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Monday, August 5, 2013 2:42 AMSubject: The Mayor doesn't know his own public comment hearings?
Daniel
Goldon Wolkoff
1231
Randolph ST NE202-232-8391
To
all DC loving people,
I
told the mayor , on Kojo Namdi's Politics Hour on WAMU , Friday, we need parks,
and thousands of people want McMillan Park restored to serve our needs as a
Glen Echo type art/performance/ cultural recreation for "community
building". He sees all the hundreds of construction cranes as
"community building" and said he hasn't heard of people resisting the
development at McMillan. Wresting our own resources back from an out of touch,
uninterested group city officials, many directly corrupt and even criminal is
what HE AND A TINY CLIQUE of his appointees IS CONFRONTING US WITH!
So
the Mayor hasn't heard thousands of people resistant to the development at
McMillan. Maybe he lives in a delusional world of constant waste, and endless
new construction, where critical
environmental issues are all mitigated, or ignored. He wants to go on
damaging the environment right up to 2032 when his "Sustainable
DC
Plan" will make us the most green city in the country, yeah with the tiny
tree saplings all in a row, where
once stood our mature tree canopy. Maybe that's why the neighborhood
flooding has been allowed to damage our homes for so many decades, while
election after election, this crop of city council members play musical chairs
on the deck of the Titanic!
Maybe,
these are his deputies who ignored over 100 people pouring out their hearts ,
begging not to have OUR PARK "surplussed" at HIS public comment meeting. Maybe there was no video or any
other satisfactory recording of the public comment, because he is ignoring his
own meeting. Surplussing our $billion park to ten talentless developers,
architects, landscape architects and urban planners, all failing miserably to
rework an Olmsted treasure. Maybe they are delusional, and arrogant, that the
work of the founder of the American School of Landscape Architecture is easy to
just re-do any way you'd like! Maybe very few artists could take the Mona Lisa
down from the museum wall and rework it. Or Michael Angelo, and just save this,
delete that, etc. and still have a masterpiece. Maybe the ducking and shuffling
by this ""design team" at HPRB hearings is because these midgets
of urban planning are not capable of working with Olmsted, MAYBE! The fact that
they are not capable of anything with any world class level is OBVIOUS, and as
an artist myself with great integrity, it is absurd , the idea they can take
this pedestrian group of developments and interweave them with any acceptable
design, other than mish-moshing then on the site, discordant, and crowding,
just ludicrous. They were chosen after EYA had made a bribe( donation) to
Federal Prisoner Harry "Tommy" Thomas Jr. not a design competition.
DUH!
Maybe
that is what sets apart the "world class" site concept from , Miriam
Gusevich www.mcmillan park.com, work with the Collage City grads from CUA so
much higher, and above the garbage VMP is producing, and it's endless attempts
at re-design, on re-design, and on, and on, and on.
There
has been such a criminal waste, social injustice keeping this park off limits,
by a few city officials who have swollen heads, and huge irrational
self-images, who know about mega-construction companies and Development teams ,
but can care less about the people of DC. Or maybe there is nothing wrong with
keeping McMillan fenced off with barbed wire, cause the mayor thinks it's fine,
he told me on Kojo Namdi WAMU, Friday, the city has 7600 acres of parks. Well
if 1/5 is in this section of DC, then that's less than 1200 here and 6400 where
he spends our money to serve the wealthy areas with much more parks. His
response about all the dc park land, was about as arrogant a drivle as I have
ever heard.
He
doesn't know about the 13 months of testimony at HPRB, right in his office of
planning. Doesn't know about ANC resolutions, Bloomingdale Civic association
opposition, other neighborhood groups, Friend's of Mcmillan, Mcmillan Park
Committee active for 25 years, letters from National Olmsted Association,
Sierra Club, National Trust, letter from his own co-member of the DC city
council chair Phil Mendelson. The mayor doesn't know about testimony to Kwami
Brown Roundtable on Ward 5 Development opposed to this marginal charade, trying
to rework Olmsted's treasure. The mayor doesn't know what was testified at Michael
Brown's Roundtable on McMillan, before he was charged with accepting bribes
from the FBI.
