Bob Levey (Barbara Tyroler) • Levey Live Archive • Column: Bob Levey • Metro Section • Talk: Metro message boards • Live Online Transcripts • Subscribe to the Live Online E-Mail Newsletter and receive the schedule, highlights and breaking news event alerts in your mailbox. Q&A With Bob Levey Bob Levey Washington Post Columnist Tuesday, June 17, 2003; Noon ET "Levey Live" appears Tuesdays at noon ET. Your host is Washington Post columnist Bob Levey. This hour is your chance to talk directly to key Washington Post reporters and editors, local officials and people in the news. Today, Bob's guest is Robert Peck, president of the Greater Washington Board of Trade. Robert Peck Since October 1, 2001, Peck has been president of the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the regional chamber of commerce for Washington and its Virginia and Maryland suburbs. Founded in 1889, the Board of Trade’s 1300 member firms represent approximately 40 percent of the area’s private sector workforce. From 1995 to 2001, Peck was the appointed Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service of the U.S. General Services Administration. In that post, he was in charge of nationwide asset management, design, construction, leasing, building operations, security and disposals for a real estate portfolio of more than 340 million square feet in more than 8,300 public and private buildings accommodating over one million federal workers In the private sector, Peck has been a land use and real estate lawyer, a real estate investment executive and vice president for government and public affairs at the American Institute of Architects. In other public service, Peck has worked at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Carter White House and the Federal Communications Commission. He was an associate counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and chief of staff to former U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY). He was also a Special Forces (Green Beret) officer in the U.S. Army Reserve. Peck has been involved in legislation on, and has written and spoken about preservation, urban planning, urban design, infrastructure investment and transportation. He has served as volunteer president of the private, nonprofit D.C. Preservation League; as a board member of Friends of the National Zoo; as a presidential appointee on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, the Federal design review board for the nation's capital; and as an ex officio member on the National Capital Planning Commission and the federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. He is a board member of the National Building Museum, the Project for Public Spaces and a privately held engineering firm. Peck served from January to October, 2001, as a mayoral appointee on the District of Columbia Board of Education. Peck received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1969 and his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1972. He has been a visiting lecturer in art history at Yale University and a visiting Loeb Fellow at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. The transcript follows. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Bob Levey: Good afternoon, Mr. Peck, and thanks for joining us today. Let's begin with a look at the D.C. economy. The headlines say it's a slippery slope out there--unemployment, sluggish sales, fears of terrorism and Wall Street blues. How does it look from your seat?

Robert Peck: The economy is still sluggish, that's for sure. And Washington is not as immune as it used to be from national downturns.

But I always say to local business folks: would you rather be doing business in any other region of the country? And they say, no. Our jobs and other numbers are better than everywhere else. And terrorism, which is still a danger, has not scared business away.

I do hope to see a recover and soon, for everyone's sake.

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Washington, D.C.: Thanks for doing this chat. With all of your local experience, you must be pretty excited about the possibility of Major League Baseball returning to the nation's capital. A new team and stadium in a downtown location would appear to be very helpful to our economy. Your thoughts?

Robert Peck: The Board of Trade is a regional chamber and so we're kind of agnostic about whether baseball goes into downtown or Virginia. We do think that it should be near Metro and the Virginia baseball folks seem to be favoring Metro sites, too.

We do know that there are lots of priorities for government and business to look at, especially with the economy sluggish and government budgets strapped. But baseball, wherever it goes, will boost not just the local economy, but will give all of us an enhanced spirit about our area. And having a reason to cheer is always good.

Another way I put it: in a region known for being somewhat too self-serious and workaholic, it would be good to have a reason, spring and summer, for all us white collar types to look at the clock at about 5 pm and say, oh the heck with it, let's go to a ballgame.

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Bob Levey: back in the bad old days, the Board of Trade had a very special relationship with the congressional committees that oversee Washington. By "special," I mean that the person in your chair could call the appropriate chairman on the Hill and get what he wanted, by going around the Mayor and the Council. Do you do business this way?

Robert Peck: You're right, at least that's the legend, and I think there's something to it. I think it actually worked that way only in the days before home rule, before there were an elected mayor and council.

There are days, I have to admit, when I wish we could once again get a few business people in a back room, make a decision--like to get baseball or extend Metro to Tysons and Dulles or get a new bridge built across the Potomac--snap our fingers and make it happen.

But democracy doesn't work that way any more, if it ever really did, and we're all better off for it. Everyone, Board of Trade included, has to take account of a lot more opinions and now we put in our two cents along with lots of others. That's not to say we don't try to make our opinions count, but you can see us operate in public these days.

