Alexandria’s Wild, Wild West End: JBG Development Threatens to Displace Thousands

Posted on April 17, 2012 by admin

Listen to Pete on WPFW 89.3 FM’s Latino Media Collective

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“It’s disappointing. It’s disgusting. It’s a failure of government.” – Esteban Garces

Developer JBG and the city of Alexandria plan to demolish more than 2,000 units of affordable housing at Mark Center in the city’s West End in order to make way for the construction of 12.4 million square feet of new development, consisting mostly of luxury condos and apartments. The project will displace approximately ten thousand mostly Latino and African American residents.

“They’ll end up living in Prince William County or further out where they can afford it,” said Esteban Garces, who until recently worked as an organizer with the Alexandria-based Tenants and Workers United. Last week, Garces told WPFW 89.3 FM Pacifica Radio, “It happens all over the U.S.: working class folks get pushed out of cities to live further and further away from where they work.”

While gentrification’s impact has been acutely felt in the D.C. area, the scope and scale of what’s slated for the Beauregard area of Alexandria is unusual, and may provide a knockout blow for affordable housing in the diverse West End, the epicenter of Alexandria’s affordable housing.

Alexandria’s Planning and Zoning Commission is scheduled to vote on the plan May 3. If it passes, the City Council is likely to vote on the plan May 12. Both bodies are all but certain to approve the Beauregard Small Area Plan since the city routinely acts as a rubber stamp for development projects, said Garces. Continue reading →

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School Closure Expert Robert Bobb Is Back in Town

Posted on April 13, 2012 by admin

Robert Bobb at a recent community meeting on education

Listen to TheFightBack question Bobb:

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Former City Administrator and D.C. School Board president Robert Bobb is back in town. Actually, he never left. “I just commuted back and forth for two years. I never left [D.C.],” Bobb said after a community meeting last month on the “Future of Public Education in DC.”

Mayor Vincent Gray recently appointed Bobb to the Board of Directors of the Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation, the troubled mostly-government-sponsored nonprofit implicated in Councilmember Harry Thomas’ funneling and misuse of city money for personal use.

From 2009-11, Bobb served as Emergency Financial Manager for Detroit Public Schools. Tabrian Chas Joe, a high school senior and organizer with B.A.M.N. (By Any Means Necessary), described Bobb’s tenure in Detroit as follows: “Privatize education. Charter-ize education. Bust the union. Segregate the schools.”

Bobb was paid well for his efforts, earning a government salary of $280,000, plus an additional $145,000 a year from the Kellogg Foundation and the Broad Foundation, which is a known cheerleader and booster of charter schools. Continue reading →

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Taxi Chair and Media Make Serious Allegations Against Drivers, But Offer No Evidence

Posted on April 5, 2012 by admin

Last week, taxi chair Ron Linton made serious allegations against D.C. cabbies but failed to offer evidence to back them up.

Speaking to ABC 7, Linton said there’s been a wave of driver assaults on passengers. “What we’re seeing is an increase in [drivers] physically manhandling their fares… Striking them. Pulling them out of their cabs. One woman was pulled out by her ankles.”

ABC 7′s piece, apparently based solely on Linton’s claims, was tagged a “Crime” story. The Washington Post followed up with a piece, apparently based solely on ABC 7′s “reporting,” which ran in its blog “The Crime Scene.”

In a statement released Wednesday, The Small Business Association of DC Taxicab Drivers, which represents 3,000 independent cabbies, called Linton’s comments “irresponsible and misleading.”

In a phone conversation Tuesday, TheFightBack asked Linton for evidence backing up his allegations. He responded by saying the line of questioning amounted to “some kind of gotcha game.” Continue reading →

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Absentee Taxi Chair Pushes Anti-Driver Agenda

Posted on April 1, 2012 by admin

Despite widespread concerns, D.C. Taxicab Commission (DCTC) chair Ron Linton intends to rapidly overhaul the city’s taxicab industry in the coming months. In testimony before the D.C. Council’s Committee on the Environment, Public Works and Transportation on Wednesday, the pugnacious and frequently absent taxi chair told Councilmember Mary Cheh that he plans to mandate the installation of “smart meters” with tracking devices in all District cabs by year’s end, a move which may be unconstitutional.