The
mayor is up on swinging deals with all kinds of corporate interests, stadiums,
Marriot hotels, Taxi CabVISA companies ($70 million), Redskins training camps
where DC needs housing and services!
The
mayor needs to join his friends Brown, Brown, and Thomas , and resign before
indictment, who also brought us this misguided, wrong, wasteful, and failing
development re-designed 20 times.
Michael (indicted) Brown, and Kwame (indicted, convicted, and serving
his ridiculous pitiful little sentence), and Harry "Tommy" Thomas Jr.
playing Scrabble and Monopoly, doing yoga, arts and crafts and training seeing
eye dogs at the federal prison camp in Alabama for stealing, what we know of,
$350,000 from youth groups. These are the criminals who did win elections to
represent us, in our effort to secure the restoration of this park, for kids,
families, dc visitors, our own Glen Echo, of 365 days a year of art,
performance, theatre, and still have the services of a City Market, urban
agriculture, urban beach and much more in adaptive re-use of OUR existing
Olmsted Park.
The
mayor isn't at all held back by his massive $650,000 electoral fraud, bribes to
other candidates, three refusals to meet with the federal prosecutor, three top
campaign officials convicted and serving sentences, and an ongoing
investigation that is starting to look as FISHY as this set of corrupt
politicians. What is Ron Machen waiting for, our legitimate interests as
citizens are being disserved by his stalled investigation and we need to ask
WHY?
We
have three city council members running for mayor, Bowser, Evans, and Wells,
and David Grosso and Vincent Orange, and
Anita Bonds, Catania are our At-Large members, every one of these
""representatives" have to gain some GUTS, cause they are all
failing us miserably as is Kenyan McDuffie who is failing to even be a
NEIGHBOR!
They
all obviously must share the Mayors delusions and ability only to suppress our
legitimate rights.
Catania
wants the mayor to resign, but isn't lifting a finger to protect his
constituents from Mayor Gray's arrogance , and lieing, and corrupt suppression
of DC peoples long wait for decent
parks, rights to the same advantages lavished on NW at our expense, and common
sense. NOMA gets $50 million for parks, places like the RI Ave shopping area
are in desperate need of re-development but this arrogant clique are going
take McMillan. Waiting , and ready to be
restored for over 27 years, never answer to its exclusion from public use and
hand it over to ten talentless developer teams sucking at the pig trough of
public money, a $billion give away of OUR ASSETS, add $319 million taxpayer
expense subsidies.
There
is no limit to this arrogant, corrupt, dictatorial "symbiotic Relationship" swinging around our assets, resources and virtually
our healthy environment. If your so correct Mr. "unindicted" Mayor
Gray, hold a ballot referendum, for us the voters on McMillan, like in a
DEMOCRACY , are you AFRAID, and present all the options, not just your little
clique and criminal former council fellows pitiful process.
When
the entire thing makes no sense, is a grudging stupid failure and has every
possible thing wrong with it, all you 've got is keeping the citizens ignorant
of this RIP-OFF. McMillan is our
National Treasure, for our health and recreation, and our kids to play, and for
us to plant, and bike, and grow "community" it is not Mayor Gray's or
the DC govt's land, it is ours. You and the rest of these political hacks have
made such a mess and waste out of your so-called "stewardship", it
would be hysterical, if not such a serious and blatant affront to all DC
residents. YOU ARE FIRED along with DC
Council, that openly admits they don't even know anything about McMillan. When
you wake up and go to your job and give away billions in public assets, daily,
no wonder your an arrogant crew, each one.
We
need to fight, get the mayor punished for electoral fraud, get Catania, and
Cheh, who are so brave to call for his resignation, they need to straight
jacket this criminal, simply to protect us, and lead the city to a decent healthy
place with some environmental conscience. Stop the "clique
Tregoning", hell bent on filling
all the greenspace, cutting down the mature tree canopy and spending OUR fortune on sewer retention tunnels, instead
of real stewardship and responsible planning
and zoning.
