Budget includes EOR Grants, New Main Streets
Even before newly-elected Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander was sworn in on May 15, the increased power of East of the River councilmembers was already in evidence during the Fiscal Year 2008 budget deliberations. With former Ward 7 Councilmember Vincent Gray now chair of the council, Ward 7 resident Kwame Brown [D-At-large] chairing the Committee on Economic Development and Marion Barry [D-Ward 8] heading the Committee on Housing and Urban Affairs, the budget included funding increases and grants for a substantial number of programs important to the East Washington representatives.

The $5.7 billion budget included more funding for several job training programs, authorized the borrowing of funds to speed public housing renovation projects in Wards 7 and 8, provided tax breaks and new support programs for neighborhood businesses, and provided grants to several organizations based in Wards 7 and 8. It also included increased funding for the District's new rent supplement program.

“Now what the council and the mayor need to do is to deliver,” said Hillcrest activist Paul Savage. “It does make a difference to have so many East Washington residents on the council, especially now that Ward 7 will have a full time councilmember again. But we have a lot of projects that have already been funded but need to be completed.”

As the council chair, Gray presented a budget aimed towards a broad consensus among councilmembers, including both tax cuts and increases in human services programs, said staff members on the council.

“I think he was trying to get broad support, as was typical of [previous Council Chair] Linda Cropp,” explained Dorothy Brizill, executive director of DC Watch.

But Gray's initial budget, which included tax cuts supported by the council’s financial conservative members such as an estate-tax cut and an expansion of the property tax increase cap, was scrapped after a majority of councilmembers said they were prepared to vote the tax cuts down.

“There are people out here suffering, now is not the time to be giving tax breaks to the wealthy,” said Barry, one of the councilmembers who lobbied against the estate-tax cut.

Budget Highlights for Wards 7 and 8 included:

Two New Main Streets. Brown redirected several extra million dollars in his committee’s budget into “neighborhood development” programs, some of which the mayor had proposed to cut. This included $1.8 million for three new “Main Street” corridors, including one in Ward 7 and one in Ward 8. The Main Street program provides five years of grants to help develop small businesses along commercial corridors, although critics contend that the program has had mixed success. Currently there are nine main street corridors in the District, but only one – Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in Anacostia – is east of the river.

Ward 7 and 8 Grants. Included in the budget were several grants to Ward 7- and 8-based organizations. The Ward 7 Business and Professional Association and the Ward 8 Business Council each received a $150,000 grants.

“I don't know yet how we are going to use the money,” said Julius Ware III, president of the Ward 7 BPA. “To be honest, it was a pleasant surprise to us. But we will certainly find a good use for it.”

The Ward 7 Nonprofit Consortium also received a $150,000 grant. According to Villareal Johnson, chair of the consortium's steering committee, the funds would be used to establish the organization as a permanent support resource for Ward 7 nonprofits.

But the awarding of such no-questions-asked grants by the council received criticism both on and off the council.

“Increasingly the budget is being weighted down with all of these grants to different organizations and entities. There is no oversight, no method here,” said Brizill, who pointed out that the grants added up to over $13 million in this year’s budget. “This is not a commentary on these organizations. But if these are worthy groups, they should want to go through a grant application process that is subject to public scrutiny, that has benchmarks for performance.”

During the May 15 legislative meeting on the budget, councilmembers seemed to be dividing up grants on the fly. In a move that created a public outcry, Barry moved successfully to eliminate funding for the Historical Society of Washington, directing part of the $500,000 for that group to anti-violence nonprofit Cease Fire Don't Smoke the Brothers.

Although the funding was reinstituted during the second reading on June 5, the action fueled criticism of the freewheeling grant allocations. Gray reminded the public on June 5 that he had already asked council staff to investigate how other jurisdictions dealt with such grants, and that he hoped the council would adopt new regulations after the staff reported their findings.

Funding for New Communities. Both Lincoln Heights and Barry Farms public housing communities are deep into the planning for the massive, and sometimes contentious, New Communities mixed-use redevelopment. But the elaborate plans are going to require elaborate funding. To that end, the council authorized a slight increase in the amount the mayor can borrow additional funds against the Housing Production Trust Fund, a move opposed by affordable housing producers who characterized it as “borrowing against our future.”

