November 9, 2007
Morning Roundup: Oh Wait, it's $20 Million Edition
Good morning, Washington. In case you didn't believe us when we first told you that this tax office corruption scandal was going to get bigger and badder as the week went on, just check out the trio of stories on offer from the Post this morning on the widening scandal. First and foremost, it turns out Harriette Walters and Diane Gustus allegedly worked together to steal $4 million more than originally thought, bringing the grand total to approximately $20 million. Then there's the story of the staff meeting held at the convention center yesterday by CFO Natwar Gandhi, where he tried to reassure Office of Tax and Revenue workers that they would work to restore public confidence in the office. Finally, don't miss Style writer Hank Stuever's story where he talks to the fine folks at Neiman Marcus about the suspects' spending habits, only to discover that despite all that money, they had bad taste. Haute.
D.C. Schools Audit Shows Mixed Results: The Examiner got a sneak peak at the results of a recent audit of how D.C. schools are doing under their new leadership. Overall it looks like school principals feel more supported by the central office and that it is easier for them to get maintenance issues taken care of, but no real progress has been made on improving academic standards.
Metro Approves Sale of Takoma Park Land: Despite the loud concerns of neighbors about Metro's plans to sell land around the Takoma Park Metro station to developers who plan to build condos, Metro's board approved the sale yesterday.
Briefly Noted: Fairfax deputy facing federal charges of possessing child porn ... Price of cocaine in D.C. is way up ... Dogs from puppy mill to go to area animal shelters.
This Day in DCist: In 2006 we told you some of the best places to buy kegs of beer in the city, in 2005 we shared a basic chili recipe for cold weather cooking, and in 2004 we noted the end of construction near the White House on Pennsylvania Ave.
Photo by Captain Easychord
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Opponents said the proposed development would endanger pedestrians walking to the station, inconvenience disabled passengers, cause traffic accidents and prevent Metro from expanding the station.
What a load of steaming caca. Metro's selling a park that the neighbors like walking through. That is all. These are the same lefty nimby fossils with Visualize Whirled Peas and You Can't Hug a Child With Nuclear Arms bumperstickers on their Subarus. Mass transit and dense residential development go together like bong hits and Doritos. They'd rather the housing get built in some sprawlscape in Front Royal?
Before anyone ever says a god damn word again about money for DCPS, they should be forced to read each of those articles in the WaPo today about the culture of negligence, thievery, and laziness that pervades the DCPS administration.
I hope these articles will give a boost to Fenty's "fire-em-all" bill that's before the council right now. I only regret that the bill isn't strong enough.
DCPS (and out city generally) must develop a real auditing and accounting system with teeth and resources. Employees need to start getting fired at a drop of a hat. Maybe then they'll start asking questions about "meetings" at Camelot (and is Camelot really DC's "swankiest" strip club? Do they mean swanky in it's dictionary sense, or in this sense).
God damnit, I just can't figure out how to do links. I was trying to link to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swank
Can somebody tell me how to do it right? Within the carrots I'm typing "a href=www.blahblahblah.org". What should I be typing?
I thought they were doing a PROPER audit, (Three separate actually) before they formulate a plan to change anything. That would be logical would it not?
To jump in there and slash and burn would be chaotic at best. You have to analyze the situation before you make an educated decision on things. To just knee jerk change things would not be prudent.
Things are F'd up in this town, and detailed studies are needed. Detailed plans are needed.
Reid
using () instead of >
(a href="http://www.blahblah.org")Click here(/a)
Things have always been f'd up in this town for as long as i have watched from the sidelines (30 years...ish)... from the price of cocaine to the dc bureaucrat petty con artists who keep getting away with it to the mazza gallerie / tysons II more money than sense idiots with terrible taste....
Am i the only one who thinks I would really know how to spend 20 million + properly? And the only one who can hardly shop beyond target on my 55k salary so exactly how do people think government folk can afford Needless Markup without graft?
So glad I made the switch from cocaine to autoerotic asphyxiation. Much more cost effective and I've got the added benefit of leaving a high-lariously embarrasing corpse. I even left an epitaph on the back of some Hallmark stationery:
"Monkeyrotica: He died as he lived: with a ball gag in his mouth and his pants full of tapioca pudding."
Beat that, John Donne!
"To jump in there and slash and burn would be chaotic at best. You have to analyze the situation before you make an educated decision on things. To just knee jerk change things would not be prudent."
I'm only suggesting the power to do something dramatic. So long as the power is restricted, the end result is predetermined: the permanent government continues as is, and lazy administrators continue to collect paychecks and look the other way as their colleagues (and how come they always seem to be women?) rape the treasury.
As long as Rhee is handed a butterknife to carve a statue, we're going to be stuck with a big ugly stone. We have to give her a jackhammer if we're going to expect anything but token changes.
I trust Rhee to take an educated approach to the calcified leeches, but I want to make sure she's got all the power she needs to make real changes and to finally give the permanent government something to be afraid of.
I wouldn't call 85 townhouses with two-car garages "dense residential development." Why not condos with an integrated corner store (something the area could really use and which would dramatically cut down on car trips to the closest grocery stores) with underground parking?
Also, the code (you can copy and paste this) is <a href="http://www.yourlink.com/">the link text</a>.
