Photo by John Shore

Ken Jarboe

Ken Jarboe served 12 years as an elected Commissioner for ANC 6B and was Chair during 2001 and 2002.

As ANC 6B Chair and former Chair, he was involved in numerous community and economic development activities in and around Capitol Hill. He was an original member of the Business Improvement District (BID) Steering Committee and an ex-officio member of the BID Board of Directors. As part of the Steering Committee, he worked to identify the BID boundaries and develop the database of owners and tenants.

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Interview Date
October 3, 2023
Interviewer
Randy Norton
Transcriber
Betsy Barnett
Editor
Diane Platt

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START OF INTERVIEW
NORTON: Alrighty. Okay. This is Randy Norton. It is October 3, 2023. I am interviewing Ken Jarboe at his home, 911 East Capitol Street. Good morning.
JARBOE: Good morning.
NORTON: Can you give me a little background about where you’re from originally?
JARBOE: Sure. I’m from Michigan originally, but I’ve been on the Hill since, I want to say, ’85. So some people consider me a newbie. [Laughs.] So, yeah, I was out here before working at a consulting firm and came out originally as a congressional intern when I was a University of Michigan undergraduate.
NORTON: That wasn’t in ’85 though. That was before that.
JARBOE: No, that wasn’t in ’85. [Laughs.] That was in, let’s see, it would have been the summer of ’76. So I got to see the bicentennial. And then I came out here between ’79 and ’80  to work at a consulting firm. Went back to graduate school in Michigan. Got my PhD in ’82. Taught for a couple of years at University of Maryland, what is now called the Global Campus.
NORTON: Right, this…
JARBOE: Doing technology management which is my field. Went over to the late lamented Office of Technology Assessment for a couple of years, and then got a job in various Senate offices doing staff work for Jeff Bingaman from New Mexico and Don Riegle from Michigan.
NORTON: So that’s what brought you here then.
JARBOE: That’s what brought me here. Yeah, I’m a policy wonk.
NORTON: Okay. And where did you work or where did you live originally when you got here?
JARBOE: Oh, God, I lived all over the place. Well, when I first got here, I was over on 600 A SE. Then for a year I was at the corner house of 11th and Independence, the end of—what’s it?—Philadelphia Row.
NORTON: Right.
JARBOE: With the great—oh, that’s the best garden in the world.
NORTON: It is.
JARBOE: Something was always blooming. But at the back end of that was a small apartment. And then, when I joined Jeff Bingaman’s staff and had a full-time job, I bought a condo up off Lincoln Park. And then moved down by the Marine Barracks at 711 Tenth Street. And then moved in here in 2000, I think.
NORTON: All right,
JARBOE: So I kind of flitted around places.
NORTON: Okay, okay. And what have you done since you—I mean you started working with Bingaman in Congress. Fill in your career a little bit for me since you got here.
JARBOE: Yeah. I did technology policy and trade policy. So this was the—in the 80s. It was the heyday of competitiveness and industrial policy, and that was my area. So I did what became the ’88 trade act, the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act, with Bingaman, and then ended up with Riegle doing the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, which kind of bookended the big trade treaties that were going on. I left after the ’94 election when the Senate turned over. Worked for a couple of think tank organizations for a little while, off and on. And then started something that we then called Athena Alliance in 1999 as a think tank on the information economy. Headed that up until 2014.
NORTON:  So for someone who is not in on all this stuff, what do you mean by the information economy?
JARBOE: Well, we call it the intangible economy as well. The fact that it isn’t—we don’t measure economic progress by making things. That’s an important part but a bigger part are the intangibles of knowledge, you know, artistic endeavors, software, relationships within the corporation rather than economies of scale driving it, customization of products—the fact that the idea of goods and services being separate no longer holds. It’s a fusion of the two. So the company may offer a product, but it's tied to a service, or a service is tied to a product.
Take, for example, alarm companies. Very rarely do you buy a stand-alone alarm system. Some people do but, you know…what you do is you sign up for a service, and they provide the hardware as well. So it’s the fact that economic growth comes from these intangibles rather than just from economies of scale, which was the old industrial paradigm.
NORTON: Right, right.
JARBOE:  So you know, it’s kind of—we like to call ourselves on the bleeding edge. [Both laugh.] One step over the knife’s edge.
NORTON: Well, you know, it’s an interesting concept though, and I gather the American economy is so much less goods-oriented than it used to be.
JARBOE: Right. But it still, yeah. It isn’t the thing that services are going to take over everything. It’s the combination of services and goods that are important. That’s what people get wrong when they talk about the service economy. Well, it’s much more complicated and interesting than that. So that’s kind of my background on the policy side. What happened in all of that was I ended up running for the ANC [Advisory Neighborhood Commission].
NORTON: When was that?
JARBOE: In the election of 1998.
NORTON: All right. And where were you living at that point?
JARBOE: I was living down at 711 Tenth Street.
NORTON: Okay.  So that would be [Advisory Neighborhood Commission] 6B, right?
JARBOE: Yeah, it was 6B. And it was 6B05 at that time.
NORTON: Okay.
JARBOE: And it included the Marine Barracks and included—it went up to Pennsylvania Avenue— included Tyler [DC public elementary school]. I had an advantage in the election in that my house was directly across the street from the voting precinct entrance to Tyler. So I could put out a big banner in my front yard. [Both laugh.]
NORTON: Yes. My old friend Alice Norris must have been in your district.
JARBOE: Yes, yes.
NORTON: …In any event.
JARBOE: I remember her well.
NORTON: I’m sure you do. Yes. All right. So what sort of inspired you to run for ANC?
JARBOE: Well, part of it was, you know, having been staff. You kind of say, well, you know, I want to try that as well. And realizing, you know—you want to convince yourself (a) that staff’s important but (b) it’s only a small part of it, and the pressures and the decisions of the actual elected official are different than staff. And…well, okay, I want to be in that position as well and experience that, as well as just, you know, having been staff. And I think it would have made me better staff had I gone back to the Hill, but I never went back to the Hill.
NORTON: Well, and, of course, ANC isn’t like most other elected offices, is it? I mean it’s a bit of a sort of a funky situation that DC has.
JARBOE: Yeah. It’s a funky situation in the government, but it’s very much like other elected officials in terms of, you know, you have people, [that] and you need to worry about their interests and try to help them as much as possible. And, you know, there is that pressure of doing something for your constituents versus what might be citywide a better idea. So it’s kind of fighting for your own constituents and dealing with that pressure. The other thing is I happened to decide to run because the seat was empty. The seat was vacant. And, in fact, nobody filed for the seat.  So I ran a write-in campaign. [Interviewer laughs] And I got 200-and-some votes in a write-in campaign. Partly because I had [DC Council Member] Sharon Ambrose’s people at the polls handing out my little card that said, you know, “Write in Ken Jarboe for ANC.”
