LE'ANDRIA JOHNSON & SNOOP DOG 2018 GOSPEL/ HIP HOP TOUR (28 CITIES)-(MY IDEA):
***** PROJECT IDEA - FULL MUSICAL TOUR OF GOSPEL/ HIP HOP ARTISTS, HEADLINED BY GOSPEL SINGER LE'ANDRIA JOHNSON & HIP HOP LEGEND SNOOP DOG.
***** DATES: AUGUST THROUGH NOVEMBER 2018
***** OBJECTIVE:
THIS 28 CITY, SOLD-OUT TOUR WILL BE USED TO INTEGRATE GOSPEL AND HIP HOP MUSIC TO REACH ALL AGES, ESPECIALLY PASSIONATE GENERATION Y POPULATION MUSIC LOVERS.
*******GET OUT THE VOTE:
THIS MULTI-CULTURAL MUSICAL TOUR WILL ALSO BE USED TO REGISTER VOTERS FOR THE 2020 NATIONAL POLITICAL ELECTIONS.
****** ELIMINATING POVERTY:
AT EACH LOCATION A CANNED FOOD DRIVE WILL BE HELD TO HELP FEED THE POOR.
CONCERT GOERS CAN BRING ONE CAN OF FOOD EACH TO DEPOSIT INTO LARGE BINS.
THOSE BINS WILL LATER BE TRANSPORTED TO FOOD BANKS IN EACH CITY.
FREE SCHOOL SUPPLIES CAN ALSO BE DONATED.
******* LOCATIONS:
ATLANTA, GA
ATHENS, GA
AUSTIN, TX
BALTIMORE, MD
BROOKLYN, NY
MANHATTAN, NY
CHARLOTTE, NC
CLEVELAND, OH
COLUMBIA, SC
COLLEGE PARK, MD
DETROIT, MI
DURHAM, NC
GREENSBORO, NC
LAS VEGAS, NV
LONG ISLAND, NY
LOS ANGELES, CA
MEMPHIS, TENN
MIAMI, FL
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN
NEW ORLEANS, LA
NEWARK, NJ
ONTARIO, CANADA
PORTLAND, OR
RALEIGH, NC
SELMA, AL
TORONTO, CANADA
TULSA, OK
WASHINGTON, DC
Gospel singer Le'Andria Johnson's pastor, Tim Rogers, says her irreverent criticism of the Church was "misguided passion" and he hopes Christians don't "throw her away altogether" because there is a place for her in the Kingdom.
"The Bible says if a brother be overtaken in a fault, if you're really spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness considering yourself," Rogers, a fellow gospel singer who leads The Hope Church in Blytheville, Arkansas, told The Christian Post earlier this week.
"A lot of preachers have called me to say she said things that they can't say. And they are sick of the politics of the church. Me and her did have a talk about her passion being guided because that's what I understand that it was the other day. It was misguided passion," he added.
Johnson won the hearts of Christians nationwide with her talent and candor when she won the BET gospel singing competition "Sunday Best" eight years ago.
Her turn in the spotlight has been punctuated by behavior that some Christians say is unbecoming for someone who professes to be a practicing Christian.
Johnson recently slammed the Church and Bishop Marvin Winans in a scathing expletive-laced critique. She also vented her frustrations with a Christian culture she described as hypocritical. Her outburst caused her to lose a booking for the recently concluded Essence Festival in New Orleans.
"You know what I'm tired of though? ... I'm tired of being Le'Andria Johnson that y'all know of," she said. "And Ima tell you like this: I could be on a Kirk Franklin level. I could be on a Mary level. Yolanda Adams, Marvin Sapp, Fred Hammond. All the gospel greats ... all the R&B. Beyoncé, Brandy. ... If I played the game, I could really be on that level. I could, but I'm not 'bout playin' no games, though."
It was after that outburst that Essence organizers reportedly removed Johnson from a slated tribute to Dottie Peoples. She said she wasn't going to pretend to be someone she wasn't just to become a gospel superstar and called out Church leaders for being hypocritical while dismissing the Church as a business.
Johnson apologized on Monday for her delivery but remained unrepentant about her criticism of the machinery behind Christian culture.
"You know Christianity, it's just a lot that's going on. So the way I said it, using the F-bomb, I apologize to the fans of mine that do go to church. I do apologize if I've offended you," she said.
Rogers explained that while he had not seen the videos of Johnson's rants online, he spoke with her about them and said he encouraged the apology.
"She is a member of our church. So she called me and she told me what happened. She told me what she said. She asked me did I look at it. She told me she was coming home to come to church. We had a chance to sit down. I know Le'Andria. I know her heart. A lot of people in the world they only know her by her gifting. And this is something I'm learning about the Church," he said.
"The Church will accept your gifts but they really don't want that person. That's why when the person is singing you ignore the gifts. And the gift is alright. It makes us feel good until we know who you really are. Le'Andria is a nice person. She means well. She just doesn't have a filter. And she has a lot of learning to do," he said.
"I think she is a wonderful person and I still think she has a place in the kingdom. She just doesn't fit well in a box. And you know religion has a way of boxing you in that you can only be this. You can never be anything other than that. In order to be accepted in this circle you can only be this and you can only talk like this. Well Le'Andria is not that person. But she's learning. I just hope the church doesn't throw her away altogether," Rogers said.
The highest African American unemployment rate is in the District of Columbia at 12.9 percent, while the highest white unemployment rate is in West Virginia at 5.2 percent.
In the first quarter of 2018, African American workers had the highest unemployment rate nationally, at 7.2 percent, followed by Hispanic (5.1 percent), white (3.3 percent), and Asian workers (3.0 percent).1
This report provides a state-by-state breakdown of unemployment rates by race and ethnicity and racial/ethnic unemployment rate gaps for the first quarter of 2018. It shows that while there have been state-by-state improvements in prospects for black and Hispanic workers, their unemployment rates remain high relative to those of white workers. Following are some key highlights of the report:
While the African American unemployment rate is at or below its pre-recession level in 17 states (of the 22 states and the District of Columbia for which these data are available), in 14 states and the District of Columbia, African American unemployment rates exceed white unemployment rates by a ratio of 2-to-1 or higher.
The District of Columbia has the highest black–white unemployment rate ratio overall, at 8.5-to-1, while South Carolina and Maryland have the highest ratios among states (3.2-to-1 and 2.8-to-1, respectively).
The highest African American unemployment rate is in the District of Columbia (12.9 percent), followed by Illinois (9.1 percent) and New Jersey (9.0 percent). The highest Hispanic state unemployment rate is in Connecticut (10.0 percent). In contrast, the highest white state unemployment rate is 5.2 percent, in West Virginia.
While the Hispanic unemployment rate is at or below its pre-recession level in 13 states (of the 16 states for which these data are available), there is no state where the Hispanic unemployment rate is lower than the white rate.
In five states and the District of Columbia, Hispanic unemployment rates exceed white unemployment rates by a ratio of 2-to-1 or higher (Connecticut, 3.4-to-1; Massachusetts, 2.1-to-1; Washington, 2.1-to-1; Colorado, 2.0-to-1; District of Columbia, 2.0-to-1, and Idaho, 2.0-to-1).
Background
In March 2018, the national unemployment rate was 4.1 percent, unchanged from at the end of the fourth quarter of 2017.2 State unemployment rates in March ranged from a low of 2.1 percent in Hawaii to 7.3 percent in Alaska.3 According to a previous EPI analysis of unemployment by state, from December to March 2018, 25 states and the District of Columbia saw their unemployment rates decline, 7 states saw unemployment rates rise, and 18 states saw no change.
