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EDITORIAL
Serving whom?
(Published November 15, 2004)

D.C. politicians have been talking for so long about the great prosperity brought to the nation’s capital from economic development that most of them seem to be believing their publicists – or failing to look beyond a small circle of friends.

If more of them would venture outside their taxpayer-funded comfort zone on a regular basis to interact with Washington’s less-affluent and less-powerful residents, they might better understand why recent polls show that more than two-thirds of D.C. residents are opposed to public financing of a new baseball stadium.

Instead, the city’s elected leaders push ahead with their plans – continuing to "sell" the public with the usual, specious promises of jobs and the all-too-frequent handout of disposable trinkets to temporarily quiet the rabble.

Chicken dinners and T-shirts, anyone? Or, maybe, tickets and hot dogs? Remember: It’s all for the children, right?

How often do Mayor Anthony Williams and the city’s other officeholders drive through the streets of Washington’s poorer neighborhoods in midday and stop, without an entourage of "photo op" followers, to chat with the District’s steadily growing number of unemployed job seekers?

How often do the District’s officeholders, after being elected or re-elected, ask for the general public’s ideas and opinions at the initial stages of trying to formulate solutions to the city’s problems, rather than merely selling the public on done deals?

It’s easier, of course, to create an illusion of leadership – with the help of friends who stand to benefit directly from leaders’ decisions – than to harness the dreams and desires of a diverse populace and move forward toward forging a self-sustainable community.

Unfortunately, the city’s current course of hit-and-run development promises little more than quick profits for a handful of favored developers and other political cronies. And the continual creation of tax-increment financing (TIF) zones – which divert tax dollars to pay off development bonds – promises to rob the city’s General Fund of tax revenues that could be spent meeting residents’ needs, while homeowners’ tax bills steadily rise to fill the void.

The much-heralded new Washington Convention Center, the most expensive development project in the District’s history, stands unfinished, unfilled and without an accompanying flagship hotel. The city's hotels, surtaxed to pay for the convention center, are already so expensive that their rates deter conventioneers from staying downtown – yet city leaders want to tax them even more to pay for a baseball stadium.

As the holiday season approaches, street crime is sure to rise as the District’s unemployment rate continues to spiral far above the national jobless rate. Even with a Major League Baseball team, part-time peanut hawkers and ushers would not be working at this time of year.

Where are the realistic proposals from the city’s leaders to help turn the District’s unemployed residents into a productive, taxpaying part of the workforce? Instead of using the public schools for educating residents to fill local employers’ needs, the city’s leaders have purposefully dismantled almost all vocational training programs in recent years.

There is no doubt that baseball on the banks of the Anacostia would be exciting, but city leaders should be more focused on creating a community in which all members of the public have an equal opportunity to prosper.

Copyright 2004, The Common Denominator