Posts about Government

Peck's work particularly affected DC, since his division was the one that pushed to bring retail to GSA's headquarters, signed deals with WMATA to locate more facilities near underutilized Metro stations in Prince George's and Fairfax, and made buildings in the area better neighbors.

In the comments on Wednesday morning's Breakfast Links, commenter jnb made an excellent point:

What happened to Bob Peck and Martha Johnson is an example of why it's hard to attract and keep good people in public service. If you're trying to make change at an organization at the scale they were trying to, a) you're going to tick people off who will do whatever possible to subvert, and b) you're not going to be checking all the administrative things that, in a less politically charged atmosphere, will inevitably trip you up if you don't catch them.

If you get someone who's totally focused on avoiding administrative problems—employee behavior, leave-taking, food buying, travel, car use, etc.—there's little left over for the big picture stuff.

OctaviusIII added:

I sometimes get the impression that public servants are expected to do their job in sack cloth and ashes, always concerned and saddened that they use tax funds to survive. They need to innovate and perform and still hate themselves for working in government.

Officials in power within government need to be held accountable for their offices, but those at high levels are in those jobs to handle things beyond the day-to-day. To then punish them for mistakes in low-level operations tells other officials that the more they focus on the big picture, the more they put themselves at risk. We need to praise and reward big-thinking officials, not punish them for being too high-level.

Some people in the public sector just want to plod along in a safe job, building up seniority and cashing paychecks without rocking the boat. Others passionately believe in improving the world around them, and are willing to accept the lower pay and greater scrutiny in order to make a bigger positive difference in people's lives.

It takes a lot of patience, too. There are people in any large organization who have created little fiefdoms over the years, controlling budget and ruling over everything that happens in their slice of the world. Tread into their territory, and you make an enemy. Higher-up officials may well put the harmony of the organization above moving game-changing projects forward.

When people in the latter group rise to higher levels and start having a big impact, they become more vulnerable. Since these people are human, they're not perfect. Maybe they're not the most careful at reviewing every financial report that comes along, since they're focused on the bigger picture, as seems to have happened with Bob Peck.

Maybe they launch a lot of great projects but don't build the most solid foundation of detailed plans behind every one, which some criticized Gabe Klein for. Maybe they accidentally say something a little offensive, as Rollin Stanley recently did. Even if the heat he took for saying something inappropriate didn't drive him away, it couldn't have helped Montgomery County keep him.

Harriet Tregoning seems to have avoided all of this. She has an almost inhuman ability to patiently yet persistently push for change while getting along with others. At least so far—did someone once waste five dollars and she didn't notice? We'd never know until some shocking news breaks that's totally at odds with our experience, just as was the case with Peck.

I spent a few months working inside the government, and realized it's not for me. I gained enormous respect for those who successfully effect change within that kind of organization, and learned a lot about how the people who obstruct change operate.

If we want change and want it to last, we need to dispense with the calls for blood every time there's bad news. Nothing excuses the enormous lapse at GSA, but we also have to focus on the real wrongdoers and calibrate our expectations for higher-level managers. Do we want public officials to live in constant fear of making a mistake, or empower them to improve our lives?

Who are the unemployed?

Tackling crisis-level unemployment is one of Mayor Gray's top priorities. Yet the DC government appears to have no profile of the unemployed in DC and their barriers to employment.

Even the number of unemployed by ward that DC provides each month is deeply flawed. Each month, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics samples DC residents and reports unemployment for DC. The DC Office of Labor Market Research then allocates that number to each ward based on out-of-date ratios from the last census. Ben Orr of Brookings has shown that the resulting numbers of jobless by ward are sometimes wildly inaccurate.

The government also has no data on the reasons why the jobless don't have a job. This lack of data creates a vacuum that is then filled with assumptions and stereotypes about the obstacles faced by jobless residents.

Advocates for cutting off Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) benefits after 5 years, as the corresponding federal program does, say that dependency on TANF is the cause of unemployment. Those who support tax incentives for developers say that lack of jobs is to blame. Smart growth advocates point to lack of affordable transit access to most jobs. Training providers say that the problem is a mismatch between workers' skills and available jobs.

