Posts by Lynda Laughlin

Public green space in Columbia Heights is a rare commodity. The recent building boom has brought has brought a slew of new business and residents in the last 5 years, including Highland Park on Irving Street. While Highland Park lacks a street level courtyard, they advertise a rooftop terrace with a landscaped garden. If there is a green space available on the roof, are tenants allowed to use this space for their dogs? Dog owners who live in apartment buildings, what is your experience with access to green space?

This is in no way an attack on dog owners, but raises some issues about the impact of large apartment buildings on densely populated areas as well as urban doggy etiquette. To be good neighbors, should apartment buildings build their own private dog parks? This would be a considerate gesture to the surrounding community as well as a desired amenity for renters.

Or should it rest on the city to build such spaces? What about the dog owners themselves? If you plan to own a dog in a city, shouldn't you at least consider taking your dog further then just the nearest tree box?

As it stands now, there is not enough green space on this small stretch of street to continue to satisfy dogs, commuters, and residents. And I have a feeling that the newly planted trees aren't happy about the situation either.

It's a lot easier to blame the victim than to take the time and resources to fix the problem. Mr. Barry told the Washington Times that one of his neighbors gets "$400 or $500 worth of food stamps but won't get up in the morning and fix breakfast" for her children.

Yes, there are differences in parenting styles by social class, but to assume that low-income parents are less caring, concerned, or invested, or unskilled caregivers is not true and unfair. If anything truly puts families and children at a disadvantage, it is growing up in poor neighborhoods without access to jobs, good schools, or child care providers.

Barry and Alexander's proposed legislation also fails to understand the dynamics of welfare usage. Most families do not intend to use welfare as their only source of income, but rely on welfare to make ends meet. Instead, most families that enter welfare exit relatively quickly to take low-paying jobs. Families able to maintain full-time, year-round work are much better off than before.

Others, however, end up returning to welfare. Not surprisingly, the most vulnerable are single mothers with little work experience or education. The wealth of research done since the 1996 welfare reform act indicate that there are numerous barriers that may affect a recipient's ability to transition from welfare to work, including physical disabilities or health limitations, availability of child care, mental health problems, health of behavioral problems of children, substance abuse, domestic violence, involvement with the child welfare system, housing instability, low basic skills, and learning disabilities.

Similar to the nation, welfare and food stamp usage in the District has fluctuated over the last ten years. The number of individuals on welfare was 46,576 in 2000, fell to a low of 42,300 in 2008, and rose to 45,136 in 2009. Since 2000, food stamp usage has increased by more than 20,000 individuals, from 80,510 in 2000 to 107,618 in 2009. It is clear that welfare and food stamp usage have gone up recently because of the recession, not an increase in long-term users trying to abuse the system.

Without supports, the families that Barry aims to help won't be able to overcome a multitude of barriers. Just like how education loans/grants, mortgage tax credits, etc., help middle class families achieve a higher standard of living, social support programs like welfare, food stamps, and child care subsidies present a potential solution for low-income families.

Instead of placing limits on welfare, the DC council should support the TANF Opportunities and Accountability Act of 2010 sponsored by Tommy Wells (Ward 6) and Michael Brown (at-large). The bill would invest in job training and educational programs as well as develop a better system to track welfare recipients in order to better understand when and why families enter and exit social programs.

The welfare system is far from perfect, but as the District faces continued economic turmoil brought on by the recession, this is not the time to limit access to important social safety nets. District food banks, shelters, and other social services are already strained and woefully unprepared to face coming economic hardships as the economy tries to build itself back up. Families that have not been able to leave welfare are some of the most disadvantaged families without any means of support other than social programs.

If Barry and Alexander are serious about reducing poverty and thus reducing welfare usage, they must propose more innovative policies with a multi-pronged approach that involves families, neighborhoods, educators, and employers.

However, the restaurant industry is plagued by low wages, poor working conditions, and inadequate benefits. The average annual salary for restaurant employees in 2009 was $22,982 in DC, $20,522 in Arlington County, and $18,949 in Montgomery County. These salaries are just below the poverty line for a family of four.

A major issue confronting restaurant workers revolves around benefits, especially those relating to employee health. Unlike many workers in the United States, restaurant workers often do not receive paid sick leave.

Because restaurant wages are often so low, the decision for a worker that she is too sick to work on a particular day could mean being unable to pay bills or care for her family. Restaurant workers who lack paid sick leave contribute to public health problem since they sometimes come to work sick.

