Alley
Homes Fight for Respect -- and Trash
Pickup
By
Lyndsey
Layton
They were
once Washington's slums -- crude buildings
tucked into alleys across the city where
the poor lived in such squalor that
Eleanor Roosevelt railed against them and
Congress made them illegal.
Generations
later, those tenements have central air
conditioning, stainless steel appliances,
assessed values as high as $500,000 and
owners who say alley living is a creative
solution to the housing crunch in the
nation's capital.
"We're
trying to create a safe, healthy,
nurturing environment," said David
Bernhardt, 34, a
carpenter-turned-developer who transformed
a derelict brick building in an alley
behind H Street NE into a two-story home
for himself and his two children.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/28/AR2006052800886.html
Unions'
Endorsement Methods Questioned
By
Elissa
Silverman
A DC Council
candidate is questioning top union
officials about their endorsement
processes, pointing to political
contributions made to local candidates by
the organizations before official votes of
support by rank and file members.
A. Scott
Bolden, a lawyer challenging incumbent
Phil Mendelson
for an at-large seat in the Democratic
primary, sent letters last week to the
presidents of the Service Employees
International Union Maryland/DC State
Council and the Hotel & Restaurant
Employees Local 25 saying that $1,000
contributions the groups made in March to
Mendelson
trouble him, given that the unions have
not officially backed candidates.
Last week,
Bolden said, he was interviewed by
representatives from the local service
employees union as part of its endorsement
selection process and spent many hours
responding to the organization's
questionnaire. The union, which represents
10,000 DC residents who work in health
care and building services as well as in
the public sector and nonprofit
organizations, and the hotel and
restaurant workers group, are seen as key
organizations that supply money,
volunteers and votes to campaigns.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/31/AR2006053102343.html
Candidates
Warned Against Empty Talk
By
Lori Montgomery and
Nikita Stewart
The five
Democratic mayoral candidates who vowed to
spend an extra $1 billion on affordable
housing and youth services without raising
taxes had better start digging for change
in the sofas at the John A. Wilson
Building. The Washington Interfaith
Network is prepared to "punish" the next
mayor if he or she fails to make good on
that promise, perhaps by pushing for a
recall election, said lead organizer
Martin
Trimble.
At an
unusual forum last week, council Chairman
Linda
W. Cropp,
council members
Adrian M.
Fenty
(D-Ward 4) and
Vincent
B. Orange Sr. (D-Ward 5),
former Verizon
executive
Marie C.
Johns and lobbyist
Michael
A. Brown stood before a crowd
of more than 800 WIN faithful and agreed
to push the group's agenda if elected.
As a
nonprofit organization, WIN cannot endorse
any candidate. But it can put more than
400 volunteers on the streets in an effort
to boost turnout in 45 targeted precincts
in the Sept. 12 Democratic primary, a
tactic designed to produce a show of
political force that would put the next
mayor on notice, Trimble said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/31/AR2006053100900.html
Williams
Seeks $53 Million More to Cover Budget
Gaps
By
Lori Montgomery
Mayor
Anthony A. Williams asked the DC Council
to approve $53 million in emergency
spending yesterday, including $750,000 to
create an "Office of Baseball" to oversee
ballpark construction and nearly $8
million to cover a massive shortfall at
the troubled agency that cares for the
mentally and physically disabled.
The request
also includes a grab bag of grants, such
as $200,000 for the Special Olympics,
$750,000 to pay off the mortgage on the
National Council of Negro Women
headquarters and $2 million to buy routine
equipment for Greater Southeast Community
Hospital.
And there's
an additional $6.8 million for a
trouble-plagued new city-run phone system
that so far has failed to generate
promised savings compared with
Verizon.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/31/AR2006053102191.html
Neighborhood Unites in Opposing Shelter
By
Paul Schwartzman
Cliff
Valenti is
part of a wave of young professionals
migrating to a long-tattered stretch of
Northwest Washington. Buddy Moore is among
the older homeowners who eyed the
newcomers warily, fretting that they would
price them out.
Now they
have found a common cause, one uniting
blacks and whites, renters and owners,
plumbers and computer experts: stopping
construction of a 170-bed homeless shelter
on Georgia Avenue.
