controversial teacher evaluation system.
Parker and other union leaders insist that they did not buy Gray's absolute loyalty with their political support. "They are way off track if they think Vince Gray is going to be controlled by the Washington Teachers' Union," Parker said. "If you talk to him for five minutes, it's very clear. He listens to all sides, but Vince has his own mind."
The Fenty factor
Washington is devoid of the manufacturing base that made such cities as Baltimore and Philadelphia labor strongholds, but the workers in the city's core industries - construction, hospitality and government - have maintained some local influence. Although labor leaders have rarely been kingmakers in the 36 years since the city gained home rule, virtually every mayor - until Fenty - paid them some deference.
Joslyn Williams remarked on the contrast between Fenty and his predecessor, Anthony A. Williams, who met with labor leaders nearly once a month.
Fenty met with the AFL-CIO's Washington area council once during his tenure, Joslyn Williams said. That was weeks after his inauguration, when Fenty was trying to gain support for his takeover of the city schools. Some labor leaders rebuffed Fenty, and he never sought their support again, the AFL-CIO official said.
A "broad swath of insult" is what Fenty delivered, Boardman said. "Not only could you not work with him, he wasn't interested in seeking any counsel from anyone," Boardman said.
Nickles said that union leaders overstate the issue and that he had met with them several times on a variety of issues. But he said there were deep differences with public employee unions over the pace and scale of Fenty's reformist agenda, which sought the swift removal of poorly performing employees.
There are about 35,200 city employees, according to the city personnel agency; more than 31,400 belong to unions that are often at odds with Fenty.
Parker had become the face of the opposition to Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's reform initiatives; the administration presented police and fire employees with contract proposals that offered no pay raises; and workplace grievances languished because the appeals board wasn't hearing cases.
In late March, when Gray decided he'd enter the race after months of speculation, union support fell quickly in line. "Sometimes, when there are causes we support, it's tough getting our members to put their feet on the ground," Parker said. "It was not very tough this time around."
Union foot soldiers
During the two months before the Sept. 14 primary election, Chuck Brown, 46, joined a dozen or more of his fellow members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 26 and fanned out across the city, dropping campaign literature at the doors of residents in wards 4, 5, and 7.
"We knew that Vincent Gray supports organized labor; Adrian Fenty doesn't," said Brown, a resident of Washington Highlands in Southeast. "That's the bread and butter right there."
The unions made their difference with manpower. Fenty's $5 million war chest financed scores of paid campaign workers. But motivated union members lent the late-forming Gray campaign an instant field operation. Meanwhile, what little union support Fenty had in 2006 was not with him in 2010.
Putting a dollar amount on labor's contributions is not simple. Two labor-related political action committees funded anti-Fenty mail pieces and phone calls that went to the public at large. One of them, run by the local AFL-CIO council, spent about $400,000, Williams said. Johnson estimates that the AFSCME council spent about $150,000.
But unions are not required to report what they spend to contact their members, and that effort, labor leaders say, was extensive and unprecedented. And local organizations were joined by bigger players from regional and national unions.
"It was a great compensation for not having money," Gray said of the union volunteers.
Brown said he had become frustrated watching city construction projects draw workers from Maryland, Pennsylvania, even New York, while hundreds of his union brothers from the city were left unemployed. "That's what got me involved," he said.
His involvement didn't end with the primary. Brown and several of his union brothers have shown up at Gray's town hall meetings, pressing him on enforcing the First Source Agreement Program, which requires that contractors who receive city financing or tax breaks provide employee opportunities for District residents.
"Only thing we wanted was that," Brown said.
Gray keeps pledge to hold a jobs summit
By Tim Craig
D.C. Wire (Washington Post blog)
November 17, 2010; 5:39 PM ET
Mayor-elect Vincent C. Gray will hold a "jobs summit" Dec. 13, fulfilling a promise he made during the campaign to bring the community together to prioritize job creation even before he takes office.
The summit, to be held at the Reeves Municipal Center on U Street NW, will include "business owners, organized labor, government officials, job training providers, representatives of the higher education community, and other key stakeholders in the District's economy," according a statement from Gray's transition office.
"There is no issue of greater importance than connecting District residents to jobs," Gray said. "Therefore, I am pleased to get an early start on new strategies to spur job growth, reinvigorate job training programs, and attract and retain businesses that will hire our residents."
Since defeating Mayor Adrian M. Fenty in the Sept. 14 Democratic primary, Gray has become a big fan of town-hall gatherings.
He held a town hall meeting in each of the city's eight wards between the primary and the general election, and he recently said he hopes to continue the practice after being sworn in Jan. 2.
Barbara Lang, president of the D.C. Chamber of Commerce, and Josyln Williams, head of the Metropolitan Council of the AFL-CIO, will chair Gray's jobs summit.
Gray told hold job summit, adds union rep to transition team
By: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/blogs/capital-land/gray-told-hold-job-summit-adds-union-rep-to-transition-team-108791114.html#ixzz15coxISPb
Examiner Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/blogs/capital-land/gray-told-hold-job-summit-adds-union-rep-to-transition-team-108791114.html#ixzz15coxISPb
11/17/10 6:45 PM EST
Mayor-elect Vince Gray is bringing together a group of business owners, organized labor representatives and government officials to discuss methods for creating jobs in the District.
The “Job Creation Summit” was part of Gray’s economic development plan, which he unveiled before the Democratic primary in September. The summit will be held Dec. 13.
Gray also announced that Joslyn Williams, the president of the Metropolitan Council of the AFL-CIO, has joined Gray’s transition team. Williams joins D.C. Chamber of Commerce President Barbara Lang to lead the “Transition Economic Development Working Group.”
Gray was criticized for not initially including labor leaders on his transition team when he rolled it out earlier this month.
Gray will preside over the summit, which “will focus on creating the tactics and action plan for delivering jobs to District residents,” he said in a statement.
Fenty's budget fix slow to come
By: FREEMAN KLOPOTT
Examiner Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Fenty_s-budget-fix-slow-to-come-1599030-108770454.html#ixzz15cpOwG1M
Examiner Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Fenty_s-budget-fix-slow-to-come-1599030-108770454.html#ixzz15cpOwG1M
November 17, 2010
Mayor Adrian Fenty's proposal to fill a $175 million budget gap has yet to be introduced to the D.C. Council even though council members expected to get it last week.
The council can't begin considering the proposals until the mayor officially submits them. Council Chairman Vince Gray has said he wanted the budget in front of the council last week so the public and council members had enough time to consider the proposals and get them passed before Gray steps into the mayor's office on Jan. 2. Now, it's not likely that the council will have the budget in its hands until Friday, giving members only a few weeks to work through it between Thanksgiving and the Christmas break.
"While I would love to have had the budget sent down earlier, I look forward to seeing it in the next few days and making the tough decisions needed to make the city financially strong" Council Chairman-elect Kwame Brown told The Washington Examiner. "It's important to address these issues in a timely fashion."
A spokesman for City Administrator Neil Albert said Albert's office sent the budget proposal to the chief financial officer last week. The CFO will determine whether Fenty's proposal will meet its stated goals. A CFO spokesman said the office has received a proposal marked "Draft."
Gray and Albert met on Friday to go over the proposal's details, the Albert spokesman said.
Gray and Kwame Brown have said they've been working with the CFO on their ideas.
On the campaign trail, Gray repeatedly said he wants the public's input on the budget process. Assuming Fenty sends the budget to the council on Friday as expected, the council will have to act quickly to set up a public hearing, likely sometime in the early days of December. The council would then have three more weeks to consider it. Unlike the annual budget process, Fenty isn't required to give the council 56 days to review the budget fix for a fiscal year that's already in progress.
"I'm surprised we haven't gotten it sooner," said at-large Councilman Michael A. Brown.
Not all council members were troubled.
"We should be able to get it done without a problem," said Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans. "My advice to the powers that be: Make as many cuts as possible so we can stay away from revenue hikes."
The Hacks’ Moment: D.C. Democratic Party Insiders Get to Pick a Councilmember
Posted by Alan Suderman on Nov. 17, 2010 at 7:55 pm
Loose Lips (Washington City Paper)
D.C. has never been much of a machine-politics city. In other one-party towns, members of ruling party’s hierarchy snag plum patronage jobs, anoint elected officials, and do their scheming in the (formerly) smoke-filled back rooms of fancy headquarters buildings. But in the District, whose political structure dates to the reform-minded 1970s rather than Boss Tweed’s Gilded Age, the reigning Democrats lack most trappings of urban political power. The party organization has no clout when it comes to picking primary winners. The 81-member D.C. Democratic State Committee’s headquarters is in the basement of its executive director’s Near Southeast home.