Who is right? What policies should we invest in to address unemployment? We don't know because we lack basic data about the unemployed.

Investment in a survey of unemployed DC residents by a research company on an annual basis would cost a fraction of what these policies cost, and would help ensure we are actually targeting the true causes of unemployment.

Who are the training providers and are they effective?

The District has no data on the effectiveness of training providers across the city. In fact, the director of one training provider recently told me that the Department of Employment Services (DOES) actually has no comprehensive list of training providers at all.

The training providers, known as Workforce Development Organizations, provide a range of services from soft skills training and hard skills training to case management of jobless clients. What percentage of their clients get a job? More importantly, what percentage of their clients are still employed a year or two later? No one knows.

The DC Department of Employment Services (DOES) should require such reporting by recipients of government funding. This data could presumably be verified using payroll tax data.

Of course, no one knows the extent to which we should even invest in job training because we have no definitive profile of the obstacles to employment faced by jobless residents.

What development projects have received incentives, and have they been worth it?

The CFO's office does not track economic impact of development projects that receive incentives. In fact, there appears to be no comprehensive list in existence of companies that have received tax incentives for development projects over the past 5-10 years.

The District has provided billions of dollars in tax abatements and TIF financing to developers over the past decade. The rationale of proponents is that these investments bring a return to the District in the form of corporate property taxes, sales taxes and jobs for DC residents. If proponents of what some call corporate welfare are so sure that these returns are real, then why not track and report them to bolster their case?

All this data should exist in the Office of Tax and Revenue's (OTR) integrated tax system. OTR says that sales taxes cannot be tracked by address when retailers have multiple DC locations. However, recipients of incentives could simply be required to report such data by address as a condition of receiving incentives.

Hotels under construction currently in the District are receiving over $500 million of tax incentives in total. While some are questioning whether we will really see that money in higher tax revenues, the reality is we will never know.

It's difficult to solve problems when you don't know their causes or whether previous attempted solutions worked. When such information is lacking, then dogma and stereotyping supplants reasonable, data-driven policy discussions.

Unfortunately, the powers of the board are limited and politicized, the other provisions of the bill have obvious loopholes, and several important reforms are not fully addressed.

The bill takes positive steps to strengthen regulation of inaugural and transition committees. It requires that these committees report their finances in the same way that principal campaign committees do, and it sets limits on the amount that individuals can contribute. The bill also has fairly strong financial disclosure provisions that would make potential conflicts of interest easier to identify.

Unfortunately, the bill's efforts related to lobbying reform and constituent service funds are weak and riddled with loopholes.

The bill prohibits lobbyists, or those working on their behalf, from offering legal or professional services to public officials or staff at reduced or no cost. There are two serious problems with this provision.

First, it does not prohibit public officials from receiving legal or professional services at little or no cost from someone who is not a registered lobbyist. Public officials should be required to pay market value for any services that they receive.

Second, it allows registered lobbyists to provide legal and professional services to public officials, provided they are adequately compensated. Any circumstance involving a public official hiring and compensating a registered lobbyist to advise them on issues in any way related to council business is a clear conflict of interest and should be prohibited.

Additionally, the bill does nothing to stop lobbyists or businesses from donating to political campaigns, transition and inauguration committees, or constituent service funds.

The bill's attempts to reform constituent service funds are reactionary, weak, and full of loopholes. While prohibiting CSF money from being used to purchase "year-long or season admissions to theatrical, sporting, or cultural events," the bill doesn't prohibit CSF's from buying tickets in any other format.

Of more concern, the financial disclosure requirements do not appear to meet the standards set in other sections of the bill. Unlike transition and inaugural committees, which have to report the name, address, and place of business of their donors, constituent service funds are only required to report "contributions and expenditures ... quarterly". The bill should include specific language requiring CSFs to disclose detailed information about donors.

The bill chooses not to lead on some issues that have been well publicized recently. Instead of making specific proposals on corporate bundling of campaign contributions and nepotism and cronyism in city government, the bill leaves it up to the board to decide policy on these important issues.