NORTON: Along with her stuff.
JARBOE: Yeah.
NORTON: Yes, yeah, yeah.
JARBOE: Exactly.
NORTON: All right. And what do you most remember about your early years with the ANC?
JARBOE: [Laughs.] Well, there were some internal battles that happened. I ran for chair for the 2000—Well, let’s see. The way it goes is I was elected in ’98, that was served in ’99, 2000; re-elected in 2000.  So I ran for chair against the incumbent in 2000 for the one-year term. Lost, but basically became, not de facto chair, but, you know, I had established myself as a leader in the ANC.
NORTON: Okay.
JARBOE: By losing that particular race because it was so close.
NORTON: Okay.
JARBOE: And so it was a lot of looking around, and there was a lot going on in those years from ’99, 2000, 2001, to 2002—I mean, we’ll get into the BID [Business Improvement District], but that was just one of the many things that was going on. We had the Barracks Row Main Street starting up and doing the streetscape—tearing up the road and rebuilding the streetscape. Let’s see. We had all the stuff that was going on down on M Street by the Navy Yard. They split off what used to be called the Southeast Federal Center. It was part of the Navy Yard.
NORTON: Right.
JARBOE: They split that off years ago, but Eleanor Holmes Norton got them to lease out that property to commercial development, and that’s where the Department of Transportation is. So you had NAVSEA Command [Naval Sea Systems Command] coming into the Navy Yard and bringing all those contractors. You had Department of Transportation coming in and bringing all those contractors. You had the Hope VI redevelopment dealing with the Capper Carrollsburg housing [Arthur Capper/Carrollsburg housing project] going on. All within that small area. All of that was part of 6B at the time.
NORTON: Okay.
JARBOE: We went all the way down to the river and all the way over to South Capitol Street. So all the zoning for what became the Navy Yard…all of the stuff in Capper Carrollsburg…all that stuff was part of the ANC, and I was chair at the time. Then we had Reservation 13, the master plan for Reservation 13 going through.
NORTON: Which is?
JARBOE: Which was the old hospital.
NORTON: Right DC General.
JARBOE: The old DC General site. Which is finally, like 20-some years later, [laughs] finally being redeveloped. We basically did all the zoning for that as well. So there’s just all this stuff going on, and, you know, I think it was probably George Didden, called me up and said hey, you know, we’re going to start to talk about this thing called the BID.
NORTON: All right. And you remember when that was?
JARBOE: That would have been ’99, 2000. Probably the first meeting was, like, in ’99.
NORTON: So you wouldn’t have even been chairman by then.
JARBOE: I was not chairman by then.
NORTON: Okay, okay.
JARBOE: But part of the reason that I was pulled in rather than other folks was since I had half of Barracks Row in my SMD [Single-member District]. And so I got pulled in. And I got interested and then I got pulled in that way.
NORTON: And let me just ask you one thing that just occurred to me before we get into the BID because—were you around or were you on the ANC when the flap about Boys Town was ______?
JARBOE: Yep.
NORTON: And what do you remember about that? Because that seemed like the feds were going to, you know, crush us, and then suddenly somehow the locals won. So.
JARBOE: Yeah. No, I was in the middle of that because…When it first came in, I wasn’t chair, but I was chair when we dealt with it. And, yeah, it was interesting, you know, that they—I actually was deposed to give testimony for the lawsuit. I was interviewed by the …
NORTON: And who filed the lawsuit? Do you remember?
JARBOE: I think the city did on behalf of Boys Town.
NORTON: Okay.
JARBOE: I may be wrong in that, but it was clearly the city attorney—no, it wasn’t the city attorneys—It was the Justice Department. The Justice Department filed it on behalf of the city, on behalf of Boys Town. And I was represented by an attorney from the District, and I was questioned by attorneys from the Department of Justice.
NORTON: Okay, okay.
JARBOE: And I, you know, I never quite knew exactly what happened in terms of the dropping of the lawsuit or the …
NORTON: Because they had actually started construction as I recall. Yeah.
JARBOE: Oh, yeah. They had started construction. I remember we wanted to make sure when we got the land back, and they were going to pull out, that Will Hill got to kind of throw the first hammer, do the first backhoe to pull down the buildings that were …
NORTON: So, now, who is Will Hill?
JARBOE: Will Hill was the long-standing ANC member from that area, from the Barney Circle area. And he had fought this tooth and nail, and he was very instrumental in fighting it because constituents just didn’t want it there. They were worried about it.
NORTON: And, but somehow or other, it went as far as getting built, and…
JARBOE: Yeah, it got built but—Yeah, and I don’t quite know, I never quite figured out exactly what the lawsuit settlement ended up being…but the settlement ended up being that they, you know, Boys Town, would go someplace else. Where they went, I can’t even remember.
NORTON: Okay, okay.
JARBOE: And now we have the Harris Teeter and the high-rise.
NORTON: Of course, the Harris Teeter has now pooped out.
JARBOE: Yeah.
NORTON: So, yeah. Okay. All right, back to the BID. What was the first thing you heard about a BID or the concept of a BID?
JARBOE: I think it must have been some meeting that George chaired or was at. It might have been a CHAMPS [Capitol Hill Area Merchants and Professionals] meeting. There was also a group of folks interested in economic development that Sharon Ambrose pulled together. That was more geared toward M Street and the Navy Yard. It was a small group that she had. And so probably a meeting that George called.
NORTON: And George is, just for the record?
JARBOE: I’m sorry, George is George Didden. He was at the time the president of National Capitol Bank.
NORTON: Okay. So had you heard about BIDs before that?
JARBOE: I had not heard about BIDs before that. And, you know, I guess I went to this meeting, and it sounded like a great idea. What impressed me was the fact that this was the local businesses’ initiative. This was not the city coming in and saying we’re going to do this. This wasn’t, you know, somebody else coming in and saying, you know, wouldn’t this be a great idea if we did this. This was the businesses self-taxing themselves in order to do things that the city kind of wasn’t doing—the Clean and Safe. And even though there’s all this stuff going on in economic development, in the mid-90s, the Hill was not looked as a favorable place for a lot of people. I mean, there was a …
NORTON: There was a crack epidemic at that …
JARBOE: The crack epidemic, the Control Boards [District of Columbia Financial Control Board]. There was a Washington Post story called “To Hell with the Hill” or “The Hill to…
NORTON: [Laughs] Something like that.