In 2008 Washington, D.C. passed the Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act, which requires employers to provide paid sick leave for workers. However, in the give-and-take negotiations to secure that law, restaurant owners won major concessions, including provisions that exempt tipped waitstaff and bartenders from coverage under the law.

Even for restaurant workers who do fall under the bill's provisions, many remain unaware of the new regulations. The DC government has taken the first steps of creating necessary regulations and adding the violation of paid sick leave provisions to forms workers can use to register official complaints against their employers, but education for workers about their new rights, which is critically important, has been slow.

The Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC) is working to establish baseline standards for restaurant-industry workers, reward restaurants and their owners when they pay and treat their workers well, and call out those who violate workers' legal rights.

As restaurant goers, there are a couple simple things we can do to help support restaurant workers. First, leave your tip in cash. Since credit card tips must be processed, it can take longer for waiters to actually receive their wages, while some never receive their credit card tips at all. Restaurant employees and advocates are working to change tip processing, but for the time being the best way to ensure that your tips reach workers is to leave cash.

Second, dine out ethically. Support workers by eating at restaurants with fair labor practices. On Saturday, November 13th, ROC is encouraging consumers to dine at, or "Carrotmob," Teaism because of their support of workers rights. Teaism currently provides 5-7 sick days to all of their workers.

The restaurant industry provides and will continue to provide an important contribution to the region's economy. The industry is projected to grow by 12 percent in DC, and around 8 percent in both Maryland and Virginia by 2020.

The DC area restaurant industry can either take the high road by providing fair wages, access to health benefits, and advancement in the industry. Or, take the low road by continuing to create low-wage jobs with few benefits and poor working conditions.

As consumers we can encourage the industry and policy makers to support workers, thus not only benefiting restaurant employees but also the overall quality of the food we eat.

While I was voting, I realized when I got to the ballot question on the attorney general that they had not given her a translation of the question in Spanish, and it was clear that she could not understand it. I went to ask the poll workers if they had a translator, and they responded, "She doesn't understand the ballot when you explain it to her?" They said if I didn't want to help her, they could call a translator on the phone, but there was no one on site.

I wasn't comfortable helping her filling out her ballot—because my Spanish is not perfect and it feels weird going into the voting booth with another voter, but I translated the entire ballot for her as best I could. She told me afterwards that if I hadn't been there, she would have gone home.

The Justice Department has an explanation of language minority provisions of the Voting Rights Act on its website. ... Section 203 mandates that a state or political subdivision must provide language assistance to voters if more than 5 percent of the voting age citizens are members of a single-language minority group who do not "speak or understand English adequately enough to participate in the electoral process" and if the rate of those citizens who have not completed the fifth grade is higher than the national rate of voting age citizens who have not completed the fifth grade.

It is not clear to me whether DC is a covered jurisdiction under the Voting Rights Act (since we're not a state, and not listed in the code that follows) but I'm pretty sure this was against the law. My ANC candidate, China Terrel, was outside the polls. When I told her, she said "That's unlawful," and said she'd call Jim Graham's office to have the help get someone over there. I also called the Election Protection Hotline (866-OUR-VOTE) and reported it to the Justice Department's Voting Rights Hotline (800-253-3931). But regardless of the federal law, it's still shocking that a city as committed to diversity as ours supposedly is would leave such a basic barrier to voting in place.

Is this a common problem across the District? Have you noticed other non-English speakers having difficulty voting today? If so, what kind of assistance did they receive? If you do witness problems, do not hesitant to contact the Election Protection Hotline at 866-OUR-VOTE.

Unlike ward council members, ANC commissioners are not paid and are elected to a two-year term. While often considered a thankless job, ANC commissioners can wield a lot of power. ANCs consider and present recommendations to government officials on a range of issues including parking, traffic, zoning, trash collection, and economic development, to name a few. In short, these individuals can make a tremendous impact on your community, for good and for bad.

There are over 80 contested ANC seats on the November 2 ballot. A number of ANC seats face no challengers and there are even a handful of ANC seats that have no nominees. The list of candidates can be found at the DC Board of Election, in addition to maps of the ANC areas.

It is often hard to find information on ANC candidates, but a number of local blogs provide profiles of candidates, like The Hill is Home and Frozen Tropics for races around Capitol Hill, H Street and surrounding neighborhoods.

