PPOD 7/5/09: America's Front Yard

Last night while My Sweet Baboo and I were watching the news, filled with stories on how America celebrated our Independence Day, we watched in amazement a story about the National Mall and the fact that it needs $400-$500 million in repairs, at least a 10-year backlog of deferred maintenance. The last major overhaul was done for the bicentennial in 1976. That makes this my Pet Peeve of the Day (PPOD) - how can we let stuff like this happen?

About 25 million people visit the Mall each year – according to the National Park Service, this is more than Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone parks combined. And that’s likely in a normal year, not an extraordinary year such as this, with 1.8 million attending the Obama inauguration alone. In addition to inaugurations, there’s the Cherry Blossom Festival, the July 4th celebration, Veterans Day ceremonies, and a whole host of other festivities occurring on the Mall.

The list of repairs is monumental (pun intended), ranging from additional bathrooms to supplement the 100+ that are already there; more food kiosks (natch), new sod; and something to stop the flooding at high tide near the Jefferson Memorial. High tide flooding at the National Mall? Never even occurred to me...

Beyond the repairs, the Mall suffers from the same overlapping jurisdictional issues that plague our country at every level. Both the House and the Senate have multiple committees with oversight; there are planning agencies, and review boards, and authorities – by the time you add them all up, there are some 30 or so different ‘overseers’ for the National Mall. This report outlines all of them, as well as some interesting plans to prepare the mall for the future.

The Mall is also politicized, which is not surprising given the fragmented oversight. Initially, there was quite a bit of TARP money – $200 million or so – for repairs. However, that’s been reduced to about $55 million, because of the usual barking that occurs when we talk about spending tax payer dollars. The needs for the Mall were trivialized -- as if the entire $200 million were to be spent on grass seed. And as far as jobs, who does this goofball think would be doing the work, the Keebler elves?

I’m with this guy - we can’t spend 1/150th of what we’re spending in stimulus funds on roads to fix up America’s front yard? Give me a break. Regardless of whether we end up with a master plan - which sounds logical - and fewer jurisdictions - which also sounds logical - we need to do something to bring the National Mall back to its rightful prominence and beauty. Otherwise, we might as well just build a WalMart.