“What’s the urgency?” asked Councilmember Marion S. Barry Jr. That was one of the many unanswered questions the evening of Tuesday, Dec. 5, when Barry’s lame-duck colleague Kathy Patterson tried yet again—and failed yet again—to win D.C. Council approval for a plan to build a new central library on the old Convention Center site.

Over the last year, the library scheme has been peddled vigorously by outgoing Mayor Tony Williams and the Board of Library Trustees and the Federal City Council, both of which are headed by John W. Hill. But the need for a new library is questionable, the financing plan shaky, the proposed location controversial, and many of the proponents’ arguments so dubious that they’ve gradually evaporated over the course of the debate.

Legislation to abandon the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library at 901 G St. NW and authorize a new library seemed to have died on Tuesday, Nov. 21, when the D.C. Council’s Education, Libraries, and Recreation Committee voted to table it. Yet Patterson and her allies decided to keep pushing, even though they clearly didn’t have the nine votes necessary to pass the authorization as an emergency bill. Instead, they tried a rarely-used gambit: a full-council vote to discharge the bill from committee. That required a simple majority of the 12 members present, but even that wasn’t doable: Only six voted for it.

In addition to Patterson, the aye votes were Linda Cropp, Vincent Orange, Adrian Fenty, Jack Evans, and Phil Mendelson. (The first three of those will leave public office with the next term.) Aside from Barry, voting no were Kwame Brown, David Catania, Jim Graham, Vincent Gray, and Carol Schwartz.

The supporters of a new library mostly reiterated arguments made by Williams and Hill, and generally seemed unfamiliar with the issue. A distracted Fenty commended the mayor’s “blue ribbon task force” on the library, which recently published a report that’s an embarrassing goulash of cliché, boilerplate, and irrelevancy. Orange floated by on a cloud, comparing MLK unfavorably to Paris’ Bibliotheque Nationale—which is, of course, the French equivalent of the Library of Congress, not a city library.

The opponents’ remarks were more pungent. Barry termed the claim that a new D.C. library would become a tourist attraction “idiocy”; Brown said the arguments for a new library are “foolishness”; and Schwartz called expectations of major federal funding “just craziness.” It was Barry who nailed the weakness of the case for a new library. It was apparent, he said, that advocates of the scheme just decided they wanted the library “and then went back to try to justify it.” A 6–6 vote says they didn’t.

In the John A. Wilson Building, when it rains, it pours—right into the office of Ward 3 Councilmember Kathy Patterson. The trouble began in June, when the heavy rains that left much of Washington flooded began seeping through the building’s northeast corner, into and through Patterson’s first-floor office, leaving a trail of peeling paint from the ceiling to the floor. To collect the falling water, Patterson set empty trash bins against the wall.

The Office of Property Management (OPM) sent in workers to fix the leaks in a building that was renovated five years ago. In Patterson’s office, their work included removing three large panels from the ceiling, leaving a dark, gaping hole in her office corner. Patterson figured the problem had been fixed.

When the rains returned last week, however, so did the drip—and Patterson’s bin collection. Nor were the ceiling panels that had been removed in June ever replaced. “I’ve talked to [OPM Director] Carol Mitten,” says Patterson, “and she thought it had already been taken care of.”

Mitten says that the water that spilled down from the building’s roof was the result of a cracked drainpipe. Mitten herself was called out of bed in June, she says, when overloaded pumps in the Wilson Building basement flooded the building’s main electrical room and set off its alarm system.

Now, work on the roof is underway, Mitten says. “The temporary roof work did not prove adequate to prevent further water infiltration,” she says by e-mail, “but we are optimistic that the more comprehensive permanent fix will do the trick.” Once her office deems the roof fully repaired, she says, “the cosmetic work to the northeast corner of the building will be completed.” —Isaiah Thompson

In the race for D.C. Council Chair, it seemed that one candidate, Ward 7 Councilmember Vincent Gray, had no chance of winning the enviro nod over Ward 3’s Kathy Patterson. After all, Patterson authored legislation forcing CSX railway to divert toxic shipments through the heart of the city. Patterson’s efforts spurred a lawsuit, a battle with the federal government, and a national debate over the role of localities in protecting citizens from dangerous shipments during the age of terrorism.

Gray won the endorsement with two words: Klingle Road.

In the ultimate gesture of pandering, if elected, Gray agreed to reopen the debate over whether the long-closed Northwest road should be turned into a park. The Sierra Club has pushed to permanently close the road, which was damaged after a 1991 flood, and turn “Klingle Valley” into a path managed by the National Park Service. The mayor went green on the issue and joined the Club, but the council, under pressure from motorists, decided to reopen it to traffic.

Gray, who wasn’t in office when the council voted on the matter, served up what the Club wanted to hear.

Most politicians would take the greeny snub and move on. Not Patterson, who delivered a scolding statement after being informed by Sierra Club members that the endorsement had swung to Gray after the Klingle Road promise. “I declined to make that commitment,” she wrote. “[I] said that the majority vote by the Council should be respected, and the road rebuilt.”

Patterson figured her easy-to-sway enviro friends might benefit from some advice, and so she also took a shot at her east-of-the-river-based opponent. “I am sorry that the Sierra Club is focused on a single roadway in upper northwest,” she wrote, urging the group to “focus attention on…efforts of local anti-poverty organizations to address ‘environmental justice’ issues such as the disproportionate levels of pollution in poor sections of the District.”