In fact, the party organization reliably gets to flex its muscles at only one rare moment in the political cycle: Right now.
The back story: Kwame Brown’s election this month as D.C. Council chairman means he’ll vacate his at-large council seat, requiring a special election sometime next spring to replace him. But under the Home Rule Act, the seat will be filled on an interim basis by a candidate chosen by the DCDSC at its Jan. 6 meeting. Whoever gets the committee’s nod will head into the special election as an incumbent, and will be able to dun political donors during the spring budget season.
This quirk in the District’s political rules—party committees don’t pick interim ward councilmembers, only at-large ones—has aroused the ire of The Washington Post’s editorial board as well as the social networked wonks who run GreaterGreaterWashington.org. Both outlets lamented the process this week, wondering why a bunch of unknown party hacks should get that sort of power.
Luckily for LL, D.C. is enough of a machine town that said party hacks aren’t going to let a bunch of good-government types ruin their moment in the sun. In e-mails to a private group listserv obtained by Washington City Paper, committee members sounded distinctly touchy about having their democratic credentials questioned.
"It is very disrespectful for the Post to insinuate that WE are NOBODY," said one committee member in an e-mail. At-Large committee member Dave Donaldson got so worked up mocking the Post’s financial troubles and promising to cancel his subscription that he forgot to use spellcheck.
“The other day I found myself once again shaking my head at the poor thought and lack of trust this (going banrupt) piece of trash of a newspaper The Washington (Toast) Post is putting to its dwindling circulation," Donaldson wrote.
The cheerleading for the party organization—and the raging against its critics—was even more pronounced among the DCDSC members who have their eyes on Brown’s open seat.
Jacque Patterson, president of the Ward 8 Democrats and a current council hopeful, shared with the committee a response he wrote to the Post’s editorial, saying that committee members are not "club house politicos" but are "unpaid diehard Democrats who diligently works to raise the consciousness of local and national Democratic leaders to the concerns of the communities they represent."
Former Ward 5 Councilmember Vincent Orange, who also wants the at-large seat, chimed in, testifying to the sanctity of the Home Rule Act—and warning that a Republican-controlled House of Representatives might be more eager to change the city’s gun laws, gay marriage statute, or needle exchange programs if locals started tinkering with special-election laws first. "We must be careful and overly protected [sic] of our rights provided to us by the Home Rule Act," Orange wrote. In his telling, the editorials were part of an effort by the Post and GGW to “manipulate the DCDSC out of its power."
"Together we stand with the Home Rule Act, divided, we fall," Orange warned.
Committee Chairwoman Anita Bonds is a bit more measured, saying criticism of the appointment process is premature. Bond says her members "don’t understand why there is this concern at this point."
"We don’t even have a list of candidates," says Bonds. Eleven Democrats have indicated they might run.
Bonds says that her committee—many of whose members are elected—is representative of the District. She says the group is dedicated to making the process as open and fair as possible.
But the process so far seems somewhat less than Athenian. Orange, for instance, appears to be the official frontrunner. Why? As far as LL can tell, it’s because Orange has been busily telling people he’s the frontrunner. Last month, the Post reported that Orange had informed party leaders that he’d already locked up 40 votes, practically assuring his victory.
If so, that might prove the critics’ point that the state committee is all about rewarding the politically connected. After all, regular voters are clearly not smitten with Orange, who didn’t respond to LL’s request for comment. When he ran for mayor in 2006, he got 2.9 percent of the vote. When he ran against Brown for the council’s chairmanship in this season’s primary, he lost by 16 points.
But Orange has been a long-time, loyal party member—qualities that may matter most in winning the committee’s pick. "There a lot of people on the state committee who see it as: you have to pay your dues," says one committee member, who asked not to be identified by name. "It’s very much a closed, inside network."
It’s enough to make LL wonder whether the recently released committee process for picking an appointee, which includes a candidate forum and the requirement that candidates collect 1,000 signature, city-wide, isn’t just a time-wasting charade.
For his part, Patterson says Orange has no more than 30 votes and the race is far from over. "I will gladly admit that I’m behind him, but he knows he doesn’t have 40 votes," Patterson says. "The only person who believes he has those 40 votes is himself when it’s all said and done, ‘cause they’re not there."
Other candidates are equally optimistic about their chances, saying they believe the committee will pick someone more fresh than Orange. "He’s been there, done that," says Myla Moss, a Ward 1 ANC commissioner who is running.
Bonds, too, says she still believes that the race is still wide open.
That might even be a good thing for Democratic regulars. In 1997, the last time the DCDSC got a chance to fill a seat ahead of a special election, its choice was Arrington Dixon, another former councilmember who’d been there and done that. On election day, he lost to then-Republican David Catania by 1,197 votes, which in a low-turnout election turned out to be 5 points.
NOT THE BEST TIME FOR A RAISE
By all accounts, the looming cuts to the city’s budget won’t be pretty. The mayor’s office hadn’t released its first draft of a plan by LL’s deadline, but it’s safe to assume that plenty of people aren’t going to be happy with the painful decisions that come with closing a $175 million budget gap.
In the midst of the likely carnage comes the news that Gregory O’Dell, the president and CEO of the Washington Convention Center and Sports Authority, was just given a contract extension that came with a $25,000 pay raise, bringing his total salary to $275,000 a year for the current fiscal year.
The independent agency, which oversees the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, RFK Stadium, and the D.C. Armory, has its own budget and board of directors and is partly funded through the city’s hotel tax.
O’Dell didn’t return LL’s calls, but board members say that he’s done a "superb" job and should be paid at a level equal to what his peers in other cities are being paid. The Post recently put him atop a short list of likely candidates for a major role in planning and development in Almost Mayor Vince Gray’s administration.
Emily Durso, the outgoing head of the Hotel Association of Washington D.C., who may also land a new job with the Gray administration, said the board considered that a pay raise for O’Dell might cause some heartburn at the Wilson Building. But members ultimately decided that it was worth any potential trouble.
“We want him to stay," Durso says.
Wal-Mart plans to open 4 stores in the District
By Jonathan O'Connell and Mike DeBonis
Washington Post Staff Writers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/17/AR2010111705778.html
Washington Post Staff Writers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/17/AR2010111705778.html
Thursday, November 18, 2010; 12:49 AM
Wal-Mart announced plans Wednesday to enter the District for the first time, laying out an aggressive strategy to open four stores and hire 1,200 people in the city by 2012.
The blueprint is part of a national effort by the chain to expand beyond rural and suburban areas, where its low prices and massive stores transformed the retail landscape, into urban markets. Although Wal-Mart already operates stores in Northern Virginia and suburban Maryland, it has never had a store in the District.
As it has when it entered other cities, Wal-Mart's announcement is already is drawing the ire of labor leaders who complain that the company pays substandard wages and provides inadequate benefits. But with an unemployment rate above the national average and many neighborhoods lacking the basic goods and groceries that Wal-Mart says it will offer, several city officials and neighborhood leaders said they would consider supporting the plans.
Wal-Mart said it expects to create 400 construction jobs, generate in excess of $10 million in tax revenue for the District and expand its charitable activities here, focusing particularly on job training and efforts to combat hunger.
"D.C. residents want more convenient access to quality jobs and affordable groceries," said Henry Jordan, senior vice president of Wal-Mart U.S. "We want to be part of the solution and look forward to building even more support for what our brand can deliver."
The Bentonville, Ark.-based company has fared better than many retailers during the economic downturn by emphasizing its low prices. But much of its growth has come from expanding operations overseas. Wal-Mart has been looking for opportunities to grow in the United States, whether it be moving into urban areas or experimenting with stores that rely on far smaller footprints than the traditional one-story, big-box format that dominates so many communities.
In June, for instance, the nation's largest retailer agreed to a deal with the Chicago City Council that gives the company the green light to open its second store in that city by 2012 and two dozen or more stores there in coming years.
Its four D.C. stores will vary from 80,000 to 120,000 square feet, a typical size for the chain. The company is also considering additional stores for the District, including a new pilot format of fewer than 30,000 square feet, according to spokesman Steven Restivo.
"We're continuing to evaluate opportunities across the District, and those opportunities are small, medium and large sites," he said.
The company is also trying to improve its image as an employer. In 2007, Wal-Mart named the Washington area one of 10 "jobs and opportunity zones" across the country, promising to help local suppliers and even teach mom-and-pop shops how to compete with it.