JARBOE: “Going to Hell on the Hill.” Something like that. Talking about all the stuff that was bad on Capitol Hill. And I know that that animated Don Denton to be part of this. I mean, he would, you know–we’ve got to fix this, we’ve got to change this.
NORTON: All right.
JARBOE: And so he was very adamant in the …
NORTON: Just sort of thumbnail sketch, where did the BID idea originally come from? Do you know?
JARBOE: I don’t really know. I mean, it’s—Patty tells me that she went up to one of the …
NORTON: That’s Patty?
JARBOE: Patty Brosmer—who was first executive director and then president of the BID—she actually went up to one in New York in the late 90s to kind of see the process, and I think it got started up there in New York City, but I don’t know. It’s been all over the place.
NORTON: And the Capitol Hill one wasn’t the first one in DC even, right?
JARBOE: No, it wasn’t. In fact, there was a couple of times that in the mid 90s, as I understand it, legislation to create the idea of BID failed. And I think it was because it was too overarching. But Patty worked on the implementing language to basically set up a framework first. So let’s put in place legislation that simply allows the creation of BIDs.
NORTON: And this would be legislation with the DC Council.
JARBOE: With the DC Council, yeah. And, then, I believe, Downtown and, I think, Golden Triangle—no, Georgetown—Downtown and Georgetown.
NORTON: And she was connected with Georgetown originally, right?
JARBOE: She had been working with the Georgetown BID, yeah. And those were the first two that got off and were very successful. And so you know, they kind of opened the door for everybody else to come in.
NORTON: All right. So, all right, you go to the first meeting or two and you’re intrigued with the idea. What happened next from your point of view with respect to the BID?
JARBOE: Well, I basically started lining up the support within the ANC to support the BID. Because it was crucial that they had the ANC support. I mean, it wasn’t—ANC support was not the catalyst, but if it hadn’t have been there, it would have been a huge red flag, you know. It was kind of you want to do this, but you can’t even get your local ANC to support it?
NORTON: Okay.  
JARBOE: So I was setting up…kind of doing the support for the general concept and ended up testifying in both—in 2000 and 2002—in favor of the creation of the Capitol Hill BID.
NORTON: And this would be testimony before the Council? Or the committee?
JARBOE: It was testimony before the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development who had to sign off on it before it went to the Council and on the Council.
NORTON: Okay.
JARBOE: So that was a two-step approach to …
NORTON: Was there any resistance or skepticism on the part of the ANC?
JARBOE: No. There was a question—and this is something I made very clear to George and everybody else on the steering committee that he had set up for this—that the BID had to go all the way down to Barney Circle. It could not be a Historic District versus Hill East issue. If it became that, it was dead.
NORTON: And why was that your position?
JARBOE: Because we needed to unify. You would not get the ANC support if it didn’t include Hill East. I mean—and Hill East would once again be saying, you know, you’re leaving us out. We’re the dumping ground. You know, this was the era of Mount Trashmore down at the DC General site.
NORTON: Right.
JARBOE: So it was very important politically, but I thought it was also very important because we didn’t want to separate Capitol Hill from Hill East.
NORTON: Right.
JARBOE: I mean, we saw Pennsylvania Avenue as a continuous strip, commercial strip.
NORTON: All the way to the river.
JARBOE: All the way to the river. Yeah.
NORTON: Yeah, okay.
JARBOE: And that was important. In fact, the BID headquarters now are down by Barney Circle.
NORTON: Yeah.
JARBOE: So that was an absolute must for getting support. But I had lined that up early enough that, when it went to the ANC, it was not a question.
NORTON: In other words, you lined up the idea that it would include the whole …
JARBOE: That it would go all the way down.
NORTON: All the way to the river, yeah.
JARBOE: Yeah. So it wasn’t an issue.
NORTON: Okay, okay. So were you on the steering committee?
JARBOE: I was on the steering committee, yeah.
NORTON: And when did you become part of the steering committee? Right from the beginning?
JARBOE: Yeah, kind of from the beginning. I may not have been at the first couple of meetings that George had, but, you know, by 1999 or 2000 I was on the steering committee.
NORTON: Okay. Who else was on the steering committee? You mentioned George Didden, Don Denton.
JARBOE: Oh, I’ve got a list here. [Laughs.]
NORTON: Well, okay. It looks like a long list.
JARBOE: Yeah. I mean, that’s an interesting point. It’s a very long list. And there are owners and there are building folks. I mean, it’s everybody from George Didden and Don Denton to Mark Holler at Ginkgo Gardens, Ken Golding with Stanton Development, Bob Braunohler of Louis-Dreyfus Properties, Ed Copenhaver from Frager’s. I mean, it was—I won’t say it was the complete list of people, businesses who were kind of active on the Hill, but it was a—I mean, it was one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine …
NORTON: … By three …
JARBOE: …Close to 30 people?
NORTON: Yeah. And this is the list of folks who were in the original or certainly the early steering committee?
JARBOE: Yeah, yeah.
NORTON: Okay.
JARBOE: I mean, it’s the earliest list I have from the steering committee. The steering committee was essentially charged with the campaign—to get enough signatures on the petition to establish the BID, [so] that it would go through.
NORTON: Oh, what was involved in the process of creating the BID?
JARBOE: The overall legislation said you had to have a certain number of property owners within the BID and a certain level of property value within the BID. And I forget exactly what the criteria was. But, you know, substantially …
NORTON: So it was property owners; it wasn’t just business folks then.
JARBOE: It was both. It was …
NORTON: Okay.
JARBOE: It was owners and tenants.
NORTON: Okay.
JARBOE: It was not residential. Residential was specifically—I won’t say explicitly left out but implicitly. It was just not there.
NORTON: Right. It’s a business improvement district. Yes.
JARBOE: Although there are some areas where they call themselves Community Improvement Districts and include residential. Some of the areas that have high-rise apartments, [so they] have the density [that they need [to be part of] the Clean and Safe in the area. So you needed a certain percentage of those people to vote yes on a petition.
NORTON: Okay.
JARBOE: You also needed to do all the normal organizational start-up stuff.
NORTON: Like what? I mean …
JARBOE: You know, creating the organization, creating the by-laws, getting a tax ID, you know, etcetera, etcetera. All of the routine, bureaucratic things that you do to establish a new organization.