The Sierra Club’s Jim Dougherty says Gray’s 100 percent score on the group’s candidate questionnaire could not be overlooked. “He came out with an A-plus. She was an A-minus.”

Mayor Tony Williams and his business-establishment allies want to build a new main library at New York Avenue and 10th Street NW on the old Convention Center site, and abandon the Martin Luther King Jr. Library at 901 G Street NW to an uncertain fate. They may very well get their way, but not because they’ve made a case for their scheme. Yesterday, in the second public hearing on the notion—it’s not sufficiently concrete to be called a “plan”—the mayor and company once again fumbled.

The first forum, on April 26 22 at MLK itself, was technically a “town meeting.” At that presentation, Williams and his supporters presented a conceptual plan for a new library that was little more than a napkin sketch. They argued that MLK is in deplorable condition, which no one denies, and that it can’t be retrofitted with computer technology to become a “21st century library.” Supporters of renovating MLK noted that the political elite that now claims to be shocked at the library’s deterioration is directly responsible for 35 years of neglect. They also shredded the 21st-century-library argument, noting that many structures that are substantially older than MLK—including the main building of the Library of Congress—have been adapted successfully to the Internet era.

A few things have changed since April 26. Williams originally hoped to slip his new library through as part of the general budget. Given the hostile reaction to that idea, however, he moved it to a separate bill, “The Library Transformation Act of 2006.” Also, a 2000 feasibility study for revamping MLK, little discussed in recent years, has returned to the spotlight. That plan, done by a team headed by architect Kent Cooper for the American Institute for Architects’ D.C. chapter, answers many of the new-library partisans’ purported objections to MLK—which is why they spent so much of the hearing attacking it.

Read the rest of this entry »

A damp and chilly Emancipation Day meant the big parade down Pennsylvania Avenue NW didn’t turn out to be the crowded meet-and-greet event candidates and visibility-seeking politicos had hoped for. Parade participants outnumbered spectators, and most of the pols choose the cozy comfort of waving from an automobile over mixing with the nearly nonexistent crowds in a cold rain.

The at-large D.C. Council race was the only contest that prompted serious crowd-working commitment. Incumbent Phil Mendelson stalked the parade route with an umbrella and campaign T-shirt. He followed closely on the heels of challenger A. Scott Bolden, who also opted for the close-to-the-people approach.

A car carrying a sign bearing the name of At-Large Councilmember David Catania was so fogged up it was impossible to see who was inside. Catania was indeed in the car, according to Mendelson, who says his 5-year-old daughter Adelaide accepted Catania’s offer to keep her out of the rain. She did snag a ride on daddy’s shoulders for part of the route.

The parade’s unofficial sponsor, Ward 5 Councilmember Vincent Orange caught an unlucky break that turned out to be pretty lucky in the end. He was supposed to ride solo in a horse-drawn carriage near the front of the parade route, complete with a sign identifying him taped to the side—an appropriate gesture for the sponsor of the bill that established Emancipation Day. But as Orange tells it: “My horse got scared, and they had to take the carriage out” of the parade lineup.

Instead, Orange rode out front with Mayor Anthony A. Williams in a fancy white carriage decorated with flowers. Williams has taken to giving Orange a freebie now and then. Three times in recent months he’s allowed Orange to present what amounted to campaign speeches at his weekly press conference.

Even though he lost his sign because of a skittish horse, Orange seemed to enjoy the lift from Williams. Why not? It’s likely to be the only time he rides in a parade float that includes a sign identifying him as mayor.

Council Chairman Linda Cropp, who is running for mayor, smiled and waved from heated comfort for most of the parade and then bailed out around 10th Street to walk the final four blocks. She’s figured out that a strong finish is what really matters when it comes to campaigns.

You can’t blame Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans and At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown for driving themselves on the route. Neither is running for re-election in the fall. Give them credit for just showing up at D.C.’s unique holiday celebration.

The parade also featured a couple of phantom candidates. Mayoral hopeful and Ward 4 Councilmember Adrian Fenty ran a truck with a sign in the parade, but the candidate himself was nowhere to be found. The same goes for Ward 7 Councilmember Vincent Gray. His red, white, and blue sign calling on voters to choose him to be the next D.C. Council chair graced the side of a van packed with campaign volunteers but no candidate.

The other major candidate for chair, Ward 3 Councilmember Kathy Patterson, waved from the comfort of a black Saab.

The Gray boosters did nail one time-honored technique for cementing a solid reputation among parade-watchers: They made sure to hand out lots of candy.

On Saturday, Ward 8 activist Retta Gilliam would have turned 44. Instead, because of a tragic traffic accident last spring, a small crowd gathered in Anacostia Park to honor her memory, along with that of James Banks, another departed Ward 8 leader. Main Street Anacostia, the community group that organized the ceremony, has been planting trees for fallen comrades since 2004; this year, two cherry trees were planted for Banks and Gilliam.

But divining which of the 15 trees is in honor of which activist is not yet possible—the group has no money for nameplates, which cost about $100 each. “We’re trying to do some fundraising for that,” says Main Street’s executive director, Yavocka Young, standing by Banks’ tree. Or Gilliam’s.

Ward 3 Councilmember Kathy Patterson, on hand beefing up her east-of-the-river cred, says she wasn’t aware of the fiscal shortage, but thinks her fellow councilmembers might be able to help out. “But not with public funds,” she says. “Maybe a hundred bucks a councilmember.”