So Let's Start Acting Like We Have Some Power

Monday, May 21, 2007

Make DC Auto-Free!

The Moonie Times sez:

City Will Charge Georgetown Residents for Extra Parking
WASHINGTON - Monday May 21, 2007 6:14 am

Many Georgetown residents are upset that D.C. officials want to charge them a fee for parking in front of their driveways.

The effort to ease the neighborhood parking shortage is a six-month pilot project set to begin this summer. The Department of Transportation will allow Georgetown residents to buy a permit to block their own access.

DCDOT spokeswoman Karyn LeBlanc says officials haven't decided how much to charge.

Residents already pay $15 a year for permits allowing them to park their cars on blocks near their houses.

Al Wheeler of the Georgetown Kiwanis Club says D-DOT staffers have told him they could cost about $180. He says it's good that the city is bringing parking relief to Georgetown, but it's unfair to generate revenue at the neighborhood's expense.
Slangwhanger sez: Need to plow National Airport under, build a 27-story parking garage, have people park there and take the metro home to Georgetown or wherever. Make DC auto-free!

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Another Blog about DC Statehood

Strom is dead, already! Let's get on with it! DC Statehood is a perfect opportunity to restructure the District Government as well as providing full representation in House and Senate to DC citizens. It would also take DC out from under the paternalistic requirement of submitting all its legislation for Congressional review.

My statehood model calls for DC citizens to petition the Mayor, City Council, and Advisory Neighborhood Commissions to declare themselves the Territorial Governor, Senate and Legislature of the Territory of Ellingtonia. The Territory excludes a block of land having no residents that surrounds the Supreme Court, the Capitol, the Mall and the White House. That area becomes the Rump District of Columbia under full Congressional oversight, policing, fire, etc. The Territory then petitions Congress for admission as a state and, by majority vote with no Constitutional amendment foolishness, the deed is crowned with success.

Why Ellingtonia? Because it is fitting that at least one state be named after a black person, preferably a locally-born one who contributed to world beauty and civilization. [The eleven states named after individual people are George Washington (WA), King Charles II (NC, SC), King George III (GA), Queen Mary (MD), Queen Elizabeth I (VA, WV), King Louis XIV (LA), James, Duke of York (NY), Lord Delaware (DE) and William Penn (PA).]

More speculations, correspondence with elected officials, and other polemics about DC life will appear here as time and chance permit. The Slangwhanger-in-Chief is happy to resume his blogging smock and sandalled shoon for this limited purpose.