Responses of Jim Montgomery to
GLAA 1998 Questionnaire for Council Candidates
1. If elected, what will you do to encourage the Council to exercise its powers more responsibly and thereby facilitate a speedy return of home rule powers to the District?
Because of the financial, including cost accounting, tax policy education (MBA in Business, CPA, LLM in tax) and experience in teaching these subjects and using them in private and government practice, I will be well informed on the subjects of taxation, budget and control, of particular interest to the Control Board and the Congressional committees.
Being well informed in these important areas I will be able to make suggestions to the other Council members of how control can be achieved.
2. The Council has seldom aggressively exercised its oversight powers over the District government. Instead, too often it has been passive and reactive in addressing the mismanagement problems which routinely plague the District government's administration. What will you do to improve the Council's performance of its oversight responsibilities?
I have a strong interest in oversight because I have wide experience in departmental management including: procurement (Major, Air Force Procurement Officer), housing (17 years in multifamily housing at HUD), health (Deputy Administrator for Budget Health Services Administration NY City -- in 1969 almost a billion dollar budget), law enforcement, both city prosecutor and later defense attorney. In education I served on the local board of education in Ridgewood, New Jersey before coming to Washington 28 years ago.
A powerful way to get increased oversight interest in both the council and the departments is to get the departments to set annual goals which can be monitored on a quarterly or other periodic basis. Helpful goals would be: reduce high school dropout rate, reduce infant mortality rate, reduce murder and other crime rates, increase admission to college and employment of high school graduates...etc.
A second stimulus for interest would be to cost out the units of service. For example, the cost of garbage collection per house, the cost of vaccinations per vaccination.
Certainly some goals are being set and some units of service costed out, but it can be greatly expanded with resultant increase in interest.
Oversight is much more than just finding out who is making mistakes on the job. My own emphasis in management has been “running with the good guys.” As a good coach does, more attention should be paid to the better performers and less to the weaker. This is what gets results.
3. Do you support passage and full funding for the new civilian complaint review system to be established by Bill 12-521, the "Citizen Complaint Review Act of 1998"?
Yes.
4. Do you support Bill 12-612, the "Opened Alcoholic Beverage Containers Amendment Act of 1998" (a.k.a. the "Chardonnay Lady Bill"), that would allow people to drink alcoholic beverages on their porches without fear of arrest?
I have only made a quick check of the D.C. code and I do not find anything that would make having a drink on one’s own porch a crime, so I am surprised at the need for the law if one’s own porch is the location. If it is now illegal to drink on one’s own porch, that law should be changed. Intoxication anywhere does bring legal action. It should because of the risks of intoxication to the individual and to others.
5. In an apparent effort to bolster his standing with some segments of the District community, the recently-ousted chief of the Department of Consumer & Regulatory Affairs, David Watts, instituted a zoning regulation earlier this year barring video stores from deriving more than 15% of their revenue from sexually-oriented videos. Do you agree that this attack on the rights of adult consumers is utterly unwarranted and that there should be no limits on the proportion of video store revenues derived from adult videos?
It sounds like the 15% limit was an arbitrary line and was not justified. The permissible line on restricting obscenity (if “sexually oriented” includes “obscenity”) vs. freedom of speech is a difficult one to define.
6. Will you support legislation to authorize and regulate the issuance of liquor licenses to establishments (in designated non-residential commercial districts) that want to offer nude dancing as entertainment?
There’s a lot of crime that comes with bars and night clubs. I do not know whether intoxication and crime would be increased as a result of the combination with nude dancing. I would want to study what the experience has been with such establishments before supporting the legislation.
7. Do you support Initiative 59 (or similar legislation) to legalize the use of medical marijuana when a patient's doctor recommends it as a means to combat some of the effects of AIDS, cancer, and other diseases?
Yes as to the medical use of marijuana. On drugs generally I feel that there should be a study of possible further legalization of drugs. Over one million and approaching 2 million persons are in jails and prisons, much of it for nonviolent and drug related crime or for violent crime related to drug sales. This is a high price for continuing the unsuccessful effort to stop drug addiction. The million, maybe two million in jail in jail, plus the effect on their families, is a high price to pay for what is in part justified on a moralistic basis. Drugs are sold to children in schools because of the money received on the sales. There’s an analogy here to liquor.
8. The New York State Legislature recently passed legislation saying that: (1) doctors must report the names of people who test positive for HIV to public health officials; and that (2) health workers must attempt to have infected patients identify their sex of or drug-use partners and then must notify those partners of possible exposure. Such measures are invariable counter-productive and discourage those most at risk from being tested and treated for HIV. Will you oppose any such legislation in the District?
Every promising measure to stop the spread of AIDS should be taken. In good conscience one who has AIDS should notify his or her sex partners so the sex partner can protect him or herself, thus reducing the spread. I do not know whether one can be tested in confidence under the New York law, but I believe one should be able to be tested in confidence.
9. Do you support an increase in District government funding to combat AIDS in line with the continuing increase in the caseload?
Yes.
10. Do you support continued District government funding for the needle exchange program to combat the spread of AIDS?
Yes.
11. Do you support legal recognition of marriages between partners of the same sex?
Yes.
12. Do you support the current District policy, sanctioned by a court rule, of allowing adoptions by unmarried couples?
Yes.
13. Do you support both an increased budget for the Office of Human Rights (OHR) so that its heavy case backlog can be eliminated, and the re-establishment of OHR as an independent, Cabinet-level agency whose Director has direct access to the Mayor?
Yes, the backlog should be eliminated. I do not have enough knowledge at this writing to know whether it should be “Cabinet-level” or not, but it should have direct access to the Mayor.
14. Will you support legislation codifying OHR's current practice of granting top priority to discrimination complaints from those afflicted with AIDS or other life-shortening conditions?
Certainly AIDS should be an important factor in determining priority.
15. Proposals for establishing a system of vouchers for private schools, whether here or elsewhere around the country, would funnel taxpayer dollars to religious schools controlled by denominations that fr3equently are aggressively homophobic. Will you oppose any legislation authorizing vouchers for religious schools?
The schools in D.C. are desperately in need of improvement. This the most critical problem. The high school dropout rate is one of the highest in the country and those who finish are in many cases not prepared for employment which leads them, as well as the dropouts, to crime. There may be ways of controlling the sending of students to religious schools where particular religious beliefs or homophobic attitudes are indoctrinated. All factors have to be considered in making the judgment. Change has to be made in the education of D.C. children and an open mind has to be kept on experimentation with vouchers and other approaches.