Trans­parency and Account­abil­ity Matters

WASH DC — Dorothy Brizill, community activist, civic reformer, founder and Executive Director of District nonprofit, non-partisan DC Watch is a stalwart dedicated to reducing District government corruption and promoting transparency.

She enlight­ened nearly 30 FBA mem­bers at the Jan­u­ary 26th mem­ber­ship meet­ing of the sig­nif­i­cance of hav­ing a watch­dog orga­ni­za­tion that shares fis­cal and pol­icy infor­ma­tion about dis­trict admin­is­tra­tion and bureau­cracy that would oth­er­wise go unre­ported or be buried obscurely in printed news. DC Watch con­tin­ued con­nect­ing the dots. In FB/WE, theele­men­tal con­cern revolves around the sale or trans­fer of our pub­lic assets to pri­vate par­ties, for illu­sory pub­lic ben­e­fit and empty promises.

Our Fire Sta­tion, MPD Spe­cial Ops sub­sta­tion, West End Library, and Stevens School—some of the most valu­able prop­erty in the District—have all been on the auc­tion block and could well “lost” to res­i­dents, the right­ful own­ers. Brizill reminded mem­bers that, with­out cit­i­zen over­sight, there is no bar­rier to los­ing the prox­im­ity and level of our pro­tec­tive fire­and police ser­vices and that we must be vigilant.

DC Watch’s major offi­cial project is its web­site, www. DCwatch.com, which informs the pub­lic about fun­da­men­tal pol­icy issues, Dis­trict gov­ern­ment, and its offi­cials. DCWatch also serves as an online out­let for opin­ion with its twice-weekly e let­ter, “The Mail,” as well as pro­vid­ing a wealth of infor­ma­tional resources for cit­i­zens. ~ Con­tribut­ing sub­scribers are encour­aged to post notes. Not all notes are posted and some may be returned for clar­i­fi­ca­tion or with ques­tions. In gen­eral, news­wor­thy notes con­vey­ing infor­ma­tion and/ or analy­sis are more likely to be posted than opin­ions. Post­ing rules are sim­ple: Please pro­vide a title for each mes­sage. On the next line, write your name and email address. Anony­mous posts are not accepted. Please use con­ven­tional gram­mar, for­mat­ting, and lay­out. Clas­si­fied ads and event list­ings are accepted and run on a space avail­able basis. All con­tri­bu­tions should be sent to themail@dcwatch.com. ~ FBN