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EDITORIAL
This isn't right
(Published January 24, 2005)

In recent years, as D.C. neighborhood groups planned their annual street festivals or created new community celebrations, they have faced a huge stumbling block: the need to raise thousands of dollars beyond the actual cost of their events to pay government fees for street closures and event-related policing.

That "reimbursement" requirement, imposed during the District's dark years of rule by a congressionally created financial control board, frequently causes residents and locally based small businesses to appeal to their elected officials for relief. Barring that, some events have been canceled.

Enter the Presidential Inaugural Committee, a group headed by the president's political supporters, which reportedly raised about $40 million in private funds to stage last week's inaugural-related events in the District. (You know where this is going.)

Keep in mind that the only legally required event related to the inauguration of a president and vice president of the United States is their actual swearing-in – the few moments when they utter their oaths of office. Many Americans still vividly remember the ascension to the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson or Gerald R. Ford as examples of how spare those events can be.

The rest is pomp, planned by political organizations to savor their victory and rub elbows with the victors. It has become traditional, but is not required.

This year's pomp, as far too many inconvenienced D.C. area residents know, surpassed all other years. It was an odd mixture of ostentation and shameful paranoia that closed more than 100 square blocks of the city to vehicles, restricted pedestrian access to numerous public streets and required some residents to show identification documents to gain access to their homes (even though a teenager, let alone an actual terrorist, could easily produce a fake ID). Newspapers were told to remove their vending boxes from areas nearby all "official" inaugural events, under threat of government confiscation. While a handful of establishments in the hospitality industry made big money, inauguration week's events caused many local businesses to lose income and some hourly workers to lose wages when their employers were left with little choice but to close.

Officials seemed to forget that the D.C. government, which spent an inordinate amount of time and money carrying out edicts from the U.S. Secret Service, exists to serve local residents' needs, not those of the federal enclave. More than half of the Metropolitan Police force was diverted to inaugural events; local public works crews were mobilized to perform duties for the federal events.

Local residents and local businesses can't get that kind of public service for their tax dollars. Yet, federal and D.C. officials apparently are more than willing to roll over, in the name of "national security," and accede to the political whims of any president who wants to throw a big party -- encompassing numerous big events -- at taxpayers' expense. There should be limits. And the political organization that plans the party, like other community groups, should be forced to pay.

Copyright 2005 The Common Denominator