NORTON: Okay. And this was a non-profit organization.
JARBOE: Well, actually, it’s not a standard non-profit. It’s a 501(c)(6), I think. It’s like a non-profit but it doesn’t qualify “as a charity,” so it doesn’t get grants and donations and that sort of stuff. It’s a self-funded quasi-governmental organization.
NORTON: What part, if any, did CHAMPS [the Capitol Hill Association of Merchants and Professionals] play in starting this?
JARBOE: I think CHAMPS was the organizing group that got the steering committee going, under George’s leadership. So it was kind of—I think there was a lot of discussion within CHAMPS beforehand. And I guess the fact that CHAMPS was supporting it really sent a signal that said,  “Okay, let’s go ahead and do this.” Because we weren’t going to start trying to get businesses to sign up just to have everybody look at you like you’re a three-headed monster and say no because you want to raise taxes. So I think CHAMPS was really instrumental in setting the groundwork.
NORTON: So how long did it take to get this thing actually set up?
JARBOE: Oh. A couple of years. Now, remember, we had 9/11/2001 in the middle of this.
NORTON: That’s true.
JARBOE: Which I had forgotten about.
NORTON: Right.
JARBOE: So the first organizational meeting was in ’03.
NORTON: Once it was actually established?
JARBOE: Of the BID itself. Yeah.
NORTON: Okay.
JARBOE: It had been approved by DC in November 2002. The steering committee met before that. The first letters went out to the business owners in 2001.
NORTON: This was the ones essentially asking for their support on the petition?
JARBOE: Exactly. And the first ANC support resolution was in May 2000. So basically the steering committee gets together in 1999-2000. They begin to lay the political groundwork for it, including the ANC. They go out and do the petitions in, you know, 2001. And then the first startup is in 2003-2004.
NORTON: Okay. And what were you, Ken Jarboe, doing about this during all this time?
JARBOE: I got myself into what I thought was actually a kind of  fun job at the BID. And I have no recollection how I ended up doing this. But I essentially drew the boundaries for the BID.
NORTON: And this would have been something that you did before you got the DC approval, the government approval?
JARBOE: Oh, yeah.
NORTON: Yeah, okay.
JARBOE: You had to submit specific boundaries and specific tax rates and all that stuff when you applied. Which was why it was a two-step process for the city, [first] to say, okay, BIDS are okay, and here’s what you do to set up a BID; and then approving a specific BID’s boundaries. That was the reason for the two-step legislation. So I ended up—well, back in those days, when it [Coldwell Banker Realty—Capitol Hill] was Denton Realty, and they had their offices next to Mr. Henry’s …
NORTON: Right, I remember.
JARBOE: They had a back room that wrapped around the back of Mr. Henry’s by the parking lot there. And so we set up a war room in that back room. Before that, they [Denton Realty] also had a complete set, in the basement, of the survey plats. They had the plat book. It had every property, square, and lot in it. I mean, it didn’t tell you what was there, but it told you what the numbers were. So I sat down with those and kind of sketched out, based on our preliminary discussions, what the boundaries would be. You know, they’d go all the way down Pennsylvania Avenue. They’d pick up Eighth Street, they’d pick up part of 11th Street. They’d pick up Seventh Street going up to Eastern Market. They’d go down a little bit of East Capitol to that small commercial area just past the Folger [Shakespeare Library]. And then it’d go down all of Mass [Massachusetts Avenue] from basically Union Station to Stanton Square. So, I mean, if you look at the BID boundaries, it’s like a snake. A lot of BIDs, because they’re downtown BIDs, are, you know, square or contiguous. We’re a bunch of commercial strips.
NORTON: But nobody’s accused you of gerrymandering. [Laughs.]
JARBOE: No, no, because the only gerrymandering we did was if it’s commercial it’s in. If it’s residential it’s out.
NORTON: Okay. And how far north did you go? Just Mass Avenue or …
JARBOE: Just Mass Avenue up to Union Station. So …
NORTON: And, then, west of that, what did you …
JARBOE: The boundary was Union Station.
NORTON: Okay, okay.
JARBOE: And, in fact, there were lots of discussions. And George pulled me in on some of these discussions with the folks at Union Station and with the folks at the Downtown BID, about where Union Station would be. And the agreement was made that Union Station would be in the Capitol Hill BID. It wasn’t in Downtown. Downtown went to North Capitol. And so Union Station would be within the Capitol Hill BID, but the Downtown BID could run events and do things there if they wanted to.
NORTON: Oh, okay. All right.
JARBOE: But it was important that Union Station not be left out. There were also—George had discussions with both the Architect of the Capitol and the head of GSA [General Services Administration] about including the capitol complex or not. And they basically decided, you know, we’re fine, we do a good enough job, you know. We’re supportive of what you’re doing but, you know, we’re fine. We don’t need to be part of your organization. In some places the GSA is part of a BID. So we didn’t know whether they wanted to fold in or not. But they said [they were] fine.
NORTON: Okay. Was there any, you know, sort of back and forth with business people trying to get in or maybe even out or anything? In other words, were there people that wanted to be in that you didn’t let in?
JARBOE: Only later.
NORTON: What do you mean by that?
JARBOE: There were some discussions about expansion of the BID. I’ll get to it.
NORTON: Yeah, okay.
JARBOE: But, no, at the beginning, no. I mean, it was basically the steering committee’s decision that if you’re commercial, you’re in. If you’re not, you’re not. So my job was to go and take those preliminary boundaries; make a list of all the lots and squares; go to the tax records; and flag which of those are commercial and which are residential. Send the people out on the street with a checklist that says, “You’re going to survey these two-block areas. Here’s the list we have that says what’s residential and what’s commercial. Did we get it right?” So they actually go out and verify whether a property was residential or commercial.
NORTON: Who did that?
JARBOE: Oh, we had a bunch of [so-called] precinct workers—a number of members of the steering committee.
NORTON:  Alright, they were essentially volunteer people that just did it…
JARBOE: …Yeah. Now, George had managed to raise about $20,000 to $25,000 for the steering committee, so we could actually pay Patty as the consultant to help with all of this, oversee …
NORTON: …So she was involved right from the beginning…
JARBOE:  She was involved right from the beginning. First, as a consultant to the steering committee and then as employee number one, as executive director. So I was basically pulling together the list of the people we needed to sign up.
NORTON: And that was both so that you could show the District the number of commercial properties there are, and then the percentage that was on board, right?
JARBOE: Yeah, yeah.
NORTON: Yeah, okay.
