DC Council Cutting Vacant Property Tax Just As It Starts Working

Hot on the heels of my ebullient post that the vacant property tax was starting to bear fruit comes the news that the Council is going to cut the tax.  And it’s going to cost the city $10.8 million (although not until 2011) at a time when we’re facing a massive deficit.

And why?  Councilmember Mendelson is quoted as stating that the higher tax rate makes it, “difficult for some property owners to sell or put their property back to use.”  This is bogus reasoning fails to consider that properties that are either for sale or have current building permits for in-progress construction are automatically exempted from the higher rate.

Furthermore, at the last ANC 2F meeting Councilmember Evans attended, he stated unequivocally that the issue of cutting the vacant property tax was going to be dropped, and instead the Council would be seeking ways to better differentiate between properties that were problems and those that were not (ANC 2F May 2009 meeting minutes, page 3). Clearly, something flip-flopped Councilmember Evans’ opinion in the last three months, since it seems he now supports a continued free-ride for the longest-standing blights in our neighborhood.

So, to summarize, we’re cutting a tax that is not only just starting to serve its purpose, but that is also raising money for the city when it needs it most.  This move is both counterproductive and foolish.

Vacant Property Tax Working Exactly As Intended

Vacant properties are a huge problem in the District, especially in the inner core neighborhoods like Logan Circle and Shaw.  In addition to being both unsightly and a poor use of land, these properties often become nuisances, attracting crime, graffiti, drug dealing, and homeless men and women who shelter in them despite their often unsafe structures.  One might hope that market incentive and the rising real estate prices in these resurging areas would drive owners of vacant land to either sell or develop the property they own, but – alas! – Mr. Smith’s invisible hand sometimes fails to act.

Of particular note is the large number of vacant properties in Logan and Shaw owned by various churches.  In the wake of the riots, the churches purchased many such buildings with good intentions, such as creating shelters, offering low-cost housing to needy residents, or simply to make them unavailable to local thugs.  As any preacher worth his salt can tell you, though, those good intentions pave a particular road.

Recently, the District dramatically raised the property tax rates on vacant properties from 88¢ per square foot to $5 per square foot.  Pure and simple, it is an effort to force the hand of careless landowners who fail to develop their properties, and whose properties consumes an inordinate quantity of city services because of the vacancies.  And it seems to be working!

At least month’s ANC 2F meeting, Vermont Avenue Baptist Church was on hand to make a request for an exemption from the vacant property tax rate.  They are trying to secure funding for development of one of their long-vacant properties, and (given the economic climate) were having trouble doing so.  The ANC agreed to recommend an extension.  I made sure to let them know that we would be watching their progress closely, however, especially given the history of neglect and carelessness they had already exhibited.  There are rumblings of another church that will be on the agenda in September for a similar request.  And now DCist is reporting that Shiloh Baptist voted to sell some of their long-vacant holdings on 8th Street!

It’s important to note that this tax rate is not without controversy.  There were some reports of unfortunate situations where homes were incorrectly classified as vacant, as well as some cases where vacant lots used as community gardens or dog parks are getting taxed at the new rate.  Clearly, the law needs to modified to handle those situations appropriately.  But as to the core issue the tax hike was meant to address?

Seems like it’s working out pretty good to me.

NextBus Has Some Work To Do

I’m standing at stop #1001178, at the corner of 14th & I, waiting for a bus going north. I decided to wait and try out NextBus to see how it works. For the past 20 minutes, my bus has been between five and two minutes out.

Bus 6422 just pulled up, 21 minutes since I’ve been waiting. Looks like NextBus still has some work to do.

Robbed on the Metro

I was sitting on the Metro platform at Mt. Vernon Square yesterday evening. It was a quarter to six.  The Cubs were in town playing the Nationals, and I was waiting for the Green Line train down to the ball park for the second game in the series.  I had come down the first set of stairs onto the platform, and saw that the Metro employees had set up one of those huge industrial-strength fans blowing right at the bench that is tucked under the escalator, and a couple of them were sitting there cooling off, so I had joined them.

A baseball game always means a busy evening for the Green Line, and this evening was no exception.  There were plenty of people milling about on the platform, some in Cubby blue, others in Nats red.  In retrospect, the bench I was sitting on is isolated from the rest of the platform; “sketchy,” Hedda called it.  But I’ve ridden the Metro a thousand times before, and felt uncomfortable only a few of those times; my hackles weren’t raised this evening.  I was playing solitaire on my iPhone.

And suddenly my phone was snatched out of my hand by someone behind me.  After a half-second of stunned incapacity, I spun around, and saw a body disappearing around the other side of the escalator.  I jumped up and followed and caught up to the person before they got much farther.  Honestly, I was expecting to see a friendly face, perhaps one of my friends from Hedda’s days on the Nader Campaign or from my game group, pulling a prank on an unsuspecting me.  Instead, I was met with a face I’ve never seen before: a large black man, several inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than me.

At this point, a strange calm came over me.  I knew what was happening, and I knew he had nowhere to go.

“You took my phone.  Give me my phone back.”

“What you talking about? I a’int got your phone.”

“You took my phone.  Give it back.”

“You’re crazy, man.”