The fund is fed by real estate transfer taxes to pay for the creation of new affordable housing every year. Currently the District is authorized to securitize up to $12 million a year, enough to float a $180 million loan. The first phase of all the New Communities projects is estimated to cost $180 to $185 million, but later phases will cost much more.

Barry pushed to securitize $30 million amount from the fund, so that the city could borrow enough to fund the entire project. But the council, led by Brown and backed by Gray, largely rebuffed Barry, although they did authorize an additional $4 million in funding, up to $16 million. 

“We certainly intend to fund New Communities.” said Gray. “This is enough to complete the first phase.”

Deanwood Recreation Funds Untouched. After a brief report in the Washington Post suggested that $114,777 would be cut from funding for the renovation of the Deanwood Community Center, residents became concerned. But the “cut” was actually part of the mayor’s plan to reorganize procurement costs, said council staff members. According to Brown’s office, the $27.1 million allocated in the capital budget for the new recreation center and library is fully intact.

Brown’s Last Minute Change Shifts Development To Mayor
In a surprise development between the first and second reading of the budget, Brown reversed his position on how to reorganize the District’s two independent development agencies. Instead of creating a single new authority as he had proposed on May 15, the economic development committee chair pushed through an amendment that abolished the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation and the National Capital Revitalization Corporation and transferred their assets to the mayor.

“The mayor has committed to beefing up the office of the deputy mayor for planning and economic development to increase capacity, and to make it more effective and efficient,” said Brown after the vote. “For those reasons, the mayor and I agreed to allow those two entities to be dissolved.”

Brown emphasized that the new legislation also required the mayor to abide by more-rigorous affordable housing requirements, local employment and contracting set asides, and environmental standards that were part of the AWC charter.

NCRC and AWC came under scrutiny last year after they could not agree on how to divide up resources, and councilmembers argued that the agencies were expensive and slow. During hearing held earlier this year, however, residents expressed concerns that reorganizing the agencies would slow ongoing development projects that had finally picked up steam, such as the Skyland Shopping Mall redevelopment.

Under the new structure, Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Neil Albert will now directly control the development of all parcels previously held by NCRC and AWC, including the Skyland Shopping Center, Poplar Point, the St. Elizabeths campus, Marvin Gaye Park, Kingman Island and the Ward 7 Waterfront.

Albert and Fenty had been lobbying the council for direct control over economic development leading up to the vote on June 5, but Brown was initially strongly opposed and had support on the council for his own plan. A week before the vote, Brown said that the mayor had “enough on his plate,” citing the mayor’s new direct responsibility over the District schools.

Brown’s earlier proposal would have created a new Economic Development Authority that would have had control over most of the major parcels previously held by NCRC and AWC.

Brown will host an economic development roundtable in Ward 7 on June 11, at 6 p.m. It will be held at First Baptist Church of Minnesota Avenue, 3440 Minnesota Ave., SE. A Ward 8 economic development roundtable will be held on June 26, 6 p.m., at Matthews Memorial Baptist Church, 2616 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., SE.

To contact Brown, call 202-724-8174 or email kbrown@dccouncil.us.

Sworn In, Alexander Continues To Emphasize Unity
Yvette M. Alexander was sworn in as Ward 7 councilmember on May 15, at 7 p.m., at the Wilson Building. New Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser was sworn in at the same time.

“It is an honor and a privilege to represent the Ward in which I was raised,” said Alexander after taking the oath administered by Superior Court Judge Mary A. Godden Terrell. She told Ward 7 residents “I am thrilled to represent you. I will seek your advice, and I will respect your opinion.”

Alexander won the special election in Ward 7 on May 1 with 35 percent of the vote, filling the seat Gray vacated when he was elected council chair.

Alexander, who ran on a unity platform, said that she had already held a promised lunch with her former opponents. “There were only three people who didn’t come, and two of those called,” said the new councilmember. “We all talked about what we could do to bring the Ward together, and I told my former opponents that I planned to use some of the ideas that they had on the campaign trail.”

She also plans to hold her first meeting with the Ward 7 leadership council, made up of Advisory Neighborhood Commission chair and civic leaders, in late June.

Both Bowser and Alexander received a three-day orientation put on by the other councilmembers, a new process introduced by Council Chair Vincent Gray.

Alexander will sit on the Committees on Economic Development, Public Safety and Judiciary, and Public Works and the Environment.