The price of cocaine is going up? Maybe now the government will face up to the fact that inflation is getting out of control.
And what does Mister finance Jack Evans have to say about this 20 mil mess? Our bond rating should stay good? Thats nice.
I second Reid's suggestion that everyone read the WaPo articles about the student activity funds. There's three of them towards the top of the page. It's somehow even more painful than reading about the $20 million. People brazenly stealing money meant to help students do positive things is horrific enough, but whats worse is the complete breakdown of any accountability. Principles scared to question their employees, police refusing to investigate, prosecutors declining to prosecute, it's a breakdown at every single level. It's impossible to read those articles and not have a knee jerk reaction. I don't even know what to say!
Third nomination to read the school fraud articles. Hopefully we will see further work on this from the Post. Just devastating to read, but somehow predictable.
It's about damn time the WP started doing investigative stories about DC again. Sure, they occasionally do them, but the sheer amount of jaw-dropping fraud, waste, and incompetence in DC is enough to literally run a new story every week for years.
That's what newspapers are supposed to do.
If WP and others would dedicate some money to simple things like, say, following cops around all day to see what they actually do (a few front page photos of DC cops asleep in alleyways should shake things up a bit)......
With kids like these no wonder teachers and administrators give up, hell looks like the police already have.
Yeah, kids today - *that's* the problem. driving up the price of coke, peddling child pornography, making public school a place no thinking person wants to inhabit, much less learn, buying ostentatious ugly stuff with other people's money....wonder where they get those ideas?
well, they aren't MY kids, must be the parents fault.
That's great news actually. Academic improvements come after infrastructures are rebuilt.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the shocking graft at the DC Tax office and the skyrocketing cocaine prices are indubitably interrelated. Those crazy bitches have been buying up all the drugs! And they obviously used them before they went shopping.
Monkey, the loss of the park is definitely going to make the station less attractive, and it's certainly one of the reasons people are opposing this proposal. However, the main reason I think its a bad idea is that it more or less eliminates the Takoma station parking lot and significantly reduces the already crowded space for bus waiting and turnarounds. It also gets rid of all this public space in a way that doesn't particularly support Metro's stated goals of selling off land for housing projects that boost Metro usage ... every one of these townhouses is going to have its own two-car garage!
Not only that, but there are already three new apartment/condo buildings around the station that were just completed in the last year or two, and two similar projects in the early stages of construction. Personally, I think it makes perfect sense for residents of Takoma Park to oppose the complete disruption of foot and vehicle traffic around the station, the loss of parking at the station, and several years of extensive construction, especially since the site's inside the District boundaries and won't bring a cent in tax revenue to Takoma Park or Maryland.
I second Nate on the absurd Metro Takoma boondoggle. It's not about the park - it's about the parking. There are plenty of people who would be happy to buy a home DIRECTLY OVER THE METRO without a 2-car garage. It's Urban Planning 101 that "transit-oriented development" means you market it to people who are going to take transit. 101 may be a bit too sophisticated - if there were Urban Planning Kindergarten that's where this particular piece of common sense would come in.
Meanwhile, people who do not live DIRECTLY OVER THE METRO and want to take Metro into the city are going to have fewer parking spots. It's the complete opposite of rational. What the hell was Metro thinking?
Nate:
You raise some interesting points (especially the one about the 2-car garages) but complaining about the fact that your locality doesn't get the tax money isn't really a strong point. Pollution and sprawl is a region-wide problem. It doesn't arbitrarily stop at city or state borders.
And Metro is a regional agency. Again, they are supposed to have a region-wide view.
Smart growth is supposed to happen regardless of what locality gets taxes from the development.
Also, the question is what type of metro station is Takoma Park going to be. Is it going to be a hinterland station, where parking is expected and the density around the station is low (sort of like a Metro version of a commuter rail station). Or is it like a Wilson Blvd. type station, where parking is not expected, and density is high around the stations?
I think it should be one or the other. Either it has no density around it, and parking is available, or it goes whole hog over to transit-oriented growth. Trying to split the baby will fail on both accounts.
If the answer is the second, then I agree it isn't right to have two car garages (nor is it right to go with only townhouses, apartment buildings would be better), but it is right to get rid of parking. If you don't live right on top of the station, you should be taking a bus or other means to get to the station. That's the best model for transit-oriented growth.
It seems to me that this plan is flawed, but the critiques are equally flawed, and sound pretty disingenuous, to boot.
a) My point about the tax revenue jealousy was facetious. Sorry I didn't make that more obvious.
b) Takoma has never been one of the stations with a lot of parking, such as Forest Glen or Glenmont, or even Silver Spring which is surrounded with parking garages. It has a moderately sized lot that commuters can't use, because you can't park there for a full day without getting a ticket. However, I do think that a lot of Takoma residents taking short trips in to the city (especially evenings and weekends) are more willing to take Metro because they can park there. Buses aren't always an option if you're wrestling with a giant stroller, you know you'll be bringing back a lot of heavy packages, if you're coming back late at night (buses stop before midnight) or (most importantly) if you just don't live near a Ride-On route.
I'm not positive that "casual" parking usage outweighs the one-time cash infusion they'll get from selling the property, but I don't think it's a completely bullshit complaint. And I do seriously question how they'll fit in all the bus traffic in the new arrangement.