anyone else dislike Greater Greater Washington?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've heard the head of GGW speak. He has a raging Napoleon complex.

David Alpert is a rude asshole. I was at an event and sporting a campaign pin for another candidate. He interrupted my conversation to ask why I wasn't supporting the Incumbent (who GGWash is endorsing). I said I didn't think she was effect. He gave me a weird look and then walked away without saying anything. Note that he did not introduce himself or give a reply whatsoever! RUDE!

He's not like that all the time.

He's quite polite with and attentive to his major funders in the development community.

Attacking someone personally this way on an anonymous forum strikes me as rude. DA has the courage to put his opinions out there, and has created a valuable forum. These kind of potshots only confirm my view of the character of his attackers.

If Dave Alpert wants to apologize to me for his rudeness, he can leave his contact info here and I will gladly send him an email.

[e-mail]

https://ggwash.org/contributors/alpert

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've heard the head of GGW speak. He has a raging Napoleon complex.

David Alpert is a rude asshole. I was at an event and sporting a campaign pin for another candidate. He interrupted my conversation to ask why I wasn't supporting the Incumbent (who GGWash is endorsing). I said I didn't think she was effect. He gave me a weird look and then walked away without saying anything. Note that he did not introduce himself or give a reply whatsoever! RUDE!

He's not like that all the time.

He's quite polite with and attentive to his major funders in the development community.

Attacking someone personally this way on an anonymous forum strikes me as rude. DA has the courage to put his opinions out there, and has created a valuable forum. These kind of potshots only confirm my view of the character of his attackers.

Retelling a story is not a a rude "attack". It happened and it was told truthfully. That's like saying that people who report crimes are being rude by "attacking" the offender. Along the same line, you could say that whenever GGWash disagrees with an issue, they are being rude "attacking" their opponents.

You are raising a personal issue about a named person. GGW does not discuss the personal traits of named inviduals, AFAICT. They discuss policy positions. When they discuss named individuals, it is almost always govt officials or candidates for office, and its about their policy positions. Sorry, I just don't think its useful in a politics forum to talk about your personal issues with the personality of a blogger. Go to Off topic and discuss it without names, and they will give you advice.

We don't know if this happened as you described, if it happened at all. Only other peson who knows what happened is DA, and he cannot be expected to read every blog and forum in this region to respond to personal accusations.

And its irrelevant to the quality of GGW as a blog.

David Alpert approached me because I was wearing a political button for someone that he did not endorse. I was minding my own business, not discussing politics or talking to him. That is a political issue and he made it one. The issue is that unless you endorse whoever DA/GGwash endorses, they will treat you rudely.

[Anonymous]

How does GGW maintain its charitable status when it is so overtly political on behalf of development-compliant candidates?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does GGW maintain its charitable status when it is so overtly political on behalf of development-compliant candidates?

It's a 501(c)(4), not a 501(c)(3).

https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-non-profits/social-welfare-organizations

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW pretends to be a volunteer blog, but it's an "astroturf" organization (faux grass roots), that is funded by big development companies, law firms dependent on a zoning practice, etc. One of GGW's more absurd moments came when they threw a developer-funded happy hour down the street from Judiciary Square the night of the marathon hearing on the mayor's proposed sweeping changes to the Comp Plan, which are sought by big development interests. GGW tried to use free drinks to attract Millennials to go over and testify in favor.

This is not true - it is mostly volunteer funded and run.

But it's a nice talking point for the paranoid of change crowd.

b.s. The developer sponsors are all listed on the website.

[Anonymous]

George Leventhal sent us a mailer indicating GGW endorsed him, which makes me less likely to vote for him.

OTOH I wasn't really inclined to vote for him anyway after he came to a community meeting on the new Bethesda sector plan thought he was at a meeting on the Westbard development and proceeded to tell us he was trying to represent the people who would be moving to MoCo in 30 years.

[Anonymous]

GGW's agenda -- which is the developers' agenda -- is to turn much of upper NW Washington into a dense "urbanist" environment. Tall mixed use everywhere, and they'd even like to up zone single family home areas. But we like our semi-suburban neighborhoods, with their leafy, green spaces. Why should everything become cookie-cutter?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:GGW's agenda -- which is the developers' agenda -- is to turn much of upper NW Washington into a dense "urbanist" environment. Tall mixed use everywhere, and they'd even like to up zone single family home areas. But we like our semi-suburban neighborhoods, with their leafy, green spaces. Why should everything become cookie-cutter?

Why do you keep repeating this when it is provably untrue?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:GGW's agenda -- which is the developers' agenda -- is to turn much of upper NW Washington into a dense "urbanist" environment. Tall mixed use everywhere, and they'd even like to up zone single family home areas. But we like our semi-suburban neighborhoods, with their leafy, green spaces. Why should everything become cookie-cutter?

I HATE the mixed-use communities!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW pretends to be a volunteer blog, but it's an "astroturf" organization (faux grass roots), that is funded by big development companies, law firms dependent on a zoning practice, etc. One of GGW's more absurd moments came when they threw a developer-funded happy hour down the street from Judiciary Square the night of the marathon hearing on the mayor's proposed sweeping changes to the Comp Plan, which are sought by big development interests. GGW tried to use free drinks to attract Millennials to go over and testify in favor.

This is not true - it is mostly volunteer funded and run.

