Is the Growth Machine a casualty of the culture wars?

When business interests told the Tories in the UK that Brexit was likely to have many deleterious effects, Boris Johnson, who went on to become Prime Minister, was quoted as saying "F*** Business" ("Boris Johnson promised to “fuck business”, and that’s exactly what he did," New Statesman).

The Growth Machine thesis from urban sociology is focused on local government, and how political and economic elites, despite seemingly intra-elite competition, are united on a real estate focused pro-growth agenda, since real estate development is the primary source of revenue and economic activity for local governments.

"The City as a Growth Machine: Towards a Political Economy of Place" (American Journal of Sociology, 1976) lays out the concepts, which were expanded in a book, Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. 

Political science has its own theory, that of the Urban Regime ("Urban Regime Theory," The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies).  

I argue that GM is better at explaining why, and UR the how.

Anyway, more recently, Republican culture wars, albeit more at the level of state government interfering in local economic development, but when there is some sort of state nexus, in some places, is triggering anti Growth Machine actions.

Florida and Disney.  The primary example is Florida, where Disney complained too late to make a difference, about Florida's various anti-gay legislative acts after being shamed and prodded by employees ("After protests, Disney CEO speaks out against Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' bill," NPR, 2022).  But it still enraged Governor DeSantis

Probably everyone in America has heard of Disney World, which is a major attraction in Orlando, which in turn has led to the placement of other attractions there (like Universal Studios Florida and SeaWorld), and is a major driver of Florida's economy--which doesn't have a state income tax.

Governor DeSantis attacked the special district structure Disney uses to operate its property there, which is massive, and spans two counties.  At the time of its creation, local government lacked the capacity to provide services to the level Disney required, so the Reedy Creek Improvement District was formed--like an urban business improvement district, but on a massive scale.

Last year, they changed the structure, not realizing it triggered $1 billion in bond payments by the two counties in which Disney World is located.  So they did a new bill this year.

They changed its organization and appointed political flunkies with no expertise but culture war bona fides to oversee the district.  Usually, in GM/UR politics, the people appointed to such boards work hand in glove with the business interests.  DeSantis appointed people who are oppositional.

But before that took effect, Disney had the board pass contracts making Disney pretty much impervious to DeSantis' political machinations.

He didn't take it well, and has been threatening all sorts of retaliation.

In the interim, Disney created a webpage outlining the economic impact of Disney in Florida ("Disney Shares ‘The Value of Reedy Creek’ Post on Community Outreach Site Outlining District’s History & Benefits for Florida," WDWNT) 

-- The Value of Disney Reedy Creek to Florida, Walt Disney World/Disney Connect

The firm pays more than $1 billion in taxes annually and employs 75,000 people directly and 16,000 indirectly.  Plus there is the multiplier effect of other jobs created as a result of the economic activity around Disney World. 

Today Disney announced it is suing Florida for what they've been doing on Constitutional) grounds of retaliation versus free speech ("Disney sues Gov. Ron DeSantis, alleging political retaliation," Washington Post).

I don't think this bodes well for Florida, because Disney's attorneys and facts are much better.  Plus, wrt DeSantis' political campaign for President, it will keep him in the news in negative ways.  Way more people like Disney than they like the culture wars.

Battery plants and red states.  If you don't believe in climate change, you don't want to encourage alternatives to fossil fuel consumption.  Electric cars are a threat to gasoline consumption.  Republicans, especially oil interests like Koch Industries, don't like that very much.

Electric vehicles need batteries, lots of them, and battery manufacturing plant are seen as a key element of the developing industrial ecosystem for electric vehicles.

Last year, Georgia's governor, Brian Kemp, got pushback for providing tax incentives to an EV plant ("Kemp, Perdue spar over planned Georgia electric car plant," AP).  

And in Virginia, Republican Governor Youngkin--with presidential ambitions--said no to a battery plant owned by a Chinese firm ("Youngkin blocked a battery factory from coming to Va. and an entire economic sector’s potential," Virginia Mercury).  Instead that plant and its estimated 2,500 jobs went to Michigan.

OTOH, the redistribution of manufacturing for electric vehicles will lead to more production in red states, which could have an impact on Red State government positions wrt electric vehicle production and climate change more generally ("The unlikely center of America’s EV battery revolution," "Battery factories could make red states a driving force for climate," Washington Post).

Bud Light beer.  Is excoriated because they did a promotion with a transsexual ("Anheuser-Busch InBev Executive Speaks Out About Bud Light Controversy," Newsweek).

M&Ms.  Trolled Tucker Carlson ("Tucker Carlson is once again enraged by "woke M&M's" lack of sex appeal," Salon) good ("M&M’s punked Tucker Carlson with Maya Rudolph Super Bowl fake-out," LGBTQ Nation).

Culture wars and the "natural" conservative alliance with business.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  Some donors are backing away from DeSantis on this issue.  

But at the end of the day, most big corporate donors are likely to acquiesce, so long as their particular companies remain on the conservative good side, and their primary issues--low taxes, minimal regulation--are covered.

DC Attorney General's opinion on the appointment of the US Attorney for DC and DC's rising crime rate

In 2012, I wrote a blog entry about the then new master plan for the Seattle Police Department and what a step forward that was.  I still remember commenter charlie's reaction, that the master plan said very little about addressing crime or reducing the crime rate. 

==========

DC is an unusual jurisdiction for criminal prosecution.  Because it is still the federal district, not an independent state, the US Department of Justice is responsible for the trying of adult criminal cases which in normal circumstances would be tried by the local jurisdiction.

In short, in DC, the US Attorney handles both federal and local crimes.  The DC Attorney General handles the prosecution of juvenile crimes and civil matters more generally.

