Mr. SITTLER. How many of those jobs are civil-service jobs? Mr. SITTLER. Is it not true, then, that the reason that 91 percent of the people in the top civil-service jobs, the reason they have residence established back in their districts is that that is a requirement of obtaining their job? Mr. LUSK. No; they think it is a good idea. Mr. SITTLER. Do you? Mr. LUSK. If it is in the Federal Government, I don't think it makes a bit of difference, but in the District government I don't like it. I don't like to see a policeman running up here when he wants to be appointed superintendent. Mr. SITTLER. Do you think it is a good idea that the people in civil service should be required to establish State residence to get into the quota? Mr. LUSK. You mean the quota of the people from each State? Mr. SITTLER. Yes. Mr. LUSK. Yes. Mr. SITTLER. That would knock apart the argument that 91 percent of those people have voting residences elsewhere and that therefore most of the people in the District have the franchise that they can vote. Mr. LUSK. I don't think most of them do. Mr. ABERNETHY. They cannot establish a residence in the State in order to get under the quota. They must have a residence. However, the Civil Service Commission does not meticulously follow the quota law. Mr. SITTLER. I am glad to hear you say that. Mr. ABERNETHY. They claim they cannot very satisfactorily operate under it. Mr. SITTLER. This is no indication of the number of people, the residents of the District of Columbia, who maintain voting privileges back home. Mr. ABERNETHY. I don't know about the percentage who maintain voting privileges back home. This has been determined that when they collect income taxes from them, they say, "Oh, no, I am a resident of Tennessee or Massachusetts or Pennsylvania." They don't pay income tax here. That is particularly true of those people working in the District who come from States that do not have income-tax laws. Mr. HARRIS. I might say for the information of the gentleman the hearings revealed in the last Congress on the subject of home rule that there were some 200,000 Federal employees estimated who would have dual voting privileges under the bill under consideration. I assume as an estimate the same situation would be present today. Mr. SITTLER. Thank you. Mr. HARRIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Lusk. Mr. LUSK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. HARRIS. We will next hear from Mr. Atherholt. 97650-52- -9 STATEMENT OF GORDON M. ATHERHOLT, NORTHWEST COUNCIL CITIZENS ASSOCIATION AND PALISADES CITIZENS ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, D. C. Mr. ATHERHOLT. My name is Gordon M. Atherholt, 4645 Garfield Street NW., in the city of Washington. Mr. HARRIS. Do you represent yourself or a group? Mr. ATHERHOLT. I come here to speak on behalf of the Northwest Council Citizens Association and the Palisades Citizens Association. The city, as you know, has a great many citizens associations, roughly 70. The Northwest Council Citizens Association is a council of those city associations serving the city west of Rock Creek and north of Georgetown. Georgetown wasn't in the original set-up and we have had some problems about providing space in individual members' bomes. Mr. HARRIS. Do you know if we will have someone to speak for Georgetown before this committee? Mr. ATHERHOLT. I don't know, but I am sure I could arrange it and would be glad to do so. We have nine active bodies who are members of our council. Each body sends two delegates. Those, I might add, include everything from Chevy Chase on down on the west side of Rock Creek, Chevy Chase, Connecticut Avenue Citizens Association, Forest Hills, which lies between Connecticut and Rock Creek, American University Park that takes in Spring Valley, Palisades Citizens Association, which takes in MacArthur Boulevard, part of Wesley Heights, Kent, Glover Park, Friendship. I heard the chairman's admonition that he wants testimony on the bill. I shall proceed to get down to the bill. I have here only two extra copies of some resolutions that we passed at a meeting a week ago. They are as follows: The Northwest Council of Citizens' Associations, sitting in regular meeting on March 7, 1952, having considered the respective provisions of act S. 1976 of the Eighty-second Congress, known as the Case bill for home rule in the District of Columbia, hereby directs that the Committees on the District of Columbia of the Senate and of the House of Representatives be advised of the following views of this council: (1) Resolved, That the provisions of the act with respect to the Zoning Commission should be changed to include three members of the District Council, one representative of the Park and Planning Commission, and the Architect of the Capitol; each member of the Commission to be individually specified and appointed person, and each member to be appointed to serve a term equal to that of a member of the Council. Gentlemen, the bill provides for the passage