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Bob Levey: Please comment on the future of downtown Washington. Does it have one? If so, will the future bring mixed-use--businesses as well as residences? Or will D.C.'s downtown become a playground full of MCI Centers and 9:30 Clubs, but no homes or condos?

Robert Peck: You know, we're finally seeing a mixed-use downtown. It's good that we have entertainment downtown again that people want to come down to. And we have a lot of residential construction going on.

THe challenge for cities like Washington, which is doing well, is making sure now that we don't follow the European pattern of the affluent claiming the nice city center and pushing everyone else out to the periphery. I know that seems far off, but 80 years ago, no one thought that cities would nearly collapse, either.

The challenge for our area is also to have more mixed-use suburban centers, like Bethesda, Clarendon, Ballston and Alexandria are. That will help ease congestion and make it easier for people to find good and affordable housing near where they work.

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Washington, DC: Mr. Peck,

A few years back the Board of Trade did an excellent series of studies on the transportation problems facing the region. I find it amazing how long it has taken for our political leaders to support basic infrastructure improvments that are clearly needed in our area. What is the Board doing now to encourage local and regional governments to improve ability of the region to transport people and goods?

Robert Peck: We probably spend more time and energy on transporation than any other single issue. It's not just the politicqal leaders, by the way, that need to support maintaining our roads and Metro and building more "capacity" as the transportation wonks call it.

We need citizens to be willing to pay and, as we saw in last fall's Northern Virginia referendum, not everyone--not nearly everyone--is yet ready to do that.

Finally, we need to make better use of what we have, like by clearing accidents faster, synchronizing traffic signals, and using toll lanes and other market tools to encourage people to make more efficient use of our roads.

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Bob Levey: The Board of Trade's position on home rule for the District of Columbia is......

Robert Peck: The Board of Trade supported home rule when it first came to the District (although to be honest, we were a little late to that dance).

We still support it. We support the District being able to pass its budget without Congressional review. And we support having a vote in Congress for the District,too. The realpolitik question about the vote is how do you get it through? I think there are some creative new ideas that might work: like having DC residents being able to vote for Maryland senators. DC residents actually got to do that in the early 19th century.

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Vienna, Va.: Seems like one of the great mysteries of this area is why buisness continues to expand in this area, given the almost total gridlock in both the road and public transit systems, the national recession, the extremely high cost of real estate, the lack of open space to expand IN, and a number of other factors. Even though the roads can't the traffic we got, we keep adding more and more population, cars, houses, and buisnesses to the area. When, in your opinion, is buisness ever going to stop expanding here? The stock answer, of course, is ... when the area can no longer handle it ... yet that limit was reached years ago, and the area STILL is expanding in spite of it.

Robert Peck: I think I have to give my best chamber of commerce answer here: business expands here because we have the best regional economy during this downturn, because it's a great place to live, we have great culture and recreational amenities, lots of terrific schools, a highly educated workforce, good places to shop and go to theater.

Real estate costs relatively a lot because so many people want to live here, especially close in. That's in a way a price of success.

We should not be complacent and need to improve transportation and the way we grow regionally, but you, like so many others, thank goodness, find the positives so much outweigh the negatives.

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Bob Levey: Obviously, the big-company landscape of Washington has changed tremendously in the last 20 years. Woodies, Hechinger and Garfinckel's are gone. F Street is a memory. Downtown retailing in general is under great strain. Can you see a change in this trend?

Robert Peck: Retailing is changing all over the region. No more regional malls, more smaller centers.

The local department stores have gone the way of the do-do, but the big national chains love this region. We have H&M coming to downtown (and I think the suburbs) and I don't know who they are, but I know that people who know shopping--don't want to appear sexist here--are excited about that. I think we'll see more of that downtown.

The city has gone to the big retail convention in Las Vegas the past 4 or 5 years. Mayor Williams says that when he first went, they had to beg people to talk to them; this year, they had a long waiting list. Again, because our economy is so good, but also because DC and the suburbs are good markets.

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Bob Levey: You're a very uncommon choice to head the Board of Trade. You got a liberal arts education. You had a career in public service and public policy. You've never met a payroll, as small businesspersons like to say. Are you handicapped by your unusual background or energized by it?

Robert Peck: I guess that's a compliment--being an uncommon choice.

Actually, I did work in commercial mortgage banking for a few years and had an investment quota to meet and worked in law firms and had to hustle for clients and bill my time.

But I have done a lot of public service. And even served as volunteer president of the DC Preservation League, when we did not always see eye to eye with the Board of Trade.

I've always had good relations with businesspeople and like seeing how the market can make good things happen. Maybe it's time to poll my board and see how they think the experiment is working out.