I favored the creation of an elected Attorney General position in DC as a route to developing the competence of the local office and as a justification for moving towards the devolution of local criminal prosecution to the local government.

-- "Executive Power vs. the will of the people and the DC Attorney General," 2015
-- "US Attorney General Barr's screwing up of the US Attorney's Office in DC as a justification for spinning off local prosecutions," 2020

But I haven't really seen that argument put forth, and something I never considered has happened--that the AG, at least under Karl Racine, seems to have used his office to help forward the election of DC Councilmembers--four of the thirteen worked for the AG before running for office.

The AG has an op-ed in the Washington Post, "President Biden’s choice for U.S. attorney should reflect D.C. values," about how President Biden should take into account the preference of DC citizens as expressed on various issues, when making the appointment for the position.

He mentions issues like hate crimes, and how federal prosecution of gun crimes ups the sentence, and this is counter to what "the people want."

But like how charlie skewered me about my love of the Seattle Police master plan in terms of its failures to address how it would reduce crime, all I could think about when reading this is that violent crime in DC is up, the use of guns in crime is up, shootings are up, and that the murder rate--while down significantly from the peak in the 1990s, when 479  people were murdered in 1991 ("D.C. Touts Lowest Homicide Rate in Nearly 50 Years," NBC4)--and then dropped steadily to a heralded low of 88 in 2012,  has more than doubled eight years later.  Last year's total was 198 murders ("Homicides in D.C. hit 16-year high; shootings also have spiked," Post).

How come AG Karl Racine didn't mention DC's rising crime rate as an issue of concern to local citizens, and its relevance to the choice of a US Attorney for the District of Columbia?

Yet another example of why the US Attorney General should be popularly elected

For more than 10 years, from time to time I write a post recommending that the US Attorney General, head of the Department of Justice, be popularly elected, and that the Department of Justice and its constituent units should be an executive branch agency independent of the President, because "law, fairness, due process, and justice" belong to the people.

There are myriad examples in recent history of the need for an independent attorney general, to act in the breach, in the face of executive branch malfeasance and overreach.

A separation of the justice agency from the rest of the executive branch through popularly electing its head happens in a majority of states, and often at the local level too, with popularly elected "prosecutors" although at the local level, such officials are mostly focused on prosecuting criminals not creating a fair justice system.

Progressive local justice.  The tension between prosecution and justice is why there is a movement about to elect "progressive" local prosecutors, although this agenda is controversial wrt reducing charges, bail, etc. ("Progressives Are Winning DA Races But Face Pushback," Governing Magazine); "Criminal justice: Police, progressive prosecutors battle over reform," USA Today).  From the USA Today article:

Boston-based Suffolk County (Massachusetts) District Attorney Rachael Rollins, the first woman of color to hold a DA post in the state, acknowledges that pushing a reformist agenda “is an uphill slog, but we are deeply committed.”

Rollins, who calls herself “smart on crime,” says a hallmark of the progressive wave is relying “on numbers, not anecdotes.” She is busy hiring “technologists and data experts so we can document all this and show how these policies are making a difference.”

Executive branch/Presidential tampering.  The way that President Trump is tampering with justice, in pardoning people associated with his biddings who have been found guilty of crimes, in appointing a bagman as leader of the agency--William Barr, aiming the agency at investigating his opponents and perceived enemies, and now with the latest happenings in the Roger Stone case, asking the Department of Justice to go easy on him, in the face of previous recommendations by people running the case, is a perfect example of why this split should occur.

The Roger Stone debacle.  The Washington Post ("Trump attacks federal judge, prosecutors in Twitter tirade defending Roger Stone") and other media are reporting on the latest developments in the Roger Stone matter, which is the subject of a twitter thread by the President. From the article:

The timing of Tuesday’s online attack prompted many to accuse Trump, who has a long history mounting public crusades against judges and courts over unfavorable rulings, of attempting to intimidate Jackson and secure a more lenient sentence for Stone. ...

Trump’s fusillade of tweets came shortly after news broke that the Justice Department had overruled the sentencing recommendation for Stone submitted by federal prosecutors, an action that followed Trump blasting the recommendations as too harsh.

This action led the prosecutors handling the case to resign in protest ("Prosecutors quit amid escalating Justice Dept. fight over Roger Stone’s prison term").

Plenty of AGs are happy to tamper.  OTOH, there is no guarantee in this day and age that whoever ran for the office would not be as mendacious as William Barr ("What to do with an attorney general who disdains justice?," op-ed, Washington Post).

But Elliott Richardson, Ramsey Clark ... But definitely in the past, there have been great, honorable people who served as the US Attorney General.

Probably, were this change to be made, I'd also recommend shifting the role of Inspector General within the executive branch agencies too, having them report to the AG as well.

Another example of a failure to do public capital planning in DC: Council votes to stop funding United Medical Center

Yes, cities and counties often have financial problems because of hospitals and providing care to the impoverished.

That's why DC closed DC General Hospital and why Prince George's County has finally successfully off-loaded the Dimensions Health Care system to the University of Maryland Medical System.

The new UMMS Capital Region Medical Center under construction as of January 2019..

But sometimes, parts of your community can be under-served by other health care actors as a result, and the fact that needs remain means that cities and counties can't be cavalier about closing hospitals when alternative care options aren't present.

-- "A glaring illustration of the need for comprehensive health and wellness planning in DC: Providence Hospital," 2018
-- "Prince George's County's problems as but one more example of the impact of outmigration," 2005
-- "More shenanigans in DC health planning," 2006
-- "Muddled thinking by Steven Pearlstein (Post business columnist," 2006
-- "An indication that there is little respect for planning: Maryland healthcare edition," 2011
-- "When the problem is defects in the structure of "the market", financial incentives won't do much good: Maryland's health enterprise zones," 2013

That's especially true of the part of DC "east of the Anacostia river," where health disparities, because of race and income, are pronounced ("The District's racial and income divide is cutting short the lives of black residents," Washington Post).  From the article:

The District’s latest “health equity” maps shows a city divided by race and income. How well you live, or sometimes whether you live at all, can depend on what side of the line you are on.