That board, as proposed, has problems of its own. Members of the board would be nominated by the mayor and approved by the council. This leaves little room for public input on nominees. District citizens will be relying on the city's most political figures to fill what is intended to be a non-political body. The bill should be amended to allow for some form of public input on nominees to the board.

Additionally, there is no guarantee of minority party, or independent, representation on the board. This may have been intentional and intended to keep the appearance of politics out of the process. But, in a city so dominated by the Democratic party, minority representation is necessary.

The board is given the power to fine and even censure public officials for violations. However, it does not have the power to strip council members, or other elected officials, of committee assignments or votes. Instead, all that the board can do is recommend that the council "consider suspending or removing a Council member's committee chairmanship ... membership ... or the member's vote." The council has no obligation to act on such a recommendation. Additionally, the bill does not specify procedures for censure and removal of ANC commissioners or members of the School Board.

The ethics board should be given the power to truly sanction elected officials, including ANC commissioners and School Board members, for violating ethics and disclosure rules. Real accountability will not be possible as long as this power remains in the hands of political bodies.

The proposal as drafted is not a complete failure, but it will require significant changes to become an ethics bill that the District deserves.

The Government Operations committee will be holding a roundtable on November 30 to discuss the bill. You can register to testify at the roundtable by signing up online, or contacting Judah Gluckman, the committee's legislative counsel, at 202-724-8025 or jgluckman@dccouncil.us. You can also submit a written statement to the Committee on Government Operations, Council of the District of Columbia, Suite 113 of the John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004 no later than November 30, 2011.

"[W]e are aware that the DC Public Library Board of Trustees and the Friends of the Washington Highlands Library have taken recent actions in support of re-naming the Washington Highlands Neighborhood Library as the Bellevue Library instead of the William Lockridge Library, and that the Library Board of Trustees has had a general policy to name buildings after the geographical communities in which they are located."

Fimbres noted the District's public space naming statute prohibits two spaces from having the same name. Without endorsing which public space, the street or the library, should bear Lockridge's name, Fimbres offered, "the Gray administration supports the Council moving forward with only one public space designation bill," that the community and Lockridge family can support and rally around.

Later in the day, however, Gray back-stepped from his earlier statement and supported the re-naming of the library after Lockridge in a letter to Council Chairman Kwame Brown.

In fact, a public space has already been named for Lockridge; the baseball diamond at Oxon Run Park on Wheeler Road SE and Mississippi Avenue SE. The Mayor dedicated it himself. A plaque bearing Mr. Lockridge's likeness is installed there. Given the Mayor's stated position on naming only one space, no further legislation should be considered.

"[W]e respectfully request this bill not be given further consideration on the grounds that Mr. Lockridge did not tirelessly work on libraries in his community," John Hill, President of the DC Library Board of Trustees and CEO of the Federal City Council, wrote in his public testimony. Hill and others expressed that naming one of Ward 8's 21 schools after Lockridge would be more befitting.

Disagreement had marred the process of closing the old Washington Highlands Library and deciding on a design for the new library from the early stages.

Initially, the Bellevue Civic Association proposed renaming the library after Wilhelmina Rolark, noted Civil Rights attorney and four-term Ward 8 councilmember. They deferred to the library's policy, only to have the Mayor ignore the Board's policy and recommend a less accomplished individual.

In doing so, neither the Mayor nor City Council consulted the local Friends organization, Chief Librarian, Library Board of Trustees, Council Committee on Libraries, Parks, and Recreation or other library stakeholders on advocating the library bear Lockridge's namesake.

"The Bellevue Library Friends and the library community in general have been totally marginalized and disrespected in this process," contends Brown.

On July 27 the Library Board of Trustees voted unanimously to rename Washington Highlands Library "Bellevue" to reflect the actual neighborhood where it is located. In the fall of 2009, the Bellevue Civic Association and Friends of Washington Highlands Library submitted a name change request to Ginnie Cooper, DCPL's Chief Librarian. Cooper agreed the new library represented an opportunity to make an impact on the community's identity.

