Saturday, July 31, 2010
Energy-conscious riled by stores that leave doors open and A/C on
By Leslie Tamura
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 31, 2010; 1:27 PM
Christopher Moline was spending a sweltering afternoon with his son Nicholas at the Bowie Town Center mall when he noticed that the doors of Rave clothing store were wide open.
The cold air rushing from the store was refreshing, but it also made his temperature rise as he thought of all the wasted energy.
"I don't know about most folks," said the 42-year-old Bowie man, "but my father always told me to close the door so we wouldn't be heating or cooling the outdoors."
Leaving the doors open while running the air conditioner can increase electricity use by 20 to 25 percent, according to one power company's estimate. The amount wasted depends on location, weather and humidity.
"The equipment is working extra hard to condition a space that'll never be conditioned," said Sarah O'Connell, energy outreach coordinator of the Arlington Initiative to Reduce Emissions. "Businesses are paying extra to condition the outdoor air."
Moline made videos of the wide-open doors throughout the mall and posted them on YouTube. With his camera phone, he taped his conversations with managers, who often claimed that it was the store's general practice to keep their doors open. Open doors made it easier for parents with strollers to get inside, one associate said.
When Moline revisited the mall a few days later, one of the shops he had visited had a broken air conditioner.
"That is not a coincidence, man," said the former Marine, who said the broken system was probably a result of the store overworking it earlier in the week. In addition to being a father of three, a husband and a small-business owner, Moline has trained to be a U.S. Green Building Council LEED Accredited Professional so he can recommend and implement green-building practices in commercial interiors.
"I'm not a sandals-and-granola guy," Moline added. His interests are primarily clean air and energy independence, he said.
In New York, retailers who drain the grid by air conditioning city sidewalks can be fined. Moline and others would like to see a similar policy in the Washington area, or at least a public awareness campaign.
"We need to . . . get the word out: A closed door is a good thing," said Joan Kelsch, Arlington County's green buildings program manager.
The county's Environment and Energy Conservation Commission discussed the issue during a public meeting Monday.
"It is a pet peeve of mine," Bob Coyne, 50, a biologist from Arlington, told the commission. "It's a terrible and unnecessary waste of energy when air streams out into the street."
The commission decided to write to the Arlington Chamber of Commerce and to the county, advising them to start outreach campaigns and include closed doors as a criterion in future county recognitions of energy-efficient retailers.
"We can't fine them as of now," Kelsch said, "but we can encourage, incentivize, educate."
When Kelsch sees "irksome" open-door retailers, she goes inside and tells owners and consumers about the wasted energy.
"The more electricity we use, the more coal we have to burn, and that creates a lot of air pollution," Kelsch said.
On a recent afternoon, a walk down M Street in Georgetown was a mix of tropical heat and cool breezes flowing past doors held open by wooden yoga blocks, door-mounted doorstops, traditional rubber wedges and decorative rocks.
"Unless it's raining or snowing, we keep the doors open," said John Zittrauer, supervisor at the Lacoste apparel store. "It's just more inviting."
Uyanga Bold, working at the Sisley clothing store, said, "It lets people know we're open."
The scent of minty watermelons filtered through the open doors of Lush. The cosmetics company touts biodegradable and eco-friendly packaging, and according to Shama Alexander, environmental officer for the company's North American operations, it has considering installing on-site industrial compost systems in its stores and upgrading to more efficient energy and water systems.
Still, she said, "The issue of closing the doors has been a highly debated topic."
Lush products can melt, so managers decide how to control store temperatures, Alexander explained. But an open door is also a good invitation to shoppers, she added, directly affecting store traffic.
Ryan Wolfe, general manager of the Thunder Burger & Bar, agreed. "It's just a marketing blast of cool air," he said. At the climate-controlled restaurant, anything that could open was open to M Street: the wooden front door, the shutters, the windows.
Kelsch suggests that instead, stores simply post signs advertising their cool air.
Having two sets of doors -- one set that opens to a vestibule, and another that opens to the outdoors-- is another option, said Christopher Conway, an energy auditor and president of Conway Green Construction, based in Bristol, Va. Keeping the front set of doors open and the second set of doors closed helps the store look open and inviting.
Lululemon Athletica in Georgetown has two sets of double doors. "We get the best of both worlds: Save the Earth and get people inside," said Wendy Christensen, assistant manager of the yoga-inspired athletic lifestyle store.
But last week, as temperatures climbed past 90, both sets of doors were open wide.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Crime Down In DC?
