granolapark

Our lucky Takoma, DC cousins are having way more fun than we are! That’s if your idea of fun is a 19 candidate special ward representative election.

It is certainly Your Gilbert’s idea of fun, so we attended a recent District of Columbia Ward 4 candidate’s forum at Takoma Baptist Church.

We kept looking around for those pesky . . . er, persistent folks from The Center for Voting and Democracy who enlisted Takoma Park in their Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) scheme to make elections with three or more candidates fairer. One would think those folks would be all over this election like a cat in heat. But, no luck. Or maybe it was luck - the 17 candidates attending made it a long evening as it was without one of those interminable instruction sessions from the IRV-wonks that plagued Takoma Park’s recent special ward election.

Between the political attacks, rhetoric, slogans, jargon, and rousing speeches it was apparent that many political issues and characters are universal, certainly there are similarities with Takoma Park’s issues and characters.

Every candidate mentioned development, crime and safety, education, and rising property taxes. Each one promised to “fix” the schools, improve government services, find jobs and recreation for youth, develop (but not overdevelop) Georgia Avenue, NW, and provide constituent services. These were issues people are most concerned about, but the issues that pumped up their blood pressure, judging from applause and cheers, were city handouts to sports millionaire Abe Pollen and the baseball stadium, and the closure of DC General Hospital.

The 16 other candidates attending took turns decrying “machine politics,” “rubber-stamp politicians,” and “outside developer money.”

Bowser sat through it patiently, concentrating on looking pretty and talking like a politician. In other words, she sounded and looked good, but didn’t really say much.

Your Gilbert would love to list and analyze in depth each and every one of the 16 candidates for you, Dear Readers, but that would get tedious for all of us. Instead, here is a snapshot view in categories.

RUNNING BECAUSE THEY CAN

Lisa Comfort Bradford
Michael T. Green
Judi Jones
T.A. Uqdah

A colorful group, each with an interesting skill or idea, but, if elected, would be eaten alive by the real politicians. Judi Jones is a sincere community activist and ANC Commissioner, but needs more experience. T. A. Uqdah is one of those entrepreneur-who-will-bring-business-principles-to-government types. Lisa Comfort Bradford is a family values candidate, and Michael T. Green is great with rhymes and slogans.

IN A CATEGORY ALL BY HIMSELF

James Clark

This is what 1960s Black Power looks like in cranky old age. James Clark alternately inspired embarrassment, annoyance, hilarity, outrage, pathos, and applause. You shoulda been there. He had the pithiest quotes, for instance, attacking the current mayor and council for acting “white, white, white!”

“We need to bring Marvin Gaye back to tell you what’s goin’ on!”

“I’m not interested in no Klingle Road! . . . I’m interested in Georgia Avenue . . . where people tear the bottom of their cars out!”

“Tax Freeze? Freeze the 50 million to Poland! Freeze on the baseball stadium”

“We got a dunce in the White House, and a moron for mayor”

“Vote for me if you’re brave enough!”

PREACHERS

Robert G. Childs
Graylan Scott Hagler

Active ministers running for office make Your Gilbert wonder if they would be representing their constituents or their church members? Do they take unfair advantage of their congregations as campaign resource? That may have been the case with the overly-dignified Rev. Childs, who had the biggest cheering/sign-waving section at the forum.

Rev. Hagler, however, gave one of the most crowd-pleasing rants against the closing of DC General, and made one of the sharper attacks against “rubber stamp” candidates.

LAWYERS

Renee Bowser
Tony Towns

Your Gilbert feels that electing foxes to govern the chicken coop is like putting lawyers in charge of the government. Or something like that. However, Renee Bowser (not to be confused with front-runner Muriel Bowser I Am A Democrat) is a labor lawyer, and the Statehood/Green Party candidate. She ranted against HTAPBD (Handouts to Abe Polllen, Ballparks, and Developers).

