Address to DC City Council Member Kwame Brown

[Karl Rudder]

Mr. Kwame Brown, At Large

DC City Council

 

 

Via email I received your "newsletter" and your shallow referral to your scheduling upcoming "community meetings" in respect to the DC City Council Committee on Economic Development. Your newsletter went only as far as telling me of your "upcoming" meeting(s) to be held during the Spring.

May I ask if you and your staff have coordinated the specific dates, times and locations of such "upcoming meetings"? As you are the Chair of the Economic Development "committee" may I also ask if any of the members of the DC Economic Development Committee have already promised to participate with such meetings ?

The need for me to ask just these simple questions of who, when and where will the DC City Council be actively holding and participating with such meetings leaves an unfortunate question as to just how sincere you are in announcing such meetings. Sincerity = Measurable Results is the formula that I have for years very successfully shared with many students to motivate them to do more than just promise me to do their homework.

Your using only a monthly newsletter to announce upcoming meetings of the Economic Development Committee during Spring fails to express a sincere intent and I am sure will fail to stimulate measurable results.

Your newsletter very quietly whispers of your introducing legislation to the DC City Council to divorce any DC funds to be invested in any corporate exchanges with the "gov't" in Sudan continues your very self centered approach of emphasizing the "ME" of the DC City Council while totally failing to refer to and build the strength of the"WE" of the DC City Council. In the politricks of being a politician it appears you have very well mastered your ability to only speak of what you are trying to do rather than boasting of the cooperative effort that you've been able to stimulate and employ with your fellow members of the DC City Council for the benefit of DC residents.

You are a member of the Public Works Committee and an address to the corrupt regulation of the DC Taxicab Industry is not even hinted at with your most recent "newsletter". Need you receive permission from the Chair of the Public Works Committee before you express your view on an issue that you will be voting on as you are a member of that Public Works Committee? You may remember my giving you copy of the initial and still standing government and Court decisions that had denied, "any version of the zone system to replace meters in DC taxicabs". I provided that data to you before you were elected and you assured me that you would better share the Truth of this issue just as soon as you were elected. Last year went by with your crying to me that, "I'm sorry Mr. Rudder but I am not a member of the Public Works Committee." What's your excuse this year in refusing to address the corrupt "regulation of the DC Taxicab Industry?

Your brief and shallow reported effort to "urge" the NAACP to finalize their plans in moving their central office into DC impresses me as another opportunity for you to hop, skip and jump over the complexities of another issue. I remain fascinated that your newsletter fails to refer to your confidently expressing the concerns of any other DC City Council member who have joined you in addressing another very vital issue.

Your newsletter ends with sudden announcements of an upcoming meeting of your Economic Development Committee on March 15, 2007. I will do my best to attend that upcoming hearing. My objective will be to able to witness just how many members of the Economic Development Committee will be in attendance and will be active participants with those able to testify. How many members of the Economic Development Committee of the DC City Council will you anticipate being there Mr. Chair? Time will prove the accuracy of my impression of there not going to be not even one other member of the "committee" that you have been appointed to "Chair" in attendance to the upcoming 3/15/07 hearing.

Jim Graham was the only member to the most recent hearing of the Public Works Committee hearing and Harry Thomas Jr. was the only member of the most recent meeting of the Libraries, Parks and Recreation Committee.

My goal is to find out why are DC City Council members named to be members of a "committee" and yet the only hearings they seem able to reliably be able to attend are only for the "Committee" to which they have been assigned to be the "Chair".

Please respond to any aspect of this letter to you. I will do my best to share this letter with many other DC residents in hopes of being able to prevent you from boasting and bragging about your very shallow address to the social, economic and political oppression of the residents of Washington DC.

I know you may have read what I just wrote but what I doubt is whether you understood what I meant. A sincere response from you or one of your staff will dismiss that doubt on my part

[wiley]

Your newsletter very quietly whispers of your introducing legislation to the DC City Council to divorce any DC funds to be invested in any corporate exchanges with the "gov't" in Sudan continues your very self centered approach of emphasizing the "ME" of the

 

Karl,

What is the reason why the DC City Council is planning to break away business ties with Sudan? I would really be interested in this issue.