After work
one night, Valenti,
34, traveled from his job as a software
developer to join a cluster demonstrating
in front of the site on the edge of the
Columbia Heights and
Petworth neighborhoods, where
Central Union Mission plans to relocate.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/28/AR2006052801078.html
Brokerage Indicator Points to Steady
Growth
WASHINGTON, DC-The latest release of the
Commercial Leading Indicator for Brokerage
Activity points to a net absorption of
industrial and office space for the rest
of 2006. Published by the National
Association of Realtors, the index was at
118.9 during the first quarter, rising .8%
from an upwardly revised reading of 118.0
in the fourth quarter.
The index is 2.7% higher than the first
quarter of 2005 when it stood at 115.7.
The first quarter index marked four
straight quarters of growth, with
improvement seen in 10 of the last 11
quarters. David
Lereah, NAR's
chief economist, tells GlobeSt.com that
such modest increases are good for the
commercial sector. "You don't want
overbuilding as we have had in the past."
Net absorption in the office and
industrial sectors in the fourth quarter
is projected to be 135 to 155 million
sf. About
$284.5 billion in additional commercial
construction is expected in the fourth
quarter, an increase of $17.4 billion
above the $267.1 billion recorded in the
first quarter.
http://www.globest.com/news/564_564/washington/146069-1.html [
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Market Action Slips
Away From Coasts
By Kenneth R. Harney
Could the real estate
action be shifting to the heartland, the vast swath of
middle
America that wasn't really touched by the
hyperinflationary housing boom?
That's what a new
statistical analysis of housing price cycles in 100
major metropolitan areas suggests could be over the
horizon. Its author, Christopher L.
Cagan, director of research and analytics for
First American Real Estate Solutions, examined
historical housing price movements and concluded that
metropolitan real estate markets can be classified into
three behavioral categories:
·
Linear markets,
where booms and busts almost never occur. Prices plod
along, year in and year out, gaining modestly. Local
changes in economic growth may nudge prices up or down,
but the moves rarely are dramatic. Much of the American
heartland fits into this category. Examples include
Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis; Houston; San Antonio;
Memphis; Atlanta; Cincinnati; Des Moines; and
Louisville.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052600808.html
Schemers Beware: The
Capital Gains Tax Man Is Not Easily Fooled
By
Benny L.
Kass
Q:
My husband and I have
owned our home for more than five years. We purchased it
at $460,000, and find its value today is around
$960,000, putting us at the $500,000 gain mark. We are
not interested in moving to a different home now, but
likely will want to sell our home in 15 years when our
children are grown and we are getting ready for
retirement. I dislike the idea of having to pay taxes on
any gain we receive, assuming
our selling price in the future will be more than
$960,000.
As we understand the
law, if we would sell our house today and buy the house
next door for $960,000, then in 15 years we would be
able to sell that home for at least $1.46 million
without having to pay any taxes on the gain. That would
allow us to use our $500,000 tax exemption today on this
house, then again on the future home, in effect getting
$1 million of gain tax-free. If, however, we do not move
and we sell our current home in 15 years for $1.46
million, assuming the tax law does not change, we would
owe capital gains tax on $500,000 of our $1 million
gain.
Could we sell our
current home to my parents for $960,000, report the
$500,000 gain as tax-free, then a week (or month) later,
purchase the home back from them for $960,000? Then in
15 years when we sell, our basis in the home would be
$960,000, ensuring that a selling price of $1.46 million
would give us another $500,000 of gain tax-free? The
only downside I see to doing this is the costs
associated with the paperwork (mortgages, etc). Does
anything in the law prevent this transaction, and what
are your thoughts?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052600807.html
Slates taking shape in House races
Thursday, June 1, 2006
Candidates for open seats in this year?s House of
Delegates races are trying to cozy up to their incumbent
counterparts, hoping the records of sitting officials
will lend credibility to their campaigns.
"That's what everybody?s angling for, obviously -
getting on those tickets," said
Adrion Howell, the county executive's county
council liaison. So
far, three seats are likely to open up in the House this
fall.
http://www.gazette.net/stories/060106/princou201709_31939.shtml
Facing the edge of voters' anger
Friday, June 2, 2006
ANNAPOLIS - If the 72 percent
electricity rate increase for BGE customers is a
political monster this election season, House Speaker
Michael E. Busch went into the belly of the beast
Wednesday night.