D.C. police stats show spike in serious sex crimes
By: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
July 22, 2010
Sexual assaults across the District spiked nearly 50 percent in the first five months of 2010 over the same period last year, according to internal police documents obtained by The Washington Examiner.
From Jan. 1 to June 8 there were 82 sexual assaults in the city, up from 56 during the same period in 2009, the documents show.
But Chief Cathy Lanier told The Examiner that the document is a "preliminary report to be used in conjunction with and read within the context of all the reports and totality of the data available to us." The statistics, she said, are subject to change "for a variety of reasons, including late reporting, reclassification of some offenses, and discovery that some offenses are unfounded."
Lanier said when all classifications of sexual assaults are accounted for, including misdemeanors, there has been more than a 3 percent decrease when compared with last year. She did not elaborate when pressed to provide specific data showing the decline in sexual assaults.
Police union chief Kris Baumann said Lanier's formulation is designed to hide the number of serious violent sexual assaults.
"Sexual assaults are on the rise," he said. "If the department had aggressively informed the public of the danger, some people may not have become victims."
The difficulty is that there's different ways of measuring crime, said D.C. Councilman Phil Mendelson, whose committee has oversight of the police department.
There's always a conflict between the D.C. crime statistics the police department releases and those reported by the FBI. At the end of 2008, Lanier reported to the D.C. Council that violent crime had fallen over the previous year. When the FBI's uniform crime statistics came out in September 2009, they showed the number of murders, rapes, robberies and assaults had increased by 2.3 percent in 2008 from 2007.
Mendelson is sending a letter to Lanier that will "make the point that there needs to be a better explanation of these numbers."
Lanier said she's committed to providing "full and complete" crime information.
"If anything," she said, "more confusion arises because we do provide data in a variety of formats that allows people to analyze the data themselves."
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/D_C_-police-stats-show-spike-in-serious-sex-crimes-1002401-98961469.html
Youth advocates call for investigation into Nickles’ relationship with DYRS
By: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
07/20/10 12:35 PM EDT
Youth advocates are calling for an investigation into D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles’ relationship with the city’s troubled juvenile justice rehabilitation agency after it became clear on Monday that Nickles played a key role in a Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services leadership shakeup.
Before he became Attorney General, Nickles was the lead attorney representing a group of juveniles in a class-action lawsuit filed against the city that ended in a court ordered cleanup of DYRS, which is ongoing.
“As a lawyer for these youth, Peter Nickles may have a conflict of interest in conducting an investigation, then using it to urge the dismissal of Marc Schindler, whose leadership benefited youth in the system and community safety,” said Daniel Okonkwo, executive director of D.C. Lawyers for Youth. “We are asking the Inspector General, the Bar Association and the D.C. Council’s investigator to look into Nickles’ role in both this investigation and the replacement of interim DYRS director Marc Schindler.”
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/blogs/capital-land/youth-advocates-call-for-investigation-into-nickles-relationship-with-dyrs-98839159.html
Speed Cameras Collecting
D.C. speed cameras raking in record amounts of money
By: Liz Essley
Examiner Staff Writer
July 21, 2010
The District is hauling in a record amount from its speed camera tickets, but the police say it's not about the dollars.
So far, with four more months to report in the current fiscal year, the cameras have brought in $25 million. That's more than the total numbers for fiscal 2007 and 2008, and is $4 million ahead of earnings last year at this time.
“We are not doing this for revenue, but to modify dangerous driving behavior,” Police Chief Cathy Lanier told The Washington Examiner via e-mail Tuesday. “Safety is the primary objective. For the past two years, we’ve had the lowest number of traffic fatalities [40 in 2008, 33 in 2009] since we’ve been keeping record.”
Maximizing revenues clearly has been a priority, however, as the city deals with projected budget shortfalls in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Mayor Adrian Fenty submitted a budget that counted on taking in $40.7 million from speed camera tickets in the current year. For 2011, $56.8 million in revenue is projected, for a 40 percent jump.
The District has 10 fixed photo radar cameras and also added 12 mobile speed cameras in July. Currently in the midst of an "educational phase" in which speeders get warnings in the mail, the mobile cameras will start yielding real tickets Aug. 11, according to a police department memo.
John Townsend, spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, said speed cameras are issuing more and more tickets, collecting more revenue, and don't seem to be changing drivers' habits.
"The fact that you're not changing the behavior is puzzling to groups like triple AAA," Townsend said. "It seems that the District has been paying lip service to traffic safety, but people realize it's all about the revenue and they're not changing their behavior."
For a complete list of "Photo Radar Enforcement Zones" in the District, go to http://mpdc.dc.gov/mpdc/cwp/view,a,1240,q,548201,mpdcNav_GID,1552,mpdcNav,|31886|.asp.
