Ground broken on $3.4 billion DHS complex ; As the Feds Take Over, St. E's Moves Further Into Shadow

[jakeXT]

Ground broken on $3.4 billion Homeland Security complex

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Washington notables broke ground on the future home of the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday, symbolically starting construction on the biggest federal building project in the Washington area since the Pentagon 68 years ago.

The project will bring together more than 15,000 employees now scattered in 35 offices in the region, placing them on a 176-acre campus strewn with historic buildings in a long-neglected corner of Washington, five miles from the Capitol building.

Department leaders hope the $3.4 billion consolidation will help the department fulfill its core mission -- protecting the homeland -- in ways big and small.

"It will help us hold meetings," Secretary Janet Napolitano said. "It will help us build that culture of 'One DHS.'"


http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/09/homeland.security.headquarters/index.html




As the Feds Take Over, St. E's Moves Further Into Shadow

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 10, 2009


Councilman Marion Barry was late, and Mayor Adrian Fenty even later, but both arrived in time to grab a golden shovel and turn a little earth on the lush green lawn of St. Elizabeths Hospital. And with that, ground was officially broken for the $3.4 billion headquarters of the Department of Homeland Security, a vast new federal complex that will be built on the quiet hilltop with spectacular views where once stood the city's main hospital for the mentally ill.

Barry joked that most of the crowd -- filled with Coast Guard uniforms and suits from the DHS and the General Services Administration -- probably needed a GPS to find it. Which was a sly reference to what many of his Ward 8 constituents, also in the crowd, were thinking: that the federal government was finally investing, in a big way, east of the Anacostia River, in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/09/AR2009090902436.html?hpid=moreheadlines

[Hannah Bell]

1. 3.4 billion for a nazi building, but "no money" for universal healthcare =

"investing" in the poor.

"a blighted area being transformed."

= rising rents & ethnic cleansing.

[ixion]

2. DHS should be disbanded. It is truly un-American, and creepy as hell

and certainly doesn't deserve a massive building project. :grr:

[jakeXT]

3. You are probably preaching to the choir