Council Deferment of Presentation of the Ft. Ward Management Plan: Adrienne Terrell Washington

Council Deferment of Presentation of the Ft. Ward Management Plan

To: Chuck Zeigler, past chairman of the Ft. Ward Stakeholders Advisory Group

From: Adrienne Terrell Washington, member of FWSAG

RE: Request for CORRECTION of an email to FWSAG and Alexandria city staff on Dec. 10 erroneously stating my involvement in council deferment of presentation of the Ft. Ward Management Plan

Date: December 11, 2014

In light of your email sent to advisory group members and staffers following the City Council meeting Tuesday, Dec., 12, 2014, I am requesting that you issue an IMMEDIATE CORRECTION to RETRACT the erroneous and defamatory statements you asserted that claim that I was the sole individual responsible for the events leading up to the mayor’s and council’s rightful deferment of the presentation of the Ft. Ward Management Plan. You issued a public document that was based on what you described as “to the best of my understanding,” because you did not, as chair of the FWSAG, even talk to anyone, least of all me, who raised legitimate concerns about the Ft. Ward management plan being presented when it was discovered at the last-minute that it had been significantly altered afterit was voted on in August, as usual, without proper permission or notice by the city staff who changed, deleted or added documents (See list below).

Instead of yelling and cursing at me in the public corridors of City Hall, as well as, sending out a public communication that was stated inaccuracies about my involvement (again, without your investigation of the facts), as chair of the FWSAG, your time might have been better spent determining how, why and when the city staff had altered the Ft. Ward management plan AFTER we voted on it and AFTER we were assured repeatedly by Laura Durham that it would not be changed AFTER we voted on it.

Although I am owed a correction and as public an apology, there is a larger issue at stake as stated below. However, to set the record straight, the “distress” raised on Tuesday started well before I arrived late (after 8 pm) to the council chambers after administering a final exam at the University of the District of Columbia in downtown Washington, D.C. The ‘distress” was first raised by members of the Oakland Baptist Church, including Lena Rainey, who represents the church on the FWSAG stakeholders committee and who had also “not seen” and “not received” the altered document in question either, and subsequently showed it to me. There were members of Oakland who initiated conversations with City Manager Young and to Councilman Chapman, not I. Another fact, I joined Lena’s conversation with Chapman while it was already in progress.  By the way, Frances Terrell who represents the Seminary Civic Association, was out of town, and has since said she did not see the email that you said was sent on Friday afternoon on Dec. 5.  In any case, that timing would have given us less than one business day to read and write a response to it, which is still necessary.  As it was, it was turns what the city sent to you on Thursday, Dec. 4, and in turn to the FWSAG on Friday, was simply a long list of council hearings, etc. There was no obvious notation or indication from city staff -- as should have been extended sooner as a common courtesy --that they had taken our original document of Sept., 9, which you requested, and incorporated questionable “response(s)” in it, which significantly changed the spirit and content of our original document without our permission. It was our intent to have that document sent to the council intact to voice our concerns, again unedited by city staff.

The larger concern here is not about poor communication due to reliance on who read or saw an email at a certain time. Clearly, other members have made the same claim about missed messages. Just because an email is sent, does not mean it has been received. Also, some of us have other professional and personal obligations that do not allow us to check emails 24/7, which apparently one needs to do to keep up with city staff’s sudden and surprising actions that go against prior agreement. The larger concern that of the city staff’s practice of slipping innocuous emails on the web as a substitute for direct and transparent communication which is a much bigger and troubling long range problem. This practice has only served to exacerbate the lack of community trust in this what you aptly describe is a frustrating process, where staff continue to do what they want, when they want, how they want, continuing a longstanding tradition at Ft. Ward to act without regard or respect for residents there or for a trustworthy public process honoring community input. If you are “frustrated,” then magnify your frustration tenfold for the African American representatives on the stakeholder’s advisory committee who were repeated disrespected, dismissed or marginalized by others when we attempted to work collectively and cooperatively toward the goal of formulating a management plan that we could all live with to improve the deteriorating park but often were thwarted in our efforts. If you are “astonished,” imagine how the African American representatives feel that after all these decades and all our time volunteering to be involved in this project that nothing much has changed in this vein during the terms of either of groups establishing and negotiating guidelines for this project. In the end, the Ft. Ward management plan, written by a consultant hired by city staff, still does not address our concerns and need that continue unabated.   

These are the words that you need to correct that you sent out in an email on Dec. 10 because they are not true:  “The reasons for deferring consideration, to the best of my understanding, were the lateness of the hour (we were near the very end of the agenda), and because Ms. Adrienne Washington was distressed that she had "not seen," or "not received" the link to the docket that I had sent out on December 5, specifically Attachment 6 – 14-3417 Letter from Dissenting FWAG Members and City Response, and so the Mayor agreed to the deferment of consideration.”  Also, you do not know if I was “a recipient.” In any case as the representative of Descendants Society on the FWSAG, I never speak for myself as an individual; I speak for my constituency which I consulted on Tuesday night before agreeing with members of Oakland that we, not I, would accept the council’s offer of deferring the meeting.

Listed here are some of the items which we found troubling about what was about to be presented to the council:

Part of the disagreement Tuesday was because the City – possibly with your awareness as the then-chair of the advisory group, but not ours -- changed the content of the draft management plan from what the Advisory Group approved at their last, and then final, meeting.  Specifically the changes that were made after the group approved the plan to send to Council are:

1.  The Minority Report was expanded by the City to include its critique of the document.  The advisory group did not see, have discussions or approve the critique of the Minority Report, and it should not be a part of the draft management plan;

2.  The Fort Ward History Report was removed from the draft management plan after being approved by the advisory group for inclusion.  Lance Mallamo of the Office of Historic Alexandria suggested that the report be removed at the public hearing that was held at City Hall following the approval of the draft management plan.  You told him, however, that the advisory group approved the plan with the history report;

3.  The protocol of public notice for ground-disturbing activities was, at the suggestion of advisory group members, to be developed by Laura Durham of the Recreation Department and me.  However, I was not afforded the opportunity to see, review or help craft the protocol, as was agreed and approved by the advisory group.  It appears that the Office of Historic Alexandria developed the protocol and attached it to the draft plan without review, input, discussion and approval from the advisory group. Including a recommendation of the city in the advisory group’s plan is misleading. This document was not prepared by the group and should be either done the way we agreed or removed.

The draft plan that was submitted to City Council was not the one that the advisory group prepared and endorsed.  Just before the group took its vote to approve the plan, Laura Durham repeatedly stressed that once the group approved the plan it would not be changed before it went to City Council.  The new plan was changed and was not reviewed and approved by the advisory group.  Although you, as then-chair of the group, contend that you sent it to the group's members with four-days (actually, one business day notice) yet they were not told of the changes to the plan they approved nor were they asked for review and comment before the document was forwarded to local elected officials.  Moreover, as if it mattered, no public notice or review opportunity of these changes was provided to Alexandria's citizens.