The District government uses GPS to track its plows and publishes the location data for the public to see.  Enter in your address or an intersection and watch an animated history of plowing over the past few days near you.

Please recall that under District law, property owners should have cleared their sidewalks by now. It’s certainly no fun, but it helps life return to normalcy.

Happy New Year!

Now pay up.

Our city council and mayor, ever desperate for new sources of revenue, have levied, effective today, a five-cent tax on every paper and plastic bag.  So unless you carry reusable bags in your pockets for every unforeseen trip to the store, get ready to shell out.

The stated purpose of the tax is to clean up the Anacostia River and three or four cents of every nickle collected will go to the Anacostia River Protection Fund.  Some stores have the option of offering a five-cent credit to customers who bring their own bags.  In such cases, store owners will be allowed to keep two of the five cents of the tax they collect.

The bag tax applies to every store that sells food or alcohol.  Since Best Buy sells candy near its check out lines, the tax applies there, too; you’d better take a reusable bag to carry your new DVD player home on the Metro.

Paper bags, which are biodegradable, are also taxed, not because of any potential impact on the Anacostia, but because of politics: store owners feared that a tax on plastic bags would encourage customers to opt for their more expensive paper counterparts.

For those who own cars (your author is not one of them), it might be easy to store one’s bags in the trunk and to pull them out at the store.  The rest of us are expected to carry bags on our persons, which is a nuisance that the mayor, with his city-provided SUV, and the council, with their free street parking in front of the Wilson Building, probably don’t understand.

Our biggest complaint about this tax is not so much the money, but the degree of condescension it exudes, implying that those who use plastic bags are sinners destroying the Anacostia.  Readers of this blog will note our distaste for litter, especially the heaps of it that pile up in front of the Howard Theater on the Block of Blight.  It’s easy to levy a feel-good tax, whereas a sustained effort to fine people who litter and to sanction businesses whose customers litter isn’t nearly as sexy.

New Year, Newspeak

Adding to the condescension is the legislation’s wording, which refers to the tax by the more innocuous word fee, as though city residents are too stupid to identify a tax when they see it.

The District Department of the Environment, which is responsible for administering the new tax (oops, I mean “fee”) has jumped on the Orwellian bandwagon, too, refusing to use the word tax.  Even worse, their campaign against plastic bags (see the image above) is an exemplar of newspeak, urging us to “skip the bag [to] save the river”.  For those of use who don’t litter— the majority of District residents— to “skip the bag” will not “save the river” since we wouldn’t have littered anyway and by reusing other bags, we avoid paying the tax to finance the river clean-up.  Ironically, by skipping the bag, we are not helping to save the river.

Cleaning up the river is a worthwhile goal, but levying yet another regressive excise tax wrapped heavily in moralistic rhetoric is neither honest nor fair.  Financing river cleanup should come from proven sources of river pollution, including sewers (by taxing water bills), impervious real property (WASA already charges a fee for this), and by enforcing anti-littering laws more aggressively.  Many of us, the majority I’d expect, use plastic bags and dispose of them responsibly so they don’t soil our communities and rivers.  Nonetheless, we are the scapegoat pretext for this new tax.

We are willing to bet a shiny nickle that this latest feel-good tax will do little to curb littering and we expect the heaps of garbage to continue to pile up in front of the Howard Theater.

Councilmember Jim Graham (D – Ward 1) informed his constituents via email this afternoon that the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development will rebid the construction contract for the park project in LeDroit Park.

The project is back on track, but the rebidding process will necessitate a delay of several months.

The D.C. Council voted unanimously to reorganize the controversial park construction contracts.  Ten of the contracts will be managed by the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization, which mainly handles school reconstruction.  The office is highly regarded as efficient and reliable.

Three of the contracts, including the one for the park in LeDroit Park, will be handled by the Department of Parks and Recreation and not the Housing Authority as originally planned.

Banneker Ventures, which had received all of the original contracts, is threatening to sue the city for a breach of contract.  D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles believes Banneker has strong legal footings upon which to build a case; the Council is not so sure (or doesn’t care).

Councilmember Jim Graham (D – Ward 1) believes the three contracts directed to the Dept. of Parks and Recreation may be able to go forward as originally planned because of the more open nature of their original approval.

Perhaps our local mud pit will open next year as verdant as planned after all.

