Jack & Michele Evans Modern Family
• June 29, 2012

On Mother’s Day––coming up May 13––you get images in your head.

Donna Reed unruffled. Soccer moms relieving the family SUV of soccer kids, soccer balls, soccer goals and soccer dogs. The beloved Irish mom: “Me mother was a saint, don’t you know.” The mom in “Leave It to Beaver.” These days, there are single moms, working moms, political moms, first lady moms and first lady moms-in-waiting.

Maybe we shouldn’t call it Mother’s Day at all. Or Father’s Day. Maybe we should call it kid’s day. Or the family dog day.

Maybe we should just have a family day. America needs another quasi-holiday anyway.
And what better place to start with a family day than the household of Jack and Michele Evans. It’s got all the ingredients.

Mom: check. Michele Seiver Evans.
Dad: check. Jack Evans.
Kids: check. Sam Seiver, 22; Madeline Seiver, 19; Jack Seiver, 19.
Kids: check again. Katharine, John and Christine Evans, 15.
Dog: check. Golden Retriever Kelly.

Now, put the ingredients, once separate, together by marriage. Then, only a short time after the September 2010 wedding, begin a major renovation of the Evans home at 3141 P Street, then put it on the 2012 Georgetown House Tour, just for good measure.

“Jack stayed, and the kids stayed upstairs during construction,” Michele Evans said. “I rented a town house. So, actually, we haven’t been together as a family until late last year, right around Thanksgiving.”

“Lots of people have made the obvious references to ‘The Brady Bunch,’ ” she said, as she led the way into the downstairs part of the house, where she’s created a picture board of photographs of all of the new family’s children, 15-year-old triplets Katharine, John and Christine Evans and Michele’s children, Sam, Maddy and Jack. Friends have compared her to the Brady mom. She laughed. “I think sometimes I feel more like Alice, the housekeeper.”

She certainly doesn’t look or act like Alice. Vivacious, creative, an interior designer by profession and inclination, she designed the major part of the Evans homestead renovation, which opened up the first floor living room, creating the illusion of a larger space by creating a flow that connects to the outdoor patio, and gracefully furnished in a style that merges tradition with contemporary motifs smoothly into the outdoor patio.

“Didn’t have a thing to do with it,” said Jack Evans, arriving in a dark suit from his District Council work late on a Friday morning. “It’s all Michele.”

Evans had been a single dad for seven years, and Michele (then Michele Seiver) had been a single mom for six years. The two married September 18, 2010, after dating for two years.

Evans, by looks, reputation, demeanor and profession, seems a man least likely to embrace drama–the Ward 2 councilman and longest continuous member of the District Council looks like the master of the budget that he is, a little buttoned down and serious expert. But he can fool you: he mastered the shaky and sometimes emotional art of raising triplets in his own way after the death of his first wife, Noel. His office is something of a man cave, full of not only the usual politician’s photographs with other elected officials, presidents, family and momentous occasions, but sports stuff, actual fussball games and Redskins, Caps and Nationals memorabilia and signs. Recently, Evans was on the stage at the Helen Hayes Awards, praising the D.C. theater scene with eloquence, embracing the spotlight when it hit him like a thespian.

Still, marrying and merging two families and renovating your house is inviting drama into your life. But it appears to be drama of the enlivening, good sort, as opposed to chaos.

“Perhaps, it wasn’t the easiest way of doing things,” Michele Evans said. “We married in September 2010, and a week later, the renovation started.”

“The most difficult thing is the merging of the families,” Michele Evans said. “You have to negotiate, compromise, and you can’t really actually bring everything you have together. You have to figure out what to do with six sets of skies, for instance, and your schedules have just sort of doubled. He and I have different ways of parenting out of each of our particular situations. I was pretty lucky in one sense: my children are spaced apart — there’s the oldest, the middle child and the youngest. With triplets, it’s all at once, which presents different challenges, different joys and requirements. I can just imagine how hectic things could get for Jack, doing everything as a single dad.”

What he did, for instance, was to organize laundry bags: all the socks in one bag, t-shirts and underwear in another, and so forth. “That wouldn’t have worked for me, but I could see it was necessary for them.”

“You learn a lot about each other in that first year,” Jack Evans said. “When you’re a single dad, you have to be organized like that. It can’t be done any other way, for me.”

Michele Evans laughed, remembering the first Thanksgiving the two families shared.

“I had prepared a whole meal based on a family recipe, very elaborate, gourmet, complicated,” she said. “They were used to and quite happy with cranberry sauce, out of a can.”