If my phone had been back in my hand at this point, I probably would have dropped the whole thing.  Instead, I realized this is getting nowhere quickly, and so I started yelling “Police!  Police!”  (I know, so cliché!  But it works.) A pair of faces framed in Cubs royal blue peered around at me from the other side of the escalator; I made eye contact with them and said, “Go get the police.  This guy just stole my phone.”  They nodded, and left, and I turned back towards the thief, and told him again to give me my phone back.

He did.

He walked around the platform, and I followed him – back a bit – to make sure I wouldn’t lose track of him.  After a bit, a Yellow Line trained pulled up in the station, and he boarded.  I stood outside the open door and stared at him, memorizing what clothes he was wearing, the color of his shoes, his hair cut, the number of the car he was on.  He taunted me to get on the train with him.  Ten seconds later, the doors closed, and the train started to move.

It was then I noticed a station manager walking up to me from the tunnel side.  I ran up to him, pointed out the guy in the car as it was passing, gave him the car number, and explained he’d tried to rob me.  He immediately went over to a phone to call in the Transit Police, and then he took me up to the kiosk to wait.  We chatted for a bit, and I learned a great deal about the problems with kids that they have on the Metro, in large part because they have unlimited-ride cards.  They get on the Metro system and then just goof around, and the employees can’t do anything to stop them unless the Transit Police happen to be nearby.  (I can’t seem to find any reference to this program online; I’d love to learn more.)

After a few minutes the Transit Police arrived.  I filed a report with A. France and M. Bradley, and got myself an incident number.  While we were talking, they got a call that they searched the train he was on, and didn’t find him.  I’m sure he got off before they were able to stop the train.  Hopefully my description will be of some use, though.  All was done, so I left and went to the baseball game.  While I was waiting for the train – again – I played solitaire on my iPhone.

The Cubs won!

Naturopathic Medicine in the District of Columbia

I doubt many of you have heard of B18-0060, the Practices of Medicine and Naturopathic Medicine Amendment Act of 2009.  I hadn’t either, until it was brought to my attention today in my capacity as an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner.  This bill, which was passed by the DC Council on April 7th, signed by the Mayor on April 28th, and passed the colonial review of Congress on July 6th, essentially re-defines medicine in the District of Columbia to exclude the practices of Naturopathic medicine.  I have been invited to a reception to discuss urging the Council to reconsider “whether there are alternatives to eliminating this source of health care from our city.”

I was immediately suspicious of a so-called medical term with the prefix naturo- and the suffix -pathic, but I had never heard the term naturopathic before.  I looked it up on Wikipedia, and it turned out my suspicions were right.  Naturopathic medicine is a bag of tricks that includes all the biggest names in woo medicine, including acupuncture, homeopathy, hair analysis, and reflexology.

To which I say: Nice job DC Council! Thank you for stripping these quacks of governmental imprimatur and the trappings of authenticity.  Citizens who have been fooled into believing these treatments are effective will hopefully think twice about putting their hands into such unscientific techniques, and instead seek treatment from licensed practitioners working with hard evidence.

Desi Deschaine – You Will Be Missed

I write with a heavy heart that our good friend Desi Deschaine has passed away. As a staffer for Mayor Williams, and later Councilmember Jack Evans, Desi tirelessly worked for the betterment of the District of Columbia and Ward 2; and as the Vice-President of the Logan Circle Community Association, he continuously worked to improve our neighborhood.

His boundless energy, enthusiasm, laughter, and love for life will be missed by everyone who knew him, and thousands more who didn’t.  His positive impact on our lives cannot be overstated.

Update: Story in the Post

Chronicles of Windows 7 Part 2: Multi-Monitor Support

One of the awful, terrible, no-good parts of Vista was its multi-monitor support.  My set up is a laptop mounted in a docking station with a second monitor.  My mobile nature means I frequently dock and undock the laptop, requiring the operating system to detect how many screens there are, switch the primary display to and from the external monitor, and move all the windows back and forth, possibly repositioning them because of the difference in resolutions. Adding to the chaos is that I frequently sleep and wake the computer, sometimes docking it or undocking it while asleep, or shortly after waking.

Vista failed at this horribly.  Often it would fail to detect the new display, requiring me to hit the external-monitor toggle key several times.  On occasion it would detect the new display, but then drive the new monitor at the wrong resolution.  Sometimes, after the first full moon on the second Tuesday of a month where the average temperature had been between fifty-four and sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit (I think), it would forget which monitor was supposed to be the primary, and I would be forced to re-tweak the settings for three days in a row – and then all would suddenly be fine again.

I won’t even mention what would happen if I put the laptop to sleep, undocked it, and woke it up later!  But to add insult to injury, the churnings of the graphics subsystem would cause flickers and re-sizes for five to ten seconds while it was figuring out whether things would work or not.  The entire experience was nothing short of maddening!

I am pleased to report, however, that Windows 7 has been flawless.  It never fails to correctly identify the monitors present, nor does it ever forget which display is supposed to be primary.  The resolutions are always correct, and it makes the appropriate adjustments quickly and with no flicker.  It even handles with aplomb every combination of sleeping, waking, docking, and undocking I can think of!

In short, it does exactly what it should.  Finally!