New features on DC LEARNs and YourDCPolitics.com!

Everyone knows that investing in education in the city is the best way to get the brightest future we can have. I think I can get everyone on board with that; I think it’s a combination of looking at best practices and using the resources we already have.

DC LEARNs, which is dedicated to improving literacy rates in DC, featured a recent interview with me on their website. Read the rest of my answers here.

I was also featured on the local politics blog, Your DC Politics. You can read Robert Maxwell's feature here.

Speaking Truth To Power On First Source Law

I got to speak on policies that can spark an increase in District employment at a candidate forum in Takoma recently. The audio for the entire forum can be found here.

To expand on my answer (and for those who don't have time to listen to the entire forum at this moment), let me also address my points on one policy area that can generate increased employment in DC immediately: proper enforcement of first source law.

First source law mandates that any company working on a city contract or through a beneficial tax arrangement (tax incentive financing or a tax abatement) must hire District residents for 51% of the new positions created by the contract or tax-incentivized project. We have a great first source law on the books and an update to strengthen it has been proposed this Council session. If we could stringently enforce this law and have businesses agree to train and hire District workers as they should, to comply with the spirit and letter of this law, District unemployment would drop precipitously.

It's up to the Council to exercise oversight over the Department of Unemployment Services and the Office of Contracting to insure that first source law is vigorously enforced in the District.

As a Councilmember, I would additionally propose new legislation to create a carrot-and-stick approach to first source law. The carrot - or incentive to follow the spirit and letter of first source law - would be comprised of assigning a plus to any bid from a company whose prior city-financed or tax-incentivized projects led to the hiring of a workforce 51% comprised of District residents and that (in addition) had maintained that ratio of District resident employees from the start of their last first source project to the time when that company puts in a new bid for a subsequent city contract. Likewise, companies that honored first source law in prior first source-required projects should be given priority by the Council when seeking tax incentive financing or tax abatements. The stick - the penalty for failing to comply with first source law - would be a ban from contracting with the city for a year on a first citation for violating first source law, for five years on any second violation, for the life of a company (as well as any company on which executives employed by the three-time offending company are employed in the future). Additionally, civil fines should be levied against companies on their third offense, with funds set aside a designated fund for workforce development. This type of stringent three strikes approach - combined with an incentive - will encourage compliance citywide.

We have to speak truth to power to companies that contract with the District or seek favorable tax arrangements: follow the law and employ District residents or find somewhere else to do business.

(Photo by El-Shamesh Photography)

Statehood: A Moral Imperative

Statehood for DC isn't just a central tenet in the DC Statehood Green Party platform, it's a moral imperative in a society that proclaims democratic values. Our efforts to spread democracy abroad cannot be complete while over half a million people are disenfranchised at home. The pursuit of equal congressional representation for District residents has been pursued in various ways, including a recent effort to secure a single House seat for the District in exchange for an additional House seat in Utah. The District ranked 31st amongst states in terms of how much federal income tax revenue was paid by our residents in 2007, just under South Carolina (a state with 9 times our population). It is unconscionable that District residents pay $20 billion in federal taxes and receive no vote in Congress. If I am chosen to serve as At-Large City Councilperson for the District of Columbia, I will work tirelessly to raise awareness of this injustice and work to remedy it.

addendum: You might ask, how does the lack of statehood affect DC residents? Let's take one practical example: the services available to our veterans. As noted above, South Carolina and the District of Columbia pay roughly the same amount in federal taxes. Yet, South Carolina has an office of veteran affairs for every county in its state, while the District of Columbia only has an Office of Veteran Affairs in one suite in a single office building downtown. This is true despite the fact that the District of Columbia has one-ninth the population of South Carolina and a comparable number of veterans per capita, including almost 60,000 District veterans who served in wars in Korea, Vietnam and Gulf War I alone (roughly one tenth our total population), not even including District veterans who served in Afghanistan and the current war in Iraq (or served in peacetime or non-combat areas). By contrast, Charleston County (the county comprising South Carolina's largest city) has a 18+ plus population that is 13% veterans, but when you include the number of persons under 18 (23% of that county's population, roughly 81,000 people) into the equation, you see that the percentage of veterans in their total population is roughly equal to the percentage of District residents who are veterans of the three major conflicts prior to the current wars in which we are currently engaged. If the District of Columbia was a state, I have no doubt that we would see offices to serve veterans in every ward in our city comparable to the veterans offices in each county in South Carolina. Every American deserves services comparable to the taxes paid by their locality. Statehood, in my opinion, would provide this for the District.