Trial lawyer Tony Towns who wants to freeze property taxes for the poor and elderly, gave up a good rant opportunity to introduce his children and other family members. Gilbert dislikes it when politicians use minor family members as props. [a commentator notes: "Tony Towns wants to freeze property taxes for Long Time Residents of Ward 4. For more correct information visit www.tonytowns.com."]

LOOKS GOOD IN A SUIT

Lisa P. Bass
Muriel Bowser I Am A Democrat
Marlena D. Edwards
Artee "RT" Milligan

These folks look the part, but their programs mostly consist of sound-good, feel-good platitudes: “all boats rise” (Lisa Bass), “integrated approach” and “wraparound services” (Marlena Edwards), “I have a passion!” (Artee Milligan), “I will fight for the things we need!” (Muriel Bowser I Am A Democrat). Yawn.

LOOKS AND SOUNDS GOOD IN A SUIT

Michael Brown
Douglass Ned Sloan

Michael Brown, a lobbyist, is a cypher. His HTAPBD rant was one of the best., and his “Cities DON'T PAY for stadiums anymore!!!” nearly brought the house down. But, his well-delivered populist statements are at odds with his $180,000 campaign treasury, and his insider connections. He bragged that he is on a “first name basis” with people in city government and could “hit the ground running.” Is he a man of the people, or an insider with a glib tongue?

Doug Sloan got a standing ovation for his denouncement of special interests, outside developers, machine-style politicians (you-know-who), saying “you don’t need six figures to run in this race.” He brought folks out of their chairs with his finisher, “Ward 4 is not for sale!”

Inspiring rhetoric and delivery, but Your Gilbert notes Mr. Sloan is a bit of an insider, having served in DC Mayor Tony William’s administration (the one roundly denounced for handouts to millionaires, and for closing DC General Hospital). His statement “We should not allow Mother Nature to dictate what roads are closed” (re: Klingle Road) reveals an archaic view of the environment, one that furrowed Your Gilbert’s brow.

LOOKS AND SOUNDS GOOD IN A SUIT BUT TALKS TOO MUCH

Dwight E. Singleton

More than any of the other candidate, Dwight Singleton consistently talked past his allotted time and had to be reined in for it by the moderator. A bad sign in a politician. Singleton once served Ward 4 on the Board of Education, and would be there yet, since, as he put it “Ward 4 voted for me, but Ward 3 voted me out’ - a sly reference to Ward 4’s redistricting a few years ago.

THE ONE GILBERT WOULD VOTE FOR

Carroll Green

Full disclosure: Due to personal acquaintanceship, Your Gilbert went into the forum predisposed toward Carroll Green, President of the Manor Park Citizens Association, whom we know to be honest, untouched by outside or monied interests, a hard worker, and skilled activist and advocate. HIs performance at the forum only confirmed this. “We need to get real!” he said, and his statements revealed a realistic, somewhat jaundiced view (Your Gilbert likes jaundiced views), noting for instance that the city has a history of starting things and never completing them, and questioning “what good is it to develop Georgia Avenue, if you can’t PARK there?”

When the city manager gets crossed, she doesn’t get mad, she gets diplomatic.

With a perfectly straight face city manager Barbara Matthews assured the public observing the April 22nd City Council meeting she was “not meaning to suggest there was something untoward about this,” as she described how the county council waited until 6:00 pm last Friday evening to announce the 9:00 am Monday committee meeting that would recommend next year’s municipal tax rebate.

The rebate is the amount cities such as Takoma Park are due from the county for providing city services such as policing, recreation, refuse and recycling collection, and so forth, that “duplicate” the county’s.

“I think it is just a matter of workload,” said the generous Ms Matthews, that kept the county from posting the meeting time until after most municipal workers had gone home. Friday also just “happened” to be the day when many city managers were at a conference, she observed, as though it were merely unfortunate coincidence.

The hero of the day is city staff member Suzanne Ludlow, Community and Government Liaison, who caught the late announcement in time. Thanks to her Takoma Park was represented at the Management and Fiscal Policy (MFP) Committee meeting. Only two other municipalities were represented, Rockville and Gaithersburg. Apparently they also have alert staff.

The villains of the day are two of the three MFP committee members, county councilmembers Marilyn Praisner and Roger Berliner , who outvoted MFP Committee Chair Duchy Trachtenberg.

Praisner and Berliner voted to stick to last year’s rebate formula, overriding County Executive Ike Leggett’s 2008 budget proposal that would have kept the dollar amount the same. The effect is to reduce the amount rebated to all the municipalities by $700,000, about $270,000 of which would have gone to Takoma Park.

As the Mayor grimly explained, the MFP said that OUR money would be better spent on county council “priorities.” What it boils down to, she said, is that the county feels it is their money to “give” to the city. Or not.

Ironically, the $270,000 is roughly equivalent to the 2 cent property tax rate cut in her proposed budget. IF the county council votes to approve the MFP Committee’s recommended rebate, the city will either have to drop the tax cut or cut expenditures, which would have a “fairly dramatic effect” on the city, said Matthews.

“There’s going to be a lot of unhappy people”, said the new Takoma Park police chief Ronald Ricucci at the April 4th City Council Meeting.

Some of those unhappy people could be YOU, Dear Readers, if you tend to drive over the speed limit in our law-obeying city. The Speed Van Cam is coming to get you!

To the general delight of the city council and mayor (“This is so exciting!” gushed one), the chief described the new county Safe Speed “automated speed enforcement” program which allows an independent contractor to operate traffic monitoring cameras, and which the city is favorably considering joining.

The mercenary, . . . er, contractor is paid from the proceeds generated by the fines. The city also gets a cut - unlike the usual arrangement in which speeding ticket fines are paid to the state. The $40 ticket would be split: $16.25 to the contractor, $23.75 to the city. Proceeds to the city must be spent on traffic and pedestrian public safety programs.

Proceeds to the contractor would cover the cost of their equipment and the technician operating it. The only local police involvement would be the officer who needs to sign the tickets before they would be mailed to the happy recipients.

The contractor currently in use by other county municipalities (Chevy Chase Village, Rockville, and Gaithersburg) is not Big Brother R Us, but ACS State and Local Solutions, inc. The city may “piggyback” onto the other city’s contracts, as that would be a less expensive option than researching contractors. Councilmember Joy Austin-Lane expressed interest in seeing a comparison of what other companies would charge, however, and Terry Seamens wanted research done on ACS’s track record with local communities.

The city has a choice between a stationary camera or a mobile camera in a van. For the most part, the council thought one camera would be sufficient for now, and that it should be a mobile van camera. Councilmember Seamens preferred a fixed location. The county program stipulates that the cameras must be used in residential areas on streets with a 35 MPH speed limit. This would include sections of N.H. Ave. Carroll Ave., and Piney Branch Road, the streets named by the council as areas of interest.

The Chief reassured the council that the program will not primarily net local residents, but mostly the infamous “cut-through traffic” drivers, the ones many neighborhoods complain about during rush hour. Nobody observed that most of these complaints concern traffic on smaller residential streets where the speed limit is 25 MPH, therefore ineligible for the van cam.

The van cam would also be used in areas around schools, and here the statistics are not so friendly to local residents. In other cities 80% of the tickets issued within school zones went to drivers who lived within a mile of the school. In other words - parents - harried, late parents rushing to drop off or pick up their kids, unaware that the topper to their already stressful day is being digitally processed in the bowels of the unmarked van they just zipped past.

Of course, to put this in perspective, adding to a parent’s stressful day is nothing compared with “injuries and fatalities among pedestrians and motorists”. That’s what the city says the Safe Speed program is designed to prevent. Your Gilbert is unaware of any recent rash of fatalities and injuries around the local schools, but then he might see it differently if he were to pocket $23.75 per ticket.

Think of the additional income that could be generated by domestic violence arrests if cameras were set up in front of local homes due to receive school-zone speeding tickets. In fact, why not set up cameras in front of every home to catch every legal infraction possible? It’s a potential gold mine!