At its stores in Washington area suburbs, Wal-Mart pays an average of $12.49 an hour. Although Restivo would not say what wages would be at its District stores, he said the rates would be above that of most union jobs offered by competing grocers and that most jobs would be full-time positions.
But Thomas P. McNutt, president of Local 400 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, which represents employees of area Giant, Safeway and Shoppers Food Warehouse stores, said Wal-Mart's wage pledges don't change much.
"It doesn't matter what format they bring to the city," he said. "This is a wolf in sheep's clothing."
McNutt said he was skeptical of the company's wage claims, saying the comparisons often do not account for generous benefit packages provided for in union contracts, including health and retirement benefits. "It's total compensation that separates the union market from the non-union market," he said.
Throughout its history, Wal-Mart has often been the target of fierce opposition from local business and community leaders who fear it will drive smaller retailers out of business. In the District, it is unclear what zoning and legislative approvals would be required for the stores to open. The company has already begun briefing city officials on its plans.
Mayor-elect Vincent C. Gray cautiously welcomed the announcement. Gray, who won election in part by promising to tackle unemployment, also received tremendous support from labor unions.
"There have historically been concerns about [Wal-Mart's] labor practices," he said in a brief interview Wednesday night. "I want to make sure workers are treated fairly and earn fair wages."
D.C. Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) said that he's quite aware of the many arguments against the retailer but that District residents have as much right to low prices as suburbanites do.
"One of the arguments about gentrification and displacement [is that] it's not just about the cost of housing, it's about the cost of groceries and other goods," he said.
Council member Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5), perhaps the most reliable pro-labor vote on the council, is also assuming a soft stance for the moment. "My number one concern is ensuring we have full-time jobs and labor-based pay rates," he said.
Kamili Anderson, a neighborhood activist who lives near the Georgia Avenue site, said she has some reservations about Wal-Mart, based on its reputation for being anti-union and giving employees paltry benefits. But she said the area has an "urgency" for more retail outlets and that most residents will welcome the proposal - particularly if the company solicits input from neighbors on "what they want to do with the store."
"Anything that could draw more business and more development should be welcomed," Anderson said. "With conditions."
Staff writers Ylan Q. Mui and Nikita Stewart contributed to this report.
Wal-Mart to open four D.C. stores
Washington Business Journal - by Michael Neibauer
Date: Wednesday, November 17, 2010, 7:56pm EST - Last Modified: Wednesday, November 17, 2010, 8:07pm EST
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will open four locations in the District by late 2012, the world's largest retailer announced Wednesday, and the company will hire upward of 1,200 people to staff the 80,000 to 120,000 square foot stores.
The first three confirmed sites — the first ever in D.C. — are 801 New Jersey Avenue NW in Ward 6; Georgia and Missouri Avenue NW in Ward 4; and East Capitol Street and 58th Street in Capitol Heights in Ward 7. The fourth will likely be a parcel at New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road NE in Ward 5.
Each store will feature a full grocery selection, Wal-Mart says on its D.C.-specific website.
Wal-Mart says the stores will generate $10 million a year in new tax revenue, 400 construction jobs and 1,200 permanent jobs. The company has reportedly agreed to pay average grocery store wages.
The parcel at 801 New Jersey, at the intersection with H Street NW between NoMa and Mount Vernon Triangle, is owned by the District but controlled by the Bennett Group, which holds a long term lease on the parcel. The lease, signed more than 20 years ago, calls for fees and penalties if Bennett does not have development permits in hand by January. LuAnn Bennett and co-developer JBG shifted their sights from federal government leases to mixed-use in the last year.
The Georgia Avenue Wal-Mart will replace a former car dealership, which also served as outgoing Mayor Adrian Fenty's 2010 reelection headquarters.
All four sites are zoned for mixed-use and would require few, if any, zoning approvals. It is unclear whether Wal-Mart is asking for any taxpayer assistance, but the company is launching a public relations offensive, asking its supporters to "help get the word out about the benefits."
There is strong anti-Wal-Mart sentiment in some circles, especially labor.
Wal-Mart lays political groundwork for D.C. stores
By Mike DeBonis
DeBonis (Washington Post blog)
November 17, 2010; 3:35 PM ET
After years of abortive efforts, Wal-Mart finally appears poised to make its entry into the District of Columbia. The world's largest retailer appears ready to take advantage of a favorable political climate and a new willingness to increase wages, meeting with city officials in recent days to discuss opening as many as four stores.
The news comes less than five months after Wal-Mart struck a deal with Chicago labor and community groups, clearing the way for a passel of new "urban format" stores in that city. Reports have popped up in recent weeks about Wal-Mart exploring other inner-city locations across the country.
Now, key District legislators, lured amid an economic downturn by the prospect of more jobs and low-priced goods for constituents, are at least willing to give Wal-Mart a chance. The retailer is seriously considering deals that would place smaller, grocery-focused stores at four city locations -- at the Capitol Gateway development at the city's eastern corner in Ward 7; at the Curtis Chevrolet site on Georgia Avenue in Ward 4; next to Gonzaga High School in Ward 6, near the Northwest One development area; and at New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road in Ward 5.
Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), at the vanguard of the council's liberal wing, didn't play tough with the retailer in an interview this morning.
Wells said he's quite aware of the many arguments against the retailer -- low wages, no benefits, opposition to unions, predatory effect on small local businesses -- but he said he's "keeping an open mind."
District residents, he argued this morning, have a right to low, low prices as much as the suburbanite. "One of the arguments about gentrification and displacement, it's not just about the cost of housing, it's about the cost of groceries and other goods," he said.
Especially in becoming a grocery vendor, he said, "Wal-Mart may have a role in the city."
Council member Harry Thomas Jr., perhaps the single most reliable pro-labor vote on the council, is also assuming a soft stance for the moment.
"My No. 1 concern is ensuring we have full-time jobs and labor-based pay rates," he said. "The bottom line for me is bringing 800 jobs to the city." Thomas said he'd be meeting with labor leaders soon to discuss the idea.
Note that Thomas said "labor-based pay rates" and not "union jobs." Wells said it was his "understanding" that Wal-Mart was ready to agree to a Chicago-style labor deal to ease its way into town. The Chicago deal reportedly will start workers at $8.75 an hour with raises guaranteed a year after that. But that's still short of "living wage" standards, and far short of what workers in Safeway and Giant stores -- organized by the United Food and Commercial Workers -- make.
But union support is not monolithic. As much as the grocery workers might resent Wal-Mart's entry, the building trades, with the prospect of hundreds of construction jobs on the new developments, might be willing to support a deal -- as happened in Chicago.
Make no mistake: Thomas & Co. love the idea of bringing jobs to his ward, loves the idea of bring new retail and community amenities to his neighborhoods, but they don't want this blowing up in their face. Thomas said he's asked Wal-Mart reps to quickly conduct a telephone poll, then he plans to meet with community groups as soon as next week.
Thomas noted that Wal-Mart is not seeking any sort of city subsidy for its ventures -- in keeping with its practice elsewhere in the country. Furthermore, the sites under consideration appear to allow "matter of right" development -- meaning no additional, potentially contentious zoning changes would be necessary.
Some members are still treading carefully, however: Yvette Alexander(D-Ward 4 7) said that the new store "could be a great thing, but what have they done in the community?" she asked.
"Some residents want it, some residents don't," she said. "There are more big-box retailers than Wal-Mart."
Wilmot, Meet Walmart
Loose Lips (Washington City Paper)
By now you all know, if you have a Twitter account and follow certain councilmembers, that a handful of hip, urban Walmarts might actually be coming to the District. The Post's Mike DeBonis has more details on possible locations, and how some liberal, pro-labor councilmembers are willing to give the big-box business behemoth a chance.
The general knock on Walmart, which usually comes from liberal, pro-labor corners, is that the store doesn't treat its employees very well—it fights union efforts, pays low wages, and doesn't offer very good benefits.
Wait a second, that line: "Fights union efforts, pays low wages, and doesn't offer very good benefits" sounds familiar... Oh yeah, that's what the employees of Individual Development Inc., which operates group homes for the District's developmentally disabled, recently told LL about their boss, superlobbyistDavid Wilmot. IDI workers told LL they received low wages ($10/hour during the week, $11/hour on weekends) with no raises and crappy benefits, while Wilmot rakes in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. (Tax records show that he's pulled in as much as $346,743 a year.) His employees just voted to unionize against his wishes, and the Service Employees International Union has filed a complaint, alleging that Wilmot fired an employee for trying to unionize.