State unemployment rates, by race and ethnicity
EPI analyzes state unemployment rates by race and ethnicity, and by racial/ethnic unemployment rate gaps, on a quarterly basis to generate a sample size large enough to create reliable estimates of unemployment rates by race and ethnicity at the state level. We only report estimates for states for which the sample size of these subgroups is large enough to create an accurate estimate. For this reason, the number of states included in our map and data tables varies based on the analysis performed (unemployment rate, change in unemployment rate since the fourth quarter of 2007, and ratio of African American or Hispanic unemployment rate to white unemployment rate).
Trends among white workers
In the first quarter of 2018, the white unemployment rate was lowest in the District of Columbia (1.5 percent) and highest in West Virginia (5.2 percent), as shown in the interactive map and underlying data, which present state unemployment rates by race and ethnicity. Among states, North Dakota had the lowest unemployment rate for white workers (1.9 percent).
Trends among African American workers
African American unemployment rate estimates are available for 23 states and the District of Columbia.
During the first quarter of 2018, among states, the African American unemployment rate was lowest in Indiana (4.8 percent) and highest in Illinois (9.1 percent); in the District of Columbia, it was 12.9 percent. The District of Columbia also had the highest black unemployment rate during the previous six quarters.
In the first quarter of 2018, of the 23 states with African American unemployment rate estimates, all had black unemployment rates below 10 percent; in 14 of these states, the rate was at or below the first quarter national average for African American workers (7.2 percent).
The black unemployment rate in the first quarter of 2018 was at or below its pre-recession level in 17 states: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.
(Data on the change in black unemployment over this period are available for 22 states and the District of Columbia).
However, all states except for Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas have black labor force participation rates that were lower in the first quarter of 2018 than at the end of 2007, indicating that the return to pre-recession levels of unemployment in these states was not a full recovery for African American workers because not all discouraged job seekers have returned to the market.5
Trends among Hispanic workers
Hispanic unemployment rate estimates are available for 23 states and the District of Columbia, and data on changes in Hispanic unemployment rates since the fourth quarter of 2007 are available for 16 states. In the first quarter of 2018, among states, the Hispanic unemployment rate was highest in Connecticut (10.0 percent) and lowest in Arkansas and Virginia (both at 3.3 percent).
The Hispanic unemployment rate was 3.1 percent in the District of Columbia. Connecticut and Washington were the only states with Hispanic unemployment rates above 8.0 percent in the first quarter.
The Hispanic unemployment rate is at or below its pre-recession level in 13 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia. The Hispanic unemployment rate was most elevated above its pre-recession level in Washington (by 2.3 percentage points).
In no state was the Hispanic unemployment rate lower than the white unemployment rate. In Arkansas, the Hispanic unemployment rate and white unemployment rate were exactly the same (3.3 percent). The ratio of Hispanic unemployment to white unemployment was highest in Connecticut (3.4-to-1), Massachusetts (2.1-to-1), and Washington (2.1-to-1).
Trends among Asian workers
Asian unemployment rate estimates are available for 10 states, and data on the change in Asian unemployment rates since the fourth quarter of 2007 are available for seven states. For the third consecutive quarter, the Asian unemployment rate was lowest in Hawaii (1.6 percent). The highest Asian unemployment rate was in Massachusetts (6.2 percent).
The Asian unemployment rate was at or below its pre-recession level in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New York, Texas, and Washington. In only one state—New Jersey—was the Asian unemployment rate was more than 2 percentage points above its pre-recession level (at 2.6 percentage points higher).
Methodology
The unemployment rate estimates in this report are based on the Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) and the Current Population Survey (CPS) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The overall state unemployment rate is taken directly from the LAUS. CPS six-month ratios are applied to LAUS data to calculate the rates by race and ethnicity.
For each state subgroup, we calculate the unemployment rate using the past six months of CPS data. We then find the ratio of this subgroup rate to the state unemployment rate using the same period of CPS data. This gives us an estimate of how the subgroup compares with the state overall.
While this methodology allows us to calculate unemployment-rate estimates at the state level by race and ethnicity by quarter, it is less precise at the national level than simply using the CPS. Thus, the national-level estimates may differ from direct CPS estimates.
In many states, the sample sizes of particular subgroups are not large enough to create accurate estimates of their unemployment rates. We report data only for groups that had, on average, a sample size of at least 700 in the labor force for each six-month period.
WASHINGTON DC’s LAME 2018 MEMORIAL DAY PICNIC (VA):
VA CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES DON’T REALLY GIVE A DARN ABOUT OUR NATION’S U.S. MILITARY VETS.
MANY CIVILIAN VA EMPLOYEES SECRETLY BELIEVE OUR NATION’S VETS DON’T DESERVE TO BE HONORED FOR THEIR SACRIFICE & SERVICE.
Post Sources: VA, Youtube
Thursday, May 24, 2018 the VA Vet Center in Washington DC hosted a Memorial Day picnic for our nation’s Vets.
What a shame it was held in a Parking lot without any Tents in the HOT Sun.
In addition the event ran out of Food early causing many Vets some of whom were in wheelchairs, to wait for extended periods of time in the HOT Sun for Food and Water.
I’m sure this VA Center most likely received $5,000 or more from the Veterans Affairs Administration for this event but in reality only about $500 was spent on this event, if that much.
So where is the remaining money?
It will be used on an Awesome Memorial Day picnic for the Civilian employees.
I wonder just how much Federal money Vet Centers across the country annually receive from the Veterans Affairs Administration that is NOT actually being properly allocated to help our deserving Vets??
This needs to be investigated and every Vet Center needs to be Audited.
What a shame because our nation’s Vets deserve so much more for their Sacrifice & Service.
Sources: CNBC News, PBS News, Washington Post, Youtube
***** Thousands gather to march for gun control and spark activism
Organizers of the "March for Our Lives" rally in Washington hoped their protest would match in numbers and spirit last year's women's march.
After the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, students have tapped into pro-gun control sentiment that has been building for years.
Organizers hope the passions of the crowds and the under-18 roster of speakers will translate into a tipping point starting in the midterm elections this year.
Summoned by high school students swept up in school violence, thousands swarmed into the nation's capital and cities across America on Saturday to march for gun control and ignite political activism among the young.
Organizers of the "March for Our Lives" rally in Washington hoped their protest would match in numbers and spirit last year's women's march, one of the largest Washington protests since the Vietnam era and one that far exceeded predictions of 300,000 demonstrators.
By 11:00 a.m., large crowds had already started to gather in the nation's capital.
Bearing signs reading "We Are the Change," "No More Silence," "Keep NRA Money Out of Politics," protesters lined Pennsylvania Avenue from the stage near the Capitol, stretching back toward the White House.
The route also takes in the Trump International Hotel. President Donald Trump was in Florida for the weekend; a motorcade took him to his West Palm Beach golf club on Saturday morning.
After the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, students have tapped into a current of pro-gun control sentiment that has been building for years -- yet still faces a powerful counterpoint from supporters of gun rights.
Organizers hope the passions of the crowds and the under-18 roster of speakers will translate into a tipping point starting in the midterm elections this year.
People flocked, too, to a "March for Our Lives" event near the Parkland school where the massacre happened. Police presence was heavy as organizers set up and demonstrators streamed in.
Eden Kinlock, 17, came from 20 miles away to pass out water, "a small thing but it helps in the bigger picture." Many Parkland students came to the Washington rally.
Washington is generally nonchalant about protests, but Saturday's gathering prompted more attention and speculation than usual.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Lindsay Walters released a statement on Saturday in support of the protesters.
"We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today.
Keeping our children safe is a top priority of the President¹s, which is why he urged Congress to pass the Fix NICS and STOPSchool Violence Acts, and signed them into law. Additionally, on Friday, the Department of Justice issued the rule to ban bump stocks following through on the President¹s commitment to ban devices that turn legal weapons into illegal machine guns," Walters said in a statement.
