April 14, 2008
Morning Roundup: Good Day, Sunshine Edition
Good morning, D.C. Do yourself a favor and take a look at the DCist weather page right now. See all those happy little suns in a row? The forecast for the next five days (and beyond) couldn't be any more ideal, so make sure to take some time today to plan at least one lunch this week that you'll be able to eat outside. Pack a sandwich and head to the nearest obliging park, square or circle. We've been waiting far too long for this. Hooray for spring!
New Report on District's Working Poor: D.C. Appleseed and Ed Lazere's D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute co-authored a new study released today that says that a third of all the District's working families are living in poverty. The report makes recommendations such as creating a D.C. community college system, funding more adult literacy programs, and ensuring that new economic development plans focus on projects that must hire D.C. residents.
Lanier Shuffles More Police Commanders: D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier announced late on Friday that she has appointed several new top police commanders, a move that now means six of the seven district commanders under the chief have been replaced since she took over the department. Among the moves announced on Friday, Cmdr. George Kucik has replaced Cmdr. Larry McCoy as commander of the 3rd District, and Mark Carter, formerly a captain at the police training academy, has been promoted to commander of the 2nd District, replacing Cmdr. Andy Solberg, who will become a field commander.
Briefly Noted: Aging bridges, ramps to be replaced as HOT lanes added on Capitol Beltway ... D.C. Police found missing girl ... Man killed in drive-by on Riggs Rd. NE ... Twenty-five year-old woman found dead in Gaithersburg.
This Day in DCist: In 2006 we thought a New York Times travel story about U Street kind of missed the mark, and in 2005 we were getting ready for the first Washington Nationals home game at RFK.
Photo by {ryan}
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evaluating economic development proposals based on a willingness to hire D.C. residents,
That's nice, but you can't hire people who don't have basic job skills just because they live in DC. Barry did this for years as a make-work program. Sure, get them secondary education so they can get those job skills, if they want them. My guess is that lots of them don't, particularly the ones who show up at construction sites and refuse to work because they don't want to get dirty.
Great pic, though. "You ain't got no icecream! You ain't got no icecream! And yo momma on the welfare!"
sunny, but too cold to eat outside! brrrrrrrr.
Eh, call me when its 80 (like last Friday).
*sigh*
Any time Ed Lazere and Walter Smith issue a report, it's always about how we need higher taxes to pay for all sorts of new social welfare programs.
I agree with their proposal for establishing a community college. That community college is called UDC. Except that UDC wants to maintain the fantasy that it's actually a university, rather than a community college. Steve Pearlstein of the Post wrote a column about UDC and how it should be reformatted into a community college so that it would actually help DC residents. When he did an online chat, the UDC students were out in full force defending the honor of their school. That was a nice example of school pride, but most of the comments were barely literate. Kind of made Pearlstein's point about how you cannot have UDC be a university when a significant number of its students need remedial math and English courses.
As for the jobs programs, look for Barry and Kwame Brown to be waving this bloody shirt and demanding more jobs programs for residents. Because the plethora of existing jobs programs are apparently not enough. Maybe if Brown would exercise some actual oversight on the city council, rather than just hitting up developers for campaign funds and driving around town in his Kwamemobile, the jobs programs would actually be working.
The issue is not jobs not being available to residents. The issue is residents not having either the educational or social levels necessary for being considered for those jobs. If a person has no college education and is barely literate, that kills their chances for most jobs. And if a person can't understand the concept of regularly showing up at a certain time and working for a set number of hours, then they're not going to be employed for very long anywhere.
Now, Ed Lazere and Walter Smith's solution is simply to require higher taxes to pay for more of the same programs that have been in existence for decades, but barely made a dent in the city's employment and poverty statistics. That hasn't worked for more than 20 years. But hey! Let's give it one more try and make the same complaints in 5 years.
Ah, now this is decent weather. Not the hot, humid crap. Who wants to be around sweaty stinkin' bodies anyway?
Hey, lay off the Kwamemobile! That ride rocks! If anything, Fenty needs to light the Kwamesignal so KwameMan and Barry can show up in costume to fight crime, shakedown developers, and redistribute wealth. But who will rescue our heroes from the devious clutches of The Gentrifyer and his evil minions, The Hiptards? Will our Caped Crusaders be plunged into a jumbo Belgian frite fryer and served with overpriced moulles and lambic ales?
Tune in next week: Same Kwame-time, same Kwame-channel!
amen, fluxgirl, a-freakin-men!
Talk about not using DCist to its fullest potential. I never knew if you clicked on the current weather icon that there was the weekly forecast in it.
I work in Friendship Heights though, so we don't have any parks to sit in and enjoy the weather. Just Bloomingdale's.
Depends on what the sweaty stinkin' bodies are doing. Hopping on the sheets and playing "find-the-teacup" with Auntie Mame? Sure. Doing industrial roofing? Not so much.
hey drew, what about the park behind panera? the one with the creepy traffic cop statue? I think the cross streets are S.Park Ave and Friendship Blvd.
I would rather be in that park then the smelly postage stamp on 18th and M!
Wow, I didn't know you could click on the weather icon either! Sometimes I'm a little slow...
its great weather, but not eating outside weather!
Wow, I didn't know you could click on the weather icon either! Sometimes I'm a little slow...
Add me to the list of the clueless . . .
Also, if you click repeatedly on the White House silhouette in the dcist logo, you will get a visit from the Secret Service.
From the Examiner:
"The payoff of addressing educational and workforce development obstacles, according to Smith: A growing tax base, reduced social services and child-poverty costs, and a significant improvement in the ability of children and D.C. Public Schools to succeed."
But...won't Gentrification ultimately produce the same results?