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Bob Levey: What if I said to you that the greatest single thing the Board of Trade could do would be to (somehow) eliminate free and subsidized parking in Washington, D.C.? Then the reluctant suburban warriors would be strongly shoved toward Metro, and the roads might be bearable again. Your response?

Robert Peck: I think that we ought to think about how much we subsidize parking. We eliminated most of that benefit for our employees, but--and this is important--we're only a block from the Blue Line and two blocks from the Red.

Not everyone in the region lives near Metro and not everywhere downtown is near Metro. People make intelligent decisions about commuting--mostly on what takes the least time to get them from home to home.

Two other important points: only 24% of the regional workforce works downtown and Metro is not designed very well for suburb-to-suburb commutes. And only 20% of total rail and car trips in our region are home-work commutes. Which is to say Metro is not a panacea, either, much as we support it.

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Bob Levey: You've been quoted since Sept. 11 as saying that security in Washington is important, but "barricades don't have to be ugly or off-putting." I've never met a pretty Jersey barricade. Have you? Or are you proposing some sort of decorate-the concrete contest?

Robert Peck: Don't get me started. Decorating the Jersey barriers is not the way.

We need to get smarter about security. Jersey barriers only stop one kind of threat--truck or car bombs. And in many cases, trees or hardened benches can do the same job on the sidewalk. I'm serious. So can well-designed stair cases.

And as we know there are other threats that the Jersey barriers don't have anything to do with. Like I said, I wonder if we're thinking intelligently about what the real threats are, what we can do to counter those, which we can't really counter--and the extent to which we're prepared to change our lives and our society in the name of "security"--and thereby running the risk of letting the terrorists win by default and by our own hand.

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Bob Levey: Who are the Board of Trade's members? Do they pay dues?

Robert Peck: The Board of Trade has about 1,350 members, all companies or nonprofit institutions who pay dues. THey range from big businesses like Pepco and banks to small building maintenance firms, colleges and universities, and foundations.

They represent about 35-40% of the region's private sector workforce. And, by the way, 80% of the region's employees are in the private sector.

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Bob Levey: Does the Board of Trade have a position on slot machines in Maryland?

Robert Peck: We did support slots. There was a discussion about this in our Board of Directors. We felt that, limited in location and with the proceeds directed to education, they were a good option, especially since the other major option is taxes and mostly taxes on business.

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Bob Levey: The D.C. Public Schools continue to be a big disappointment, both to people inside and people outside the system. You served on the school board. What needs to be done? What can be done?

Robert Peck: We have both our kids in the DC public schools, at a wonderful school--Lafayette Elementary. Which proves that you can have a good school in a lousy system.

I think we need more carrots and sticks. We need to measure teachers' and principals' performance better--are the kids reading better, are there fewer absentees, etc.? I think we can train parents to be better consumers. At my school, with a lot of educated parents, we watch the school carefully and don't mind stepping in. We're a group of fortunate parents.

There are dedicated parents in other parts of the cities who care about their kids. We could train them on things to watch for in their schools that signal whether things are going well or not--and train them on how to get the central school headquarters to respond.

There are some good efforts underway to recruit good principals, by the way.

Obviously, we could use more of a concerted community push. Same goes for Prince Georges, by the way.

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Bob Levey: Two weeks ago, the political leaders of the D.C. area met to plot strategy so the Washington area can become the top technological marketplace in the U.S. Do you believe that can really happen, given the widespread hates and fears that always attach to this city?

Robert Peck: We sponosred a Potomac Conference to talk about technology transfer--meaning the handoff of research from colleges and federal labs to private sector concerns that can market them and make money and create jobs off them.

Some people may not like official "Washington" but venture capital will go where the ideas and potential profits are. We can compete very well in that arena.

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Bob Levey: Please give me a percentage: The chances of the D.C. area getting a major-league baseball team are.....?

Robert Peck: This year? We have about 100% of the chance of getting a team--IF major league baseball decides to move the Expos at all. So I handicap it back down to about 60%, because MLB may decide to keep relocation on hold for a year.

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Bob Levey: Please comment on housing prices hereabouts. It's a surefire topic at any party I attend--usually accompanied by the whispered question, "Can the boom continue?" Well, Mr. Peck, can it?

Robert Peck: Whoo boy. All my real estate friends, veterans of a couple of boom and bust cycles, wonder about commercial and residential prices.

If interest rates stay low, I think we're okay. I'd expect things to slow at some point, but you know, our basic numbers are good: on housing, we have low vacancy rates in rental housing and we don't have an oversupply of houses.