Additionally, Linton called for the removal of older taxis (which he’s previously defined as more than five years in age), a doubling of hack inspectors (who drivers report suffering widespread abuse under), a so-called fare increase (which drivers contend isn’t much of an increase at all, and which Linton may have played an inappropriate role in crafting), as well as a $0.25 to $0.50 surcharge on each ride (which will go to the commission, not drivers).

Linton also called for the installation of a panic button in all cabs. Coincidentally, Linton told ABC 7 Friday that there’s been a string of drivers assaulting their passengers. “What we’re seeing is an increase in [drivers] physically manhandling their fares,” said Linton, who offered little if any evidence to substantiate his accusations. “Striking them. Pulling them out of their cabs. One woman was pulled out by her ankles.”

During Linton’s Januarytestimony, more than 400 drivers showed up to voice their opposition to his efforts. Many said they may be forced out of business if the changes are forced through at a time when drivers are financially strapped.  Continue reading →

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Trayvon Martin’s Death Gives Life to a Movement

Posted on March 25, 2012 by admin

Listen to speakers from Saturday’s rally at Freedom Plaza

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The death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin has given life to a movement that seems to grow exponentially with each passing day. On a rainy Saturday afternoon, thousands heeded the call put out on Facebook and black radio and descended upon Freedom Plaza.

“We have to make sure that this is a shot heard around the world,” said Maliaka, one of the event’s four young organizers, as she looked out over a sea of protesters wearing black hoodies. Feb. 26, the night Trayvon was murdered by a neighborhood watch volunteer, he wore a black hoodie as he walked home.

Event organizers Heather, Megan and Maliaka, with Rev. Tony Lee (right)

“This is nothing but a modern day 21st century Emmet Till,” said radio host Joe Madison. The sudden, large and growing movement surrounding Trayvon’s murder may indeed cause his name to go down in the history books alongside other victims of U.S. racism whose death helped spur a movement for change, like the recently executed Georgia death row prisoner Troy Davis, as well as Till, whose 1955 open casket funeral showed his disfigured 14-year-old body to the world and forced the ravages of racism into public consciousness. Continue reading →

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One for Pepco, Zero for the People’s Counsel: Public Advocate’s Nomination Rejected

Posted on March 20, 2012 by admin

Councilmembers, from l to r: Mary Cheh, Muriel Bowser, Yvette Alexander, Phil Mendelson, Jim Graham

Listen to committee markup here: 

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As Pepco executives looked on, the D.C. Council’s Committee on Public Services and Consumer Affairs voted 3-2 last week to reject the long-stalled nomination of consumer advocate Elizabeth “Betty” Noel to the Public Service Commission (PSC), the three-member body which oversees the District’s utility companies.

“What’s really behind this objection to Betty Noel?” Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh asked just before the vote. Cheh, who along with Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham voted in favor of Noel’s nomination, continued, “The current commission is captured by Pepco. They want someone who’s compliant and weak. They want puppy dogs… Betty Noel is nobody’s puppet and Pepco knows it and that’s what’s behind all of this.”

Despite Pepco’s poor performance in recent years, which led to its being named The Most Hated Company in America by Business Insider, the electric utility remains very profitable. According to a report by U.S. Public Interest Research Group, from 2008-2010 Pepco turned a profit of $882 million, thanks in no small measure to its negative federal tax rate of -57.6 percent which earned the company $508 million, as well as a spot on PIRG’s “Dirty Thirty” list of “companies that were especially aggressive at dodging taxes and lobbying Congress.” Continue reading →

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One City In Crisis: D.C. Faces Large Deficit (Despite Talk of Surplus)

Posted on March 15, 2012 by admin

Activists prepare for the One City In Crisis Summit on the steps of the John A. Wilson Building

Listen to budget director Eric Goulet and DCFPI director Ed Lazere

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At a Ward 4 candidates forum Tuesday night, Councilmember Muriel Bowser said she’s proud of her 2011 vote to oppose raising taxes on the District’s highest income earners, and she pointed to last year’s budget surplus as proof that it wasn’t necessary. Bowser’s strong comments may have left audience members with the impression that D.C. presently has a budget surplus. It does not.