On one of the maps, we see that Woodley Park in Northwest Washington is the neighborhood where residents have the longest life expectancy, 89.4 years on average. Residents in the St. Elizabeths neighborhood, in Southeast, have the shortest, 68.2 years.

Woodley Park is wealthy and predominantly white. St Elizabeths is poor and predominantly black. The difference that makes: 21 years of life. “Your zip-code may be more important than your genetic code for health,” says the report that accompanies the maps, which can be found on the D.C. Department of Health website.

The disparities are stark, the consequences appalling. And the cause is no mystery. As the report notes, they are the result of “historical forces that have left a legacy of racism and segregation, as well as structural and institutional factors that perpetuate persistent inequities.”

-- The Social & Structural Determinants of Health, Office of Health Equity, District of Columbia, Department of Health

So I disagree with the Washington Post editorial, "United Medical Center: When will D.C. realize it doesn't belong in the hospital business," in favor of the City Council's original decision to close United Medical Center, which operates "East of the River" in Ward 7 ("United Medical Center will close by 2023," Post).

Note that this decision, was reversed, in later votes, but the appropriation was half of what was requested. This funding gap will accelerate the hospital's decline ("DC Council moves to reduce cuts in funding for struggling hospital," WTOP-radio; "'Spinning its wheels': Lots of money, few bold initiatives in 2020 DC budget," Post).

UMC is the only hospital operating "East of the River."

Note that UMC isn't the only hospital that's had issues.  The university medical school affiliated hospitals (Georgetown, Howard, and GWU) have taken on private partners.  One independent, Sibley, merged into the Johns Hopkins Health System.  Excepting Howard, these hospitals serve high income patients, which is why it was easier for them to land partners.

Providence, is downsizing out of the hospital business, which has impacted Washington Hospital Center, the anchor of the Medlantic system.  Howard University Hospital has had many management and financial issues, but has finally turned the corner in association with a for profit health care management firm ("Howard University Hospital turnaround experts Paladin Healthcare say hospital may make money next year," Washington Business Journal).

In Montgomery County, Holy Cross and Washington Adventist continue to expand and/or relocate to have access to more of MoCo's high income population, although the hospitals fought over WAH's move to a more accessible location deeper into the county, with better proximity to patients from Prince George's and Howard Counties too.

And as mentioned, in Prince George's County, UMMS has taken over Dimensions, and is building a new hospital in Largo, mostly with state support.

Washington Business Journal photo.

UMC provides care in an under-served area of the city.  There have been various initiatives to build a new hospital over the past couple administrations.

But I've argued that the non-public process disserves the city and the needs of the population that the hospital serves.  

And that there is an incredible opportunity to do visionary planning for a new hospital East of the River, complemented by a parallel economic development initiative focused on graduate health education and medical and biotechnological research.

-- "Update on DC's plans to build a new United Medical Center"
-- "Ordinary versus Extraordinary Planning around the rebuilding of the United Medical Center in Southeast Washington DC | Part One: Rearticulating the system of health and wellness care East of the River"
-- "Ordinary versus Extraordinary Planning around the rebuilding of the United Medical Center in Southeast Washington DC | Part Two: Creating a graduate health education and biotechnology research initiative on the St. Elizabeths campus"
-- "Ordinary versus Extraordinary Planning around the rebuilding of the United Medical Center in Southeast Washington DC | Part three: the potential for donations around an expanded program"

Proving my point that lack of public processes creates problems, the proposed fix of building a new hospital affiliated with GWU in return for special privileges for the main GWU hospital in Foggy Bottom, ran into opposition.

And in response, rather than create a new public process and come up with a good solution, or better yet, an innovative-transformational solution, the City Council voted to stop funding the hospital over a four year period and the executive branch issued an RFP with almost zero input from citizens and stakeholders.  

And the likelihood that the city will not get it together enough to plan, fund, and build a hospital in four years means that area will become even more under-served than it is currently.

This points to failures in two areas of planning: both capital planning as I just wrote about but also comprehensive health and wellness planning, an example being that the city lacks a health and wellness master plan.

Community health needs assessments required as part of the ACA.  Plus, I learned when reading about the potential closure of the only hospital in Berkeley, California, that hospitals are supposed to produce "community health needs assessments" as part of the Affordable Care Act ("Questions loom over Sutter Health's community benefit spending," Modern Healthcare). From the web:

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) added section 501(r) to the Internal Revenue Code which imposes new requirements on 501(c)(3) organizations that operate one or more hospital facilities. Under section 501(r), each hospital facility operated by a 501(c)(3) organization must meet the following four general requirements on a facility-by-facility basis in order for the organization to maintain its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status:1

- Establish written financial assistance and emergency medical care policies
- Limit amounts charged for emergency or other medically necessary care to individuals eligible for assistance under the hospital's financial assistance policy
- Make reasonable efforts to determine whether an individual is eligible for financial assistance before engaging in extraordinary collection actions
- Conduct a Community Health Needs Assessment and adopt an implementation strategy at least once every three years

(Although I will say the requirements aren't too specific, and the plans I've read are so general as to be practically useless.)