“With my children, the triplets had a chance to deal with older sisters and brothers,” she added. “I think in some ways that’s my role with the girls, too, I’m more like an older sister in addition to being a mother to them.”

“I think Jack approached being a single dad by creating a sense of order, which is necessary, and I think I bring a little more color and creativity to things. “ she said.

She was merging her life and family not only with another family but with the family of an elected official, a politician and a public figure.

“That was different,” she said. “I’m a naturally friendly person, I think, outgoing. But being in the public eye, you have to be a little more careful with what you say.”

“I think the kids know that,” the father and council member said. “It’s just something you learn. It’s like ‘your dad’s on tv, or they hear somebody say something that’s not particularly flattering or it’s critical, they hear and read things. I just tell them–think before you say something to someone.”

Evans’s political resume–re-elections to his Ward 2 council seat almost as a matter of course, a failed, but nonetheless very classy and professionally managed run for mayor–is thick with experience, and hardly complete. In other words, the obvious question comes up: does he still want to be Mayor of Washington, D.C.?

“Absolutely,” he says, emphatically. “I think the prospects for success are better these days than they were then, and if the occasion arises where I think I have a good chance, I’ll run.”

As a leader on the city council and a Georgetown resident, his profile is already high throughout the city and among his neighbors. If he chooses to run at some point in the future, he’d be running as the head of one family, once two separate families, the father who knows, if not best, certainly a lot about raising a family, and about being a parent. And he’ll present a richer, more complete and complicated persona and identity to the public, something larger than his identity as the government’s and council’s most experienced leader. He is also the man who can take a large part of the credit for leading the way in transforming downtown Washington and for bringing baseball to Washington, among numerous accomplishments.

The newly constituted Evans family almost didn’t happen. “I asked her out twice,” Evans said. “And she said no.”

The third time, as it turned out, was the charm. “We ran into each other at a party, and I started to go out the door and I turned around and I thought, if I don’t try again, it’s never going to happen.”
He did and she said yes. The first date? “He took me to a Nationals game,” she said. “I loved it.”
Less conventional was a date in which Evans took his future wife on a drive-by tour of African-American churches in Ward 2.

Michele Evans grew up in Wyoming and came to Washington to work in the office of then Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyo.). Before merging her family of three children–Sam Seiver 22, now living in Santa Ana, Calif., Madeline Seiver, 19, now at the University of South Carolina, and Jack Seiver, 16, a junior at Gonzaga College High School–lived in Spring Valley.

“Being a single parent — and we both know this for a fact — is hard work, period. It doesn’t matter who you are,” Jack Evans said. “If you’re a stay-at-home parent, it’s hard work. If you’re a single parent and working, it’s hard work. We both know that for a fact and from experience.”

Jack Evans’ wardrobe provided by Streets of Georgetown:
Shirt: Hart Schaffner Marx blue gingham shirt – $89.50
Tie: Hickey Freeman navy pin dot bold strip – $135
Pants: Hickey Freeman bone color 100% pima cotton chino – $245
Gray Suit: Hickey Freeman peak lapel grey prince of wales plaid suit $1495

Shirt: Hart Schaffner Marx Blue Gingham Shirt – $89.50
Tie: Hickey Freeman navy pin dot bold strip – $135
Pants: Hickey Freeman bone color 100% pima cotton chino – $245 [gallery ids="100762,123200,123189,123197" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetown Farmers’ Market Re-Opens Wednesday
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Georgetown Farmers’ Market Re-Opens Wednesday

The Georgetown Farmers Market opens Wednesday, May 2, for its tenth season in Rose Park.

The Friends of Rose Park, in cooperation with the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation, sponsors the Georgetown Farmers Market in Rose Park for another season. The market will be open, rain or shine, every Wednesday until Halloween from 3 p.m. until 7 p.m. near the corner of 26th and O Streets.

“The Friends of Rose Park has been delighted with the neighborhood support for this project in Rose Park, and we hope the Georgetown community will join us on opening day,” according to the group.

The market welcomes newcomers and regulars to the park:

= Two Oceans True Foods: free-range turkeys, chickens and eggs as well as family-caught seafood

= Oh! Pickles: a wide variety of homemade pickles

= Baguette Republic: artisan breads, cookies and more

= Anchor Nursery: fresh vegetables, fresh cut flowers, plants

= Quaker Valley Orchards: berries, honey, apples, peaches, greens

= Praline Bakery: French bakery specialties; dinners-to-go, croissants

= Les Caprices de Joelle: paella, soups, quiche, waffles and other goodies

Neighbors and volunteers interested in helping at the market one day a month and local non-profit groups interested in getting on the calendar at the market should e-mail RoseParkMarket@yahoo.com.