JARBOE: We had to say, you know, there’s this much value, taxable value in these boundaries, and there’s this many individual owners, and we’ve met the percentage of both of those. And you know, basically, [I was] also doing the tedious work of describing it. From the southeast corner of First Street to, you know, Second Street, you know, Northeast, to the …
NORTON: Like metes and bounds in the old property stuff. Yes.
JARBOE: Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, we did the same thing when we did the ANC redistricting.
NORTON: Okay.
JARBOE: We had to specify, and I was involved in that as well. But that’s another story.
NORTON: The ANC redistricting, was this before or after the BID was set up?
JARBOE: The ANC redistricting—actually, the first one, the 2000 census—the redistricting was being done while the BID was being set up.
NORTON: Okay, okay. And you were involved in that.
JARBOE: And I was involved in that, yeah.
NORTON: Okay, okay.
JARBOE: So, yeah, I basically put the list together and put the data base together.
NORTON: Then you ended up testifying.
JARBOE: And, then I put on my ANC hat and testified in favor of the boundaries I had written. [Both laugh.]
NORTON: Okay. All right. So what … just …
JARBOE: I mean, just to be clear, I had—the full ANC completely supported…
NORTON: Understood.
JARBOE: … the creation of the BID.
NORTON: Now what was the concept of the Capitol Hill BID? Was it different from other concepts in terms of what you all were setting up?
JARBOE: Not really. The concept was to keep it, basically, to keep it simple and keep it straightforward. It was Clean and Safe. So you would put people on the street. You would put ambassadors on for the safe, kind of, the safe part as well as helping visitors get around. And you would put clean teams out to sweep the sidewalks and clear out the trash and that sort of stuff.
NORTON: And that was the idea right from the beginning.
JARBOE: Right from the beginning, yeah.
NORTON: Okay, okay.
JARBOE: In part because there were all these other organizations that were doing other things. So CHAMPS was doing marketing, Barracks Row Main Street was doing marketing of the area, you know. So, at the very beginning, there wasn’t a big push for the BID to do those sorts of things.
NORTON: So it was basically—and you’ve got your Ready, Willing, and Working Program. When did that start?
JARBOE: That started right at the beginning. That was Patty’s flash of genius because it was a twofer, a two for one. We were helping homeless folks and former incarcerated folks, returnees, restart their lives, giving them jobs that they could start, like, with benefits and things like that. And we were getting a dedicated workforce, at a lower price than we would have had to pay otherwise.
NORTON: Okay. How many of these folks—and these were mostly on the Clean Team or were they also on the ambassador welcoming visitors type team?
JARBOE: I don’t know. My sense is they were mostly on the Clean Team because, when we first started, we’d hired another group of people for the safety, ambassadors, visitors’ helpers.
NORTON: What was involved in the safety aspects that you guys were trying to …
JARBOE: It was basically having someone out there who was, you know, eyes on the street with a direct phone link to the police station and the beat cops. And so it was someone who could come and intervene if there was a problem with somebody, a drugged person, you know, acting up or harassing people or a bunch of tourists wandering around looking lost…that sort of stuff.
NORTON: [Laughs.] Which happens all the time.
JARBOE: Which happens all the time, yeah. I mean, you still see that.
NORTON: Oh, yes.
JARBOE: Especially on Barracks parade nights. People come up the Eastern Market Metro and say “Where do I go?”
NORTON: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
JARBOE: So having somebody there to say “Oh, you’re going to the Marine Parade? Down this way.”
NORTON: You said there was a different outfit that you had for the ambassadors and safety tasks. Who was that initially?
JARBOE: I don’t know.
NORTON: Okay.
JARBOE: I just know that originally when we started off there were two separate groups. I don’t know the extent to …
NORTON: Did that change over time?
JARBOE: I don’t know.
NORTON: Okay.
JARBOE: You know, that’s an operational question that I never delved into.
NORTON: All right, all right. So you did the map surveys and all that and the boundaries and you testified. Then, what was the next thing you did in terms of the BID?
JARBOE: I got involved in the transportation committee with Susan Perry. WMATA [Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority] …
NORTON: This would have been shortly after it started or even before it started.
JARBOE: This would have been shortly after it started.
NORTON: Okay
JARBOE: What happened is there used to be a bus called the N22 that went down the hill, down Barracks Row, to the Navy Yard. The nice thing about it is it went right into the Navy Yard, and there was a transit center inside the Navy Yard. After 9/11, the gates basically got closed to that. So there was talk going back and forth of expanding it all the way up to Union Station, which is what the Navy wanted, because it was an important link for their folks coming into work, coming from Union Station, going down to the Navy Yard, not having to go round about on the Metro…or replacing it. And the proposition that finally won out was to replace it with one of the DC Circulators. This was when the DC Circulator program was relatively new. And the DC Circulator is a separate bus line.
NORTON: I know. And it’s not—yeah.
JARBOE: Yeah.
NORTON: I’m just, yeah, I’m trying to remember when did the Circulator start? Was it early 2000?
JARBOE: Yeah, well, we tried to push the quick adoption of the DC Circulator and the replacement of the N22 in 2003 to 2005. But the problem was the N22 ended up being an abandoned stepchild. I mean, it still ran, but WMATA wasn’t giving it any attention and stuff like that because the plan was to replace it with the DC Circulator. Well, that plan kind of took a while. [Laughs.] And then, after we did get the Circulator in, there was all sorts of continued fights to keep funding for it. Because some people would look at this and say, well, it’s a low ridership line, let’s just get rid of it. And we kept pointing out that, well, (1) it’s a low ridership line because the service is bad. You guys are not running enough buses, and the wait time, the head time, is not the ten minutes that you promised. And, by the way, you now have the ballpark on the Circulator line.
NORTON: Well, the ballpark came in what? ’07, something like that? ’08?
JARBOE: Yeah, yeah, something like that. So you had the ballpark that was…even though it might have been a low number [during the week, low] ridership during the week, [you had the ball park] during evenings and weekends, you needed to get people to the ballpark. The alternative was the Green Line on the Metro, and that just got packed every time. And it’s funny, even to this day, DC Circulator will advertise, you know, “Take the Circulator to the ballpark. Isn’t it great we’ve got this bus that goes right down to the ballpark?” Even while they’re trying to cut the funding for it. [Interviewer laughs.]
Or rejigger it so it doesn’t come all the way up the hill. That was the other one. They were going to stop it—they were going to take the line from the waterfront, from the Wharf, down to Eighth Street, stop it there. And then cut the line that used to go all the way down to the Wharf—they’d stop it at M Street coming down Eighth. And we’re saying, “Great. So now you take a one-seat ride from Union Station…” —well, actually it was Eastern Market because they cut the Union Station [part]…
NORTON: …I remember that.