The protesters, many of them high school students, claim that the youth leadership of this initiative is what will set it apart from previous attempts to enact stronger gun-control legislation.
Polls indicate that public opinion nationwide may indeed be shifting on an issue that has simmered for generations, and through dozens of mass shootings.
A new poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 69 percent of Americans think gun laws in the United States should be tightened.
That's up from 61 percent who said the same in October of 2016 and 55 percent when the AP first asked the question in October of 2013.
Overall, 90 percent of Democrats, 50 percent of Republicans and 54 percent of gun owners now favor stricter gun control laws.
But even with claims of historic social momentum on the issue of gun control, the AP poll also found that nearly half of Americans do not expect elected officials to take action.
Among the questions facing march organizers and participants will be how to translate this one-day event, regardless of turnout, into meaningful legislative change.
One way is by channeling the current energy into the midterm congressional elections this fall.
Students in Florida have focused on youth voter registration and there will be a registration booth at the Saturday rally.
METRO DC BUDGET CUTS FORCES SYSTEM REFORM (TRUMP):
SLASHING METRO DC’S FEDERAL FUNDING WILL ALSO HELP ELIMINATE SYSTEMIC WASTE, FRAUD & POOR REGIONAL PLANNING.
BUDGET CUTS FORCES METRO DC TO MOVE INTO THE 21st CENTURY.
WILL METRO DC RETALIATE AGAINST MEDIA OUTLETS WHICH REPORT ON SYSTEMIC WASTE OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS?
GIVING METRO DC & WMATA MORE MONEY IS NOT THE ANSWER.
REFORMING AND RESTRUCTURING METRO DC IS THE ANSWER.
ALL METRO ACCESS DRIVERS SHOULD HAVE CDL LICENSES.
ALL DISPATCHERS SHOULD BE WMATA DISPATCHERS NOT CONTRACTORS.
ALL FARES SHOULD BE REASONABLE & AFFORDABLE.
METRO DC SHOULD OPERATE 24-HOURS.
TRAIN ALL WMATA & METRO EMPLOYEES ON SEXUAL HARASSMENT POLICIES.
Sources: Washington Post, WTOP, Youtube
****** Trump administration budget trims Metro subsidy instead of killing it, as feared
Metro got a little good news Monday when President Trump’s budget proposed to trim the agency’s federal subsidy to $120 million from $150 million rather than eliminate it, as feared.
But the White House and the Transportation Department also warned that they want to shrink federal support for Metro, at a time when the region’s top elected officials of both parties are seeking to increase such backing.
The office of Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) said earlier this month that the Trump administration planned to omit a critical grant for the transit agency from its budget for the 2019 fiscal year.
It wasn’t clear Monday whether the White House had changed its mind, possibly under pressure from Congress, or whether Warner and others had misread or overstated the administration’s intentions.
Either way, the Trump administration made clear it hopes the $30 million reduction is only the beginning of a decline in federal spending on Metro.
“The administration does believe that long-term, [the] federal role needs to be lessened, and reducing the federal contribution reflects that,” an Office of Management and Budget official said. “Federal direct subsidies and oversight should be curtailed.”
A Transportation spokeswoman said in a statement that “it makes sense for the Department to scale down” funding for Metro. The statement cited “constrained resources,” Metro’s advances in fixing safety issues, and progress in the District, Maryland and Virginia in raising funds on their own.
Warner and other local officials have been pressing the administration both to provide full federal funding for Metro and to increase such support. Two of the region’s top Republican officials — Rep. Barbara Comstock (Va.) and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan — have urged increased federal funding if Metro meets certain conditions.
Warner raised the alarm previously that the White House might scrap the Metro subsidy altogether. He said the administration believed the 10-year federal grant program for Metro has expired and cited a Federal Transit Administration briefing to Congress in the spring of 2017 that made that point.
OMB and the Transportation Department appeared to differ on that issue Monday. OMB said the authorization expires in 2019.
Transportation said it expires in fiscal 2018, but the White House proposes to continue direct funding at $120 million in fiscal 2019 anyway.
Metro welcomed Monday’s budget news and said it would work in Congress to reverse the proposed $30 million cut. Any reduction in funding would complicate Metro’s financial picture at a time when the agency is pushing for the federal grant program to be renewed to meet its considerable capital needs.
The grant money is used to purchase new rail cars, pay for track upgrades and replace aging equipment. The grant is part of the 2008 Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act, known as PRIIA.
“We appreciate the Administration’s recognition of the important safety and reliability investments Metro requires, as well as this acknowledgment of the critical role the system plays in the nation’s capital,” a Metro spokeswoman said in a statement. “We will continue to work with our congressional delegation and leadership on the Hill to ensure the full $150 million PRIIA funding is included in the federal FY19 appropriations.”
Warner sought to claim some credit Monday for what he portrayed as a reversal.
“Not long ago, the Administration was planning to zero out funding for [Metro] in its budget request to Congress,” Warner said in a statement. “I, along with other members of the Capital Region delegation, publicly pushed the Administration to honor the federal government’s ten-year commitment to Metro.
We’ll keep up the fight in Congress to ensure that Metro receives the full $150 million in federal funds that they are owed for the next fiscal year.”
The FTA’s position last spring that the 10-year Metro funding program expires this year was based on a technicality in the wording of the bill.
It appeared to leave open the possibility that the authorization ends in the current fiscal year. But the FTA also said that Congress could extend the authorization to make sure Metro got the full allotment.
“Every indication from the administration was that they were strongly considering omitting the funding from the budget request,” Warner spokeswoman Rachel Cohen said.
Comstock, the only Republican in Congress who represents a jurisdiction in the immediate Washington area, said she had not heard from anyone except Warner and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) that the White House was considering omitting the Metro grant.
“I’m not sure what happened there,” Comstock said. “As we have in the past, we’ll fight for the full $150 million.”
Warner issued the warning about the administration’s plans at the same time that he, Kaine, and the two Democratic senators from Maryland — Chris Van Hollen and Benjamin L. Cardin — wrote to OMB Director Mick Mulvaney and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao urging continuation of the PRIIA funds.
A partisan split in the Washington area’s congressional delegation over how to increase federal funding for Metro has raised concerns that the lack of unity will lead Congress to balk at giving the transit system critically needed support.
The division emerged Tuesday when Democratic House members from the area filed a Metro funding bill that would double the federal subsidy to the transit agency and be more friendly to its unions than legislation proposed by Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock (Va.).
The House bill, a copy of which was obtained in advance by The Washington Post, would raise the federal contribution to the transit agency from $150 million a year to $300 million a year for 10 years. Comstock’s bill would increase it by 50 percent, to $225 million annually.
The Democrats’ legislation also would provide a federal subsidy for Metro’s operating costs. That would be a significant change. The grants Metro receives — such as other direct federal subsidies for public transit — pay only for capital investments.
In perhaps the most important difference from Comstock’s bill, the Democrats’ legislation would not require the creation of a five-member reform board with power to revise existing union contracts and take other steps to restrain labor costs.
Instead, it addresses concerns about Metro’s performance by requiring that the agency to strengthen its Office of the Inspector General and meet targets for safety, reliability and cost efficiency as conditions for receiving the extra money.
“The other bill almost reads punitive when it comes to labor unions and the workforce,” said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (Va.), the lead sponsor of the Democratic legislation. “We don’t tell Metro they have to vitiate existing labor contracts,” or weaken pension guarantees or limit overtime, as Comstock’s bill does, he said.
Connolly said his bill has support throughout the Washington region. Co-sponsors, all Democrats, include Reps. Anthony G. Brown, Steny H. Hoyer, Jamie Raskin and John Sarbanes, all of Maryland; Rep. Don Beyer (Va.); and D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton.
