Michael Neibauer

D.C. gas customers face monthly surcharge

Washington Gas customers in the District face a surcharge on their monthly bills starting in 2011 to pay for a program aimed at preventing degradation of pipes and dangerous leaks. The surcharge amount has not been determined, but the District's share is expected to run more than $6 million a year divided among 151,000 Washington Gas customers -- an average of about $40 per year. The settlement between Washington Gas and the Office of the People's Counsel, the District's utility ratepayer advocate, is nearly five years in the making. During that period, the utility was accused by experts of playing a "wait and see" game by failing to address segments of pipes vulnerable to...

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Activists demand privacy protections for DC One Card

Privacy advocates have sounded the alarm about the District government's effort to issue a single, traceable identification card to residents, urging the D.C. Council to adopt legislation that protects the privacy of all users. The DC One Card has been adopted by the Fenty administration as a single credential for use as a school and government employee ID, as a SmarTrip card for Metro, as a library card and as a recreational facility access card. It is designed to be used by any District government agency, though only a handful have signed on so far. "People get very nervous when they're tracked from birth certificate to death by government agencies collecting information about...

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Family angry over girl's death, Fenty's response

The family of a 15-year-old D.C. girl who died last week at a public pool still has no answers about what caused her death and little solace, they say, from the Fenty administration's lack of response to the tragedy. D.C. emergency responders were called to the William H. Rumsey Aquatic Center just before 6 p.m. Sept. 30 for the report of a possible drowning. Police spokeswoman Gwen Crump said Chantice Caruth, a Woodrow Wilson High School freshman, fell on the pool deck and "suffered some sort of seizure." Moments earlier her DC Wave swim team had started practice. Chantice was transported to Children's National Medical Center, where she was declared dead. The chief medical examiner...

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D.C. Council cans Fenty's choice for parks director

D.C. Council members booted the city's acting parks director from her post Tuesday, a slap at Adrian Fenty that is certain to further degrade an already tenuous relationship between the mayor the council. Ximena Hartsock, acting director of the Department of Parks and Recreation, is out of a job after the 7-5 vote against her. She is the first Cabinet-level nominee to fall in Fenty's nearly three years in office. Council members complained that Hartsock, a former D.C. Public Schools principal and member of the DCPS administration team, has repeatedly ignored laws requiring DPR to continue operating day care programs that Fenty has sought to outsource. She "appeared to be simply...

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Catania puts gay marriage bill into play

D.C. Councilman David Catania on Tuesday began the District's journey toward legal same-sex marriage with the long-anticipated introduction of legislation that he said balances human rights with religious freedom. "We're a civil and secular society, and we have to extend equality to all of our residents," said Catania, one of two openly gay council members. The Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act would redefine marriage in D.C. as the "legally recognized union of two people" who are otherwise legally allowed to marry. The bill guarantees the clergy's right to refuse to marry a gay couple. It was a circus inside and outside the council...

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D.C. gay marriage bill could find tough going late

The gay marriage bill that the D.C. Council will soon have before it should see a relatively smooth ride through the local legislative process, before it runs into expected resistance in Congress. At-large Councilman David Catania, one of two openly gay council members, said he will introduce the long-awaited marriage equality bill Tuesday. The proposal has the strong support of at least 10 of 13 members, virtually guaranteeing its adoption. "I think it will be remarkable how little energy is expended on this effort," Catania told The Examiner on Monday. The District already recognizes gay marriages legally performed elsewhere. Catania's bill defines marriage in D.C. as "the legally...

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Graham retains taxicab oversight

D.C. Councilman Jim Graham will retain oversight of the District's taxicab industry despite the alleged involvement of his staff in a massive taxicab bribery scheme that netted nearly 40 arrests last week, the council's chairman said. Graham chairs the public works and transportation committee, which oversees all taxicab-related legislation. Ted Loza, his chief of staff, was arrested Sept. 25 on suspicion of accepting $1,500 in bribes to steer taxicab legislation through the council. Two more Graham staffers were called to testify before a grand jury investigating a $300,000-plus bribery ring involving the D.C. Taxicab Commission. Council Chairman Vincent Gray said Monday that he has...

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Think tank seeks financial support for CareFirst fight

The D.C. think tank that has led the lobbying effort to divide an area health insurer's massive financial surplus for community use is now imploring its supporters for money to continue the fight. Walter Smith, executive director of the nonprofit D.C. Appleseed, asked Appleseed supporters for their financial help "at this critical time in the long fight to make CareFirst meet its obligations as a 'charitable and benevolent' not-for-profit company." "Going toe-to-toe with CareFirst over whether the company has built up excessive surplus funds has forced us to incur $100,000 in unanticipated expenses during particularly difficult economic times," Smith wrote in an e-mail Thursday to...

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Southeastern U. failed despite cash influx from D.C. coffers

The now-shuttered Southeastern University received a $1.5 million gift from D.C. taxpayers three months before the school was notified that it would lose its accreditation -- and eight months before it canceled classes. The Middle States Commission on Higher Education revoked Southeastern's accreditation as of Aug. 31, after concluding that the school lacked general quality, was losing faculty and was destabilizing financially. The university subsequently scrapped its fall semester, effectively shutting down, while many of its students transferred to other accredited universities in and around Washington. The accreditation decision came down March 5, three months and a day after the...

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D.C. proposes looser restrictions on urban chickens

District backyards could soon resemble urban farms as the D.C. Council considers a bill that would ease long-standing restrictions on raising chickens and harvesting eggs on residential property. Ward 6 D.C. Councilman Tommy Wells is proposing to erase rules that prohibit fowl within 50 feet of any building “used for human habitation,” a regulation that denies most District residents the opportunity to harbor hens. Urban chickens are increasingly popular nationally in the down economy, as families look to produce their own eggs and cities pass laws to ease the process. The D.C. measure was drafted on behalf of a Capitol Hill family, Wells’ constituents, whose eight...

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Audit: $100k in D.C. health grants misspent

Four D.C.-area nonprofits misspent or wasted more than 40 percent of $235,000 in grants awarded by the city's health department in 2007 to help sick children promote public health education, District auditors allege in a new report. The Office of the Inspector General disallowed or questioned $99,335 of the nearly quarter million dollars invested by the Community Health Administration, a branch of the D.C. Department of Health, on the four grants. Of that, the IG urged the District to attempt to recollect $47,326 "because these costs were not valid." Auditors also found that three CHA employees who were responsible for either monitoring or awarding the noncompetitive grants also...

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Anti-smoking proposal could push D.C. smokers into the streets

The D.C. Council is eyeing an extension of the city's anti-tobacco prohibitions into public space, allowing all private property owners to ban smoking outside their buildings -- including the public sidewalk. The proposed legislation, a major expansion of the District's smoke-free law, sets 18 as the legal age to purchase or possess tobacco products, requires retailers to post signs warning of the dangers of smoking, ramps up enforcement of sales to minors and authorizes smoking bans up to 25 feet from the wall of any private property -- residential or commercial. The goal of that last provision is to disperse packs of smokers who congregate outside office buildings, said Councilman...

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FBI seeks records on nonprofit, taxi industry

FBI agents searching the office of D.C. Councilman Jim Graham's Chief of Staff Ted Loza had on their list of items to seize records related to Fiesta D.C., a nonprofit that received a six-figure city financial grant and has close ties to the councilman. Agents raided the office of Graham's right-hand man shortly after noon. Loza was arrested at his home earlier in the day and charged with two counts of bribery on suspicion of accepting cash and trips from individuals in the taxicab industry. Loza is alleged to have attempted to influence taxi-related legislation on behalf of the bribers. Authorities were searching for any documents, computer files, telephone records and toll records...

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Top Graham aide charged with taking bribes

D.C. Councilman Jim Graham's top aide pocketed cash-stuffed envelopes and other gifts in return for steering taxicab legislation through his boss's office, law enforcement officials alleged Thursday. Ted Giovanny Loza, 44, was arrested at his Columbia Heights home Thursday morning, shortly before FBI agents raided his office at the John A. Wilson Building. Loza, the Ward 1 councilman's chief of staff, tinyurl.com/loza-indictment, to which he pleaded not guilty during a late afternoon arraignment. He was released without having to post bail. Graham immediately placed him on administrative leave with pay. Loza is accused in the 10-page indictment of accepting "a stream of things of...

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D.C. Councilman Graham's chief of staff arrested on bribery charges

The top aide to Councilman Jim Graham was arrested Thursday morning, charged with pocketing bribes to help steer taxi cab legislation through his boss’ office. Ted Loza, Graham's chief of staff, was scheduled to appear in federal court hours later, charged with two counts of bribery. He was arrested early Thursday and his city hall office raided by federal agents. He is a longtime aide to Graham, D-Ward 1, who chairs the council’s transportation committee and who earlier this year introduced legislation that would have lifted a moratorium on expensive taxi cab licenses — called medallions — for “environmentally friendly” cabs. Graham fled from a...

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D.C. proposes 5 hours of free parking for mourners

Funeral attendees in the District would be free to violate parking meter and residential parking restrictions for up to five hours under legislation now before the D.C. Council. Introduced by at-large Councilman Michael Brown, the bill provides that the vehicles of mourners, marked by placards provided by funeral organizers, could not be ticketed for residential permit and parking meter infractions for five hours during and after a funeral service. The measure also bars non-funeral attendees from parking in designated funeral zones during the same five-hour period. "Mourning and honoring the passing of a loved one at a funeral is a difficult yet important part of the healing...

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Good news? D.C. revenue estimates not worse

D.C. leaders received positive news from their finance chief this week about the District's economy: It hasn't gotten any worse. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi's newest revenue estimates, issued to Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray, remain unchanged since his June projection. While sales tax collections "have deteriorated in recent months," Gandhi said, withholding tax collections are up 3.5 percent for the year and the collapse in deed taxes is slowing. "Although the general economic outlook has improved somewhat since the June revenue estimate, uncertainty is still great and risks remain for both the national and local economies," Gandhi wrote. The CFO's...

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Segways now sidewalk legal for D.C. disabled

The District's disabled residents are free to ride their Segways on downtown sidewalks without fear of being ticketed by police, the D.C. Council decided. City law prohibits Segways, deemed by the D.C. Code to be a "personal mobility device," on sidewalks within the Central Business District, bounded by 23rd Street NW to the west, Massachusetts Avenue to the north, Second Street NE to the east, and D Street to the south. The council on Tuesday adopted this caveat to the statute: "unless operated by a person with a disability." The two-wheeled, self-balancing, motorized propulsion devices are increasingly popular among visitors on private tours. But for the disabled,...

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Fenty gets OK to buy warehouse for $85 million

D.C. Council notes » Adopted a code of ethics, minus any sanctions or censure provisions. » Barred new private fire hydrants without signed document stating who will maintain them. » Maintained $10 Class 3 property tax for blighted properties, excluding vacant lots The Fenty administration will spend more than $85 million to purchase a vacant warehouse in Southeast that the government has paid more than $15 million to rent while it has stood unused since mid-2007. Authorization to buy 225 Virginia Ave. was included in the fiscal 2010 Budget Support Act, which won the D.C. Council's unanimous approval Tuesday. The act, which takes effect Oct....

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D.C. Council to vote on code of conduct

The D.C. Council will vote Tuesday on a new "Code of Official Conduct" for its members that sets out ethics guidelines for city lawmakers but makes virtually no changes to existing law nor contains any sanctions for violators. The code, Council Chairman Vincent Gray said, is but a "framework" for a more complete ethics rulebook for the council, a body shaken by Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry's questionable earmarking and penchant for hiring girlfriends. The proposed ethics document contains a series of guidelines "based on existing regulations." A second resolution would appoint the council's general counsel, currently Brian Flowers, as its "ethics counselor." The D.C. Code and...

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D.C. could prohibit new private hydrants

Confusion over who is responsible for the upkeep of private fire hydrants in the District has spurred emergency D.C. Council legislation barring permits for new hydrants unless someone first stakes claim for their care. At-large Councilman Phil Mendelson's emergency resolution would prohibit new hydrants on private property without a signed document stating who is responsible for maintaining them, now and in the future. "There should be no more of these permits that allow a private hydrant where 20 years in the future, it will be unclear who's responsible for that hydrant," Mendelson said Monday. The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority maintains, repairs and replaces the city's...

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The 3-minute interview: Dan Silverman

Silverman, 34, recently quit his day job to blog full time as the Prince of Petworth, the Northwest Washington neighborhood where he's lived for six-plus years. What is the technical definition of Petworth? That's a loaded question. It's basically from the crossroad of Georgia Avenue and New Hampshire bordered by Georgia to the west, and bordered by North Capitol [Street] to the east and Kennedy [Street] to the north. What do you do for a living? As of yesterday, I was full time. But what I did before that was a homeland security analyst. What do you love about it? When I moved to Petworth there was so much development on the horizon. The neighbors were so nice. It was a...

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House moves to de-Hatch D.C.

D.C. could soon find itself free from a federal law that restricts city workers’ participation in partisan political activity, constraints that have seriously confused the election process for hundreds of potential candidates. The Hatch Act bars federal and D.C. employees from running for partisan public office, from soliciting or receiving political contributions, or from engaging in political activity while on the job. The mayor and D.C. Council are explicitly exempt, but elected advisory neighborhood commissioners and members of the State Board of Education are not, according to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. “Should the District have its own Hatch Act, and the...

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IG eyes Medicaid, tax office, schools for '10 D.C. audits

The D.C. inspector general's audit blueprint for next fiscal year heavily targets Medicaid, tax collections, procurement and city spending of roughly $900 million in federal stimulus -- all areas of high risk or extensive past problems. The 65 investigations proposed by the Office of the Inspector General blanket most aspects of the District government, from payroll and the lottery to D.C. Public School consulting contracts and construction of the $133 million forensics lab. Each agency or service under the microscope is there for a reason, be it a constituent tip, a newspaper article or a request from an elected official, said William DiVello, assistant inspector general for...

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Ghost bikes reappear at Dupont intersection

A busy Dupont Circle intersection was beset by 22 "ghost bikes" Thursday, two weeks after the District government removed a single memorial to a cyclist run over by a garbage truck there. "It was straight-up grave robbing as far as I'm concerned," said 27-year-old Legba Carrefour, a self-described anarchist who led the effort to replace a single white-painted bike with 22 new ghost bike memorials -- four of which were pilfered before 10 a.m. Alice Swanson was riding her bike westbound on R Street on July 8, 2008, when she was struck and killed by a garbage truck at the intersection with 20th Street and Connecticut Avenue. The truck driver was traveling in the same...

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Fenty: New Tenleytown library will be able to support future development

The Fenty administration on Wednesday finally committed to spend upward of $1 million to build structural supports into the new Tenley-Friendship Library that would allow for residential development atop the branch. The added supports are vocally opposed by neighborhood leaders who fear a residential tower would steal a significant amount of already-limited green space from the adjacent Janney Elementary School. They are widely backed by smart-growth advocates who want to see transit-oriented development on the prime site at Wisconsin Avenue and Albemarle Street, steps from the Tenleytown Metro Station. "You have a building that's practically sitting on top of a Metro station," said...

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Judge halts D.C. tax sale of properties

The District's tax office on Wednesday delayed its annual lien auction after a D.C. Superior Court judge struck down the city's decision to limit the number properties sold based on the amount owed. Judge Brook Hedge issued her order Tuesday, a day before the scheduled start of the tax sale and a week after the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue announced it would auction only those properties with back tax bills of $1,200 or more. "A legal challenge has been made to the District's right to set a threshold for the sale of delinquent real property taxes," the Office of Tax and Revenue said in a statement. "Consequently, the District is reviewing its legal authority to set a...

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Some delinquent D.C. taxpayers spared from real estate auction

D.C. property owners whose 2008 delinquent real estate tax bills total less than $1,200 will not have their holdings auctioned during the District's annual tax sale, the tax office announced last week. During the tax sale, scheduled for Wednesday through Friday, the Office of Tax and Revenue auctions the liens on D.C. properties with back tax bills. As of Friday there were about 4,900 such properties. But OTR issued emergency regulations Friday that let some 2,000 owners off the auction hook. Any tax bill -- including penalties and interest -- of less than $1,200 will not be sold. The decision will mean about $1 million less for D.C.'s already meager coffers -- assuming the property...

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D.C. cracking down on outsiders getting free city health care

The District is closing a loophole that has allowed non-D.C. residents to get millions of dollars worth of free health insurance at the expense of city taxpayers. The D.C. Healthcare Alliance is a free health care program for thousands of city residents who are ineligible for any other benefits such as Medicaid. The city spends $189 per person per month to insure each participant. The absence of safeguards toshield the alliance from fraud might have enabled rampant cheating in past years, outside auditor Bert Smith & Co. reported in early 2008. Non-D.C. residents had easy access to free care, the audit found, as there was “minimal or no documentation” required from...

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Neighbors speak out against SW library design

Leaders of a far Southwest D.C. community have asked a city planning board to reject a proposed branch library design they say is bizarre and utterly out of touch with their neighborhood. The D.C. Public Library requires two zoning exemptions from the Board of Zoning Adjustments to build the new Washington Highlands Neighborhood Library at 115 Atlantic St. SW, a block off South Capitol Street. The BZA hearing Tuesday provided a handful of neighborhood leaders the chance to deride the library's ultramodern look -- a design from renowned British architect David Adjaye. "It's not designed for us, and it's not designed for the culture of the neighborhood," Theresa Jones, a Washington...

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Overhead streetcar lines for D.C. still an issue for feds

Overhead streetcar lines proposed for the new 11th Street Bridge threaten to obstruct views of the historic capital city and should be avoided, a key regional planning body tells the District in a new report. The National Capital Planning Commission, the federal government's planning agency, is scheduled Thursday to review D.C.'s $300 million plan for a new 11th Street Bridge, a project that will connect the Southeast-Southwest Freeway with Interstate 295 in all directions, and Historic Anacostia with its west-of-the-river neighbors. The new bridge won praise from commission staff for the prospect of "reducing traffic in Historic Anacostia, improving vehicle circulation, replacing...

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Gay marriage critics file for D.C. referendum

A coalition of gay marriage opponents asked the D.C. elections board Tuesday to authorize a ballot initiative that if approved by a majority of voters would define marriage in the District as the union of a man and a woman. Stand4MarriageDC, led by Bishop Harry Jackson of Beltsville's Hope Christian Church, filed papers with the Board of Elections and Ethics seeking authority to collect petition signatures for a November 2010 referendum on the definition of marriage. The filing, backed by the Archdiocese of Washington, comes ahead of an anticipated D.C. Council effort to legalize same-sex marriage in the District. "The people of the District of Columbia should decide the issue of...

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Body found in Rock Creek was that of ACLU lobbyist

The body found in Rock Creek Park on Friday was that of the state legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of the National Capital Area, authorities said. Larry Frankel's body was discovered by a jogger, who alerted police of an unconscious male in the water. Police say there were no signs of foul play and family members told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he died of natural causes. Frankel, 54, was a longtime ACLU lobbyist and served as executive director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania from 1996 to...

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D.C. summer jobs payroll will near $28 million

The D.C. government will have paid nearly $28 million to its 2009 summer jobs participants when the final numbers are tallied next week, a troubling omen for 2010, when the initiative will be limited to six weeks and only $20 million. Payroll for the nine-week Summer Youth Employment Program through Aug. 26 came to $25.28 million, according to figures provided by the Office of the Chief Financial Officer. The Sept. 9 final pay date is expected to add $2.49 million, bringing total payroll to $27.76 million, or about $3.8 million a week on average. Given those numbers, Mayor Adrian Fenty will be challenged in 2010 to stay within budget as the D.C. Council has restricted the program to six...

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Fenty veto stalls D.C. budget

Mayor Adrian Fenty used his veto pen last week to strike a single $950,000 line item from the 2010 budget, temporarily stalling the city's spending plan one month before the start of the fiscal year. Fenty rejected the D.C. Council's effort to empower the State Board of Education to make its own budget and hiring decisions. Those powers currently rest with the executive, which controls public education in the District. "Additional education investments should be tied to outcomes and results for students," Fenty wrote Wednesday in a letter to Council Chairman Vincent Gray. "Instead, Council's action with regard to the State Board weakens the established school governance structure and...

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Feds consider shooting deer in Rock Creek Park

The National Park Service is eyeing the use of sharpshooters and other lethal action as the most effective means to quickly cull the growing white-tail deer population in Rock Creek Park. Hundreds of deer -- roughly 82 per square mile -- roam the 2,900-acre park, the park service reports in a 400-page environmental impact statement, which sets out the lethal and nonlethal options for controlling deer numbers. The herd often wanders off the reservation, onto neighboring roads, into residents' yards and occasionally through plate glass windows. The park service is lobbying for immediate action as white-tail deer are fast becoming the dominant force in the park's ecosystem. The deer are...

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Angry Fenty evades questions about sons' schooling

Mayor Adrian Fenty on Thursday dodged more questions about the education of his sons, growing visibly angry as reporters pressed on how his twin boys gained entry into one of D.C.'s top-performing public schools. Fenty, a resident of the Crestwood neighborhood, on Monday enrolled his 9-year-old sons, Matthew and Andrew, in the fourth grade at Lafayette Elementary School in Chevy Chase. The 615-student school is one of the most difficult to gain entry to for out-of-boundary parents, like the Fentys, most of whom must enter their children in a lottery and hope for one of the few available openings in each grade. But Fenty has steadfastly refused to say whether he went through the lottery...

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Pepco calls for evidence in faulty meter claim

Pepco is demanding that D.C.'s utility consumer advocate put up or shut up about claims that large numbers of the power provider's meters are faulty and might have been responsible for skyrocketing winter electricity bills. Allegations of busted equipment are "grossly inaccurate and misleading to Pepco customers," Deborah Royster, Pepco's deputy general counsel, wrote Wednesday to D.C. People's Counsel Elizabeth Noel, who represents residential utility customers before the Public Service Commission. Noel's office launched an investigation after it was inundated with complaints of wildly high winter electric bills. Its analysis, according to a July 9 report, indicated that 70...

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D.C. urges vigilance in choosing off-campus housing

College students living off campus are being urged by the D.C. government to protect themselves from unscrupulous landlords and report hazardous conditions in their homes before the situation grows dangerous -- or even deadly. Thousands of students are rolling into town, and 10,000 or more will opt for off-campus living, according to the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. DCRA, which licenses landlords and inspects all college housing, is pushing its anti-slumlord campaign to help students avoid bad leases and perilous conditions, and to provide an outlet for complaints. "If your landlord is legally licensed to rent, the property has been inspected," the agency tells...

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Judge: Ex-gays protected by D.C. law

A D.C. Superior Court judge has ruled that ex-gays are a protected class under the District's broad Human Rights Act, the same law that ensures gays, minorities and a range of other groups are safe from hate crimes. Judge Maurice Ross has reversed an earlier ruling by the D.C. Office of Human Rights that found ex-gays were not protected under the act, "because it directly contravenes the plain language and intent of the statute." The decision emerged from a complaint filed more than five years ago by the Virginia-based Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays, an organization that claims to lead the nation "in providing outreach and public awareness in support of...

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Condos replace loathed carry-out in Hill East

A former Hill East carry-out joint known to be magnet for drugs and violence has been reborn, to some neighborhood dismay, as a condominium and retail complex at the corner of 15th and C streets Southeast not far from RFK Stadium. Carry Lofts at 257 15th St. SE, with its four two-bedroom units, ground floor retail space and sidewalk patio, is a striking substitute for the New Dragon, which closed in late 2005 amid neighbors' protests and a lawsuit. But the new property has its critics, those who believe the rowhouse-lined neighborhood is growing oversaturated with condominiums. The D.C. Preservation League added Hill East to its most endangered list in 2007, noting it is "at risk...

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Expert: Unemployment numbers don't tell full story

The dip in unemployment registered by D.C. and Virginia in July, and the very slight increase in Maryland, does not necessarily signal a regional economic turnaround or an end to the recession, one expert economist said. In D.C., the July jobless rate settled at 10.6 percent, down from 10.9 percent in June, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Friday. In Virginia, overall unemployment fell from 7.2 to 6.9 percent. In Maryland, the rate inched up from 7.2 to 7.3 percent. Seventeen states and the District saw their unemployment rates fall between June and July. The data are nothing to celebrate, said Stephen Fuller, director of George Mason University's Center for Regional Analysis. A...

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D.C. considers luring new residents with cash

The District's lead agency on the environment is proposing to dole out $3,000 to people who work in D.C. as an incentive to relocate from their suburban homes into the city, where their commute would demand less energy. The proposal was put before the federal government as part of the D.C. Department of the Environment's stimulus application for the U.S. Department of Energy's State Energy Program. The District requested roughly $22 million, most for heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and window replacements at aging school buildings and government centers -- notably One Judiciary Square. On a smaller scale is the proposed Live Near Your Work program, a $90,000 pilot for about 30...

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Ray going after Mendelson's D.C. Council seat

Former D.C. parks and recreation chief Clark Ray will run for the at-large D.C. Council seat currently held by incumbent Democrat Phil Mendelson, Ray said Tuesday, setting up what may be the city's closest contest of the 2010 political season. The decision to run, Ray told The Examiner, "has been in the making for several months." "I don't really and truly make snap decisions," he said. "What one thinks of oneself and what others think of oneself don't always equal the same thing." Ray, 45, was drafted to campaign for Mendelson's seat soon after his surprise April canning by Mayor Adrian Fenty. He has spent the weeks since visiting community groups across...

