November 2007 Archives

As he promised, newly inaugurated mayor Bruce Williams started the Nov. 26th Takoma Park city council meeting right on time as councilmembers scurried to their seats and rattled their papers. Even the cable television crew was caught unready, cutting late into the proceedings to the council comments segment.

In that segment Councilmember Terry Seamens firmly voiced his support of at least one plank of William’s platform, calling for a better approach to planning the budget. He echoed what Williams said in his inaugural address last week about needing to learn stronger lobbying skills, and to nurture development on NH. Ave.

A number of councilmembers have become alarmed about rising housing prices and how that threatens to change the city. Seamens took the concern one step further, calling for an “economic diversity task force,” to suggest ways to keep the city affordable for the sorts of residents who are vital to its unique character: new immigrants, struggling artists, and low-paid activists.

The new mayor appointed councilmember Doug Barry as Mayor Pro Tempore (acting mayor in the mayor’s absence), the position Williams himself held during Mayor Kathy Porter’s recent administration.

The new council was updated on the Takoma Metro development issue by city attorney Sue Silber and city staffer Suzanne Ludlow. Mayor Williams joked that there were two “Sues” making the presentation, and perhaps that indicated the city’s next step.

Ms Silber reminded the council that WMATA (Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority) voted November 8th to approve the sale of the land around the Takoma Metro stop. Though the situation is discouraging, there are still steps the city can take to stop the sale, or more likely get the developers to change their plans to a degree. The developer’s current plan, the city feels, has many flaws, including not providing enough bus bays, and not complying with ADA requirements.

Other than the last-ditch lawsuit option, there are two opportunities left to intervene in the public process of the sale of land to a private developer (EYA). The sale must be approved by the Federal Transit Administration. The city can submit a statement to that agency raising its objections.

The DC Office of Planning has yet to approve, also. However, the city has no official standing with that office and must petition to be included.

Mayor Williams announced that he was invited to attend a November 27th meeting called by the Maryland Secretary of Transportation with himself, Montgomery County, and DC officials to discuss this issue.

This generated some optimism from the council and staff. They also bucked themselves up with statements to the effect that their position was persuasive if only they could get the proper authorities to stop and listen.

Your Gilbert is less optimistic. Appeals to higher authorities have so far gained little but temporary delays. None of them seem convinced of anything other than the need to establish a record of having done something for constituents so we can’t blame them when the final decision comes down against us.

Let us all join in the standing ovation for departing Mayor Kathy Porter and Ward 1 Councilmember Joy Austin-Lane! Both have been highly dedicated and effective in their work for the city.

Each of them made touching farewell speeches Nov. 19th, Austin-Lane describing the mostly positive effects her service had on her personal and family life, Mayor Porter advising new council members to listen to the city staff, even when it is to hear bad news.

The clueless Lyndon LaRouche zombies, none of them city residents, who presented a petition of some sort during the citizen comment period were the only off-key note in what was otherwise an harmonious chorus of praise and thank-yous from city residents.

Newly sworn-in mayor Bruce Williams, wearing black tie and dinner jacket instead of his usual flannel shirt, pledged in his inaugural speech that he would strive to start council meetings on time, quorum or not, and keep them moving along. He said he will urge councilmembers and citizens to keep their comments brief. Then, noting the irony, he said "but, I'm going to go on a little longer."

He listed off some of the upcoming issues and priorities of his administration. He noted that in the past the council relied on former mayor Porter to lobby other governments on the city's behalf and that they would have to learn to take on that role.

Since the county's new growth policy encourages development at transportation hubs, it is likely to bring developments to Takoma Park, he noted. The city should be looking for developers who share "our vision" rather that fighting a "rearguard action" against developers who don't.

This will be crucial in shaping whatever development may occur at the Washington Adventist Hospital site when (if?) it moves. Williams also mentioned the Takoma Junction and the New Hampshire Ave. "corridor."

