DISSING THE DISTRICT: Apparently, the opportunity to work a record crowd of 600 to 700 D.C. Democrats gathered for a three-hour period wasn’t sufficient enticement for six of the nine Democratic presidential contenders, who have been spending their time in Iowa and New Hampshire at similar events.

That’s how many residents, some with their children, showed up for the Ward 8 Democrats’ annual Back-to-School Picnic Aug. 23 on the grounds of the Anacostia Museum. Jacque Patterson, this year’s principal picnic organizer, was assigned the Herculean task of contacting all of the Democratic presidential campaigns to pitch the event as a golden opportunity to garner some early support and votes in the District’s first-in-the-nation Democratic primary.

Patterson thought the response would be good. It wasn’t. Three candidates said "yes" – former Vermont governor Howard Dean, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich and former Illinois senator Carol Mosley-Braun. In the end, however, only Mosley-Braun attended the event to pitch her candidacy. Patterson said Kucinich was stuck at an airport and, at the last minute, Dean couldn’t make it. Patterson was gracious about the no-shows by Kucinich and Dean, noting that their campaigns made a real effort to deliver their candidates and stayed in touch with him. However, he criticized the other six candidates’ campaigns for not even responding to the Ward 8 Democrats’ invitation – and then scrambling to try to set up literature tables when they saw how large the picnic crowd was.

"I feel they did us a big disservice by not making every effort to come," Patterson said of the other candidates.

LESS ATTITUDE, PLEASE: Yours truly got a taste of what Kevin Morison, corporate communications chief of the Metropolitan Police Department, called a "hiccup" on Aug. 15 when at midday I attempted to report a two-vehicle collision with an overturned car and possible injuries on South Dakota Avenue. At the time, 911 was being answered by a recording that told callers they had reached the non-emergency 311 line and asked them to hold.

Morison’s initial response to inquiries about the problem was that "the system is working the way it’s supposed to." But would someone who needs help in an emergency really stay on hold when told by a recording that they had failed to reach the 911 emergency call center? Yours truly thinks not.

About an hour later, Morison said that Verizon technicians on site were attempting to learn why the wrong recording was answering 911 calls. "This situation has been corrected...[and] We have placed extra operators on the floor to ensure calls are being answered promptly while the diagnosis continues," Morison wrote in an e-mail message.

Of course, whether the recording that answers 911 calls is a right message or a wrong one is immaterial. Calls to 911 should always be answered promptly by a live person. Perhaps Chief Charles Ramsey and his command staff, all highly paid, should jump in to lend a hand to make sure that happens.

Copyright 2003, The Common Denominator