Okay on top of shopping trips with embezzled funds, dead people getting senior discounts, and vacant houses not getting taxed right, add the possibility of identity theft as Tax Office computer servers found behind a chain restaurant in Columbia Heights.
I’m thankful they were found, and I hope, really really hope, there isn’t any individual taxpayer information on them.
Tag: government
Corruption ain’t cute, even with a Hermes Scarf
I remember a couple conversations with some relocated New Orleans citizens who seemed to take a light hearted attitude regarding the corruption in their city/state. This was before the student activity fund and the tax office embezzlement news, and I state then as I say now, corruption will destroy the republic, so it ain’t cute.
For one, I already pay enough in taxes, why on earth would I agree to higher taxes when I believe it is not only supporting schools, housing, roads, and someone’s lunchtime shopping spree? There are many, many things that the government does that requires tax money but until there is a mass purging of the system I won’t trust it. Calls for more funding will ring hallow until the city cleans house.
I’m not calling on Fenty to do the cleaning, I’m calling on all agency heads, make it part of making city services more open and accessible to the people. Unfortunately it is part of the city culture to obscure itself in cries of low staffing, outdated systems that make clarity impossible, and general incompetence.
Musing thought: DC Should stay out of Real Estate
Not even going to touch the corruption in the Tax Office, but I wonder if a public tarring and feathering, or stocks with rotten tomatoes provided to DC citizens for throwing would be too good….
Anyway, one of the other things brought up in the BACA meeting on Monday was government seizure of property (houses) that were unabated nuisances. Someone pointed out that when the DC government then takes ownership of a property that doesn’t improve matters. The theory is that the city takes over the property and some competent 3rd party, usually a socially acceptable non-profit, will take over and fix up the property (because they usually need work), sell it or grant it to some deserving family, the end.
But the theory doesn’t always work. Sometimes the city just holds on to the property for-like-ever letting it rot from the inside out as vagrants or stray cats use it, occasionally coming by to mow the lawns. Or it does get into a partnership with a nonprofit, and some of them actually get to work and fix up the properties so they are fit for human habitation. And then there are others who can’t get their act together and the house just sits, and rots from the inside out. Or they take their sweet molasses in winter time to fix up the property. Also there is perfectly innocent crap that just happens, like running out of money.
Just selling it off offers no promises either. Buyers could just sit on property like investors have done and continue to do.
So the next time someone comes up with the brilliant idea that the city or government should take ownership of property, know that it sounds great in theory but in years of practice, sucks.
Ye shall know them by their works, or lack thereof.
If you’re a GS-5 step 1, you’re poor
Argue with me if you want but a MA in History is one of the most useless graduate degrees out there because my first job out of grad school was a GS-5 step 1 Museum Technician job (bathrooms, down the stairs and to the left). Looking at the AMI link from a posting on the ANC2C02 blog clarifying affordable housing and the locality pay schedule for the DC metro region from the largest employer, GS-5/1 are a tad below 50% of the AMI (Area Median Income) for single households. You hit 50% at step 4. I’m not criticizing Uncle Sam’s wages. No, my then $19K (1995-96) salary and living in a shared apartment barely being able to pay back my student loans for 2 years inspired me to go back to grad school and get a practical degree.
Now I know non-profit people, just starting out, with their bright new shiny BAs and BSs or whathave you, get paid jack because just working for the cause is payment enough. Besides, more where they came from when one set gets jaded. Anyway, when I did once non-scientifically compare salaries with newbie non-profit people, they were also below or around 50% of the AMI. In time this changes. You get experience, pick up some valuable skills, get older, get/apply for something else in the org or at another nonprofit or association, go back to school, something, and you start moving into the 60%-80%-100% range. Or you move back to Wisconsin or Minnesota, one of those things.
Home Rule
For work, I’m trying to get a better understanding of Home Rule. Not the cool store on 14th, but the District of Columbia getting more control over local functions that were run/directed by the Federal government. The District of Columbia Self-Government and Reorganization Act of 1973 (Public Law 93-198, 93rd Congress, S. 1435, 12/24/1973) was the thing that gave us Home Rule. Home Rule as in getting a city elected mayor (before, they were appointed) and city council. Also in the period of Home Rule we got our beloved Advisory Neighborhood Commissions in 1975, boundaries established and the system started in 1975, ANCs got elected the following year.
Though I’m not seeing a direct 1 to 1, it seems that ANCs replaced the old civic/citizen association role. The civic/citizen associations were the neighborhood level (there were also block groups, but that’s too small) advocacy groups.
References:
“Civic groups vie with neighborhood commissions” Washington Post, Walterene Swanston: Jul 21, 1977. (p. DC-6)