April 19, 2014 - April 25, 2014, The Afro-American
Groundbreaking Continued from A1
2015. The new DHCD headquarters building will create more than 132 permanent jobs, 325 constructionperiod jobs, and will generate new tax revenues for Prince George’s County and the entire state. This will bring a net economic benefit of $8 million over the period of the lease. The influx of new employers in the area is expected to create opportunities for restaurants, retail and other services. The first phase of the project is $166 million, which includes 500 residential units and 65,000 square feet of retail space. Afterwards in phase 2, the project will incorporate up to 2,400 residential dwelling units, 100,000 square feet of retail and a 300-room hotel. The state has committed to a 15year lease on the property in order to get this done. “With our new headquarters as anchor for this transit-oriented development, the department will serve as a model for the principles of smart
growth and sustainable communities,” DHCD Sec. Raymond Skinner said in a news release. “This is an ideal project that will combine housing, transportation, and retail space to revitalize the area.” The construction of the Purple Line will also be beneficial to this development. The Purple Line will be a 16-mile light rail line that runs eastwest inside the Capitol Beltway between Bethesda in Montgomery County and New Carrollton in Prince George’s County with 21 stations that will provide direct connections to Metrorail’s Orange Line, Green Line and two branches to the Red Line, the MARC Brunswick, Camden and Penn Lines. “There is no doubt that this is going to happen, not only here, in Largo, Morgan Boulevard, Suitland and all there other places in Prince George’s County,” Baker said at the podium. “Prince George’s County is on the move.”
A5
Maryland Man Sentenced to 25 Years for Sexual Assault
By Maria Adebola Special to the AFRO
A Silver Spring man was sentenced on April 11 to 25 years in prison for sexually assaulting a 22-year-old woman in 2010. In December 2010, a jury found Glenn A. Smith, 37, guilty of two counts of first-degree sexual assault. According to the government’s sentencing memo, at approximately 2:30 a.m. June 13, 2010, the victim was walking down Wisconsin Avenue NW after leaving a party in Friendship Heights with her college friends. As she was walking to catch a taxi, Smith grabbed her, turned her away from him, and put her in a tight chokehold. He asked her how much money she had. She told him less than $20, but indicated he could have it. Smith responded, “in that case, I will get something else from you.” Smith pushed the victim to the ground and sexually assaulted her. After the assault, Smith took the victim’s underwear, wiped her with it, and fled the scene, taking the underwear. The victim immediately reported the assault to the Metropolitan Police Department. She was treated for injuries and swabbed for DNA at Washington Hospital Center. Almost a year later, May 2011, Smith was identified as a suspect after a single male DNA profile developed from one of the swabs was entered into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). Smith’s DNA was already in the system because of an earlier conviction involving identity fraud. Smith insisted he was not the suspect in the case because he was not out late during the night of the incident. After detectives, told him that his DNA was found on the victim, he responded that if his DNA was found, it meant he “had sex with a girl and gave her money.” Judge Thomas J. Motley sentenced Smith. At the end of his prison term, Smith has five years of supervised release and must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
How They Stand Continued from A1
non-profits, businesses, labor, and our partners in the General Assembly to raise the minimum wage for all Maryland workers,” Brown said in his response. “I stand behind our administration’s proposal … which raises the statewide minimum wage to $10.10 per hour and indexes future wages to the cost of inflation.” The version that emerged from the General Assembly did away with provisions that would have pegged the minimum wage to inflation and raised pay for tipped workers. It also added extra exemptions for certain businesses. Attorney General Doug Gansler, another Democratic candidate for governor who has backed a minimum wage increase, said he also supported the indexing provision. Lawmakers on the House Economic Matters Committee decided to ax the indexing measure in part to avoid tying the hands of legislators down the road. But Gansler said that the current minimum wage is “so far behind inflation that it is difficult for families to make ends meet without public support for food, housing and medical care.” “The real costs of low-wage work are high for taxpayers and employers,” he said. “No Marylander who works 40 hours a week should struggle to put food on the table or pay basic bills.” Grassroots candidate Del. Heather Mizeur, D-Montgomery, said that even before the changes made by the House, O’Malley’s proposal would not do enough to help low-wage workers. She criticized the absence of an indexing measure and the “loopholes” that exist for seasonal workers.