Rose Park is located between M and P Streets, N.W., bounded on the west side by 26th and 27th Streets and on the east side by Rock Creek Parkway. Its facilities include three tennis courts, a basketball court, a baseball diamond, two playground areas and substantial open space. [gallery ids="100757,123127,123121" nav="thumbs"]

5 Years Ago, Fire Almost Took Down Public Library
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During lunchtime on April 30, 2007, a fire nearly destroyed the Georgetown Public Library at R Street and Wisconsin Avenue. The flames of the collapsing cupola and roof attracted neighbors and news crews, as the D.C. Fire & EMS Department struggled with low-pressure hydrants and used one blocks away.

That same morning, a fire had swept through Eastern Market, one of Capitol Hill’s most popular food, shopping and meeting spots. Stunned city officials and residents feared the two places would never completely recover.

Today, both buildings have been re-built and made even better — thanks first to the firefighters of Washington, D.C. The library and its Peabody Room are a source of information as well as pride for its neighbors.

Georgetowners, thinking they had lost the history that is contained in the library’s Peabody Room, were relieved to learn that almost all items had been saved. The collection houses books, photographs, maps, manuscripts, newspapers, artwork and artifacts documenting Georgetown’s two-and-a-half centuries.

Here is what Jerry McCoy, Special Collections Librarian, Peabody Room, has to say:

“Today is the fifth anniversary of the Georgetown Branch Library fire. The fire destroyed two-thirds of the second floor of the library. The remaining one-quarter was the Peabody Room. Had it not been for the professionalism of the D.C. Fire & EMS Department more than 250 years of Georgetown’s history would have been lost.”

Named in honor of 19th century merchant, banker and philanthropist George Peabody (1795-1869) and established in 1935, the Peabody Room is a special collections section of the Georgetown Public Library. The Peabody Room is open Monday, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 pm; Thursday, 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. [gallery ids="100759,123146,123140,123137" nav="thumbs"]

Pre-Elvis ‘Memphis’: Darrington’s Delray
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On stage, Delray—the owner of a black underground music bar in Memphis, circa 1951—paces the floor with an eye out for trouble. His sister is on the stage, singing sassy and soulful blues numbers, and all male eyes in the joint are on her, and Delray’s eyes are on them. Delray is an imposing guy. He’s a little scary a times, a serious man who hides his soft spots well, a balled fist at his side.

Delray is one of the mainstays and main characters in “Memphis,” a loud, electric, fast-paced, high-energy Tony-Award winning musical now on its Washington stop through July 1 of a national tour at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House, trying and succeeding in bowling over by its sheer force of energy. Delray is pivotal to the proceedings, which involve a goofed-up young white man named Huey and his discovery of rhythm and blues evolving into the coming of rock and roll—and his discovery of Delray’s sister, Felicia, with whom he’s smitten. Delroy fumes, he doesn’t like it, you can practically see his eyebrows bristles, his fist clench tighter.

Quentin Earl Darrington, who plays Delray understands the man. “I know what he’s about doesn’t mean I’m him, but I know where he’s coming from,” said Darrington, a personable, passionate-about-theater man. “This is the South. You can’t do certain things. There are race laws, and this is termed race music by white people. So, he’s suspicious, especially of a white man getting sweet on his sister.”

Darrington is a serious guy, serious about his role as an actor, about being on stage, about being on the road, about race and economic and racial divides in the country, about his responsibilities—and the joys thereof—of being the father of three young boys, about his future.

Like many young boys who idolize their kin, Darrington wanted to be a football player like his brother but instead started getting into acting at the high school he attended in Lakeland, Fla. “Mr. Hughes, my teacher, he stuck by me, encouraged me,” he said. “My folks weren’t that keen on the idea.”

“This show, it’s more than just about the music,” he said. It’s about the times, how music figured in all of that, how it burst out onto the national scene. There really was a guy like Huey who was a local deejay here in Memphis who played our rhythm and blues and rock and roll. He had a TV show, and he was a forerunner, like the guy who discovered Elvis and Dick Clark in Philadelphia. The music was jumping out and it was important because it brought people together, whether they liked it or not.”