Separately, the City of Berkeley commissioned a study of the impact of the proposed closure of its only hospital:

-- Health Impact Assessment of the Proposed Closure of Alta Bates Medical Center, City of Berkeley
-- "Report: Alta Bates closure would critically impact poor, people of color," East Bay Times
-- "Editorial: Closing hospital may save Sutter money, but cost East Bay dearly," San Francisco Chronicle

According to the study:

The recent Rapid Health Impact Assessment, published by UC Berkeley's Institute of Urban and Regional Development, found that consequences of the hospital closure include:

• Longer wait times at nearby emergency rooms 

• Reduced access by the elderly, poor and uninsured  

• Delays in ambulance transports and potentially increased deaths

Additionally, the study found that closing the community hospital would result in longer wait times at remaining regional emergency rooms, ambulance travel times would be delayed, and emergency responders response time longer.

The study also says among its findings, the "impact on the poor, the uninsured, and people of color who are much more likely to not have a primary care doctor and not seek alternative care" if the hospital closes.

No such assessment likely conducted concerning Providence Hospital.  A comparable assessment should have been produced wrt Providence and the likely impact on Washington Hospital Center.

Washington Business Journal photo.

It's not that Providence shouldn't have been allowed to close, because DC is probably "over-hospitaled".

But Providence's location is less than two miles from Washington Hospital Center, and the part of the city "west of the river" still remains served by five other primary care facilities within the city, plus three facilities in Montgomery County reasonably close to the DC-Maryland line. 

But even so there would be impacts. And these impacts should have been mitigated proactively rather than reactively ("Providence cuts causing ‘dramatic increase’ in MedStar Washington Hospital Center volume," Washington Business Journal).

No such assessment likely conducted concerning United Medical Center. By contrast, east of the river, with the closure of UMC, Howard will be the closest hospital, while others may go to the new hospital in Largo.  And an assessment comparable to that done concerning Alta Bates Medical Center, the only hospital located in Berkeley, California, should have been conducted before the DC City Council decided to stop funding UMC.

What a difference between the editorial page of the Washington Post vs. the San Francisco Chronicle.  The Post focuses on the city's budget and yes, the long term financial negatives of owning a hospital.  The Chronicle focuses on how a large city in its metropolitan area will lose its only hospital and the negative impacts this will have.

What a difference between the City of Berkeley Government and the DC Government.  Berkeley commissioned an impact study of the closure of its only hospital, while without such a study, DC City Council commanded the closure of the city's only hospital east of the river.

Where's the Coalition for Smarter Growth? CSG was very active pushing a Metrorail-centric location for a new hospital in Prince George's County ("Hospital design case studies showcase benefits of urban design and community connections for new Prince George’s Regional Medical Center"). It has been quiescent concerning UMC.

What California Governor Jerry Brown has learned

The San Francisco Chronicle conducted a long interview with Gov. Brown at the end of his second stint as Governor, which was leavened after his serving two terms as Mayor of Oakland, California and one as State Attorney General.

Some great points:

1. Some problems can't be solved.  But he said focusing on some issues dear to the Democratic left, such as making housing more affordable and narrowing wealth inequality, would have been a waste of his time and political capital.

“Now, you can always find people who talk about the cost of housing, the gap between the rich and the poor, but this is true in Sydney, Australia. It’s true in London, it’s true all over the world,” Brown said. “Those are challenges people ought to address, but I’d say just looking back at the time I was there, either these things were not as salient as the problems I dealt with, or they weren’t as high a priority as the ones I dealt with.”

It’s always a matter of picking and choosing, of deciding both what needs to be done and what can be done with a governor’s limited resources of time, money and clout, Brown said. And those choices are always going to leave someone upset.

“Not only can’t you make them all happy, but you can’t solve all problems — otherwise, you’d be dead,” Brown said. “As long as you’re alive, you’ve got new issues for tomorrow and next week and next year.”


2. Protesting to preserve privileges.  But eight years as mayor of Oakland starting in 1999 tempered many of those early views. They also showed him how politics worked at the ground level, which shaped many of his views as governor.

“In Oakland, I would see people show up at City Council and protest almost any project, even relatively low height limits that they thought affected the character of the neighborhood,” Brown said. “So, great resistance to change, usually argued in terms of grand environmental or quality-of-life issues that I thought were patently misguided, ill-founded and distorted.”


3. Not all problems deserve to be addressed by laws. In 2011, the governor shocked legislators, including many of his fellow Democrats, when he vetoed a bill that would have required helmets for skiers and snowboarders under 18.

The Legislature was usurping the role of parents, he said in his veto message, adding, “Not every human problem deserves a law.”


4. Legislatures don't solve problems, they write and pass legislation.  Attempting to change that legislative culture wasn’t one of his most successful efforts, Brown admitted.

“The Legislature exists, in their minds, to produce more laws,” he said. “They don’t exist to solve problems, they exist to make laws. Now, they’d like to solve some problems along the way, but the essential functioning of a legislature is lawmaking.” ...

Brown didn’t excuse himself from abetting the wave of legislation, admitting that he often signed bills while shaking his head.

“We have more lawmaking than in any time in human history,” the governor said. “Many of the laws are stupid. Many of them are not warranted. But in order to get along with the Legislature, you’ve got to sign bills that aren’t needed. And you even have to sign bills that you’d prefer not even to have.”

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As much as I criticize community development organizations, one of the things Gov. Brown did that hurt revitalization was the elimination of local redevelopment corporations. He did this because they were financed through tax increment financing processes, which diverted revenue from the state, not just other local government entities like schools, and this was at the peak of the Great Financial Crisis, when the State government faced massive revenue shortfalls.

-- "Jerry Brown calls redevelopment agencies futile," SF Chronicle
-- "California bill would bring back redevelopment agencies," San Jose Mercury News

Oops, forgot to mention President Bush and the Clean Air Act | The Clean Air Act as a "framework element" for government agency practice

In an e-mail discussion, I have been harping on "framework elements" in master plans (land use, transportation, etc.).  For example, DC's Framework Element in its Comprehensive Plan treats all the policies as equal.