But Comstock’s bill, which she filed in December, has the advantage of being sponsored by a member of the party that controls both the House and the Senate. Her bill, which was drafted in consultation with regional business leaders, including some Democrats, also reflects their support for replacing the 16-member Metro board with a reform board designed to improve the agency’s governance.
Comstock defended her bill in a statement Tuesday and faulted the Democrats’ legislation for not requiring specific management reforms on pensions and overtime supported by Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld.
“Throwing billions more at Metro without defined reforms is a dead-on-arrival strategy,” Comstock said. “It’s unfortunate that in the nine years it took Gerry Connolly to write an eight-page bill, he failed to include any of the substantial management, financial or pension reforms advocated on a bipartisan basis by numerous transportation experts and Metro advocates who have been working for years to seriously improve and reform the system.”
The differences between the parties’ bills aggravated concerns among Metro supporters that Congress will be reluctant to endorse a package that lacks unified support from the region.
“What’s so discouraging about this is, it really undercuts the bipartisan necessity of getting a federal funding source for Metro,” said Gus Bauman, a former chairman of the Maryland Blue Ribbon Transportation Funding Commission. “To have an all-Democratic bill and an all-Republican one does no one any good.”
The Democrats’ decision to take on Comstock appears aimed in part at hurting her chances of positioning herself as an effective champion of Metro when she seeks reelection in November. Comstock, whose Northern Virginia district has been trending Democratic, is viewed as vulnerable.
“I don’t know their true motivations, but they must be intensely aware that giving a major victory on Metro funding to Barbara Comstock would be an enormous benefit to her reelection chances this year,” said Mark J. Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.
MetroNow, a coalition of leading business groups and nonprofit organizations, issued a statement applauding Connolly’s leadership, but warned that the region’s politicians need to work together on Metro.
“This is a critical time when our leaders must collaborate instead of compete against one another,” the group said.
While the region’s federal representatives trade jabs, there have been signs recently of a narrowing of partisan differences in Maryland and Virginia, where state lawmakers are considering bills to provide Metro with dedicated funding.
Numerous political obstacles remain to the legislation in both states, but many Metro supporters and political veterans say there is unprecedented momentum for change. The federal bickering adds another hurdle.
The Democrats’ position partly reflects their desire to represent the interests of labor, an important part of their political base.
Brown noted that his congressional district, which includes portions of Prince George’s County, is home to more Metro workers than any other, and said “they deserve a voice” in the debate about the agency.
“It’s mistaken to believe that Metro’s problems are excessive labor costs,” Brown said. “I don’t think you need to mess around with their pensions and arbitration, or somehow blow up or reform the board, and think that’s going to solve it.”
The Connolly and Comstock bills have one thing in common: They call for extending and increasing a $150 million annual federal subsidy for Metro that is scheduled to expire after the fiscal year ending in 2019.
Connolly’s bill would do so in two steps.
First, it would extend the program, part of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act (PRIIA), for 10 years and increase the subsidy to $200 million a year. Of that, $150 million would continue to be for capital investment. The District, Maryland and Virginia would continue making a matching contribution totaling $150 million.
The additional $50 million in the Connolly bill would go to operations. Of the latter, $10 million would be for Metro’s inspector general. This money would not require a local match.
Obtaining federal money for operating expenses — such as wages, fuel and electricity — would be a breakthrough long sought by many Metro supporters. They have complained for years that the District, Maryland and Virginia pay for all of Metro’s operating subsidies even though the federal government depends on the system to get its workers in the Washington area to their jobs.
“I have always believed that the federal government gets a free ride,” Connolly said. “The largest single user of Metro every day is the federal government.”
The condition for extending and increasing PRIIA money would be to strengthen the Office of the Inspector General by giving it new powers, including independent budget, procurement and hiring authority. Congress and others have pressed for a more robust IG to hold Metro accountable.
The second part of the funding plan in Connolly’s bill would give Metro an additional $100 million a year in grants for capital investment for 20 years. These federal grants also would have to be matched by a total of $100 million annually contributed by the three jurisdictions.
For the first five years, the additional money would be subject to the condition of Metro meeting performance bench marks set by the U.S. transportation secretary together with the District, Maryland and Virginia.
The secretary would grant the money each year only after certifying that Metro was “making progress toward goals and metrics for system performance established by the Secretary in collaboration with the signatories to the [Metro] Compact on safety, reliability and operations costs as measured by vehicle revenue miles,” the bill says.
For the remaining 15 years, the $100 million a year in additional grants would be conditioned on continued progress toward the goals and metrics, plus the establishment of a dedicated funding source by the District, Maryland and Virginia of at least $300 million a year.
METRO ACCESS' CORRUPT DISPATCHER CONTRACTS (MD & DC):
PRIVATE CONTRACTOR DISPATCHERS vs WMATA UNION DISPATCHERS.
UNPROFESSIONAL, POORLY TRAINED, PRIVATE CONTRACTED DISPATCHERS HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO FREQUENT LATE PASSENGER PICK-UPS, SAFETY VIOLATIONS AND WORKPLACE SEXUAL HARASSMENT ISSUES.
REAL METRO SYSTEM REFORM SHOULD INCLUDE INVESTIGATING CORRUPT DISPATCHER CONTRACTOR AGREEMENTS.
A recently unsealed lawsuit alleges that MetroAccess and MetroAccess contractors steered taxpayer-funded paratransit service to favored firms and subcontractors, resulting in longer trips and more expensive rides for the region’s most vulnerable commuters.
In the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt by the owner of a Maryland cab company, plaintiff Scott Bretner alleges that Metro and three of its contractors broke the law by shifting MetroAccess dispatch responsibilities from one contractor, MV Transportation, to another, Transdev North America.
The suit alleges that this led to a pattern of “self-dealing” in which Transdev would assign taxi trips to a service it owns and in other cases direct passengers to MetroAccess vans unnecessarily for its own financial benefit.
“Transdev is steering riders to use the vans unnecessarily, presumably to inflate its revenues, notwithstanding that vans often must travel from distant points including Virginia to serve riders in Prince George’s County,” the complaint reads.
MetroAccess is the transit agency’s door-to-door service for the elderly and people with disabilities. The contract splits dispatch and service delivery responsibilities to prevent the kind of conflict Bretner alleges. Transdev is responsible for providing 50 percent of MetroAccess service, and the remaining share of trips is to be divided between two other firms not named in the suit, according to the contract.
Further, the suit alleges that a third contractor, Medical Transportation Management, the company contracted to oversee MetroAccess, failed to bring the alleged conflict of interest to light.
“MV has continued to collect funds provided by the Federal Government and the compact jurisdictions despite knowingly and intentionally surrendering its responsibilities to Transdev,” the suit reads. “MTM has utterly failed to provide any meaningful quality assurance safeguards or oversight of Transdev and MV,” the suit says.
Metro did not respond to questions about the lawsuit. A spokesman said the agency could not comment on pending litigation.
Transdev declined to comment on the lawsuit.
MV Transportation and MTM did not respond to several email requests for comment. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland did not respond to an inquiry as to why it declined to intervene in the suit. The United States is named as a co-plaintiff along with the District.
Bretner’s attorney said summonses have yet to be served in the suit, so the defendants have not responded in court.
With about 43,000 registered users, MetroAccess is the transit agency’s fastest-growing and most expensive service. The agency spends more than $100 million annually to provide the service through five contractors.
MetroAccess performance dropped sharply during a stretch beginning last fall — at one point, on-time performance was down nearly 10 percentage points from target — but has recovered in recent months, according to the latest figures. Pressed to explain the performance drop in a recent report, Metro and its contractors blamed the issues on a driver shortage that left the companies 10 percent short of the 1,000 needed to run at full capacity.
It’s unknown, however, whether problems with dispatch factored into the service decline.