With the March 2010 shooting on South Capitol Street, across the street from the library, positive branding is needed to distinguish the Ward 8 neighborhood according to residents.

In remarks Tuesday at George Washington University, Gray attempted to delineate Ward 8 neighborhoods. "And for those who may not know, and I'm not trying to be flippant, but Anacostia and Ward 8 are not synonymous, alright? Anacostia is part of Ward 8. There's Congress Heights, there's Bellevue."

Although Mayor Gray apparently recognizes and promotes Bellevue when speaking to a downtown, academic audience, he doesn't support the neighborhood's new library bearing its own name.

"Petworth is in Petworth, Cleveland Park is in Cleveland Park, Shaw is in Shaw, Deanwood is in Deanwood," says Brown. "The library in Bellevue should be in Bellevue especially given that most city residents, including those who live in the neighborhood, don't even know where Bellevue is."

While the community has played by the rules and established processes for renaming branch libraries, the Mayor and Council Chairman are abusing their power for political patronage.

A more responsive system could be created by revising ANCs to be based on historic neighborhood boundaries, future economic development prospects, and common-sense issues of geography. This would improve local governance by ensuring that commissioners were voting on issues that they were engaged in and would impact their constituents. It would also make it easier for interested citizens to attend meetings and get involved in local government.

ANC's should comprise neighborhood clusters that are near each other and have similar densities and zoning characteristics.

For example, ANC 5C includes some of Ward 5's most densely populated neighborhoods along the North Capitol Street corridor, sparsely populated areas around the Armed Forces Retirement Home, and most of Catholic University. These neighborhoods have little in common and cover an area almost 3 miles from north to south.

This variation is problematic when the whole ANC votes on something that will in reality only impact a few SMDs. The controversy over Big Bear Cafe's attempts to secure a liquor license pitted commissioners from miles away against supportive commissioners from the neighborhood.

Issues can also arise when commissioners deal with changes or challenges from areas outside their borders that do not affect the larger ANC. For instance, the Eckington and Truxton Circle neighborhoods in ANC 5C are located very close to development in the newly branded NoMa neighborhood. They have to deal with related economic development and housing issues that will have little impact on 5C commissioners from farther north.

Many of the problems inherent in ANC5C's makeup could be solved by reducing its size and moving its northern most SMD's to another commission. A better, smaller ANC 5C could look like this:

Similarly, the neighborhoods of Trinidad and Carver-Langston in ANC 5B, located north of Florida Ave and Benning Road, NE are part of the rapid economic development based around the H Street corridor. But ANC 5B stretches for miles towards the Maryland border. It includes the National Arboretum, and has several SMDs clustered around Rhode Island Avenue, NE.

These areas have different economic centers and geographies. It makes little sense for them to be involved in each other's parochial decisions.

These issues can be solved by creating a smaller ANC representing Trinidad, Carver-Langston, Ivy City and Gallaudet University:

As currently constituted, several of Ward 5's economic corridors, historic neighborhoods and institutions are split between multiple ANCs. This makes it difficult to create coherent and effective policy.

Catholic University, the surrounding neighborhood of Brookland, and its main street of 12th Street are currently split between three ANCs. The nearby Rhode Island Avenue corridor also touches three separate commissions. Creating one ANC to encompass Catholic University, Brookland and neighborhoods to the north and south of Rhode Island Avenue, NE would allow local leaders to make smart decisions about the future of this area without undue outside influence.

These examples do not form a complete plan for redrawing Ward 5's ANCs. But they do show that the existing commissions can be broken down in a more logical and effective manner.

The three ANCs in Ward 5 are vast. The current setup does not make participation in local politics easy for anyone, but it is especially problematic for seniors, people with small children and those without cars or easy access to transit.

Ward 5 isn't the only ward considering more, smaller ANCs. In Ward 1, which is currently divided into 4 commisions, ANC 1A and 1B each have 11 commissioners. 1B would now grow to 13 commissioners if its borders don't change. Kent Boese has proposed adding a 5th ANC in Ward 1, giving each 6-9 SMDs.