By contrast, the equivalent element in Arlington County's Master Transportation Plan treats its goals as overarching, and each subsequent element is both internally consistent and consistent with the framework element.  Since the Framework Element's primary goal is to promote mobility throughput and reduction of single occupancy vehicle trips, the whole plan aims to do that.

Similarly, San Francisco's "Transit First" policy, enshrined in the City Charter, prioritizes and privileges sustainable mobility policy over motor vehicles ("Transit First Mobility Policies and Planning Paradigms," 2006).

. EPA Administrator William Reilly watches as President George H.W. Bush signs the Clean Air Act Amendments. EPA photo.

During the Administration of President George H.W. Bush, Congress passed the Clean Air Act ("We can breathe easier — literally — thanks to George H.W. Bush," Washington Post) and President Bush was actively involved in getting the bill passed.  From the article:

It is difficult to overstate the importance to the nation’s health and welfare of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, and Bush played a pivotal role in their passage. The legislation was hopelessly mired in Congress until Bush used presidential muscle to break a logjam and get it passed. The updating of the 1970 law remains the most sweeping and comprehensive environmental statute on the books. It created the first “cap and trade” program, which ultimately ended the industrial air pollution causing “acid rain” that had blighted large parts of the country. The program’s use of market mechanisms provides a blueprint for controlling all air pollution that contributes to global warming.

The law also paved the way for the requirement for cleaner-running cars and clean fuels that have radically reduced pollution from smog in the United States. And it provided the government with the ability to control 189 toxic substances that had poisoned the air and to require permits from individual sources of pollution. Citizens were empowered to bring lawsuits seeking penalties against violators to ensure the law’s enforcement.

-- "George H.W. Bush understood that markets and the environment weren't enemies," PBS News Hour
-- "Clean Air Act Revamp, Climate Part of George H.W. Bush's Legacy," Bloomberg Businessweek

The Federal Clean Air Act does many things.  For cities and urbanism, it has two specific impacts that support better air quality.

First, to improve air quality (and note that the widespread use of diesel gasoline in Europe means that air quality is bad in many cities there) it sets the stage for emissions controls on motor vehicles.  It also sets the stage for the support of transit, as a different method for reducing motor vehicle traffic, especially in the cores of metropolitan regions.

Theoretically, it should mean continued concern about fuel efficiency standards for automobiles, since indirectly that drives demand for electric vehicles, which have reduced emissions comparatively speaking.  But the Trump Administration has lifted further tightening of these standards.

It means that Federal policy and practice should be supportive of transit generally, and extension of transit in ways that support greater ridership.  But the Trump Administration has instituted bureaucratic barriers that make it much harder to release funds for transit projects, even though Congress continues to appropriate money for these projects.

Granted, it's much harder for the Federal Government to think in terms of master plans and framework elements, because it's so big, and there are so many conflicting policies and concerns and changes in political positions.

But if we were take 10-20 key federal acts, and reconceptualize them as a kind of framework plan or element for government operation, and require that administrative action conform, it could make for much different operation and practice across the executive branch.

Revisiting stories: executive vs. legislative and the four vacant houses in Anacostia

Curbed DC reports ("Four vacant, government-owned Anacostia homes transfer to historic preservation group: The L’Enfant Trust has completed the transfer of four properties in the Southeast neighborhood") that DC has transferred four dilapidated but historic properties to the L'Enfant Trust for subsequent rehabilitation.

This was discussed in the past, because it was subject of a "battle" between the Legislative Branch and the Executive Branch.  The Executive Branch which controlled the houses wasn't doing much, and aggrieved citizens got the Legislative Branch to pass a law giving control of the properties to a local nonprofit that has been rehabilitating houses.

I wrote about it in this 2017 entry, "Three examples of L'etat c'est moi/Not invented here/Executive authority (in DC local government)."

What's more interesting than what I wrote is the comment thread. 

First, an anonymous commenter made the very good point that generally getting the Council involved in such matters can lead to serious corruption and had in the past (although that's true of the Executive Branch as well).

My point was that the Executive Branch needed to act.  That there was no reason to let the houses moulder and that if they couldn't act, then the Legislative Branch was right to step in and move things along.

That being said the process is an example of the failures in how the city does capital budgeting planning and management.

Second, was the other discussion in the thread about technocracy, execution, democracy, vision, etc. in local government. It's no less relevant one year later.

For example, David Brooks, columnist for the New York Times, has a piece about successful school reform, "Good Leaders Make Good Schools."

He blows it by mentioning DC as a positive example, in the face of local reporting on systematic failures in terms of test cheating, passing and graduating students who don't attend school, claiming 100% of graduating classes will be going to college when about 17% actually did, failure to respond to non-DC residents enrolling in DC public schools, etc.

The reality is that making successful change for hard to help populations is very hard.

Rather than acknowledge that from the outset and put the right resources in place to aim to accomplish it, instead the focus was on test scores and even graduation rates, which are easier to game.

It's another failure to execute that seemingly has little consequence.

Ideally, the Federal Attorney General would be separately elected

Changing the structure of the national government is almost impossible given the current conditions, but even in the best of circumstances it's very difficult.

When it comes to "society," we need to distinguish between "the people"/society and "government."  Government is created "by the people" so that we can be organized at the local-regional-state-national scale. 

I argue that law, since it is the way that relations are constructed and mediated between people within society, belongs to the people more than to the "government" ("Executive Power vs. the will of the people and the DC Attorney General," 2015)

It's why I argued that the DC Attorney General should be popularly elected although I am somewhat disappointed by the results thus far.

Elected AGs disconnect "ownership" and more importantly control of the law from the Executive Branch. 