of a zoning ordinance and it says that they shall not be passed without having first been referred to the National Capital Park and Planning Commission. Their views are given great weight by the Congress today. We believe that the interests of the Federal Government should be represented through the architect of the National Capital Park and Planning Commission but more particularly in asking for their presence on the Zoning Commission, we have in mind getting a lot more continuity. Those officials are a little more continuous and the men become trained and acquire a philosophy of zoning and that is exactly what we are afraid of. Under this act the City Council would sit as a zoning commission; 15 members, all of short term, changing with frequency and not the entire Council would sit as a zoning commission. This year it might be three members, say in the month of March and in the month of May it might be another three members and there might be a very hodgepodge result and that we don't wish. As a result we passed this first resolution. The second resolution is as follows: (2) Resolved, That the provisions of the act with respect to salary for members of the District Council should be changed to provide an annual salary of $7,500 to assure the obtention of adequately qualified councilmen who will be able to devote an adequate amount of time to the duty of their office. As the bill is set up and more particularly the views that were very obvious from the antecedent bill, the Kefauver bill, they seemed to anticipate that gentlemen having other positions shall come and do a little occasional night duty as a city council. With a city of almost 1 million people that is of course really inadequate and regardless of how many hours they spend in the council chamber, if they are going to do their job, their minds will have to be on the problem almost continuously. We feel very strongly that the salaries of $3,000 provided by the bill are altogether inadequate to attract the sort of people we should have. Mr. ALLEN. May I ask this: Did you in your deliberations consider the history and the experience of other cities of similar size, or was your deliberation more the thinking of your own group? Mr. ATHERHOLT. I cannot say that we considered the experience of other cities so much. But we were, all of us, well aware of the other side of it, of the story of giving a very nominal salary and that will attract people of the best class. Well, will it? Does it? We do not feel convinced of that. We feel that the job should be reasonably recompensed for people of reasonable competence. We don't want to have the people selected from those whom, because of wealth or retirement would be selected. We don't think it should be done that way. Our third resolution is as follows: (3) Resolved, That the granting of power to borrow money to a new and inexperienced governing body would be an unfortunate thing; that the new government should have at least 5 years of experience behind it before this power to borrow is available to it; and, therefore, title XV of the act be amended to provide that the provisions of title VI for borrowing money for capital improvements be made effective January 1, 1958. The city of Washington has gotten along very well without any borrowing power for at least seventy-some years. Mr. ABERNETHY. I think that is one of the real serious things in this bill and I am amazed that more people don't touch on it. I presume it is the only debt-free city on this continent. Mr. SITTLER. Oh, no. Mr. ABERNETHY. Do you know of any city comparable to Washington? Mr. SITTLER. Kalamazoo, Mich., is one. They have 50,000 or 75,000 people. I am sure there are others but not with 802,000 people. Mr. ABERNETHY. But it is the rare thing. Mr. SITTLER. I agree. Mr. ATHERHOLT. We feel that the city has gone along very satisfactorily and perhaps there isn't any occasion whatsoever for giving the new government, if we are going to have a new government, this power to borrow. We didn't get to consider the question as long as we would have liked to, to decide whether we were for or against the idea of borrowing, but we feel that a group of new men coming together totally inexperienced in governing a city should not be given the temptation to borrow and show a good record at the end of 2 or 3 years of accomplishment by the money we are spending for your children. Mr. ABERNETHY. That was one of the reasons that they threw over this so-called voice in government system that they had under Governor Shepherd because of the debt he pressed upon the people. Mr. ATHERHOLT. The fourth resolution was as follows: (4) Resolved, That section 801 creating an elective school board should be removed from the act, and that it shall provide for continuation of a school board appointed by the judges of the United States district court. We are not disrespectful of the desire for franchise, but it has been our observation that school boards appointed by a sufficiently informed source have