[Karl Rudder]

Wiley,

 

I suggest you direct your question to DC City Council member Kwame Brown. As a native Washingtonian I am far more interested with local concerns. At-Large DC City Council member Brown wasted my time to give me such a shallow referral to an element of his politricks.

Please share with me any enlightenment that DC City Council member Brown or any of his staff ever provide you on this issue. I seriously doubt that the Sudan gov't is near tears after hearing of only one DC City Council members using their name as he plays his newsletter politricks.

[Luke_Wilbur]

I contacted Kwame Brown's Office of Communications on this issue. Latoya Foye explained the Council member's resolution was for the District government to verify that its retirement funds are not be invested in Sudan. There is a growing Genocide Intervention Network that has a uniquely targeted approach to divestment, focusing on the most egregiously offending companies in Sudan.

 

Since the ultimate intent of Sudanese divestment is to protect the victims of genocide, it is important to tailor divestment so as to have maximal impact on the government of Sudan’s behavior and cause minimal harm to innocent Sudanese.

 

Divestment should therefore be targeted to those companies that meet all of the following criteria: have a business relationship with the government or government-created project, impart minimal benefit to the country’s underprivileged, and have expressed no significant corporate governance policy regarding the current situation in Darfur.

 

Such targeted divestment implicitly excludes the vast majority of companies in Sudan, including those tied to the agriculture sector, distributing general consumer goods, promoting non-oil related infrastructure development in underprivileged regions of the country, or involved in provision of goods and services intended to relieve human suffering or to promote welfare, health, education, and religious and spiritual activities.

[Karl Rudder]

I contacted Kwame Brown's Office of Communications on this issue. Latoya Foye explained the Council member's resolution was for the District government to verify that its retirement funds are not be invested in Sudan. There is a growing Genocide Intervention Network that has a uniquely targeted approach to divestment, focusing on the most egregiously offending companies in Sudan.

 

Since the ultimate intent of Sudanese divestment is to protect the victims of genocide, it is important to tailor divestment so as to have maximal impact on the government of Sudan’s behavior and cause minimal harm to innocent Sudanese.

 

Divestment should therefore be targeted to those companies that meet all of the following criteria: have a business relationship with the government or government-created project, impart minimal benefit to the country’s underprivileged, and have expressed no significant corporate governance policy regarding the current situation in Darfur.

 

Such targeted divestment implicitly excludes the vast majority of companies in Sudan, including those tied to the agriculture sector, distributing general consumer goods, promoting non-oil related infrastructure development in underprivileged regions of the country, or involved in provision of goods and services intended to relieve human suffering or to promote welfare, health, education, and religious and spiritual activities.

 

Luke,

 

I thank you for your insight into why DC City Council member Kwame Brown is active in making sure that DC retirement funds are not being invested in the Sudanese government.

As a very concerned resident of Washington DC I must admit that I would much rather be more familiar with how all DC City Council members are addressing the needs of their constituents of NE, SE, NW and SW Washington DC.

Mr. Brown is an At-Large member of the DC City Council and DC residents need to know how their Ward representatives are working with At-Large members about local needs and concerns.

I would like to ask DC City Council members to please provide in their upcoming monthly newsletters just one paragraph that will bring us up to date on just how productive that DC City Council member's involvement has proven to be in building the academic tutorial services for the children of the community/communities that they were elected to serve.

My years of background in Teaching GED with the DC Public Schools, Job Corp at Junior Village and the Cedar Knoll Youth Correctional facility has me being very sensitive to the fact that today many of our children in this country are having extreme difficulty in making it out of junior high school.

I would like to see DC City Council member Brown prove to be a model for all of his colleagues and provide just one paragraph on how successful he has been in providing active tutorial workshops for students and parents and doing his best at much better coordinating many programs that are aimed at improving the quality of public education that DC provides its residents.

I have been knocking on Vincent Gray's door in hopes of getting his attention on addressing the needs of the DC Public Schools and by email Mr. Gray informed me on 6/19/07 at 6:22pm, "We are working on Education Reform as you know and it is consuming a huge portion of our time."

I refer to such a manner of exchange as getting a political quickie. I would like to think that DC residents deserve alot more than just a political quickie from the new Chair of the DC City Council on this or any issue.

Edited March 24, 2007 by Karl Rudder