Creating smaller ANCs will make it easier for regular citizens to get involved in local affairs. This line of thinking appeared at the first task force meeting when members suggested that citizens will be more likely to attend meetings if they know it will be a short trip from their house.

The Ward 5 Redistricting Task Force has a chance to improve governance and get more people involved when making their recommendations. They should move forward by creating more ANCs and decreasing the size of the existing commissions.

Their next meeting will be held on Wednesday, August 24 at the 5th District Police Station, 1805 Bladensburg Road NE. Visit the Ward 5 Redistricting Task Force's blog for more information.

On the evening of May 14, 2009, about 40 Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers showed up at our house and attempted to execute the warrant they secured for the suspect. When no one answered the door, they proceeded to attempt to break down our back gate. After 45 minutes with a battering ram, drill and a crow bar they succeeded in damaging our security gate we installed before moving in, the door frame and parts of the house's exterior near the door, but they had not gotten in. They were in the process of getting a ladder so that they could break in through the second story window when my wife arrived.

After determining what was going on and showing the officers her ID, my wife was able to convince them to stop trying to break in. She coaxed them into showing her the search warrant and then allowed them inside. They briefly searched the house and admitted that they had made a mistake. They gave her some forms about how to be reimbursed for the damage, apologized and left.

We weren't angry. Police work is often time-sensitive and the impression they gave was that they were eager to catch some bad guys—which we support. They made an effort to avoid mistakes, but still mistakes will be made when one is in a hurry. No one was hurt and we expected to made whole.

Unfortunately, we had to pay to repair the damage first, and then ask to be reimbursed. To replace the door and the frame cost several thousand dollars, which we were able to pull out of our savings. But fixing damage to the exterior of the house would require removing much of the wall and the windows, and would have set us back over $10,000. We couldn't afford to float DC a loan to fix this and we were concerned that we might get stuck with the bill. Since the damage was only cosmetic we decided not to repair the exterior.

We had the repairs done over the course of the summer and fall, submitted the paperwork in November of 2009 and received a reply in January of 2010. We were advised that while the District intends to compensate residents for damages for which it is liable, it was not liable for damages in our case because the search warrant was valid.

However, DC MPD General Order 309 states, "In those instances where a forcible entry occurs as a result of misinformation, misinterpretation of information, or erroneous judgment, the Department will provide an explanation to the owner/occupant, and will repair the damage as soon as possible."

We started a dialogue with the city's Office of Risk Management (ORM) which makes the decision in these types of claims. They informed us that they have to follow the decision of the MPD, which said the claim should not be paid. When we contacted our District MPD, they said it was for the ORM to decide—though the police have their own ORM which the city's ORM accused of stonewalling.

Feeling like both sides were trying to blame the other, we asked if we could have a meeting with both agencies together. MPD declined, saying that, "The matter has been properly addressed by both agencies, DC and MPD's ORM... Although the MPD ORM does not decide whether to award or deny a claim, we do support and stand by the DC ORM's ruling that your claim is denied." I called MPD's ORM and was told, somewhat rudely, that my claim was denied, and "how hard is that to understand." After that my calls and emails to the MPD's ORM went unreturned.

Left with seemingly no other recourse, we filed suit against the District.

Property damage complaints related to police investigations are not new: the Police Complaints Board investigated them in 2005, finding that officers occasionally failed to inform people why their houses were being searched and left without arranging for repairs or informing the owners how to have repairs reimbursed. We learned from that report that MPD is supposed to immediately contact the on-call Facilities Management staff member to make necessary repairs when it appears MPD is responsible for repairs. This was not done for us.

We were not eager to go to court and were concerned that the District would win for reasons of sovereign immunity. So I made a last ditch effort and wrote letters to then-Mayor Fenty and Chief Cathy Lanier [My wife joked that I might as well write Barack Obama too, as much as that it likely to work]. I cited the general order that calls for the city to repair damage in cases like this.

I was impressed when Chief Lanier wrote me the next morning to inform me that she would get involved. By the following day, a representative of the MPD's ORM told me that, "in light of the recent development," my claim would be paid. By recent development I assumed he meant getting chewed out by the Chief of Police.