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D.C. backs off on 'One Card'

The Fenty administration on Tuesday backed off plans to require that District residents use a new identification credential, a card that can track a person's use of city services, to access D.C. recreation centers. Ward 3 D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh sounded the alarm, she said, after angry constituents reported they were told they would need a DC One Card to enter the new Wilson Aquatic Center. Many didn't have or want the ID, Cheh said Tuesday. Others were concerned about the potential for privacy invasion. "It's like Big Brother," Cheh said. The Department of Parks and Recreation was "looking at making it a requirement," DPR spokesman John Stokes told The...

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D.C. backs off on ‘One Card’

The Fenty administration on Tuesday backed off plans to require that District residents use a new identification credential, a card that can track a person’s use of city services, to access D.C. recreation centers. Ward 3 D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh sounded the alarm, she said, after angry constituents reported they were told they would need a DC One Card to enter the new Wilson Aquatic Center. Many didn’t have or want the ID, Cheh said Tuesday. Others were concerned about the potential for privacy invasion. “It’s like Big Brother,” Cheh said. The Department of Parks and Recreation was “looking at making it a requirement,” DPR spokesman John...

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Metro fires two bus drivers, keeps one other

Metro has fired two Metrobus drivers, one who was accused of kidnapping a rider and one who was arrested for driving with a suspended license. The transit agency saved the job of a third who was wrongly accused of making a personal cell phone call while behind the wheel. Metro is making good on its new zero-tolerance policy for bus drivers and Metrorail operators caught using a cell phone or texting while operating a vehicle. The policy was introduced July 9, 17 days after a speeding Red Line train rear-ended an idle train, killing nine and injuring at least 70. A Metrobus operator who refused to allow a customer to exit a bus after a verbal dispute July 25 in Prince George's County...

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Purcell latest in line of troubled Fenty nominees

Like other nominees before him, Will Purcell had deep ties to the Fenty administration. His wife is second in line at D.C. Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking and a close friend Fenty's wife, Michelle. Purcell was disbarred July 21 by the Maryland Court of Appeals for his role in ripping off a financially struggling Waldorf couple in an equity-stripping scam. As The Examiner reported last week, Purcell signed settlement documents that allowed a nefarious broker to kick back thousands of dollars due to the couple after the deal closed. His nomination to the Contract Appeals Board, a position that pays the "highest step" on the DS-17/DS-18 grade, an annual rate of...

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Mount Pleasant hardware store pleads for customers

Pfeiffer's Hardware in Mount Pleasant is suffering, like so many local small businesses. But owner Todd Pfeiffer is trying a new tactic to attract neighborhood customers: He's pleading with them. "The economy is hurting most of us, I'm sure, but the fact is, without an increase in sales, our store will become yet another empty storefront on Mount Pleasant Street," Pfeiffer wrote in a recent Mount Pleasant Main Street newsletter. Pfeiffer and Adriana DiFranco opened their store on Mount Pleasant Street in December 2003 during the housing boom. It is one of a handful of local hardware stores that remain open in the District -- joining Glover Park Hardware, Frager's on Capitol Hill and...

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Police Blotter

Loudoun convenience store robbed at gunpoint A man walked into the Lucketts Mini-Mart just before midnight Wednesday, drew his handgun and demanded money from the cashier, the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office said Thursday. The robber left the store in the 14420 block of James Monroe Highway on foot with an undisclosed amount of cash. He was described as a white male, 18 to 25 years old, 175 to 200 pounds and between 5 feet 10 inches and 6 feet tall. He was wearing a black zipper-style hooded sweat shirt. Anyone with information about the suspect is asked to call 703-777-0475. Glenmont bank robbed A man walked into a Chevy Chase Bank branch in Glenmont Thursday morning, implied he...

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Nickles: Loss of evidence 'inexcusable'

D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles told a federal judge Wednesday that the "loss and destruction" of evidence tied to the 2002 mass arrests at Pershing Park was "inexcusable" and would result in disciplinary action in his office and possibly the police department. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered Nickles to file a sworn statement explaining how documents and recordings related to the mass protester arrests went missing. In that statement, Nickles said he "takes the Court's concerns extremely seriously" and was committed to ensuring the problems do not recur. "The discovery lapses at issue here are inexcusable and should not have occurred," Nickles wrote. "Even my...

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Fenty nominee disbarred, will not be seated

Mayor Adrian Fenty’s nominee to a critical D.C. appeals board was recently disbarred in Maryland for his role in a fraudulent real estate scheme and will not be sworn in. Will Purcell’s nomination to the Contract Appeals Board, the panel charged with hearing and resolving contractual disputes, was approved by the D.C. Council on July 14. A week later, the Maryland Court of Appeals ordered Purcell and a second lawyer, Renard Johnson, disbarred for their participation in an equity-stripping scam. On July 31, Purcell contributed $500 to Fenty’s 2010 campaign, according to campaign finance records. But on Wednesday, Office of Boards and Commissions director Tracy Sandler...

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Poll: Only 30 percent say Fenty 'definitely' has their vote

More polling data -- Council Chairman Vincent Gray: 48 percent favorable, 11 percent unfavorable -- Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee: 61 percent favorable, 14 percent unfavorable -- At-large Councilman Kwame Brown: 40 percent favorable, 9 percent unfavorable Mayor Adrian Fenty may be vulnerable in his re-election bid next year, with six in 10 Democrats surveyed in a new poll saying they were either open to voting for someone else or strongly opposed to the incumbent. Conducted by D.C.-based Successful Capital Strategies from July 8-14, the poll targeted only registered Democratic voters in Wards 1, 3, and 6 -- all of which have council members up for re-election next year....

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Poll: Cheh on safe ground, Mendelson faces test

Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh fared the best according to the poll, conducted by Successful Capital Strategies on behalf of the National Capital Committee for Good Government. Of Ward 3 respondents, 53 percent said they would "definitely" vote to re-elect the first-term councilwoman, while 4 percent would not and 29 percent would consider someone else. Undecideds in Ward 3 were 14 percent. "It's obviously good news, I guess," Cheh said Tuesday. "It's good to hear it." Ward 1 Councilman Jim Graham earned the definite support of 43 percent of voters, while 22 percent would consider someone else for the job and 26 percent were undecided. In Ward 6, Councilman...

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Fenty's 'blue-shirts' accused of tree trouble

A Northwest D.C. resident claims to be the latest victim of Mayor Adrian Fenty’s conservation corps — thousands of District youth in blue shirts wandering the streets with seemingly nothing to do, and earning $7.25 an hour from the city while they do it. James Carstensen left his Park View home last week for a quick jaunt to Fort Totten. He returned 40 minutes later, he said Monday, to find the crape myrtle tree he planted five years earlier in memory of his grandmother lying on the ground in front of his home. Moments later, Carstensen said, he spotted “blue shirts with loppers” walking about a block away. “These kids all summer are just not...

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Summer has been pleasant so far

Monday was hot, but most people took it in stride. After all, they said, this summer has been relatively cool — as far as Washington summers go. Alex Sosnowski, an Accuweather meteorologist, attributed the comfortable weather of late to a “persistent” dip in the jet stream into the eastern United States. The dip, which remained until the last week in July, allowed one cool air mass after another to drain down out of Canada and then off the Atlantic seaboard. But now the jet stream has retreated to the U.S.-Canadian border, Sosnowski said. In its place is a classic summer scenario — a clockwise-rotating high pressure system off the coast of Bermuda that brings...

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Hot enough for you? Washington's infamous heat, humidity finally arrive

Even with Congress on recess Monday, there was still plenty of hot air to go around. The high temperature at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport Monday was a sweltering 96.1 degrees, which, when combined with a dew point in the upper 60s, pushed the heat index to 100 degrees. As the temperature neared the century mark, and hit the highest temperature of the summer, the National Weather Service issued a heat advisory as did the District. D.C. opened its network of cooling centers and extended hours at its public pools -- which were packed to capacity, said one city spokesman. All outdoor athletic programs were canceled and residents were urged to drink a lot of water and take...

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One Metro train, two too many cars

A Metro employee tested positive for drugs as part of an investigation into why a Green Line train that passed through five stations in late July was put together with too many cars to fit on station platforms, The Examiner has learned. The 10-car train, which left Greenbelt at 4:50 p.m. July 31, was south of Fort Totten about 20 minutes later when the operator was told by a passenger via the intercom that there were two additional cars at the back of the train, said Metro spokesman Steven Taubenkibel. Metro's platforms were designed to handle nothing longer than eight-car trains. The operator, Taubenkibel said, surveyed the train once he reached Georgia Avenue and confirmed the extra...

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Three-minute interview - Eve Russell

Russell joined the Washington Humane Society in April 2008 as a humane law enforcement officer. To report abuse, call 202-234-8626, 24 hours a day. Do you have pets? I have a giant silly American pit bull mix named Jerome. And I have a wonderful cat named Tobzilla. A “giant silly” pit bull? He’s got a lot of personality. He was in the shelter for about four months. Then he was adopted and returned. I fostered him for about an hour, and I decided this dog isn’t going anywhere. This is my dog. Do you have law enforcement power? We do not carry weapons, but we do make arrests. Not physical arrests, but we do write our own arrest warrants and search warrants. We can...

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Hawk One security tries to remake its marred image

The security company charged with guarding D.C. government buildings and public schools is looking to retool its marred image in the hopes of heading off the loss of its lucrative District contract. Hawk One has not been formally told by the city that it is out, company officials said. But Mayor Adrian Fenty already has forwarded the first of several contracts for citywide security services to the D.C. Council for approval, and Hawk One is not the winner. The D.C. company, which oversees roughly 800 guards posted in D.C. schools and buildings, is protesting the Fenty administration’s decision to declare its contract bid “nonresponsive” and exclude it from the...

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Metro responds to report of near miss

A top Metro official on Sunday rebuked a published report claiming a near collision of Metrorail trains in early March may have been a precursor to the deadly Red Line crash three months later. Metro Chief Safety Officer Alexa Dupigny-Samuels issued a statement assuring the public "that our Metrorail system is safe," while chastising the Washington Post for an article about a March 2 incident at the Potomac Avenue Station. "The two incidents are not related," Dupigny-Samuels said of the March and June events. "The March 2 incident was identified as a car-borne issue and the June 22 accident is being looked at as an issue in and along the track bed area,...

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Water woes, location made firefight difficult

A lack of water caused D.C. firefighters to struggle to bring the massive fire that gutted Peggy Cooper Cafritz's Palisades mansion under control, according to city investigators. At 8:30 p.m. July 29, about 15 minutes after the fire at 3030 Chain Bridge Road NW was reported, firefighters communicated that "water supply is an issue," according to a report released by Mayor Adrian Fenty. By 8:45, water supply companies established a mile-long relay of hoses to connect to additional hydrants. Not until 9:30 p.m. did firefighters connect to a main on Rockwood Parkway that "provided the required water needed for this size fire." At 1 a.m. July 30, the fire that engulfed...

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Smoking critics irked as D.C. diverts tobacco funds

Anti-smoking activists want the D.C. Council to devote new funding for cessation programs after the body voted to hike the cigarette tax and raid the tobacco settlement fund but dedicate the associated revenue to the budget shortfall. Taking from the tobacco fund » Fiscal 2009: $18.3 million » Fiscal 2010: $4.84 million » Fiscal 2011: $4 million At-large Councilman David Catania, chairman of the health committee, served up the tobacco fund during last week’s closed-door deficit sessions. When members threatened to raise property and other taxes rather than cut more from the budget, Catania offered additional dollars from the settlement fund to bridge the...

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Shuttered towing company sues D.C. for $10 million

A D.C. towing operator whose business was shut down in 2007 for flouting city towing laws is suing the government for $10 million, saying the District had no authority to revoke his license. James W. Gee, owner of Youngin's Towing and Auto Body, may have been one of the more despised businessmen in the District until the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs closed his Montana Avenue Northeast business down. He was accused of, and fined for, charging exorbitant rates, towing with little justification and without notifying the city, requiring cash-only payments, refusing to turn over a vehicle, failing to provide a printed copy of the "Owner's Bill of Rights," and...

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D.C. booting security firm, citing poor performance

Hawk One troubles » November 2008: D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee chastises Hawk One school guards "just sitting in chairs." » March 2008: School officer Ronald Bell arrested after a traffic stop uncovers pot and 75 vials of a "white, rocklike substance." » July 2005: Hawk One guard Xavier Brooks arrested on suspicion of a pair of armed robberies in Georgetown. A private security firm with lucrative deals to guard both D.C. government buildings and the public schools has lost at least one of its contracts with the District and looks to be out entirely. Mayor Adrian Fenty is moving to replace Hawk One Security four years after it...

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Stimulus cash provides more supplies than jobs

The bulk of federal stimulus money being sent to local law enforcement agencies is going toward security upgrades and new equipment, with only some of the money being used to prevent law enforcement layoffs. The Alexandria Sheriff's Office received about $127,000 in stimulus money siphoned through the U.S. Justice Department. The cash is being spent on security upgrades for the city's courthouse, including $15,000 to turn a currently vacant space into a courtroom. Known as Courtroom 2, the space was occupied by the Virginia Industrial Commission, now known as the workers' compensation commission, said Alexandria Chief Deputy Tim Gleeson. The commission left the room in 2004 and it has...

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Report: Stronger action needed from Fenty, schools on HIV

Mayor Adrian Fenty has not marshaled every resource in his administration, the community or the schools to tackle the District's staggering HIV/AIDS epidemic despite making some strides against the disease, a new study finds. The annual report card from the D.C. Appleseed Center for Law and Justice gives the District high marks for rapid testing, interagency coordination, surveillance and fighting the disease in the D.C. Jail. But Fenty's leadership on HIV is lacking, Appleseed found, needle-exchange programs still fall short and the D.C. public and charter schools fall far behind. The District's HIV rate is about 3 percent, according to the city's HIV/AIDS Administration. The Centers...

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Report: Stronger action needed from Fenty, schools on HIV

Mayor Adrian Fenty has not marshaled every resource in his administration, the community or the schools to tackle the District’s staggering HIV/AIDS epidemic despite making some strides against the disease, a new study finds. The annual report card from the D.C. Appleseed Center for Law and Justice gives the District high marks for rapid testing, interagency coordination, surveillance and fighting the disease in the D.C. Jail. But Fenty’s leadership on HIV is lacking, Appleseed found. Needle-exchange programs still fall short and the D.C. public and charter schools fall far behind. The District’s HIV rate is about 3 percent, according to the city’s HIV/AIDS...

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New protections for breastfeeding moms in D.C.

Women who breastfeed at work in the District are now protected by anti-discrimination rules that require employers to provide reasonable breaks and a sanitary room -- other than a bathroom or toilet stall. The regulations, which took effect Friday, ensure that women have the right to breastfeed their children "in any location, public or private, where she has the right to be with her child." Breastfeeding women must be free from workplace "harassment or ridicule" and any discrimination "because of the exposure of any part of [the] breast during breastfeeding," the rules state. And all employers must post a breastfeeding policy that contains no "rules...

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Audit: D.C. gas taxes go uncollected

The District's finance office failed to collect nearly $750,000 in motor fuel taxes in recent years largely because it let delinquent taxpayers off the hook, according to an audit released days before the D.C. Council voted to raise the gas tax. The Office of the Inspector General "identified uncollected motor fuel tax revenues of about $733,000 for six years," said the audit, dated July 26. The District's Office of Tax and Revenue, auditors reported, "has not been aggressively pursuing potential revenues," as it never followed up with motor fuel importers who didn't pay. The audit was issued July 26, five days before the council voted to increase the gasoline tax...

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District’s ‘arbitrary’ cab fare cap is lifted

The D.C. Council lifted the $19 cap on taxicab rides that start and end in the District, a limit installed to protect city residents east of the Anacostia River who live far from their jobs and many basic services. D.C. cab drivers despise the cap and have called for its end since June 2008, when the zone fare system was replaced with time and distance meters. The council unanimously removed it as part of the fiscal 2010 budget plan, which takes effect Oct. 1. The cap, said Ward 1 Councilman Jim Graham, is “very artificial, arbitrary and unfair.” “The trip goes on and on and on, but the fare stops,” said Graham, who offered the amendment. “This would simply...

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D.C. Council adopts budget, tax increases

Beginning Oct. 1, D.C. residents should expect to pay more to, and get less from, the District government after the D.C. Council on Friday unanimously adopted its revised fiscal 2009 and 2010 budgets. The council successfully balanced the $5.4 billion 2010 budget without eating into the city’s rainy day fund — a top priority for Chairman Vincent Gray, who argued Friday that “an approach of facing the problem head-on now was a more responsible tact.” The plan employs tax increases, job reductions and deep agency cuts to close a $666 million deficit over the two years. “The Council is acting today to ensure that we never again return to those horrific days of...

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DC Council adopts budget, tax hikes

The D.C. Council on Friday swiftly and unanimously adopted its revised fiscal 2009 and 2010 budgets that employ tax increases, job reductions and deep agency cuts to close a $666 million deficit over the two years. The council successfully balanced the budget without eating into the city’s rainy day fund — a top priority for Chairman Vincent Gray, who argued Friday that “an approach of facing the problem head-on now was a more responsible tact.” Gray added, “The Council is acting today to ensure that we never again return to those horrific days of government insolvency.” That strategy led the council to accept most of Mayor Adrian Fenty’s...

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D.C.'s new mental hospital 'too small'

The District's new $157 million, 293-bed psychiatric hospital on the campus of St. Elizabeths will be too small to house its anticipated number of patients when the long-awaited facility opens in 2010, city officials said this week. The dearth of space -- the hospital will be roughly 70 beds short -- was revealed as D.C. Councilman David Catania, chairman of the health committee, explained to his colleagues why the Department of Mental Health needs $2.32 million more for a project most thought was fully funded. "The new hospital," Catania said Wednesday, "is too small." The department is renovating an existing patient building on the St. E's campus for...

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D.C.’s new mental hospital ‘too small’

The District’s new $157 million, 293-bed psychiatric hospital on the campus of St. Elizabeths will be too small to house its anticipated number of patients when the long-awaited facility opens in 2010, city officials said this week. The dearth of space — the hospital will be roughly 70 beds short — was revealed as D.C. Councilman David Catania, chairman of the health committee, explained to his colleagues why the Department of Mental Health needs $2.32 million more for a project most thought was fully funded. “The new hospital,” Catania said Wednesday, “is too small.” The department is renovating an existing patient building on the St. E’s...

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D.C. likely to cut vacant property tax rate in half

The D.C. Council is poised to halve the 10 percent tax rate on vacant property, a levy several members consider punitive and generally ineffective in spurring owners to rehabilitate their languishing properties. The move, strongly backed by Council Chairman Vincent Gray, is unusual given the District's budget woes. But city finance leaders told council members that the reduction would not affect 2010 revenues, which have fallen short about $150 million. If approved Friday when the council votes on its revised fiscal 2010 budget plan, the tax cut would cost the city $10.8 million in 2011. At-large Councilman Phil Mendelson, who is backing the reduction, said the $10 per $100 of assessed...

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Sales, gas, cigarette tax hikes likely in District

The D.C. Council plans to increase the city’s sales, cigarette and gas taxes to bridge a massive deficit in fiscal 2010 and avoid a raid on coveted reserve funds. After three days of “painful” and often heated talks, council members slashed roughly $300 million from the 2010 budget. But they were still short an estimated $40 million, which they needed to raise through so-called “revenue enhancements” to avoid further cuts or a dip into the rainy day fund, as Mayor Adrian Fenty has suggested. The council’s collective decision to jack up the sales tax from 5.75 to 6 percent, the cigarette tax from $2 to $2.50 a pack and the gas tax from 20 cents to 23....

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Sales, gas, cigarette tax hikes likely in D.C.

The D.C. Council plans to increase the city's sales, cigarette and gas taxes to bridge a massive deficit in fiscal 2010 and avoid a raid on coveted reserve funds. After three days of "painful" and often heated talks, council members slashed roughly $300 million from the 2010 budget. But they were still short an estimated $40 million, which they needed to raise through so-called "revenue enhancements" to avoid further cuts or a dip into the rainy day fund, as Mayor Adrian Fenty has suggested. The council's collective decision to jack up the sales tax from 5.75 to 6 percent, the cigarette tax from $2 to $2.50 a pack and the gas tax from 20 cents to 23.5 cents a gallon...

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D.C. Council eyes deep cuts to education, human services

D.C. Council members are likely to protect the city's reserve funds by cutting deep into programs like public education and human services that have long been considered untouchable "sacred cows." In addition to job cuts, limited service reductions and capital project delays, Mayor Adrian Fenty's revised fiscal 2010 budget plan relies heavily on the city's "general fund balance" -- every dollar not currently committed to a specific expense, like the balance in a checking account -- to close a $340 million gap in 2009 and 2010. The fund balance includes the rainy day fund. "We tried not to impact services," City Administrator Neil Albert told the council...

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D.C. property management office gets new name

Mayor Adrian Fenty has rebranded the Office of Property Management as the "Department of Real Estate Services," contending its responsibilities are broader than what its current name implies. "Given the breadth of the agency activities and the high degree of professionalism displayed by staff in their respective areas of expertise, it is only appropriate that the true scope and nature of the agency's undertakings be reflected in the agency's name," Department Director Robin-Eve Jasper said in a statement. But Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh, who has oversight of OPM, asked what's the rush? The city's priority now, she said Monday, should be dealing with massive...

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D.C. Council considers shutting down summer jobs program

Mayor Adrian Fenty’s 2009 summer jobs program is so poorly managed that D.C. Council members said Monday that they might shut it down early. The Summer Youth Employment Program discussion emerged as the council struggled, behind closed doors, to reach consensus on how to close looming deficits of $190 million in 2009 and $150 million in 2010. Members of the media were allowed to sit in. “We have herds of kids with nothing to do,” Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells said of summer job participants in his ward. It is unclear, several council members said, that the summer jobs program is running better than the 2008 version, when the initiative devolved into an epic...

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Fenty plans to raid ballpark tax

D.C. business leaders are angry that millions of dollars in taxes they are paying to reduce the gargantuan Nationals Park debt may be diverted to pay down the District’s massive deficit. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s revised 2010 budget plan shifts $50 million from the Ballpark Revenue Fund to the general fund over the next four years. There it would be used to help bridge shortfalls totaling more than $1 billion through 2013. The move has incensed medium- and large-business owners, who are charged an annual gross receipts tax to augment the ballpark fund — a pot specifically created to pay off $535 million in stadium bonds. “This does convert a specific fee created to...

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In D.C., 5,200 property owners delinquent

More than 5,000 D.C. property owners, including a powerful Washington lobbyist, a developer and a nightclub owner, failed to pay their 2008 real estate taxes and now face the prospect of losing their holdings to hungry bidders during the city’s annual tax auction. The number of liens listed in the Office of Tax and Revenue’s annual pretax sale advertisement soared from roughly 3,400 last year to more than 5,200 this year, an increase of about 65 percent. The total amount of taxes owed tops $27.25 million. It is a sign, observers say, of a recessionary economy that has hit average homeowners and wealthy landowners alike. Many of the back bills total only a few hundred dollars....

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Vacant buildings costing D.C. millions

The District will spend nearly $13 million next fiscal year to lease, power and keep secure a lengthy lineup of large-scale vacant buildings that the city retains in its inventory. Despite a projected $150 million deficit in fiscal 2010, Mayor Adrian Fenty's revised budget will still require the District to lay out $12.7 million for rent, utilities, security and other so-called fixed costs tied to 20 empty buildings in D.C.'s possession. Fenty's move to consolidate the D.C. Public Schools and close homeless shelters has left the city with a cache of large, empty structures. Among them are the Bunker Hill and Slowe elementary schools in Northeast, the Franklin Shelter downtown,...

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D.C. Council members float tax hikes, wage freezes

The D.C. Council is eyeing a range of tax increases on income, gasoline and even snack foods to close a massive budget gap in fiscal year 2010 and beyond, city lawmakers said Monday. The council also floated the prospect of wage reductions and spending cuts during a lengthy hearing aimed at dealing with looming shortfalls. Council members warned that no agency is safe from the budget ax as deficits are expected to reach $150 million in 2010 then widen in 2011 and 2012 to more than $1 billion annually. “For me, everything is on the table,” Council Chairman Vincent Gray said during a public briefing on Mayor Adrian Fenty’s proposed gap-closing plans. “I intend to...

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Cuts to public programs done quick are best, budget watchers say

Cutting public workers and programs may not be the favorite part of a politician’s job, but like pulling off a Band-Aid, it’s best done quickly, budget watchers say. That’s because the cost of delay can quickly add up. “If the budget is to be cut, for most ongoing items, sooner is better than later,” the Maryland General Assembly’s chief fiscal analyst, Warren Deschenaux, told state leaders in a letter. Money in Maryland’s general fund is spent at a rate of about $39 million a day, $275 million a week and $1.1 billion a month. “The longer the delay, the proportionately deeper the cut must be to yield the same dollars,” Deschenaux...

