Handouts and Hands Out
Why D.C. Schools Go Begging

By Colbert I. King
Saturday, May 31, 2008

When I think about the performance of folks in city hall, I repeat to myself, in a soothing tone, a slightly abridged version of French psychologist Émile Coué's positive autosuggestion: Every day, and in every way, the D.C. government is getting better and better.

Simply put, now that I'm in the autumn of life, I am trying to condition my mind not to worry too much about what the mayor and D.C. Council are up to. Without Coué's helpful formulation, I fear that I might conclude that the time has come for the good Lord to call me home.

What else to think?

Last Sunday's newspaper brought word that Mayor Adrian Fenty wants to hit up the private sector for $75 million a year to help pay for his high-stakes school reform effort.

Why not, you might ask?

The needs, you note, are clear. The total costs for renovations and simple maintenance of the public schools are well beyond the D.C. schools' $200 million annual capital improvement fund. The schools, as Fenty argues, must be fixed.

What's more, Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee says she knows exactly how to spend the $75 million, if only she could get her hands on it. Her plans, Rhee told The Post, are "truly transformative, different, outside the box."

Yes, stuff needs doing. Classrooms hunger for paint, cafeterias crave retiling, boilers need fixing, as do restrooms. Alarm systems and roofs cry out for repairs.

Which brings me to the reason my confidence in our city's leaders would be shaken, with all patience destroyed-- were it not for Coué's reminder.

Less than three weeks ago, the mayor and council gave away more than $56 million from the city's treasury -- without competitive bidding or close executive-branch scrutiny -- to a wide assortment of D.C. organizations.

As I noted in my May 17 column [" What D.C.'s Elves Do With Your Taxes"], public dollars will soon flow into the coffers of Ford's Theatre, the Washington National Opera, the National Building Museum and sundry nonprofits groups, large and small, deserving and undeserving. All courtesy of D.C. politicians. Some big-name groups are making out like bandits without having to resort to ski masks and hold-up notes.

Watching the city cavalierly give away $56 million in public money while the mayor goes hat in hand to the private sector for $75 million leads me to think terrible thoughts about him and his colleagues.

To maintain my sweet disposition, I keep repeating the mantra "Every day, and in every way . . ."

By my calculation, the mayor and council members elected to give away 75 percent of the sum the private sector has been asked to cough up to fix the schools.

If public education matters so much, why didn't His Honor and his council henchmen -- oops, henchpersons -- spend the $56 million on the school system instead of giving it to every grant-seeking groupie in a 10-mile radius?

(At this point, I must interrupt this column and slip into my alpha state, reposing with eyes closed and with my mind concentrated on the pleasant thought that in the not-too-distant by and by, everything's gonna be all right.)

Thanks for waiting.

Now, fresh and fully rested, with anger under control, I plow on.

Let's turn to the next item that would -- were it not for Coué's self-affirmation formula -- leave me depressed and with an upset stomach: the absolutely obscene proposal to spend at least $150 million of public money for a new soccer stadium.

Enriching the rich. That will be the outcome if the city gives in to Victor B. MacFarlane, the majority partner of D.C. United, who's lobbying for D.C. money to help him build a stadium that will make him even richer.

The city will be poorer if the mayor and council say yes.

But look at it from a politician's perspective: It means more freebies to share with friends. Those soccer stadium tickets will fit nicely with the 19 season tickets and two guest passes to stadium Suite 61 that city leaders hustled from the Washington Nationals. Not to mention the Verizon Center luxury suite they wrenched from Washington Wizards owner Abe Pollin.

Or the free lunches, drinks, dinners and banquet seats that they scrounge every day.

Our city fathers (and mothers) live large in the spirit of a 1928 limerick by the Rev. Charles Inge, which also captures the Coué method:

"This remarkable man,

Commends a most practical plan:

You can do what you want,

If you don't think you can't.

So don't think you can't think you can."

A government that only a disciple of Emile Coué could love.

kingc@washpost.com