Bretner, who owns Transportation Maintenance Services, Blue Bird Cab Co., and Prince George’s Yellow Cab Company, said in the lawsuit that he was thwarted in his attempts to become a MetroAccess subcontractor after months of “obfuscation and delay” as the alleged scheme unfolded. Bretner’s attorney, Ryan S. Spiegel, said the alleged offenses are particularly egregious, given the vulnerable population MetroAccess serves.
Neither Spiegel nor Bretner could immediately provide evidence directly supporting their claims, which were said to be based upon “information and belief,” but they said they planned to present evidence in court.
“In this case, the MetroAccess contract at issue was very clear that there were supposed to be different silos of activity that were supposed to be intentionally separate and independent,” Spiegel said in an interview. “The contract was also clear that the service providers were supposed to use a very specific system to provide a vulnerable population with a necessary service.
“We think the evidence is pretty strong that in this case, these defendants knowingly violated those obligations.”
In addition to the contractors, the lawsuit filed by Bretner names Metro and MetroAccess chief Christian Kent as bearing responsibility in the alleged arrangement. Metro, on behalf of Kent, declined to comment.
Bretner claims that Transdev, Metro, Kent, MTM and MV Transportation violated the federal and state False Claims Acts by “falsely certifying that they would comply with local laws governing taxicab services and then knowingly circumventing those laws.” Further, the lawsuit says, Metro and its paratransit contractors “knowingly presented” or conspired to present “false claims to obtain government money under the . . . MetroAccess program.”
It goes on to claim that Transdev has been directing customers onto vans unnecessarily, despite the fact that many customers in Prince George’s County — the most popular MetroAccess jurisdiction — can walk and don’t require wheelchair-accessible vans.
“Now that Transdev is essentially in control of the [call center], it has every incentive to use MetroAccess vans more often than necessary, because its reimbursement rate from [Metro] for those van trips — approximately $65 per ride — is much higher than the rate for subcontractor taxi trips billed at $3.77 per mile,” the complaint alleges.
“Indeed, [Metro], through Mr. Kent and others, has been knowingly complicit in this unlawful conduct by Transdev,” the lawsuit says.
The suit comes three years after another Maryland cab company, Challenger Transportation, alleged a conflict of interest in the awarding of the MetroAccess contract because then-Metro board chairman Tom Downs also helmed the board of advisers for Veolia Transportation of North America (now Transdev North America) at the time the agreement was reached. That lawsuit, also filed in U.S. District Court, has not been resolved, and Bretner’s suit renews the conflict-of-interest concerns, alleging that Downs’s failure to disclose those ties at the time was a violation of the law.
Downs said that while he knew from internal conversations at Veolia that the company was considering bidding for the MetroAccess contract, he recused himself from discussions of any potential contract.
He said he also recused himself from any action, contact or information about the bid. In addition, he physically left Metro headquarters whenever the contract was discussed, he said.
“I was physically removing myself from the board meeting and to be extra safe, I said I was leaving the building during this discussion,” he said.
A written recusal followed, Downs said.
Asked whether his dual roles as Metro board chairman and chairman of Veolia North America’s board could have contributed in any way to the contract’s award: “If you doubt [former Metro General Manager] Rich Sarles’s integrity,” Downs said. “I asked Rich to make sure that . . . I received no verbal or written information at any time from any staff and that they were not to even accidentally provide me with any information.”
The suit also accuses another cab company, Sun Cab, of benefiting from Transdev’s arrangement. It says Transdev dispatched taxi trips to companies unlicensed for access services in Prince George’s, with the money going back into the parent corporation’s pocket.
“By controlling the [dispatch services], Transdev has directed a vast majority of the taxi trips in the overall MetroAccess service region to Sun Cab, which Transdev also owns,” the suit alleges. “Therefore Transdev is able to engage in self-dealing and to ‘double dip’ and pay itself twice for each such instance of taxi service delivery.”
Reached by phone, a person who identified himself as Sun Cab’s general manager referred any questions about the lawsuit to Transdev.
The amended complaint was filed in June, but the case was under seal until late that month as the jurisdictions named as co-plaintiffs decided whether to intervene. Maryland and Virginia sought to remove themselves from the case, and late last month, a federal judge asked that any claims filed on their behalf be dismissed.
The Women’s March organization is hosting a one-year anniversary event, called Power to the Polls, on January 21. But Washington D.C. is hosting its own Women’s March today, January 20. A year ago, the women’s march in D.C. was massive, so expect a big crowd again today. The March on Washington 2018 (in D.C.) rally begins at 11 a.m. Eastern today, January 20, at the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The march itself is expected to start around 1 p.m., according to the event’s official Facebook page. You can’t bring tripods, chairs, or tables. But you can bring cardboard posters or signs, as long as there are no metal or wood posts to hold them up.
Be sure and arrive early, because the event is going to be massive. At least 9,600 have RSVP’d that they plan to attend, and about 5,500 are expected. The rally portion of the event will feature several talented speakers. Here is a map of where the rally will be taking place:
The march, which is expected to begin around 1 p.m., will march all the way to the White House. Although the organizers did not to release the march on their website, according to their march’s Route Webpage, they have released the map via other sources. Thrillist shared a map of the march and where it will be taking place, courtesy of the Women’s March. You can view the map and route here. The march will travel along Constitution Avenue and Independence Avenue. Marshals will help direct the marchers so they know where to go.
Numerous special guests will be speaking at the rally before the march begins. They include:
• Daryl Davis, musician, actor, lecturer, and race relations consultant. He’s the leader of the Daryl Davis Band and wrote Klan-Destine Relationships. He appeared on HBO’s The Wire.
• Judith Heumann, an international disability rights advocate. She served as the first Special Advisor for International Disability Rights during the Obama administration.
• Kofi Annan, president of the Fairfax County NAACP. He’s a native of Georgetown, Guyana, and immigrated to America at the age of 12. He served eight years in the U.S. Army and is now the founder and CEO of Veteran Career Counseling Services, LLC.
• Judy Gearhart, executive director of the International Labor Rights Forum. She teaches human rights at Columbia University.
• Tim Kaine, former Vice Presidential nominee for the Democratic Party.
• Brittany T. Oliver. She’s the founding director of Not Without Black Women, and is a race and gender activist. In 2016, she received national recognition for challenging white feminism during the early stages of the Women’s March on Washington.
• Joanna Lohma, professional soccer player. She’s been a professional athlete for 13 years and is a Sport Diplomat.
• Mia D. Mason, owner of Managers Lendors Investors, Inc.. She’s a veteran LGBT Infantry servicewoman, an Army electronic warfare officer, and a Naval aviation electronic technician.
• Chris Carson. She’s President of the League of Women Voters.
• Kelly Convirs-Fowler, delegate for the 21st district in Virginia.
• Kamala Lopez, director, actress, and President of Heroica Films.
• Jean S. Gearon, Ph.D., Women’s Alliance for Democracy & Justice
• Susan Platt, President of Platt Consulting.
• Kings Floyd, co-chair of DC Metro ADAPT
• Marcela Howell, executive director of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda
• Eve Hurwtiz, Treasurer of March On
• Nuchhi Currier, President of the Women’s National Democratic Club
• Muthoni Wambu Kraal, VP for Outreach and Training at EMILY’s List
• Eleanor Smeal: President and co-founder of Feminist Majority Foundation
• Toni Van Pelt: President of the National Organization for Women
• Marilyn Karp: A leader of Indivisible Nova West, a group focused on Getting Out the Vote.
• Elise A. Bryant: Director and Labor Educator
• Greisa Martinez Rosas: DACA recipient and potential Dream Act beneficiary
• Nadia Hassan: Young Leaders Institute
• Ann Marie Benitez: Senior Director of Government Relations, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health
• Wendi Wallace: Political Outreach Director for Planned Parenthood Action Fund
• Tom E. Perez, Chairman of the DNC
• Bryce Armstrong, Miss District of Columbia USA 2018
•Performers will include Batala in Washington D.C. and SongRise.