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D.C. unemployment nearly hits 11 percent

Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi has long predicted that the city's unemployment rate would top 11 percent, a line that hasn't been crossed since December 1983. In June, the CFO noted that the District is "likely to benefit from the current short-run expansion of the federal government" but over the longer run, he said, the city's economy is vulnerable to federal spending cuts. "The District's economy slowed when the U.S. economy slowed in the downturns of the early 1980s, the early 1990s, and again in 2001," Gandhi told D.C. leaders last month when he revised his revenue estimates downward. "The recent slowdown in District employment, and especially the...

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D.C. Council poised to slash spending again

Mayor Adrian Fenty's revised 2010 budget slashes previously approved earmarks, hikes fees, and eliminates numerous capital projects to close a projected $150 million shortfall. The budget proposal released late Friday, if approved by the D.C. Council, would radically amend the fiscal year 2010 spending plan adopted only a month ago. A dismal June revenue forecast by Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi forced the executive back to the budget drawing board. The District faces two shortfalls that it must tackle immediately: a $190 million gap in 2009 and a $150 million hole in 2010. In the midst of the worst recession in decades, D.C. leaders now say they can no longer close deficits...

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Link probed between D.C. councilman's support, developer dollars

The D.C. campaign finance office is investigating the connection between Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas Jr.'s support for a proposed residential development and the builder's donation of thousands of dollars to a nonprofit Thomas established....

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Fenty proposes job and service cuts, raiding D.C. reserves

Mayor Adrian Fenty has proposed cutting hundreds of jobs, slashing city services, raiding the District's rainy day fund, and redirecting federal stimulus dollars to close a $340 million budget shortfall that looms over the next two fiscal years. Fiscal 2010 job cuts » 1,631 filled and vacant positions slashed in approved 2010 budget. » 250 more filled and vacant positions may be cut before August. » More than 1,300 city employees soon to be out of work. The gap-closing measure was unveiled Thursday, two weeks ahead of the D.C. Council's anticipated vote on the measure. The plan includes everything done up until this point to close a $263 million 2009 deficit, as well...

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House budget bill threatens D.C. needle exchange

Members of the U.S. House have added a new rider to the District's 2010 federal appropriation that threatens to wipe out most needle-exchange programs in D.C., even as Democrats claimed to have started a new era of no meddling in city affairs. It was only last year that Democrats lifted the long-standing ban on public funding for needle exchange programs in the nation's capital. But an amendment recently offered by Republican Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia, and accepted by the Democrat-led Appropriations Committee, bars the District from distributing clean needles or syringes to drug addicts within 1,000 feet "of a public or private day care center, elementary school, vocational...

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D.C. withholds payment to city charter schools

District officials failed to deliver to the city's charter schools an expected $103 million payment Wednesday, causing some teachers to wake up without a paycheck. "This is part of an ongoing outrage characterized by indifference to the reality of trying to run a charter school for D.C. public school children," said Robert Cane, executive director of advocacy group Friends of Choice in Public Schools. Cane's group, along with the schools, learned about the funding shortfall Tuesday evening, one day before the dollars were supposed to be in the bank. Charter schools operate independently and are often small, penny-pinching organizations. "Many of them are essentially at...

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Council opened door for nonexistent groups to nab earmarks

D.C. Council members watered down their own earmark rules as they developed and ultimately approved the fiscal 2009 budget, creating a loophole that allowed six nonexistent nonprofits linked to Councilman Marion Barry to snag $450,000 in taxpayer funds. The entities, tied to Barry’s office in published accounts, received $75,000 each through the 2009 Budget Support Act, which earned final approval in July 2008. But none of the organizations was incorporated until Oct. 29 — 28 days after the fiscal year began. It is unclear whether any operated before that date. In the summer of 2008, the council voted to allow nonprofits to receive city money without producing incorporation...

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Barry will cooperate with investigation

Ward 8 D.C. Councilman Marion Barry said Tuesday he would cooperate with an investigation into a taxpayer-funded contract he awarded to a girlfriend. The council voted unanimously to start an independent review of Barry's deal with Donna Watts-Brighthaupt, his now estranged ex-girlfriend, to be led by lawyer Robert Bennett. Barry accused "one of more members of this city council" -- widely known to be at-large member David Catania -- of leaking information about the contract to reporters in the wake of the former mayor's July 4 arrest for allegedly stalking Watts-Brighthaupt. Those charges were later dropped by the U.S. attorney for D.C. The former mayor said he would ask...

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Senate stingy, House soft on D.C. budget

Major differences between the House and Senate appropriations for D.C. threaten millions of potential dollars for social services efforts and aspirations for a medical marijuana referendum. Both the Senate and House appropriations committees last week approved their respective fiscal 2010 Financial Services and General Government budgets, which include the annual federal contribution to the District. The House provided $768.3 million for D.C., about $29 million more than President Barack Obama requested in his budget submission. The Senate offered $727.4 million, $12 million less than that sought by Obama. So which chamber will have the upper hand once the budget bills clear both...

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Councilman: Probe needed of Barry-linked groups

D.C. Councilman David Catania on Monday called for an independent investigation into a slate of nonprofits that have received hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars but are alleged to have been created out of Marion Barry's office through forgery. Catania, chairman of the health committee, abruptly recessed his hearing after reading an opening statement that all but accused the Ward 8 councilman's office of fraud. Barry's office reportedly is behind, and perhaps in control of, six nonprofits that received $450,000 in council-directed fiscal 2009 earmarks, and are slated to pick up another $575,000 in 2010. "These accusations are extremely serious and should be reviewed,"...

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D.C. prisoner welfare panel on the chopping block

A D.C. Council member is trying to save a three-member government panel created 12 years ago to ensure the well-being of D.C. felons serving time in federal prisons. Mayor Adrian Fenty wants to dissolve the Corrections Information Council (CIC). Last month he proposed shifting the panel’s meager $25,000 budget — all but a penny of it — to the Office of Justice Grants Administration to cover an outstanding balance related to youth programs. But D.C. Councilman Phil Mendelson, who has oversight of the information council, has filed notice that he will move to disapprove that shift of money during the legislative meeting Tuesday. “It’s the only mechanism for...

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D.C. Council investigating, grumbling over Barry

Tempers on the D.C. Council are hot over Councilman Marion Barry and his contract award to a girlfriend, as two of Barry’s colleagues walked out of a news conference that was called to formally announce an independent investigation into the former mayor. At-large Councilman David Catania and Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh marched out of Chairman Vincent Gray’s news conference Friday afternoon after Gray allowed Barry to declare his innocence to the gathered media throng. Catania was overheard saying, “I can’t take this,” before standing up and leaving. “I left because it was degenerating into a press conference for Marion Barry, and I didn’t want...

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Arrest details latest in Barry saga

A U.S. Park Police officer saw D.C. Council member Marion Barry's vehicle driving erratically on the wrong side of the road, pulled him over and arrested him on a stalking charge, according to a police report. Barry's ex-girlfriend shouted at the officer from a passing car and claimed Barry was harassing her. The three-page probable cause affidavit, obtained by radio station WTOP, attempts to explain why park police arrested Barry, 73, the evening of July 4 on stalking charges that were later dropped by federal prosecutors. Park Police have come under criticism from some D.C. residents who claimed Barry was being singled out by an overzealous police department because he was black....

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Barry condemns Park Police for arrest, says little else

D.C. Councilman Marion Barry said his weekend arrest for stalking by a U.S. Park Police officer was "inappropriate," but he refused to say whether he planned to bring a lawsuit against the law enforcement agency. The former mayor also dodged questions Thursday about the controversial contract he awarded to the woman he was accused of stalking. Barry, 73, addressed reporters for the first time since he was stopped Saturday night near Anacostia Park, handcuffed and charged with stalking 40-year-old Donna Watts-Brighthaupt, a former girlfriend. The two had eaten lunch together hours earlier in Annapolis and had planned to spend the weekend in Rehoboth Beach, Del., but returned to...

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Escapes from new Oak Hill prompt firings

The head of the District's new juvenile detention center has been demoted, five officers fired and two placed on leave in response to a pair of escapes that may have been aided by serious flaws in the facility's construction, Mayor Adrian Fenty said Thursday. The $45 million New Beginnings Youth Center in Laurel, a rehabilitative campus that replaced the Oak Hill Juvenile Detention Center, was plagued by "doors that did not secure properly" and "windows which were not secured enough," Fenty said. The contractor, Tompkins Builders, has been "put on notice in great detail" about the deficiencies, said Attorney General Peter Nickles, and is "liable for failing to meet the requirements of...

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Barry denounces arrest, says little else

D.C. Councilman Marion Barry said Thursday that his weekend arrest for stalking by a U.S. Park Police officer was "inappropriate," but he refused to say whether he planned to bring a lawsuit against the law enforcement agency. The former mayor also dodged questions about the controversial contract he awarded to the woman he was accused of stalking. Barry, 73, addressed reporters for the first time since he was stopped Saturday night near Anacostia Park, handcuffed and charged with stalking 40-year-old Donna Watts-Brighthaupt, a former girlfriend. The two had eaten lunch together hours earlier in Annapolis and had planned to spend the weekend in Rehoboth Beach, Del., but...

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House panel OKs D.C. budget without abortion, pot amendments

District residents are a step closer to taxpayer-subsid­ized abortions and a medical marijuana referendum after the House Appropriations Committee late Tuesday adopted D.C.’s federal appropriation without long-standing budget riders forbidding the city from moving forward on either matter. Attempts by Republicans to fully fund the D.C. private school voucher program, to reattach the ban on a marijuana referendum and to continue the 20-year prohibition on the use of local money to subsidize abortions all failed. There were no attempts to ban gay marriage, as some anticipated, nor were there any amendments offered to obliterate D.C.’s gun laws. Budget rider amendments may...

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Stalking charges against Marion Barry dropped

Prosecutors have decided not to pursue a stalking case against D.C. Councilman Marion Barry, following their review of the “strengths and weaknesses of the evidence,” the U.S. attorney for D.C. said Wednesday. Barry, 73, was accused by the U.S. Park Police of stalking Donna Watts-Brighthaupt, a woman he had dated until recently when the relationship came to an ugly end. The former mayor was arrested Saturday night near Anacostia Park as he drove home from Watts-Brighthaupt’s house, his lawyer said. Police sources said Watts-Brighthaupt, 40, and her 46-year-old ex-husband waved over the officer after he stopped Barry for making an illegal turn. The two were nearby, in...

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D.C. summer jobs program running out of money

The District's summer jobs program will run out of money July 22, forcing thousands of youth to be out of work weeks earlier than expected unless D.C. leaders agree to fund a month's worth of payroll. Mayor Adrian Fenty's Summer Youth Employment Program was budgeted $23 million for the 2009 session -- roughly $20 million shy of what is needed to pay 21,000 participants, consultants and job sites for nine weeks. In May, Fenty proposed emptying the Ballpark Community Benefit Fund of its $23.4 million to cover the gap, but the D.C. Council has balked so far. The next payday is July 15. "We're on track to pay the kids this month, no problems!" Fenty spokeswoman Mafara Hobson said in...

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D.C.'s gay married couples in uncharted territory

The District officially has begun recognizing gay marriages performed in other jurisdictions, but same-sex couples, city officials and private companies are struggling to grasp all the changes that will bring. Stephen Gorman and his husband, Dr. Richard Cytowic, married in Palm Springs, Calif., last July 29. On Tuesday, their union was legally recognized in Washington — the city each has called home for more than 20 years. A couple since 1996, who live in Northwest’s Crestwood neighborhood, the pair had been registered in the District as domestic partners. Gorman described a sense of “serenity” he felt from living in a city that recognized his status. But he...

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Barry lawyer: Ex-girlfriend 'not credible'

D.C. Councilman Marion Barry’s attorney said that the latest criminal charge filed against him wouldn’t stand, as the woman whom Barry is accused of stalking was “not credible” and was “striking out against” him over a relationship gone bad. Fred Cooke addressed reporters Monday outside the John A. Wilson Building regarding Barry’s Saturday night arrest by the U.S. Park Police, and the subsequent misdemeanor stalking charge. Barry, 73, is alleged to have stalked Donna Watts-Brighthaupt, his 40-year-old ex-girlfriend. The former mayor attended the news conference but said nothing, at Cooke’s insistence, regarding his latest brush with the...

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D.C. gun laws may be at stake on Hill with District's budget

Gun control activists expect someone on the House Appropriations Committee to move an amendment today to D.C.’s budget that would wipe out the city’s gun laws. The District’s federal appropriation for fiscal 2010 falls under the financial services and general government subcommittee. It is slated for markup by the full committee this evening. As they did with the D.C. voting rights bill, gun rights advocates are likely to move an amendment to the D.C. budget measure that lays waste to the city’s firearm registration and possession laws. DC Vote, the taxpayer-funded advocacy group lobbying Capitol Hill for voting representation, issued a statement Monday urging...

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Barry lawyer calls stalking charge 'baseless'

The woman who accused D.C. Councilman Marion Barry of stalking her was "striking out against" the former mayor over a relationship that had "gone horribly wrong in a number of ways," Barry's attorney said Monday. Fred Cooke addressed reporters outside the John A. Wilson Building regarding Barry's Saturday night arrest by the U.S. Park Police on misdemeanor stalking charges lodged by Donna Watts, his former girlfriend. Barry stood by but was not allowed to say anything at Cooke's insistence regarding his latest brush with the law....

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Site of national WWI Memorial prompts congressional dispute

A dispute is brewing between members of Congress over the appropriate location for the official United States World War I Memorial — the nation’s capital or Kansas City, Mo. With only one World War I veteran still alive, 108-year-old Frank Buckles of West Virginia, and the war’s centennial fast approaching, the race is on to finally commemorate an official monument to the 117,000 American doughboys who died in the campaign. But where? On one side is Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, the sponsor of legislation designating the “overlooked” District of Columbia War Memorial on the National Mall as the national monument to fallen soldiers of the Great War. Poe’s...

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Cap on D.C. cabs suggested

The District’s open, all-are-invited taxicab industry is so saturated with drivers that the entire enterprise is threatened, according to a D.C. Council member who has filed a bill to cap the number of cabs allowed on city streets. Ward 1 Councilman Jim Graham introduced legislation Tuesday to limit the number of taxicabs in D.C. through either a medallion system, like ones used in New York City and Chicago, or a certification system. The soaring number of taxicab operators in D.C. -- roughly 8,000, most of whom own their own cars -- is a "pressing and urgent problem," Graham said. There are more licensed drivers in D.C. per capita than any place in the world, he said,...

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NTSB: Part replaced before Metro crash failed

A part of the track circuit that lost contact with a Metro train moments before it slammed into an idling train last week had been replaced five days earlier and "periodically lost its ability to detect trains" after the repair, federal investigators said Wednesday. Records reviewed by the National Transportation Safety Board revealed that Metro engineers replaced part of the track circuit June 17, five days before the crash between the Takoma and Fort Totten stations that killed nine and injured more than 70 riders. It was the worst accident in Metrorail's 33-year history. The circuit, which helps keep track of trains on the rail system, is emerging as the most likely culprit...

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NTSB on Metro crash: Track sensor continued to fail even after repairs

A component of the track circuit that lost contact with a Metro train moments before it slammed into an idling train last week had been replaced five days earlier and “periodically lost its ability to detect trains” after the repair, federal investigators said Wednesday. The National Transportation Safety Board reported that an “impedance bond,” a critical component within a track circuit, was replaced on June 17, five days before the June 22 crash between the Takoma and Fort Totten stations that killed nine and injured more than 70 riders. It was the worst accident in Metrorail’s 33-year history. In its post-crash testing of recorded track data, the NTSB...

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D.C. likely to require cameras at gas stations

D.C. Councilwoman Yvette Alexander was victimized at a gas station, and now all District service station owners appear likely to have to pay. The council on Tuesday gave preliminary unanimous approval to a bill requiring that retail service station operators install video surveillance within six months to monitor all pumps. Another vote is needed before the legislation becomes law. The measure also mandates the posting of signs at each pump reminding customers that the premises are under surveillance, and warning them to remove their keys from the vehicle and to lock their doors. And it requires the Metropolitan Police Department to produce a public service announcement “warning...

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Court dismisses D.C. vote on gay marriage

A D.C. Superior Court judge has dismissed a motion filed by gay marriage opponents to stall the implementation of a new District law recognizing same-sex unions performed elsewhere. It was the latest setback for those opposed to gay marriage in the District, who last month failed to force a referendum on the November ballot to allow voters to choose. With their legal options virtually spent, gay marriage critics are now expected to seek a ballot initiative, like Proposition 8 in California, to define marriage in the D.C. Code as being a union between a man and a woman. "District residents today find themselves disenfranchised, unable to vote on an important public policy matter...

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D.C. tentatively OKs paying $72M more to finance convention center hotel

The District tentatively agreed to provide the developers of a proposed convention center hotel with an additional $72 million in public financing to ensure the project moves forward during a difficult economic period. Council approval brings the 1,174-room Marriott Marquis, slated for a 2-acre site adjacent to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, one step closer to reality. Another vote is needed before the measure can become law. The revised deal requires the District to raise its contribution from $134 million to $206 million. The increase includes a $25 million, 25-year loan to the developer, a $22 million cash contribution and a $25 million increase to the tax increment...

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Court refuses to allow D.C. vote on gay marriage

A D.C. Superior Court judge has dismissed a motion filed by gay marriage opponents to stall the implementation of a new District law recognizing same sex unions performed elsewhere. The decision from Judge Judith Retchin to deny a preliminary injunction and grant the city’s motion to dismiss means there will be no referendum on the recognition statute, which will likely become law July 6 after a congressional review of the law is completed. Congress is not expected to undue the legislation. Retchin determined that the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics ruled properly that the proposed referendum, sought by a coalition of area clergy, was an improper subject for a ballot question...

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D.C.'s used car lot crackdown picks up

The District government has revoked the licenses of 33 used car lots/auto repair shops and ordered and additional 54 to shape up or risk a similar fate, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced. Fenty and several top aides gathered outside L.J. Automotive on Blair Road to announce progress in the six-month enforcement sweep of what the city deems "dangerous and unsightly" lots that pockmark the city and are the subject of frequent neighborhood complaints. In addition to the shut-down dealers and those given time to fix their failings, an additional 39 trimmed their outdoor inventories to fewer than five vehicles, which will allow them to continue operating without taking out a $100,000...

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D.C. adopts first-ever valet parking rules

D.C. businesses will have the option of renting on-street parking spaces to set up valet staging areas under new rules adopted by the District's Department of Transportation. The regulations establish a first-ever permitting system for ongoing valet service or one-time event valet parking. The decision whether to issue the permit is left to the city's public space committee, an arm of DDOT. Valet parking companies in D.C. have never faced regulation, which has sparked turmoil on some streets. There is "often confusion and conflict arising from the competing demands for the limited curbside public space," DDOT spokesman John Lisle said Monday, and valet service "often interferes...

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House subcommittee OKs pot on D.C. ballot

A House appropriations subcommittee has lifted a long-standing budget rider banning the District government from spending any money to decriminalize marijuana. The Financial Services panel, which has oversight of D.C., has removed from the 2010 budget 11-year-old language outlawing the District’s use of federal or local funds to legalize marijuana or reduce penalties for its possession or distribution. “This is definitely something we’ve been working with Congress on for a few years now and communicated with the committee about,” said Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project. “It’s taken a while to get it done, but it looks like maybe...

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D.C. freezes child welfare Medicaid claims, loses millions

The District has badly mishandled the process of applying for child welfare-related Medicaid claims, putting D.C. taxpayers on the hook for $176 million in payments that should have been reimbursed by the federal government. The city has decided to quit seeking federal payments on millions of dollars of medical services, officials said, until it can untangle the application process and put a new system in place. The total loss between 2003 and 2010 linked to the Child and Family Services Agency comes to $176 million. That includes $82 million blown between 2003 and 2008, and an additional $94 million over the next two years, budget documents show. Maximizing Medicaid funds is...

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Fenty friend, aide linked to Sosua donation

The co-founder of Peaceoholics on Thursday used an unusual public deposition to directly link Mayor Adrian Fenty’s top aides and a close friend to the peculiar donation of emergency vehicles to a Dominican Republic beach resort town. Key players » Sinclair Skinner, Fenty friend and confidante » Ronald Moten, co-founder of Peaceoholics » David Jannarone, D.C. development director » Robin Booth, property disposal specialist » Andrew “Chip” Richardson, general counsel » Deputy Fire Chief Ronnie Gill The deposition of Ronald Moten before D.C. Council members Mary Cheh and Phil Mendelson quickly devolved into a circus, as Moten randomly...

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D.C. fires summer jobs placement firm

More than 100 children sent home -- with pay The D.C. Department of Employment Services has abruptly canceled its agreement with a summer youth jobs placement agency, directing more than 100 kids to go home and await new instructions -- while still collecting paychecks. Program Director Joseph Walsh terminated the so-called "Host Site agreement" with Job Force, part of the David Hoffman Agency, and moved to reassign 130 youth that the firm had already placed in jobs. It was unclear how many have already been moved. Hoffman, who was in the office of Ward 8 D.C. Councilman Marion Barry after the announcement, was at a loss. He said supervisors at many of the firm's...

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D.C. fires summer jobs placement firm

The D.C. Department of Employment Services has abruptly canceled its agreement with a summer youth jobs placement agency, directing more than 100 kids to go home and await new instructions—while still collecting paychecks. Program Director Joseph Walsh terminated the so-called “Host Site agreement” with Job Force, part of the David Hoffman Agency, and moved to reassign 130 youth that the firm had already placed in jobs. It was unclear how many have already been moved. Hoffman, who was in the office of Ward 8 D.C. Councilman Marion Barry after the announcement, was at a loss. He said supervisors at many of the firm’s placement sites, including the Office of...

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Fenty orders $35M in cuts for D.C. agencies

Mayor Adrian Fenty has quietly directed 40 D.C. agencies, including the Metropolitan Police Department, to chop more than $35 million from their budgets in the face of a growing 2009 deficit. More Fenty-ordered cuts » Department of Health Care Finance: $1.6 million » Department of Education: $1.1 million » Department of the Environment: $1 million An executive order signed June 12 set lower spending limits for most departments under Fenty’s purview. The mayor spared fire and emergency medical services, health, child and family services, the public schools, and youth rehabilitation services. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi on Monday slashed revenue...

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D.C. to stabilize privately owned row house

The D.C. government has agreed to pay to stabilize a historic, million-dollar Dupont Circle row house that the private owners let deteriorate until it partially collapsed a year ago. The process » A contractor will dismantle two brick towers first, then stabilize the home. » DCRA says the owner “does intend to renovate the property and get it back into productive use.” The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs will spend $225,000 to ensure the house at 1841 16th St. NW doesn’t fall to the ground, agency Director Linda Argo said Tuesday. The five- to six-week project, the result of negotiations with the property owner, is expected to begin...

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Fenty caps cab fare increases at 5 percent a year

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty has authorized the city’s taxicab commission to raise cab fares by as much as 5 percent while simultaneously taking away the commission’s power to implement any new fees. In an executive order signed last week, Fenty delegated to the commission his authority to review and adjust taxicab meter rates by up to 5 percent without his prior approval. He also limited fare increases to one per year and barred the commission from establishing any additional charges, such as a fuel surcharge or fee for group rides, without his approval. A 5 percent increase would amount to about 7.5 cents per mile under the District’s current fee structure. “That...

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D.C. unemployment nears 11 percent in May

Unemployment in the District rose to 10.7 percent in May, up nearly a point since April as two critical sectors bled thousands of jobs. The numbers, released by the D.C. Department of Employment Services, are bad but not unexpected. In mid-May, Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi told a House appropriations subcommittee that the city’s unemployment rate would rise to 11.5 percent next year and the District’s economic condition would continue to deteriorate. “So far it is consistent with our revenue estimates,” Gandhi told The Examiner on Friday. “Things are bad, no doubt about that.” The District’s unemployment rate rose 0.8 percent over...

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D.C. court asked to suspend gay marriage recognition law

Opponents of a new D.C. gay marriage recognition law acknowledged Thursday that their only hope for putting the matter before voters was for a judge to prevent the statute, at least temporarily, from taking effect. The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics has already denied calling a referendum on a law recognizing gay marriages performed in other jurisdictions, as it would violate the city’s Human Rights Act. Referendum supporters, led by Bishop Harry Jackson of Beltsville’s Hope Christian Church, filed their appeal Wednesday. Once the recognition law takes effect July 6, the referendum will be off the table. D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith Retchin was asked to postpone the...

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Wells: Don’t pull SW Waterfront financing

D.C. Councilman Tommy Wells on Thursday urged city leaders to cease any talk of pulling funding from economic development projects in his ward in order to finance a $750 million convention center hotel. “Diverting funding away from the Southwest and Southeast neighborhoods at this time in favor of a fully government funded mega hotel breaks the promise we made to our residents that we are ready to move forward,” Wells, D-Ward 6, said in a statement. The city, meanwhile, may be on the verge of an agreement with Marriott to bring more private equity into the financially challenged hotel project. If the deal closes, said Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans, the city will need to...

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D.C. Council passes emergency anti-crime bill

The D.C. Council on Tuesday adopted an emergency anti-crime bill that further tightens the city’s gun laws, raises mandatory minimum sentences for certain felonies and criminalizes riding in a vehicle where there is an illegal firearm. What the measure, offered by at-large Councilman Phil Mendelson, does not do is institute any new measures for tackling a growing gang problem ahead of the traditionally violent summer. That led several council members to oppose what they deemed toothless and watered-down legislation. “The underlying bill is as weak as tea and will result in no tangible results this summer,” at-large Councilman David Catania said before voting against...

