April 24, 2008
Morning Roundup: Watch Your Step Edition
Good morning, D.C. You knew you hadn't heard the last of the taxicab drivers who oppose Mayor Fenty's time and distance meter mandate, didn't you? The AP reports that the drivers behind the original lawsuit have indeed requested an injunction to block the implementation of a meter fare system pending an appeal. A judge is scheduled to hear that request on Friday in D.C. Superior Court, so hopefully we'll have an answer on the potential their appeal holds before the weekend. Right now, the city is planning on issuing warning tickets starting May 1 to drivers caught without meters, and $1,000 fines starting June 1.
CFO, DCRA Scolded for Sloppy Record Keeping: The Post reports on the District's inspector general having issued a stern warning to the city's Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and the Office of the Chief Financial Officer that those two offices are keeping sloppy financial records. Inspector General Charles Willoughby wrote in a letter to DCRA Director Linda Argo and Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi that they risk losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue to fraud and abuse every year because revenue is not properly recorded and reconciled in transactions between their agencies. The warning comes, of course, only months after the Office of Tax and Revenue, under the leadership of the CFO's office, has been embarrassed by a $50 million embezzlement scheme perpetrated by city employees and their accomplices.
City Streets Safer than Suburbs for Pedestrians: A report released by the nonprofit Coalition for Smarter Growth says that D.C. suburbs like Fairfax and Prince George’s counties are far more dangerous for pedestrians than the District itself. The difference is attributed to higher driving speeds in the suburbs than in the city center, which tend to lead to more fatal pedestrian accidents than those at lower speeds.
Briefly Noted: Man shot during attack on D.C. officer ... Sinkhole closes lane on I-70 ... Police bust 30 kids skipping school and drinking in adult's apartment in Silver Spring ... Virginia and Maryland rank fourth, fifth in federal aide.
This Day in DCist: Last year we learned that Tai Shan the panda had escaped the clutches of China's greedy grasp for two more years, and the year before that church goers in the Logan Circle neighborhood were protesting Sunday parking enforcement.
Photo by soleil1016
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Meh. Coalition for Smart Growth is always hating on suburbs. Cities can do no wrong for them. If it were up to them, America would look like friggin Coruscant, only minus that whole Sith Lord Chancellor thing.
Speaking of pedestrians, WTOP reported that the streetcars that DC ordered years ago are already running....in Prague. Still no sign of actual tracks in DC, though.
Is 'sloppy record keeping' the reason it's been 35 days since my last paycheck from DC?
If you're thinking of applying for a DC Government job, be warned! If they consider you an 'independant contractor' (meaning you're guaranteed 40 hours/week although I continually work far more than that) you get paid once per month. And when the check comes out is never regulated.
I am really over this city and its fucked up methods. I'm not able to go 35 days without paying my student loan, rent or car insurance.
Well, of course Coruscant was safe -- all the transportation vehicles were flying through the sky! Pedestrians could lolly-dolly on the ground without any fear of being struck by speeders, transport ships, or Anakin's bad acting abilities.
tigerflight - You just need to be patient. DC Central Payroll recently upgraded their servers from old 1950s era UNIX mainframes to a bunch of cappucine monkeys with abacuses in the basement. $280 million doesn't buy what it used to, and the stench is overpowering.
Also, just ignore the "skid marks" on your check and hit it with some Febreeze.
I say, boycot any cabs that don't comply. I know, it'll take some commitment, but if we all got immediately OUT of a cab that didn't have a meter, they'd comply aweful fast.
Y'know, come to think of it, even when Anakin crashed the changeling assasin's ship outside the nightclub in Episode II, none of the pedestrians got hurt! Hell, after a 20-story fall, Luke's dad just rubbed his ribs and went after him. And Obi Wan just parks and hops out and tells him to "Use the Force. Think."
That's the other great thing about movies: there's ALWAYS parking right in front of where you need to go.
"The District's inspector general has warned the city's Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and the Office of the Chief Financial Officer that hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue may be lost annually because of sloppy record-keeping and lax control over the collection of fees from building and occupancy permits."
So, to be clear, not only are we unable to effectively monitor the cash the city has in the bank now -- to the point that Harriette Walters can embezzle $50,000,000 -- but we are unable to effectively monitor the money that is to come into the city? So what has the CFO been doing? Because clearly he is not doing a large part of his job.
it ain't just the speeds causing pedestrian death out in suburbia, it's the lack of sidewalks. when you gotta walk in the road, i would say that common sense says more people are going to get nailed.