“While I voted in favor of legislation this session to increase most minimum wage workers to $10.10 per hour, it will still leave far too many in poverty,” she said. “This is a step in the right direction but not the relief middle and low-income families deserve.” Mizeur, who unsuccessfully fought to amend the bill on the floor of the House, is pushing a plan in her gubernatorial campaign that would raise the minimum wage for non-tipped workers to $16.70 by 2022. It would also boost wages for tipped employees and peg both rates to increase with inflation. Republicans voiced loud opposition to a minimum wage hike, arguing that an increase would hurt small businesses and force business owners to lay off workers. Charles County businessman and Republican gubernatorial candidate Charles Lollar said that “study after study” has shown a raise in the minimum wage would lead to job cuts. In an underperforming job market, he said, he wants to make sure that those currently with work don’t lose their employment as a result of a hike that businesses can’t afford. Lollar said he would instead work to eliminate the “74 new taxes and fees” that have reduced Maryland’s middle class while expanding its lower class. “We want to make your dollar stronger rather than decrease its value,” he said. Republican candidate Larry Hogan, an Anne Arundel County real estate broker and leader of the conservative advocacy
group Change Maryland, said that the minimum wage debate in Annapolis is “a symptom of a much bigger problem in Maryland – a lack of economic growth” that has resulted in stagnant wages. Hogan said that a minimum wage increase would force employers to lay off thousands of entry-level workers. “The next governor will have to work very hard to attract new businesses to Maryland to make up for these job losses,” Hogan said. GOP candidate and Anne Arundel County Del. Ron George echoed the fear that a hike would translate to job cuts without having much of a positive impact. He said the majority of minimum wage workers are people between the ages of 16 and 24 who have no dependents. “[The minimum wage] is meant to provide young people work experience and allow for seasonal businesses to operate in Maryland making us a tourist destination with greater economic impacts felt across the state,” George said. Republican candidate and Harford County Executive David Craig said he favors an elimination of the state income tax over an increase in the a minimum wage. “By [letting Marylanders keep] more of their own well earned money instead of seeing the state spend it, a change in the minimum wage would be unnecessary,” Craig said. With O’Malley set to sign the bill into law, Maryland is on track to join the more than 20 states with minimum wages above the federal level.
Vet Wages War Continued from A1
representatives and others, and engaged in other advocacy. Moreover, it is why he joined a group of veterans who filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government claiming that the Department of Veterans Affairs denied veterans their constitutional and contractual rights. Gary Kendall, of Boise, Idaho, filed the first iteration of the complaint in the District Court in Idaho, in 2006. The latest 61-page version filed June 28, 2012, alleges, among other things, that employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs “delay, deny, and withhold proper medical care so as to ... accelerate the deaths of Veterans ...” “The nation has increasingly been depriving veterans of their rights in the interest of saving money,” Kendall, 61, said. “I got tired of watching my fellow veterans and friends die,” he told the AFRO. “Even though veterans are promised the best available medical care, the VA is often years behind in the quality and currentness of quality care. And there are increasing numbers of veterans who spend their lives in pain and misery or die waiting for medical care, and that has to be stopped.” For example, Robinson said, he has been fighting the VA for proper benefits for 21 years. During that time, he alleges, his original claim files were destroyed. And, in 2012, after a Board of Veterans Appeals judge ordered that he be examined by a cardiologist to determine his eligibility for total disability un-employability impairment benefits, not only were the tests not administered by a cardiologist, but the doctor issued a report with faulty information, including omitting that Robinson was on heart medication. Though Robinson’s lawyer sent a letter informing the VA of the flawed report, it was used in determining his benefits claim, anyway. “It’s a blatant practice of fraud and abuse that the public needs to know about because a lot of young people are coming home [from deployment] and they and their families will