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D.C. Council passes emergency crime bill

The D.C. Council on Tuesday adopted an emergency anti-crime bill that further tightens the city’s gun laws, raises mandatory minimum sentences for certain felonies and criminalizes riding in a vehicle where there is an illegal firearm. What the measure, offered by at-large Councilman Phil Mendelson, does not do is institute any new measures for tackling a growing gang problem ahead of the traditionally violent summer. That led several council members to oppose what they deemed toothless and watered-down legislation. “The underlying bill is as weak as tea and will result in no tangible results this summer,” at-large Councilman David Catania said before voting against...

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Preservation fight centers on Dupont house

The owners of a historic, partially collapsed Dupont Circle row house hope to raze the building rather than restore it, infuriating area preservationists who say the property was not maintained and left to deteriorate. “If you tear it down or even demolish it carefully, you’ve got this gaping hole in what was an ensemble of buildings that probably won’t be fixed in my lifetime,” said Richard Busch, president of the Dupont Circle Conservancy. The 10-bedroom, circa-1900 home at 1841 16th St. NW, owned by George Washington University professor Amy Mazur and neurologist Dr. Joe Liberman, is located in the Sixteenth Street Historic District. In June 2008 a portion of...

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Officer’s fatal collision with pedestrian yields $3.3M lawsuit

The family of a pedestrian who was struck and killed by a D.C. police cruiser while he was in a Wisconsin Avenue crosswalk nearly two years ago is suing the city, claiming wrongful death and that an officer altered the scene of the collision.

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Report: D.C. must do more to stem youth violence

The District must move quickly to identify youth most at risk for violent behavior, realign anti-violence programs into a coordinated strategy and assure precious resources are going to the hardest-hit neighborhoods, a new report on youth violence concludes. Recommendations To combat youth violence, a new report says D.C. must: » Assure parks and recreation is part of violence response team. » Support programs that serve at-risk girls. » Train all police in gang and crew awareness and identification. Source: A Blueprint for Action The $125,000 study commissioned by the D.C. Council and released Friday finds that many critical components for fighting the scourge of...

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Tysons Corner ad shocks Vietnam vets

Prominent Vietnam veterans and their families are appalled by an advertisement for a major local mall that shows a woman in front of a wall that strongly resembles the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

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3-Minute Interview: Lacy MacAuley

Lacy MacAuley of D.C. is a full-time activist who is helping to organize the upcoming Sacred DC festival, June 21 at Malcolm X Park. Among the planned programs: Qigong, movement meditation, laughter yoga, street theater and “graffiti therapy.” The festival is co-sponsored by the D.C. arts commission. For information, go to sacreddc.com. What is Sacred DC? It absolutely is a new way of advocating for change. It’s a way to think about the healing that needs to happen and to positively visualize the world we want to live in. We all want to live in a more just society, in a more equal society, in a society that has a more healthy relationship with the planet. Why are you...

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D.C. exposes personal info of thousands of employees

The D.C. personnel office kept the personal information of more than 30,000 past and present District government workers, including their Social Security and bank account numbers, in unlocked filing cabinets, cubicles and an easily accessible copy room. In an alert issued late last month, the city’s inspector general reported that the Benefits and Retirement Administration, an arm of the Department of Human Resources that handles health care and insurance programs for roughly 32,000 people, “is not properly safeguarding sensitive information submitted by and/or pertaining to D.C. government employees and retirees.” “Consequently, unsecured, sensitive information...

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District’s gun regulations officially in place, but for how long?

The District’s permanent handgun regulations that took effect Friday could be obliterated by Congress or the federal courts in less time than it took to write them. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the city’s 30-year-old handgun ban as unconstitutional last June. The city has been operating under emergency and proposed gun rules since Jan. 16., but those rules became permanent Friday. Despite strong opposition from gun rights advocates, the Metropolitan Police Department reported in Friday’s D.C. Register that no comments were received since January. District leaders believe they have met the Supreme Court’s directive, that the Second Amendment guarantees D.C....

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Solutions sought for Adams Morgan ‘dead zone’

D.C. police will train a closed-circuit camera on a notoriously violent Adams Morgan dead-end intersection in an effort to curtail a string of crimes committed there. But neighbors say the robberies and shootings won’t stop until the “dead zone” is reopened to traffic and the adjacent recreation center is revitalized. Champlain Street ends at the Marie H. Reed Community Learning Center a block east of the 18th Street strip and immediately south of its intersection with Kalorama Road. The breezeway underneath the center is open for pedestrians but closed to vehicle traffic — leaving late-night fun seekers and residents easy targets for armed robberies, muggings...

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D.C.’s new economic development czar comes from Fenty staff

The District’s new deputy mayor for planning and economic development comes from within Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration. Valerie Santos, 36, will be charged with overseeing the city’s $13 billion economic development portfolio, expanding the District’s tax base, running an office of 65, and supervising multiple District agencies, including planning, consumer and regulatory affairs, and housing and community development. “I believe we have hired the best and the brightest, and she will do a fantastic job,” Fenty said during a news conference Wednesday outside the still-under-construction Walker Jones Elementary School at New Jersey Avenue and L...

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D.C. school enrollment dispute ends with a compromise

The D.C. Council on Tuesday agreed to dole out millions of dollars that it had threatened to withhold from the public schools budget until the fall, allowing Chancellor Michelle Rhee to fully staff her classrooms before the start of next school year. The monthlong clash between Council Chairman Vincent Gray and D.C. Public Schools’ Rhee over school enrollment projections, with its ugly public rhetoric and threats of mass layoffs, was set aside in favor of compromise. The council agreed, as part of the fiscal 2010 Budget Support Act, to fund the public schools at its confirmed enrollment for the current school year, or 44,681 students. DCPS will receive $24.2 million of the $27.5...

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D.C. Council backs bag fee, nixes summer curfew

The D.C. Council on Tuesday voted to levy a 5-cent fee on most plastic and paper shopping bags consumed in the District in an effort to slash their popularity and reduce river pollution. The immediate goal of the legislation, which earned unanimous preliminary approval, is to encourage the use of reusable bags by instituting a fee on bags used by grocery stores, liquor stores, drugstores and convenience stores. The ultimate aim is to rid the Anacostia River of garbage by tackling one of the most common pollutants. “There was a time in our history, not long ago, when we somehow got along without these things,” Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans said of plastic bags. “They...

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D.C. street renaming in effect, but there’s no way to tell

The Washington Nationals are no longer headquartered at 1500 S. Capitol St. SE. No, the team wasn’t booted from the District for its horrid record, nor has it bailed for a city that might bring better luck. As of April 24, the team’s legal address was formally changed to 1500 Taxation Without Representation St. SE, thanks to an act of the D.C. Council. But no one would know it: The D.C. Department of Transportation has yet to change the street signs, and the Nationals apparently have no intention of redesigning their letterhead. “Somebody needs to enforce it,” said Ward 2 D.C. Councilman Jack Evans, a co-sponsor of the Taxation Without Representation Street...

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Fairfax County’s elections chief accepts D.C. post at critical time

The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics has named a neighboring county’s elections chief as its permanent executive director, filling a long vacant slot at a critical and potentially stormy time. Rokey W. Suleman II, Fairfax County’s general registrar, joins the D.C. elections office at a tumultuous moment: The board was asked last week to decide whether recognizing gay marriages legally performed elsewhere, as the District has agreed to do, is a proper subject for a referendum. A hearing on the potential ballot question is scheduled for June 10, a day after Virginia’s Democratic primary. Suleman, who won’t start until July 6, said Friday that he wasn’t...

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Few takers for loan program

A low-interest loan program established by the D.C. government to boost small businesses during difficult economic times has generated little interest, in part because few companies qualify, according to one D.C. Council member. At-large Councilman Kwame Brown, chairman of the economic development committee, said Thursday he would introduce emergency legislation Tuesday to significantly expand the universe of small businesses eligible for loans of up to $15,000. His resolution would allow either “small” or “disadvantaged” businesses to apply for a piece of the D.C. Certified Business Enterprise Micro Loan Fund. The Department of Small and Local Business...

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Spotting illegal billboards tough for the District

A D.C. government project to sort out legal billboards from illegal ones is requiring a staggering amount of legwork — searches through piles of decades-old city permits and calls to the National Archives, for example. Special signs D.C.’s “special signs” law: » Exempted 32 special signs from the billboard moratorium in 2001. » List includes 14 on New York Avenue NE and NW. » Many authorized signs are fastened to buildings. Some District residents simply want the signs removed. “It’s hard for the community to understand how the District ... issued these permits in perpetuity,” said Cary Silverman, president of the Mount...

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Gay marriage opponents seek referendum on D.C. law

Voters in the District and not the D.C. government ought to decide whether the city recognizes same-sex marriages performed in another jurisdiction, an alliance of gay marriage opponents said Wednesday. The Stand 4 Marriage D.C. coalition filed paperwork with the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics for a referendum that would, if passed, stop the District from sanctioning gay marriages conducted elsewhere. The D.C. Council recently adopted legislation to recognize as valid “a marriage legally entered into in another jurisdiction between two persons of the same sex.” District voters must be allowed to vote on the issue “before it is imposed on its residents,” said...

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Gay marriage opponents seek referendum on D.C. law

Voters in the District and not the D.C. government ought to decide whether the city recognizes same-sex marriages performed in another jurisdiction, an alliance of gay marriage opponents said Wednesday. The Stand 4 Marriage D.C. coalition filed paperwork with the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics for a referendum that would, if passed, stop the District from sanctioning gay marriages conducted elsewhere. The D.C. Council recently adopted legislation to recognize as valid “a marriage legally entered into in another jurisdiction between two persons of the same sex.” District voters must be allowed to vote on the issue “before it is imposed on its residents,” said...

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Bill introduced to save D.C. school vouchers

A powerful Republican congressman has introduced a bill to save the D.C. private school voucher program, which is slated to end after this school year without intervention. House Minority Leader John Boehner, of Ohio, joined by two Republican colleagues, proposed legislation Thursday to reauthorize the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program for another five years. Roughly 1,700 low-income youth currently receive up to $7,500 a year for private school tuition through the program. By shutting down vouchers, as congressional Democrats directed in the approved 2009 budget, Congress would “bow to the education establishment and opponents of reform by forcing nearly 2,000 students out of...

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No jail for Barry in tax case

D.C. Councilman Marion Barry left a federal courtroom in mid-April following a hearing on his failure to file federal and local tax returns confident he wasn’t going to jail. Prosecutors, about an hour earlier, had dropped that request. “The government can read the tea leaves,” the former mayor said at the time. He was right. A federal judge Friday ordered that the former mayor’s probation be extended for two years. U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson struck down the U.S. attorney’s motion to confine Barry in his home for 30 days and put a temporary curfew on his night and weekend activities. She instead rebuked prosecutors for sloppy trial...

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Marion Barry dodges jail time again in tax case

It’s more probation, not prison, for D.C. Councilman Marion Barry. The former mayor has again dodged time behind bars for failing to file his federal and local tax returns. A federal judge Friday ordered that his probation be extended for two years. U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson struck down the U.S. Attorney’s motion to confine Barry in his home for 30 days and put a temporary curfew on his night and weekend activities. She instead rebuked prosecutors for sloppy trial work. Prosecutors accused Barry, D-Ward 8, of willfully failing to file his 2007 tax returns. The 72-year-old, a recent recipient of a new kidney, already was on probation for failing to file his...

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Number of inmate attacks in D.C. Jail soars

Attacks by D.C. Jail inmates on officers and other prisoners more than doubled between 2007 and 2008, according to the Department of Corrections. Battling back Department of Corrections’ actions to cut jail assaults Re-stratification of housing units Continued training of staff Restrictions on items known to be used in assaults Limitations in visitation and social privileges Expansion of electronic sensing and surveillance systems Inmate assaults on jail staff soared from 68 in fiscal 2007 to 108 in 2008, the department said Tuesday. Six of the 2008 assaults resulted in serious or severe injury, roughly the same as the seven attacks that caused injury the year before. The...

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Tangherlini leaving for Treasury

Mayor Adrian Fenty wasted no time naming Neil Albert as his new city administrator, replacing Dan Tangherlini, who has been tapped for a high profile slot in the Treasury Department. But Fenty is left with one major opening still to fill: Albert’s slot as deputy mayor for planning and economic development. Since 2007, Albert has molded, managed and moved forward the District’s $13 billion development pipeline. Fenty said Friday the decision was a couple weeks away; he declined to hint at possible replacements. Tangherlini was nominated Friday as assistant secretary of management, chief financial officer and chief performance officer under Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner....

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Fenty to move crime bill as emergency

Mayor Adrian Fenty said he will soon introduce provisions of his omnibus crime bill as emergency legislation so they can be implemented immediately, before the start of the routinely crime-heavy summer. Fenty made the announcement Thursday during a news conference just north of the U Street corridor. Joined by Attorney General Peter Nickles, Police Chief Cathy Lanier and a handful of D.C. Council supporters, the mayor said he would seek emergency enactment of the Omnibus Anti-Crime Amendment Act on June 2. “The additions to the bill are aimed at strengthening measures to limit gang activity, enforcing compliance among gun offenders, and cracking down on illegal gun...

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Charter schools spared from D.C. Council cuts

The D.C. Council made a last-minute decision to spare the District’s charter schools from any cuts tied to the possible overprojection of enrollment next school year, choosing instead to put the full brunt on the public schools. Citing a projected 3,076-student increase they rejected as fantasy, council members on Tuesday set aside $27.5 million from the D.C. Public Schools fiscal 2010 budget pending an enrollment audit expected in the fall. Council Chairman Vincent Gray and staff initially sought to take one-third from the charters and two-thirds from DCPS, but ultimately chose to spare the former. Charter schools fared well in the now-adopted $5.4 billion fiscal 2010 budget, as...

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D.C. Council adopts $5.4B budget

The D.C. Council on Tuesday adopted the District’s $5.4 billion fiscal 2010 budget, which members say closes a projected $800 million shortfall with job cuts and fee increases while sparing critical services in a host of areas. The council “has made substantial improvements to the introduced budget” offered by Mayor Adrian Fenty, said Council Chairman Vincent Gray. Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans said the budget was one “of priorities, of rearranging and trying to accommodate everyone.” The adopted plan slashes more than 1,000 jobs, hundreds of which are filled, adds a slate of new fees and raises a host of others, and makes liberal use of newfound interest...

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$27.5M sliced from funding for D.C. schools

A last-minute amendment Tuesday to the District’s $5.4 billion fiscal 2010 budget yanked millions from public and charter school coffers, at least temporarily, as D.C. Council members claimed school system leadership drastically overestimated next year’s enrollment. But D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee countered that the council action threatened hundreds of teaching jobs that will have to be slashed soon as the system finalizes its 2009-2010 spending plan. “I … have no doubt that the Council action will negatively impact school opening in August 2009,” Rhee wrote in a letter to Chairman Vincent Gray. Gray’s amendment set aside $27.5...

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D.C. Council set to adopt earmark-laden fiscal 2010 budget

The D.C. Council on Tuesday is expected to adopt the District’s proposed fiscal 2010 budget, a plan that distributes more than $20 million in earmarks, slashes funding for the summer jobs programs and eviscerates the office of a top executive official. Earmark examples » CityDance: $250,000 » DC Central Kitchen: $250,000 » Bread for the City: $250,000 » The Textile Museum: $235,000 » GreenSPACE: $ 200,000 » Lifepieces to Masterpieces: $100,000 » Byte Back: $ 100,000 The Committee of the Whole is scheduled to mark up and vote on the council’s version of the city’s $5.4 billion budget, which is now considerably different than...

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Wins, losses for D.C. in Obama budget

President Barack Obama’s 2010 budget proposal includes nearly $20 million for “permanent supportive housing programs” in D.C., $12 million to keep the District’s voucher program alive — and it lifts restrictions on the use of local money for abortions. The massive $3.4 trillion plan released Thursday includes some hits and misses for D.C. and the surrounding area compared to previous years. Obama, for example, nixed a $7 million payment to the D.C. Public Library, a priority of former First Lady Laura Bush. But it includes $74.4 million for a “school improvement program” broken down like this: $42.2 million for public schools, $20 million for...

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Graham moves on D.C. Village sale to Metro for bus garage

The D.C. Council is moving to sell 16 acres in Southeast to the Metro system for use as a modern bus garage and fueling center, finally relieving the city of what had become a costly albatross. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority has long run its buses out of the Southeastern Bus Garage immediately across from Nationals Park, but the facility was shuttered and recently razed to make way for a new development. Metro is planning to build a 250-bus facility on 16 acres of the former D.C. Village property, plus a natural gas fueling station and perhaps an employee training facility. D.C. Village, now a shuttered homeless shelter, was independently appraised at $8.05 million,...

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Obama overrules congressional Dems on D.C. vouchers

President Barack Obama includes millions of dollars in next year’s budget to ensure that more than 1,700 D.C. children currently attending private schools with the help of federally funded vouchers can remain until they graduate, The Examiner has learned. Obama’s fiscal 2010 budget proposal contains $12.2 million to maintain private school vouchers for the 2010-2011 school year. The president believes the program should be funded until the children who are already enrolled finish school, sources said, but no new students will be allowed to participate. Details of the budget are slated to be released Thursday. House Democrats killed the program through budget language that...

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D.C. Council OKs shifting $1M to O Street Market

The D.C. Council on Tuesday agreed to give $1 million to the developers of the O Street Market rehabilitation project in Shaw, avoiding the bureaucracy that had held up the grant. Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans introduced the emergency resolution, which authorizes Mayor Adrian Fenty to grant $1 million, from any available source, to Roadside Development to get the project at Seventh and O streets Northwest moving. The grant was originally tied to revenues derived from parking meter rate increases. But Fenty and the council are bickering over how to spend the revenue, leaving O Street hanging, Evans said. Delays kill projects in this economy, he said. “We are ready to go,” Evans...

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Three-minute interview - Michele Booth Cole

Michele Booth Cole is executive director of Safe Shores — The D.C. Children’s Advocacy Center, a nonprofit that works directly with 900 child victims of sexual and physical abuse a year. How did you come to this job? I came out of law school and knew I wanted to do something that made a difference in the world. I worked on the Hill and then left for the social justice sector, what you call the nonprofit sector. What does Safe Shores do? We have the responsibility of making sure every child has a safe, happy and healthy childhood. It’s a pretty compelling cause: One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused by the time they reach 18. You bring the...

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D.C. Council agrees to recognize same-sex marriages

The D.C. Council on Tuesday agreed to recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other jurisdictions, spurring chaos outside the council chambers and a warning from a councilman of impending “civil war” if the District moves ahead with gay marriage legislation. Will D.C. be next? States that allow same-sex marriages: » Massachusetts » Connecticut » Vermont » Iowa The recognition measure passed, as expected, by a 12-1 vote, with only Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry dissenting. Barry said his decision was “agonizing and difficult,” given his 40-year friendship with the gay community. But the vast majority of his constituents, the...

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D.C. Council votes to recognize legal same-sex marriages

The D.C. Council on Tuesday agreed to recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other jurisdictions, spurring chaos outside the Council chambers as gay marriage opponents called for the heads of the bill's supporters. The bill now goes to Mayor Adrian Fenty for his signature, and then to Congress for a final 30-day review. “This is a very proud day for the D.C. Council,” said Peter Rosenstein, prominent D.C. gay activist. The measure passed, as expected, by a 12-1 vote, with only Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry dissenting. Barry said his decision was “agonizing and difficult,” given his nearly 40 years fighting for gay rights, but “I am a politician...

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Fenty, D.C. Council bicker over $140M in contracts

The D.C. Council will move Tuesday to reject $140 million in construction-related contracts proposed by Mayor Adrian Fenty, charging the mayor is trying to dodge legislative oversight. Among the contractors Columbia Enterprises Inc. Specialty Construction Management Motir Services Monument Construction Goel Services Inc. Rodgers Brothers Custodial Services Inc. There are sparse details about the 14 one-year contracts, worth up to $10 million each, proposed by the Office of Contracting and Procurement. Called Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity, they simply “establish a relationship” with the respective business. The city is then expected to issue multiple work orders...

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For Powerball winner, no skipping on the check

The winner of the $144 million Powerball jackpot on April 8 will not be allowed to leave D.C. without forking over what’s due to the city in tax revenue. The District’s tax office tried to make certain of that. An emergency rule published in Friday’s D.C. Register clarifies that 8.5 percent of the winning check, or checks, will be withheld before the money is turned over to the winning D.C. resident. The reason for the change, according to explanatory language attached to the rule: “To protect the interest of the District in the event the winner relocates outside the District thereby attempting to avoid the District income or other tax…” “The...

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Bridge project means delays ahead

The D.C. government will soon embark on a two-year effort to renovate the 14th Street Bridge spans carrying vehicular traffic in both directions, a project that promises pain for those Virginia drivers who do not change their commuting patterns. Expect “major traffic impacts” during the extensive $27 million rehabilitation project, Mayor Adrian Fenty said Thursday during a morning news conference on Hains Point beneath the bridge spans. Most affected once work begins in mid-May will be drivers crossing the 59-year-old northbound span, the Virginia side of which was recently ranked the region’s worst traffic bottleneck. Less intensive work on the southbound and...

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Major delays ahead: 14th Street Bridge project coming soon

The D.C. government will soon embark on a two-year effort to renovate the 14th Street Bridge spans carrying vehicular traffic in both directions, a project that promises pain for those Virginia drivers who do not change their commuting patterns. Expect “major traffic impacts” during the extensive $27-million rehabilitation project, Mayor Adrian Fenty said Thursday during a morning news conference on Hains Point beneath the bridge spans. Most affected once work begins in mid-May will be drivers crossing the 59-year-old northbound span, the Virginia side of which was recently ranked the region’s worst traffic bottleneck. Less intensive work on the southbound and High...

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Council overhauls Fenty’s budget

The D.C. Council’s various committees have taken a hacksaw to Mayor Adrian Fenty’s proposed $5.4 billion fiscal 2010 spending plan, restoring some proposed budget cuts, eliminating fee increases and saving a handful of jobs. Among the highlights: Fenty’s “streetlight user fee” was eliminated; Emancipation Day was restored as a legal holiday; an increase to the E-911 fee was erased; the summer jobs program was trimmed by $10 million to help restore a charter school cut; and all school crossing guard positions were saved. This was “one of the most challenging years we’ve had in a very, very long time,” Council Chairman Vincent Gray said...

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Council concerned over crossing guard cuts

D.C. Council members are worried that a Fenty administration plan to eliminate more than 20 school crossing guard slots will put children at risk, especially as more schools are closed and kids are forced to walk longer distances. “Each year we seem to have children hit by cars,” Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells said during a hearing this week on the Department of Transportation's proposed fiscal 2010 budget. “And as we closed more than 23 schools [last year], we’re requiring children to walk much farther to their school.” DDOT intends to eliminate 98 jobs overall, including 73 filled positions — part of Mayor Adrian Fenty’s proposal to slash 1,600...

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Fenty, D.C. Council clash over baseball tickets

A D.C. Council member on Tuesday proposed ending the standoff with Mayor Adrian Fenty over Nationals tickets by publicly auctioning the District’s ballpark suite, and its related tickets, to generate much-needed revenue. The perks What D.C. gets in the lease (regular season only) » Sports and Entertainment Commission suite » 25 additional box seats on the infield » Related parking passes The clash over tickets is symbolic of the ongoing feud between the executive and legislative branches, one that observers say threatens to stalemate D.C. government operations. “I believe the staff will work this out,” Fenty said Monday of the ticket...

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D.C. workers traveling the world on taxpayers' dime

District government staff ran up nearly a quarter million dollars in travel expenses through the first three months of the year, spending significant time in Florida, Jamaica and Las Vegas even as D.C. faces a historic economic downturn. The 594 travel-related charges totaling about $214,000 and expensed on government travel credit cards constitute roughly 6 percent of all purchase card activity in January, February and March. There are examples of travel frugality — the $10,615 spent on Air Tran flights, for one — but also numerous examples of extravagance. D.C. Taxicab Commission Chairman Leon Swain charged $1,034 to his card for a multiple-day stint at the Venetian...

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Fenty fires parks and recreation director, names replacement

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty abruptly fired his popular parks and recreation director and replaced him with a D.C. Public Schools official with no parks experience. Moving up A look at new parks and recreation director Ximena Hartsock » In 2005 served as an assistant principal at Tubman Elementary. » In 2006 was principal at Ross Elementary. » Joined Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s staff in 2007 as deputy. Clark Ray, Fenty’s director of the Department of Parks and Recreation since August 2007, was canned by City Administrator Dan Tangherlini during a late Sunday evening meeting at the John A. Wilson Building. “I stand behind the work we did,” said...

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D.C. jobless rate improves slightly, but cash flow slumps

The District’s jobless rate improved in March ever so slightly over February’s 9.9 percent, but even as the unemployment rate shows meager signs of improvement, the District’s coffers are taking a big hit. Collections so far Cash collections for fiscal 2009 Real property: $425.3 million, down 12.9 percent Sales and use: $485.3 million, up 1.3 percent Income: $669.9 million, down 9.6 percent As compared to first six months of fiscal 2008 Cash reports released by the Office of the Chief Financial Officer show real property, income and sales, and other taxes down dramatically in March compared with a year ago. Real property collections, for example, were $410.1...