certainly a better record of accomplishment than those who are elected, for the simple reason that the elected school board is elected many times by people who don't know what the names on the ballot are and the nominees are chosen from men who, for one purpose or another, aspire to be there, while the judges of the District court who have been appointing them in the past at least are able to separate the chaff from the grain, and make the choice from the grain. What is really our point Mr. HARRIS. I realize there are differences of opinion as to the method of determining the membership of the school boards throughout the country. Some jurisdictions have one method and some another. Personally, I think that if there is any one thing that the local people should have the right to determine that should be who runs their schools. That is one of the things I disagree with some people on but I appreciate there is a difference of viewpoint. Some jurisdictions say they ought not to be elected and for the reason that you suggested, but that is one of the basic, fundamental, local problems. Mr. ATHERHOLT. Yes, and another is that there is no reason for changing a system of school boards unless they are doing something wrong and if there is something wrong with the one you have, let us change it regardless. Mr. ABERNETHY. Many school boards are appointed by the governing officials of the city and the county school boards are appointed by the county governing authorities. I think it is a matter of choice. Mr. ATHERHOLT. Of course a lot of us have a knowledge of some of the school boards in this country, such as the famous school board in Chicago that couldn't pay its school teachers for 2 or 3 years not so long ago. Mr. HARRIS. You don't have to go as far as Chicago to see that. Mr. ATHERHOLT. Is that so? Maybe you gentlemen are more experienced on that. Mr. HARRIS. You may proceed. Mr. ATHERHOLT. Another matter is this, and this provides that school-board members shall be nominated by wards. We couldn't see any reason for that, rather than on a city-wide basis, nor could we see any reason why members of the school board should continue to reside in the same ward. The fifth resolution we passed is as follows: (5) Resolved, That section 901 (b) of the Act, providing for permanent registration, should be amended to provide that a registration shall not be effective for more than two years, and preferably that there be separate registration for each election. This recommendation is made because of the shifting character of the population of this area. Also, if you look at the definition of a qualified elector, you will find that it is a man who has come up and made certain representations as to what he has done in the past and what he intends to do in the future and that he isn't going to do anything to disqualify himself between now and the next election. If we would have a prominent registration I am afraid we would have a great number of voters who had long since ceased to be qualified. The sixth resolution is: (6) Resolved, That section 903 (b) of the Act be amended to provide for a three-year term of office on the District Council. We feel that a two-year term, as originally provided in the Act, would militate against the creation of an experienced and smoothly working Council. A four-year term would not be objectionable, but a two-year term would be undersirable. This may seem particularly harsh language, especially when Members of the House of Representatives are listening who are themselves elected for a 2-year term, but we feel that a councilman elected for 3 or 4 years would probably give us a better council if we were to have him for that period of time rather than a gentleman elected for 2 years. Mr. SITTLER. It might give you a better government in Congress too. Mr. ATHERHOLT. Yes. Then the seventh resolution was as follows: (7) Resolved, That section 903 (c) of the Act be amended to provide for a 4-year term of office on the Board of Education, this for the same reasons as stated above in regard to the Council. The bill provides a 2-year term. That 2-year term on the Board of Education we fear would give us a very frequently and widely shifting policy. The eighth resolution was: (8) Resolved, That section 904 of the Act be amended to remove the provision that vacancies on the District Council or on the District Delegate shall be filled by appointment by the President of the United States. We recommend that a vacancy in the office of the District Delegate be filled by the Council and that vacancies on the District Council be filled by special election within a period of four months unless there be a regular election within eight months. The ninth resolution was: (9) Resolved, That section 911 (b) of the Act be amended to provide that each voter shall be entitled to vote only for such candidates for District Council and Board of Education as have been nominated from, and to represent, the ward in which the individual voter is registered. |