Busch walked the streets, knocked on doors and talked to
voters in East Port, the eclectic former fishing village
near downtown Annapolis.
Going door-to-door in Baltimore city and its suburban
counties -- like Anne Arundel County where Busch
represents the Annapolis area -- is a risky proposition
for incumbents these days. There have been widespread
reports of friendly faced politicians greeted with
slammed doors, cold shoulders and sharp tongues as
incumbents canvass neighborhoods in their bids for
re-election. All because of the impending electric rate
hike. The
General Assembly left town in April with no resolution
to the spike that will hit approximately 1 million BGE
customers in a month. The weeks following the session
have done little to produce consensus or relief for
angry ratepayers.
http://www.gazette.net/stories/060206/polia%20s193414_31957.shtml
Steele Absent From Bush
GOP Fundraiser
By
Matthew
Mosk
President Bush shuttled
into Maryland last night to help the state Republican
Party raise more than $1 million for a number of
high-profile 2006 races, but only one of the state's two
marquee Republican candidates joined him.
Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.
stood on a riser shoulder to shoulder with the
president, but the party's leading candidate for an open
U.S. Senate seat in Maryland, Lt. Gov. Michael S.
Steele, was absent. Steele had a scheduling conflict,
campaign spokesman Doug Heye
said. In a
speech to 300 Ehrlich loyalists, Bush focused on what he
said were the high points of the governor's first term,
including initiatives to promote charter schools and the
health of the Chesapeake Bay. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/31/AR2006053102213.html
2 Sides Hammer Ehrlich
On Guns
By
Fredrick
Kunkle and Matthew
Mosk
The Maryland governor's
race has hardly begun, and Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. is
under fire for his stance on guns -- from both sides.
In the past few weeks,
Democrats and advocates of stricter gun laws have
portrayed the Republican as a friend to gun owners,
dating to his 1996 vote as a congressman to repeal the
federal ban on assault weapons. Two years ago, they say,
Ehrlich worked behind the scenes to block a similar
assault weapons bill in the Maryland General Assembly.
But plenty of gun owners
say that although Ehrlich's almost four years as
governor have represented a welcome breather from the
kind of aggressive gun control initiatives enacted by a
succession of Democratic governors, they have been
disappointed because he has not done more for them.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/29/AR2006052901033.html
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Stuck at a Crossroads
Is Par for the Course
By
Aruna
Jain
It's no surprise to
office manager Sherry Kogok
that the intersection of Forest Glen Road and
Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring, near the ramps to
the Capital Beltway, is ranked as Montgomery
County's most congested intersection during peak
rush hours.
"I believe it," she
said from her office building, which is adjacent to
the intersection. "I look out there every day."
Then she paused for a
moment. "First of all, whoever designed that stupid
thing where you lose the right lane off the Beltway
-- it's a dumb setup," she said hotly, referring to
the lane that leads north from the Beltway on
Georgia Avenue.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/31/AR2006053101258.html
O'Malley Takes Race
To Duncan's Home Turf
By
John Wagner
A Maryland Democratic
primary for governor that has been dominated by
debate over Baltimore issues is rapidly spreading to
a second front: Montgomery County.
That is in part
because of fallout from Douglas M. Duncan's return
last week of campaign contributions linked to
disgraced lobbyist Jack
Abramoff, a story that has given new
ammunition to critics who say the county executive
is too cozy with special interests, including
developers.
But it also reflects a
strategic move by the campaign of Baltimore Mayor
Martin O'Malley. After months of largely ignoring
his rival, O'Malley has decided to spotlight
problems facing Duncan's jurisdiction.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/30/AR2006053001282.html
Prosecutor Announces
Bid to Replace Gansler
By
Steve Vogel
John McCarthy, the
longtime deputy state's attorney for Montgomery
County, announced his candidacy yesterday to become
the county's top prosecutor.
McCarthy, a county
prosecutor since 1982, is seeking the Democratic
nomination to succeed State's Attorney Douglas F.
Gansler (D), who is
running for Maryland attorney general.