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Elevator standards may be on the rise in District

The D.C. Council is considering raising the standards for elevator inspectors and doubling the frequency of inspections — rules likely to increase business for local workers while forcing property owners to dig deep into their wallets. Fast facts » The city has nearly 5,000 elevators. » The bill would require inspections yearly rather than once every two years. » Inspections cost $200 to $500. A bill before the council would require annual, rather than biennial, inspections of Washington’s nearly 5,000 elevators, mandate that each has a certificate of occupancy, and establish new licensing standards for inspectors and mechanics. Ward 5 Councilman Harry...

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Prosecutors drop request of jail time for Marion Barry

Surrounded by friends and family, D.C. Councilman Marion Barry left the U.S. District Court a confident man: It appeared he would not be going to jail for failing to file his 2007 tax returns. “The government can read the tea leaves,” Barry, the Ward 8 council member, said after a nearly three-hour hearing Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson. Federal prosecutors withdrew their request that the former mayor face jail time for failing to timely file his tax returns, asking Robinson instead to extend Barry’s probation, confine him to his home for 30 days, and put a temporary curfew on his night and weekend activities. The retraction came after...

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Catfish Fridays owner arrested

The owner of Catfish Fridays in Northeast D.C. was arrested Wednesday, accused of operating without a license and failing to pay more than $175,000 in sales taxes, the District’s Office of Tax and Revenue announced. Christopher Dinwiddie, of 44 Franklin St. NE, was taken into custody by the Metropolitan Police Department for running his popular takeout joint at 2312 Fourth St. in Edgewood without a business license. Dinwiddie was 16th on the list of most delinquent D.C. taxpayers, owing roughly $182,500. The city had shut down the eatery, which also included a catering business called The Breakfast Club, on Jan. 16 because they say Dinwiddie failed to pay sales taxes collected...

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Audits reveal failure to coordinate in preventing Jacks girls' deaths

Banita Jacks’ four daughters were failed not by a single agency, but by the collective failure of the D.C. government, schools and nonprofit community to coordinate and provide the services they so desperately needed, a new report concludes. Jacks was arrested in January 2008, shortly after U.S. Marshals discovered the decomposed bodies of her four daughters in their Southeast home. The marshals had arrived to evict the family, some seven months after the home had been sold at foreclosure, and five months after the last of the residence’s utilities were disconnected. The D.C. Inspector General’s exhaustive review of the case catalogues Jacks’ every interaction...

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Fire official went to Caribbean to donate truck

The deputy D.C. fire chief in charge of all department apparatus traveled to a Dominican Republic beach town in late January, and stayed for nearly a week at D.C. taxpayers’ expense, to announce the donation of a firetruck and ambulance. Troubled history » D.C. inspector general derided the District’s surplus property disposal methods in a September 2004 audit. » Audit claimed Office of Contracting and Procurement was selling used firetrucks and ambulances for a tiny fraction of their value. In one case, a 1986 Ford E-1 Pumper, with a dealer asking price of $59,000, was auctioned for $75. Deputy Fire Chief Ronald Gill Jr. was in the Dominican resort town Sosua...

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D.C. Council to probe technology office scandal

The D.C. Council will commence an independent investigation, complete with subpoena power, into the technology office bribery scandal after Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration snubbed a scheduled council briefing. Fenty’s fixes Mayor Adrian Fenty fired 23 independent OCTO contractors and several office employees. Asked auditing firm BDO Seidman to examine individual technology contracts. Hired an IT security firm to assess OCTO’s security practices Reduced the agency’s procurement limit from $500,000 to $100,000. The Office of the Chief Technology Officer is under federal investigation for a kickback scam that spurred the arrest earlier this month of an OCTO...

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Donated firetruck, ambulance recalled to D.C., sources say

The ambulance and firetruck mysteriously donated by the D.C. government to a beach town on the touristy north coast of the Dominican Republic apparently have been called home, The Examiner has learned. A city hall official who asked not to be named told The Examiner on Monday that the vehicles, on their way to the Dominican Republic town of Sosua, had been ordered turned around. The same information was reported Monday on NewsChannel 8’s “NewsTalk” — host Bruce DePuyt cited Ron Moten, co-founder of the Peaceoholics, as his source. Moten has said his organization arranged the contribution, which was authorized through a vague emergency rule quietly published March...

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Cheh demands explanation of firetruck, ambulance donation

A key D.C. Council member on Friday demanded an investigation into the giveaway of a District firetruck and ambulance to a beach resort town in the Dominican Republic, in a deal that appears to have been orchestrated by a D.C. nonprofit. Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh, chairwoman of the government operations committee, called on Chief Procurement Officer David Gragan to explain how the two vehicles, valued at a combined $340,000, could soon make their way into the hands of the Peaceoholics, who are expected to turn them over to the town of Sosua on the north Dominican Republican coast. The Examiner first reported the arrangement Thursday. The Office of Contracting and Procurement, Cheh...

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Odd deal sends D.C. fire truck, ambulance to Dominican town

The D.C. government has agreed to donate a firetruck and ambulance worth nearly $350,000 to a Dominican Republic beach town, using a District nonprofit as middleman and an emergency rule quietly established last week, The Examiner has learned. The firetruck, valued at $270,000, and the ambulance, valued at $70,000, will be turned over to the anti-youth-violence organization Peaceoholics, which will then turn the vehicles over to Sosúa, a small beach resort town on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. “Even though it’s $340,000, we see the city getting a lot back from it,” said Peaceoholics co-founder Ron Moten. “And it’s just a good deed. We...

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Odd deal sends D.C. fire truck, ambulance to Dominican town

The D.C. government has agreed to donate a fire truck and ambulance worth nearly $350,000 to a Dominican beach town, using a District nonprofit as middleman and an emergency rule quietly established last week, the Examiner has learned. The fire truck, valued at $270,000, and the ambulance, valued at $70,000, will be turned over to the anti-youth violence organization Peaceoholics, who will then turn the vehicles over to Sosúa, a small beach resort town on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. “Even though it’s $340,000, we see the city getting a lot back from it,” said Peaceoholics co-founder Ron Moten. “And it’s just a good deed. We believe if...

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Fenty slashes funding for D.C. National Guard

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty has nearly severed the District’s ties with the D.C. National Guard through his 2010 budget proposal, which slashes equipment and training dollars and eliminates all funding for the guard’s two youth programs. The Fenty spending plan drops all funding for the guard’s Youth Challenge Program and the Youth Leaders Camp, cuts supply and materials funding in half, reduces funds for tuition assistance and slashes equipment and training expenses. Fenty’s proposal leaves the guard with only $66,000 for non-personnel related expenses, Major Gen. Errol Schwartz told a D.C. Council committee Tuesday. D.C.’s National Guard is the only branch of...

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Emancipation Day could be dropped as a D.C. public holiday

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty has proposed to eliminate as a public holiday Emancipation Day, which commemorates Abraham Lincoln’s decision in 1862 to free slaves in the District. The fiscal 2010 Budget Support Act, which sets out the legislative changes needed to implement Fenty’s proposed spending plan, transforms Emancipation Day, April 16, from a legal public holiday — when schools and the government are shuttered — to an optional private holiday. That has angered some. “I think it is just disrespectful of what I think is one of the most important holidays we can honor,” Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. said Tuesday. “I will fight to ensure...

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D.C. school upgrades to continue at the expense of other projects

D.C. school upgrades will continue in fiscal 2010 at their current level, according to Mayor Adrian Fenty’s budget proposal, but likely at the expense of other projects. D.C. dedicates more than $100 million annually in sales tax money to fix the crumbling public schools as part of its multiyear, multibillion-dollar school modernization program. But the transfer of tax revenue for that purpose “is no longer fiscally sustainable,” according to budget language. Fenty’s 2010 plan returns the sales tax dollars to the general fund and instead uses general obligation bonds to protect the school modernization program, which is funded to the tune of $236 million —...

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District services taking a hit in Fenty’s budget proposal

In addition to slashing jobs and raising a host of fees, Mayor Adrian Fenty’s fiscal 2010 budget proposal also suggests service and spending cuts that are likely to affect the quality of life of D.C. residents. “This year we will have to make some hugely difficult decisions that will impact people no matter what we do,” D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray said Monday during a budget hearing. It is the administration’s job, Fenty told the council, to “do more for less” as it attempts to close an $800 million shortfall. The $5.4 billion budget submission is 3.9 percent lower than the current spending plan, which it accomplishes in part through more than...

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Shaw residents: D.C. Council shouldn’t roll back nuisance property tax

Residents of one Northwest Washington neighborhood rife with abandoned, blighted real estate are furious that the city would consider rolling back the tax on nuisance properties, as some D.C. Council members proposed last week. Members of the Shaw community were irate to learn that seven council members are backing a plan to repeal a tax increase on “unimproved or abandoned” real estate that took effect only six months ago. The so-called “Class 3” levy was doubled, from $5 to $10 per $100 of assessed value, as part of the fiscal 2009 budget and applied to more than 3,600 properties. Shaw is pockmarked with blighted and vacant homes, including several owned by...

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Fenty’s budget plan leaner on spending, employees

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s fiscal 2010 budget plan proposes to lay off nearly 800 government workers, raise or create a host of fees, and make efficient use of federal stimulus money to close a project $800 million shortfall. The $5.38 billion local funds budget is 3.9 percent less than the 2009 spending plan, but does not appear to cut programs in a dramatic way. It is a budget that Fenty said “lives within its means,” yet retains a commitment to service delivery. The mayor has said repeatedly that his budget proposal does not raise taxes, though his was only one interpretation. The plan freezes the Homestead Deduction, standard deduction and personal exemption, all...

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Nats park priciest of top properties

Nationals Park is worth just a few dollars shy of $1 billion, D.C. assessors say, putting it at the top of the most valuable properties in all of Washington. According to the District’s Real Property Administration, the 2010 taxable assessment for 1500 South Capitol St. SE, the stadium’s official address near Southeast, is $999,982,800 — roughly $4 million more than the city’s assessment of the White House, $400 million more than the U.S. Capitol and $550 million more than either the Library of Congress or the Verizon Center. Nationals Park was assessed using a cost approach, said Ritchie McKeithen, director of the tax administration. The city performed a land...

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Barry: Training lost amid summer jobs scramble

Mayor Adrian Fenty has invested staggering money and effort into ensuring the debacle that was last year’s Summer Youth Employment Program never happens again, but he’s all but ignored job training, D.C. Councilman Marion Barry said Thursday. Barry, D-Ward 8, chairman of the Housing and Workforce Development Committee, chastised the Fenty administration for putting just $2 million in the current budget for job training, a key responsibility of the Department of Employment Services. “We judge priorities by where you put your money,” Barry told The Examiner outside his DOES oversight hearing. “The Fenty administration puts very little money into job training,...

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3-Minute Interview: Joan Mower

Joan Mower is director of public relations for Voice of America (voanews.com). You grew up in Africa. Do you remember hearing VOA? Those were the days before CNN, before satellite television. Voice of America and the BBC, Voice of America especially if you were American; we would almost have a listening club. Do Americans know about Voice of America? Not enough. VOA is the largest international broadcasting organization, and we are supported 100 percent by U.S. taxpayers. We’re a federal agency. We broadcast in 45 languages to an audience of about 134 million. We are, however, prohibited from broadcasting to the United States. The only way you can find out about us is the...

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Last U.S. holdout, D.C. ponders ‘safe haven’ law

The District is now the only jurisdiction in the country that does not allow a mother to abandon her newborn at a so-called “safe haven” location, though the D.C. Council is considering legislation to create such a law. The safe haven bill would permit a mother to anonymously “surrender” her unharmed baby — age 7 days or younger — at a hospital, police station, fire station or emergency medical facility without the threat of pursuit or prosecution. “Hospitals are preferable to Dumpsters, and that has been for too many young people the alternative when safe haven laws do not exist,” said at-large Councilman David Catania, who introduced the...

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D.C. may repeal tax increase on nuisance properties

The D.C. Council is poised to roll back the tax rate on vacant property that it doubled only six months ago, following blistering criticism from constituents who complain of being crushed by a punitive tax on their well-maintained but bare lots. The District’s Class 3 nuisance property tax rate was raised from $5 to $10 per $100 of assessed value as part of the fiscal 2009 budget and applied to 3,609 parcels citywide. The goal of the tax increase, implemented in October, was to spur the rehabilitation of “unimproved or abandoned” real estate. But many owners of vacant lots complain of being overtaxed by a rate 1,000 percent higher than the normal levy for residential...

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D.C. prioritizing spending of nearly $1B stimulus

The District government anticipates collecting nearly $1 billion through the federal stimulus package, city leaders said Tuesday, which includes more than $400 million that could be used to ease the city’s anticipated budget shortfalls. One tangible effect of the expected $955 million in stimulus money, City Administrator Dan Tangherlini told the D.C. Council during a briefing, will be “a lessening of the impacts that they were going to see as a result of the financial retrenchment.” The funding, he said, would “soften the blow of a real precipitous decline in revenue for the city.” “It’s not as good as it was,” Tangherlini said....

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HIV/AIDS rate hits 3 percent in D.C.

Three percent of all D.C. residents, or about 18,000 people, are known to be infected with HIV or AIDS, according to a report released Monday by the D.C. Department of Health. It is the highest such rate in the nation, officials said. The report confirms that the District’s HIV problem is of epidemic proportion, as more than 1 percent of the population is infected. The disease is most prevalent among black men, whose infection rate more than doubles that of Hispanic males. It is most common in 40- to 49-year-olds, and it is found in every Washington neighborhood. The Fenty administration has taken steps to combat the epidemic, DOH Director Pierre Vigilance wrote in the report,...

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Earmarks in federal budget reaping millions for nonprofits

Over and above the tens of millions for D.C. schools, courts, infrastructure and the Metrorail system found in the massive federal spending bill is more than $10 million earmarked by Congress for District-based organizations. Buried in the $410 billion appropriations bill are a bevy of earmarks directed to two dozen D.C. nonprofits and institutions for a host of projects in health care, education, child safety and other areas. The legislation as a whole features roughly 9,000 earmarks totaling about $7.7 billion, a whopping figure given the weak economy and promises from both political parties to crack down on the practice. D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton distributed more than $5...

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Budget gives funds to repair memorial’s sinking seawall

The omnibus 2009 federal spending bill signed by President Barack Obama this week authorizes the National Park Service to fix the Jefferson Memorial seawall, which is sinking into the Tidal Basin. The budget permits the Park Service to enter into a contract for construction work on the Jefferson Memorial plaza and seawall that surrounds the iconic domed monument to the nation’s third president. The appropriations bill provides $10 million to start the project, though NPS officials expect more money, as much as $10 million more, will be needed in fiscal 2010. The Jefferson Memorial, dedicated in 1943, is secured in the Tidal Basin with steel girders hammered into bedrock. The...

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Fewer avoidable crashes for police, chief says

D.C. police are crashing, nicking and scraping their vehicles less than in year’s past thanks in part to a new safe driving campaign and the threat of lost driving privileges in the case of multiple accidents, Chief Cathy Lanier told the D.C. Council this week. “We’re driving some 93,000 miles, I believe, between [preventable] accidents,” Lanier told the council’s public safety committee, chaired by Councilman Phil Mendelson, on Monday. “I have a fleet of almost 1,600 vehicles and they drive 24 hours a day. So a very high number of miles driven for the number of accidents. And very few of them are serious.” Some are, however. The latest...

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Unemployment in D.C. spikes to 9.3 percent

The District’s unemployment rate in January topped 9 percent for the first time in more than a decade, continuing a downward spiral of job losses that the city’s financial chief expects to persist for another year or more. The D.C. seasonally adjusted unemployment rate jumped a half point between December and January to 9.3 percent, according to numbers released Wednesday by the Department of Employment Services. The national rate rose from 7.2 percent to 7.6 percent during the same period. “It’s an alarming number,” said Robert Ebel, deputy chief financial officer in the District’s Office of Revenue Analysis. “When we did our February [revenue]...

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Senate vote means end of DC Opportunity Scholarship Program

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday opted to kill D.C.’s federally funded school voucher program rather than risk sinking the $410 billion omnibus spending bill that will fund the government for the remainder of the fiscal year. The amendment offered by Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., would have struck rider language inserted into the appropriations bill that ends the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program after the 2009-2010 school year, unless Congress and the D.C. Council renew it. Ensign’s amendment failed by a 58-to-39 vote. Barring passage of a stand-alone reauthorization bill, the roughly 1,700 low-income D.C. youth who currently receive up to $7,500 a year for tuition at a private...

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District police battling to reach hiring goal

The Metropolitan Police Department is vying to add 150 officers to the force in six months despite a rising attrition rate and union claims of shoddy treatment of current employees. Documents and statements provided to the D.C. Council’s public safety committee, chaired by at-large Councilman Phil Mendelson, show the MPD’s total sworn membership at 4,048 as of Monday, well short of the 4,200 the department is supposed to have on staff by Sept. 30, the close of fiscal 2009. The number of officers dipped late last year — from 4,051 on Oct. 1 to 4,022 on Dec. 31 — and attrition rates appear to be on the rise after a multiyear decline, Chief Cathy Lanier said in a...

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Plans for Chevy Chase ball field up in the air following councilman opposition

A D.C. Council member is blocking a proposed shift of $1.2 million from a collection of recreation-related capital projects to a single project in upper Northwest. Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas Jr., chairman of the parks and recreation committee, introduced a resolution last week to disapprove a “reprogramming” of money from a batch of Department of Parks and Recreation projects to a single project: the overhaul of the Chevy Chase Community Center ball field in Ward 3. The resolution delays the reprogramming for 30 days, unless the council votes to halt it permanently. Roughly $500,000 of the $1.2 million was yanked from an ongoing project at the Banneker Recreation...

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D.C. tax office improving, albeit slowly

The D.C. tax office is slowly recovering from the most costly scandal in District government history, finance leaders said, but the loss of key personnel in the wake of the massive theft has delayed progress. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi and his deputies said Friday that they were continuing to implement reforms a year and a half after Harriette Walters, a midlevel manager in the Office of Tax and Revenue, was arrested for defrauding the District of $50 million. Walters and her cohorts manipulated the city’s property tax refund system over the course of two decades with relative ease. Stephen Cordi, tax office chief, told the D.C. Council’s Finance and Revenue...

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Graham says help arrived earlier for beating victim

A D.C. councilman is disputing reports that a homeless man lay severely beaten on a Columbia Heights street on a late January evening for nearly 20 minutes before anyone offered to help or call 911. According to his office’s review of a widely seen surveillance video of the Jan. 27 incident, several people came to the aid of Jose Sanchez after he was assaulted and fell to the ground at 5:21 p.m. at the corner of Parkwood Place and 14th Street, Ward 1 Councilman Jim Graham said Thursday. It appears one person tried to stabilize his head with a shoe, said Graham, who represents Columbia Heights; another person may have tried to pick him up. Sanchez was attended to by passers-by...

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Councilman fights negative press

A D.C. Council member recently threatened retribution against businesses that financially support a popular Brookland community newsletter unless it retracts an article that was critical of his work on his ward’s behalf. Ticked off over an article that ran in the July/August 2008 edition of the Brookland Heartbeat, Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. wrote an open letter to the community publication that seems to overtly threaten its main source of advertising-based funding, the local Long and Foster real estate office. The letter, dated Feb. 12, was posted on Thomas’ Web site and publicized in Thursday’s edition of “The Mail,” an online forum issued by D.C....

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D.C. angling for stimulus grants

The District’s ability to rake in millions more in federal stimulus dollars could depend heavily on a grant management system that auditors consider to be a weak link in the city government. City Administrator Dan Tangherlini recently told the D.C. Council that the administration was targeting competitive funding in areas such as school improvement, neighborhood stabilization, enhanced fuel efficiency and job training. As much as $300 million in grants may be available to D.C. on top of the $390 million the city is slated to receive for budget stabilization and increased Medicaid reimbursements. Virtually every penny of stimulus money has strict requirements tied to...

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Fenty friend approved for public service panel

The D.C. Council on Tuesday approved the nomination of Lori Lee, Michelle Fenty’s closest friend, to the D.C. Public Service Commission. Mayor Adrian Fenty first nominated Lee, a lawyer, to chair the District’s utility regulator last summer, but the appointment was held up amid public outcry over Lee’s lack of experience. Fenty instead named longtime Commissioner Betty Ann Kane as chairwoman and Lee as a member. “Clearly Ms. Lee’s credentials would indicate to me that she can learn this,” Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans said. Countered Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh: “It’s about the need to have a person who’s right away ready with...

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Gun amendment clouds voting rights bill

Supporters of the D.C. voting rights bill under consideration in the House were forced to regroup Tuesday in the face of a potentially debilitating amendment tied to the District’s gun laws. D.C. Council members, meanwhile, condemned language now attached to the Senate version of the voting rights act that strips the District of its gun laws, and castigated the Republican senator who offered it. “This was one of the more offensive and mean-spirited acts that I’ve seen in a long time,” D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray said of Nevada Sen. John Ensign, whose amendment threatens to negate most of the District’s gun laws that were installed after the U.S....

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Bill before council aims to dim D.C. lighting

D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh wants to dim the bright lights of the big city. The Ward 3 council member introduced legislation Tuesday to create a “deliberate regulation of lighting systems,” one that reduces electricity spending and restores “the view of the cosmic natural beauty of the night sky.” “We should not have the light emitted upward or outward,” Cheh said during the council’s legislative meeting. “We should have it directed where it’s needed and no more than necessary.” The problems of too much light are many, Cheh explained, notably high energy consumption, soaring costs and dangerous glare. According to the...

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Poll finds support for returning much of D.C. to Md.

More than a third of Americans believe the best solution to D.C.’s lack of representation is to cede the District’s residential areas to Maryland, according to a new survey. Only 20 percent of the 1,000 likely U.S. voters surveyed this weekend by Rasmussen Reports thought D.C. should be a state. Forty-five percent said the District’s representative should be allowed to vote, compared with 42 percent who did not. But voters were also asked, “Which is the best approach — to give the District a vote in the House, to give the residential areas back to Maryland, or to keep things the way they are now?” According to Rasmussen, 40 percent backed returning...

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Councilman plans to urge D.C. to ditch firm involved in Nationals Park deal

A D.C. Council member will ask his colleagues Tuesday to reject a $2 million auditing contract with the same consulting firm that severely underestimated the value of land needed to construct Nationals Park. The D.C. Office of the Chief Financial Officer recently hired Deloitte and Touche LLP to help remedy the many internal control failures discovered in the wake of the $50 million tax office scandal. Deloitte will be implementing fixes suggested by law firm WilmerHale, which performed an exhaustive pro bono tax office audit on the council’s behalf. But at-large Councilman David Catania will urge fellow council members to toss out the “duplicative and unnecessary”...

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Officers in city facilities lack weapons, training, report says

Roughly two dozen officers charged with safeguarding D.C. government employees, properties and assets lack either the equipment or training to handle an escalating incident that may call for the use of force, according to a new report. The Office of Property Management’s Protective Services Division includes a team of about 70 officers who exercise full police authority within government facilities, including the John A. Wilson Building, and may be called on to a quell a tense situation. But more than a third of those officers are not carrying at least one of three issued weapons — pepper spray, a baton or a gun, the D.C. inspector general reported in a recent management...

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More money, more problems for District parking meters

When the D.C. Council in December raised parking meters rates citywide, its members probably didn’t realize that they could be inducing more meters to break down. More quarters, say DDOT officials, means a faster decline of an already aging meter inventory. “We are increasing the rates so the number of transactions that you’re doing on each of these meters is increasing, which means more opportunities for those to fail,” Soumya Dey, DDOT’s deputy associate director for transportation operations, recently told the council. Some 36 million coins are dropped into District’s meters per year. More than 12,600 single-space meters currently in operation...

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Advocacy group lawsuit targets 11th Street Bridge project

A Capitol Hill historic preservation group has asked a federal judge to stop D.C. from building a new 11th Street Bridge across the Anacostia River, citing its “significant, irreversible, adverse effects” on the immediate area. The Capitol Hill Restoration Society filed its lawsuit against the Federal Highway Administration and the D.C. Department of Transportation on Tuesday in U.S. District Court. The suit alleges the nearly $500 million project will devastate natural, scenic and ecological resources, destroy 1.5 acres of federal parkland, force the relocation of the Anacostia Boathouse and exacerbate air pollution. The 11th Street Bridge project is designed to link...

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Senate passes final D.C. voting bill; measure strips out city gun laws

The U.S. Senate on Thursday took the historic step to grant the District of Columbia a voting member in the House of Representatives, but not before adding language to strip the city of its gun laws. The voting rights act won final approval by a 61-37 vote, closing three days of debate that featured numerous attempts by opponents to freight the measure with amendments. The bill, as approved, expands the House by two seats, one for Democratic-dominated D.C. and the other, at least initially, for Republican-leaning Utah. “Finally, the citizens who live in the capital of the free world will have the right to exercise the most basic freedom — the right to choose who governs...

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Senators throw amendments at District voting rights bill

Debate over D.C.’s lack of congressional representation ramped up Wednesday on the Senate floor, with Republicans attempting to crush the voting rights bill under the weight of amendments and procedural maneuvers. The House Judiciary Committee, meanwhile, approved that chamber’s version of the voting rights legislation late Wednesday as expected, sending it to the House floor for consideration. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., has said the measure might be taken up next week. It is likely to pass, as it did in April 2007. “The District will get a seat it has been denied for two centuries,” said Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich. The big fight is...