Of course, the problem with your house being worth so much more is that, so long as you're going to continue to live here, you have to buy pretty much an equally expensive house. As I said before, that's one price of the region's success.

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Bob Levey: The District of Columbia leads the nation in cancer incidence percentage among African Americans. The metropolitan area ranks very poorly in infant mortality. Heaven only knows what health issues we're creating with our polluted air and suspect water. Can the Board of Trade move smartly (pun intended) into the area of health care? Has it already?

Robert Peck: Actually, we have just started a Health Care Task Force. One thing we plan to focus on is corporate wellness programs, which are one of the few things these days that can actually get you a reduced health coverage rate.

The Districts' infant mortality rate has dropped significantly in the past few years, by the way, which does show that a concerted education and treatment effort can make a difference.

We can maybe do something about health care coverage and rates. Curing disease is a bit beyond our ken.

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Bob Levey: The Board of Trade's position on the Third Rail of Montgomery County politics, the Intercounty Connector?

Robert Peck: We've been for the ICC for a long time.

You know, none of the big transportation projects by themselves can solve our traffic problems. BUt we need a combination of them, along with some other measures to manage our roads better, to make a dent in the problem.

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Bob Levey: I hate to spoil the lunches of our suburban clicksters, but.....
Does the Board of Trade favor a commuter tax for the District of Columbia? If not, why not?

Robert Peck: Talk about third rails of regional politics, Bob. I just don't think a commuter tax will happen here. Most cities can impose one, but they are cities within the states in which their suburbs lie.

We do need to fix the structural deficit that the District incurs and that the General Accounting Office just a week or two confirmed. But I think the solution is going more to be in a restructured financial arrangement with the Feds. And that's no easy thing to get, either.

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Bob Levey: Metrochek ought to be a smash hit. Instead, it's still somewhere down in the middle of the charts. What can the Board of Trade do to make this program better known and more successful? Or has it run into the stone wall called "The People's Unwillingness to Ditch Their Cars, Regardless?"

Robert Peck: You may be adding to an urban myth. We're the second most transit-riding region in the country. Some 17% of commuting trips here are by Metro. I think only New York has a higher percentage. And we need to get Metro more cars, so the Orange Line isn't known any longer as the Orange Crush.

We just finished a campaign to add private sector users of Metrochek. But the numbers are still low, considering it's an economic benefit both to riders and their employers.

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Bob Levey: If United Airlines goes south, will Dulles International Airport (and the area around Dulles) take a huge hit?

Robert Peck: Actually, it's US Airways that's going south--and north. They have a smart plan to recover that makes stronger their East Coast nitch--with a strong spur to the Caribbean.

Dulles--and our region--would take a big hit if United failed or left Dulles. It's an important boon to us to have us a hub and an international one, at that.

Having this is something we had taken for granted and we're scrambling to do what we can to work both with US Airways and United.

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Bob Levey: Please comment on the fundraising plight of the non-profit sector here. The United Way mess isn't helping. Neither is the downturn on Wall Street. Will things rebound? Will your members dig deeper to make corporate contributions?

Robert Peck: We just had the new head of United Way here at our Board meeting yesterday. Nonprofits did take a huge hit last fall from the downturn in the United Way campaign. And the economy was going to make it a tough year as it was.

The economy coming back would help. And we are going to help get United Way back on its feet.

Meanwhile, we do appeal to our members and everyone to continue to dig as deep as they can. There are people hurting in our region and they need our help.

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Bob Levey: Can full home rule for the District of Columbia possibly happen while this president and this Congress are in their seats?

Robert Peck: Well, I think so. But we have to be realistic. Republicans in Congress are not easily going to hand over two Senate seats to an overwhelmingly Democratic place like DC.

ON the other hand, I do think we can make good progress on a better Federal payment. The Bush Administration has cooperated pretty well on a number of issues, including the all-important reopening of National Airport after September 11.

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Bob Levey: You recently told a Congressional committee that the federal government has not done one single thing to provide basic emergency information to private employers in the District of Columbia. Scary. What can be done?

Robert Peck: There's been a lot of talk on preparedness. What's been missing is real, down to earth, straight talk about what a business or an employee should or should not do.

Mike Byrne, the former NYC firefighter who is our regional liaison with the US Department of Homeland Security is the straightest shooter (bad word) on this subject. Maybe because he was trained to act fast and not to be politically correct.

We are trying to get some straight talk out ourselves and are working with local media outlets on this.

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Bob Levey: Many thanks to Robert Peck. Be sure to join us next week when our guest on "Levey Live" will be James Rees, executive director of Mount Vernon. Our visit with Mr. Rees will begin at noon Eastern time of June 24.

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