At his noontime
announcement in Rockville, McCarthy highlighted his
community ties, including work as a teacher at Good
Counsel High School, a law professor at Montgomery
College and a basketball coach in Montgomery County
youth programs. His audience at the rally included
law enforcement officials, defense lawyers, local
politicians, former students and family members.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/30/AR2006053001197.html
Intercounty
Connector Gets Final Approval
By
Steven Ginsberg and Matthew
Mosk
Maryland Gov. Robert
L. Ehrlich Jr. stood on a patch of roadside grass
yesterday to announce that the
intercounty connector, a suburban highway
more than a half-century in the making, has gained
final approval from the federal government and that
construction would begin in the fall on the ground
beneath his feet.
The approval means
that Maryland has satisfied all environmental,
economic and community requirements and that it can
build the highway across Montgomery and Prince
George's counties. State officials plan to finish
the project by 2010.
The only remaining
obstacle is a potential lawsuit by project
opponents, who said they were unsure whether they
would pursue legal action. State officials expressed
confidence that the highway will be built -- and
soon.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/30/AR2006053000634.html
ICC could take candidates in either direction
Friday, June 2, 2006
With a ceremonial mulching of a single tree, Gov.
Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. on Tuesday made good on a
promise made four years ago to break the political
gridlock over the
Intercounty
Connector and start building the highway before fall
2006.
But if he thought 18 miles of asphalt would be his
EZPass to re-election,
one pollster is saying the governor might want to
plan alternate routes to a second term.
Although surveys show majorities support the ICC,
the surveys also show an underlying skepticism that
a $2.4 billion project like that is going to make a
difference in congested highways, said Steve
Raabe, principal at
OpinionWorks in
Annapolis.
http://www.gazette.net/stories/060206/polia%20s193412_31954.shtml
Leventhal
takes on immigration and his critics
Friday, June 2, 2006
On Tuesday morning, Montgomery County Council
President George L. Leventhal
heard his name on the radio and called in to
respond.
Leventhal's
name was being bandied about by WMAL radio (630 AM)
host Chris Core and his listeners on the subject of
illegal immigration, and the callers were angry.
The discussion stemmed from an e-mail
Leventhal (D-At large)
of
Takoma
Park sent in response to questions on immigration.
The e-mail says that Core and CNN?s Lou Dobbs have
found that the issue "inflames and excites their
audiences and elevates their Nielsen and
Arbitron ratings."
http://www.gazette.net/stories/060206/polia%20s193426_31963.shtml
Field of 14 meets deadline to apply
for Montgomery?s top planning post
Friday, June 2, 2006
The Montgomery County Council is likely to appoint a
new Planning Board chairman within five or six
weeks, council President George L.
Leventhal said Tuesday.
If the council keeps to that schedule, Chairman
Derick P.
Berlage, who withdrew
his bid for reappointment earlier this month, would
stay in place only a few weeks after his term
expires June 14.
The council will conduct public interviews for
Berlage?s replacement,
said Leventhal (D-At
large) of
Takoma
Park.
http://www.gazette.net/stories/060206/polia%20s193431_31968.shtml
Pressure of DC Real Estate Market Inspires
Decrepit Buildings' Evolution
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 29, 2006; Page A01
Contributions Made Before Members' Votes
of Support, Candidate Bolden Says
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 1, 2006; Page B02
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, June 1, 2006; Page DZ02
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 1, 2006; Page B04
Residents Fear Proposal for NW Homeless
Center Will Reduce Home Values
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 29, 2006; Page B01
Saturday, May 27, 2006; Page F01
Saturday, May 27, 2006; Page F12
Newcomers hope tying
their fortunes to incumbents will provide electoral lift
Politicians get an
earful from their constituents in person
Whether Unpopular President Will Hurt Md. GOP in
Question
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 1, 2006; Page B05
Middle Path Leaves Each Bloc Angry
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, May 30, 2006; Page B01
Annual County Report Lists Most-Congested
Intersections
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 1, 2006; Page GZ16
Baltimore Mayor Shifts Spotlight
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 31, 2006; Page B02
Democrat Has Been Deputy Since 1996
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 31, 2006; Page B05
After More Than 50 Years, Work on Montgomery-Pr.
George's Link to Start in Fall
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 31, 2006; Page A01
A decision is
expected within five or six weeks
