Rachel Sadon
Courtesy Mary Cheh.
Mary Cheh is back with her annual joke budget priorities, and she had some real gems in there this year.
The Ward 3 Council member has been putting out a list that gently (and not so gently) mocks D.C. politicians, the city government, and local life for the past few years now. She spared few punches this year, with laugh-out-loud digs at the Board of Elections, Eleanor Holmes Norton’s parking skills, and the mayor’s friends on the Council.
Among the things Cheh took aim at this time around:
The streetcar
Maybe “$500,000 million” will be enough will finally be enough to get us to passenger service? Or at least pay for actors to line H Street/Benning Road and shout “Stellaaaa!” every time an unoccupied, “simulated service” streetcar passes by.
Transfer $500,000 million from the District Department of Transportation to the Commission on Arts and Humanities. This transfer will be used for an innovative, progressive, and transformative production of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire.
Our elected officials’ well-documented parking and driving woes
Try to pry the Worst Parking Job Award away from Jack Evans. Just try.
Sadly, officials elected by District residents have demonstrated severe difficulty in parking—or, at least parking legally. The newly created Eleanor Holmes Norton Office of Parking and Driving will help the District’s elected representatives learn to traverse the city without running afoul of signs, meters, and proper procedures.
Muriel Bowser cronies
A study to determine how many more people the Mayor can stack the Council with.
Allocate a yet-to-be determined sum for needed reforms to the Council’s structure. The current 13-member Council does not have enough seats for all of Mayor Bowser’s former staff and campaign aides. Therefore, at least $50,000 should be set aside to study exactly how many members of her retinue aren’t currently otherwise employed by the administration and to increase the number of Councilmembers accordingly.
The D.C. Board of Elections
When is the next election? Who knows, anyway. Let’s just sync it to the lunar calendar and be done with it. Even better, this paragraph was published upside down in a nod to that time DCBOE unsuccessfully tried to pass off an upside-down flag as a game for voters.
Provide the District of Columbia Board of Elections with $375,000 for implementing a new primary date. Considering the frequency with which the primary date has been altered in the past, in conjunction with the high number of special elections held in recent years, District residents have little reason to believe that an election is always held on the same date. To enhance voter turnout and continue to make elections a part of the news cycle, the Committee recommends that the Board of Elections sync the primary date to the lunar calendar. Having an election date that varies from year-to-year will certainly have no effect on voter turnout. Because, you know, it has been so great recently.
Ron Machen
He’s out of office now, so he should finally have time to find that ‘there’ now, ey?
Provide $10 to the Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia for the purchase of a dictionary and a map. The former U.S. Attorney for the District previously insisted that “there is there there” about a former elected official. Given his subsequent resignation and the lack of relevant activity by his office, the Committee is now concerned that the Office somehow lost the “there.” The Committee recommends that the Office use these state-of-the-art tools to finally determine where exactly is the there. There there, Ron Machen. There there.
16th Street traffic
Maybe the Bikeshare corral will park the horses, too?
Allocate $1.5 million to the District Department of Transportation for a study on a dedicated skateboard lane, a dedicated horseback lane, and a dedicated Slip-n-Slide lane on 16th Street, NW. Traffic congestion on 16th Street has become atrocious—cars are backed up for miles, long lines of commuters wait for buses that are full, and good luck if you think it is safe to ride a bicycle through that mess … The Committee believes it is time to think outside of the box to find solutions for the traffic-weary people of 16th Street, so the Committee asked its 11-year old brother what he would do.
The power struggle between Attorney General Karl Racine and the mayor
The winner, if you ask me.
Transfer $50,000 for rental fees to Events DC. The Mayor and the Attorney General are in a Vulcan death grip over which office is really, really the most powerful and important. Therefore, the Committee recommends this transfer to cover the cost of renting R.F.K. Stadium. There, the Mayor and the Attorney General shall duel for supremacy. To keep costs low, the Archives is instructed to pull up the details of the Hamilton/Burr duel and the parties shall follow that protocol.
The humorless
You got a problem with all this? Stick it in your pipe in smoke it, Cheh recommends.
The Committee apologizes if this memo is not funny. If that is the case, the Committee recommends that the reader participate in some recently-legalized activities and then revisit this memo.