JARBOE: …They rejiggered the Union Station part away from us. It went down Barracks Row, but it didn’t go to the ballpark. So you basically had a one-seat ride from Eastern Market to the Wharf—“And you’re going to turn it into a two-seat ride. And you wonder if the numbers will go down?” [Laughs.] You know, so, yeah. We’ve been continuing to fight for that bus line.
NORTON: Are you still on the transportation committee?
JARBOE: I guess so. [Interviewer laughs.]
NORTON: I gather it’s the …
JARBOE: Well, I’m a community representative on the board and have always been. Since I’m not a tenant or an owner within the BID boundaries, I can’t be on the board.
NORTON: Okay. So you’re just the—you what? Have a voice but no vote or something like that?
JARBOE: Correct. Yeah.
NORTON: Okay. All Right. But you’ve been involved with the transportation aspects of it since the early 2000s, since it got started?
JARBOE: Yes, yeah.
NORTON: Okay, okay. Any other funky aspects that you’ve been involved with other than the Circulator and the N22? And I guess “funky” is a pejorative term, but I’m just thinking interesting.
JARBOE: Not really. I mean, I’ve just kind of—the normal BID stuff, you know, the retreats and policy discussions that the BID has and that sort of stuff.
NORTON: So how has the function or the scope of the BID changed over the time since it started?
JARBOE: Very little. There’s been an overlay of some other activities, some marketing activities. So, you know, the banners, the Christmas banners, holiday banners…
NORTON: …Or other banners, yeah.…
JARBOE: …are part of what the BID does. The tree boxes…planting of the tree boxes on the sidewalk. But that’s considered part of the beautification, which is an offshoot of the Clean and Safe.
NORTON: Okay.
JARBOE: You know, Clean and Safe also means looks nice. You know, the celebration of George [Didden] and Paul Pascal with the Christmas tree and the menorah was for our two past presidents who died suddenly, died unexpectedly. You know, there’s kind of been an overlay of some of those things, but they’re an overlay. The basic mission has never changed. It’s Clean and Safe.
NORTON: Okay. Well, beyond what you just said, has the way that the BID carries out that mission, that goal, changed?
JARBOE: No.
NORTON: You just, like you said, just overlaid. They’ve added some things and that sort of thing.
JARBOE: You know, the business model is there: It’s functioning. It’s working. In this time of change of everything else, it’s working fine. Except for one little part.
NORTON: All right. What’s that?
JARBOE: There’s a continued battle, or I shouldn’t say battle, but concern over who takes care of the Eastern Market Metro Plaza. The city has said it would do it. It’s not clear that it is.
NORTON: It’s not clear that they are doing it.
JARBOE: Correct.
NORTON: Yeah, okay.
JARBOE: And the BID does not get any additional funds to do that area.
NORTON: Now, when you talk about the Eastern—it’s interesting because I hadn’t thought about this before, but does that include the catty-corner across the street, the Eastern Market Plaza, where the Christmas tree is and the playground or—is that considered part of the Eastern Market Plaza?
JARBOE: Yeah, I’ve always considered that, yeah.
NORTON: Yeah. Okay, okay. So there is still the back and forth about who takes care of it and…
JARBOE: Yeah, there’s some unclarity there. Let’s put it that way. I don’t know if there’s any back and forth or if it’s just a…
NORTON: Well, who did that—I mean, there was a fair amount of, you know, recent redevelopment of it and they put the stage in and the heavy furniture and all that kind of stuff. Who was involved with that?
JARBOE: That was the city.
NORTON: Okay.
JARBOE: That was the city. Because that is a city park.
NORTON: Okay. Did the BID have any input in that or was it…
JARBOE: Not that I know of. I mean, there may have been some discussions with the Clean Teams or the Safe Teams that said, you know, what do you think of that design or this design? As far as I know, the BID had no—I mean, there might have been, as I say, informal discussions but…
NORTON: You mentioned earlier that there was a point where there was discussion about expanding the BID.
JARBOE: Yes.
NORTON: When was that and what was involved?
JARBOE: That was kind of from the beginning. There were two aspects to that. And the first one was, when we first got started, where would we cut the boundaries off? And the first issue that came up after we got started was whether we should expand down Eighth Street to M Street. So kind of specifically that four block area where the Blue Castle is.
NORTON: Essentially beyond the freeway then.
JARBOE: Yeah, from the freeway down to M Street.
NORTON: Okay.
JARBOE: There were discussions about that, and a lot of those discussions occurred when the Riverfront aka Navy Yard BID was being formed. They wanted to go all the way down to 11th Street, actually beyond that, and pick up the buildings that are down there on 11th Street. It’s called Maritime Plaza.
NORTON: Right.
JARBOE: And we were thinking, since the M and 8th Street area is really connected, we want that connected to the rest of Barracks Row, and we should basically have that. And, you know, I had heated discussions with some people over that, and we finally ran the numbers, and said, “It doesn’t make sense for us to do it.”
For the Riverfront BID, because it had the high-rises and a larger budget, they could afford to come down that way. For us, it would be a money loser. It would have to be subsidized by the existing property owners, and we weren’t going to do that. We weren’t going to tell the people that we were going to raise their taxes in order to cover that area down there. So we didn’t.
NORTON: So the resistance to doing it, was it from the Capitol Hill BID or was it mostly from the M Street BID? Were they pushing for it more or …
JARBOE:  They were pushing to have it in their area.
NORTON: Okay. And you wanted to have it, at least there were some people in the Capitol Hill BID wanted to have it in their area.
JARBOE: Partly because we wanted to pull, you know, the Barracks Row experience all the way down to M Street.
NORTON: It’s kind of happened, though, anyway.
JARBOE: Yeah, yeah. It has. Yeah. And there’s been a lot of work on plans and zoning for that area and other things, even though …
NORTON: When was that discussion?
JARBOE: I want to say 2003, shortly after we got up and running. You know, I’d have to check when the Riverfront BID actually got started, but I don’t ...
NORTON: Okay. So it would have been—because at that point, I guess the ballpark was starting to be built around ’04, ’05. I guess ’05, because that’s when the team came.
JARBOE: Yeah.
NORTON: So, okay, okay. Any other expansion issues?
JARBOE: Well early on, the ANC 6A, I believe …
NORTON: Which is Southwest.