So what does this have to do with Walmart? Turns out Wilmot is Walmart's main local lobbyist. It's a perfect match!
Financial disclosure forms show that Walmart paid Wilmot $15,000 for the first six months of this year. (That's actually $10k less than what the company paid Wilmot for the same period in 2009, so yes, the economic downturn affects us all.)
Walmart's financial disclosure forms also show the company lobbied the D.C. Council, though it's not clear if it was Wilmot doing the lobbying. The firm's reps met with Almost Mayor Vince Gray on April 30, both Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander and Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr. on May 31, and At-Large Councilmember Michael Brown (LL's pretty sure it's the councilmember, not the shadow senator, but there was no middle initial listed) on June 30.
One more neat thing: LL wrote a while ago about the Greater Washington Sports Alliance, which organizes the National Marathon, has a CEO who makes more than $400k a year, and has been the beneficiary of very, very generous city officials. Turns out Walmart donated to the group this summer $1,000 in granola bars, peanuts, Gatorade, water and Vitamin Water (which was probably all went to Still Mayor Adrian Fenty). And now they're getting the red carpet treatment here in the District. Weird!
Wal-Mart says it's coming to D.C.
By: FREEMAN KLOPOTT
Examiner Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Wal-Mart-says-it_s-coming-to-Washington-1598651-108759429.html#ixzz15d2nU95K
Examiner Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Wal-Mart-says-it_s-coming-to-Washington-1598651-108759429.html#ixzz15d2nU95K
November 17, 2010
Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, is telling D.C. Council members that it's planning to open a series of grocery-focused stores in Washington that will pay workers a wage comparable with grocery chains in the area.
Wal-Mart has explored opening a store in the District in the past. But the latest round of plans floated to council members in recent days are more concrete, leading Ward 7 Councilwoman Yvette Alexander and Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells to announce the store's imminent arrival via Twitter late Tuesday night.
The plans, council sources told The Washington Examiner, call for up to six grocery stores that cover up to 60,000 square feet. That's less than half the size of the Super Wal-Marts that dot the nation's suburbs.
Wal-Mart did not respond Wednesday to requests for comment.
Wells said Wal-Mart has indicated it will pay workers a living wage.
But so far, the big box store giant hasn't asked the District for any concessions such as tax breaks or zoning changes, leaving city officials with little leverage to make sure it follows through on its promise.
"We can just hope that they ask for something," said at-large Councilman Michael A. Brown. "If they ask for anything, the demands will be great."
Brown said he'd want the city to require Wal-Mart to hire D.C. residents, pay them a living wage and find ways to protect the city's smaller businesses.
"If we get 10 jobs at Wal-Mart and then lose 10 because it shuts down a mom and pop store, then it's a wash," he said.
No plans have yet to be signed, but they might be as soon as next week, sources said.
Possible sites include the corner of New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road Northeast and the Capitol Gateway development on East Capitol Street Northeast, not too far from the Maryland border.
The smaller, grocery-store focused stores that council members said Wal-Mart is planning to build in D.C. fit squarely into the company's blueprint for opening stores in urban areas nationwide. Last month, a Wal-Mart executive told the Wall Street Journal that the company is planning to open stores modeled after the bodegas it has opened in Latin America. The strategy is reportedly meant to recapture some of Wal-Mart's blue-collar customers who fled its aisles when the company began targeting middle-class customers at the start of the recession.
Welfare in the District
Editorial
Washington Post
Thursday, November 18, 2010; A26
PERHAPS THE most striking evidence of the failings of the District's welfare system is that no less an advocate for generous social benefits than D.C. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) sees the need for stringent new controls. His proposal to limit benefits comes from watching generations of families trapped in a cycle of poverty, joblessness and government assistance. The plan has so roiled the council that it is uncertain that it will even be brought up for a vote, but the issues that Mr. Barry raises should not be dismissed.
Mr. Barry and council member Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7) are sponsoring legislation that would end the District's unique policy of limitless benefits for participants in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Under the 1996 welfare reform, the federal government imposed a five-year lifetime limit, but the District - unlike most states - opted to use local funds to pay benefits beyond the five years. The federal government does permit states to extend benefits to the 20 percent of caseloads seen as having the most difficult barriers to employment. But the city estimates that about 40 percent of the 17,000 families on TANF have been getting benefits for more than five years. The subsidy is meager - an average of $370 a month. But the cost to the District is about $35 million a year, and that has to be a concern for a government wrestling with budget shortfalls.
It's significant that the bill - which came under widespread criticism at a public hearing Monday - is being promoted by representatives from the neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River most affected by TANF. Mr. Barry, in particular, has long presented himself as a voice for the city's neediest, and so it's telling to hear him talk about the failings of a system that keeps people trapped in joblessness and poverty and dependent on government. Part of the problem is inadequacies in services provided to TANF participants, so it's encouraging that the city already has significant reforms underway. Those include a new assessment system to identify the strengths and needs of clients as well as a broader range of education and employment programs.
Clearly, those programs should be given a chance to work. Likewise, we understand the concern of those who worry about the hardship for a vulnerable population if benefits are cut off during these extraordinary hard times. But Mr. Barry and Ms. Alexander are right to ask when government help becomes a hindrance - and that's a conversation worth continuing.
Marion Barry: White Advocates Want to Continue Enslavement of Blacks
Posted by Alan Suderman on Nov. 17, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Loose Lips (Washington City Paper)
Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry went on the Fox Business Channel today to kick off his tour as the poster child for welfare reform. At about the four minute mark, Barry makes the claim that African Americans are supportive of his proposal to impose a five-year limit on welfare payments while the white advocates who testified Monday against his proposal are basically trying to keep poor people of color "powerless" and "enslaved," albeit "less so" than before.
LL didn't watch Monday's hearing. Is that what really happened? Here's the video:
(Note from DC Government Clips: click link above to view video)
Councilwoman fighting EPA over contaminated riverfront property
By: FREEMAN KLOPOTT
Examiner Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Councilwoman-fighting-EPA-over-contaminated-riverfront-property-1587193-108757804.html#ixzz15d42F33S
Examiner Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Councilwoman-fighting-EPA-over-contaminated-riverfront-property-1587193-108757804.html#ixzz15d42F33S
November 17, 2010
D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh wants to block federal regulators from seizing contaminated properties along the Anacostia River so the land can potentially be more quickly cleaned and developed.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency has threatened to take over the cleanup process of three toxic properties along the river if the city doesn't act by mid-December to force the property owners to remove contaminants. But the EPA is notoriously slow, often taking more than a decade to get projects done, and neither the D.C. attorney general nor the District Department of the Environment have the power to force landowners to act.
To fix that, the Ward 3 councilwoman has introduced a bill to give District authorities the tools they need to force property owners to clean up. Cheh told The Washington Examiner that she'll soon introduce emergency legislation to make sure a version of the bill is passed in time to meet the EPA's deadline.
"Even if these sites are not developed, they could be used for a recreational purpose," Cheh said. "Not having these sites cleaned up impedes the opportunity to functionally use them."
In an August letter, the EPA warned the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments that it will list the city-owned Kenilworth Landfill, a Washington Gas property on 12th Street Southeast and a Pepco facility on Benning Road Northeast on its Superfund National Priorities List. There are already three D.C. sites on the list, including the Washington Navy Yard, where the first stage of cleanup started in 1998 and has yet to be finished. All of the properties leak deadly toxins such as PCBs, arsenic and lead into the river.
In 2000, the District, along with almost every state, passed a bill meant to localize the regulations of the federal law that created the Superfund. But unlike other jurisdictions, D.C.'s law had no enforcement measures and left the choice to clean contaminated land up to property owners. Cheh's bill would correct that omission, she said.
"It's disappointing that it took so long for us to get to this point," Cheh said.
Pepco spokesman Andre Francis said, "We will comply with any legislation that's passed."
The power company's Benning Road facility, however, is "vital" and will continue to operate, Francis said.
Washington Gas spokesman Ruben Rodriguez said the company has already spent "several millions of dollars" on cleaning up the site, which it routinely monitors to ensure toxins are not slipping into the river.
Board of Trade, Council of Governments fault Metro governance
Washington Business Journal - by Jeff Clabaugh
Date: Wednesday, November 17, 2010, 11:44am EST - Last Modified: Wednesday, November 17, 2010, 1:05pm EST
The Greater Washington Board of Trade and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments think the mayor and governors should have more power in overseeing Metro.
