CONGRATULATIONS MAYOR-ELECT ADRIAN FENTY! You and the council member winners of the 2006 elections deserve real praise for your accomplishments on behalf of the District of Columbia electorate. In the coming months before and after your transition, it is our hope that every effort will be made to assist you and the council in an effective effort to empower and improve our city-state. No doubt, genuine and convincing action must be taken to reach out to the more than two-thirds of District voters not participating in the District’s electoral process. We pray for your success. >

The Coming DC Fiscal Crisis

By Dennis Moore

While District of Columbia public officials have decided to give themselves a raise with the hard earned tax money we pay, our city-state is quietly sliding into major fiscal imbalances. Despite the campaign pledges made to get elected, mayor-elect Adrian Fenty and our councilmembers will have to humble themselves to the economic and mathematical reality that 1-plus-1 does not equal 11. Reality will make it hard to keep campaign promises.
The schemes, dreams and hopes that the low turnout of District voters (30.9%, or 122,356 out of 395,926 voters, based on DC Board of Elections and Ethics data) had in electing our latest crop of officials, there will be limited dollars to finance their expectations. With less than 1/3 of registered District voters participating in our 2006 elections, there is hardly a "mandate" for the usual unaccountability, fiscal irresponsibility, dysfunctional governance and politricks. DC election data reveals there was no "landslide" or "avalanche" despite local news hype about the actual District vote count. Public officials have to show major and measurable improvements in DC quickly — and not just in time for the next mayoral election.
No matter who wants to run DC government, it will still take a real plan and effective use of limited money to raise educational quality to at least the top twenty category. The same applies to genuinely affordable housing, truly accessible healthcare systems, expanded DC resident job training and employment, plus DC-based small business development. However, we should all support and pray for mayor-elect Fenty's and the DC Council's success — plus their total focus and greater cooperation on genuine public priorities. Only effective measurable results (not rhetoric, turf battles or media spin) will matter.
Recent US Census figures, when specifically sorted and filtered for actual full-time non-transient residents, show the reality of DC population losses in families, permanent residents, plus long-term working and middle class taxpayers. Even the Urban Institute confirms the losses. Fewer families mean less revenue. More families and working residents generate exponential revenue. These long term resident losses will create the coming District budget deficits and fiscal imbalances — especially when much of our money will go to new stadiums, dysfunctional DC agencies, and other revenue wasting initiatives. As affirmed accurately and eloquently by Independent DC councilmember David Catania, we must put an end to DC’s “boondoggle” bureaucracy and focus on actual public needs.
Urban Planning 101: Families won't stay where family basics and amenities are missing. During the 2006 election year — while DC news media focused on campaign hype, candidate personality, and who had the most campaign money — candidates for District office did not (and still don’t) discuss or admit the District has significant revenue shortages leading to a fiscal crisis after 2007. The revenue shell games are coming up empty.
The signs are all around us: aggressive efforts to sell off public property (schools, libraries, recent federal land transfers, air rights over public buildings, community green space, etc.) to developers, plus delayed payment for public services and personnel, creative schemes under consideration to tax residents or re-tax property owners, the floating of leaky bonds, and the increasingly desperate (but justifiable) attempts to gain some of the lost revenue drained by suburban commuters.
The most revealing evidence can be found within the constant revisions or reinterpretations of figures from the Office of the Chief Financial Officer. Recent and previously reported CFO figures about the new baseball stadium, DC Public Schools Master Facilities Plan, Martin Luther King Library and other "initiatives" either change or conflict. Any first year college accounting student knows that figures and projections can be shaped to reflect a specific economic (or political) objective. Again, 1-plus-1 does not equal 11.
As citizens and taxpayers, we are the primary source of the revenue being spent by the DC public officials we hire (elect) and pay (our tax dollars). We, the boss, must not be silent and satisfied with the poor performance of our employees — elected and appointed District of Columbia public officials.
In reality, as it is for most of us who work or start a new job, an election (new hire) also has a probationary period subject to the satisfaction of the electorate — everyday District residents. Any public official (the employee) who doesn't perform to the actual needs, standards and best interests of District citizens (the boss) should be recalled (removed) from office, or not rehired (re-elected).
We, the people, are the authorizers and owners of their public titles, duties, salaries, entitlements, and even the facade of their official image. To paraphrase one of their overused statements, "At the end of the day..." YOU are the boss.
Also known as: "government of the people, by the people, for the people."

© 2006 MooreForPeople.com