DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA FOOD INSPECTION AND

LICENSING

(Part 2)

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1971

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SPECIAL STUDIES SUBCOMMITTEE

OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 12 noon, in room 2203, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Wm. J. Randall (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Wm. J. Randall, Garry Brown, and J. Kenneth Robinson.

Staff members present: Erskine Stewart, staff director; Jacob N. Wasserman, counsel; James L. Gyory, staff investigator; and Thomas H. Saunders, minority staff, Committee on Government Operations. Mr. RANDALL. The special subcommittee will reconvene pursuant to its recess yesterday.

The Chair feels that a comment is appropriate at this time. The Chair will take the responsibility for setting the meeting at 11 o'clock to conform with the rules as adopted by the caucus of the majority party. Experience has shown that the caucus has adjourned in most instances by 11 o'clock. That was not true today, the caucus adjourned actually at 11:55; that is 5 minutes before 12. For the purpose of the record, I will show that we are commencing about a minute to 12 and we will proceed with Mr. Alexander and others in an attempt to conclude the hearings at this time.

We are grateful to the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Garry Brown, for being with us. The circumstances actually were altogether unanticipated, the length of the caucus. So that is the reason for the delay. It is the intention of the Chair, though we know that others will probably see fit to answer quorum calls, we intend to pass up any quorum calls on the floor that may occur and proceed to try to finish this session as expeditiously as possible.

We are honored, and I use that word advisedly, because we have read something of his activities since July 27, that we have with us the new Director of the Department of Environmental Services, James P. Alexander.

We will be glad to welcome you to the witness table at this time.

Mr. Director, you have a prepared statement. Do you wish to proceed? We have a few questions for you. Do you have a prep statement?

STATEMENT OF JAMES P. ALEXANDER, DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES; ACCOMPANIED BY MALCOLM C. HOPE, DIRECTOR, ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH ADMINISTRATION Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. Chairman, I have a prepared statement I have submitted for the record. I have a few comments, however, that I would like to make before we begin.

Mr. RANDALL. All right, proceed.

I believe it would be appropriate for the record also to show that the director is attired in a uniform which we understand is symbolic of Operation Clean Sweep. Is that correct?

Mr. ALEXANDER. That is correct, sir.

Mr. RANDALL. Do you care to comment on that before you proceed? Mr. ALEXANDER. Yes, sir; I would. The fact is that the Mayor, on July 27, formed the Department of Environmental Services with the objective of attacking the six basic pollutions we have-air, water, land, visual blight, noise blight, and obviously, food and drugs.

Mr. RANDALL. Would you repeat those-air, water, land, noise blight?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Air, water, land, noise blight, visual blight, and food and drugs are the basic areas of pollution we are concerned with. We had been previously in the situation where it was our feeling that the city needed a major effort to get clean. The fact of the matter is that in a major portion of the city, streets, alleys, vacant lots, abandoned homes, abandoned businesses, had been laden with filth for many years. This not only causes a major rat problem in the city, but also contributes to disease and also has an unfortunately depressing psychological effect on the hundreds of thousands of people who live in that environment. So our first priority was an effort to get out of the city the basic filth that had been here for sometime.

This so-called Operation Clean Sweep has been going for 4 weeks now and better than 8,000 tons of excess trash and debris and filth above what normally would have been taken out has been removed. Approximately 1,000 abandoned cars have been found and removed from the city. These are hazards in that they become super garbage cans, if you will, and menaces for youngsters.

In connection with Clean Sweep, we are also making certain that the surroundings of such places as carryout shops and restaurants, the exteriors, are made attractive. This operation is to get rid of the pollution which has contributed to the spread of disease and filth throughout the city and at this moment in time, it appears to be progressing effectively. There are problems, but by and large, we have had a massive amount of cooperation not only from citizens but also from the news media who have been quite heavily in this effort.

The attire, Mr. Chairman, is simply our way of demonstrating with a new department the vital necessity of this project to the city and to identify to some large extent with our work force, who very often are, we consider, the forgotten people of the city. They have a hard and dirty and filthy and vital job and people too often ignore them.