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‘Tsunami’ swamping D.C. budget, official says

The District government faces soaring budget deficits that could top $1 billion within three years, as the city’s economy finally succumbs to the worldwide recession, D.C. leaders were told Wednesday. Revenues from taxes and other sources will fall roughly $400 million short of earlier projections in this fiscal year (2009), $800 million short in 2010, $967 million short in 2011 and $1.1 billion short in 2012, Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi said Wednesday. Persistent troubles in the credit, stock and real estate markets are key contributors to a “deep, long and lasting recession” on a national and local level, Gandhi said. “What we have here is basically...

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House Dems looking to kill vouchers set up roadblock to reauthorization

Supporters of D.C.’s landmark, federally funded school voucher program are accustomed to critics clamoring for its demise. Language inserted by House Democrats into a 2009 budget bill could strike the fatal blow. “It is our hope that everyone involved in our program realizes how much of an enormous benefit it is,” Gregory Cork, president of the Washington Scholarship Fund, which administers the voucher program, said Tuesday. “We’ve certainly been working really hard for five years to offer families the services and educational options they deserve.” He added: “Certainly the language presents real challenges to the program’s...

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Senate forges ahead with D.C. voting rights ‘breakthrough’

The District inched closer Tuesday to its 200-year goal of congressional representation with the U.S. Senate’s decision to debate a D.C. voting rights bill on the floor, setting up days of wrangling before a final vote. The Senate voted 62-34 to squelch a potential filibuster and move the voting rights act to the floor, clearing a crucial hurdle it failed to top in 2007. Supporters picked up two votes more than they needed, including eight Republicans, for the procedural “cloture” vote. “We see all lights on go,” said nonvoting D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat. “There can be no turning back now.” The legislation would add two seats...

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D.C. teachers union goes on PR blitz over contract

The Washington Teachers Union has begun a public relations offensive to drive home the pros of its proposed teacher contract, a counteroffer to the plan offered by Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. “We know we have presented a comprehensive and reform-minded proposal that will help D.C. public school students flourish, while being fair and supportive of teachers,” WTU President George Parker said in a news release. With a new Web site, united fordckids.org, and a series of radio ads, the WTU hopes to win over its roughly 4,400 members and the public, and perhaps bring more than a year of often tense negotiations to a close. The union describes its proposal, which has not...

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Marion Barry to get new kidney

D.C. Councilman Marion Barry is scheduled to undergo a kidney transplant today at Howard University Hospital. The 72-year-old Barry has diabetes and has been undergoing dialysis three times a week while awaiting confirmation of a matching donor kidney. That donor was found, in the form of one of Barry’s close family friends. NBC4 reported Thursday that the woman’s kidney “is almost a perfect match.” The former D.C. mayor was admitted to the hospital Thursday. The six-hour surgery is planned to begin at 2:30 p.m., a hospital spokesman said. “I think we all want him to have the best of health,” said Ward 1 D.C. Councilman Jim Graham. There were 78,472...

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Audit: At one D.C. agency, it pays to clean the chairs

The D.C. Office of Unified Communications is spending $15,000 a year to have its call takers’ chairs professionally cleaned, one of numerous expenses by the agency deemed “questionable” by internal auditors in a new report. The D.C. inspector general reported this week that the OUC, which answers all 911 and 311 calls for public safety and other government services, was spending $1,250 per month to have 50 call takers’ chairs professionally buffed and scrubbed, or $300 per chair per year. The cleaning charge was billed to the office’s purchase card, the use of which was the subject of an audit dated Feb. 12. The agency spent $19,500 to buy the black fabric...

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D.C. cop pleads with pedestrians: Pay attention

In the wake of another pedestrian struck, a D.C. police officer has offered a fairly blunt assessment of the often dangerous behavior of those who share the road: Walkers and drivers simply don’t pay attention anymore. Officer David Baker posted his opinion on the 2nd District newsgroup on Feb. 6, four days after a 64-year-old woman was struck by a car as she crossed the Nebraska Avenue intersection with Connecticut Avenue Northwest. She suffered a fractured pelvis and lacerations to her forehead, police said, while the driver was ticketed for a “peripheral violation” involving a yellow light. She was the third pedestrian struck at the intersection in a year — the...

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Few D.C. officials mourning United move to Pr. George’s

District leaders shed few tears Tuesday over the impending loss of D.C. United to Prince George’s County, and questioned why Maryland would put tens of millions of dollars behind a soccer stadium during a historically bad economic downturn. “Lots of people would make the argument that we have higher priorities than soccer right now,” said D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray. “It isn’t as if we have a big bank account to put on the table.” United owner Victor MacFarlane on Monday committed to relocate his team to a new, $195 million, 24,000-seat stadium in Prince George’s County. The announcement followed the recent collapse of negotiations between...

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D.C. water utility sued for $200M over lead levels

A Capitol Hill father of twin boys filed a $200 million class-action lawsuit Tuesday against the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority, alleging the utility engaged in a “massive cover-up” to conceal spiking lead levels in water and the associated health risks. John Parkhurst claims in the suit, filed in D.C. Superior Court, that his now 8-year-old twin boys, Jonathan and Joshua, suffered learning and behavioral problems as a result of high lead concentrations in the tap water they drank between 2000 and 2003. The boys tested positive for lead as toddlers, according to the complaint, but continued to drink the water because WASA had not warned the family of any threat. The suit...

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Goal for D.C. United may be Prince George’s

D.C. United’s threat to leave the nation’s capital for Prince George’s County may just be another bargaining chip in its ongoing tug-of-war with District leaders, but the prospect of playing in a new park tantalizes at least one team member. “It’s exciting to know that we might not have to be coming to RFK in a few years,” United defender Marc Burch told The Examiner on Friday. “It’s down the road, though. It’s not like it’ll be up halfway through the season. It’s exciting to have some sort of progress. At least someone respects us enough to give us a stadium.” The Internet was abuzz Friday with reaction to the...

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D.C. Voting Rights Act foe offers alternative

A Republican congressman from Texas introduced a pair of bills Thursday that would exempt D.C. residents from federal income taxes and return most of the District to Maryland control. One measure offered by Rep. Louie Gohmert would exclude D.C. residents from having to pay federal income tax on income earned in the city until they are given full voting representation. The other would draw a line around all federal buildings in the nation’s capital and cede the rest of the land back to Maryland “upon Maryland’s acceptance.” “This solution keeps with the early history and democratic traditions of the United States as well as the principles established in the...

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D.C. leaders expect big boost from stimulus

The stimulus windfall soon to land in D.C.’s lap will not be enough to solve the city’s formidable financial challenges, but District leaders said Wednesday that the final version will likely include hundreds of millions that could help balance the budget. The House and Senate have passed competing versions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — the Senate designated roughly $922 million for D.C. and the House nearly $1.1 billion. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi told the D.C. Council on Wednesday that roughly a third of the final figure may be available for general fund needs, like closing the estimated $455 million gap in the upcoming budget. “The...

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Senate panel backs voting rights bill

A U.S. Senate panel on Wednesday moved quickly to pass the D.C. voting rights bill, setting up a critical vote before the full chamber about two years after the same legislation was narrowly rejected. The Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, chaired by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., voted 11-1 in favor of a plan to give the District its first voting member in the House of Representatives. The same committee approved a virtually identical bill two years ago. “We hope and believe that this is our year,” said Lieberman, who introduced the legislation. He added: “This has been a controversial subject and still is in some quarters, but I don’t really...

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3 Minute Interview-Thies

Chuck Thies, 44, is a D.C.-based political and advocacy consultant who has worked on 11 District campaigns. How did you get into this business? I started as a special events and conference management specialist for nonprofits and other organizations. In 1997, one of my best friends was running for city council in Brooklyn. He had been working as a prosecutor in Kings County. He called me and asked me to manage his campaign. We came within 107 votes of winning the race. No one expected us to be even slightly competitive. What was the first D.C. campaign you won? Phil Mendelson in 2002. We won the D.C. medical marijuana [referendum] in 1998. But [former Rep.] Bob Barr introduced a rider...

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D.C. moves forward on financing $550 million, 1,160-room convention center hotel downtown

The D.C. Convention Center Authority has hired several of the nation’s top investment banks to run down investors willing to back $187 million in bonds needed to finance the city’s portion of a new convention center hotel. Goldman Sachs and Siebert Brandford Shank & Co. were named co-senior underwriters for the hotel-related tax increment financing bond sale, the authority announced Monday. Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, and Loop Capital Markets will be involved as well. The District is committed to funding roughly a third of the $550 million, Marriott Marquis at 9th and L streets NW, a 765,000-square-foot, 13-story facility slated to include 1,160 rooms, 100,000 square...

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Feds want Marion Barry jailed

Federal prosecutors on Monday asked a judge to revoke D.C. Councilman Marion Barry’s probation and put the former mayor in jail for yet again not filing his tax returns. Prosecutors allege Barry willfully failed to file his 2007 tax returns. The Ward 8 council member is coming to the end of a three-year probationary period for failing to file federal or D.C. returns from 1999 to 2004 — two charges to which he pleaded guilty in 2005. “The tax filing status of a public servant is a matter of legitimate public interest,” wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Zeno in a filing with the U.S. District Court for D.C. “It is not acceptable for any citizen to shirk a...

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Adams Morgan taxi stand program discontinued

A pilot program devised to herd the crush of D.C. cabs that overrun Adams Morgan on a typical weekend night into an organized taxi stand has been temporarily abandoned by its organizers after the effort fell flat. The D.C. Department of Transportation issued formal notice Friday that the 90-day pilot program had been postponed, but the taxi stand was actually discontinued in December, about 30 days in. DDOT has since pulled its directional signs from the 18th Street area, said agency spokeswoman Karyn LeBlanc. “Basically we piloted it, it didn’t work, and now it’s been postponed,” she told The Examiner. The plan was to operate two taxi stands — one on the...

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Disconnection threats soar for Pepco

The number of disconnection notices delivered to Pepco’s D.C. customers has soared by nearly a third since 2006, but actual disconnections are down as laws kick in that bar shut-offs during extreme heat or cold, new statistics show. With the terrible economy and electricity rates continuing to rise, more and more Pepco customers are struggling to pay their monthly bills, according to numbers released by the utility to the D.C. Public Service Commission. D.C. residents were threatened with disconnection 235,000 times in 2008, up from 215,342 in 2007 and 180,000 in 2006, a 30 percent increase over two years. On any given month in 2008, no fewer than 20 percent of Pepco’s...

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Fenty raises $2M in 3 months

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty amassed more than $2 million for his 2010 re-election war chest since declaring his candidacy only three months ago, a staggering sum that could scare off potential competitors well before the race heats up. Fenty picked up 2,126 donations since Nov. 2 totaling $2.042 million, more than half his record take from the entire 2006 campaign, according to a report filed late Monday with the Office of Campaign Finance. Nearly every area developer, law office, parking lot manager, government contractor, hotel chain and restaurant threw money Fenty’s way. The mayor responded Tuesday to the impressive tally with his most familiar phrases. The campaign, he said...

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Council adopts softer version of ban on icy cars

The D.C. Council on Tuesday pulled the teeth from an emergency bill requiring all vehicles to be cleared of snow and ice before getting on the road, striking the proposed $50 fine in lieu of a warning. The legislation, adopted unanimously, authorizes D.C. police to stop and warn any driver who has failed to clear “accumulated” snow or ice from their car or truck. Flying ice and snow “can be catastrophic,” said Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas Jr., who introduced the measure. “We have people going out with their cars basically looking like Igloos,” Thomas said. The council amended the bill to eliminate the $50 civil fine, for now. Most members said they...

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D.C. rakes in $191 million surplus in 2008, but rough road ahead

The District closed fiscal year 2008 with a $191 million surplus, likely enough to cover an anticipated budget deficit this year, but there remain several severe weaknesses in fiscal management that threaten the city’s Wall Street reputation, D.C. leaders learned Monday. Roughly $87 million of the $191 million 2008 surplus is available to plug a projected $127 million shortfall this year, Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi told the D.C. Council Monday. The council had already set aside another $46 million for the same purpose. The lean times kick in next year, Gandhi said, when the District faces a $455 million revenue reduction. Congressional stimulus dollars are the key...

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D.C. might become first to require clearing of ice from vehicles

It’s a classic commuter sport of winter, for drivers and pedestrians: dodging an airborne sheet of ice unleashed from a moving vehicle whose owner left the driveway or parking lot without bothering to sweep the roof. There are no U.S. jurisdictions that require car and truck owners to clear their vehicles of snow and ice before driving. Ward 5 D.C. Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. will propose Tuesday that the District become the first. “My concern is really is there an inherent hazard, when you see people pull out with huge sheets of ice on top of their cars where they haven’t taken time to properly prepare their vehicle for driving,” Thomas told The Examiner....

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D.C. turns to tax incentives in rat fight

From lidded trash cans and public outreach to inspections, fines and aggressive baiting, the D.C. government has employed countless tactics in its battle against the District’s rat population. Now the D.C. Council is turning to a bureaucratic solution: the tax break. Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans is proposing a tax credit for businesses that purchase and use a trash compactor. Beside the benefit of reducing the amount of garbage, the equipment is designed to be air- and watertight, leaving nothing for the scurrying rat to feed on or hide in. “It’s been shown that trash compactors are the single most effective way to get rid of rats,” Evans told The Examiner....

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Eastern Market construction hours expanded for extensive floor work

Extensive damage in the flooring of Eastern Market’s South Hall will force additional work and extended construction hours to make the expected summer reopening of the Capitol Hill institution. A three-alarm fire gutted the South Hall on April 30, 2007, causing $20 million in damage to the historic 135-year-old market. To reach the goal of reopening this summer, the Office of Property Management announced this week that work would extend from 3:30 p.m. to midnight Monday through Friday, and from 6 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturdays. The altered schedule will continue until May. “The work they’re doing is interior work,” said Ken Jarboe, who sits on the Eastern Market...

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Despite smoking ban, D.C. Irish aim to toast St. Patrick with cigars

About a thousand members of D.C.’s Irish community may be exempted from the city’s smoking ban so they can continue the annual rite of toasting St. Patrick with a tumbler in one hand and a cigar in the other. Ward 2 D.C. Councilman Jack Evans has introduced legislation sparing the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, a social organization that comprises much of Washington’s elite Irishmen, from the ban for their 81st annual St. Patrick’s Day dinner at the Capital Hilton on March 17. The city’s smoke-free law provides an economic hardship waiver for struggling bars and restaurants, Evans said, but it leaves no wiggle room for a single event, like the St....

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Debate over D.C. voting rights resumes before House panel

D.C.’s fight for a vote in Congress started anew Tuesday as both sides of the perennial debate testified before a U.S. House panel on voting rights legislation that has the strong backing of the Democratic majority. The bill, introduced by D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, is virtually identical to a measure that won House approval in 2007, only to be stopped three votes shy in the Senate. It creates two new House seats, one for Democratic-leaning D.C. and the other for Republican-leaning Utah, which came closest to adding a seat during the last reapportionment. “Now, in this time of change for America, we can succeed where so many before us failed,” House Majority Leader...

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D.C. to consider electing its attorney general

The D.C. Council will consider legislation making the District’s attorney general an elected position, which if passed could be the first step toward seizing the job of criminal prosecutions away from the U.S. attorney. A measure offered by at-large Councilman Phil Mendelson calls for a partisan attorney general election as soon as 2010, so that the AG’s four-year term coincides with that of the mayor. If the bill wins D.C. approval, Congress would still have to back it through federal legislation because it amends the District’s Home Rule Charter. “If that passes the council and is signed, I will immediately introduce a similar bill, take it through committees and...

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D.C. groups pulling peanut butter products from their meal programs

A jelly sandwich just isn’t the same, but two D.C. agencies have pulled peanut butter and all products containing peanut butter from their food programs. Responding to the national recall of peanut butter produced by the Peanut Corporation of America at its Blakely, Ga., processing plant, the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation announced Friday that it will no longer offer any peanut butter products in meals served through the Child and Adult Care Food Program. The program is managed by DPR’s Office of Food and Nutrition Services. The D.C. Public Schools also has halted the use of all peanut butter “as a precautionary measure,” said schools spokeswoman Dena...

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D.C. WWI Memorial could go national

Tucked away in a grove on the National Mall is a tattered ode to the 499 District of Columbia doughboys who perished in “The Great War” — a deteriorating temple often overlooked by visitors and locals alike. Now 90 years after the Armistice Treaty ended World War I, there is a renewed campaign not only to restore the District’s monument, but also to expand it. Legislation introduced by Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, would recast it as the “National and District of Columbia World War I Memorial,” to honor the nearly 117,000 U.S. soldiers who died, 204,000 who were wounded and the millions more who fought in the war, which started in 1914. Poe’s interest in...

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Key rating agency upgrades water, sewer utility’s bonds

A key rating agency has upgraded the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority financial outlook to positive, citing the agency’s progress in addressing its capital needs while maintaining a strong financial position. Fitch Ratings upgraded WASA’s bond rating from stable to positive and affirmed the AA status of the utility’s senior lien debt. Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s also affirmed the public utility’s bond ratings, which will help keep interest rates down as WASA progresses on its 10-year, $3.2 billion capital program. “Given the severe downturn in today’s economy, the affirmation of our existing double-A status by these...

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Then, a massive cleanup

Soon after some 1.5 million visitors found their way off the National Mall and away from President Obama’s inaugural parade route Tuesday, hundreds of city and federal employees fanned out to collect the oceans of trash they left behind. The D.C. Department of Public Works and the National Park Service picked up more than 90 tons of garbage in less than 12 hours following the inaugural festivities, said Nancee Lyons, DPW spokeswoman. On Wednesday there were still two garbage containers with capacities of 20 to 30 tons that had yet to be weighed, putting the potential total mess at roughly 260,000 pounds. More than 100 city employees worked from 6 p.m. Tuesday to 5:30 a.m. Wednesday...

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D.C. officials see great hope for city through Obama

An electric atmosphere took over the John A. Wilson Building Tuesday as D.C. government leaders, nearly all Democrats, celebrated the inauguration of a new president who represents not only their party but also a great deal of hope for the nation’s capital. Most of the District’s elected leaders traipsed by escort to the crowded Capitol grounds for President Obama’s swearing-in ceremony — the D.C. Council sitting in the yellow section and Mayor Adrian Fenty with the nation’s governors. The council then took in the inaugural parade from the John A. Wilson Building at 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, while Fenty followed Obama in the parade...

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Inspector general blasts D.C.’s internal controls on money

The D.C. government must tighten its internal controls on vendor payments, tax refunds and payroll in the face of “significant fiscal challenges that we believe will continue into the foreseeable future,” the D.C. inspector general recently warned. The IG’s office issued a report earlier this month that advised D.C. leaders of many weaknesses in the District’s payment processes that were uncovered in recent audits. Those failures include insufficient management oversight, ineffective supervision, lack of policies and procedures, poor file maintenance, disregard for regulations and unfamiliarity with standards of conduct. “The tightening of revenue streams due...

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Councilman Graham pushing legislation to ban fireworks and pit bulls — again

Year after year, Ward 1 D.C. Councilman Jim Graham has seen his attempt to ban fireworks fizzle, his try to bar pit bulls chewed up by colleagues. But he’s back at it in 2009. Graham has introduced both measures before, numerous times, to no avail. There’s a method to the madness, Graham said Monday. “I’ve introduced the pit bull legislation every session, and I am continuing in that determined pattern,” he said. “In case you are thinking I am deluded, I also introduced the lead paint hazard bill every session, and it passed last December. Every dog has its day.” The pit bull measure bars the possession and sale of the breed in the District. It...

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Millions in D.C. earmarks for nonprofits not released

Nearly 20 nonprofits that were earmarked millions of dollars in D.C.’s 2009 budget still have not received their money either because they haven’t paid their taxes, or because the District’s tax office has been unable to identify the organizations. The D.C. Council last year granted $56 million to more than 130 nonprofit groups, with the caveat that each recipient turns over specific financial and planning documents and provides evidence that it has paid its taxes. As of Wednesday, 19 organizations still had not received their grant money — 14 that the Office of Tax and Revenue has struggled to identify through tax records or whose paperwork is not in order, and...

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D.C. Council weighs tax credit for volunteer youth mentors

D.C. residents who volunteer their time to mentor District youth would be in line for a city income tax credit under legislation to be considered by the D.C. Council. Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells introduced a bill Tuesday, along with freshman at-large Councilman Michael Brown, that would create a $2,000 standard deduction for any adult who completes at least 104 hours of volunteer youth mentoring in a recognized program. “As it stands today, if you donate a coat to the Salvation Army or donate an old computer to a tutoring program, the value of your donation is recognized with a tax deduction,” Wells said. “But we don’t place a similar value on time — a...

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D.C. may require ‘Taxation Without Representation’ license plates

Most D.C. residents would have little choice but to accept license plates with the District’s “Taxation without Representation” motto under legislation introduced Tuesday by the D.C. Council. The measure, offered by Ward 1 Councilman Jim Graham and co-sponsored by seven of his colleagues, would require all plates issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles to bear the city’s rallying cry for congressional voting rights. The only exemptions would be for organizational and vintage plates. “We will eliminate the option to have the D.C. government Web site instead on the plates,” Graham said during the council’s first legislative meeting of 2009. All...

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Voting rights bill back in Congress

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D, on Tuesday reintroduced the D.C. House Voting Rights Act as her first act in the new Congress. In the Senate, Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, offered an identical measure. The bill, which has been through the legislative hopper numerous times before, would add two permanent seats to the U.S. House of Representatives — one for Democratic-stronghold D.C. and another for Republican-leaning Utah. If passed, the House would have 437 seats. “The righting of this historic wrong is long overdue,” Lieberman said in a statement. “The people of the District have been the direct target of a terrorist attack but they have...

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D.C. puts off Columbia Heights building buy

The District agreed to pay triple the assessed value for a dilapidated apartment building in Columbia Heights that the government plans to preserve as affordable housing, infuriating one D.C. leader who described the structure as little more than a shell. But Neil Albert, D.C.’s deputy mayor for planning and economic development, put a temporary, last-second hold on the deal Tuesday after The Examiner raised questions about the price tag. “We’re taking a closer look in the office to make sure that the price and the appraisal adds up, given the current market conditions,” said Sean Madigan, Albert’s spokesman. The Department of Housing and Community...

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D.C. Council hardens line on handouts to nonprofits

The D.C. Council will cap earmark amounts and bar nonprofits from collecting grants in consecutive years under recently adopted budget rules that some organizations fear could devastate their capacities to do good in the community. “This is a way for us to wean ourselves off this work around [of the contracting and procurement process],” said at-large Councilman David Catania, chairman of the health committee. “And it might be tough medicine, to be honest.” Approved Friday during the council’s organizational meeting, the rules limit all future earmarks to $250,000, or $1 million for capital projects. They prohibit nonprofits, starting in fiscal 2011, from...

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Council to focus on familiar themes in new session

The D.C. Council this week will start its 18th session since Home Rule with one new member and five returning members fresh from their swearing-ins at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Friday. New at-large Councilman Michael Brown, independent, took his first oath of office Friday, while at-large Councilman Kwame Brown, Ward 4 Councilwoman Muriel Bowser, Ward 7 Councilwoman Yvette Alexander and Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry, all Democrats, took their second. Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans, D, the body’s elder statesman, was sworn in for a fifth full term. Council Chairman Vincent Gray, emcee of the event, spoke of ending poverty, improving public education, preserving...

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District targets spots to establish gun stores

The District will allow gun stores along major commercial corridors in every corner of the city, under new rules recently adopted by the D.C. Zoning Commission. Emergency regulations issued by the commission allow gun stores to open along most commercial corridors not zoned for neighborhood retail, throughout much of downtown and in a handful of industrial zones. But because each store must be at least 300 feet away from the nearest school, library, home, playground and church, the number of specific possible locations is very limited. The rules are far less restrictive than those adopted in July — a month after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the District’s 32-year-old...

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Michael Brown’s council win affirmed

The D.C. Court of Appeals on Wednesday allowed the election of independent at-large D.C. Councilman-elect Michael Brown to stand, rejecting an appeal from the D.C. Republican Committee. The local GOP claimed that Brown is a lifelong Democrat who campaigned as such, despite switching to “independent/no party” last May. His victory violated the Home Rule Act, they said, which states “at no time shall there be more than 3 members, including the Chairman, serving at large on the Council who are affiliated with the same political party.” The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics certified Brown’s win as an independent, spurring the GOP’s appeal. A three-member...

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D.C. pays $10M and counting for vacant building

The District’s economy is flagging and revenues are coming up short, yet the city continues to pay more than a half-million dollars every month for a massive, empty building in Southeast that it has no plans to occupy. When D.C. pays its January rent for the former Washington Star printing plant at 225 Virginia Ave. SE, it will have spent more than $10 million over 18 months for a cavernous property within walking distance of Nationals Park that still sits vacant. That milestone was reached earlier if one counts the $1 million spent on architectural renderings that the city no longer has any use for. The District spends $546,000 a month to lease the 421,000-square-foot property,...