Five months after the two groups formed a task force to study Metro’s problems, it is out with its recommendation: Form a Governance Commission to make improvements and hold the board accountable for its performance.
The four-month study, which included interviews with current and former WMATA officials, regional leaders and industry experts, concludes that Metro’s governance structure is the root of its decline. The panel recommends that the governors of Maryland and Virginia and the mayor of D.C. take a stronger role in selecting members and the chairman of the WMATA board, and that its chairman can be chosen from outside of the board’s membership.
“Every issue and challenge – and, therefore, every improvement – for Metro depends on effective governance. What may have been an appropriate governance structure for Metro in the 1960’s is not appropriate to operate today’s mature system,” says Jim Dyke, co-chair of the task force and chairman of the Greater Washington Board of Trade.
In addition to D.C.’s mayor and governors from Maryland and Virginia, the task force recommends the Governance Commission also include the Washington Suburban Transit Commission Chair, the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission Chair, the D.C. Council Chair and the GSA Administrator.
Task force: Board contributing to Metro’s decline
November 17, 2010
Group wants governors, mayor to have more power over system
Metro’s board of directors has contributed to the rapid decline of the transit system and is swiftly losing public confidence, a regional panel that examined the agency’s governing structure said Wednesday.
The task force wants to establish a commission that would include the area’s highest local elected officials to oversee Metro’s board of directors, among other “immediate changes.”
The commission would include the Maryland and Virginia governors, the D.C. mayor and council chairman, and three regional transportation officials. The members would elect the board chairman.
“The task force has some reservations regarding the current composition of the board; specifically, it is not convinced that elected officials are able to adopt a long-term, regional perspective,” the report said.
“Metro’s troubling decline in performance will continue unless fundamental changes are made to improve governance, leadership and accountability.”
The Greater Washington Board of Trade and Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments sponsored the report.
The task force also recommends re-evaluating a single jurisdiction’s ability to kill a proposal with a veto and allowing the two governors and mayor to each appoint a board member.
“The current structure lacks accountability and responsibility,” said Jim Dyke, the panel’s co-chairman.
The Metro board would answer to the new “governance commission” for its performance, the report said. A CEO should be hired to run Metro instead of a general manager, and the board chairman should be elected for a four-year post instead of rotating annually.
“The task force found the lack of a clear line between the board and the general manager and the annually rotating board chair contributed to ... problems,” Dyke said.
The riders group that advises Metro also suggested installing a CEO in its governance report on Tuesday. However, the group suggested keeping a general manager while the CEO acts as the “visionary head” of the agency.
The task force said many of the recommendations could — and “should” — be implemented as soon as possible. Most immediately, the ongoing search for Metro’s new general manager should be turned into a CEO search, they said.
If adopted by Metro, other changes designed to give the board a more regional focus could come as soon as within the next several months, such as a new board chairman.
Under the existing practice, board members rotate as chairman. The chairman also assigns board members to committees, and the task force said that can lead to arbitrary committee assignments and less efficiency.
“You can literally be appointed to chair the board of directors having never served on the board,” said David Robertson, a task force member and executive director of the Council of Governments.
In addition, no member should serve more than two four-year terms.
Of the board’s 14 members, Christopher Zimmerman, Jim Graham and William Euille have served longer than eight years.
The report is based on public and private meetings held this summer and fall. The 18-member panel was assembled in response to increasing criticism of Metro after a June 2009 Red Line crash killed nine and injured dozens more.
Eight Metro employees have also died in the past five years.
Task members said lack of leadership — two general managers in the past five years — has exacerbated the problem.
“Confidence in Metro has been severely shaken,” said Kwame Brown, incoming D.C. Council chairman and co-chairman of the task force. “We must work together as a region to earn back the trust. ... of riders.”
The Metro board chairman, vice chairman and interim general manager were briefed on the report before its release. Brown said they seemed “open” to the suggestions.
The task force report is expected to be approved by the end of the year and then will be taken up by Metro’s board of directors.
Committee voting on DC streetcars
By Luke Rosiak
Dr. Gridlock (Washington Post)
November 17, 2010; 2:44 PM ET
Update 7:15pm: In discussing the Circulator, District leaders floated the idea of the District taking over many Metrobus routes in the city.
"I think DDOT should assume ownership of some bus routes," said Jim Graham, operating them as Circulator routes.
"We always say [of Metro] that they're not up to snuff. They're working very hard," responded Gabe Klein. But "I think you're really on to something, Chairman Graham. We may have to look at taking on more local routes, from a fiscal standpoint."
Klein, DDOT's director, suggested that if the District does not take over the routes, Metro should consider contract out their operation. "If we have so much success with a private operator, is there a way for Metro to look at a private operator?"
Original post: The District City Council's Committee on Public Works and Transportation is currently meeting to approve the plan for streetcars.
The Anacostia streetcar line would help spur development east of the river as well as provide affordable transportation, said Tommy Wells. But Marion Barry urged "caution" in proceeding with the streetcar when money could be better spent addressing immediate concerns, such as poorly paved streets in Wards 7 and 8.
Streetcars will relieve crowding on Metro and connect neighborhoods, testified DDOT Director Gabe Klein.
In Portland, $3.5 billion was invested within blocks of its first streetcar line, said a Sierra Club representative.
A New Yorker who has lived on Capitol Hill for two years said that while NYC's subway moves people through the city, Metro seems focused on bringing suburbanites to the business district and back. Streetcars would facilitate those short trips, he said.
A member of Metro's union urged DDOT to contract with WMATA to operate the streetcars to capitalize on Metro mechanics' experience and to save money by using Metro rail yards instead of constructing a new one.
"The time is now to build the streetcar on H Street and Benning Road," said David Alpert of Greater Greater Washington.
Another criticized Barry's "shortsightedness" and "narrow thinking." Barry later responded: "The citizens of ward eight don't like disrespect... Don't interrupt me."
"May I speak?" the man said.
"No, you may not," he replied. "I want you to spent two days walking with me in Anacostia so you can feel the pain, feel the hurt."
To another who testified, he said, "That's the kind of constructive testimony this council wants to hear."
Others advocated for aggressive assistance to H Street businesses, some of whom said business had declined by up to 70 percent during construction of the streetcar and widening of the sidewalks.
"This thing is like a caterpillar. We know it's going to end up a butterfly, but right now we're hurting," said one connected to a barbershop there.
Walk This Way: Expanding pedestrian and bike safety to the whole District won’t be easy.
Posted by Lydia DePillis on Nov. 17, 2010 at 8:42 pm
Housing Complex (Washington City Paper)
On Monday morning, District Department of Transportation Director Gabe Klein sat at a dais at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments boardroom, next to the Dutch ambassador and other Netherlandish dignitaries. They were there to talk about how their country makes it easy to bicycle, before mobile workshops that would assess D.C.’s bike friendliness.
Although the Dutch could brag about their capacious bike parking facilities and dedicated cycle tracks, it wasn’t wholly an instructor-student dynamic. In many instances, the foreigners ended up praising D.C.’s bicycling infrastructure, from signage to new bike lanes to high usage of helmets. Klein tapped away at his Android phone for parts of the presentation–he’s familiar with the Dutch innovations, having brought a few of them to D.C. already–and looked up to smile at photos of children cycling to school. When his turn at the mic came, Klein delivered a stirring encomium to bold action for a bike-centric city.
“We can’t say we want to be more sustainable, but we also want to widen our roads and make it easier to drive, it just doesn’t work that way," he said. “I’ve wanted to be more aggressive over the last few years than we have been."
Even in the confined political environment of Washington–where many streetscape changes have to be vetted by multiple levels of city and federal government–Klein has hurled himself into elevating pedestrians and bikes over cars, with the idea of increasing both access and safety (a tricky thing, since more people on foot and two wheels means more targets for vehicles to hit). Aside from a few high-profile reversals–like the wide Pennsylvania Avenue NW bike lanes that later had to be slimmed down–he’s mostly gotten his way. DDOT is now retrofitting so many streets for bikes that the agency is trying to figure out how to contract out the work, rather than doing it all in-house. One need: More paint stripers, to keep up with all the traffic flow revisions the agency wants.
Some of these initiatives started before Klein replaced Emeka Moneme, an elaborately credentialed management professional who left for a higher-paying job at Metro. Most, though, accelerated during Klein’s 20-month tenure. The department had bike and pedestrian specialists, but Klein says they were “hampered by the rest of the organization not getting, or prioritizing, bike and ped work"; he gave them more authority and visibility. Klein set a goal of installing 80 miles of bike lanes; 49 have been done. For traffic calming, 782 speed humps have been installed in the last two years. In Chinatown, pedestrians can now cross diagonally at one intersection, in a throwback traffic management scheme known as a “Barnes dance."
