44 Easy Pieces

Since the DC Council on July 10^th passed an unprecedented 44 pieces of emergency legislation, public outrage has mounted over a resolution to "dispose" of the West End library, firehouse, and police station to developer Eastbanc. Civic groups have called for rescinding Emergency Resolution 17-393. The latest resolution against the sale was passed Saturday by Cleveland Park Citizens Association. 

In response to this public concern, Chairman Gray and other council members cited the mayor for sending down too much legislation. But it's the Council's role to serve as a check to the Executive branch. The Chairman might have shown Mayor Adrian Fenty the ACLU's letter of December 18, 2006 recommending Council "limit the use of emergency," or referred him to the 1999 report by the Appleseed Center for Justice and Law calling for the same. 

Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans, co-sponsor of the resolution, appears to have misled his colleagues. Council members said Evans showed them him a list of 24 "public meetings" about the Eastbanc proposal. Evans surely knew, but all Council members should have known that these were marketing sessions conducted by the developer, not hearings by the any agency responsible to the public. In the few of instances when an official public body saw the presentation – just drawings with no written materials -- commissioners were assured that discussion was in the preliminary stage. Indeed, the Friends of the West End Library had scheduled its quarterly membership meeting purposely to look at Eastbanc's presentation. It turned out to be five days after the Council's vote to dispose of the property.

Emergency legislation has no requirement for public input, but Carol Schwartz whose Government Operations Committee must find the property to be surplus in order to be "disposed," and resolution co-sponsor Kwame Brown convened a joint roundtable on Tuesday July 3^rd, twenty four hours before a national holiday. The attendees consisted of Eastbanc officials and associates.  According to an audio tape transcript (there were no cameras in the hearing room) Schwartz and Brown asked many of the right questions, and ultimately appeared unsatisfied.  Yet, they soon issued what one colleague called a "glowing report."

The ACLU had warned:  "Enacting law on an emergency basis without public input denies the Council views and information important to its deliberations." We now know that many representations at the roundatable were misleading or false.  The central misrepresentation was the status of the Tiverton Apartments adjacent to the library, whose tenants were alleged to be important beneficiaries of the deal.  They knew nothing about it, and later terminated an agreement to negotiate with Eastbanc.

Before casting the sole dissenting vote on July 10, Phil Mendelson said, "This may be a great deal, but I don't like the process." He alone anticipated the position of civic groups and individuals across the civic spectrum – from the grassroots Empower DC to the venerable Federation of Citizens Associations -- who have weighed in over the summer calling for the DC Council to:

• Rescind the West End emergency;
  
  
• Follow the law: 1) Complete and publish the citywide inventory of property, 2) Develop a citywide Master Facilities Plan -- the existing one you've heard of is schools only, 3) Constitute a Planning Commission. All are required under title10 of the DC Code;
  
  
• Fix the law: 1) Prohibit emergency legislation for disposition of public lands, 2) Develop guidelines for the disposition of public property and for public inclusion in that process, including early consultation with ANC's instead of after the fact, as it now stands, 3) Amend the Library Enhancement Act of 2006 to mandate public inclusion in developing a strategic plan for libraries. 

"With 20/20 hindsight, I wouldn't have done this," Jack Evans said to a seething crowd of 120 at a July 18 ANC meeting. 

And then he pledged to do what the community told him.

Members of the community who would like to hold Jack to his promise are meeting outside the Wilson Building at nine am on Tuesday, the first day of the new council session, for a rally in support of rescinding the West End emergency resolution.


 

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