Darrington is coming back to the Kennedy Center and the memories of his last trip here were all good. He had the stirring, difficult role of Coalhouse Walker in the Kennedy Center-mounted production of “Ragtime,” a second-go at the musical version of E.L. Doctorow’s novel about America on the move into modernity in the early 1900s. Walker was a man with a mission, he wanted to marry the woman he loved, he was a charistmatic man with huge pride and style, he wanted to show off his Model T, he wanted to do good and shine in the world, until his run with some New York firemen totally changes his life.

“That was such a great experience, such a game-changer for me,” Darrington said. “It was a big role, but it was complicated. You had to think about his life, and your own life, and what he wanted and the country. It makes you grow, it made me grow, and going to Broadway with it was absolutely terrific. You know, it’s the kind of thing that really made you think, about who you are and what kind of man you want to be.”

One of the things he wants to be is a good father, the best father. He’s used to the road and uses it—to reach out to the communities, where “Memphis” is playing, and take part, but he wants to stay close to his children.

“You’ve got to think about things like that,” he said. “I love acting, what I do, who I am, but you’ve got to think of other things, too. And the stage—you’ve got to expand. Coalhouse in “Ragtime” made him think about that. “It’s funny. I think about him almost every day, he comes to mind a lot.” Darrington thinks a lot about going back to school, which he plans to do next. “I want to teach others someday,” he said. “I want to open doors, for myself and others.”

Meanwhile, Delray paces the stages, his fists clenched.

“Memphis” will be at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House through July 1.

It’s Official: ANC Formally Approves New Campus Plan
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At a special June 14 meeting, Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E unanimously agreed to Georgetown University’s 2010-2020 campus plan, as revised by neighborhood groups and university leaders. Thus ended at least two years of sharp debate between the two, beginning a new era in town-gown relations.

The most significant outcome, besides restricting students from living in the neighborhood and promising to create a more vibrant on-campus main campus, is the Georgetown Community Partnership. It will be a standing group of residents and university officials along with student representation to discuss progress and problems as they happen.

“We are all Georgetown here,” said commissioner Jeff Jones. “We have to trust each other.”

Biz Group’s Annual Boat Ride on the Potomac
• June 27, 2012

The Potomac River breezes surely helped with the heat, and the sights were iconic, as the annual boat ride for the Georgetown Business Association left Washington Harbour. Cruising under Key Bridge and then down under Memorial Bridge, the group enjoyed food from Dean & Deluca and got a chance to check a new river boat line, Boomerang Tours. [gallery ids="100874,127379" nav="thumbs"]

Weekend Roundup June 21, 2012
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The Castleton Festival

June 22nd, 2012 at 07:30 PM | info@castletonfestival.org | Tel: 866-974-0767 | Event Website

The Castleton Festival’s fourth season June 22-July 22 brings classical performances, musical theater, opera, bluegrass and fine dining to the rolling hills of Castleton, Virginia (65 miles from DC) with 21 performances featuring The Barber of Seville (June 23 and 29, July 1), Carmen (June 30, July 6 and 8), A Little Night Music (July 13-16), concerts of Beethoven, Mahler, Bach, Gershwin and more.

Address

The Castleton Festival Theatre, 7 Castleton Meadows Lane, Castleton, Virginia, nestled in the rolling hills of Rappahannock County, 60 miles southwest of Washington, D.C.

Fete de la Musique

June 22nd, 2012 at 06:00 PM | Free | marine.cornuet@francedc.org. | Tel: (202) 234-7911 | Event Website

For the past 30 years, June in France has been characterized by hundreds of amateur and professional musicians invading public spaces across the country to share their music. From jazz to electro, the Fête de la Musique has evolved past the point of local festival to become a nationwide tribute to all genres of music.

Address

3401 Water Street, NW

Coldwell Banker’s Art Exhibition & Sale

June 22nd, 2012 at 05:00 PM | mnute@cbmove.com | Tel: 202-333-6100 | Event Website

Established Artists Supporting Emerging Artists
Georgetown Coldwell Banker office is hosting an Art Exhibition and Sale to benefit Duke Ellington School of the Arts. June 22-23.
A group of local artists are contributing their work with a portion of sale proceeds to be donated to the school’s art programs through CBRB Cares, the charitable arm of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage.
Wine and cheese reception Friday June 22nd from 5–8:00 pm. Exhibition hours 12–7 pm on Saturday and Sunday.