In the end we were reimbursed in full, about 5 months after making our claim, but there are three key ways this frustrating and time-consuming debacle could have been avoided.

DC needs better electronic record-keeping. Before the warrant execution, we sent back dozens of pieces of official mail, including checks intended for the previous residents, to the District. And there were at least four places in DC records where the sale, ownership and new residents of the home were documented. If the MPD is going to rely on these records as the basis for a search warrant, they should work to link them so that when changes to the recorder of deeds records are made, for example, a flag goes up in other records.

Ideally the system could be searchable so that they could search for an address and get a time-ordered listing set of records pertaining to that address. Had that existed, they could see that the person they were looking for had lived there, but that all the newest records related to a new set of owners. The information they needed was in their possession, but their system couldn't easily access it.

When property is damaged in this way, MPD needs to follow policy and offer to make repairs immediately. I'm not sure we would have taken them up on it as we preferred to use our own contractor, but not everyone is able to front the money. I have visions of people living with a broken down door for months, and that's not acceptable.

MPD should be proactive and let residents know if they're going to reimburse them for damage, and for which damage, within a very short time after an incident (i.e. a week) instead of only after the repairs are made. We were left to guess as to which damage would be covered and which would not, and to worry that none of it would be covered. A slow, mysterious bureaucratic process is not a productive way to handle these kinds of situations.

First, a quick recap of the long saga: Gray's April budget proposal included a 0.4% tax increase on incomes over 200,000. Kwame Brown vowed to eliminate that, and swapped it out in favor of eliminating the tax exemption on out of state bonds, which no other state has.

The only reason the rest of the cuts-before-taxes councilmembers, like Mary Cheh and Jack Evans, agreed with the measure was because reinstating the exemption was on a list of priorities for spending future unanticipated revenue, at last some of which was indeed anticipated. But Tommy Wells wrangled an amendment to swap that item with restoring other cuts.

In any event, the next budget round had a bunch of spending pressures around Medicaid that pushed this item down the list. The replacement items aren't funded either, yet, and so the bond tax buyout still wouldn't have been had it stayed on the list.

Meanwhile, Mary Cheh said she would introduce an amendment to remove just the part of the bond tax for already-purchased bonds, and put back in an income tax, but only on incomes over $400,000. Yet she never introduced it, and instead passed a measure devoting some of DC's reserve funds to delay the bond tax by one year and make it non-retroactive.

Some councilmembers say she never really meant for the amendment to pass, and withdrew it after Mayor Gray whipped votes for it; she says it's because she feared Wells would round up support for some other change she didn't want.

What Gray vetoed was the bill that delays the bond tax. Now, if the Council doesn't act further, the bond exemption will go away even for already-purchased bonds, including on interest from 2011.

Kwame Brown still insists "people are tired of taxes and fees" even though a DCFPI poll found strong support for the original income tax increase.

Tim Craig writes,

Instead of a tax increase, Brown said he will probably push to establish a commission to explore potential cuts and savings to the city's budget. Brown said the commission would include government officials and citizens who will work to ferret out "wasteful spending within the government."

Say you were on that commission. How would you "ferret out" some waste?

It's become a familiar trope to say there must be waste. And there indeed is. But it's not so easy to just cut the waste, like most politicians pretend.

For one thing, some waste is an unfortunate byproduct of organizations. Even my former employer, Google, which constantly enjoys adulation from the press for being a great organization, has some people not pulling their weight. It's not a lot, sure, but even without obstacles to firing people, getting rid of anyone is difficult, unpleasant, and bad for team morale (especially because there's never unanimity about who the less productive people are).

In a private company, a lot of the waste is just hidden. That doesn't make it right, but the popular belief that anyone with half a brain could just take an axe to government spending easily is a little too facile.

On the other hand, there are indeed some clearer examples of people who aren't adding value to an organization. Most people I've spoken to in government agree and know who those people are; sometimes others share the same view, while sometimes the opinion varies from person to person.