JARBOE: Which is Northeast.
NORTON: Oh, Northeast.
JARBOE:  It’s the Northeast part of the ward.
NORTON: Ward 6, okay.
JARBOE: Union Station area to basically Eighth Street Northeast is 6C – the rest is 6A.
NORTON: And that hasn’t always been part of Ward 6, right? I mean there have been times it’s been in and out. I’m just guessing because …
JARBOE: Yeah. Areas north of that, yeah, have. But Union Station’s always been. That part south of [Union Station],  A and First to A and Eighth, basically, has  always been part [of Ward 6].
NORTON: Well, in any event, what was the 6A involvement?
JARBOE: 6A specifically asked whether the BID would expand to H Street.
NORTON: H Street Northeast.
JARBOE: H Street Northeast. And we looked at it and looked at it and looked at the numbers and said no. Again, it was a case where there wasn’t enough revenue coming in to pay for the services.
NORTON: Now, 6A has got most of H Street Northeast. And …
JARBOE: Yeah. Well, they’ve got H Street to—I don’t know where the new boundary is.
NORTON: Yeah, I don’t either.
JARBOE: But, it’s to around Eighth Street. [Yeah. And, then, 6A is the other one].
NORTON: Okay, okay.
JARBOE: But the leadership of ANC 6A specifically asked the BID to …
NORTON: Well, now, doesn’t H Street have its own BID now or …?
JARBOE: I’m not sure what it has.
NORTON: It seems to, but it’s certainly not as active as the Capitol Hill BID.
JARBOE: Right. Which raises another point. One of the things that’s been real interesting about the business model for the Capitol Hill BID is part of it was to reach out and help other BIDs. So the Capitol Hill BID basically got the Riverfront BID up and running through a subcontract to Ready, Willing & Working, to hire them. So, basically, Ready, Willing & Working is going out and hiring itself to other BIDs to get started.
NORTON: And do you know which other BIDs other than the Riverfront?
JARBOE: And the Wharf. I forget what they call that BID.
NORTON: Yes, that’s a …
JARBOE: The Waterfront BID, I think that’s what it’s called. And I think they just changed their contract and are doing more stuff in-house.
NORTON: Now, Ready, Willing & Working, is that a separate group actually?
JARBOE: That is a separate group.
NORTON: And what’s involved? Is it a corporation or what?
JARBOE: No. It’s a non-profit. It’s a 501(c)(3) charity.
NORTON: Okay. And how—okay, go ahead.
JARBOE: And it basically offers support services and housing to, again, formerly homeless, formerly incarcerated individuals who are working at a BID. So, while it’s a separate organization, it’s contractually tied to the BID. So the BID contracts to hire the people.
NORTON: The actual individuals who are doing work.
JARBOE: Yeah. Actually, they don’t contract with Ready, Willing & Working. They contract directly with the individuals. But the individuals are getting supportive services through Ready, Willing and Working.
NORTON: Okay. And so whatever contract that a BID might have with Ready, Willing & Working is to essentially support the workers. Or …
JARBOE: Well, no, it’s basically to hire the workers.
NORTON: I see. Okay.
JARBOE: So, yeah, it’s a standalone organization that provides support services. It has its own sources of funding, and the people it takes care of get hired by the BID. So I don’t believe the BID directly contracts to Ready, Willing & Working for the support services thing. They arrange that on their own term, but …
NORTON: Just so I’m clear, was Ready, Willing & Working essentially set up by the BID, the Capitol Hill BID?
JARBOE: Yes.
NORTON: Okay.
JARBOE: Again, Patty’s trips up to New York paid off. There was something called the Doe Fund up in New York who had given the city a relatively large grant to help do something with homeless and previously incarcerated individuals–support services. And so Patty arranged for them to fund Ready, Willing & Able, and ran it through the Gospel Rescue Ministry. Which ended up not working very well. And then, Ready, Willing & Able pulled out of working with them and set up their own facilities with some other homeless advocacy groups around. [Note: The program was originally set up as Ready, Willing & Able through the DOE Fund in NYC. In 2008, the Capitol Hill BID pulled out of Ready, Willing & Able, and formed its own version called Ready, Willing & Working].
NORTON: And reading some of the other interviews you did with the BID folks, it sounds like it’s still quite successful.
JARBOE: Very successful, very successful.
NORTON: Okay, okay. So how long did you stay—Well, let me ask you this. Before I sort of wrap it up on the BID, anything else you remember or want to talk about with respect to the BID or what you did with it?
JARBOE: No, not really. I mean, I think we’ve covered it. It was the political support, it was the drawing of boundaries, the data work, and it was the transportation committee. Those are the three touches I’ve had on the BID.
NORTON: Now, how long did you stay on the ANC?
JARBOE: I lost re-election in 2010.
NORTON: Okay. And you lost because why? [Laughs.]
JARBOE: That’s a whole ‘nother story. [Laughs.]
NORTON: Okay. All right, all right, all right. No, and I’m …
JARBOE: We don’t have enough time on the tape to get into that.
NORTON: No. I understand. And it’s not fair to ask the guy who lost why he lost.
JARBOE: Well, I know why I lost but …
NORTON: Okay. All right. Okay. Anyway, what else do you remember doing on the ANC up until the time you were not re-elected?
JARBOE: Oh, there was just lots of other stuff going on. There was, you know, there was the …
NORTON: Oh, were you always in the same—Now, had you moved up here?
JARBOE: No, I moved—That’s a funny story on the ANC. I had been down there for basically two terms.
NORTON: This is down on the …
JARBOE: Down on Barracks Row, 700 block, living at 711 Tenth Street. I did two terms there. Then, when I moved up here, I didn’t plan on running for election because there was a commissioner established for this area. So I was basically, you know, okay, two terms, four years on the ANC is…I’m done. The long-term ANC commissioner for this area, she and her partner moved out to Rehoboth. The guy who ran to replace her, if I remember, never showed up or something like that. He basically vacated the seat immediately. So I’m sitting here in a vacant seat. And I’m, okay! Hand it to me on a platter. [Laughs.] You know, I’m one of the few people, I think, who has ever been elected to the ANC the three ways that one can do it—write-in, petition, which is what I had to do when the seat was vacant, and it’s in the term. You know, you’re not going to run a special election. You petition, and you get your votes, and if nobody else petitions with their 15 signatures or whatever, then you’re automatically in.
NORTON: So this is the unexpired term essentially.
JARBOE: Yeah, this is the unexpired term part. So write-in, unexpired term, and just straightforward election—and straightforward unelection, [laughs] loss of election. So, all, you know, the four things that can happen to you.