The DCRA barely has any records, let alone financial ones. I went down there to verify whether my landlord was legally raising the rent, and the man at the desk pulls out a barely legible handwritten book of all rentals in the city... which we had to look through chronologically to try to find my address. It was ridiculous.
DC's financial management controls are almost as bad as that of the Jedi archives, where any old Sith Lord can wander in and just delete Planet Camino from the records like it never existed. You gotta wonder how the CFO actually knows there's hundreds-of-thousands missing. How do they know it isn't in the millions? Did they look for the gravitational pull and then extrapolate where the revenuesshould be?
and that story about our streetcars being over in czech—does this mean i can high-tail it over there and enjoy a true pilsner on a dc streetcar and pay for the ride with my smartrip card? does the smartrip card take euros?
I think the real shocking results from that study is learning that people actually walk places in Fairfax. I had no idea!
It's not just the lack of sidewalks, it's the fact that pedestrian crossings are MILES apart. You pretty much have to jaywalk to get anywhere; that, or walk an extra couple miles to cross legally. And when you do find a crosswalk, you have 3 seconds to cross 6 lanes of traffic, all the while some jackass is eyeing you like you're making him late for his appointment at Paddy O'Furniture's Pumproom and Irish Massage (with release). Have a little patience, dude. It's like you want to go all Yoda on his ass, "Control! Control! You must learn control! Much anger in him, like his father."
Is today some kind of Star Wars anniversary? Or maybe monkey is going to have a different comment theme for each thread. Wow, monkey, you have outdone yourself. Taking commenting to a new level, once again.
"Wow, monkey, you have outdone yourself. Taking commenting to a new level, once again."
Monkey really should be given some award or title, like Commenter Emeritus or something. Clearly, when fully caffeinated, he comes up with the most amazing prose.
So if the taxi drivers' injunction against the meters doesn't work, what will be their alternative? Another protest? THAT really worked to gain them public support. A rolling blockade maybe? It would be a shame for such a tragedy to occur on our peaceful city. And this dispute began right here with the taxation of taxi routes, and has now engulfed our entire planet in the oppresion of the Trade Federation. I don't know about you, but I was not elected to watch my people suffer and die while you discuss this blockade in a committee. If this body is not capable of action, I suggest new leadership is needed. I move for a "vote of no confidence" in Chancellor Fenty's leadership.
Speaking of raising rents (thanks smittydc) -- does anyone know anything about the DC rent control laws? Specifically, how much can my landlord raise my rent from year to year?
thatgirl - Depends entirely on whether your building is rent-controlled or market rate. For years, developers have been using a loophole to takie rent controlled properties, dividing them into smaller units, thereby making them exempt from rent control. It's a lot like Neimoidian trade viceroy Nute Gunray claiming his blockade was "perfectly legal" all the while preparing for the inevitable droid invasion.
Of course there's more pedestrian fatalities in the burbs...rather than walk to the crosswalks, I see lots of people choosing to run across the 4 lanes of Rt 50 in Falls Church, and if they can only make it across two lanes, they teeter precariously on the barrier separating the traffic before proceeding.
They're building a big fancy pedestrian bridge there now. Are they going to do that everywhere that pedestrian's run through traffic?
I say, let the suburbanites die in pedestrian accidents-that should help alieve the country's rice shortage...
Are more people using mass transit thereby the increase in walking in the suburbs or are drivers not as cautious as they once were?
It would take me ten extra minutes to walk to the nearest crosswalk in suburbia, which hardly seems right when it would take a driver ten extra seconds to slow down. A crosswalk/stop sign would be ideal for both parties, but I don't know what kind of connections it takes to get one put in.
thatgirl If you live in a building (as opposed to renting a room or an English basement), the landlord can increase your rent 2% plus the rate of inflation on the amount you pay currently.
So, if my rent was $850/month and the rate of inflation is 4%, your rent would increase by 6% which is $901/month.
wow, loganmo, even i wouldn't wish that on suburbanites, and i tend to look down my nose at them every chance i get. :)
Drew - that applies only if the building is subject to rent control laws. If not, the landlord can raise the rent to whatever his/her heart desires. Sorta like how the empire raised the rents on the Wookies of Kashyyk to the extent it forced them into a rebellion. The Empire was sick and tired of having to continually snake the drains of the Wookie bathtubs and sinks. The Empire raised the rent to reflect the constant costs of snaking the hair-clogged drains. And the Wookies went nuts.