Many agencies could benefit from strategic reductions in their staffing levels. Unfortunately, labor rules make it very difficult to eliminate people based on their performance. The standard procedure is a RIF (Reduction in Force), which has strict rules around removing the most junior people, or people based on their job category rather than their performance, and further rules requiring the agency to find new placements or rehire people if jobs open up.

As I've written before, I think it's detrimental to unions in the long run to stand against the general principle of merit-based firings. Better to push for least arbitrary process for evaluating employees, so that the firings are as fair as possible, rather than opposing the whole idea.

If the Council doesn't want to take this issue on, it may be very hard to find genuine opportunities to cut that haven't already happened. It's worth investigating. If Brown staffs his commission with thoughtful people who really are looking for good win-win solutions, it could come up with something. Though it's hard to have a lot of faith in Brown's ability to choose people on merit instead of for political reasons.

It would definitely not be helpful to have a Boehner-style commission that simply picks programs to axe. Most of the actual objectives the DC government pursues are worthwhile. If accomplishing them more efficiently is not really possible or not politically feasible because of labor issues, wholesale cuts are not the answer.

Such a commission also would not likely be able to find specific cuts between now and the beginning of the fiscal year in October. Brown may have to swallow the tax increase that most residents want, and then pursue longer-term efficiency gains for next year.

With so many projects at critical junctures at DDOT, the prospect of a brain drain is a major challenge for new permanent director Terry Bellamy, new chair of the DC Council Transportation Committee Mary Cheh, and ultimately, Mayor Gray.

In any sector, the best talent is attracted not just by the compensation and responsibilities of a job, but also by the opportunity to work on impactful, cutting-edge projects. When employers create an exciting vision, it attracts talent.

Do talented transportation executives no longer view DDOT as a good place to shape the future of urban transportation in America?

Kubly says he's been thinking of leaving DDOT for some time. He considered leaving after Adrian Fenty lost the primary, but stayed partly because of his admiration for Bellamy and amid encouragement from many quarters to finish the streetcar job he started.

However, he cited a general malaise at DDOT that has grown in recent months. Working for the DC government is not seen as positively today as it was a year or two ago. He said that people now say something like, "I'm sorry," when they hear he works for DC, following the many scandals that have recently plagued the government.

Will more talented people leave DDOT? Will the city be able to attract talented and energetic people to the many now-open positions at the agency? They need to hire (or promote from within) a deputy director to fill Bellamy's previous job, a head of planning to succeed Ricks, a head of finance to replace Treat, and now a head of mass transit for Kubly's job.

In addition, there are several key new positions created at DDOT in the budget, including ward planners and, perhaps most importantly, a parking czar.

These questions are no doubt weighing on Bellamy. DDOT is well-funded in the new budget. But funding positions isn't enough if a bad reputation for DC and low morale at DDOT dissuades talented people from applying.

Ultimately, DDOT is much more than Kubly, Ricks, Treat, Klein and Bellamy. There are scores of excellent, visionary, dedicated public servants working in the trenches, spending long nights reassuring nervous residents, crunching numbers, and designing innovative projects.

Instead of prompting accusations, these departures can and should be a turning point, an opportunity to reassure DDOT employees and rebuild any morale problems that may exist.

Mayor Gray and Director Bellamy need to reach out to DDOT's remaining talented planners, engineers, and analysts. They should give personal assurances that they are still committed to a vision for transportation that transcends politics. They should praise and reward those who take risks to effect change, and perhaps apologize for the way political scandals have dampened the mood at DDOT.

We owe that much to the dedicated planners whose work goes largely unnoticed by most DC residents, yet whose dedication is critical to making Washington a great city.

In a normal election, information would have been available through traditional media sources such as the Washington Post and local television news. Unfortunately, the special election attracted little media attention, the best of which was available exclusively online.

It would have been fairly difficult for a voter to learn about the candidates unless they were targeted specifically. As ANC 7C04 Commissioner Sylvia Brown has pointed out, only a small number of voters received personal attention from the candidates.