This isn’t the only event in the nearby area that you can attend this weekend. On Sunday, January 21, at 7 p.m., a book discussion on feminist books will take place at the home of an Arlington NOW member (details here.) And on Saturday at 1 p.m., Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in DC will be hosting an abortion discussion, focusing on the effects the pro-life movement has had on African Americans.
In the wake of the ongoing sexual harassment scandals in Hollywood and beyond, women across the world are taking a stand.
This Sunday, thousands of women (and men) will join forces in cities the world over, taking to the streets to march and send the message that 'Time's Up' - the name of a legal defence fund set up to financially support women who have experienced sexual harassment, assault, or abuse in the workplace.
It comes exactly a year after the global women's marches in protest at Donald Trump's inauguration, which saw half a million people descend on Washington DC to defend women's rights, amid concerns that the US President would begin to dismantle them. Many wore hats with pink ears, and celebrity supporters included Emma Watson and Madonna.
The 2018 march in London - which starts opposite Downing Street at 11am on Sunday January, 21 -, seeks to capitalise on the activism kick-started by the #MeToo hashtag that sprung up in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, and has seen a widespread move to tackle sexual harassment in the workplace.
In a statement, the organisers said: ‘We are coming together to pledge that we are going to make change in big and small ways. We will stand side by side, once again, in solidarity with our sisters, brothers and siblings around the world. Together we are strong and if we all work for a better world then time is really up for oppressors of women.’
In 2016, just nine per cent of all start up funding went to female founders, according to data from Barclays and the Entrepreneurs Network. With male entrepreneurs 86 per cent more likely than their female counterparts to raise venture capital funding in the UK, it’s safe to say there is an issue.
Such a climate even lead two young women entrepreneurs to invent a fake male co-founder to correspond with potential investors. Penelope Gazin and Kate Dwyer, who founded the online art marketplace Witchsy, created an imaginary third co-founder Keith Mann to help get their business off the ground.
"It's frustrating that a significant proportion of funding goes towards male-founded or led businesses," Annabel Denham, programme director at The Entrepreneurs Network, previously toldThe Telegraph. "This is not just an economic discussion, though we know start-ups are vital to the UK economy: we want to see smart, savvy businesswomen getting the same opportunities as their male counterparts."
Since launching January 1, the Time’s Up initiative has raised $15.86 million of its $16 million goal.
To celebrate, Reese Witherspoon shared a video on Instagram with Brie Larson, Kerry Washington, Tracee Ellis Ross, Rashida Jones and Tessa Thompson thanking everyone for their generous donations.
“We have raised $15 million so far from more than 10,000 people who have donated from 60 countries, all 50 states and this is just the beginning,” Ross said.
“This is only possible because of you,” Thompson added.
Time’s Up is also raising money for a legal defense fund for both women and men who believe that they’ve been discriminated against or harassed in the workplace.
Jones and Washington invited viewers to wear black Sunday in honor of the 2018 Golden Globes, where stars are wearing black to take a stand against sexual harassment and sexual assault.
Many attendees are also donning the Time’s Up pin, which was created by costume designer Arianne Phillips and jewelry designer Michael Schmidt.
MARYLAND BLACK WOMAN THROWN INTO FREEZING STREET BY BALTIMORE HOSPITAL:
AN AFRICAN HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONAL SAVED HER.
WASHINGTON DC & MARYLAND BLACK LEADERS TREAT MOST BLACK PEOPLE LIKE DRUG DEALERS AND CRIMINALS.
INCLUDING LOCAL BLACK VOTERS.
IT’S WORSE THAN JIM CROW.
DOES THE GOV OF MARYLAND REALLY CARE ABOUT BLACK VOTERS?
DO DC POLITICIANS REALLY CARE ABOUT BLACK VOTERS?
AFTER WITNESSING HOW BLACK PEOPLE ARE MISTREATED BY BLACK LEADERS IN DC & MD, I NO LONGER THINK THE DMV IS BETTER THAN NYC.
Sources: AP, CBS News, TIME, Yahoo News, The Independent, Washington Post, Youtube
******* Man who aided hospital patient discharged in gown shocked
The man who said he came to the aid of a woman discharged from a Baltimore hospital wearing only a gown and socks on a cold winter's night, says he was left outraged and stunned at how she was treated.
Imamu Baraka, identified in local reports as the person who sought to help the woman, told The Associated Press he was so angry he decided to record Tuesday night's events on cellphone video, fearing no one would believe him if he reported a woman being left at a bus stop like that.
"I saw the unthinkable: another human in a wheelchair being wheeled out in the dead of cold," he said in the phone interview Thursday evening.
He described frigid temperatures in the 30s and a cold wind blowing at the woman's hospital gown, exposing her to the elements.
Baraka, who said he has a psychotherapy practice in a building across the street from the Maryland Medical Center Midtown Campus, said he rushed back to his office, retrieved his cellphone, returned and hit "record" while growing increasingly angry.
As a medical professional, the psychotherapist said he sought to keep his emotions in check even as he repeatedly challenged those who had wheeled the woman out to the street in the dark.
"At first I was shocked. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And I move beyond that to the next level from being shocked. I became ... irritated and fearful for the young lady. And then I became angry," he recalled.
He added he failed to get satisfactory answers as he tried to help the woman.
Of those who brought her outdoors, he said: "I asked them three times, I asked them specifically, 'Are you going to leave this lady out here like this?' They kept walking. They then went inside of the building." He said he went and asked a security guard outside the hospital for a supervisor and was told "I am the supervisor."
Rebuffed, he said, he then went and tried to help the woman shelter in the bus stop while calling 911 for an ambulance. He said he asked the arriving ambulance crew where they would take her, and they replied "back to the hospital."
Recalled Baraka, "I said, 'Are you kidding me, they just dumped her on the curb.'"
It wasn't immediately clear what happened to the woman after she was driven back toward the hospital. But the hospital confirmed in a statement that the woman was discharged that Tuesday night.
Dr. Mohan Suntha, president and CEO of University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown Campus, told a news conference on Thursday afternoon that the hospital had "failed" after the video posted on Facebook showed the unidentified woman mumbling and appearing disoriented in frigid weather outside. Suntha also said there were no excuses for what happened to the woman.
"We believe firmly that we provided appropriate medical care to a patient who came to us in need, but where we absolutely failed, and where we own that failure, is in the demonstration of basic humanity and compassion as a patient was being discharged from our organization after having received that care," he said.
He added that the woman wasn't mistreated while in the hospital's care and that the incident was isolated and that hospital officials were conducting an extensive internal review.
Said Suntha, "We do not believe that what occurred Tuesday night in any way defines who we are as an organization. There has been a lot of conversation since this incident came to light."
Disabled riders and MetroAccess drivers have joined hands to complain about the transit service that they say could use a lot of improvement.
Both riders and drivers complain that they are victimized by poor service, and they gathered together at Paint Branch Unitarian Universalist Church on Friday to air their complaints.
“It’s totally unreliable, totally unreliable … I have been abandoned more times than you can imagine,” says Gloria Jones Swieringa of Fort Washington, who is blind.
Unionized drivers, who are members of the Amalgamated Transit Union, say that dispatchers don’t welcome their input, that the policy of collecting fares outside the vehicle is unsafe and low driver pay produces high turnover rates.
“We need to make changes as far as the drivers, clients, the dispatchers, it needs to be a better service,” says Genoa Greene, a MetroAccess driver for the past eight years.
The complaints have drawn the attention of Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker.
“[I’m] very much concerned,” he says. “It was part of our budget hearing and so we want to hear what the problem is. I know a lot about people with disabilities trying to get back and forth so it’s a big concern of mine.”
