July 5, 2007
Morning Roundup: Still Got Our Fingers Edition
Welcome back to work, Washington. Actually, we're curious -- are any of you checking in on headlines from home today, having gone ahead and taken the rest of the week off? If so, we never liked you in the first place. Despite the tornado watch and humid, drizzly conditions, we hope you had a wonderful 4th of July celebration and of course, didn't have any fireworks-related accidents. ABC7 is reporting that at least nine people in D.C. and Virginia suffered injuries from fireworks mishaps yesterday, including seven adults and children who were injured at an incident at an elementary school in Vienna.
Bilingual Staffers Sought for City: The Fenty administration will soon launch a campaign to hire more bilingual staff, in an effort to rectify a long-standing shortage of Spanish-speaking and other employees in D.C. government. Fully 13 percent of the District’s population is now Latino, but only about 2 percent of D.C. employees are Latino. Other language skills the local government is hoping to recruit includes Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese and Amharic.
Fenty Encouraged to Pick Compliant Schools Chief: The Examiner reports that Marie Drissel, a key political fundraiser for Mayor Adrian Fenty, sent emails to the administration encouraging them to pick a schools chancellor who wouldn’t overshadow the mayor and wouldn't end up on the side of Board of Education President Robert Bobb. Drissel was the first person to testify on behalf of interim Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee at a confirmation hearing on Monday.
Briefly Noted: D.C. Police officer shot and killed a man yesterday after the suspect fired at police ... Fatal shooting on Just St. NE ... Park Road NW reopens this morning ... D.C. seeks to increase tree population.
This Day in DCist: Last year we wondered why new developments in Prince George's County were getting New York names, and the year before that we took a closer look at the Democracy Tree.
Photo by alexdc
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Probably not the first thing on people's minds, but:
“In the city, it’s tough to be a tree,” Casey Trees spokesman Dan Smith said. New development, air pollution, drought and even car crashes can kill them"
It'd be great if DC could begin to address other, just as serious, underlying problems that detract from tree health, such as soil compaction and impermeability to water. Why no use of pervious concrete for sidewalks?
"Fully 13 percent of the District’s population is now Latino, but only about 2 percent of D.C. employees are Latino"
So according to the Examiner, if you are Latino you automatically speak Spanish and if you are not, you don't. Crap ass reporting.
Wasn't Marie Drissel chased out of DC Government because of her role in what came to be known as The Millennium Scandal?
It is great to know that Ms. Rhee is being blessed by a crook.
mlb,
They did start using rubber sidewalks.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/01/AR2006070101087.html
Care has to be taken in this type of program given the already high resentment of many Washingtonians for immigrants. Having grown up in Chicago with the influx of East Europeans the unspoken rule was: "if they arrived on Monday, by Friday they were in night school learning English." Today, the "system" is expected to accommodate the many language groups. In Los Angeles, this has moved to such a fever pitch, that there are places that are as Spanish speaking as a Latin American country. Historically, non-English speakers had to learn English and "native Americans" could not be discriminated against. With these bilingual programs, as I have seen in California and in construction jobs with a high number of Latinos, the "English speaker" is at a disadvantage. Should this type of discrimination occur, the English-speaker losing a promotion, an opportunity or a potential job, has the right to sue for discrimination based on "national origin" --being American and speaking English!
Kathleen Rand Reed, MAA
Applied Corporate Anthropologist
RJ- I know. My understanding is that those are made from recycled tires, and that they are not water-permeable. Lots of newer DCPS and DPR playgrounds use poured in place rubber surfacing. These are intended to reduce fall-related injuries, but do little for tree health. I also kinda wonder about the cost and expected durability of a rubber sidewalk vs a traditional one. The playground material seems to crack and chip within a few years.
mlb - UFA is trying to address those concerns. They've been working with DDOT to increase tree box size when they redo a street or sidewalk, as well as experimenting with different tree box designs (continuous strip, etc.) The problem is when they come up against developers and homeowners that don't want a surface that might be affected by growing tree roots. Bricks are great but when the tree gets bigger the bricks bulge as anyone who walks through Capitol Hill and Georgetown can tell you. Developers have taken to using brick on top of a layer of concrete, so while you think it's more permeable is actually less so. Foot traffic is also a problem because of design. Tree grates are bad but it's hard to come up with a design that keeps people from running all over the dirt at the base of a tree. Fencing can help but can be expensive. Long story short it's a process that is occurring albeit slowly. The best thing anyone can do is learn about the plight of the trees and educate others on the issues. Casey Trees offers classes in tree stewardship, planting, care (please don't volcano mulch your trees!!!), and identification. The trees can't save themselves!
(yes I do volunteer with Casey Trees)
I think the basis for picking the head of schools should be knowledge and experience, not obsequence. I hope Reinoso is correct that Fenty didn't heed Drissel's advice.
Posters are correct - the schools story is about Drissel, not Fenty. The headline is about Fenty.
The Jonetta Rose Barras column in today's Examiner on "local, small, disadvantaged business enterprises (LSDBEs)," is much more consequential.
Thanks for the tip, Mike. The piece on Cleveland Park is also interesting.
JRB rocks my world; I love hearing her dig into people on the DC Politics Hour. She was brutal to Fenty when he first announced he was running for mayor.
The Examiner article on LSDBEs reminds me of the old contracting saw: you can get it done fast, done right, or done cheap. Pick any two.
In the case of DC LSDBEs setasides, they don't have to do anything AT ALL. It's guaranteed income. Witness the sorry-ass state of the school "maintenance" contracts and the almost non-existent cleanup of DC-owned parks and facilities, and the perpetually inept and overpriced school security contracts.
Why the District continues to willingly hand out hundreds of millions to inept, corrupt jackasses is beyond me. Oh, that's right, they're OUR jackasses that we can tax.
Seriously, these guys would manage to f**k up a wet dream.