So we are in this uniform, many of my staff, until this city is clean. And it will be clean.

Mr. RANDALL. That is a most salutary statement, one that I am sure

every member of this committee would endorse, including those who may not be with us today because of, just a few moments ago, the adjournment of the caucus. We have come quite a way in this effort since the first of July and I think one of the well, without singling out any one person, I think one of the forgotten individuals who has not been mentioned to this point is our mayor, Mayor Washington, who, under our present form of city administration, is the titular head and the one that since the demise cancellation of the old troika that we at one time had, I know he is in the background and has been working on this and your appointment-I guess I am correct on that, on the 27th of July

Mr. ALEXANDER. That is correct, sir.

Mr. RANDALL. What you are doing here to dramatize what you are trying to do. Quite frankly, Mr. Alexander, when I walked in, I thought you might have been in the reserves and were part of the great machine or something. But then, I looked about for your rank and could not find any, so I knew it had to be part of this new arrangement. Proceed. I could not help but inject the fact that there has been very little comment made about the activity of the mayor in the background and I wanted to inject that.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. Chairman, I should point out that I have worked at the State level of government and the Federal level of government and now the city level of government. And this executive, the mayor in this city, is probably facing rather superhuman difficulty and is doing one of the outstanding jobs. He is one of the finest persons I have ever been associated with. His charge to this agency is simply to get the job done and I will give you the support to do it. That is the kind of charge I think every one of us likes.

In the area we are concerned with directly here today, sir, as I am sure, you are aware, we are to some degree going through what any new agency goes through. When the organization was formed, quite obviously, there were a number of priority concerns. One was the streets and the alleys and the filth of the city. Another one, which I am certain you are aware of-you helped to bring it to the city's attention-was the question of our restaurant establishments. We promptly went out and looked at the restaurants and looked at the inspection process and made some immediate and basic decisions.

These decisions followed, I might point out, rather intensive discussions of staff and with representatives of the restaurant industry. The first decision we made was very simply that there had to be some clearly understood level at which this agency decided enough was enough and moved to suspend.

One of the problems our inspectors had, and also restaurant owners, is they did not clearly understand what our standards were. They may have understood how we kept track of points, but they did not know at what point in time or what point on a rating scale we would be saying, enough is enough, we are moving to suspend. So we promptly established a rating level, if you will, where we said, if you fall below 70 in this minimum set of standards we have, we will promptly move to suspend. And we have been doing this since September 1.

We also further indicated rather loudly and clearly that falling

below 85 points and above 70 would mean a 2 weeks' notice and if you fail to get above 85 after that 2 weeks, the District government then moved to suspend license at that time.

Another move, and this has not come to fruition yet, is we have instructed the staff concerned with food inspections to develop a much more in-depth discussion of the criteria used for our point system. The fact of the matter is we feel that the present rating form does demand a higher level of understanding by both inspectors and the persons whom we inspect. A draft, if I understand right, is on the way to my desk now. We intend to have it illustrated so both our inspectors and the restaurant operators will understand very loudly and clearly what we mean by a bad situation from the point of view, for example, of improper control of garbage, and a good situation; what do we mean by apparent good health? Some of this can be told pictorially and we feel it is absolutely vital that the restaurant people and we, whom all of us are trying to make certain that our establishments are good, understand those criteria clearly.

We made a further decision after consulting with industry and staff, and that was simply this, that regardless of the quick reaction moves we might take, we had to look at the long haul. We had to say to ourselves, what is the status right now of restaurants throughout the city; where is our program taking us; what are our needs in terms of further training of staff, providing additional resources for staff, better recordkeeping so you know where you are, better liaison with the industries so what we learned

Mr. RANDALL. Mr. Alexander, you are doing so well there I want to be sure I follow you. First, you said better records.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Better records.

Mr. RANDALL. That is most important. No. 2?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Better liaison with the industry, Mr. Chairman. Mr. RANDALL. Better liaison with the industry.

