SUNDAY, JUNE 6, 2010
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CLOSE TO HOME THE DISTRICT
Fairness for charter schools As The Post did in the June 3 editorial “Departure point
in D.C.,” the District’s public charter school community welcomes the new teachers union contract. Charters welcome the contract because they are strong
supporters of Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee’s reforms and higher pay for all teachers in District public schools. It is incorrect to assert, as The Post’s editorial did, that some charters were considering legal action to “upend the contract.” Charter leaders are reluctantly considering suing the city, not D.C. Public Schools, not because of the contract, but because Mayor Adrian M. Fenty is unwilling to fund D.C. charter schools equitably. The D.C. School Reform Act requires that the operating costs of both types of public school — charter and traditional — be funded via the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula. This formula was designed to ensure equal public funding for all D.C. public school children. Yet the administration continues to defy the law and spends millions on city-run schools outside the formula, depriving the charters of public funds. Current inequities in public funding mean that the
allocation in city taxpayer funds for the typical charter school student is $5,000 less than the allocation for the typical public school student. We want fair funding for D.C. kids.
The writer is executive director of Friends of Choice in Urban Schools. Robert Cane,Washington
Joan’s lost cause I was touched by Margaret A. Morrison’s May 29 letter about the missing sword on the statue of Joan of Arc in Meridian Hill Park. I’ve lived in Adams Morgan since 1966 and have visited that park frequently. Like Ms. Morrison, I greatly admired its Joan of Arc statue. When I visited the park shortly after the 1968 riots that followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I was saddened to see that Joan’s sword had been broken off the statue and removed. I’ve always hoped the statue would be repaired, but after 42 years, I’m beginning to doubt that will happen.
Robert M. Rosenblatt,Washington
Local Blog Network
6voices.washingtonpost.com/local-opinions/
Some of the region’s best bloggers share work on the All Opinions Are Local blog. Below is one of last week’s posts.
Jackson still stands by Calvo raid In case you missed it last week, Prince George’s
County Sheriff Michael A. Jackson, who is running for county executive, answered criticism for Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo’s dogs being shot during an infamous botched raid by sheriff ’s deputies in 2008 . . . sort of. What Jackson actually said during his appearance on
WAMU (88.5 FM) was that he has made public apologies to the homeowner. He added that the raid was only one incident in the eight years that he has been sheriff and that, by the way, his deputies successfully kept 32 pounds of drugs from reaching the streets that day. Oh, and he argued that his deputies’ role was to do the bidding of the Prince George’s Police Department. There are a couple of problems here. For starters,
Jackson has only made one apology to Calvo, and that came nearly a year after the raid. Plus, it was a nonapology apology, since mainly he said his deputies did nothing wrong. It reminded me of myself as a lad, explaining to my mother that I disrespected my band teacher but he was a jerk. Things don’t work that way. I still had to respect my band teacher; Jackson should have acknowledged that his department made a mistake. Yes, there was a warrant to be served at the home, but it turned out not to be the “no-knock” warrant it was described as being. The other problem is simply that this was not just one incident. Jackson is forgetting about the $261,000 his department has to pay a Greenbelt woman for violating her constitutional rights, in addition to another dog-shooting incident in Accokeek and a 2007 incident in which Jackson’s office was accused of searching an Upper Marlboro home without a warrant. Yes, drugs were kept from hitting the streets in Prince
George’s County, and a drug operation was busted. But police officers and sheriff ’s deputies have a responsibility not only to enforce the law but also to uphold the rights of the county’s residents. Jackson fails to realize that ultimately, his deputies did not do a good job that day. The rights of Calvo and his household were not upheld.
Kenny Burns, Maryland Politics Today
Local Opinions, a place for commentary about where we live, is looking for submissions of 300 to 500 words on timely local topics. Submissions must include name, e-mail address, street address and phone number, and they will be edited for brevity and clarity. To submit your article, please go to
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NEXT WEEK’S TOPIC Should Fairfax let a developer establish a day-laborer site in Centreville?
Dissecting ‘A tale of two counties’
Why has the Fairfax County gov- ernment fared better during the eco- nomic downturn than its counter- part in Montgomery County? Read- ers respond to the May 30 editorial “A tale of two counties”:
The Post’s otherwise excellent analysis of the plight of Montgomery County’s finances slighted an impor- tant difference between Montgom- ery and Fairfax counties: Fairfax has a spirited two-party system, Mont- gomery does not. Montgomery has always tilted Democratic but, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s, a competitive Republican Party, backed by a strong GOP precinct organization funded by small neighborhood contribu- tions, helped check liberal policies and finances. The first elected county executive, James Gleason, was a Re- publican, as were numerous other elected officials. The county has since trended heavily Democratic. The last Republican on the County Council, Howard Denis, was defeat- ed in 2006, and all the members of the county’s delegation to the Gener- al Assembly are Democrats. Montgomery now has one-party
government, with little competition for policies or ideas, and no minority oversight. As in the District, the Democratic primary has become, in effect, the general election. Turnout is relatively low and is dominated by activists from public employee unions and other liberal interest groups. As a result, fiscal conserva- tives are rarely elected to the council and the Board of Education any- more. The Post can help reverse the deplorable union dominance through its candidate endorsements this fall, by backing independent and fiscally conservative Democrats in the primary — and perhaps even by endorsing more than one or two to- ken Republicans for the November election. Charles S. Mack, Rockville
The writer was president of the Montgomery County Young Republicans in 1964 and a member of the county’s Republican Committee from 1966 to 1970.