Klein also became ubiquitous. He went to community meetings, appeared on radio shows, started a blog and a Twitter account, narrated YouTube videos, gave out his e-mail and phone number, and even showed up at this year’s antiquarian Tweed Ride. At every chance he gets, he uses that public profile to coax people out of their cars.
What’s stopping the DDOT director now? It’s true that Klein could be replaced in a Vince Gray administration, though his position is considered to be safer than those of some other cabinet members. Assuming he stays on, the biggest obstacle to the development of a walkable, bikeable city is, in many parts of the city, a dearth of places to walk and bike to.
There’s not much point in putting down a bike lane that runs for miles before getting to a grocery store, after all, or putting in stoplights when there aren’t enough pedestrians to use them. Places like Adams Morgan and Dupont Circle were only waiting to be connected by bike paths; drivers there are already used to dealing with foot traffic. But in the suburban expanses of Wards 4, 5, 7, and 8, where parking is plentiful and amenities scarce, Klein’s DDOT could find itself waiting for development to catch up.
—-
The challenges to making D.C. foot-friendly are baked into the street design. The long, grand avenues that give the center city its vistas turn into speedways to the suburbs on the outskirts. When they intersect downtown, they create irregular traffic patterns that confuse drivers. Those oddities might be why D.C. has a higher pedestrian accident rate than comparable cities. In 2008, the latest year for which the Federal Highway Administration keeps data, 26.5 percent of people killed in traffic accidents here were pedestriansªthe highest rate in the country.
Pedestrian deaths have stayed fairly steady, though, while the number of people walking and biking to work has increased. Which is due at least in part to the efforts of George Branyan, DDOT’s pedestrian coordinator since 2005. Branyan, an avid cyclist, has been applying a box of tools to D.C. streets to shift the balance of power from cars to pedestrians.
Take signaling. Something as simple as letting pedestrians walk before the light turns green for cars can cut pedestrian accidents dramatically, since drivers see people in the crosswalk before turning right. DDOT has installed some 50 of these “leading pedestrian intervals." They’re also piloting what’s called a “hawk signal," for intersections that don’t have a full stoplight, at Georgia Avenue and Hemlock Street NW. A pedestrian pushes the button, and one bulb flashes yellow before another bulb starts flashing red, which means cars stop briefly and it’s safe to cross. For the least busy streets, there’s a simple flashing LED light that pedestrians can activate to notify cars at night.
How does DDOT know these types of things work, after a short pilot? It’s all about driver compliance rates. To test them, DDOT staffers will activate the signal, walk into the road, and record how many times cars stop. On a regular crosswalk with no signals, only about one in four cars will stop, on average. With the hawk signal, that number goes up to 97 percent.
Beyond signaling, there’s the physical shape of streets. One by one, DDOT is making its way through the city’s major arterials, taking away lanes when the traffic volume doesn’t justify them–both Sherman Avenue NW and Pennsylvania Avenue SE invited speeding, and will be slimmed down to prioritize bikes and pedestrians. Next, Branyan wants to take on Maryland Avenue NE on Capitol Hill.
That’s all engineering. Laws about traffic safety, though, need to be enforced, which the Metropolitan Police Department probably doesn’t have the resources to do. (Unless you’re in Ward 3, or other low-crime areas–there, Branyan says, you’re more likely to get a jaywalking ticket than anywhere else.) The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments-sponsored Street Smart campaign escalates enforcement for a few weeks twice a year, just to remind people of what the laws areªbut after the crackdown ends, it’s easy for drivers to forget.
To fill in the gaps, MPD already has 52 red light cameras that record infractions, and is looking at much more sophisticated technologies that can pick up bad behavior even away from traffic signals, take down license plates, and send you a ticket in the mail. With no police overtime, electronic surveillance can dramatically reduce dangerous behavior like rolling right turns at red lights, now subject to a $100 fine.
Fundamentally, psychology matters, says transportation planning consultantJennifer Toole, whose Toole Design Group designed D.C.’s pedestrian master plan in 2009. “We’ve learned a lot more about what compels a driver to be cognizant of a pedestrian," she says. “We know it takes more than just putting a crosswalk down."
—-
One of DDOT’s recent initiatives have been “livability studies," so far targeted at three neighborhoods, where residents are participate in a community planning process to guide transportation infrastructure investment. Poring over maps, they circle problem intersections, point out where bus shelters should go, and flag streets that lack sidewalks. Although the most pedestrian fatalities occur in densely packed Ward 2, if more people ditch their cars in lower-density wards, they’ll need streetscape improvements to stay safe. (On upper Connecticut Avenue, citizens undertook a similar project themselves, presenting their desired improvements to city agencies; other neighborhoods need a little more nudging).
But the biggest obstacle to alternative transportation, says the Far Northeast study’s community liaison Samuel Jordan–including Deanwood, Benning, and Capitol View–is simply the lack of destinations.
“It’s almost as if the community were made more attractive to cyclists, there would be more people using bikes, but then, you still have the question of destinations," Jordan says. “Bicycle to where? You need destinations to make the bicycling worthwhile."
Driving cash into things like grocery stores and coffeeshops is beyond DDOT’s power. But the department has leverage when it works with the Office of Planning, which creates blueprints for neighborhood growth that can include commercial development as well as transportation improvements. DDOT can also connect far-flung, relatively uncrowded neighborhoodsªwhich some residents like pleasant and sereneªto downtown with transportation routes. The popular Circulator bus service, for example, will likely soon run a line across the Anacostia River. And the 11th Street Bridge will be the most accessible connection yet for car-free transportation.
To support DDOT’s efforts, the D.C. Council instituted a Pedestrian Advisory Council this spring, with each councilmember getting one appointment. It’s chaired by Neha Bhatt, deputy state policy director at the national advocacy group Smart Growth America and a former staffer to Ward 6 Councilmember and walkability champion Tommy Wells. Bhatt is also a Ward 7 resident, and says she doesn’t lack for transportation options: She rides her bike to work every day, and takes a Zipcar when she needs to drive. During the six years she’s lived east of the river, Bhatt says she’s started to notice more commuters crossing the Benning Road Bridge on bikes.
But it hasn’t been all easy. A few years ago, Bhatt got into a serious accident, and it took her a long time to get back in the saddle. This last summer, she was hit again by an SUV while riding on the sidewalk. Now, she bubbles with ideas and plans, from pushing ped-friendly legislation to leading walking tours.
And she’s in a hurry. Having a pedestrian master plan is great, Bhatt says–but it should move faster.
“Instead of taking 10 years, let’s get it done in two years," she says.
Researcher finds good data scarce at DCPS
By Bill Turque
D.C. Schools Insider (Washington Post)
November 17, 2010; 8:40 AM ET
In 2008, education researcher Becky Smerdon had a plan to study dropout rates in DCPS. The idea was to look at the middle school records of students who had left high school before graduating, to see if there were any common "early warning" indicators to identify and help those at risk of dropping out.
But Smerdon, a research fellow with the Council of the Great City Schools, quickly hit a dead end. Only 23 percent of the students in her study group had three consecutive years of usable data in their files. So she switched to Plan B: trying to understand why DCPS did such a poor job maintaining and using student data. Her study of four Pre-K-through 8 schools in 2009 found that former Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's vision of a school district where instruction was driven by reliable, carefully scrutinized data was a long way from reality.
Smerdon found, for example, no standard method of collecting attendance information. In some cases students were marked present by default unless specifically entered as absent. Test scores were used "to identify and focus on the students just below the threshold of passing," the so-called "low-hanging fruit" (Rhee's phrase, not Smerdon's), who could most easily goose schoolwide proficiency rates. Moreover, teachers and staff "had little time--or had no real impetus to make the time--to review, reflect or plan using data."
"In a district where most everything is still kept in hard copy only--grade books, report cards, even attendance records as required by the court, establishing procedures to collect and analyze data electronically is a mountain to move," Smerdon wrote.
Without improvements, she said, "using data to drive instruction will continue to be a misnomer, one that is spoken but not really accomplished."
Erin McGoldrick, DCPS chief of data and accountability, points out that the study was based on site visits to just four schools and that Smerdon herself cautions that it reflects the situation more than a year ago. But McGoldrick added: "We welcome this feedback, which helps DCPS continue to move toward our mission of making sure that there is a great teacher in every classroom."
