Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 2, 1995 TAG: 9507030119
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SONYA ROSS AND MITCHELL LANDSBERG ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
What they see is spectacular. But the Washington they don't see is an affront to America's ideals.
This is Washington, D.C., in 1995:
The police chief resigned, saying things were so bad that some officers couldn't file search warrants because they had run out of the proper forms.
Department of Public Works crews were reduced until only six workers were left to cut city-owned grass. Near the U.S. Soldier's and Airmen's Home, weeds stand 5 feet high
A study found 42 percent of the city's black male population in prison or jail, on probation or parole or being sought.
Schools began late because of fire code violations and closed early to save money.
The District Building, the equivalent of City Hall, ran out of toilet paper after the supplier complained he wasn't being paid. ``Here we are the richest country in the world, our nation's capital, our big D.C. budget of $3.2 billion [and we have] run out of toilet paper,'' lamented Mayor Marion Barry. ``That's embarrassing.''
Four of the city's 15 dilapidated health clinics were closed because of lack of money at a time when the AIDS virus is spreading more quickly in Washington than any other major U.S. city. At D.C. General Hospital, help of last resort for the poor, two of the three doctors treating AIDS patients resigned. The hospital has occasionally run short of medicine and bandages, and had to lay off 41 doctors.
Trash has piled up for weeks in some neighborhoods. Margaret Young, chairman of the environment committee of the Dupont Circle Citizens Association, says a park in her neighborhood has ``rat holes you could lose a small child down.''
The city's public housing agency and foster care program have been put under federal receivership. One judge said the city's children were in ``great danger'' under the city's child welfare program.
``It's just a mess, a total mess,'' said Vivian Tisdall, 69, who spent most of her life teaching school here. ``I'd move in a minute, if I could.''
Washington veered so close to financial collapse this spring that a Democratic president and a Republican Congress stripped power from the City Council and the mayor and established a board to take over the finances of the District of Columbia, which had been spending money it did not have.
Control boards have been imposed on other places, but this city is supposed to be a symbol of America at its best.
And it is. Where else could children, big-eyed and in awe, stand at the marbled feet of Abraham Lincoln and read the Gettysburg Address off the wall?
Washington still attracts the best and the brightest. Erica Gunn grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and moved here last September to join the Republican revolution in Congress. She had earned a master's degree in public policy at Duke University, and happily works 50-hour-plus weeks for the Senate Agriculture Committee.
She shares a house on Capitol Hill and loves it, although she is quick to note that she is an expert in martial arts and would not hesitate to use it.
``I like the fact that I can walk to work. I like the fact that I live on a block that is integrated, diverse. ... I like the fact that I can get good bakery bread a few blocks away.''
And yes, she admits to a thrill at living amid so much history, at strolling past the Senate desk where Daniel Webster once sat.
A beatific ambiance permeates all four of Washington's corners. In the city's very poor southeast quadrant, just beside a Roman Catholic church called Our Lady of Perpetual Help, a rolling, grassy hill juts between two thickets of trees.
Straight ahead is the Washington Monument. To the left is the Capitol. Up and to the right, like a lone king on a chess board, is the National Cathedral.
By day, you can stand next to this church with the chirps of birds in your ears.
By night, a sojourn to this hilltop would not be a good idea.
Here, the evening is punctuated by gunfire, regular as rain. Drunken, drugged or bored people linger on nearly every corner. Fat rats waddle into the street.
This hilltop is in Anacostia, birthed in the proud heritage of freed slaves, home of the abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Now it is isolated and ignored by the rest of the city, practically a pariah community.
Problems that no control board can solve drag at Washington.
A sizable black middle class, once an anchor of stability, has been fleeing for the suburbs, leaving behind an overwhelmingly black underclass.
Crime has declined recently, but the drug culture and lawlessness still rule many neighborhoods. In a recent five-month period, about 1,500 teen-agers were arrested for crimes ranging from homicide to car theft, causing City Council to vote to impose a youth curfew.
Even the mayor has a criminal record. Marion Barry was recently returned to office after a four-year hiatus, some of which was spent in prison on drug charges.
That Barry was re-elected - with overwhelming support from blacks and very little from whites - speaks to a central fact.
Washington, the city, is predominantly black. Washington, the political capital, is predominantly white. The two cities share some traits - an allegiance to the Redskins, an inability to work when it snows - but they often coexist without connecting.
The District of Columbia was laid out by a black surveyor and many leading figures in black American history have been associated with Washington.
But black Washington is in decline. While other cities grapple with white flight, the strongest demographic trend here over the past two decades has been black flight.