We got word that a representative from the mayor’s office will walk through the neighborhood on Wednesday, December 2, starting at 10:00 am at the corner of Fourth and W Streets.  The purpose of this public walk-through is to compile a list of nuisances, graffiti, abandoned property, broken traffic signals and signs, etc., that the city should address.

If you cannot attend, please leave comments below and we will try to relay the issues to the mayor’s office.

Read their email for details:

This week the Mayor’s Liaison to the Office of Community Relations will be conducting a Fix-It on December 2nd at 10:00am at the following locations in your Ward:

• Meeting location: Corner of 4th and W Streets
• 200-400 blocks of T Street
• 200-400 blocks of U Street
• 200-400 blocks of Elm Street
• 200-400 blocks of V Street
• 200-400 blocks of W Street and the surrounding area on Florida Avenue.

We will be addressing the following issues: Abatement of all bulk trash, graffiti removal, abatement of rats, inspection of potential vacant properties, abandoned autos, street signage, street light audit. Please join us!!

Operation Fix-It is Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s multi-agency initiative aimed at abating crime, blight, and compliance issues in communities throughout the District of Columbia. The Fix-Its are held weekly and the locations are generated directly from concerned citizens.

To learn more about Operation Fix-It and how you can join us on our next project in Ward 1, please contact the Ward 1 Helpdesk at 202.727.6224.

Yesterday’s Council hearing, one in a series on the parks debacle, revealed an expedited (but opaque) process for awarding park renovation contracts.  The Housing Authority issued a Request for Qualifications (RFQ), which simply determines which companies have the ability and experience to bid on the final contract.  An RFQ saves time by eliminating groups who do not have the ability to follow through on a project.

The second step is supposed to be a Request for Proposals (RFP), in which the qualified bidders submit cost estimates and designs.  The submitted proposals are what the city government and public review and debate until a final selection is made.

In response to the RFQ, a five-member panel composed of officials from the Housing Authority and mayor’s office selected Banneker Ventures, a firm owned by a close friend of the mayor, from among 13 applicants.  Recall that this step is merely supposed to determine who is qualified to proceed to the next step to bid on a contract.

Well, the administration decided it should end there and, after selecting Banneker as qualified, did not issue an RFP and just handed the $82 million in renovation work to Banneker to manage.  Banneker was awarded $4.2 million to manage the work to be performed largely by other firms.

None of this was done with Council approval, as required by law, and on Tuesday the Council voted on emergency legislation to restrict funneling of park money through the Housing Authority and to require the Housing Authority to notify the Council of all contracts above $75,000.

Voting Yes:

• Yvette Alexander
• Marion Barry
• Kwame Brown
• David Catania
• Mary Cheh
• Vincent Gray
• Michael Brown
• Phil Mendelson
• Harry Thomas
• Tommy Wells

Voting No:

• Muriel Bowser
• Jack Evans
• Jim Graham (who represents LeDroit Park)

The Post reports that Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr. (D – Ward 5) will introduce a bill later today to prohibit the CFO from transferring any money to the Housing Authority, which is responsible for the construction of the new park in LeDroit Park, for 90 days.

Mr. Thomas believes the contracting improprieties warrant delaying the projects.  The Post writes:

Thomas, chairman of the Committee on Libraries, Parks and Recreation, said the council’s oversight powers supersede concerns about delaying construction of the recreation facilities.

“This is just government at its worst,” he said. “We can’t get caught up in the fact that neighborhoods have been promised things.”

Expect delays.

On Friday the City Council held a joint hearing on the contracting dispute that has now ensnared the forthcoming park in LeDroit Park. The Post reported that Councilmember David Catania (I – at large) insisted the contracts are illegal, but Attorney General Peter Nickles (a Fenty appointee, we should note) insisted the contrary.

Our own ANC Commissioner Myla Moss (ANC1B01) submitted testimony on behalf of the neighborhood and the LeDroit Park Civic Association imploring the Council not to delay park construction. She noted in her testimony that the park design was the product of a transparent and exhaustive community process that developed a plan that is both affordable and popular in the neighborhood.  She further noted that the park plan had been discussed with several members of the mayor’s cabinet and with Councilmembers Jim Graham (D – Ward 1) and Harry Thomas, Jr. (D – Ward 5); the park plan was no surprise.

At the previous LeDroit Park Civic Association meeting, Mr. Graham noted that the Council had specifically set aside money for the project.