The editorial “A tale of two coun- ties” seems to indicate that Fairfax County has been able to better weather the recession than Mont- gomery County in large part because Fairfax doesn’t have to deal with powerful unions that have the right to collectively bargain. As any Fairfax politician could tell you, this is not true.
SUSAN BIDDLE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Montgomery County employees protest budget cuts at an April meeting. Despite Virginia’s restrictive laws,
Fairfax County has a longstanding and vibrant union presence. My own union, the Fairfax County Govern- ment Employees Union, has tripled in membership over the last year and plays an important part in the coun- ty’s workplace by effectively advocat- ing for our members. During the downturn, our union conducted budget workshops throughout the county to promote cost saving and even sponsored contests to find the best ways to save money. Many of our members’ ideas were adopted by the Board of Supervisors. The way to improve local govern- ment and help taxpayers during tough times is not by curtailing or blaming public employee unions. In- stead, it is by working with strong and committed unions as partners in achieving a fair resolution that shares the pain and lessens the bur- den. Unions are not part of the prob- lem; they are part of the solution. Karen Conchar, Fairfax
The writer is president of the Fairfax County Government Employees Union, SEIU Local 5.
The editorial correctly concluded
that the political power of Mont- gomery public employees unions has led to compensation and fringe ben- efit levels that are bankrupting the county and will cause escalating damage as the commitments to fu- ture benefits have to be paid for. But then the editorial pulled its punches and concluded that the culprits are not the unions but the political lead- ers who have allowed themselves to be bought off by them.
Across the country, we are wit- nessing the economic damage that has been done by public employee unions. Yes, they have brought some benefits to society, but they have grown too powerful, and their power has to be checked within our system. Frank A. Nicolai, Fort Washington
As a college freshman with painful memories of the Great Depression, I was shocked to hear my economics professor emphasize the corrective effects of a sharp economic down- turn. Despite all the hardship they cause, he argued, periodic economic crises are necessary both to squeeze inefficiency out of the production process and to wring hyperinflation out of property values. This harsh process is now also known as “con- structive destruction.” Judging from The Post editorial, the harsh effects of the current reces- sion also appear necessary to put Montgomery County’s fiscal house in order. Why? Because only a hair- curling fiscal crisis can squeeze the arrogance out of public union leader- ship and wring hyper-timidity out of the county’s elected leaders. Unfortunately, in politics as in eco- nomics, things often have to get worse before they can get better. John Shannon, Fairfax
The writer was executive director of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations from 1983 to 1987 and is a former senior fellow at the Urban Institute.
The editorial described unions’ campaign contributions as a corrupt-
ing, make-or-break influence on spending decisions — money that no council or school board member should accept. Public employee unions donated about $12,000 to my last campaign, and some of my coun- cil colleagues probably received more. But if The Post thinks $12,000 buys untoward influence and a blind eye to wasteful spending, why was the editorial silent about a far bigger source of money — developers’ con- tributions? Developers give hun- dreds of thousands of dollars to can- didates; for some, that one industry accounts for half or more of contri- butions. The editorial reiterated past Post criticism of candidates who are en- dorsed by the Montgomery County Education Association and then give money to the MCEA. The money pays for campaign mailings and nothing else — and again The Post seems to have another set of stan- dards for developers. In 2002, a polit- ical action committee created and funded by developers — and named Citizens for Quality Living to make it seem like a grass-roots effort — used the tactic to great effect by requiring contributions from its favored candi- dates, the “End Gridlock” slate, to pay for mailings. I’ve displeased the unions more than once, but I like to think that having a working relationship with labor is a good thing — just as I’ve de- veloped a working relationship with the development community. We all have to live and work here, and I put a premium on being able to keep doors open. Marc Elrich, Takoma Park
The writer is member of the Montgomery County Council (D-At Large).