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Libraries get tough: No luggage, no sleeping, no fighting

The D.C. Public Library has unleashed a slate of new customer conduct policies that officials hope will transform the system into a more welcoming destination, at the potential expense of homeless residents who use branches as daytime shelters. The X-ray machine at the front door of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library: out. Beverages in the Great Hall: in. Oversized bags often toted by homeless people through the front door: out. “Our visitor numbers have been declining,” said Pamela Stovall, associate director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. “We’re looking at the overall strategy in terms of making our library more welcoming to...

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Renovations, fresh exhibits attracting visitors old and new

It was a year of grand openings along with some difficult times in D.C.’s arts and culture arena, and even in the face of a tanking economy, the District’s museums remain the town’s biggest draw — at the best price. “Right now our museums are about even with the year before,” said Linda St. Thomas, Smithsonian Institution spokeswoman. “And that’s pretty good, I think, probably because we’re free.” The reopening of the National Museum of American History in November and the opening of the Sant Ocean Hall at the National Museum of Natural History in September have both been big draws, keeping overall attendance for the Smithsonian...

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3 Minute Interview-Steen

Erica Steen is director of the Morris Cafritz Center for Community Service, which is part of the D.C. Jewish Community Center. The JCC is organizing its 22nd annual December 25 Day of Service, a massive volunteer effort throughout the D.C. metro area. For information, visit washingtondcjcc.org/volunteer. How long have you worked for the Jewish Community Center? I have been here for 2 1/2 years. Before that I was working for the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization. I’m a Jewish communal professional for life. Before the Day of Service, how did you spend your Christmas? I think I probably spent it going to the movies. Christmas was a family day. And Chinese food? I...

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District is facing years of budget shortfalls

D.C. leaders are breathing sighs of relief that the latest announced budget gap for the current fiscal year can likely be closed without additional cuts, but they say “everything is on the table” to deal with far larger shortfalls forecast for the years ahead. The $127 million shortfall for 2009 is “manageable,” Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi said Friday, soon after briefing the D.C. Council on his revised estimates. The council, when it closed a $131-million gap last month, set aside $47 million in case the economic outlook darkened. Gandhi also is projecting an $80-million-plus revenue surplus for fiscal 2008, which closed Sept. 30. “My expectation...

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New camera network slated for crime-ridden neighborhood

The District is partnering with the private sector to purchase and install nearly 30 closed-circuit cameras in the crime-ravaged Trinidad neighborhood, which the Metropolitan Police Department can actively monitor 24 hours a day. Police Chief Cathy Lanier and Mayor Adrian Fenty on Friday laid out plans for the D.C. version of the Safe City initiative, a privately funded public safety program operating in more than 20 cities including Baltimore, Boston and Compton, Calif. Target presented the District with a check for $260,000, which will fund the initial five to seven cameras for Trinidad. Twenty more cameras will be installed later, with $500,000 to be raised by the D.C. Police...

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Study: Lack of infant care threatens development

District parents have little access to licensed child care for their infants and toddlers, a critical period in a child’s development that if wasted could set them back developmentally for life, a new report finds. The supply of center-based care for infants and toddlers is so small and prohibitively expensive that the option simply doesn’t exist for much of D.C.’s low-income population, according to “Infants & Toddlers in the District of Columbia: A Needs Assessment,” issued this week by the State Board of Education. The study was prepared by HyeSook Chung, an early care and education consultant hired by the board. Where there is space, in one of 183...

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Price tag doubles for auditor’s review of D.C.’s books

The District’s outside auditor has more than doubled its bill for reviewing the city’s books for the recently ended fiscal year, a now-$4.2 million price tag of which a significant percentage will fund a continuing review of the scandal-plagued tax office. BDO Seidman is seeking an additional $2.2 million on top of the $2 million base price for the ongoing fiscal 2008 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, or CAFR. Of the amended bill, $500,000 is for a review of the city’s new payroll system and $671,000 is for additional work in the Office of Tax and Revenue, home to the costliest scandal in D.C. government history — which BDO missed in earlier audits. The CAFR...

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D.C. Council OKs lead paint bill

All residential units built in the District before 1978 must be inspected by the city for lead paint and cleared of any contamination before they are occupied by a pregnant woman or children under 6, the D.C. Council decided Tuesday. The anti-lead bill, adopted unanimously, was nearly a decade in the making. Ward 1 Councilman Jim Graham, who ushered the measure through the legislative process, first introduced it in February 1999. “We’re still using our children as lead detectors,” Graham said during Tuesday’s legislative meeting. “We’re still finding out about the presence of lead in a dwelling unit when a child becomes infected.” Most D.C....

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Council OKs final gun bill

The D.C. Council on Tuesday gave final unanimous approval to a revised handgun registration law. The bill requires four hours of classroom training and one hour of range training prior to initial registration. It mandates re-registration of a handgun every three years. And it bars convicted felons, twice-convicted drunken drivers and mentally unstable individuals prone to violence from registering firearms for up to 10 years. A provision requiring annual recertification was omitted from the final version. “This bill will be, I think, one of the most progressive registration laws in the country,” Councilman Phil Mendelson said. Gun rights advocates, meanwhile, promised legal...

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Probe: Massive control failures, ‘culture of silence,’ aided scam

Harriette Walters’ massive tax fraud scheme corrupted more than one-third of all city tax refund dollars during its peak years, and was aided by government officials who missed clear warning signs, a new investigation found. Walters was also abetted by a “culture of silence” that was observed among co-workers, many of whom she had treated to cash or lavish gifts, according to the report by WilmerHale, the auditing firm tasked with the review by the D.C. Council. A career midlevel manager in the District’s Real Property Tax Administration, Walters created a “thin veneer of legitimacy” to validate her fraud, said William McLucas, a WilmerHale partner who...

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What will be the inaugural revenue bump?

The District could be looking at a net gain of millions of dollars for city coffers from President-elect Barack Obama’s weeklong inaugural celebration — even as Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton asks America’s taxpayers to pitch in more. The latest inaugural cost estimate is $25.9 million, according to D.C. sources, citing numbers emerging from the office of City Administrator Dan Tangherlini. The District has $15 million to spend, courtesy of the federal government, for the inaugural and other upcoming events, such as World Bank protests and the Right to Life March. Norton wants her congressional colleagues to have their constituents at least double that. D.C. leaders,...

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Proposed anti-picketing bill in D.C. riles unions, ACLU

A D.C. Council member is mulling emergency legislation that would bar demonstrations outside homes in residential neighborhoods, a response to increasingly aggressive protests by an extremist animal rights group. Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh has submitted written notice that she will introduce the Residential Tranquility Emergency Amendment Act during the council’s final legislative meeting of the year. Cheh, a constitutional law professor, contends the group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty has harassed numerous D.C. residents in their homes — shouting obscenities, yelling death threats, banging on doors. The legislation, at least one draft of which was obtained by The...

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Norton: D.C. should rethink asking feds for more cash

Anyone who thinks an expanded Democratic majority across the federal government will simply hand the nation’s capital upward of $1 billion a year for its capital needs is “deluded,” D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton said Thursday. “I cannot tell you with a straight face that even with a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress that we will get $800 million,” Norton said during the unveiling of a new report that details the District’s fiscal turnaround over the past decade and what it still needs to become a showcase capital city. The report, prepared by D.C. Appleseed, was crafted to send a message to Congress: The city is financially stable 10...

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D.C. awards $51M to enhance primary and emergency care

The District has awarded $51 million to three organizations to enhance primary and emergency care capacity in the city’s most underserved areas, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced Wednesday. The grants, from the District’s tobacco settlement fund, are a direct response to the Rand Corp. study, a 196-page report released last summer detailing the city’s ailing health care state and recommending how and where to focus sparse dollars. The D.C. Primary Care Association will use its $29.8 million to support expanded primary care options in Wards 2, 4 and 8. The Washington Hospital Center is putting its $10 million into ER One, a project to increase emergency care capacity at the...

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Academics: D.C. needs federal money

The federal government must expand its financial investment in the District if the city is to overcome a $1 billion annual shortfall and become a “world-class capital city,” a regional advocacy center concludes in a report to be released today. “Building the Best Capital City in the World,” a study produced by the D.C. Appleseed Center, finds that the District has restored its fiscal reputation since the bankrupt days of the mid-1990s. Yet, the city still is treated “far worse” by its federal partner than other famed capital cities, is heavily burdened by fiscal restraints, and badly needs an economic boost to address critical infrastructure needs. The...

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D.C. Council weighs doubling downtown parking meter rate

The D.C. Council is considering doubling the downtown parking meter rate to $2 an hour and dedicating the extra revenue to social and low-income housing programs hit hardest by the city’s fiscal crisis. Ward 1 Councilman Jim Graham, who has oversight of the D.C. Department of Transportation and meter issues, said Monday that he has upped the ante, revising an earlier proposal to take the current $1 per hour downtown rate to $1.50. Where meters charge 50 cents, Graham’s plan calls for a new 75-cent charge. And it requires meter payment in the Central Business District on Saturdays, lifting the current moratorium. The council will take up the emergency legislation next...

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Fenty to dip into Eastern Market fund to pay for new levee

Mayor Adrian Fenty will draw $2 million from the pot of money set aside to rebuild fire-ravaged Eastern Market and turn it over to the D.C. Department of Transportation to construct a new levee system across 17th Street NW. But unlike so many government-run projects that tend to soar above their budgets, the Office of Property Management claims the rebuilt Eastern Market will open in the summer of 2009, $2 million or not. “[The Office of Property Management] has carefully controlled costs for the project and expects to complete the reconstruction on-time and on-budget without the $2M,” Bill Rice, OPM spokesman, said in an e-mail. D.C. committed $2.5 million to plug the gap in...

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Officials rebuff Mormons’ discrimination claim over planned church

The Mormon church’s claim of religious discrimination from residents of 16th Street Heights who are bucking plans for a three-story meeting house and 105-foot spire has been rebuffed by planning officials. But the church is not abandoning plans for the controversial facility. Neighbors say they simply want to safeguard the residential nature of their community by prohibiting new nonresidential construction. “It has nothing to do with [discrimination],” said Doreen Thompson, who lives across from the now-vacant church parcel at 16th and Emerson streets Northwest. “These are structures with traffic. It has nothing to do with the church. It has nothing to do with...

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Planners settle on two designs for the new National Mall levee

Planners have settled on two possible designs for a new levee crossing 17th Street on the National Mall, a crucial deluge-protection system that must be in place in less than a year. David Rubin, a partner with the Philadelphia-based design firm Olin, told the National Capital Planning Commission on Thursday that the goal of a strengthened West Potomac Park Levee is to shield the National Mall and the federal triangle from a historic flood, and simultaneously “incorporate this into the landscape in as little egregious a way as possible.” Both levee alternatives comprise concrete walls of varying heights on either side of 17th Street between Constitution Avenue and the World...

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D.C. Council passes bill closing littering loophole

The D.C. Council on Tuesday closed a legal loophole that left D.C. police essentially powerless to ticket drivers and their passengers who throw garbage onto city streets from their vehicles. Legislation adopted by the council unanimously attaches littering to the list of moving violations. Metropolitan Police Department officers will be empowered to dispense $100 citations to drivers who throw just about anything out of their vehicles. The common litterer has long been subject to a $75 fine. But the law was murky, until the council action Tuesday, as to how an officer could ticket a driver for the violation. Enforcement was virtually nonexistent. “As a police department, we cannot...

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D.C. to spend $10 million to expand convention center

Faced with stiff competition from outside venues and saddled with limited meeting rooms for clients, the District will spend as much as $10 million to add 40,000 square feet of meeting space to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. “We’re not running out of space,” said Gregory O’Dell, Washington Convention Center Authority chief executive officer. “We need the right amount of meeting space in proportion to the exhibition space.” The 2.3-million-square-foot, five-year-old facility is expansive but nevertheless limited by its 130,000 square feet of meeting space, according to the authority’s board of directors, which authorized the renovation...

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D.C. Council passes bill closing littering loophole

The D.C. Council on Tuesday closed a legal loophole that left D.C. police essentially powerless to ticket drivers and their passengers who throw garbage onto city streets from their vehicles. Legislation adopted by the council unanimously attaches littering to the list of moving violations. Metropolitan Police Department officers will be empowered to dispense $100 citations to drivers who throw just about anything out of their vehicles. The common litterer has long been subject to a $75 fine. But the law was murky, until the council action Tuesday, as to how an officer could ticket a driver for the violation. Enforcement was virtually nonexistent. “As a police department, we cannot...

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Council tweaks gun law, gives tentative approval

The D.C. Council on Tuesday tentatively approved the permanent framework for registering and storing handguns in the District, requiring several hours of gun safety training prior to registration, an annual recertification of every firearm and occasional criminal background checks for gun owners. The legislation, adopted unanimously on first reading, also restricts access to guns for convicted felons, drunken drivers and domestic abusers. It allows registration of a one gun per month and requires ballistic identification of every firearm. The bill is “pretty strict” but “not so burdensome,” said at-large Councilman Phil Mendelson, and it addresses the demands of...

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Cheh subpoenas elections official for answers

The chairwoman of a special D.C. Council elections committee is trying to force a key government official to answer questions under oath about problems during the November elections. Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh, who chairs a special committee investigating recent election-related failures, is using a subpoena to make Sylvia Goldsberry-Adams, executive director of the Board of Elections and Ethics, submit to a deposition on Dec. 8 “since apparently they will not turn up by simple request.” Details are still being worked out, but Cheh said the event may be open to the public. Goldsberry-Adams was scheduled to participate in a Nov. 13 hearing before Cheh’s special...

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D.C. taxi panel endorses increase in fares, improved driver training

Higher fares, revamped taxicab driver training programs and deputized hack inspectors are among the final recommendations of a task force examining D.C.’s changing taxi industry. The group determined, in a final report released Friday, that existing fares should be raised “to fairly compensate the drivers and to restore their income to a comparative level with other neighboring jurisdictions.” The District scrapped its zone fare system in June in favor of time and distance meters, but questions have lingered about hastily assembled rules and rates now governing the industry. The 13-member task force, composed of riders, political appointees, and taxi and hospitality...

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Sligo Creek fix first step in reviving Anacostia River

Salvaging the D.C. area’s “forgotten river” will require unprecedented multi-jurisdictional cooperation, decades of work, countless small but significant projects and billions of dollars, according to a recently released report on the restoration of the Anacostia. The efforts start with a baby step. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a study last week detailing more than 100 projects that could be undertaken to rejuvenate Sligo Creek and its subwatershed — the 7,085-acre land area that drains rainwater, soils, trash and other pollution into the creek and, eventually, the Anacostia River. The plan calls for green roofs, tree boxes, weekly street sweeping,...

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3 Minute Interview-Kane

Richard Kane is the owner of D.C.-based International Limousine Service Inc. What drove you to limousines? My family’s been in Washington in transportation for about 90 years. We started in 1918 in pure trucking, as Kane Transfer. I’ve been in transportation all my life. Is the economic downturn impacting your business? I’m finding that the performance of our company this year, we’re up 20 percent, is not indicative of nationwide. Boston, New York, they’re off 50 percent. I think D.C. has a very broad range of customers, and the government props it up. What are your plans for Inauguration Day? It’s interesting what’s happening out there. The...

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Area drivers file record number of D.C. parking meter complaints

City officials have fielded more than 100,000 complaints about its parking meters already this year — an average of several gripes apiece for its aging stock of meters, and a huge increase in angered customers over recent years. The District’s Department of Transportation has registered 104,659 beefs so far in 2008, according to summary reports issued by the citywide call center. That’s almost seven gripes for each of the city’s 16,500 meters. And that smashes the yearly record for complaint calls with more than a month to go in 2008. Parking meter-related grievances have soared steadily in recent years from 67,813 in 2006 to 94,049 in 2007 to the nearly 105,000...

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Fenty family welcomes its newest addition

There’s a new member of Team Fenty. Michelle Fenty, wife of D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, gave birth to daughter Aerin Alexandra Fenty at 6:08 a.m. Monday. Aerin was born 21 inches long and weighed in at 9 pounds, 1 ounce. “I’m excited for him,” said D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray, a father of two. “I’m delighted.” Fenty’s communication team would only say that the baby was born healthy and Michelle Fenty was in good spirits. They declined to name the hospital where Aerin was born, or whether her name has a special meaning for the Fentys. Aerin is an alternate spelling of the Irish name Erin, meaning “from Ireland.” Or...

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Nationals may play ball on Taxation Without Representation Street if Council has its way

The Washington Nationals might need new letterhead if the D.C. Council has its way. Council members are pondering whether to rename the portion of South Capitol Street between N Street and Potomac Avenue “Taxation Without Representation Street,” a reminder that the District has no voting member in Congress. The Nationals are headquartered at 41,000-seat Nationals Park at 1500 South Capitol St. SE. Council Chairman Vincent Gray held a public hearing Monday on the legislation, which unlike other symbolic road name designations would actually change the address of all buildings along that three-block stretch of South Capitol. Gray said he would have the bill on the...

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D.C. board certifies election results

The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics on Monday certified the results of the Nov. 4 general election, including the D.C. Council victory of independent Michael Brown, whose connection to the Democratic Party might spark an appeal to the courts. The D.C. Republican Committee continues to argue that Brown, a longtime Democrat, maintains his affiliation with the Dems but switched his status to “No Party” simply to win a seat on the council. Brown won one of two at-large council seats set aside under the Home Rule Charter for a member of a minority political party. Paul Craney, the GOP committee’s executive director, said the group is “keeping its options open.”...

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Verizon promises citywide FiOS access within a decade

Verizon has agreed to install its fiber optic network citywide within 10 years and include a chunk of Northeast in the initial phase, a step up from earlier promises and likely enough to win D.C. Council support for the District’s newest cable television provider. The 15-year franchise agreement between Verizon and the D.C. government was approved Friday by a council committee, setting up a vote of the full council next month. The council negotiated several major changes to the deal submitted by the Fenty administration, most notably that Verizon must have its FiOS network available District-wide within nine years, with an optional 12-month extension. “We didn’t want to...

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Campaign complaint against D.C. councilman dismissed

The District’s campaign finance office has dismissed a complaint filed against Ward 2 D.C. Councilman Jack Evans for snapping a photo of a fully uniformed Police Chief Cathy Lanier in the Wilson Building and then using it in a re-election ad. In an order dated Thursday, Office of Campaign Finance Director Cecily Collier-Montgomery accepted the recommendation of the office’s general counsel and tossed the complaint against Evans. The claim, filed by four Ward 2 residents who supported Evans’ challenger in the Sept. 9 primary, argued that Evans “improperly used his own Council office to take photographs of himself with Police Chief Cathy Lanier while she was on duty...

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Library branch in Tenleytown to be built without residential tower

The D.C. Public Library will move ahead with the construction of a stand-alone Tenleytown branch on Wisconsin Avenue NW, library officials said Thursday, hampering a Fenty administration-backed plan to blend a new library with a residential tower. The library’s board of trustees has instructed Chief Librarian Ginnie Cooper to build a new Tenley-Friendship Library “as quickly as possible” to replace the branch that was closed in December 2004, trustee President John Hill said Thursday in a statement. Hill disclosed the decision during a trustees meeting Wednesday, surprising Tenleytown residents and community leaders who have vehemently opposed Mayor Adrian Fenty’s...

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GOP challenges Michael Brown’s ‘independent’ claim

The D.C. Republican Party on Thursday filed a formal complaint with the District’s elections board arguing that at-large D.C. Councilman-elect Michael Brown is a fake independent whose Democratic Party roots should disqualify him from holding the key seat. The committee asked the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics not to certify Brown’s Nov. 4 election victory “on the grounds that he does not meet the statutory requirements necessary to service in the office that he ran for.” The board is scheduled to certify all election results Monday. Under the D.C. Home Rule Charter, “At no time shall there be more than three members (including the Chairman) serving at...

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Close call, but Nickles confirmed as the District's attorney general

A sharply divided D.C. Council on Tuesday confirmed Peter Nickles as the District’s attorney general, following a lengthy debate that saw the nominee described as rude, stubborn and dangerously loyal to the mayor — but superbly qualified for the job. Nickles won confirmation by a 7-5 vote. Chairman Vincent Gray, whose relationship with Mayor Adrian Fenty has teetered on collapse, broke the logjam. “We are extremely pleased with the Council’s decision to approve the nomination of Peter J. Nickles as Attorney General for the District of Columbia,” Mayor Adrian Fenty said in a statement. “His impeccable legal knowledge and ability coupled with his...

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D.C. Council says Lew needs to focus on schools, rather than parks

The D.C. Council on Tuesday evening blocked Mayor Adrian Fenty’s plan to put his school modernization chief in charge of the $58 million parks and recreation capital program. Allen Lew, council members said, was recruited to fix D.C.’s crumbling public schools — not to fix everything. The emergency resolution, offered by Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas Jr., clarifies that Lew is to “stay in his lane and do what he’s supposed to do” as head of the fledgling Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization. It prohibits him from working on most projects outside of the schools. Fenty announced earlier this month that he had stripped the Department of...

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D.C. Council panel rejects Peter Nickles as attorney general

Citing his allegiance to the executive branch and “questionable dedication to the rule of law,” a D.C. Council panel on Monday rejected the nomination of Peter Nickles as attorney general, spurring a vigorous lobbying campaign ahead of today’s full council vote. The Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary, chaired by at-large Councilman Phil Mendelson, backed a “disapproval resolution” on Nickles by a 3-2 tally. Under council rules, the nomination would have been automatically approved had the committee not acted to turn it down. Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh, a lawyer specializing in constitutional law, said she opposed Nickles’ nomination for...

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Michelle Obama says they can have ‘impact in the D.C. area’

District leaders are optimistic that Barack and Michelle Obama will be engaged in the cultural fabric and perhaps even some of the governing details of D.C., and the future first couple is doing nothing to dampen that enthusiasm. “Both Barack and I believe that we can have an impact in the D.C. area, you know, in terms of making sure we’re contributing to the community that we immediately live in,” Michelle Obama, sitting next to President-elect Barack Obama, told “60 Minutes” interviewer Steve Kroft Sunday. “That’s always been something that we try to do. Whether it’s in our own neighborhoods or in the schools that we’ve...

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Fire, EMS chief cites ‘remarkable progress’

The District’s emergency medical services system has made “remarkable progress” in the nearly two years since a high-profile department failure led to the death New York Times reporter David Rosenbaum, Chief Dennis Rubin told the D.C. Council on Friday. But critics, particularly those on the EMS side of D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services, argue the improvements have not translated into a better working environment for first responders. There is a feeling “of inferiority among these individuals and it continues to have a profound psychological effect on the civilian EMS personnel,” Kenneth Lyons, president of the union that represents the District’s...

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Stay smart on the street, avoid a ticket

D.C.-area police will be on the lookout this week for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists who disregard traffic safety laws by speeding, darting into traffic, jaywalking or demonstrating any number of other potentially deadly lapses of judgment. Police departments in the District, suburban Maryland and Northern Virginia today will launch their fall “Street Smart” campaigns, a regionwide effort to enforce traffic and pedestrian safety laws, reduce traffic-related fatalities and change people’s behaviors as they navigate area roadways. Ninety-one pedestrians died in 2007 in the D.C. metropolitan area — 25 in the District, 29 in Northern Virginia, and 37 in Montgomery...

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Metro, Belgian bank strike deal

The deal Metro reached with a Belgian bank this week to settle a dispute over an unraveling lease arrangement still leaves the transit agency in jeopardy from 14 other financial institutions that could also call in their loans. Nearly three days of closed-door talks between Metro and KBC Group ended with a deal that both sides described as “win-win.” Financial details were not disclosed on the order of U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer, but Metro officials said the accord means that the system’s capital budget is no longer threatened. “This is a win for the riders of our system and taxpayers of this region,” Metro General Manager John Catoe said in a...

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Metro, Belgian bank still talking over lease deal

A federal judge Thursday prodded Metro and Belgian bank KBC Group to settle over a $43 million payment the bank claims it is owed, but no deal was reached after a full day of closed-door talks. Metro has asked U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer to block KBC’s payment demand through a preliminary injunction. The parties are scheduled to reconvene today, after spending Thursday marching in and out of Collyer’s chambers. “Nothing is happening,” the judge said during a brief appearance in the courtroom. “Nothing has happened. And we’re still hopeful something will happen.” Metro spokeswoman Candace Smith would say only that the sides are...

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Metro CFO: ‘Inconceivable damages’ if loan is canceled

Metro urged a federal judge Wednesday to temporarily block a Belgian bank’s attempt to declare the transit agency in default of a loan and collect a $43 million windfall, arguing the payment could devastate the transit system and others across the country. U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer did not issue a ruling Wednesday on the preliminary injunction request, instead urging Metro and KBC Group to negotiate a settlement. The parties will return to court today. The transaction between Metro and KBC Group unraveled earlier this year after the collapse of American International Group, which insured the deal. Under the terms of the 6-year-old arrangement, Metro sold three dozen...

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Key D.C. councilman floats parking meter rate hike

A key D.C. councilman has suggested increasing the District’s parking meter rates by 50 percent and perhaps start charging for Saturday parking, potentially raising millions more dollars for the city’s struggling coffers. Ward 1 Councilman Jim Graham, who has oversight of the District’s parking meter operation, floated the idea Monday minutes before voting with his colleagues to eliminate a projected $131 million budget shortfall and to set aside $46 million more in a rainy-day reserve fund. D.C. parking meter rates, Graham said, are “far, far below the market rate and constitute a very significant subsidy for visitor parking.” Increasing the price from $1 to...