go through the same thing,” Robinson said. “Our goal with this litigation is not just about [obtaining] punitive damages but also to force the government to clamp down on the Department of Veterans Affairs. ... Right now it is rogue.” Kenneth Beskin, Robinson’s attorney, and a former Social Security claims specialist who focuses on veterans’ cases, said the first experience with the VA is often “shocking.” “The delays in the system are unbelievable. Not only it is backlogged, but it is so arbitrary from case to case,” he said. “I think they’re overwhelmed. They have so many cases that they’re afraid [they are] going to break the bank, so they fight everything and delay everything.” But the dysfunction also has “a lot” to do with “incompetence and ineffectiveness,” he added. “Once the system gets bogged down there’s no – Gary Kendall incentive to clean it up.” According to the VA Accountability Watch webpage of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, the VA has recently experienced a “rash of preventable veteran deaths, infectious disease outbreaks, and benefit and construction delays” within the system. Multiple VA Inspector General reports uncovered: hundreds of veteran patients who were exposed to HIV, Hepatitis, and other diseases due to unsanitary equipment or misuse of equipment; inappropriate shredding of benefit claims documents; lack of follow-up with patients at high risk of suicide; a deadly outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease; unclean facilities; at least 31 preventable deaths at VA medical centers throughout the country; and many more violations. More egregiously, though many of those problems were due to “widespread mismanagement,” negligent VA employees and executives were rarely fired and some received bonuses, the reports found. “As much as they (officials) talk about the dysfunction within the VA, no one seems to
“The nation has increasingly been depriving veterans of their rights in the interest of saving money.”
want to do anything about it,” Beskin said. Recent legislation and statements by Washington leaders seem to suggest a renewed commitment to revitalizing the beleaguered agency. House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Jeff Miller introduced the VA Management Accountability Act of 2014 to make it easier to demote or fire negligent VA executives; another bill implemented a five-year ban on performance bonuses for VA senior executive service employees and expanded tuition assistance for veterans. House and Senate lawmakers passed bills that would restore cuts to cost-of-living adjustments on military pensions. A bill was introduced to ensure that the benefits of veterans who die waiting for claims would be passed on to the individual’s heirs, and on March 5, the White House extended a
successful job-training program for veterans that was due to expire at the end of March. Meanwhile, Robinson and Kendall are continuing their fight on the legal front. On March 10, the U.S. Supreme Court denied their petition for the case to be heard, after it was rejected by lower courts. However, they have regrouped, and plan to refile the case with Robinson as the main petitioner. “They (Supreme Court justices) denied it because there’s a charge of genocide, treason, and violation of the RICO statutes, and we’ve come to the conclusion that no judge was going to preside over a case with that type of inflammatory language,” Robinson said. They have also reached out to the United Nations. “We are prepared to go through world court authorities if necessary,” Robinson said. “We hope we don’t have to go there.”
Public Meeting for the Benning Road Transportation Improvements Environmental Assessment: You are invited to attend a public scoping meeting to learn about the project, its scope, and discuss transportation issues. When: Tuesday, April 22, 2014, 6:30 – 8:00 PM Where:
Department of Employment Services Building (DOES), Community Room 4058 Minnesota Ave, NE, Washington, DC 20019 The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) are preparing an Environmental Assessment (EA) for the proposed Benning Road and Bridge Multi-modal Transportation Improvements per the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The study area is along Benning Road NE from Oklahoma Avenue to the Minnesota Avenue and Benning Road Metrorail Stations.
The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) does not discriminate on the basis of actual or perceived: race, color, national origin, sex, age, marital status, personal appearance, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, familial status, family responsibilities, matriculation, political afliation, genetic information, disability, source of income, status as a victim of an intrafamily offense, or place of residence of business as provided by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the D.C. Human Rights Act of 1977, and other related statutes. If you need special accommodations or language assistance services (translation or interpretation) please contact Malia Salaam at (202) 5635003 or info@benningproject.com 72 hours in advance of the meeting. Visit us online: benningproject.com.