WHY NOT REPLACE CONTRACTORS WITH UBER & LYFT DRIVERS?
METRO ACCESS GROWING PROBLEMS INCLUDE.......
POLITICALLY-RIGGED CONTRACTS,
POOR MANAGEMENT,
HORRIBLE PERFORMANCE LEVELS,
SEVERE RETALIATION AGAINST WHISTLE BLOWERS,
EXTREME DISORGANIZATION,
RARE ON-TIME PICK-UPS, DISABLED PASSENGERS FORCED TO RIDE FOR HOURS,
NEPOTISM,
DISPATCHERS DON'T KNOW WHERE DRIVERS ARE,
POWER STRUGGLES, SEXUAL HARASSMENT,
HOTBED FOR SINGLE WOMEN LOOKING FOR SUGAR DADDIES IN THE WORKPLACE.
Users of Metro’s service for the elderly and people with disabilities say they have recently endured hours-long waits for rides, spent entire afternoons in vans traveling nonsensical routes and watched as fellow riders soiled themselves on unreasonably long trips.
The routes that MetroAccess drivers must follow are not only unnecessarily long, but sometimes also take them in the opposite directions from their destinations, say customers, including some who are blind, medically fragile or use wheelchairs. One former customer said her doctor recommended she stop using the service to get to her lung cancer treatments because it was too stressful.
For MetroAccess’s 43,000 registered customers, the problems began last September with a sudden, seven-point drop in on-time performance. The share of excessively late trips nearly tripled from the month before. Metro officials have blamed soaring numbers of late and missed trips on a driver shortage.
“I feel like because I have a disability, I’m being treated like less than everyone else,” said Shannon Minnick, 46, who is quadriplegic and uses a wheelchair.
Minnick, of Silver Spring, said she recently missed a doctor’s appointment after spending more than 2½ hours in a MetroAccess van for what is typically a 25-minute ride. On another recent trip, a driver taking her home from Rockville first picked up someone in Kensington, five minutes from her home, and then drove another passenger to north Silver Spring before heading south again to drop her off.
Nancy Childress, 63, of West Springfield, Va., recalled how one MetroAccess trip took so long this winter that another passenger soiled herself after being in the van for two to three hours.
“She couldn’t help it,” said Childress, who has trouble walking and balancing from being hit by a car two decades ago.
The driver disinfected the van, and they went on their way, Childress said.
Heidi Case, a disability advocate, said she knew a woman who almost called the police, frantic that she hadn’t heard from her severely disabled daughter who had been stuck in a van for more than two hours.
Those are the kinds of “disastrous things that are happening,” Case said. “It is a significant quality-of-life change.”
On-time performance remains near its lowest level since at least mid-2013. In April, 88 percent of customers were picked up on time — better than the 83 percent in the fall but still below Metro’s minimum target of 92 percent.
By April, the number of trips deemed “excessively late” — more than 20 minutes past the half-hour pickup window — had nearly doubled since last summer, from about 2,400 a month to 4,700. Incidents in which the driver never showed also doubled to almost 1,500 in April.
The number of botched and excessively late trips make up a relatively small portion — about 3 to 4 percent — of MetroAccess’s overall service. But with about 8,000 trips a day, the percentages mask thousands of missed appointments, late arrivals at work and frustrated customers who rely on the service to live independently.
While high driver turnover has been a problem in the paratransit industry for decades, Metro officials say the growth in services such as Uber and Lyft has further cut into the driver pool. The shortage worsened just as ridership was picking up from the summer lull, Metro officials said, even though the agency’s own data shows usage actually dropped by 9,500 passengers between August and October.
Christian Kent, Metro’s assistant general manager for access services, said contractors were down about 100 drivers in September, leaving the companies 10 percent short of the 1,000 needed for full service. As the driver shortage increased throughout the fall, Kent said, on-time performance couldn’t recover, even in months when ridership dropped.
“The contractors experienced a more competitive driver market than they have had to deal with in the past, and the number of people who applied for jobs with MetroAccess was lower than we’ve seen in the past,” Kent said.
Transit agencies are required to provide paratransit service under the Americans With Disabilities Act, and MetroAccess is the fifth-largest such program in the country. Usage has more than doubled in the past 14 years, from just under a million trips in 2003 to more than 2 million trips. It is the agency’s fastest-growing and most expensive service.
Metro spends about $100 million annually to provide Metro¬Access service via five contractors. The transit agency subsidizes 92 percent of the costs, with the rest covered by fare revenue.
Rides cost two times the equivalent bus or rail fare, with a maximum $6.50, for a trip that costs the agency an average of $50.
Customers must make a reservation a day in advance and are given a 30-minute pickup window. As a ride-sharing service, there are typically multiple passengers per van.
Many of those who rely on MetroAccess cannot easily navigate Metro or afford taxis or ride-hailing services.
Kent said a trip is considered late if it is even one minute outside the 30-minute pickup window.
Just because on-time performance dropped, he said, that doesn’t mean “that suddenly every trip is egregiously late.”
Contributing to the problem are the computer-generated routes that drivers are required to follow — even if they don’t make sense in terms of geography or time.
Documents obtained through a public records request show that MetroAccess contractors began “dropping” routes at a precipitous clip last August, meaning the companies didn’t have enough drivers to accept all the trips that the computer assigned them.
During some months last fall, as many as 1,337 trips had to be reassigned among available drivers.
Fewer drivers means those on hand must cover larger areas and have more trips tacked on to their routes, Kent said. Accommodating these “add-on” trips causes the circuitous routes that customers have complained about.
Steve Polkinghorn, of Burke, Va., said his commute home from his job in Arlington County used to rarely exceed 90 minutes. Now it can take more than two hours. That’s because the drivers who pick him up at his Crystal City office often head into the District to pick up another passenger before turning around and slogging through traffic back to Northern Virginia to take him home.
“Why am I driving due north when I live due south?” said Polkinghorn, who has multiple sclerosis.
Cindy LaBon, who is blind, said out-of-the-way routes have left her and her guide dog stuck in a van up to three hours.
In the fall, LaBon said, a fellow passenger who was mentally disabled began crying after the driver passed her street to drop off someone else miles way. The woman had already been in the van for three hours on a trip from Lanham to Silver Spring.
Two weeks ago, LaBon said, she spent more than two hours trying to get from Burtonsville to Gaithersburg — both in Montgomery County — in a van that first took her to Northwest Washington.
“They don’t know geography,” LaBon, 68, said of whoever sets the drivers’ routes. “They don’t even put trips [together] going in the same direction.”
While the computer suggests three options, staff members in the scheduling center can override the software, Kent said.
“On days when we have surging ridership and depleted drivers to route, sometimes the dispatchers don’t have an ideal choice coming out of the computer,” Kent said. “We are very much aware of the issue.”
Metro has fined the three companies that provide drivers — Transdev, First Transit and Diamond Transportation — almost $1 million each in contract “damages” since the fall.
But Metro officials say they’ve also cut the companies a financial break to help them hire more drivers. The agency has greatly reduced future financial penalties, in some cases by 90 percent, for six months, according to Metro. Transdev also has been allowed to use temporary drivers, a Metro spokeswoman said. And the agency recently agreed to pay the contractors “slightly” more so they could raise wages.
“It’s very difficult for them to put out the extra cash to pay drivers at a higher wage scale if, simultaneously, we’re taking the money back from them in damages,” Kent said.
Transdev, the company responsible for half of MetroAccess rides, blamed the sudden downturn on the difficulty of recruiting drivers, “given the current robust labor force and low unemployment rate.” The company said it had been fully staffed a year before the performance drop, but suddenly attrition rose and driver training classes shrank. Meanwhile, ridership increased in the fall just as back-to-school-and-work traffic jumped.