Daniel
Goldon Wolkoff
1231
Randolph ST NE202-232-8391
http://www.adamsmorganstainedglass.com/
10 comments:
He probably doesn't know about the 1000's of people because there aren't 1000's of people and please don't quote the unverified signatures on that petition you had people signing in front of Big Bear
Wow. Histrionic diatribes win over very few people, dude.
Audio recording is here: http://thekojonnamdishow.org/audio-player?nid=23790
Caller starts at 27:41. I think the question could have been much more effectively phrased than the way it came out.
I think you underestimate the power of random capitalization.
the caller never actually asked a question and Kojo had to interrupt just to give the mayor a chance to address the statement. The caller seemed more intent to get on his soapbox then actually ask a question
Are you suggesting the "unverified signatures" are fake and that the people spending hours collecting them are frauds?
Yes..exactly. When I was at big bear/farmers market with my sister, who lives in Maryland, she was asked to sign the petition and no one asked where she lived or if she was a DC resident. I obviously told her not to sign it but took great notice of the fact that they were allowing anyone and any body to sign it, thus invalidating the whole petition.
Your characterization is harsh. It would be fraud if people were sitting in a room falsely signing names, or if people were changing addresses, or forging documents. Reasonable people may disagree about about whether people who don't live in the neighborhood should have their opinion have the same weight as people that do. But, since this is taxpayer-owned property in the nation's capital, I believe we should solicit opinions as widely as possible. I certainly don't believe the people volunteering should be slandered as frauds. It's not a petition to put someone on the ballot, which would require they live in a particular ward, it's a petition expressing gernal public opposition to building another Shirlington on taxpayer-owned land. This unique property overlooking the Capitol, the reservoir, National Cathedral, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception is already protected by historic and zoning rules that the City wishes to waive in favor of their crony corrupt developer buddies. Harry Thomas Jr went to jail for accepting money from EYA. Then, EYA gets this 25 acres of public land with no true competition? It's outrageous that EYA is being rewarded though they were complicit in a scheme that sent Harry Thomas Jr to jail. And, for you to call someone who cares enough about their environment that they volunteer their time to collect signatures a fraud because some of the signatures are from people not in the neighborhood is equally outrageous.
It may be harsh but it is the truth. As for Thomas and EYA we have no idea who was the one pressing for the funds. I have to assume that Thomas is the one trying to get money out of them cause he is the one sitting in jail. If you think the district attorney for this city only focused on Thomas and not EYA you are highly mistaken. When things like this happen I have to assume 2 parties at fault, until one reports the other. Thomas is in jail and not EYA president. Just because Thomas tried to squeeze money out of EYA doesn't implicate them in wrong doing. For all we know they reported it and that is why Thomas is in jail. I don't care how much time you volunteer for your neighborhood/environment, if your trying to use a petition to further your agenda which is exactly what FOM are trying to do. They are trying to make it seems like 1000's of people are against this and then they get people from outside DC to sign the petition and then try to present this petition as though all signatures are DC residents. They presented this petition knowing full well they did nothing to verify the signatures residency. That is fraud...to present information while knowing full well that the signatures aren't all what you are saying they are. FOM was looking for volume not truth and now they dance around waving their petition saying they have 1000's of signatures with the hope that no one will ask about the signatures. This is a common ploy of bait and switch. When they do this they are also calling the people of DC stupid. The gather these signature with the intent of putting it out there as though every signature is a DC resident and assume the people of DC are to stupid to want to see verification of these signatures residency. I don't appreciate being called stupid.
I NEVER called you stupid. I read your response, but still don't understand how you can say what FOM are doing constitutes fraud. When signatures are colected for any purpose, there is no burden on those collecting signatures to then 'verify' each signature. If fraud is suspected, signatures can be challenged if they feel to meet legal criteria. Again, in this case, there are no legal criteria because the signatures are simply an effort to educate and provide evidence of widepsread concern over handing over this taxpayer-owned property to wealthy developers with no competition.
Nor, do I understand your argument that EYA should be rewarded for putting money in the pocket of Harry Thomas Jr just because there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute them. If you think EYA paid this money out of the goodness of their hearts, well, I guess that would be consistent with your support for this process and the resulting massive development in our little neighborhood.
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