It's probably better that Kathy Patterson is going to be off City Council...

Postcard image, Carnegie Library, Washington, DC. (This building is leased to the Historical Society of Washington and was the site of the City Museum. Most of the building is currently leased to the "National Music Museum," a project of the Federal City Council, for a period of up to 5 years. The Kiplinger Library remains open within the building.)

The latest issue of Inside Higher Education has a long piece, "Halting the Race to the Bottom," about the decline of an informed populace, and the impact on voting.

But it's not just the voters who have issues with reasoning. I have often been worried about the decline of informed elected officials, or at the very least, I have a difficult time figuring out their thought processes.

In the legal field, there is a saying that "good cases make bad law." Sort of how I see Congress is taking up issues that are meaningless, or their proscriptions are wacked. I phrase this as "Oh, there's a pain in your foot, I know, we'll cut off your leg..."

Holding my nose, I voted for Kathy Patterson for Council Chair. She sucks at historic preservation and urban design issues, but I thought that Vince Gray's intimate connection with the local Growth Machine as well as his election as part of a contingent of Councilmembers who look at government as a feeding trough was too significant to ignore.

(Speaking of the feeding trough, see "Contractor Promises to Hire More D.C. Residents," subtitled "Ohio-Based Firm Will Post Openings On City Web Site." Is this about hiring DC residents or influencing contracts for people with connections?)

But something attributed to Kathy Patterson in today's Post, in the article about a report from the city's Chief Financial Officer about the Central Library, "Facility Upgrade Cost Grows by $61 Million, Report Shows" makes me not sorry that she was not elected to Council Chair. From the article:

She also has asked whether the mayor is considering a third option -- building a central library at the site of the old Carnegie Library between New York and Massachusetts avenues NW.

This is a historic building of major proportions. Tear it down? Is Kathy Patterson joking, obtuse, or merely stupid? Or does she think she is being thoughtful and creative? In any case, it's clear she doesn't understand that the city's competitive advantages rest upon (historic) architecture, urban design, and history. That's not the kind of person you want to be Council Chair.

Not to mention that the building and the site are still owned by the Federal Government, and covered by Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, which calls for the protection of historic resources in the face of federal undertakings. As bad as the federal government is these days in terms of funding historic preservation, undermaintenance, etc., and certainly Congress, especially Richard Pombo, stinks generally (unfortunately, yesterday I had to miss what was probably an interesting hearing of the House of Representatives Government Reform Committee’s Subcommittee on Federalism and the Census on historic preservation and community development, titled "Why Cities and Towns Should Look to the Past as the Key to their Future”), sometimes I think the federal devil is better than the local devil.
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Note that I have found intriguing reports that Adrian Fenty is considering appointing Kathy Patterson as Deputy Mayor for Public Safety. Maybe that's good, maybe that's bad, but she would definitely have an orientation more towards voters rather than strictly the agency-bureaurcratic perspective.

Index Keywords: libraries; historic-preservation