First Transit, which is responsible for 35 percent of Metro¬Access trips, said it faces the same problems attracting drivers. By fall, the company was short 35 to 50 drivers, spokesman Jay Brock said last month, and the workforce hadn’t fully recovered. Brock said the company is participating in job fairs, increasing its marketing and undertaking grass-roots efforts to attract new hires.
“We’re screening, interviewing, taking [applicants] through our background checks and trying to get them on the road and behind the wheel,” Brock said.
John Gray, acting project manager at MV Transportation, which manages the MetroAccess call center, directed reporters’ questions to Metro.
Kate Walden, a spokeswoman for Diamond Transportation, which provides 15 percent of MetroAccess trips, said driver shortages are occurring nationwide. She said the company is now “nearly fully staffed” for MetroAccess and is “aggressively recruiting to ensure we have a full complement of drivers this summer.”
A union representing paratransit drivers says Metro is letting contractors off the hook for poor service. A key problem, they say, remains the “poverty wages” drivers receive. The companies recently agreed to increase wages to at least $15 an hour, union officials said. For example, Transdev drivers who were making $13.85 an hour saw their wages increased to $16 an hour.
“You cannot operate a public service with a sweatshop employment model,” said Todd Brogan, a union organizer with Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1764 at a recent demonstration urging Metro to stop using contractors for paratransit.
[Transit service for elderly, people with disabilities sees sharp decline]
Kent said training classes are now full and efforts continue to hire more drivers to meet the growing demand. The agency said late Friday that they were fully staffed. Metro also recently began receiving 207 new vans to replace older ones and expand the fleet by 25 vehicles.
The five-year MetroAccess contract expires in June 2018, and the agency is putting the new one out for bid. The agency also is exploring ways to partner with Uber, Lyft and other transportation services to provide same-day paratransit service at a fraction of the cost.
Kent said MetroAccess will improve, even as the number of people needing it continues to grow.
“There’s really not a choice,” Kent said. “MetroAccess is our responsibility to our customers with disabilities. We must provide it under the ADA, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.
Dominique Hill and Irving Smith Jr. had good jobs.
Last year, Hill worked as a bartender at P.F. Chang’s in Tysons Corner and Smith had recently been promoted to bartender at Wildfire grill, also in Tysons. Each had more than a decade of experience working in restaurants and was making $700 to $900 a week.
But last summer both of them walked away from their jobs for a chance at something better: the opportunity to work at BLT Prime, the steakhouse in the luxury Trump International Hotel, Washington D.C.
The couple said they soon discovered their hopes were misplaced. In a civil complaint filed Wednesday morning in D.C. Superior Court, Hill, a former BLT employee, and Smith, a current one, allege that the Trump Organization and hotel managing director Mickael Damelincourt saw to it that the restaurant routinely steered black employees to less lucrative shifts and subjected them to discriminatory behavior by other staff and by guests. The two men are joined in the case by another former BLT employee, JaNette Sturdivant.
Hill said he was the first bartender the restaurant hired last summer, before the hotel opened, but was almost exclusively given only lunch shifts.
“Some days I would just stand there all day long and have no customers,” he said. He routinely made $300 to $400 for a 30- to 35-hour workweek at BLT. He claims only four black employees still work at BLT after the hotel opened with 15 or more.
Smith, who works as a BLT server, said he was demoted to assistant server early on and rarely given prime shifts, where weekly earnings averaged $600 to $1,500 and which allegedly went instead to newly hired white and Latino employees.
“They started hiring all these people and instead of putting them on day shifts they was giving them night shifts and keeping us on day shift. Next thing I know, within the month all the black people were on the day shift,” he said.
In a statement, the Trump Organization, which runs the hotel, called the allegations “utterly baseless,” particularly because “the Hotel never employed these individuals.”
“Rather, the plaintiffs worked for a third-party restaurant company that is solely responsible for the direction, supervision, and management of its own employees. In short, this lawsuit appears to be nothing more than a desperate, politically-motivated publicity stunt. We look forward to litigating this matter,” said Amanda Miller, a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization, in a statement.
ESquared Hospitality, which operates the restaurant, said it “wholeheartedly” disputed the allegations and that the employees “did not previously voice or file complaints through any of the proper channels.”
“Had they done so, BLT Prime would have immediately taken the alleged complaints seriously and investigated them to the fullest extent and would have taken appropriate action where warranted,” the company said.
Trump opened the hotel last fall, weeks before he was elected president. He no longer runs his company and has placed his ownership into a trust, but the family name still adorns everything from the sign out front to the cocktail napkins. After the election, Smith claimed one of his co-workers began making racist statements to him and that Smith’s complaints to management fell on deaf ears.
The lawsuit’s allegations about the restaurant stand in contrast to the operation of the larger hotel, whose is widely diverse by race, gender and nationality. On a busy Friday night in September, when the hotel unveiled a new dessert menu, staff who appeared to be black worked in prominent positions as bartender, hostess, server, valet and other posts.
A reporter observing six shifts of morning, afternoon and evening work at BLT, viewed staffs that appeared to be diverse as well, although evening bartenders appeared to usually be white. “We work diligently to create a culture of equal opportunity employment with a zero-tolerance policy for any kind of discrimination regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or otherwise,” ESquared said in its statement.
Gregg C. Greenberg, a Maryland employment attorney, said racial discrimination cases are often difficult to prove.
“If you have a client that says, ‘I have been discriminated against,’ how and why are you able to prove it? Do you have emails or policies in place that are objectively discriminatory? Or do you just have the feeling that someone there is out for you?” he said.
Smith and Hill, unlike most workers in the hotel, were not employed directly by the Trump Organization but by ESquared. Hill produced paperwork showing that in March he filed a discrimination charge with the D.C. Office of Human Rights and underwent mediation in July with attorneys for ESquared.
When that failed, he filed suit with representation from A.J. Dhali, a D.C. attorney who said he has brought nearly 100 employment cases in his career and averages 15 to 18 annually.
Dhali argued the Trump Organization had control over the BLT employees’ employment because of the nature of the management contract between the hotel and ESquared. Whether other black employees were treated well or not was not the issue for the court to consider, he said.
“I don’t have to show that discrimination occurred against everybody. I just have to show that discrimination occurred against my clients,” Dhali said. The plaintiffs are seeking $14.5 million in damages.
Hill and Smith said they have both experienced discrimination in other restaurant jobs. Smith said guests at Wildfire once informed management they did not want a black or gay server. “Management asked them to leave,” he said. He said management at Clyde’s issued the same directive when necessary, but that at BLT, he said he had twice observed guests requesting service from nonblack staff who were allowed to stay. The suit cites other allegedly racist behavior by some guests, and it describes a working environment where, for instance, a staff memo posted in the kitchen details how the staff ought to handle $39 ostrich eggs for a dish that includes a photo of an ostrich chasing a black man.
The third plaintiff, Sturdivant, 34, a black woman who worked at BLT from May to June as a server, claimed she was complimented on her light skin after arriving.
“When I first came on board … the server manager said it’s good to see someone with Milano complexion here,” she said. Still, she said she was not given “moneymaking” night shifts.
Hill said he was fired after dropping a bloody mary on a baby in a stroller at a weekend brunch. But he said a white server who spilled a bottle of champagne down a bride’s dress and was not suspended or fired.
“I kept saying, why am I being terminated? Why can’t I be suspended or transferred? … My feeling was Mickael, who was right there, was letting me go from the company.” After being fired he said he was without work for six weeks and had his cable and electricity cut off in his apartment. Smith lost his car because he could not make the payments.
Smith said he took a second restaurant job to pay his bills and works about 60 hours a week.
“I would go to work crying and ask god why are you doing this? We were so comfortable and gave up everything to go to this place. And then to be treated like this.”
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