As we can see from the Trump Administration, first in picking such a conservative as Jeff Sessions for Attorney General ("Jeff Sessions Confirmed as Attorney General, Capping Bitter Battle." New York Times), and now Trump's desire for the Justice Department to back off investigating Russian involvement in the 2016 Elections and culpability within the Trump campaign ("(President Trump and Jeff Sessions no longer on speaking terms," AOL), there is value to having "critical distance" between "the Justice Department" and the rest of the government, and this is in keeping with the concept that law, as a basic organizing instrument of society, belongs to the people first, and to elected officials second.

In short, I argue that the Attorney General of the US should be popularly elected, separately from the President.  And the Department of Justice should be under the AG.

Some years ago I mentioned this once at an event held by Ralph Nader, and he understood the value of the suggestion, even if the main speaker did not.

=====
I don't think Jeff Sessions ("Hearing Highlights: Sessions Questioned on Links to Xenophobia," NYT) could have been elected as Attorney General, given the various positions he holds on:

-- civil rights protections
-- voting restrictions
-- asset forfeiture
-- lengthening sentences regardless of case circumstances
-- private operation of prisons
etc.

It would be great for these kinds of matters to be discussed in the context of a campaign every four years.

To help increase voter turnout, I'd have this office be elected in the off-year cycle for national elections, not during the Presidential election cycle.

Three examples of L'etat c'est moi/Not invented here/Executive authority (in DC local government)

1.  Legality of chickens.  Over the weekend there was a story, "Do you raise chickens in D. C.? Their days may be numbered," in the Washington Post about how successfully bested the city in a lawsuit concerning the legality of chickens, not via building regulations and zoning, but the definition of animals within the city's public health laws.

Even though the city talks a good game about urban agriculture, it hasn't moved forward legalizing poultry, although many other (more) innovative cities and counties have already done so, such as Seattle and Salt Lake City (""An update on Block Supported (Poultry) Agriculture").

The original proposal for allowing poultry in some of the discussions in the Zoning Rewrite were so strict that they likely eliminated eligibility from more than 98% of DC residential properties. (50 feet setback from each lot line--meaning a property would have to be about 110 feet wide and maybe the same distance in length.) That being said having some limitations is reasonable, but DC has never proposed reasonable limitations.

Rather than taking the opportunity to correct lack of vision, Mayor Bowser has put language in the FY2018 Budget legislation explicitly and directly changing the definitions in the public health law to ban the practice.

There is a petition organized by the successful plaintiffs, aiming to influence City Council to extract that language from the budget bill.

-- DC City Council: Lay off the hens; support backyard chickens in DC

1220 Maple View Place SE is one of the properties in question.  Photo: L'Enfant Trust.

2.  There has been coverage of the battle between the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch over how to deal with four nuisance/disinvested properties in the Anacostia neighborhood ("Four Anacostia houses are at heart of an affordable housing struggle," Washington Business Journal; "DHCD Refuses to Comment on Derelict D.C.-Owned Anacostia Houses," Washington City Paper).  The properties have continued to decline and languish while under the control of the city's Department of Housing and Community.

Neighborhood residents convinced the City Council to transfer the properties to the housing rehabilitation program of the nonprofit L'Enfant Trust, which has restored a couple of houses in the neighborhood.

Instead of going along with the legislation, the Executive Branch has ignored the law passed transferring the properties, and separately is marketing the properties for sale.

3.  The nonprofit National Mall Coalition has been floating a concept for a number of years to build a parking structure/stormwater capture facility under the National Mall.  The revenue from parking would pay for the facility.  Granted the National Park Service, which controls the land, isn't too keen on the idea. But the NMC has offered to pay $100,000 for a feasibility study by the Army Corps of Engineers, which is willing to do the preliminary study.  But the request, even if paid for by a nonprofit or private sector initiative, has to come from a local government.

DC's Executive Branch is not willing to put forth such a request, so NMC is trying to get City Council to pass legislation authorizing the study.

I have some reservations, not about the initiative, but about there needing to be more "visitor management planning" wrapped around the proposal ("A National Mall-focused heritage (replica) streetcar service to serve visitors is a way bigger idea than a parking garage under the Mall").  To their credit, NMC added my recommendation of a visitors center to their original concept.

The National Archives McGowan Auditorium was flooded during a stormwater overflow event in 2006, costing millions of dollars in damage.

Still, what's "the harm" in a study, especially because it is in response to stormwater-related floods that caused millions of dollars of damage in 2006 ("With National Treasures At Risk, D.C. Fights Against Flooding," NPR) and maintaining the economic viability of the central business district ought to be a key element of the city's economic development and risk management policies.

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What each of these examples share is that the initiative for action did not come from the Executive Branch, which seems to believe that only it knows what's best for the rest of us.

It's not a good way to behave or model behavior and it is definitely counter to language in Mayor Bowser's inauguration speech:

I will encourage creativity, risk-taking and innovation. It is my pledge to take sometimes the road less protected, to see jobs and opportunities when others see only the costs, and to praise my staff when they get it right and be the one to tell you if we get it wrong.

Now you know this, I’m not a “pie in the sky” politician. I believe in making both bold and pragmatic plans and executing them every day. At the end of every day, week or quarter—our team will have to show results. Not just during election season, but for the four full years.

Executive Power vs. the will of the people and the DC Attorney General

Unlike most other jurisdictions, DC doesn't have control over criminal prosecution of adults, a responsibility retained by the federal government as a vestige of federal control over the "District of Columbia."

While I didn't vote for Karl Racine, who won election to be DC's first popularly elected Attorney General, I have advocated for years that DC have an elected Attorney General, for a number of reasons.

-- Another reason to support an elected Attorney General in DC (2009)
-- DC Attorney General election (2014)

In the 2010 election voters approved a charter amendment to make the AG elected, to balance the sometimes conflicting responsibilities of representing the executive branch as well as the people, whose will is expressed through the creation and implementation of law.