Mr. ALEXANDER. So that as we discover new ways of doing things or ways to improve equipment, we can get the word to the industry so they can pass the word, as an educational process. We feel that is vital.

Mr. RANDALL. Good, good, No. 3?

Mr. ALEXANDER. No. 3, Mr. Chairman, and I am not reading, so Mr. RANDALL. I understand and I am most grateful for the way you are handling this. Go ahead.

Mr. ALEXANDER. No. 3, we are concerned with the question of how new techniques that are developed in food control can be applied to mean better restaurants.

Now, the task force then will look at the overall picture of that restaurant's sanitation, wholesomeness of food, will look at all aspects of it, will question whether we should have posting, will question such ideas as open kitchens, if you will, for inspection of people who use them, and will come back to us in 60 days with a firm, loud, and clear set of recommendations.

The task force, for your information, includes representatives of the Federal and city governments, representatives of the restaurant industry, and representatives of the consumer. It will be staffed by a man not from our food section but from our public health engineering sec

tion, a man who is quite familiar with institutional management practices in the area of health. I personally, as is Mr. Hope, am going to work with that task force and make certain that not only do they pool their own knowledge, but they draw in the ideas of people throughout the country who are experts in this field. We feel this task force will mean a substantial step forward for us.

Secondly, Mr. Chairman, I might point out that we intend to follow that task force with what you might call a phase 2 operation, a possible change, a slight change in membership and an expansion to go into the area of supermarkets, the markets throughout the city, and other kinds of food establishments.

(Mr. Alexander's prepared statement follows:)

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAMES P. ALEXANDER, DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES

I am James P. Alexander, Director, District of Columbia Department of Environmental Services. As you know, the Department of Environmental Services was established by the Mayor-Commissioner on July 27, 1971. The charge to the Department was couched directly: To create a safe, healthful, and aesthetically attractive environment in the District of Columbia. The Department is charged with attacking effectively six basic pollutions, the pollution of our air, water and land, noise, visual blight and our supplies of food and drugs. The accomplishment of this goal, to which we are totally dedicated, will require the total effort of the staff within my Department, as well as the full and complete cooperation of various organizations, associations, and, in a final measure, each of the residents or visitors to our Nation's Capital. The bringing together of the several organizational entities within the District Government, concerned primarily with the environment, will permit a better organized approach to the problem and an improved utilization of resources. I am confident that certain of the shortcomings which have been noted by your subcommittee can be eliminated through the new institutional arrangement.

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before your committee to express my views on the current status of the District of Columbia's food protection program and to call to your attention certain changes which have been effected in the program to increase its responsiveness and better protect the public health. I am impressed by certain constructive steps which were taken prior to the time that the Bureau of Food and Drugs, Environmental Health Administration, was made a part of my Department. The food sanitation program has suffered in the past from lack of surveillance of food establishments at a meaningful level.

The Environmental Health Directorate was fortunate in the receipt of fiscal support from the Department of Agriculture, Consumer and Marketing Services, who for the past 3 years contracted with Environmental Health for the conduct of a "wholesome meat inspection program" which relates directly to the overall food sanitation program of the District. In spite of certain legal questions which have been raised, the Department of Agriculture, Consumer and Marketing Service, has agreed to continue financing this aspect of the program through fiscal year 1972. These additional resources have permitted Environmental Health to establish inspection schedules which meet the national norms, and an improved frequency of inspection.

There have been a number of other improvements over the past few years related in large measure to the increased availability of funds from the Federal Establishment; namely, the establishment for the first time of a master list of food establishments, the development of an inspection form coupled now with a rating system which will permit us to utilize the automatic data processing approach to the translation and recovery of information on both the program generally, as well as individual establishments. This device will provide the ready mechanism whereby we will be able to judge the rate of progress we are achieving in the conduct of the program and simplify administrative procedures. Working relationships with the Department of Economic Development in which there is some shared responsibility in connection with the licensing of food establishments within the District have been improved through a memo