In 1970, 71 percent of Washington's 757,000 people were black. By 1990, the black population had declined by 140,000; blacks now account for 66 percent of the city's residents.
``You have to be in a place where you feel comfortable. And right now, D.C. isn't a place where you feel comfortable,'' said Patricia Jones, who was born here. She moved to neighboring Prince Georges County, Md., in 1973 after a man exposed himself to her two daughters in a park in front of their house.
Evidence has been accumulating of a breakdown in the run-of-the-mill services.
The Rape Crisis Center came within 24 hours of closing. Volunteers finally passed the hat to keep it open.
In the last year, 559 police officers quit. There have been fewer arrests since the pay cut took effect in May.
Thirty-eight school principals took early retirement or just left.
After a school security aide was convicted of sexually molesting two students, the city auditor found that 53 of the schools' 211 security people had police records.
Private schools to which the District sends children needing special education said the pupils would not be welcomed back because the city hadn't paid the tuition.
When the police said they could do nothing to help her, a frantic mother recruited ex-convicts from a halfway house to search for her missing 11-year-old son. They found him in two hours, naked and hungry, ran down a newly paroled child molester suspected of kidnapping the child, and sat on him until police arrived. The mother moved to Prince George County, saying the District wasn't a safe place to raise a child.
Along with crime, a constant factor in the exodus of middle-class blacks is talk of a conspiracy - what many black Washingtonians for years have called ``The Plan.''
``The Plan'' goes like this: The District's financial problems are being used by whites to undermine, and eventually drive out, Washington's black local government and its majority black population.
These fears were reinforced this year when Jack Kemp, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development, floated the idea of making the District of Columbia a tax-free zone to spur economic development and create jobs.
If Kemp prevails, City Councilman John Ray predicted, ``in 10 years all the rich folks would be in Washington, D.C., and all the poor folks would be in the suburban areas of Virginia and Maryland.''
``Obviously, some people want this city,'' activist Katherine Pearson-West told a community meeting.
``That's it! That's it!'' several people shouted from the audience.
Nowhere does ``The Plan'' feel more real than in Anacostia, with its stunning view of the city and its cheap real estate. Here, the conspiracy endures because of historical precedent: Georgetown.
The same Georgetown homes that blacks once occupied now are white-owned and worth millions. Businessman Leo Bernstein, 79, who got rich buying Georgetown real estate, now advises friends to buy property in Anacostia.
Race also permeates talk of local government in Washington, where a white Congress once held all the power - and now effectively does again.
Until 20 years ago, the city was ruled by federal commissioners. The District gained limited home rule in 1975. But Congress never gave up full control; it still can veto the city's budget and the acts of its government.
From the start, Washington's infant government was hit with state spending responsibilities, such as Medicaid and an array of human services, without a tax base large enough to accommodate them.
``Look at the weight D.C. has to bear. It's the structure in the first place that's causing the problems,'' said Nubia Kai, a six-year District resident who teaches creative writing to the elderly.
The District operates under two enormous handicaps: Congress won't allow it to impose an income tax on commuters and 57 percent of the real estate is owned by the federal government, embassies, universities, churches and the like, thus tax exempt.
The federal government makes a substantial annual payment in lieu of taxes - $660 million this year, nearly 20 percent of the city's $3.4 billion budget. But the payment, many people say, is arbitrary, patronizing and insufficient.
Still, no one in Washington - not even Marion Barry - argues that the city has spent its money wisely. Tales of bureaucratic waste and inefficiency are part of D.C. lore.
``There's a cultural element to this,'' said Sam Smith, editor of a muckraking local newsletter. ``We're a town of bureaucrats, and it will curse us evermore. There's a cultural bias toward government.''
Smith once wrote about the city spending nearly 25 percent of its snow-removal budget on a consulting report about snow removal - and then losing the report.
Some see only one solution: statehood.
``Our human rights are being denied each and every day, and have been, mind you, for almost 200 years,'' said Timothy Cooper, a novelist and leader of the Statehood Solidarity Committee.
But statehood has no prospects. Certainly, the District's fiscal crisis isn't likely to persuade Congress that the city is ready to manage its own affairs.
In the meantime, optimists find solace in Washington's strengths.
Sure, the District is broke. Sure, there is crime. But Washington is also the center of a thriving region, with a high quality of life.
Anyway, for optimists and pessimists alike, here's the bottom line: The U.S. government isn't going to give up on Washington, D.C.
``It can't die,'' said Jack McLean, managing partner of the Greater Washington Initiative, who is paid to improve the image of metropolitan Washington. ``It's the center - not only of the region, but of the country - and they can't let it die.''
by CNB