The "people" voted in favor of an elected attorney general to provide a check on executive power, and to specifically have a representative of the people's interests vis a vis "the law" as it relates to the executive and legislative branches.

In addition, I like to believe the support was in part to create another element of the maturation of the city as a polity, in extending the structure of political organization to include an elected AG, which hopefully upon sound execution of the responsibilities of the office, could eventually lead to the federal government devolving responsibility for adult criminal prosecution to the local government.

At all levels of government, there are myriad examples of the need for an independent attorney general, to act in the breach, in the face of executive branch malfeasance and overreach,

In the meantime, to limit checks on the executive branch, Mayor Bowser proposes to create a separate executive branch legal structure ("D.C. mayor seeks to curtail power of new elected attorney general," Washington Post). From the article:

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser has proposed diluting the role of the city’s elected attorney general by consolidating power to review city laws, land deals and other legal business with attorneys on her staff, the attorney general said Friday.

The move calls into question whether the District’s first elected attorney general will be able to carry out the job envisioned in 2010, when 76 percent of D.C. voters chose to directly elect a chief attorney “responsible for upholding the public interest.”

Because the AG position was created by a charter amendment, the Mayor's proposed changes, which would change the responsibilities of the AG and the AG office, should be put to a vote of the people, as an additional amendment to the city's Home Rule Charter, and not addressed legislatively.

Analytical myopia by politicians and the DC mayoral election

I had intended last week to write a scathing piece about Muriel Bowser, the Democratic candidate for Mayor, about her analytical myopia, an incredibly simplistic approach to complex issues, and a belief that any sort of development is "progress" and if you express any sort of opposition, even considered and measured, "you're against progress."

But then I realized that's an affliction common to most of DC's elected officials, even her opponent David Catania (e.g., his stand on ticketing parents for a child's truancy or absence from school--see "Criminalizing truancy versus creating focused programs to address truant behavior").

But I will give a couple examples regardless.

Any business is good business

1.  The first is Walmart.  I wrote about Walmart's entry into DC last week, and the predicted negative impact on businesses in the area around the store and how the city didn't engage in any mitigation of the potential for problems.  (I didn't mention that the city made the likelihood of business failure worse by removing parking adjacent to those businesses, in order to facilitate traffic movement to and from the Walmart store.)

Campaign sign on a bus.  

When people criticized Walmart for various reasons, around the point that low prices come at great costs that are paid for by the public in other ways, Councilmember Bowser's response made opposition a class issue, commenting that critics had the luxury of being able to shop in Virginia and other places.

A couple days after the blog entry, a bakery across the street from Walmart announced it was closing.  (Although I am the first to admit that the location is terrible, regardless of Walmart's presence.)

2.  The second has to do with liquor licenses.  Discussion about liquor licenses at long time establishments in Takoma and my Manor Park neighborhood made me realize that the city's method of differentiating between types of licenses--restaurants, taverns, clubs, etc.--is inadequate because what matters just as much is where the business is located (e.g., within housing districts), the nature of the business district (neighborhood or "regionally" serving), Metrorail access, ability to accommodate traffic, etc.

These other elements should shape how what the business can do with regard to hours of operation and entertainment, including the presentation of music.

While 11 years ago I was an opponent of "the overconcentration of liquor stores" in neighborhoods like H Street NE or Georgia Avenue NW because of the often debilitating impact of single sales on neighborhoods because of how the products were typically consumed, I have never been an opponent of the sales of alcoholic beverages in restaurants and taverns--and I believe that limiting sales because of proximity to religious institutions (typically open a couple of hours/week on Sundays when most such beverage-selling businesses aren't even open) or schools (most alcohol sales and consumption occurs when schools are closed) is spurious, because for the most part, restricting sales or not there is no real impact on schools or churches from such sales.

See "The sales of alcoholic beverages in cities" and the 2005 blog entry, "Local involvement is so much fun," which counters opposition to expansion of inside consumption of alcoholic beverages in restaurants and taverns on H Street NE, which is now one of the city's leading entertainment districts.

But a little one block commercial district surrounded by blocks and blocks of housing is decidedly different from regionally-serving entertainment and commercial districts like Georgetown, Downtown, Adams-Morgan, or H Street, and should be treated differently.

Of course in my greater neighborhood, these issues are more complicated because they are termed as newcomers often white, organized against long-time black-owned businesses.

What the issues have to do with are hours of operation, the intended audience, amplification of music, proximity to residences, and general management of the business.  In either case, I had no problems with the businesses operating, selling alcohol, or presenting music, but with the hours of operation for both the sales of alcohol and how late music could be presented.

A tavern surrounded by houses shouldn't be presenting loud music after midnight...

To make a long story short, Councilmember Bowser's position on these matters hasn't been to work with these businesses to make sure that the way they operate fits within the community, it's to accuse the "opponents" (who aren't against the businesses) as being "against progress."

Interestingly, I was filing yesterday and put away an editorial from over the summer from the Falls Church News-Press ("Editorial: Productive Vs. Non- Productive Growth") which made the point that most proponents of "the market economy" never acknowledge that some elements of the market economy work better than others or may be inappropriately applied in other instances.

That is a concept that is foreign to Muriel Bowser.

Reputation for great constituent services is countered by lack of follow through and failure to understand individual problems may result from systemic process failure

3.  My general complaint about Councilmember Bowser's approach to constituent services is not that her office doesn't do it--although the two issues I brought to her attention have never been "solved" to my satisfaction--one still exists 6 years later, and the other was resolved in an environmentally inappropriate manner ("Another example of DC Government's failure to engage in sustainability practice")--it's that she and her colleagues fail to realize that constituent service is a great opportunity for identifying the need for structural/process changes in government practice, rules, regulations and laws and then working to make those changes, to improve outcomes for all.