The Washington metro area has a total of 274 traffic cameras, according to the camera-tracking database POI Factoryhttp://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/D_C_-speed-cameras-raking-in-record-amounts-of-money-1002069-98875199.html
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Good Article On Test Scores Report
Nothing But Spin from Rhee and Fenty on Spring 2010 DC-CAS Results
If you read the press release from the Fenty-Rhee Spin HQ, you would think that the (supposedly) wonderful test score rises under Rhee are continuing like gangbusters.
As usual, that’s not really correct.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Deals That Get Better And Better (What Shmucks)
City's options limited under Banneker settlement
By: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
July 8, 2010
The $550,000 settlement agreement between the District and Banneker Ventures prevents the city from reclaiming millions in previous payments and makes it impossible for the District to sue the company if investigators determine the contract was obtained through fraud.
The July 1 settlement reached by D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles and Omar Karim, a longtime friend of Mayor Adrian Fenty, ended a Banneker claim that the city owed the company $2.3 million on the parks and recreation contract. The D.C. Council expects to receive an independent investigator's conclusions on the contract next week.
Late last year, the council canceled the Banneker contract after it determined the Fenty administration had circumvented a law requiring the council to vote on contracts exceeding $1 million.
On Wednesday, D.C. Council members Mary Cheh, Harry Thomas and Phil Mendelson sent a letter to Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi requesting that he not issue payments on the settlement because it's still under investigation by the council.
"It's extraordinarily irregular and questionable to settle this without first settling all of the issues against Banneker and on top of that determining first whether Banneker should be paying us," Cheh said.
The settlement requires Banneker to pay its subcontractors a total of about $285,000, allowing the company to keep $265,000 on top of the $2.5 million it already received in a controversial Christmas Eve payment.
Nickles responded to the council members' threats to cancel the payments, saying "I don't think that would be lawful." He added, "it might lead to a test in the courts and they would have a whole bunch of contracts tied up in litigation."
A. Scott Bolden, who represents Karim, echoed Nickles.
"A deal is a deal," Bolden said. "Any effort to thwart these agreements that make sense and allow projects to move forward is extremely shortsighted and will undoubtedly lead to further litigation."
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/City_s-options-limited-under-Banneker-settlement-97968084.html
A letter from three City Council members to Mr. Nickles:
COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
THE JOHN A. WILSON BUILDING
1350 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, N.W.
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20004
July 6, 2010
Peter Nickles, Attorney General
Office of the Attorney General
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Suite 409 Washington, D.C. 20001
Dear Mr. Nickles:
We write out of concern regarding your recent decision to pay a reported $550,000 in settlement of a claim from Banneker Ventures. Your decision to settle at this particular time appears to be poor judgment and motivated by something other than the best interests of the District of Columbia.
As you are aware, the contract for work performed by this vendor was never submitted to, and thus never approved by, the Council. More importantly, a Special Committee of the Council is conducting an investigation into the contracting process, with conclusion of the investigation expected soon. Among the allegations is that Banneker or its subcontractors overcharged the District and failed to supervise properly the work done. The decision to pay this vendor prior to the conclusion of an investigation, prior to all the facts being known, for contracts that were not properly approved, and for work that may have been overcharged, is contrary to your duty to place the interests of the District of Columbia paramount to all else.
The contracting controversy has been marred since the public first became aware of it by a lack of transparency. The Executive, and particularly your office, have failed to provide sufficient detail about the contracting process, and prevented the Special Committee from questioning members of the Administration involved in the matter. District taxpayers are now twice injured by this matter -- the District having apparently paid an exorbitant mark-up when the contract was first issued, and now paying the vendor a large sum of money for no other reason than to bring this matter rapidly to a close. Indeed so far as we know no member of the Council has been given a copy of this settlement agreement, and we hereby insist that both the public and the Council know the terms of the deal you struck. We are particularly distressed that the best interests of the District will be compromised and that our ability to recover money for poor performance and perhaps even fraud will be lost. Accordingly, we hereby request a copy of the settlement agreement.
We have stressed, repeatedly, that the Attorney General is responsible for representing the public interest and upholding the law. For whatever reason, you still fail to grasp this, and your decision to settle this matter at this point is further evidence of that.
Sincerely
Phil Mendelson, Chairperson
Committee on Public Safety & the Judiciary
Mary M. Cheh, Chairperson
Committee on Government Operations & the Environment
Harry Thomas, Jr., Chairperson
Committee on Library, Parks & Recreation