So -- what's the rate of inflation? 8%? Because my rent just went up 10% and I'm not too pleased. (I live in a building, I don't rent a room)
See, now why y'alls gotta hate on suburbanites? That's like hating on VA because of a handful of xeno/homophobes in PW County, or hating on MD because of a bunch of a bunch of crunchy granola New Age hippie Loveburger plastic-bottle-bannin, nuclear-free-zonin Takoma Parkers. It's just as bad as hatin on DC because DC keeps re-electing Marion Barry. Go anywhere on the planet--Guam or Kuala Lampur or the snows of Tibet--and tell them you're from DC. The first thing your yeti will ask is, "why do you keep re-electing that crackhead?" he says while taking a dump and wiping himself with an ermine.
Like the puppet says, "Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering."
Little known fact: Wookies and Ewoks share a common ancestry: tribbles. Try looking for that little heresy in Wookipedia.
Also, the Empire was tired of getting hair in its soup. Combine this with Wookie insistance on 20% minimum gratuity, and you can see why they'd be hostile to a planet full of sloppy, priveleged waiters, albeit with luxurious hair. Let this be a lesson to that jerk at Busboys and Poets. Just because we're only ordering appetizers doesn't mean we don't tip well. No need to be bitchy.
Inflation's like 5% or so. A 10% increase is waaaaay too high.
He's serious; it's called "wookieepedia." That is so awesome.
Well, that's why it's called "market rate rentals" innit? The market says a 10% increase isn't too high. What you gonna do about it? Rental vacancies downtown are still hovering at less than 3%. Try finding a decent place for LESS than what you're paying now. You have an already tight rental market getting tighter because developers built condos instead of rental apartments. And since the market downtown is still strong, fewer of those unsold units are being flipped to rental. So unless your alternatives include Nazi NoVA or stinking hippie MD, you're kinda screwed.
You wouldn't have had any of these problems under a Chancellor Valorum administration. Just sayin.
I hope these lawyer's fees are eating up a lot of the cabbies's under-the-table income.
@thatgirl. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which puts out the Consumer Price Index for Urban Consumers, the year-over-year inflation as of March 2008 was 4%. The Washington-Baltimore rate was 4.7% for the same period. I'm not sure which figure rent control is based upon, but it doesn't look like it should be above 6.7%. I know, I'm a geek.
Thanks everyone -- apparently rent control only applies to buildings built before a certain time, (1983, maybe?) and mine is newer than that, so I guess I'm SOL.
The complete list of exemptions from rent control is as follows:
1. Government-subsidized rental units.
2. Units built after 1975.
3. Units owned by a landlord who owns four or fewer units.
4. Units that were vacant when rent control was first adopted.
You'll often hear that buildings of four or fewer units are exempt from rent control. This is not strictly speaking true. If a landlord owns three buildings, each with two units, these properties are subject to rent control because the total is more than four units. However, the city pretty much depends upon landlords to fess up whenever they own multiple small properties, so in practice it almost never works that way. An enterprising tenant who lives in a duplex and has a gift for digging through musty records could maybe wrangle a pretty nice rent reduction, though.
If none of those exemptions apply to your property (I see that Thatgirl's apartment is too new to qualify), there are still three possible ways for a continuing tenant in a rent-controlled property to get a 10% rent hike:
1. Substantial improvement or rehabilitiation in the property or services.
2. Hardship filing (the city guarantees a minimum 12% return on equity for landlords of rent controlled buildings).
3. Voluntary agreement signed by 70% of tenants.
In all these cases, however, DCRA needs to sign off on the increase and the tenants need to be notified.
CMinus:
I have to say, that was a very nice summary of the rent control law in DC. Very rarely do you see it explained so clearly.
But you forgot the most ironic exemption. Units owned by the District of Columbia are exempt from rent control.
I've always found that one to be hilarious, given the fervent love city politicians profess for rent control.
Thatgirl:
Why do you think a 10% rent hike is too high?
Whoops. I owe you an apology, CMinus. You did list that exemption, just without my thoughtful commentary.
Hillman: I don't think it's too high. I just think it's high -- the other apartments I've lived in have been rent controlled, so the hike was only 5% or so. 10% seems like a big jump compared to that.
However, I understand why they are doing it, as the area I'm in is rapidly growing and improving -- if I don't pay it, they can easily find another tenant to pay even more, I'm sure.
I was just looking for an explaination of the rules, since the DCRA site is difficult to navigate and the statute isn't the easiest thing to understand.