Lower Barracks Row to Get Religion, Coffee
Housing Complex (Washington City Paper)
A few weeks ago, JDLand noticed that the National Community Church–which currently operates Ebenezer's Coffeehouse at 2nd and F Streets NE–had picked up the old Miles Glass building on 8th and Virginia Avenue SE for $3.5 million. Since then, there's pretty much been radio silence from Church leaders, as they went through "visioning charettes" to hash out plans for their new property.
Curious, I sat down yesterday with Pastor and prolific blogger Mark Battersonto learn what I could about what's in the works for that long-blighted corner. The gist: Make another Ebenezer's, but bigger.
Batterson, who works out of a small, book-filled corner office next door to the Coffeehouse, is wide-eyed as he describes the concept for the new "campus," the term used for each of the eight locations National Community Church has in the D.C. metro area (most are movie theaters, which the Church rents out for services on the weekends). Along with the Miles Glass property, they're in negotiations to acquire adjacent parcels, which would allow for new construction of between 50,000 and 75,000 square feet.
What to do with all that space? The new coffeehouse, he says, could be the biggest in the city, helping to anchor the southern end of Barracks Row. Ultimately, Batterson envisions two performance spaces, one at about 500 seat capacity and another at a thousand, with at least one level of underground parking to handle the crowds. To keep the kids busy while adults are worshiping–or drinking coffee, or going to a play–there will be a large childcare center so special that they've retained the architects who created downtown Disney to design it.
"It's hard to even put into words," Batterson says. "It would look nothing like a McDonalds playground, but that concept."
Batterson wants to break ground within a year, and finish the first phase–everything except the large theater–in 12 to 18 months. He's hesitant to put a dollar value on the construction, since the project hasn't even gone out to bid yet. But he's figuring it might cost around $200 per square foot, which would put the price tag somewhere in the $10 million to $15 million range. All that would be paid by the Church's approximately 2,500-person congregation, mostly 20-somethings, which presumably would grow with the additional capacity.
“We don’t need all that space today," explained Batterson. "We will in 20 years.”
The Barracks Row location, though, is just one piece of the Church's expansionary ambitions. In the next couple of decades, Batterson is shooting for 20 locations all over the country and the world, most of them following the movie theater model (there's already a coffeeshop outpost in Berlin, German). The National Community Church isn't a denomination like the Southern Baptists or the Lutherans–Batterson says they're "absolutely orthodox" in their beliefs–but it is a distinct style of worship, with its focus on being "in the marketplace." Which is as much worth evangelizing as anything.
"In a sense, it's spiritual franchising," Batterson says.
Woodies," the sentimental favorite
Greater Greater Washington
November 17, 2010 3:33 pm
For many longtime Washington residents, The Woodward & Lothrop department store, or Woodies as everybody knew it, is a touchstone for memories of easier days and simpler pleasures when Washington was much younger.
The looming 9-story building at 11th and F Streets, NW, taking up virtually an entire block in the heart of old downtown, served as the stage for many happy moments and a reminder that shopping has long been a key form of entertainment in the nation's capital.
Walter Woodward (1848-1917) and Alvin Lothrop (1847-1912) came from New England; Walter was born in Maine to a family of shipwrights, and Alvin came from a Massachusetts farm. They met and became fast friends while working as clerks in a Boston dry goods store beginning in 1870. By 1873, they had started their own dry goods business in Chelsea, Massachusetts, but there was a limit to how much they could expand there. In 1879 they decided they needed to find a larger market. Woodward traveled to the Midwest—Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri—as well as Baltimore and Washington, to size up prospects. In a famous telegram back to this partner, he declared, "Alvin, Washington, D.C., is the place for us."
Woodward seems to have been the hard-charging entrepreneur of the pair, whereas Lothrop was the personable, detail-oriented manager. They opened their first Washington store, called the "Boston Dry Goods House," at 705 Market Space, opposite the Center Market, in 1880. The following year, they moved a couple of blocks west to 921 Pennsylvania Avenue, where they filled a larger, five-story shop equipped with a steam-powered elevator.
The store had a large sign proclaiming "One Price," meaning that everything in the store was marked with a fixed price, a break from the traditional haggling over prices that was standard in dry goods shops. They also adopted the practice of stocking seasonal clothing in advance of the actual season, bringing in summer clothes in the middle of a January snowstorm, for example. I really can't explain why this marketing strategy worked so well, but it did, and eventually it became universal industry practice. Woodward & Lothrop, Inc., began to take business away from older, less progressive stores.
The pair of young commercial Turks also had their eccentricities, particularly Woodward, a consummate Type-A hard-charger with a "hair-trigger temper" and known for his brusqueness. For example, he insisted on conducting grueling interviews of his agents whenever they returned from buying trips, firing pointed questions at this victims and demanding simple yes or no responses.
He also developed the habit of angrily flinging pens across his office if they didn't work properly. As many as 6 or 7 might be strewn about after he had worked his way through the morning's mail, and his secretary would have to wait for a quiet moment, after Woodward had "simmered down," to discreetly gather the pens up and replace their nibs. These anecdotes come from a 1955 history entitled From Founders to Grandsons: The Story of Woodward & Lothrop, prepared by Martha C. Guilford of Woodies' public relations division.
An important milestone came in 1887, when the store moved from Pennsylvania Avenue to the corner of 11th and F Streets NW, part of an emerging trend of commercial establishments abandoning flood-prone Pennsylvania Avenue for the higher ground of F Street. Calderon Carlisle, a prominent attorney and real-estate investor, offered to construct a new building for the store at a cost of $100,000. This five-story Carlisle Building became Woodies' headquarters for the next forty years.
The building was designed by James G. Hill (1841-1913), Washington's leading architect. Hill had designed the original Bureau of Engraving and Printing building and was also at work on the Atlantic Building (930 F Street NW) a block away when he undertook the Woodies project. His Carlisle building was in the emerging Chicago commercial style, with large, arcaded, Romanesque-Revival windows near the top; tall showroom floors; and restrained neoclassical trim.
The show windows on the bottom four floors were of "highly polished French plate glass," according to Guilford, and inside were woodwork and furnishings of cherry, poplar, and mahogany, all equally highly-polished. Interior ceilings were painted in "graded shades of light blue and ecru," while the walls were a light terracotta color with a hand-decorated frieze.
The building was on the leading edge of department store design and was meant to serve as a prominent entertainment destination, impressing passersby and drawing them in. Once inside, the finest customer amenities were provided, including an elegant reception room on the mezzanine level, enclosed by an ornamental mahogany balustrade, where ladies could wait for their shopping companions to arrive before embarking on a romp through the aisles.
Evidence of the store's technological prowess could be found in the Martin & Hill Electric Cable Cash Railway, a Rube-Goldberg contraption that included a small track running in all directions throughout the building's four shopping floors. It transported cash from station to station in small "German silver box cars" that raced about at 14 feet per second. Mayhem ensued at least once a week when somebody's excitable pet dog, driven crazy by the zippy little boxes, would break loose and go tearing after them, barking madly.
The large, new building allowed for expanded lines of goods. In December 1888, Woodward observed to The Washington Post that "our new bric-a-brac department has led everything, and this trade has been truly phenomenal," although the article frustratingly does not divulge what particular bric-a-brac was so irresistible.
In contrast, newspaper coverage of the store's annual "opening" each October, when new fashions were presented to the public, was often substantial and detailed. In 1894, for example, the Post surveyed the fresh stocks in Woodies' aisles and reported that "Everything this season is rough and shaggy.... Zibilines and English tweeds are leading and Bannockburns are also popular.... The ultra-fashion for evening gloves is a dainty lemon shade with broad black back stitching..."
Further reverie ensues regarding silks, cloaks, suits, and of course hats—large hats, "much larger than usual; mostly velvet and trimmed with birds and ostrich plumes" and shaded "hunter's green, bluet, and cherry, with rosettes of jet and gold." The well-dressed woman of 1894 was truly a sight to see.
The sale of all that bric-a-brac and ostrich plumes meant a never-ending need for additional space. Since moving into the Carlisle Building in 1887, Woodward & Lothrop steadily expanded out into the rest of the block, gradually buying and taking over small commercial buildings that one by one were attached to the store complex.
In the 1890s, the buildings along F Street were added, all but the Rich's shoe store at the opposite end. Mid-block commercial space was also snapped up. Then a big step was taken in 1899 when the company bought the large property spanning the north end of the block, which fronted on G Street and had been home to the St. Vincent Female Orphan Asylum. After a new home for the asylum was completed north of Eckington in 1901, Woodward & Lothrop immediately began work on a large, new state-of-the-art addition, completed in 1902.