Address

3050 K Street, NW, Plaza Level, Boardwalk Entrace, Overlooking the Potomac River

Creative Opera Ensemble: Hansel and Gretel

June 23rd, 2012 at 09:30 AM | Free | information@nationaltheatre.org | Tel: (202) 783-3372 | Event Website

The classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale of two lost waifs who stumble upon a delicious gingerbread house deep in the woods, is brought to life in an imaginative musical production set to Engelbert Humperdinck’s enchanting score. Kids are invited to sing, dance and even act in this fun-filled performance that introduces opera in a friendly and engaging atmosphere guaranteed to entertain the entire family!

Address

The National Theatre, 1321 Pennsylvania Ave., NW

2nd Annual Thai Village in Georgetown

June 23rd, 2012 at 12:00 PM | Free | nipatsornk@thaiembdc.org | Tel: 202-298-4790 | Event Website

Ambassador Chaiyong Satjipanon, Thai Ambassador to the United States, is hosting the 2nd Annual Thai Village in Georgetown. The event will feature a broad range of popular dishes from all four regions of Thailand, along with Thai drinks, and soft beverages. Cultural performances will include a demonstration of Muay Thai (Thai boxing), music and dances.

Address

Grace Church (Across from Thai Embassy), 1041 Wisconsin Avenue, NW

Walking Tour – “Mr. Nourse’s Neighborhood: Georgetown c. 1800”

June 24th, 2012 at 01:00 PM | 10 | info@dumbartonhouse.org | Tel: 202-337-2288 | Event Website

Join Dwane Starlin for this stroll through Georgetown’s streets, circa 1800, the way Joseph Nourse would have viewed his neighborhood from Dumbarton House.

$10 per walker (ages 3 and under free) Meet at the corner of Q and 27th Streets, NW Tour starts at 1:00pm Rain or shine 1 hour tour 3 years and younger are free, must be in a stroller No pets allowed Wear comfortable shoes and clothing No reservation required (cash or check only at door), but pre-paid reservations welcome

Address

2715 Q Street, NW

Nordic Jazz Festival

June 26th, 2012 at 06:00 AM | $25-$50 | rsvp-hos@foreign.ministry.se | Tel: (202) 467-2645 | Event Website

This year’s Nordic Jazz 2012 presents seven outstanding jazz acts from the five Nordic countries-presenting some of the best performers the Nordic region has to offer.

On June 26, jazz bands from Iceland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark will take the rooftop stage at House of Sweden.

Address

Twins Jazz, 1344 U Street Northwest

House of Sweden – Embassy of Sweden, 2900 K Street, NW

Embassy of Finland, 3301 Massachusetts Avenue, NW

Congressional Hearing Held at Heating Plant Property Makes Its Point
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Hundreds of congressional hearings are held in Washington each year. Administration officials and others sit before House or Senate inquisitors answering each as fully and dutifully as they can. These hearings usually occur on Capitol Hill and often make for some drama or political theater.

On June 19, one particular congressional hearing was in held Washington — but away from the Hill in Georgetown. Not only was it in Georgetown, it was in a place which evoked the opposite of what most think about when considering Georgetown real estate: an empty, broken-down heating plant, now for sale by the federal government.

The hearing in the West Heating Plant on 29th Street was a bit of political theater, staged by Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), Chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.), Chairman of the Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management Subcommittee. Its title was “Sitting on Our Assets: The Georgetown Heating Plant.” Reviews have been generally favorable.

The representatives — including Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY) — set up tables and chairs within the massive plant and grilled one witness: Flavio Peres, the deputy assistant commissioner for Real Property Utilization and Disposal at the General Services Administration (GSA).

Their questions hit on why it has taken so long to put up that for-sale sign for this highly valuable property, just south of the C&O Canal and the Four Seasons Hotel. (The sign went up the day before the hearing.) The 1940s-era structure once generated energy for federal buildings and then stood as a back-up. It has been totally shut down since 2000 and has cost the government $3.5 million in maintenance fees.

Denhan and Mica want other unused federal property to get on a faster track to be sold by the GSA, as urged by the Obama Administration. They aptly used their site-of-the-day to make that point to GSA and to the public. They have held hearings off Capitol Hill before and threaten to hold more around the country, if necessary.

Peres took his hits from Mica, who said of his testimony, “We don’t know if [the plant] was turned on. We don’t know if it has an operating license. We had other places to store what was stored here … It just doesn’t seem like anyone is minding the store or taking care of the assets. This is a pretty valuable piece of property.”

Denham asked: “How is GSA going to ensure that this time we are going to get the highest value on this property that is the biggest piece of acreage in downtown Georgetown?”