NORTON: Plus, you served in different local districts.
JARBOE:  It was a different district. Funny enough, it ended up with the same label, the same number. Because, in the 2000 redistricting that took effect in 2002, the names of the ANCs got changed a bit. So down where I was before, it was 6B05. When I filed to fill the unexpired term up here, along East Capitol down to Pennsylvania Avenue became 6B05. So, I’ve always been the commissioner for 6B05, even though it was in two different geographical areas. [Laughs.]
NORTON: Okay. All right.  So what else do you remember? You know, after you moved up here, what do you remember?
JARBOE: Well, there’s been lots of stuff going on. You know, there’s been fights over liquor licenses. Actually, it was part of my job back when I was first on the ANC. There was the redevelopment of the Hine School. There was the redevelopment of the Old Naval Hospital. There was continued pressure to get stuff at Reservation 13, to get, you know, move the…
NORTON: Once, again, the old DC General site.
JARBOE: Yeah, the old DC General site. There was probably, you know, over the course of the time I’ve been around for the last 20 years, there’s probably been four or five or six different plans for the Eastern Market Metro.
NORTON: What do you mean? I mean, like in what way were they different?
JARBOE: Different groups putting out totally different designs. There was a group that was put together that commissioned Oehme, Van Sweden, the landscape company, to redo the landscape. There was a proposal to turn it into a circle. There was a proposal to build a small visitors center on the side when you first come up from Eastern Market Metro.
NORTON: Sometimes, though, and I’m sorry I’m interrupting, but the BID does have somebody there as sort of a welcome. Temporary assignment.
JARBOE: Yeah, yeah. Temporary assignment, yeah.
NORTON: Okay, I’m sorry. Go ahead.
JARBOE: But, yeah, there was one [group] that actually designed a visitors center and, I think, public restrooms. There was another proposal to build a tunnel to the library so that the library, as part of its expansion, would expand under Seventh Street. And you’d put an entrance off the plaza. There was my proposal that never got any traction of putting another entrance to the Metro as part of the Hine redevelopment.
NORTON: On the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue.
JARBOE: On the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue. Which would have been—I mean, it was technically feasible because if you went down there, you dug down there, you were right where the wall was where the vending machines–actually, where the kiosk is where the station manager sits. Where the fare gates are. If you poke a hole to your right there, you’re in the Hine garage.
NORTON: But it didn’t go anywhere.
JARBOE: But it didn’t go anywhere. So you know, there’s been a whole bunch of fights over that, you know, that particular thing. But something finally happened. After I left the ANC—but something finally happened.
NORTON: Which is the redevelopment that …
JARBOE: Which is the current redevelopment there.
NORTON: Okay. Well, what about the navy hospital? I know there was back and forth about how to use that, and now it’s the Hill Center. And I know Nicky Cymrot was…
JARBOE: Yeah, Nicky and Steve basically stood up and said “we’re going to do this.” [Interviewer laughs.] And put the plans together. And, you know, everybody said fine. And I remember Steve at one of the events, the [Capitol Hill Community] Foundation events, getting up and saying, “We have the money to do this. The problem is it’s still in your pocket.” [Interviewer laughs.] And he was right.
NORTON: Yes, yes.
JARBOE: But, they did—I mean, that was a fabulous, fabulous job. And, you know, the ANC used to meet in there as the ceilings were crumbling around us and stuff like that. I had to dissuade a number of the neighbors, at one point, because they were going to come and just repaint it. And I said, um, you realize that’s Navy battleship red that’s on there, which is large percentage lead. So if anybody does any work on the outside of that, they’re going to be in protective gear and stuff like that. But, yeah, I mean, they had to do all the lead abatement. I think they had to do some asbestos abatement.
NORTON: I’m sure.
JARBOE: They rearranged some of the walls and stuff inside. I mean, one of the fights was whether or not the interior walls were protected under historic preservation.
NORTON: So how did everyone come down on that? How did they decide that the walls were or weren’t?
JARBOE: You know, fought it out, and basically the architects came back and said, “We can’t do this unless we change the walls. We cannot put in the stairways, the internal stairways that are required under fire code if we can’t change the walls.” So, okay.
NORTON: Were you around or on the ANC when there was discussion about making that the mayor’s house?
JARBOE: Oh, yeah. That was part of it. I mean, I remember [Mayor Adrian Fenty] Fenty bringing the entire cabinet for one of his cabinet meetings, department head meetings, to the old naval center. To the one room that was still usable.
NORTON: And, you know, was that ever a real serious discussion? I know it got in the press. But …
JARBOE: No.
NORTON: Okay.
JARBOE: Two reasons. First, there was the cost. I mean it would have been very expensive, and it’s not clear the cost of having it would have benefitted anyone. Because it would have been a ceremonial site. It wouldn’t have been the real mayor’s residence. And the nearby residents, especially across E Street, were all gung-ho about it. Oh, yeah, because they’ll fix it up and…Well, you know, since it’s the mayor’s residence, they’ll have to close the street.
NORTON: That’s right.
JARBOE: Aaaaaaaaaa, boy, did they change their tune quick on that.
NORTON: Yeah, yeah..
JARBOE: But, yeah. That was—and, you know, the politics of it was, you know, what? We’re going to spend all this money for a mayor’s office? Remember that Sharon Pratt Dixon got the nickname of Clueless when she [changed the—] put in a marble mantelpiece on the fireplace in the mayor’s office back when they were still in Judiciary Square. And, you know, she spent all this money to have a marble mantelpiece put in, and people were saying, you know, you’re not taking care of the city services that need taking care of, but you’re spending money on a marble fireplace for your office.
NORTON: All right. All right. Well, any other, you know, ANC memories that you have that you—I’ve come up with about all the ones I can think of. So ...
JARBOE: I mean, we could have a longer discussion about the ANC. But, as I say, that’s for another storyline.[Laughter.]
NORTON: Well, maybe. Okay, that’s fine. That’s fine. But, you know, this is not just—I know we’re talking about the BID, but on the other hand you try to get as many of the stories that the people know as possible. So that’s fine. Okay? Well, I have pretty much run out of my thoughts. Are there any others that you want to touch on before we wrap it up?
JARBOE: No, no.
NORTON: All right. Well, thank you, Ken.
JARBOE: Thank you
NORTON: I’m going to turn this off here. And let’s see.

END OF INTERVIEW


Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project
Ken Jarboe Interview, October 3, 2023


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