This was originally posted to the Adams Morgan Listserv on June 20, 2019, as message #51489, groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/AdamsMorgan/conversations/messages/51489
WMATA board’s Ethics Committee attempted cover-up CM Evan’s ethics violations and the current word dance playing out in the media is both entertaining and eye opening. Combine this escapade with the recent stories on the Banneker High School Shaw Middle School modernization budget, The Line Hotel tax abatement, the Council’s tug of war with the CFO over the Event DC Fund, and the on going shenanigans at Hill East, we can get a much better understanding of DC’s Slush Fund Economy and the real nature of so-called “gentrification” in this city.
Starting with the Control Board, then Mayor’s 100K New Residents Plan and now Mayor Bowser’s call for 36,000 New Housing units, the theory has been the same. Freeze or slow neighborhood community and economic investments (disinvestments), instead gentrify city neighborhoods via private development using public subsidies, which will grow the city, increase the city’s tax base and then the city liberal public policies will then trickle-down more to people and neighborhoods where investment was frozen and slowed. Given recent events and stories, we now know their was no trickle-down. Instead, additional tax revenues were captured by special tax and/or bond accounts/funds and then reinvested into private projects designed to further gentrification. Similarly, city land was land banked and or tied up in mega projects like the baseball stadium, instead of being used for affordable housing and job development as promised.
We now know that CM Evans as Chair of Tax and Revenue in league with others sold access to these public funds/accounts via his outside employment gigs. These accounts/funds act as Slush Funds filled with dollars made available via neighborhood disinvestment schemes sold as education reform, smart growth, enhanced bond ratings and catalytic projects or investments.
These funds grew to have very few rules and almost no true oversight. Creating what is today’s DC’s Slush Fund Economy. And the center of corruption and scandal.
Success values for DC’s Slush Fund Economy is not measured in broad based Community and Neighborhood development values like new jobs created and attained, educational attainment, affordable housing units, racial equity but the rate of gentrification, number of cranes, # celebrity chefs, bike lanes, luxury housing units and other terms often associated with gentrification.
As our Slush Fund Economy is unmasked, the numbers will make it clear that gentrification does not have a positive trickle down effect. In fact the opposite, it drains resources(relies on disinvestment) from more equitable public and private investments. Challenging us with a crisis of conscience, know that CM Evans and his actions are not an aberration, but the face of who we have become or are becoming as a city. How a Wine Bar becomes a community benefit. CM until now allowed us to keep our hands clean and consciences clear. But no more, hiding behind CM Evans.
In the next week or so, the City Council will release and mark-up amendments to the City’s Comprehensive Plan. The version release by the Office of Planning last year attempted to enshrine the “Slush Fund Economy” and related values as the new basis for the City’s Comprehensive Plan.
William