Peres said that the market was strong and that developers and planners knew of the impending sale. He said that the online sales auction for the heating plant property would likely be in late September.

As for the GSA, it holds 142 properties, compared to other agencies that hold 14,000. And, yes, a GSA official spoke to Georgetown’s Neighborhood Advisory Commission about the impending sale last year. There are plans, set by financiers and architects and ready to roll, as evidenced by the Levy Group’s designs. Neighborhood groups want to make sure that some land within the mixed-use site can be used for public parkland, connecting Rock Creek to the riverfront. The huge building itself must be gutted and restructured for condos and the like.

After the hearing, Mica, Denham, congressional aides and media went to the plant’s rooftop with its commanding views of Georgetown, Cathedral Heights, West End, Rosslyn and the Potomac River. Dramatic? Yes, political theater plays well in this town.

The Historic Tudor Place Receives Preservation Award
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For its intensive site-wide archaeological survey, Tudor Place Historic House & Garden has been awarded the District of Columbia Historic Preservation Office’s Ninth Annual Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation.

The museum’s executive director and trustees and representatives of Dovetail Cultural Resources, which carried out the work, accepted the prize for archaeology June 21 at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue. Seventeen other prize categories included stewardship, design and construction, publications and affordable housing, among others. Former Historic Preservation Review board chairman Tersh Boasberg received a Lifetime Achievement Award.

“We are thrilled to be recognized for this foundational survey that informs interpretation of the site and the larger scholarship on how suburban estates of the early 19th Century functioned,” said Leslie Buhler, executive director of Tudor Place. “Archaeology is a critical component of our research. We look forward to what further excavations will reveal.”

CFO NATWAR GANDHI: KEY TO D.C.’S SUCCESS
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I was pleased by the Mayor Gray’s decision to reappoint Natwar Gandhi to another term as the District’s Chief Financial Officer. I have said many times I would not trade the District’s financial position with that of any other city, county or state in the country. The District had a $1.1 billion cumulative general fund balance in fiscal 2011, an increase of $215 million over the previous year. This is $1.6 billion above the District’s lowest fund balance level, which was minus $518 million during the control board period in 1996. Our audit last year was the District’s 15th consecutive clean audit, and our recently passed fiscal 2013 budget is the District’s 16th consecutive balanced budget.

Much of our success in maintaining fiscal discipline can be attributed to Gandhi. While the mayor and members of the District Council have at times criticized Gandhi’s conservative revenue forecasts, I believe having a surplus at the end of the year is better than finding ourselves with a deficit and the potential reintroduction of a control board. Particularly during this time of instability in our government, it is critical to have an independent CFO with a demonstrated commitment to maintaining integrity in financial projections, regardless of political pressure.

I have seen firsthand how difficult it is to bring efficiency into a government bureaucracy. This makes it all the more impressive that our Office of Tax and Revenue has modernized its systems and can issue income tax refunds in three to five days for electronically filed returns, and just ten days even for paper filings.

Perhaps most important to me is the District’s bond rating. The District must issue bonds to finance important infrastructure improvements, such as schools, libraries and parks. I cannot emphasize enough how adept Gandhi and his team are at communicating with the credit-rating agencies at our annual meeting in New York. These rating agencies determine how expensive it will be for us to borrow money. Meetings such as these help us to secure our Income Tax bond rating of “AAA” by S&P and “Aa1/AA+” by Moody’s and Fitch. Our general obligation bond ratings, which were considered “junk bonds” in the control board period, are now in the A+ and double-A range. The District has been recognized for its new highly-rated Income Tax Secured Revenue Bonds that help to ensure ongoing access to the financial markets with low interest rates. The initial issuance of these bonds gained recognition as one of the Bond Buyer newspaper’s “Deals of the Year” in 2010.

The credit-rating agencies now have a very positive view of the District’s financial position, and our bond issues are routinely oversubscribed and pay among the lowest interest rates among major cities. So I’m not just talking about a general sense I have as to Gandhi’s value – Gandhi’s work has led to tangible savings for the District. For example, the use of variable rate bonds has saved us more than $100 million. Finally, Dr. Gandhi has earned the respect of Capitol Hill. Members of Congress, which in many ways control the District’s finances, have great respect for him.

I am chairing a hearing of the Finance and Revenue Committee on Gandhi’s nomination on June 28 at 10 a.m. in room 500 of the Wilson building. I welcome any of you to testify or to submit written comments for the record. ?