The city is facing a deficit of “about $170 [million] right now,” said Eric Goulet, Mayor Gray’s budget director. Comparing this year’s budget to last year’s, which resulted in deep cuts to social services, Goulet told TheFightBack, “In many ways it’s a much more difficult challenge.”

The budget’s impact on the most vulnerable received significant media scrutiny last year, but the poor seem to have been forgotten this time around. Maybe that’s to be expected when elected officials go around talking about surpluses at a time when the city faces major deficits, as well as poverty so severe it touches the lives of one in three children. Continue reading →

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School Officials Use Force, and Police, to Thwart Student Walkout

Posted on March 14, 2012 by admin

Northwestern High School students after Monday's town hall

Listen to town hall, beginning with Principal Batenga

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“I will not discuss the suspensions in this forum,” Northwestern High School Principal Edgar Batenga said Monday evening at a town hall at the Hyattsville school. Batenga gave five-day suspensions to four students, and possibly shorter suspensions to others, for their alleged role in organizing an attempted walkout on March 1, which was billed as a National Day of Action to Defend Public Education.

A flier entitled “The Students Are Angry!” listed some of the students’ concerns which led to their walkout: unsanitary conditions and food; large class sizes, commonly with 40-plus students; poor teacher pay and treatment, especially regarding the deportation of Filipino teachers; underfunded programs such as band and ESOL; and an overall environment where “students have pretty much no say in educational policies.”

The attempted walkout, which students codenamed “Project XBox,” was met by force as administrators and police blocked doors and prevented students from leaving the school, according to numerous student accounts. “I would like an apology from Mr. Jones for being hit in the face just because I was trying to walkout,” a female student said Monday, before adding that it was the administration and not the students who were violent. Continue reading →

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Release Betty Noel

Posted on March 8, 2012 by admin

Councilmember Alexander discusses Betty Noel's nomination with protesters

Listen to Herb Harris, and Councilmember Alexander:

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“The corporate influence… that is undermining the City Council is in full display with this nomination,” D.C. Consumer Utility Board chairman Herb Harris told TheFightBack Wednesday at a protest outside the John A. Wilson Building. Civic and union leaders gathered to call on the D.C. Council, and Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander in particular, to hold a vote on Mayor Vincent Gray’s nomination to the Public Service Commission, Elizabeth “Betty” Noel.

“This woman has been scrutinized more than a U.S. Supreme Court justice,” said Metro Council President Jos Williams. “We call upon Yvette Alexander to release Betty Noel.” Williams let councilmembers know that Noel’s nomination was “a litmus test,” and he called for the vote to come prior to the April 3 primary election so unions can use the polls to let politicians “know where labor stands.”

For eighteen years, Betty Noel served as head of the D.C. Office of People’s Counsel, where she fought to ensure that D.C.’s electric, gas and phone utilities provided quality service at a fair price. As a result of her work as a consumer advocate, Noel has built up a broad-base of support, at least among residents.  Continue reading →

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Is a Movement Afoot in Montgomery?

Posted on March 5, 2012 by admin

Kensington Town Council meeting, from l to r: Mayor Peter Fosselman, Council members Sean McMullen and Lydia Sullivan

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“The scale [of the plan] has the giant hand of the developer on it.”   – Kensington Town Council member Lydia Sullivan

“Post-vote fabrication,” “hogwash,” “distasteful,” “disservice to the entire community,” “not correct,” “misrepresenting the position,” “categorically false,” “complete hogwash.” These were among the accusations leveled against Kensington Town Council member Lydia Sullivan by her colleagues at a Feb. 27 meeting.

“That’s nothing,” said Sullivan, who’s faced the threat of censure from her fellow council members. “This is what people who are fighting monied interests have to endure,” she told TheFightBack directly following the contentious meeting.

Sullivan has raised concerns over the massive upbuild proposed in the Kensington Sector Plan, which is scheduled to go before the Montgomery County Council for a straw vote Tuesday. “Developers hold a lot of sway right now in a county that is cash poor,” said Sullivan, who sees the vote on the Kensington Sector Plan as a harbinger of things to come in Montgomery County. “Because we’re one of the first sector plans, what happens here has implications countywide,” particularly downcounty, said Sullivan.  Continue reading →

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