A helpful anecdote can be pulled from my own election day experience. An elderly woman approached me after voting, dismayed that she had never heard of most of the candidates. She was relatively new to town, so the campaigns weren't targeting her. And since she didn't have Internet access, she was relying on traditional media sources for information. She would have benefitted greatly from a physical voter guide.

DCBOEE should consider a hybrid system that allows voters to opt out of receiving a physical voter guide in favor of an online one. The Pew Center on the States recently found that such a system could provide significant savings, while informing a large number of voters. This would provide access to a voter guide that was conveniently tailored to their needs.

Current voters could be informed of the option through social media and Internet outreach. Voters registering for the first time or submitting changes to their registration status could note their preference while filling out necessary forms.

An online voter guide was a good cost saving option for this special election. However, a hybrid process would create long-term savings and provide voters without Internet access necessary information. Until the Internet access is more equally available citywide, the practice of publishing physical voter guides should be maintained.

An expanded Council could be beneficial in a number of ways. It would be more able to fulfill its state-like duties, while increasing the number of powerful advocates for under-served communities. It could blunt damage caused by ineffective council members.

Additionally, a larger Council would provide more opportunities for younger, less "politically connected" and more ideologically unique candidates to have their voices heard. And, it would increase the pool of qualified and viable candidates for citywide office (Mayor, Council Chair, Attorney General).

Shortly after the Pew report was released, Mike DeBonis wrote a piece for the Washington Post asking if DC was over-governed or under-governed. He argued that "With a 13-member council doing the lawmaking done by much larger bicameral assemblies in 49 states, the barriers to legislating are lower in the District than anywhere in the nation."

He went on to argue that such low barriers might result in the District "throwing legislative darts against the wall." A larger council could make legislation harder to pass, and result in a more focused legislative output.

The number of DC Council members is on par with American cities of similar size. However, other cities are also served by state senators and representatives. For example, in addition to Baltimore's 15 member city council, the city has 6 state senators and 18 state representatives advocating for its interests in Annapolis.

But the DC Council would not have to grow to the size of a normal state legislature in order to provide the city with a number of elected representatives more in line with its size and scope.

In a post on this topic from February, Richard Layman outlines a reasonable expansion plan which would have each ward electing two council members, with eight more plus an elected chairman being chosen on an at-large basis. A 25-member council would provide the benefits of a larger body, while avoiding the bloated size of some state legislatures.

Currently, every member of the DC Council serves as a committee chair. This situation is ripe for abuse and one or two ineffective members can cause major problems. A larger council would allow the most effective legislators to serve in leadership roles, while limiting the power of inexperienced or ineffective members.

A larger council would also have a positive impact on constituent services. Under the current system, a ward can be completely left behind if a council member neglects the needs of their constituents. If two council members are elected from each ward, residents will have more options when they need assistance and the negative effects of incompetent leadership will be reduced.

Currently, a common complaint from independents in DC is that Democrats hold too much power. If combined with other reforms, a larger council could provide alternative parties or less politically connected candidates with a legitimate chance to win seats. This could be accomplished with some form of Instant Runoff or Approval Voting. Both ward seats should be up for election in the same year, with the top two finishers securing seats on the Council.

This would encourage more people to run and make it easier for newcomers to compete against candidates with enormous personal popularity, name recognition, and fundraising acumen.

Hypothetically, if this change were applied retroactively to 2010 the council would include a member of the Statehood Green party, an Independent, and two Republicans.

A greater variety of candidates and council members would also provide for a deeper pool of qualified candidates for citywide office. By the end of the 2010 race for Council Chair many voters felt as though they were deciding between the lesser of two evils. There were few local politicians positioned to take on the weak field.

If the DC Council was twice its current size, and included eight At-Large members accustomed to running city wide campaigns, it is likely that more than one would have had the ambition and ability to win a city wide race for Council Chair.

It seems as though the city of Washington would benefit from having more elected representatives to tackle the unique challenges faced by its Council. I hope that if Mr. Mara, Mr. Weaver, or Mr. Biddle wins the election on April 26, they will continue to talk about this issue and advocate for an expanded council among their new colleagues.