There’s still no word on what will happen next, but we certainly hope that certain members of the Council do not take the matter to court; litigation could delay the project for at least a year, if not several. Rebidding the contracts, we have heard, could delay construction by several months.

Alternatively, the Council could simply review the contracts as the law demands and approve the current plan (at least for our park and for other parks that have significant popular backing). We see this as unlikely since this would require the mayor to admit that his administration broke the law and it would require Mr. Nickles to backtrack on his current position that the contracts are legal.

It is also possible that the mayor and Council could come to some sort of lawful agreement to let work continue without delay. We hope the last option prevails and we suspect certain member of the Council are working to that solution; Mr. Graham is well aware of his constituents’ justified impatience.

One last thing: we thank Ms. Moss and the Civic Association leaders for their testimony.  This sort of advocacy requires a significant personal commitment of time and energy.

We wrote yesterday about Attorney General Peter Nickles’s determination that park construction contracts, including the contract for the new park in LeDroit Park, should have received approval from the City Council. Well, somebody in the mayor’s office must have paid Mr. Nickles a stern phone call; the Post reports that he is now recanting his previous statement.

Mr. Nickles now insists that Council review should be reinstated henceforth, but not retroactively for current construction contracts.

The Council, however, is not too pleased.

Council Chairman Vincent Gray (D) is annoyed and told the Post,

For the attorney general to give a carte blanche green light to these questionable contracts, even before council hearings or any legislative action, is inappropriate and not in compliance with my reading of the law. If they are required to be submitted, we make no distinction between the past and the future. We expect to receive these contracts.

Councilmembers Kwame R. Brown (D – at large) and Harry Thomas Jr. (D – Ward 5) will hold a hearing on the matter on Friday and are threatening to sue to halt the contracts.

However, ANC Commissioner Myla Moss (ANC1B01 – LeDroit Park), in an email to Councilmember Jim Graham (D – Ward 1), wrote that the park project in LeDroit Park

was reviewed and discussed before the Council during the last round of appropriations negotiations at which time the Council voted to allocate funds for the project.

While a bidding process was absent this project was not only transparent, it also involved inter-agency and inter-governmental collaborations.

When we spotted Councilmember Graham at last night’s streetcar open house we didn’t realize the urgency of this issue or we would have strongly expressed our opposition to further delays (while of course chastising the mayor for his illegal maneuverings).

The Council and the mayor’s office are at odds; let’s hope that LeDroit Park doesn’t fall victim to this clash of titans.  In fact there’s something better than hope: you can email Mr. Graham your opinion.

Also, you can attend the LeDroit Park Civic Association meeting tonight; Mr. Graham and Ms. Moss will discuss the issue.  It’s at 7:00 pm in the basement of the Florida Avenue Baptist Church (623 Florida Avenue).

The former Gage-Eckington School, which has just been torn down to make way for the new neighborhood park, is caught-up in a citywide controversy over Mayor Fenty’s funding for numerous park projects. City law requires that the Council approve all contracts over $1 million, but the mayor has funneled the $1.7-million park renovation contract through the D.C. Housing Authority, which, as a quasi-independent government agency, considered itself exempt from the requirement.

The Housing Authority is responsible for public housing, Section 8 vouchers, and HOPE VI projects, so the mayor’s choice to spend park money through the Authority should raise eyebrows.

Now, after the controversy already erupted, D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles has determined that the Housing Authority, too, must submit its million-dollar contracts to the Council for approval. Nickles’s decision is based on a 1996 legal opinion by the city’s corporation counsel, the predecessor to the Attorney General’s office.

How does the LeDroit Park project fit into this? The Examiner reports that the park is one of the unapproved contracts awarded to Banneker Ventures LLC:

The Housing Authority recently awarded more than $72 million in contracts to a pair of companies with ties to Mayor Adrian Fenty, none of which were ever seen by the council.

Further complicating the matter is the mayor’s personal ties to Banneker Ventures, the company constructing the new park and several other parks:

Banneker Ventures LLC is the construction manager for at least a dozen parks and recreation contracts, 10 of which exceed $1 million. Banneker has ties to Fenty friend and former fraternity brother Sinclair Skinner.

Even in the event that the contracts were competitively bid and awarded without undue influence, the Council would be right to examine the contracts since they certainly look suspicious. Whether the Council will reject the LeDroit contract—which is well underway—is unclear, but what is clear is that the mayor skirted the law to get this project through.