[WardFive] Fwd: Stand With Me to Free DC's Budget Tomorrow Night!

Sent from the iPhone of Faith Gibson Hubbard - please excuse any spelling errors

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Sheila E. Bunn" <Sheila.Bunn2@dc.gov >
Date: October 9, 2013 at 3:43:40 PM EDT
To: "Office of the Mayor" <mayors_office-sheila@lyris.dc.gov>
Subject: Stand With Me to Free DC's Budget Tomorrow Night!
Reply-To: "Sheila E. Bunn" <Sheila.Bunn2@dc.gov >

 

Mayor Gray alongside Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.),

other District officials, and representatives of the city's human services providers at the U.S. Capitol on

Wednesday morning call for Congress and the President to work together to allow the District to spend

its own budget during the federal shutdown in order to operate city services.

 

Dear District Resident,

 

I write to invite you to join me Thursday evening at Friendship Public Charter School – Chamberlain Campus to discuss the impact of the federal government shutdown on the District of Columbia.

Earlier today, I traveled to Capitol Hill where I called on the Congress to free the District's budget from the federal government shutdown – to let us spend our own tax dollars to provide our residents with the services for which they've paid.  Tomorrow night, I ask you to participate in a more detailed briefing on how the District is being harmed by the federal government shutdown, what I am doing to mitigate that harm, and what we can do together to move us forward.

As the District suffers an unprecedented ninth day without a congressionally approved budget, the inaction of Congress and the President threatens basic government services and is already causing heartbreaking devastation to our network of organizations that provide critical health care and other social services to our most vulnerable residents.

In the letter I sent yesterday to President Obama, Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Boehner, I wrote:

"In no other part of our country are Americans facing the loss of basic municipal or state services due to the federal government shutdown. Families in Chicago, Cincinnati, and Las Vegas are not worried that their local governments won't be able to maintain basic services like schools, police and fire protection, or trash collection – and neither should families here in the District of Columbia. But once again, our citizens find themselves innocent bystanders to a federal government shutdown – made even more insulting because we have no voting voice in Congress – and an archaic and unjust federal law prevents us from spending our own local tax dollars to provide services for which our residents have already paid. This is simply unconscionable. And it is long past time for the District's budget to be decoupled from the federal budget."

I have done all that I possibly can to ensure that the health, safety and welfare of District residents is not endangered by a crisis that our city has had no hand in creating. But time is running out – and, soon, I will have exhausted every resource available to me to protect our residents, our workers, and our visitors.  Already we are experiencing severely negative consequences because of our inability to make Medicaid payments as well as payments to Metro and, soon, public charter schools.  And without urgent action, things are only going to get worse.

I urge you to join me tomorrow night at Friendship Public Charter School – Chamberlain Campus to learn more about how the District continues to suffer because of the inaction of our national leaders and what you can do to help.

When:           Thursday, October 10, 2013

                        6:30pm

 

Where:        Friendship Public Charter School – Chamberlain Campus

                       Common Room

                       1345 Potomac Avenue SE

                       Metro: Potomac Avenue (Blue/Orange Lines)

 

See you tomorrow night.

           

Sincerely,

Mayor Vincent C. Gray

 

 

 

 

New, expanded library hours start Oct. 1.  More hours for story time.  More hours for community meetings.  More hours to use free computers.  Check out the library's new hours at dclibrary.org/newhours.