But it's a nice talking point for the paranoid of change crowd.

b.s. The developer sponsors are all listed on the website.

I thought it was a volunteer blog, run by progressive policy types. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t take outside money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW pretends to be a volunteer blog, but it's an "astroturf" organization (faux grass roots), that is funded by big development companies, law firms dependent on a zoning practice, etc. One of GGW's more absurd moments came when they threw a developer-funded happy hour down the street from Judiciary Square the night of the marathon hearing on the mayor's proposed sweeping changes to the Comp Plan, which are sought by big development interests. GGW tried to use free drinks to attract Millennials to go over and testify in favor.

This is not true - it is mostly volunteer funded and run.

But it's a nice talking point for the paranoid of change crowd.

b.s. The developer sponsors are all listed on the website.

I thought it was a volunteer blog, run by progressive policy types. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t take outside money.

They most certainly do, mainly from the developers they're astroturfing for:

https://ggwash.org/supporters

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW pretends to be a volunteer blog, but it's an "astroturf" organization (faux grass roots), that is funded by big development companies, law firms dependent on a zoning practice, etc. One of GGW's more absurd moments came when they threw a developer-funded happy hour down the street from Judiciary Square the night of the marathon hearing on the mayor's proposed sweeping changes to the Comp Plan, which are sought by big development interests. GGW tried to use free drinks to attract Millennials to go over and testify in favor.

This is not true - it is mostly volunteer funded and run.

But it's a nice talking point for the paranoid of change crowd.

b.s. The developer sponsors are all listed on the website.

I thought it was a volunteer blog, run by progressive policy types. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t take outside money.

They most certainly do, mainly from the developers they're astroturfing for:

https://ggwash.org/supporters

Yawn.

Apparently only 4.2% of their budget comes from corporate sponsors:

https://ggwash.org/view/41647/corporate-sponsorships-how-greater-greater-washington-does-and-doesnt-work-with-businesses

And they rarely have pieces that advocate for a particular project so even here your point isn't substantiated by what is published in the blog.

You are just pissed you've been forced out of the listserve echo chamber where you used to dwell and have to respond to arguments that are more cogent than the drivel you post here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW pretends to be a volunteer blog, but it's an "astroturf" organization (faux grass roots), that is funded by big development companies, law firms dependent on a zoning practice, etc. One of GGW's more absurd moments came when they threw a developer-funded happy hour down the street from Judiciary Square the night of the marathon hearing on the mayor's proposed sweeping changes to the Comp Plan, which are sought by big development interests. GGW tried to use free drinks to attract Millennials to go over and testify in favor.

This is not true - it is mostly volunteer funded and run.

But it's a nice talking point for the paranoid of change crowd.

b.s. The developer sponsors are all listed on the website.

I thought it was a volunteer blog, run by progressive policy types. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t take outside money.

They most certainly do, mainly from the developers they're astroturfing for:

https://ggwash.org/supporters

Yawn.

Apparently only 4.2% of their budget comes from corporate sponsors:

https://ggwash.org/view/41647/corporate-sponsorships-how-greater-greater-washington-does-and-doesnt-work-with-businesses

And they rarely have pieces that advocate for a particular project so even here your point isn't substantiated by what is published in the blog.

You are just pissed you've been forced out of the listserve echo chamber where you used to dwell and have to respond to arguments that are more cogent than the drivel you post here.

A GGW supporter talking about "echo chambers" is pretty rich, considering that whole blog is one big echo chamber, with like 40 like-minded commenters who show up daily and barely anyone else (dissent -- or pointing out GGW's factual errors -- is not tolerated).

[Anonymous]

I understand there are tens of thousands of unique hits on GGW daily.

That doesn't sound like an echo chamber particularly as compared to closed neighborhood listservers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW pretends to be a volunteer blog, but it's an "astroturf" organization (faux grass roots), that is funded by big development companies, law firms dependent on a zoning practice, etc. One of GGW's more absurd moments came when they threw a developer-funded happy hour down the street from Judiciary Square the night of the marathon hearing on the mayor's proposed sweeping changes to the Comp Plan, which are sought by big development interests. GGW tried to use free drinks to attract Millennials to go over and testify in favor.

This is not true - it is mostly volunteer funded and run.

But it's a nice talking point for the paranoid of change crowd.

b.s. The developer sponsors are all listed on the website.

I thought it was a volunteer blog, run by progressive policy types. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t take outside money.

They most certainly do, mainly from the developers they're astroturfing for:

https://ggwash.org/supporters

Yawn.

Apparently only 4.2% of their budget comes from corporate sponsors:

https://ggwash.org/view/41647/corporate-sponsorships-how-greater-greater-washington-does-and-doesnt-work-with-businesses

And they rarely have pieces that advocate for a particular project so even here your point isn't substantiated by what is published in the blog.

You are just pissed you've been forced out of the listserve echo chamber where you used to dwell and have to respond to arguments that are more cogent than the drivel you post here.

A GGW supporter talking about "echo chambers" is pretty rich, considering that whole blog is one big echo chamber, with like 40 like-minded commenters who show up daily and barely anyone else (dissent -- or pointing out GGW's factual errors -- is not tolerated).

actually they get regular post from trolls who oppose the GGW agenda. If you actually call one of the NIMBY trolls a troll, the mods will delete your comment. Usually though the trolls get bored and go away after a while.