The 1902 building on G Street remains a strikingly elaborate Gilded Age gem. Designed by Chicago-based architect Henry Ives Cobb (1859-1931), the 8-story building is articulated into four pleasantly contrasting sections: the richly ornamented first two floors, with their 2-story cast-iron piers proudly made in Jersey City, New Jersey; a narrow, rusticated third story that was the first element of the facade to be hung on the building's steel frame; another four stories above that are decorated in an elegant Beaux-Arts style with Corinthian piers and ornamental spandrels; and finally a large, heavily bracketed cornice.
The south (F Street) end of the Woodies block appears to contain a single, large building that is similar to the 1902 building but more modern in style. This structure was designed by Washington architect Frederick B. Pyle (1867-1934) in the spare, neoclassical style that would become his trademark in the 1920s. The design uses South Dover marble on the facade of the lower two floors instead of cast iron, plain brick for the central five stories, and ornamented terracotta at the top.
This building was erected in several complex phases. The first part of the building to go up was a slim, one-bay-wide segment on F Street in 1912. The following year, the F Street facade was expanded by replacing several older structures and creating a large, five-bay-wide building in the middle of the F Street side of the block. In 1925, the building was further filled out in the mid-block area behind it, and then finally in 1926 the original Carlisle Building on the corner of 11th and F was replaced, completing the structure as it remains to this day. In-house architect Linden Kent Ashford (1893-1953) designed the 1920s expansions, which matched the original Frederick Pyle design.
As its building steadily expanded, so did Woodies' workforce, departments, and services. As reported by Guilford, Woodies' staff grew from 35 in 1880 to 300 when the Carlisle Building opened in 1887. In 1917 there were 1,700 employees, and in 1954, when the book was written, Woodies employed "an average of 4,500 during regular seasons and 6,000 during busy holiday seasons."
The store attempted to provide everything a person could possible want once they left their home. There was a dining room, beauty parlor, travel agency, messenger service, and tourist information desk. For customers or employees who fell ill, a medical clinic, staffed with a full-time physician and nurses, was on hand.
In addition, a variety of non-shopping entertainment was always waiting to delight Woodies' customers. Beginning in 1890, the store showed free art exhibits to a city which had few other opportunities to see fine art. A show in 1900 featured works by Raphael, Titian, Van Dyke, and Rembrandt, on loan from the British National Gallery. A motion-picture theater was installed in 1913, and beginning in 1915 it screened special educational films produced by the Washington Post for children.
Perhaps most memorable for many Woodies customers over the years were the elaborate window displays, particularly the ones done at Christmas time. A large display department was kept at work constantly inventing dramatic new window exhibits, many of them unrelated to Woodies' merchandise. 1930 saw the popular "Washington of the Future" exhibit. A Post article in 1961 described the Civil War centennial display then in Woodies' windows and also mentioned an exhibit of live penguins that had been staged in June, with special air conditioning added to give the animals some modicum of comfort.
The company's signature Christmas displays were done in friendly rivalry with other downtown department stores, including Kann's, Hecht's, and Lansburgh's, and tended to the warm-and-cuddly. A 1960 roundup of Christmas displays in the Post found a teddy bear village at Hecht's, Santa's blacksmith shop at Kann's, and Kittenville, USA, at Woodies. The display department might easily spend more than a year planning for these annual exhibits.
Of course, the shopping was always the most important form of entertainment, and since the store's earliest days free delivery was offered for all purchases. Woodies' delivery trucks were everywhere in the early years of the 20th century. As remembered by a Postreader in 1984, "The [store's] polished horse-drawn delivery vans were a familiar sight on all the residential streets, clop-clopping along. They were a darkish, reddish color (maroon? mulberry?) and the driver, who handled the reins, wore a matching livery, and so did the 'jumper' on the seat beside him" who carried packages to customers' front doors.
In 1946, the company bought out one of its old rivals, the Palais Royal department store, located in the block just to the north of the Woodies building. The Palais Royal became the Woodies North Building, allowing for significant expansion. The firm soon undertook an elaborate reorganization of merchandise, spreading everything out between the two buildings, and in 1951 an underground tunnel was completed connecting them under G Street.
In that same year, a 240-car parking garage was constructed just north of the Palais Royal building, marking the furthest extent of Woodies' downtown property (a striking art deco warehouse and service building had also been built near Union Station in 1937). The company floated a scheme in 1965 to tear down the Palais Royal, the adjacent McLachlan building (which it had recently acquired), and the parking garage and replace them all with a large new building connected to the old Woodies complex via a bridge over G Street. However, fortunately, nothing ever came of that idea.
The purchase of the Palais Royal store in 1946 had included conveyance of its leases to three small suburban branches, which Woodies maintained as its own stores. Two were in Arlington (one in the Pentagon concourse) and another was in Bethesda, serving for many years as Woodies Budget Store. But these small stores could not fulfill Woodies' vision of a grand emporium stocked with a multitude of goods. No, the real action beginning in the late 1940s was in developing large, suburban stores that would pull people in as shopping destinations, just as the downtown store had done for so many years.
As chronicled by Richard Longstreth, the rival Hecht Company was out in front on this trend, opening a large store in the boondocks of Silver Spring in 1947. Woodies responded in 1950 by opening its luxurious Chevy Chase store, designed in a dowdy, semi-neocolonial style but with an interior by the preeminently modernist Raymond Loewy firm. Woodies went on to add more than a dozen additional suburban branch stores in the 1950s and 1960s, most of them located in the mammoth shopping malls that were then attracting so much business.
The company was always known as Woodward & Lothrop (that is, after a third partner, Charles E. Cochrane, was bought out in its first year). While the store itself was initially called the Boston Dry Goods Store, that moniker was dropped at some point before World War I.
The "Woodies" nickname came much later, and apparently was an irritant to some. TheWashington Post reader who in 1984 remembered the old delivery trucks also testified that it was not until the 1960s "that I first heard [the store] referred to as 'Woodies,' and then by teen-agers who were too lazy to utter five syllables. And it was a long time after that before the store itself succumbed and began using 'Woodies' in its ads. As for me, I still say Woodward & Lothrop's."
So, what went wrong? How did the company go from such dominance of D.C. retailing to bankruptcy in 1994? Woodies may have been innovative in 1880 but by 1980 it was too set in its ways and falling behind. Deep-pocketed outsiders, like Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom, and Neiman-Marcus, began moving into the Washington area and aggressively catering to upscale shoppers. Other national retailers also successfully focused on specific types of products rather than offering a bit of everything, as had been Woodies' forté.
The company—not unlike other old-time department stores—seemed unable to recast itself for the new age of retailing. Then in 1984, the chain was sold to Detroit real estate investor A. Alfred Taubman for $227 million. In an interview with the Post in 1985, Taubman stressed that he wasn't going to change anything at Woodies, which must have made some people happy but probably wasn't the best strategy for the chain.
In looking back on the Taubman purchase in 1995, the Post commented that the "chain's fate was sealed" with the 1984 purchase, because it had been financed with loans backed by mortgages on Woodies' property. The company became so saddled with debt that it could not afford to invest in modernizing itself. It was only a matter of time before the venerable chain folded.
The downtown building underwent a very restrained face lift, overseen by noted post-modernist architect Michael Graves, in 1986. But it was in for hard times. After Woodies declared bankruptcy in 1994, the May Department Stores bought the chain's assets, converting some of the stores to the Macy's or Bloomingdale's nameplates but abandoning the original downtown location.
In 1996, the building was bought at auction by the Washington Opera for $18 million, using money donated by Betty Brown Casey. The opera company hoped to convert the building for use as a theater, but the cost of doing so proved unaffordable, and the building was sold again, in 1999, to developer Douglas Jemal for $28.2 million. Jemal renovated the structure in 2002 to provide office space on the upper floors and retail at ground level.
In addition to Guilford's book, sources for this article included many newspaper articles, as well as Richard Longstreth, "The Mixed Blessings of Success: The Hecht Company and Department Store Branch Development after World War II" in Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture (1997). Also, an unsubmitted application to add the downtown building to theNational Register of Historic Places and a history of the building prepared by Traceries, Inc., in 1997 were graciously made available by the D.C. Historic Preservation Office.
From Wednesday:
Mike DeBonis: http://wapo.st/cwGULd
Loose Lips (daily column): http://bit.ly/azJZR1
DMV Daily (P.J. Orvetti): http://bit.ly/cyupOK
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