Of COURSE, he brought up the tax rebates the county owes us. What will Takoma Park politicians talk about if we ever do get those rebates?

Licking his chops at the prospect (or perhaps it was for the cake reception following the council session), Williams spoke of possible renovations to the city council chambers. One proposal has been made, he noted, and a revised proposal is forthcoming. The plan, you may recall, Dear Readers, is to turn the council chambers into a sort of Transformer - the council apparatus would--snip-snap, whizzzzz-- tuck and fold into itself to turn the room into a performance space.

Williams said that to fund this project he is eying the 1.25 million dollars in grant money that the city procured to build the gym. Your Gilbert remembers that when this idea came up in city council meeting a few months ago it made the staff uncomfortable about shifting the use for the grant money. Apparently these qualms have been soothed?

The mayor said he was making use of this particular grant money before the deadline passes and it is no longer available, but Your Gilbert wonders if this indicates that the Williams administration is dropping the idea of a gym entirely.

The new mayor listed off a few other issues: development near the Metro station, changing the budget proposal format so people can understand it better, addressing greenhouse gas reduction in the city, and the forthcoming results of the city services survey.

The newly- and re-elected councilmembers also speechified, covering much of the same ground. Friends, relatives, and spouses and companions were profusely thanked, the latter especially for their long-suffering and patience. From the audience they grinned thinly, as though to say that even their patience and long-suffering has its limits, pal.

Oh, what a surprise! The recent Takoma Park city election, featuring only one contested seat out of seven, had a LOW TURNOUT! The only question, really, was how low it would be. Your Gilbert predicted 1050 votes, 1000 of them for Bruce Wiliams.

The actual vote was even lower - 931 votes cast for mayor, Williams taking 830 of them.

And, yes that’s a lot of throwaway write-in votes - 101 of them. We can conjecture that it means people were unhappy about the lack of choice, or unhappy with the only candidate. It is not clear. Only four write-ins specified something to the effect of “anyone else.” There were 21 votes for a last minute write-in candidate, Richard Joy. The rest were either smart-ass remarks (Ho Chi Minh, Tina Hudak Mickey Mouse) or honorific votes for admired community activists/politicians (Howard Kohn, Rick Weiss, Joy Austin-Lane). We can’t decide in which of those two categories the one vote for Gilbert falls.

This is how the mayoral race looked by ward. The heaviest vote was in Ward 3, where the one council seat race occured, and which usually has a high voter turnout.

For Mayor, Bruce R. Williams, Write-In Candidates

Ward 1: Williams - 230, Write-ins - 23
Ward 2: Williams - 133, Write-ins - 16
Ward 3: Williams - 276, Write-ins - 45,
Ward 4: Williams - 107, Write-ins - 5
Ward 5: Williams - 39, Write-ins - 10
Ward 6: Williams - 45, Write-ins - 2

Total: Williams - 830, Write-ins - 101

27 of these were absentee ballots, 26 votes for Williams, 1 for a write-in candidate.

What do the write-in votes tell us about the ward candidates? Five races were uncontested, so one would expect some protest or silly votes there, but the contested race garnered a high number of write-ins, 10. Perhaps some were underwhelmed with the candidate choice there.

The newcomer Briget Bowers got herself an impressive 31% of the vote. If the placement of candidate’s signs were any indication, Bowers stronghold was in the recently annexed Pinecrest section of Ward 3, a community that until a few years ago was not part of the city and was in Prince Georges County. This area has long showed a simmering resentment against the city, strongly backing anti-establishment candidates such as Terry Seamens in his mayoral run a few elections ago.

The highest number of council-race write-ins was in ward 2, represented by Colleen Clay. We wonder what that’s all about. Perhaps her council duties have caused her to neglect Girl School cookie distribution. She should spread some Thin Mints around to calm this potential voter rebellion. Your Gilbert would be a good place to start (actually, Samosas are our favorite). She did get the highest number of votes for a sitting ward representative (137), but ward 2 usually has a high voter turnout.