Instead, everything is a one-off, the problems don't get rectified systemically, and just pop up again and again in the ward and elsewhere in the city, providing new opportunities to seem helpful and engaged.

Conclusion: David Catania is probably a better urban mechanic

The lack of capacity to look at matters in terms of a bigger picture isn't a quality that you want in a mayor, even if recently deceased former mayor of Boston Tom Menino derided vision and in turn was often criticized as being the "urban mechanic" of the city...

From the Boston Globe article, "Thomas M. Menino, Boston's longest serving mayor, dies at 71":

Thomas Michael Menino, who insisted a mayor doesn’t need a grand vision to lead, then went on to shepherd Boston’s economy and shape the skyline and the very identity of the city he loved through an unprecedented five consecutive terms in City Hall, died Thursday. He was 71 and was diagnosed with advanced cancer not long after leaving office at the beginning of this year. 

“Visionaries don’t get things done,” he once said, crisply separating himself from politicians who gaze at distant horizons and imagine what might be. Leaving to others the lofty rhetoric of Boston as the Athens of America, he took a decidedly ground-level view of the city on a hill, earning himself a nickname for his intense focus on the nuts and bolts of everyday life: the urban mechanic.

Muriel Bowser isn't Tom Menino, or at least, she hasn't proven to be that great of an urban mechanic, despite claims to the contrary.

The kinds of initiatives her opponent David Catania has taken on, such as expanding health insurance to the poor, and keeping a hospital open "East of the River," are the results of a more engaged "urban mechanic," even if he too has issues of his own, including analytical myopia.

Increased control by the executive branch of any and all external communication by employees

This has been an issue for some time.  In DC, under the Fenty Administration, many of the agencies lost their public information officers, and communications came out of the mayor's office.  This has continued under Mayor Gray, when the director of the Department of the Environment and the Insurance Commissioner were fired because of external communications that the administration didn't like.

I learned this in my brief experience working for government in Baltimore County, when my press releases and certain external communications were handled by the County Executive's press people.

But it's a problem "everywhere," especially because officials don't like counter-information, criticism, etc.  WBEZ Radio in Chicago just ran a story, "Chicago principals say they operate under 'gag order'," about how principals of Chicago schools have a gag order imposed by the Emanuel Administration and some have been reprimanded for speaking out.

This is one of the downsides of Mayoral control of school agencies.  But it's a problem in any case.

"At-will" employees are always at risk of losing their jobs when they don't toe the line. That's why I argued in this past blog entry, "DC Government at-will employees need protections to tell the truth," that local government deserve protections so that they can tell the truth without losing their jobs.

The trope about the benefit of "Telling truth to power is mostly" is mostly B.S.: DC edition

The West Wing TV show had an episode I saw about the importance of staffers "telling truth to power."  I've never found it pays off work-wise.

Former DC Insurance Commissioner William P. White would probably say the same thing.  He was fired one day after ("DC insurance commissioner fired a day after questioning Obamacare fix," Post) stating publicly that a work-around on one element of the Affordable Care Act announced by President Obama wouldn't work well for DC, which has a successful state-level health care exchange.

The Washington Post editorializes today, "Mayor Gray delivers a chilling message to D.C. officials," that this isn't a good way to manage your employees.

2.  Last year, Mayor Gray fired the director of the Department of Environment for discussing with the EPA his disagreement with the Executive Branch's change in approach to dealing with EPA regulatory requirements over separating sewerage infrastructure from stormwater run off infrastructure ("Christophe Tulou fired as D.C. environment director," Washington Business Journal).

3.  And there has been a lot of discussion lately in the press (e.g., "On the path to a failed presidency?," Post) about how the Obama Administration isn't very good at listening to underlings who are trying to communicate "bad news." 

4.  I will say that the biggest lesson I got from my brief sojourn working for the executive branch in the Office of Planning for Baltimore County, Maryland is a substantive, real, and deep understanding of how the shots are called within the executive branch. 
The chief executive and there, really, the long time chief budget officer was more powerful than the County Executive, who is limited to two terms, and his office call the shots on policy.  They hire agency directors who understand this, and are willing to work within the parameters and constraints that are handed down to them.

Lowly staffers like me really didn't make policy.  (In fact, I worry a bit that my getting the agency director so worked up about transportation planning responsibilities coming back to the OP that he broached this with the Executive ended up getting him canned when a new administration took office.  Although I am sure that because of his progressive talk--not walk--he wasn't gonna be retained in any case.)

I had a couple of instances of citizens lecturing me about the value of sustainable transportation, and I would stop them, stating that their message would have a lot more impact and carry more weight when presented to their elected officials--I wasn't the person in the way of better sustainable transportation best practice, it was the DPW...

Were I able to have worked there long term (I don't know if it was possible, even if the County budget hadn't gone in the tank, despite what I was told), it would have been difficult to deal with this reality. 

5.  What happens is that people who won't tell bad news, or hide it, knowing the reaction it will evince end up getting fired anyway, when s**t hits the fan, e.g., failures in administrators in not being able to carry out the promises made by the Mayor in the face of inadequate systems e.g., "District officials criticize Fenty's management of summer jobs program." 

Mayor Fenty made unfulfillable promises, his staff likely didn't tell me to cool down the statements, and when they couldn't fulfill the expectations, they lost their jobs.

Also see the book Exit, Voice and Loyalty by Albert O. Hirschman.  The end of this essay by Malcolm Gladwell, "The Gift of Doubt," discusses that book. 

I look at the argument a bit differently. Loyalty is for the people who stay but don't say anything.  That's never worked well for me either.