Reply to Tony Williams takes DC Govt to task for failing downtown and budget mismanagement

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Mayor Bowser has now unveiled her proposal for downtown DC and it’s wild stuff that is primarily reliant on the Federal government and the real estate industry making financial donations to the city for absolutely zero reason.

Here’s the plan:
- Increase residents in downtown by 15,000 in 5 years with a long term goal to have 100,000 residents living in downtown DC. How? Doesn’t say. 
- Have the Federal government end remote work. How and why would they do this? Doesn’t say. 
- Have the Federal government give away federal office buildings that are underutilized for either use by non-profits or conversion to housing (give away to developers?). How and why would they do this? Doesn’t say. 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/15/dc-office-residential-conversions-downtown/

Also committed not to increasing property taxes. That should worry everyone about DCs future financial condition that these discussions are taking place. These folks are fundamentally unserious.

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Federal remote work will significantly scale back at some point — it’ll be more like the private sector, where a few days a week are required in the office. (Or, if a Republican is president again, it’ll be all in-person.) I don’t think that’s such a pipe dream. 
[/quote]
No it won’t. Federal salaries have not kept pace with the private sector. As a result, it is very difficult for even high ranking Federal officials to live within a decent commuting distance. The choices are very basic, radically increase salaries or continue to allow extensive remote work. Doesn’t matter if it’s a Democrat or Republican, this bell cannot be unrung.[/quote]

Federal salaries were already not at par with the private sector before remote work, though, so why would that be the reason they keep feds working all-remotely much longer than private employers do? [/quote]
Once a benefit is given it will be harder to take away. If your hope is that a new Republican President in 2 years will snap their fingers and force Federal employees back to FT in-office work after 5 years of remote work to satisfy a request of the DC government then I’d say LOL. Federal workers already lived far away and with remote work many have moved even further away. If this is DCs downtown revitalization strategy, the city is doomed. At minimum your best case scenario is that the city needs to wait at least two more years for a return of Federal workers downtown. What happens to downtown in the meantime? And how does the real estate sector respond? Do they take that gamble or do they mark down their losses now and hope to convert to other uses? None of it makes sense and you have to wonder why they are trying to alleviate concerns about tax increases now. [/quote]

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