There were impressively high turnouts in uncontested elections in traditionally low-turnout wards. Ward 4 councilmember Terry Seamens got 117 and ward 6 councilmember Doug Barry got 45. Those are solid numbers considering that in 2003 when there were contested races in those wards, the total vote in ward 4 was 77 and the total vote in ward 6 was 187. This indicates high approval for those gentlemen, especially since there were only 2 write-in votes in each ward. Similarly, Rubin Snipper, who has only served for about a year got 49 votes (1 write-in).

We will be glad to see the new fellow in ward 1, Josh Wright, sworn in, just to stop him from jumping up from the audience during council meetings and commenting on various issues. It wears us out just watching all that eager expenditure of energy and we fear he will sprain something. He seems to be a smart guy and we look forward to his contributions.

Dan Robinson, the new ward 3 representative will undoubtedly have contributions to make as well, he comes with a reputation for innovation, so we anticipate some fresh ideas from him.

All this positivity is making Your Gilbert feel slightly ill, and in need of taking a break to go hang from our heels in the attic for a while.

Your Gilbert is a winner, too! We won Seth Grimes prediction contest, but there were only 4 other entries, so we don’t feel it is too brag-worthy. However, one of the other contestants was our new mayor, by the way.

Here is what Seth had to say:

“The winner of the Takoma Park 2007 election contest: Gilbert! Gilbert foresaw the low voter turnout, predicting 1050 ballots cast to the actual figure of 1007. Gilbert's overall score, calculated as the sum of the differences between his predictions and the actuals, multiplied by 10 in the case of percentages, was 590. Second place was Seth (me) with a score of 946, then Bruce with 1091, then Terry with 1571, and Howard in distant last place with 1887.”

We demand a recount! The Takoma Park city election process is unfair. Merely because we announced our candidacy the day after the election was held, our name did not appear on the ballot! This is blatant discrimination against the temporaly-challenged and those within the procrastinist lifestyle. We will take this to the Supreme Court if necessary.

Before they are overturned by the courts, the results are as expected. All the uncontested candidates won, Bruce Williams is now our new mayor, despite the last minute write-in campaign by gun-enthusiast Richard Joy, who garnered 21 votes. Dan Robinson won the Ward 3 race over Bridget Bowers. The percentages (re: Seth Grimes contest, see our last post) were 66% for Dan (we predicted 65-70%), 31% for Bridget (we predicted 25-30%. 3% of the vote was for write-ins.

Congratulations to the new mayor, new councilmembers, and re-elected incumbents. Let the post-election honeymoon begin!

The most entertaining aspect of the election is the write-in vote. We’ll post the more boring results later.

Oh, and many thanks to the prescient or perhaps time-traveling voter who cast a vote for us!

After long, thoughtful, thorough consideration, Your Gilbert has made the momentus and historical decision to throw our hat in the ring. Yes, we are putting forward our name as a candidate for city office.

The other candidate will say it is too late, that the election was yesterday. This is a cowardly thing to say! Obviously our opponent is afraid to face us! Fear is an ugly thing, and so is our opponent! But, we won't stoop to the same name calling and mud slinging tactics of the other side.

We waste no time on introductions, we know we are already beloved by all. Let us get straight to the campaign platform, a platform based on good old Takoma Park values!

1). Annex the Takoma Metro station to the city. Turn the grounds into a wetlands.

2). Seize all State Highway Administration roads and Montgomery County schools, parks, and other property and facilities.

3). Establish the Takoma Park School District. Abolish grades, magnet and honors programs, and all other competitive, non-egalitarian, oppressive systems.

4). Demand the county and state rebate all our tax money to run, maintain, and improve our schools, roads, and parks.

5). Pass Mortgage Stabilization laws on the same principles as our Rent Stabilization ordinances.

6). Convert the city community center so it can be turned into a shopping mall in the evening hours.