The editorial noted that a year ago, Phil Andrews (D-Gaithersburg- Rockville) was the lone Montgomery County Council member to vote against phantom COLAs (a deal guaranteeing public employees pen- sion benefits on salary increases they never received) and that in May he was able to muster a unanimous vote on the council to overturn them. Andrews has documented in his campaign literature that he has long refused funds from PACs as well as from development interests, which comprise another major source of in- fluence on candidates. Surely there is some connection between Andrews’s sensible council actions and his re- fusal of funds from interest groups. Susanne Humphrey, Wheaton
R
C5
WILLIAM HAY RUCKERSVILLE, VA. What the Tea Partyers have yet to master If Virginia’s 5th Congressional
District is any indication of what the Tea Party movement can do for the conservative agenda, we may be in for a long liberal reign. The Tea Party faction has encouraged a large and diverse group of people to become more politically involved, but the major vulnerability of the move- ment is that the only thing those participating in it can agree on is that they do not like what is happen- ing in Washington. The Tea Partyers’ distrust of career politicians and their divided support for self-pro- claimed conservative candidates can only bode well for the opposi- tion. I became involved in this grass- roots movement in early 2009, when I helped form the Jefferson Area Tea Party in the greater Charlottesville area, home to Thomas Jefferson’s
University of Virginia. My exasper- ation with what both parties had done to our freedoms spurred me to take on a more active role in politics. I and a few other disgruntled citi- zens were able to organize several large rallies as well as multiple pro- tests at the local and Washington of- fices of Rep. Tom Perriello (D). I served as chair of the Jefferson Area Tea Party for almost a year before leaving to take a more active role in the campaign of a candidate seeking the GOP nomination to challenge Perriello in the 5th District. As it did in other parts of the
country, the Tea Party movement continued to grow in our congres- sional district, with no fewer than three other Tea Party organizations forming in a span of six months. Along with the multiple Tea Parties came a plethora of GOP candidates,
all of whom claimed affiliation with one Tea Party group or another. With the GOP primary approaching, seven candidates are vying for the conservative vote, and one potential candidate is threatening a third- party run should an insufficiently conservative candidate win the nomination. With seven people on the June GOP primary ballot, it would be possible to win with 15 per- cent of the vote, though it would be more likely that the winner would gain about 25 percent. In any case, that’s hardly a mandate. My involvement with the Tea Par-
ty and with one of the campaigns has, I believe, given me a closer look at what is happening on both levels. It is evident by the passionate sup- port for the different candidates that after the primary there may be some difficulty in gathering everyone be-
hind the nominee. Several contend- ers have refused to say whether they will support the winner; some said they may even go so far as to support a third-party candidate. This would be a disaster for those who want to replace Tom Perriello. If the Tea Party movement is go- ing to succeed, it will need to find a way to form a consensus among its participants. If it does not, we will continue to see races like the one in Virginia’s 5th District across the country. This will bode well for the progressive cause, which never seems to have this problem, but it could spell disaster for conserva- tives.
The writer is campaign manager for Laurence Verga, who is seeking the Republican nomination for Congress in Virginia’s 5th District.
JIM GRAHAM WASHINGTON Mend Metro’s board? Fix the funding problem first.
The May 23 editorial “Charity on wheels” referred to “Metro’s balkanized governance” as an un- derlying problem in meeting its budget challenges. It should not be all that surpris-
ing that Metro’s board members, who come from the District, Mary- land and Virginia, occasionally disagree — we are different people who represent jurisdictions with sometimes different priorities, dif- ferent populations and different styles of development. Yet we have worked successfully over the years to find common regional ground. With that said, however, I welcome
the efforts to review Metro’s board structure. But keep in mind that Metro’s
operations budget now comes largely from our local govern- ments. D.C. taxpayers will send $362 million to Metro in the next fiscal year. Board members who are also locally elected officials can and do produce increased Metro funding, as reflected in the past two budgets. Without additional local subsidies in 2009 and 2010, Metro services would have been sharply reduced. Changing how the board is ap- pointed, or how the balance of
power is synchronized, might have very adverse consequences unless reform of Metro governance is ac- companied by significant, regional revenue dedicated exclusively to transit operations. This is the real nut that needs to be cracked. I have taken the initiative to identify dedicated transit operating fund- ing, just as I helped to lead the suc- cessful campaign to get dedicated transit capital funding. I recently introduced a bill to dedicate a 10- cents-per-gallon D.C. gas tax to Metro operations. A regional pay- roll tax, dedicated bridge and high- way tolls or other commuter tax
options could also be considered. But without some form of opera- tional funding base, board mem- bers with the power to shape local funding decisions are essential. That said, the editorial was also wrong to place so much blame on bus subsidies and bus riders for Metro’s fiscal woes. The economic nose dive, the drop-off in riders — mainly on buses — and the tragic train crash on June 22, 2009, are the real causes of Metro’s budget gap.For the top 50 transit agencies in the United States, bus fares pay only 27.6 percent of the operating costs. With the board’s recent ac-
tion on fare increases, Metrobus fares will cover about 26 percent of operating costs. Moreover, higher Metrobus fares might not mean higher rev- enue. Indeed, Metrobus revenue in the District could fall further be- cause of the ever-widening gap be- tween Metro’s $1.70 cash bus fare ($1.50 with SmarTrip) and the flat $1 fare on the D.C. Circulator. Im- proved service that attracts new riders and requires less subsidies — such as express bus routes on 16th Street and Georgia Avenue and the Adams Morgan/McPher- son Square Circulator route for
which I helped provide funding — is a better path to a sustainable public transit system. In the end, our public transit sys- tem must provide affordable ac- cess to jobs and basic services. Con- sider that one in five bus riders does not own a vehicle, compared with only one in 50 rail riders, and you can see that Metrobus service is critically important in this region.
Jim Graham chairs the D.C. Council Committee on Public Works and Transportation and is a voting member of the WMATA Board.
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