The ANC system was designed to provide residents a direct link with the larger DC government as well as serve as a forum to voice community concerns. Get informed and vote on November 2.

We'll be putting together some endorsements in key contested ANC races. Do you have a contested race in or around your neighborhood? What issues matter to you in those races? If you've been following the campaign, which candidates do you like?

Some residents in the Barney Circle area feel that the historical designation process is biased and is being led primarily by individuals and organizations that don't even live in the affected area, such as the Capitol Hill Restoration Society (CHRS). Beth Purcell, president of the CHRS, was one of the original drivers of the Barney Circle Historic District. She lives outside the proposed boundaries. Reuben Hammeed, former vice president of the local neighborhood association, has also pushed for the historic district but no longer lives in the area.

Others say that the ANC originally agreed to be the applicant for the historic district based on information given to them by Hammeed and others, who had only polled a handful of residents on the general idea of a historic district, but did not contact the vast majority of property owners and were not able to show any specific information about what the guidelines would be. The ANC, knowing that only about one-third of homeowners were contacted, decided to go ahead and file the application with the HPRB anyway.

At the June 24th meeting, opposition to the historical designation was labeled as "new young people" who are just being "hysterical" and uneducated about the benefits of living in a historical district. Concerned residents plan to voice their concerns to Mayor Fenty and the DC Council regarding the HPRB handling of the situation.

Conflicts over the definition and preservation of neighborhoods have become a common feature or urban politics, and Barney Circle is certainly not an exception. Neighborhood planning, including whether an area should be an historic district, should be an inclusive process that provides residents full disclosure of the proposed plans as well as a way for residents to speak for themselves. If you don't allow residents of the affected area to be part of the process, then in effect you run the risk of destroying the cultural and social fabric of a community, factors that reflect just as much history as buildings.

Effective historical preservation needs to strike a balance between preservationists, developers, public officials, and residents. What works in one part of the District may not work for another area. The economic and social impacts of historic preservation are too situational, making the need for transparency all that more important.

The situation in Barney Circle calls into question how the process for other historic districts has been approached in DC. Are we in effect creating communities that benefit the privileged and ignore the voices of less privileged residents?

Compare the possible benefits of a soda tax to the cigarette tax. Taxing cigarettes has proven to be highly successful in reducing consumption. For every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes reduces sales by 3 to 5 percent and has lead to better health outcomes. Sugary beverages like soda can lead to negative health outcomes for children and adults. Obesity-related medical expenditures cost tax payers approximately 74 billion a year through Medicaid and Medicare.

A reduction in child obesity could lead to major savings for DC tax payers over the long term. In 2008 36 percent of high school students were clinically overweight and obese. If we assume that the patterns of obesity are the same among younger children, then about 41,000 children 18 and younger are overweight or obese in the District.

Researchers estimate that the cost of health care associated with obese children in 2008 is $15.97. If we multiply the number of overweight and obese children in the District by $15.97, then the total cost of obesity related health care is approximately $655,000.

While a small tax can generate millions, will it actually have the effect of reducing soda consumption? Most likely not. Studies indicate that a tax of at least 18 percent would be needed. Experts at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity argue that the tax needs to be high if we want to change American's addiction to sugary drinks. However, city council members and the voting public may be less willing to accept a tax much higher than 1 cent. Only those who truly think that obesity is a major problem for the district would be willing to pay a higher soda tax.

Opponents of a soda tax argue that a tax would disproportionately hurt the poor who spend a larger proportion of their income on food. This may be true, but only for poor people who consume more soft drinks. The bigger problem for low-income households is having access to grocery stores that offer healthy, affordable food options. It is no coincidence that areas of the District that lack access to grocery stores (mainly in Wards 5, 6, 7, and 8) tend to have higher rates of obesity than wards in the upper Northwest. Hopefully Cheh's program could be extended to provide food subsidies to families living in areas with few healthy food options.

The beverage industry is fiercely opposing the proposed tax. The Maryland-Delaware-D.C. beverage association and more than three dozen city grocers and restaurants have formed a group called No D.C. Beverage Tax. The group has run full-page ads in the Metro along with other local papers and radio spots.

The Campaign for Healthy Kids argues that the American Beverage Association has spent $5.4 million to fight various state and local initiatives to tax soda, and that DC is now it's new target. They have started a petition to urge the City Council to pass Cheh's proposal.

While much of the debate regarding the soda tax is focused on the "tax" itself, proponents of the tax need to focus more on the public health message. The purpose behind the Healthy Schools act is to fund nutrition programs and reduce consumptions of unhealthy products. Hopefully it will be the public health message, and not the industry message, that will resonate with city council members when the act is up for a final vote later this month. Pass the soda tax, it's good public health policy.

To truly go plastic-free would mean a complete lifestyle change, one that I am not sure is entirely possible or desirable. While plastic has a lot of harmful properties, it also has it benefits. It is light and cheaper to ship, which means less fuel used to transport items. Plastic helps keep things sanitary, thus reducing the spread of germs.

There are already many items that I use every day that are in plastic: shampoo bottles, storage/food containers, credit/debit cards, smart trip card. My goal was to simply avoid plastic where I could find a suitable alternative.

Overall, by consciously trying to use less plastic, I reinforced some of my current behaviors. I consistently turned down disposal bags in favor or my of reusable canvas bags or I just simply used my backpack. I planned better about packing my lunch for work to avoid buying lunch at work, where most items come in plastic containers.

I was also much better about bringing coffee with me to work in a reusable mug. My own coffee is much better and much better for my pocketbook. On the day I forgot to bring my reusable mug, I went without the plastic lid on my coffee. Also instead of buying snacks that would have come in a plastic bag or container I focused on eating fruit.

I also realized how I could reuse other types of plastic items that I hadn't considered before. The plastic bag that my tortillas came in served as a handy kitty litter bag.

For a couple of days, I reverted back to my old ways. These were usually days where I didn't plan ahead or felt that I was too busy. The bag fee encouraged me to reduce my use of plastic bags, but I still bought a bottle of water when I could have brought my own or that bottle of soda I got with my Chinese food after a long day at work and a night of teaching.

What else can we do? Has the bag fee lead to other non-bag conservation efforts on your part? For my part, I intend to keep trying to avoid generating plastic waste where possible, by planning ahead more so more wasteful options don't seem so convenient.

There are several challenges to getting an accurate count of area residents. Past decennial counts undercounted racial/ethnic minorities. Blacks make up approximately 53% of the District's population, for example. The Wards with the largest black populations also had some of the lowest mail-back rates for the 2000 Census. Ward 8 had the lowest mail-back response rate in the District (45%). Local community organizations have stepped up efforts to help lessen the accuracy gap in the count of minority groups, but more out reach is needed to ensure an accurate count.

Another obstacle the District faces is getting 2010 Census forms to those who live in what the Census calls "transformed housing". Homes that have been subdivided into multiple units often only have one mailing address. A number of homes, especially in more urban communities, have basement apartments that are rented out separately from the rest of the house, but there is only one mailbox. Since the Census Bureau uses mailing addresses to send out forms, this means that a house that has multiple units but only one official mailing address will only get one form. Each unit/household should get their own questionnaire to make sure all persons are counted correctly.

If you do not get a 2010 questionnaire because you live in a transformed housing structure or have questions about how the fill the form out, you can contact your local Questionnaire Assistance Center (QAC). The Census Bureau expects to open 30,000 QACs across the county between March 19th and April 19th. The Census Bureau is still determining the potential sites, but all locations should be finalized by February 2010 and posted on the 2010 Census website. It will take a little effort on your part to get a form if you live somewhere with multiple units, but one mailing address, but being counted is priceless.

The 2010 Census form is one of shortest ever sent out, yet the information collected is just as important as ever for your immediate neighborhood and for the District. To keep up with the latest developments, check out the Census' 2010 Blog.

Percent of families at or below the federal poverty line: 14%. Percent of female-headed families at or below the federal poverty line: 27%.

Marital Status: Married: 25%; Divorced: 10%; Never married: 56%.

Commute to work: Public transportation: 36%; Walk: 12%; Bike: 2%; Work from home: 5%.

In general, the District population continues to grow (population in 2007 was 588,292) and remains a majority Black city (although the percent Black has been declining over the past several years). The District is also fairly educated and young. While the District has a larger median household income compared to other parts of the country, there is a sizable difference by race. The median household income for Whites is about $60,000 more than the median household income for Blacks.

Keep in mind these data are for 2008 and do not reflect current economic conditions or show effects of the economic recession. We will have to wait until next year for that data.