7). Rename the Takoma Park Community Center Sam Abbott Citizens Center “City Hall." Add "Sam Abbott Citizens Center" below.

8). Keep the hospital no matter what it takes! But, when we lose it, turn the building into a gym.

The challenge has been made, and Your Gilbert rises to meet it!

Seth Grimes, candidate for Mayor in the 2005 elections has posed a contest - pedictions for tomorrow's election.

He asks,

What percentages do you see in Ward 3 for --
- Bridget Bowers
- Dan Robinson

Your score = the sum of the differences between each actual result and your guess, multiplied by 10 for the percentages. Low score wins.

Here's how Your Gilbert calls it:

Bridget Bowers: around 25-30%
Dan Robinson:around 70-75%

Votes cast for mayor: 1050
Mayor
Bruce Williams: 1000
write-ins: 50

That’s, what, 99% for Bruce Williams?

Ward 1
Josh Wright: 180
write-ins: 2

Ward 2.
Colleen Clay: 150
write-ins: 8

Ward 3
Dan Robinson: 370
Bridget Bowers: 150
write-ins: 15

Ward 4
Terry Seamens: 60
write-ins: 2

Ward 5
Rubin Snipper: 40
write-ins: 1

Ward 6

And now your Gilbert will turn his jaundiced eye upon the one contested race in the upcoming city election. Ward 3 is the lucky one with two candidates running for Bruce William’s old seat. Williams is advancing to the mayorship without opposition.

So which candidate, Bridget Bowers or Dan Robinson, does Your Gilbert favor, you ask?

You Gilbert finds no favor in his tiny, petrified heart for either. We have not been impressed with the platforms of either candidate. Perhaps we have been observing too many council meetings, because we know where bold proposals to lower taxes by carefully scrutinizing the budget are headed.

As the incumbent councilmembers at last month’s candidate forum pointed out, once a service is provided, everyone wants to keep it, including councilmembers who were once tax-cut crusaders, so the taxes remain high. It was also pointed out to the newbies that the way the budget is now presented, it is nearly impossible to get the details that would enable one to suggest where to cut expenses. If they were presented in such detail, the council would spend the entire year sifting through the budget and not getting anything else done.

This was the subject of a long, continuing dispute on the council this year which candidates appeared to be unaware of.

Also, both call for vague “affordable housing” solutions. Dear Reader, you know how Your Gilbert feels about those “A.H.” words. They mean nothing, but sound good. They might mean support for rent control, but they are more likely to mean the candidate favors lifting rent control all or partially with some small percentage of rental housing dedicated to means-tested low income people. We recall Ms. Bowers addressing the council during the rent stabilization discussions July 30th. She spoke against the ordinance revisions, saying they did not provide adequate relief to landlords, and chastising the council for passing the law even though they admitted it was not perfect.

If she is elected Your Gilbert gleefuly looks forward to her comeupance!

During the recent rent control hearings Mayor Kathy Porter REPEATEDLY called for someone, anyone, to hand her a detailed plan for how to do this without costing the city enormous amounts of tax dollars maintaining a means-tested affordable housing program. No-one stepped forward with anything other than these vague sorts of ideas that there surely must be something. OK, then, specifically what’s the plan?

Eh? Eh? Speak up!

Each candidate brings in new perspectives. Dan Robinson has always been innovative, and he has been heavily involved in the city, serving on many committees, and non-governmental organizations. He’s a long time resident.

Bridget Bowers is not a long time resident and younger, but she’s playing that as an asset, saying we need fresh ideas. She would be the second woman on a male-dominated council, now that Mayor Porter and Ward 1 council member Joy Austin-Lane are stepping down. She would be the youngest member of the council by far, and (we think) the only renter.

Both call for reducing city government and home energy use. They also both call for more community involvement. Robinson specifically says he will try to get input on the budget from neighborhood associations. Yeah, those will be heavily attended meetings.

Jaundice aside, we are fortunate to have two passionate candidates, and either one will do.

The candidates websites: