This was originally posted to the Adams Morgan Listserv on February 15, 2019, as message #50576, groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/AdamsMorgan/conversations/messages/50576
It’s time to dump the Smart Growth movement. DC’s current Smart Growth movement is so wedded to and encumbered by the operators of our city’s Privilege and Boondoggle Economy that it has lost its credibility as a civic movement. This is not to say there is no value in Smart Growth principles. The problem is that our movement in DC has strayed so far from its roots in equitable development and fighting for the board inclusion of a diversity of people in the benefits of economic development that, we need a hard reset.
Worse, some in the movement have gotten so lost that they have become cheerleaders for a form of economic development rooted in Racial Privilege (gentrification) with the ridiculous claim that more investment in Racial Privilege will lead to outcomes of Racial Equity. I’ve seem some in our so called Smart Growth movement vilify neighbors concerned with obvious over building in their neighborhoods, while remaining virtually silent while players such as Donatelli Development, PN Hoffman and Bozzuto grow fat off the insider pig troughs of public subsidies being run out of DMPED and the Council’s Committee on Finance and Revenue.
I urge leaders and followers of smart growth in DC to dump the current movement, unlink itself from the system of racial privilege embedded in DC’s political Privilege & Boondoggle Economy and start a new movement which values growth and development rooted in humanity and racial equity.
William
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Subject: To the Dogs : DC’s Privilege & Boondoggle Economy
I have to apologize for not speaking up earlier and taking action on the 11th & Bark dog park fiasco. I did not really take seriously the prospect of a $2.7M plus dog park, until I read an article identifying 5 alternative locations. The time and energy being wasted on this boondoggle is getting pretty silly, tortured and a little shameful. A lot of this has to do with the “you can have your cake and eat it too” nonsense coming from factions of the New Urbanist Smart Growth movement. And their role in Ward 1 becoming such a wasted opportunity, we deserve better from out leadership and ourselves.
Back to the dogs. There are really only two reasonable options for a dog park in the area of 11th & Bark Metro site, The Columbia Heights Green and Bruce Monroe Park and then only in the context of larger public space needs. And would in no way come at the expense of much needed affordable housing and other neighborhood needs as the current privilege and boondoggle driven approaches will.
I’ve learned a lot from former OP Director Harriet Tregoning and DDOT Director Gabe Klein, but there policies are nuts and their impacts on Columbia Heights counter productive at best. They have a lot to do with why almost 10 years later the Ward’s leadership is wasting time trying to come up with sill dog park ideas, while other public spaces crumble around us. They owe us an apology.
BTW, that DDOT plan for 14th St is plain stupid. It’s time to dump Smart Growth.
William
Subject: Jon S. Bouker: DC’s Privilege & Boondoggle Economy
A week or so I introduced Chris Ahn as an important figure when describing “How The Money Works” in DC’s Privilege & Boondoggle Economy. Today I introduce Ardent Fox lobbyist, Jon S. Bouker.
Jon is the lobbyist and architect behind some of the biggest public subsidy boondoggles in the City. My personal goal is to say up enough money to get him to work for equitable development. But for now he’s to go to man for folk like Ted Leonsis the primary owner of the Caps and Wizard to sell a bailout of his sports franchise as equitable development in Ward 8.
Here are a few of the legislative public subsidy boondoggles:
Passage of the District of Columbia Soccer Stadium Development Act of 2014 authorizing DC United’s proposed new soccer stadium and surrounding mixed-use development
Passage of the Transportation Network Services Innovation Act of 2014 allowing “ride sharing” and other innovative transportation options in Washington, DC
Passage of the historic “Federal and District of Columbia Government Real Property Act,” which transfers large parcels of land, including Poplar Point on the Anacostia River and Reservation 13 adjacent to RFK Stadium, from the federal government to the District government for economic development
Passage of the $1.8 billion Southeast Federal Center (now known as “The Yards”)
Financing the District’s $700 million stadium for the Washington Nationals
Passage of $50 million revenue bond to renovate the Verizon Center
Securing $40 million for Arena Stage’s redevelopment in Southwest Washington
Approval of $40 million in tax increment financing (TIF) for the Corcoran Gallery of Art
Approval of $10 million in TIF for the Shakespeare Theatre
Appropriation of $5 million to support the construction of a new state of the art animal care facility in the District of Columbia
Passage of $5 million TIF for the development of the Hamilton restaurant
Redevelopment of the Old Post Office
Disposition of the West Heating Plant in Georgetown
Disposition of the Randall School to the Corcoran Gallery of Art
Preparation of the TIF for the District’s Convention Center Hotel
Authorization of numerous revenue bond financing projects, property disposition, and charter school financings before the DC mayor and city council
Previous Work
In the US House of Representatives, Jon served as chief counsel and legislative director to Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) while at the same time serving as minority counsel to Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), then ranking member of the House Government Reform Committee. Jon’s primary duty on the committee was his role as the Democratic staff director for the House Subcommittee on the District of Columbia, the subcommittee with federal legislative jurisdiction over the nation’s capital. In his work as the House Democrats’ primary staff member for District of Columbia matters, Jon played a central role in developing, negotiating, and passing historic legislation to spur the District’s revitalization, including passage of the National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act of 1997.
Jon also advised Congresswoman Norton on all economic development issues, including passage of TIF and revenue bond financing for the District of Columbia; an act to allow the issuance of bonds to construct the District’s new convention center; the Southeast Federal Center Public-Private Development Act; authorization to construct the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives headquarters in Washington, DC; funding to build the New York Avenue Metro stop; location of the Department of Transportation headquarters and Homeland Security Headquarters in DC; and reopening Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and keeping DC open for business after the tragic events of September 11, 2001. Jon also served as Congresswoman Norton’s lead staff person in shepherding the District’s annual budget through the House and Senate.
William
Williams & Evans Newseum: Privilege & Boondoggle Economy
The Mayor, the Council and the smart growth contingent claim DC’s housing affordability crisis is primarily a result of zoning regulation restricting housing supply. We know now this is more myth than reality. As the Newseum debacle highlights, our so-called crisis is more a result of 20 years of a growing Privilege & Boondoggle Economy coming home to roust, than zoning regulations.
As the Business Journal article below highlights, DC’s Boondoggle elite represented by Mayor William and CM Evans invested close to $300M in DC resources in an obviously nonsensical Newseum business plan and con because of their elite inferiority complex.
“Anything coming from Virginia to the District was music to my ears, because no one was coming from Virginia to the District,” Evans said.
Supposedly, the Newseum con artist offered the District $100M for land valued at $50M. What a steal for the District, they said. No, the District gave the Newseum a PILOT tax subsidy which pays yearly close to $5M on a loan worth about $80M, the city gave to the Newseum. In other words the District loaned the Newseum $80M so the Newsweum could pay the District $100M. Effectively the Newseum paid the District $20M for land worth about $50M.
The Newseum then built 135 luxury apartments on Pennsylvania Ave. on formerly District owned land. The District then authorized over $200M in revenue bonds to pay for a museum which charges entry fees next to the Smithsonian complex of free museums. It was a dumb plan then as it remains.
So besides an inferiority complex why would William and Evans has the District do this? It was one of the first shell game models for using District subsidy to build luxury housing, while driving up the cost of land and housing. Then using the paper rise in land values to loan the difference back to their developer friends from Virginia and Maryland. 20 years of this is what is driving the affordability crisis.
Ironically to fix this problem, the Mayor, Council and smart growth community is pushing us to do more of these deals, by making them easier. Claiming expanding the “Privilege & Boondoggle Economy” will lead to more affordable housing and racial equity. If you buy this… you will buy that the governor of Virginia was not dressed in black face or as a Klansman on his personal year book page.
The high cost of housing is being driven by public subsidies to luxury developers and the expense of equitable development. In the case of Newseum the public helped to finance a $400M boondoggle so Williams and Evan’s friends could build 135 luxury condos. Similarly Nats, DC United Stadiums, Street Car and Wharf would follow to name a few. Next thing you know they are going to tell us that building a Sports Arena will lead to racially equitable economic development in Ward 8.
William