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New rules proposed for spy net

The Fenty administration has proposed new standards for a consolidated spy network of more than 5,000 closed-circuit cameras that should take effect in time for the presidential inauguration in January. The Video Interoperability for Public Safety system, or VIPS, links 5,200 District-owned closed-circuit television cameras within a single monitoring office under the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. The goal: Assist Homeland Security “to rapidly identify and respond to emergency circumstances that occur within the District.” Every camera in a school, in a jail cell, in a government building, outside a public housing project or attached to a traffic light has...

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D.C. balances budget, eliminates projected $131 million shortfall

The D.C. Council on Monday slashed, froze and shifted nearly $180 million its current budget, closing a projected $131 million shortfall while setting aside millions more in the likely case that the economic situation worsens. The emergency budget resolution, said Council Chairman Vincent Gray, will “address the reality of declining economic conditions that are all too apparent.” Tough choices abound, he said, but each will “prepare us for potentially worse news in the coming months.” The measure was approved unanimously. The gap-closing initiative, a blend of proposals offered by Gray and Mayor Adrian Fenty, slashes $55 million outright from the 2009 fiscal year...

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3 Minute Interview-Whitley

Tom Whitley is a 16-year resident of D.C.’s Forest Hills neighborhood, and a newly elected advisory neighborhood commissioner. On Tuesday, he defeated Frank Winstead, who was best known for fighting local restaurant Comet Ping Pong’s popular outdoor pingpong tables. Why did you run for ANC? The main reason I ran, and I’m glad I defeated the other guy, is my friends thought he was a difficult person. His position with regard to the stores on the Politics and Prose block [of Connecticut Avenue] wasn’t really well founded. That’s why I did it. Are you a pingpong player? Historically I played, but not much lately. Apartments don’t really leave a lot of...

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What D.C. should expect from Obama administration?

Shortly after his election in November 1992, then-President-elect Bill Clinton took a stroll along Georgia Avenue Northwest, spending an hour with merchants and inspiring hope that the blighted corridor would garner federal assistance. That hope quickly faded. Now, another Democratic president is heading for Washington, this one an African-American who inspires tremendous optimism among District residents. But experts say the jury is out on whether he will break the pattern of presidents largely ignoring the city. “Clinton started off with a bang with the march along Georgia Avenue,” said Mary Levy, an education expert with the Washington Lawyer’s Committee. “And...

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Hospital says emergency contraceptive bill needs ‘conscience clause’ for medical staff

All hospitals in the District would be required to offer emergency contraception to sexual assault victims under legislation moving through the D.C. Council. The bill, introduced more than a year ago, mandates that every hospital and clinic distribute information about emergency contraception, as well as the actual treatment, to sexual assault victims who request it. Emergency contraception prevents fertilization if taken within 72 hours of intercourse. The only issue raised during a hearing Thursday before the council’s health committee was on behalf of Providence Hospital, a Catholic institution. The bill does not currently include a “conscience clause” for doctors or...

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Schools facilities chief to fix rec centers

Mayor Adrian Fenty announced Wednesday that he’s stripped the troubled D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation of its repair, construction and modernization responsibilities, turning the job over to his schools facilities chief. Allen Lew, head of the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization, will manage DPR’s capital program, which totals $58.2 million this year alone. The move mirrors the city’s reaction to crumbling schools: In June 2007, the D.C. Council created a new office to focus on school modernization, leaving the chancellor’s office to focus on academics. Parks and recreation, Fenty said, lacks the expertise to effectively manage its capital...

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With Dem victories, hope anew for voting rights in District

D.C. leaders supported Barack Obama’s candidacy. Now they expect President-elect Obama to return the favor with a vote for the nation’s capital in the U.S. House of Representatives. “Taking nothing for granted,” Mayor Adrian Fenty said Wednesday. “But obviously having more U.S. senators and a Democratic president, I think the chances of us having full voting rights increases dramatically.” Fenty backed Obama’s candidacy very early, in the summer of 2007, with one caveat: That Obama support D.C. voting rights. A few months later the Senate blocked legislation that would have given the District one voting seat in the House, in exchange for Utah...

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D.C.’s new councilman: Michael Brown

Early returns from Tuesday’s election showed perennial District political contender Michael Brown likely fighting his way onto the D.C. Council as an at-large member, defeating the furious write-in candidacy of incumbent Republican Carol Schwartz. Brown, 43, son of the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, dropped his longtime affiliation with the Democratic Party to run as an independent — the only way he could win one of two at-large seats up for grabs. With 20 of 143 precincts reporting, Brown had garnered 19 percent of the vote, second to that of incumbent at-large Councilman Kwame Brown, a Democrat well on his way to a second term. This was Michael Brown’s fourth...

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Election Day offers little suspense throughout Democrat-heavy D.C.

There are few guarantees in life, but here’s one: Democrat Barack Obama will win the District’s three electoral votes. And he will win in a landslide over John McCain. In fact, all Democrats on the ballot are likely to win their respective races today: Four D.C. Council ward members, one at-large council member and one delegate to the U.S. House. That’s the reality of having 75 percent of all registered voters in your camp. The Republican Party claims 7 percent of the city’s registered 426,761 voters — 9 percent fewer than individuals who maintain “No Party” at all. D.C.’s Democratic leaders, flush with confidence on the local front,...

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Housing fight gets D.C. workers booted from Howard campus

Three D.C. government employees were kicked off Howard University’s campus last week as they distributed literature aimed at protecting students from slumlords and dangerous rental properties. The city’s Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs sent its staff to Howard’s private Northwest campus on Wednesday to promote thisshouldbeillegal.com, the agency’s anti-slum outreach campaign for students. The team was promptly booted. “They did not secure the appropriate authorization and were provided with details on how to gain access,” Kerry-Ann Hamilton, Howard spokeswoman, wrote in an e-mail. “The individuals in question also defaced the grounds...

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Shadow senator busted for DUI

D.C. Shadow Sen. Paul Strauss was arrested for allegedly driving drunk, spurring the District’s Republican Party chairman to call for his resignation. Strauss, 44, a real estate lawyer and the former chairman of the District’s Board of Real Property Assessments and Appeals, was nabbed Oct. 1 on the Duke Ellington Bridge in the 2000 block of Calvert Street NW. He was charged with driving under the influence, driving while intoxicated and operating while impaired, according to court records. Strauss is due in court Nov. 7 to face the charges. “Because this matter is currently pending before the courts, I cannot comment on anything at this time,” Strauss, a Democrat,...

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Fenty: D.C. failed another one

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty said “a feeling of horror” came over him after learning that a mentally disabled 65-year-old man languished in cockroach-infested squalor while the city’s bureaucracy missed one opportunity after another to step in. Mr. Johnson (a pseudonym) died Feb. 23 at Providence Hospital, four days after falling into a diabetic coma. His death came more than two years after a nonprofit social worker first attempted to obtain D.C. government help for him. Three city employees tied to Mr. Johnson’s case have been fired and more personnel actions are to come, Fenty said Friday. The mayor also released a report detailing the man’s seven-year history...

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Downtown Anacostia added to streetcar line proposal

The D.C. Department of Transportation is proposing to extend its planned streetcar line in Southeast by about six-tenths of a mile, adding another $20 million to the project and taking the system into historic Anacostia via Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. The demonstration streetcar line linking Bolling Air Force Base, the Navy Annex, Barry Farm and Anacostia will now end after 2 miles at the intersection of Good Hope Road and MLK Avenue, rather than the Anacostia Metro Station. The change balloons the project’s $45 million budget to about $65 million. “It will allow the initial segment to serve a larger population and encourage economic development,” Mayor Adrian Fenty...

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D.C. elections board says it’s ready for mass voter turnout on Tuesday

A couple of flubbed primaries in their rearview mirror, D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics officials said Thursday that they have learned their lessons and are primed for historic turnout. Each of the city’s 143 precincts will have two optical scan voting machines in use Tuesday in addition to one touch screen machine. There will be at least 2,400 trained volunteers at the polls and extra staff from the mayor’s office to handle crowd control. Every precinct’s voter rolls were analyzed to determine whether, for example, last names starting with “S” need their own line. “We are prepared for this election,” elections board Chairman Errol Arthur said...

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D.C. tax breaks abound despite tough economic times

The D.C. government is eyeing tens of millions of dollars worth of tax breaks for the private and nonprofit sectors to help rejuvenate the District’s sputtering economy and enliven up-and-coming neighborhoods. The slate of tax break proposals comes as the District faces a $131 million shortfall in 2009 and $152 million gap in 2010, and some observers expect the numbers to worsen as the stock market crash translates into lower revenues from income and capital gains taxes. “If [the tax breaks] indeed spur development, especially in tough economic times, it’s something we should look very closely at,” Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans, chairman of the finance and revenue...

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Cheh yanks support for Tenleytown project

A plan backed by Mayor Adrian Fenty to build a 174-unit residential tower in Tenleytown with a library underneath has lost the support of two key D.C. Council members and is unlikely to advance. Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh and at-large Councilman Kwame Brown asked Fenty on Wednesday to spike the contentious development proposal from Berwyn, Pa.-based developer LCOR. In order for the project to move forward Fenty needs the council to declare the 3.6-acre site at Wisconsin Avenue and Albemarle Street surplus so it can be turned over to LCOR. “It’s finished,” Cheh said. The LCOR proposal, Cheh and Brown wrote in a letter to the mayor, is “fatally flawed” and...

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Fenty slashes $52M from budget

Faced with a $131 million budget shortfall and a D.C. Council thus far reluctant to act on his gap-closing proposal, Mayor Adrian Fenty on Tuesday leapfrogged lawmakers and slashed agency spending on his own. The $52 million reduction, implemented by executive order, covers only 40 percent of the projected fiscal 2009 shortfall. The council must take legislative action to close the remaining $79 million hole. Fenty was flanked at a midmorning news conference by at-large Councilman David Catania, who offered a budget-cutting proposal of his own: The health committee chairman said he will delay several health initiatives, including the Healthy DC universal insurance program, and sock away...

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D.C. weighs eminent domain east of the Anacostia

The District government is considering whether to use eminent domain to seize and redevelop nearly two dozen properties at three high-profile but long ignored intersections east of the Anacostia River. Legislation introduced by Ward 8 D.C. Councilman Marion Barry targets three “gateway” corners for the possible use of eminent domain: Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and South Capitol Street SW, MLK and Good Hope Road SE, and Minnesota and Pennsylvania avenues SE. It would be “preferable to have the owners cooperate,” Barry has said, but it would also be “shameful” if redevelopment projects are stunted by reticent property owners. “It should be the...

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D.C. shop owner accused of selling stun guns

The 81-year-old proprietor of an “edgy” newsstand two blocks east of the Verizon Center was arrested last week for allegedly retailing dozens of stun guns behind a glass display case. The rap sheet for Walter Francis Riggin, of the 4300 block of 17th Street Northwest, dates back nearly 62 years. His latest: 36 counts of possession of a destructive device after investigators say they found 36 stun guns for sale at the K&B Newsstand, his store at 1004 F St. NW. The stun guns, three of which were of the “cattle prod type,” ranged from 1.9 million to 2.7 million volts. According to charging documents, Riggin’s Penn Quarter shop was visited Oct. 2 by an...

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Pepco cold to easing heating help

Pepco is bucking a proposal to ease the burden of rising electricity prices on its hardest-hit customers during the winter, arguing instead that the government should come up with more money to help residents pay their bills. The D.C. Public Service Commission is considering whether Pepco and Washington Gas should be required to offer crisis payment options for their financially struggling customers during the upcoming winter heating season, in response to the tanking economy and projected increases in electricity and natural gas prices. Washington Gas was the subject of a similar order during the 2005-2006 winter, during which it deferred payment of security deposits for a month, waived...

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Mental health agency targets bankrupt, foreclosed, jobless

The D.C. Department of Mental Health’s most common patients are the indigent, the homeless, the addicted and the offender. But the agency’s latest outreach effort targets an entirely different demographic, one born from hardship: the bankrupt, the jobless and the foreclosed. D.C. Councilman David Catania, chairman of the health committee, said Tuesday that the goal of the “Help for Stressful Economic Times” program is to “reach those individuals who may be suffering from situational depression or situational anxiety.” The stress of stock market volatility, of layoffs and “just a general anxiety that’s been associated with the downturn”...

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Five new communities planned for site of St. E’s east campus

The District hopes to capitalize on 14,000 workers flooding the planned U.S. Department of Homeland Security headquarters in Southeast D.C. by transforming the adjacent St. Elizabeths Hospital east campus into a quintuplet of new communities. D.C. leaders on Wednesday unveiled a 10- to 30-year draft master plan for the 173-acre east campus, which borders Martin Luther King Jr. and Alabama avenues just south of historic Anacostia. The hospital’s 183-acre west campus, currently under the control of the General Services Administration, is the planned home of a consolidated DHS. The success of “St. Elizabeths East” hinges on the 3.8 million-square-foot DHS headquarters and a...

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D.C. Council orders burial of Brookland utility lines

The D.C. Council on Tuesday directed the Fenty administration to bury all utility lines hanging over 12th Street NE between Rhode Island and Michigan avenues in the Brookland neighborhood. Council members adopted emergency legislation ordering that all lines be placed underground as part of the $10.5 million 12th Street streetscape project now under way. The measure also calls for the city to connect the lines to businesses, church and homes, provided that funds are sufficient. The lines are an “eyesore and environmental burden” and forestall tree-planting efforts, said Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas Jr., who represents Brookland. Burying power lines, he said, will help the...

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District selects two developers for Mnnesota Avenue project

The District has selected a pair of developers to lead the construction of a $108 million mixed-use project near the Minnesota Avenue Metro Station, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced Monday. Bethesda-based Donatelli Development and D.C.-based Blue Skye Development will partner to build the first major transit-oriented development east of the Anacostia River, on a 4.8-acre District-owned parcel at the intersection of Minnesota Avenue and Benning Road Northeast. “This team has a great track record for success in terms of delivering neighborhood-transforming development projects at Metro station sites across the city,” Fenty said in a news release. “This project is going to be...

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Nationals Park costs rise, sports commission struggles

It has hosted 2.3 million Major League Baseball fans, Pope Benedict XVI and a sold-out opera simulcast, but Nationals Park still isn’t complete and its cost continues to grow, now approaching $700 million. The ballpark’s budget hit $687.5 million by the end of September, according to a monthly report produced by the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission, which oversaw the construction of the stadium. Thousands of unfinished work items and a final land acquisition bill $50 million over estimates have pushed the stadium’s price tag 11 percent above the oft-quoted $611 million figure. “At this rate it’ll take us 100 years to recoup our money on this...

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3 Minute Interview-McGrath

Jim McGrath, a resident of the Bay State Apartments in Dupont Circle, has been chairman of the D.C. Tenants’ Advocacy Coalition for 15 years. How long have you been a tenant? I’m a tenant, always been a tenant, my whole life a tenant. Why haven’t you bought? I started out in the city as a tenant, it was just convenient. It’s nice to own a piece of the rock but I have so many other things. I have the benefits of rent control and it’s a very big deal. It’s one of the reasons I believe in it so strongly. Have you ever rented from a slumlord? When I was a kid and my family rented in the South End of Boston, we were very poor. We lived in a cold-water...

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New gun laws, same rules for taxicab drivers

It’s impossible to say whether Tekola Bekele, the D.C. cab driver shot to death last week in an apparent carjacking, might have saved himself had he carried a handgun in his taxi. But Bekele had no weapon; D.C. officials say taxi drivers still are barred from keeping a firearm. That legal interpretation stands, they said, even under recently amended laws — adopted in response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned the city’s handgun ban — that allow registrants to keep a firearm in their “place of business.” “The chief [of police] and the District are interpreting the ‘place of business’ to be a fixed location,” Leslie...

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D.C. Council may plan for tough economic times ahead

D.C. Council members took a roundly pessimistic view of the local economy and chastised the Fenty administration’s efforts to close an immediate $131 million shortfall without planning for a potentially larger problem down the road. “It looks like it’s all bad news to me,” Council Chairman Vincent Gray said during a public roundtable Friday on Mayor Adrian Fenty’s plan to bridge the projected 2009 gap. Fenty has proposed slashing $60 million in expenditures, including $4 million from the police department and $1.2 million from the Child and Family Services Agency, to help close the immediate shortfall. The plan also foresees cutting more than 200 vacant...

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D.C. officials gather to celebrate District Building’s centennial

The District Building has seen much in its first 100 years. But most important was the slow transformation from a government run by appointed commissioners to one with a modicum of Home Rule, D.C. leaders said Wednesday as they celebrated the centennial. “It is a dedication to those who built democratic government in the District of Columbia,” said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the city’s nonvoting representative in Congress. “That’s what’s important about this building.” The building opened on July 4, 1908, after six years of construction — at a cost of about $1.5 million — at 1350 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. The center of city government...

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Already No. 1, D.C. to license more taxicab drivers

The D.C. Taxicab Commission next month plans to start registering applicants for hack licensing examinations, three years after the exam’s answers were compromised and the testing halted. The commission has not licensed any new cab operators since 2005, when the driver’s test was abruptly withdrawn after the answers were released to the streets. Roughly 2,000 people have since taken the $375, 60-hour training course at the University of the District of Columbia, but have been unable to get a taxicab license. “We’re doing a disservice, not only to the people who paid their money, but we’re doing a disservice to the entire industry,” Taxicab Commission...

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District putting up $51 million for health care improvements

The District will dole out up to $51 million to the nonprofit community to improve emergency and primary care facilities in D.C.’s highest-need, most chronically health challenged communities. In the latest round of awards from the city’s tobacco settlement funds, the D.C. Department of Health is seeking applicants for $30 million to upgrade and broaden primary care options, and another $21 million to expand emergency care capacity for children. The solicitations, issued last week, are a direct response to the Rand Corp. study, a 196-page report released this summer detailing the District’s troubling health care state and recommending where the city should invest its...

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D.C. may divest from companies with Iranian ties

A D.C. Council plan to divert about $36 million of its pension funds out of foreign corporations that do business with Iran has run into opposition from the office that oversees the city’s massive retirement portfolio. Roughly 1 percent of the D.C. retirement fund’s $3.7 billion in assets is tied up in nearly 20 companies involved in the Iranian oil industry. Legislation offered by at-large Councilman David Catania would require divestiture from companies with at least $20 million invested in the Iranian petroleum sector. The Iranian economy is down, and its government is volatile, mismanaged and corrupt, Catania said during a hearing last week of the council’s Finance...

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D.C. Fire running up overtime overruns

The D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department came up short nearly $1 million in the last fiscal year and faces another $7.5 million gap in fiscal 2009 largely because of overtime costs that the agency is struggling to control. Mayor Adrian Fenty has proposed redirecting $325,000 from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and another $600,000 from the School Modernization Fund to FEMS to cover overtime shortfalls. Officials say school improvement projects will not be cut. FEMS Chief Dan Rubin told a D.C. Council committee Friday that the agency has reduced the number of vacant paramedic/firefighter slots from more than 250 to about 100 in the 18 months he has been in...

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Verizon, D.C. strike deal for eventual FIOS service

Competition is coming to the District’s cable market, albeit slowly. Verizon and D.C.’s Office of Cable Television have struck a deal on a 15-year franchise agreement to bring the telecommunication giant’s FiOS television/high-speed Internet/telephone service to the city for the first time. The contract was presented to the D.C. Council on Tuesday for review. Before FiOS TV service is unleashed on Washington, Verizon must upgrade its network and cables to fiber optic — a process that will take years and require digging. The proposed agreement calls for a phased rollout, with the first neighborhoods in Northwest and Southeast seeing service by 2012 and the next...

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D.C. considering wider access to beer and wine

A bill now before the D.C. Council would turn the District’s liquor laws upside down: Want a beer with lunch? Drink it at the supermarket. Need a six-pack for the game? Pick it up at the neighborhood bar. Legislation introduced Tuesday by at-large Councilman Kwame Brown would allow grocery stores to sell beer and wine for in-store as well as off-site consumption. And vice versa — bars and restaurants could sell wine and beer for their patrons to take home. “Although we have seen our share of high-end retailers in the District of Columbia, their growth has been somewhat limited by license laws which prevent wine stores, grocery stores and other wine outlets from allowing...

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D.C. Council approves fees for rush hour towing

The era of the free rush hour “relocation” tow is nearly over. The D.C. Council on Tuesday tentatively approved legislation establishing a “vehicle conveyance fee,” perhaps as much as $100, for relocating an illegally parked car during the morning or evening rush hours. The still-to-be-established fee would be on top of the $100 ticket that all drivers receive for leaving their cars in designated rush hour lanes between 7 and 9:30 a.m. and 4 and 6:30 p.m. “Our roads become clogged because of the significant amount of illegal parking,” said Ward 1 Councilman Jim Graham, who has oversight of the Department of Public Works and its towing operations....

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Audit: D.C. agency stored sensitive data in hallway

The D.C. agency charged with licensing and investigating alcoholic beverage merchants stored reams of sensitive data in boxes on a hallway floor, leaving personal information of licensees vulnerable to theft, auditors recently discovered. During an on-site review of the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration, an inspector with the Office of the Inspector General observed roughly 100 boxes “stored openly in ABRA hallways.” The information, the inspector wrote in a management alert to the agency, was “vulnerable to unauthorized access and theft.” The boxes contained applicant information, including home addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and the...

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Fenty offers cuts; ‘problem’ could hit $200M

Mayor Adrian Fenty is proposing nearly across-the-board agency cuts, staff reductions and revenue shifts to close a projected $131 million shortfall in fiscal 2009, he told the D.C. Council on Monday. And the fiscal challenges only get tougher, council members learned: “Spending pressures” in agencies’ 2009 budgets could total between $25 million and $60 million, creating “as much as a $200 million problem,” at-large Councilman David Catania told reporters after the closed-door meeting with the mayor. “I want us to be very mindful that the sooner we address a budget issue, the better off we will all be,” Catania said. “The numbers could be...

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More than 200 D.C. residents tested for syphilis for no reason

The D.C. Superior Court continued to require that brides and grooms-to-be turn in blood tests before obtaining a marriage license even after the D.C. Council had eliminated the test from the city’s code. More than 200 people applied for a marriage license with the court’s Marriage Bureau Section in the last month, most obtaining a costly blood test even though the procedure was no longer required by law. The Marriage Amendment Act, which repealed the requirement of a premarital blood test for syphilis and eliminated a long-term ban on the marriage of syphilitics, was effective as of Sept. 11. The Superior Court, spokeswoman Leah Gurowitz said, was under the impression it...

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D.C. voting systems out of date

Dubious voting technology, a mistrust of election management and an expected record turnout may combine to threaten the integrity of the Nov. 4 general election, D.C. leaders and residents said Friday. “We have a system that obviously doesn’t have the bare requisites of a system that’s reliable,” said Ward 3 D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh, who was appointed chair of a special panel to investigate the failures on primary day, Sept. 9. It still is unclear, even after a nine-hour hearing Friday, what caused more than 4,700 uncast votes to show up in an unofficial results report handed to the public on primary night by the Board of Elections and Ethics. Executives with...

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Fenty presents anti-crime omnibus bill

Mayor Adrian Fenty on Friday urged the D.C. Council to take up anti-crime legislation at the same time it considers new gun laws and broad legislation to tackle gangs, firearms, domestic violence, witness tampering, DNA collection and blood testing. “This legislation reflects my strong commitment to keep guns out of the hands of repeat felony offenders even as the District works to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision,” Fenty said in a statement. But forcing the 35-page omnibus bill through the council within this legislative session is improbable, said Councilman Phil Mendelson, chairman of the Public Safety and Judiciary Committee. Mendelson’s panel last...

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Auditor rips ex-head of D.C. property tax board

The chairman of the District’s property tax appeals board led without competence, ignored regulations and accepted ethically questionable campaign donations from people whose appeals were before him, a city auditor charged in a blunt public rebuke. D.C. Auditor Deborah Nichols blasted Paul Strauss, a real estate lawyer whose term as head of the Board of Real Property Assessments and Appeals ended last month, for providing “dubious levels of service to residents and businesses.” His failed leadership, Nichols concluded in an audit released Thursday, jeopardized the integrity of the board “and diminish[ed] public trust and confidence” in the board’s...

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D.C. Councilman calls for wider access to gun stores

The D.C. Zoning Commission this week directed the District’s Planning Office to re-examine proposed rules governing new gun stores after a D.C. Council member called for more retailers and less restriction. In testimony before the commission Monday, at-large Councilman Phil Mendelson suggested rules that sanction, even welcome, secure gun stores in most medium- and high-density D.C. neighborhoods. Emergency regulations proposed by the Office of Planning and adopted by the commission in July were “unduly restrictive,” Mendelson said, and they “invite challenge either in the courts or, more likely, by Congress.” “In short, we do not want to limit gun...

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District fires two whistle-blowers

Two employees of the District’s Office of Unified Communications who testified before a D.C. Council panel that their agency is poorly managed and undermanned were fired last month for alleged insubordination and excessive unapproved absences. Alexandria Jones and Yolanda Geter said they both feared retribution when they twice told the council’s public safety committee that the communications office was understaffed and that the switch to a 911-311 system would endanger the public. Asked by the council in January whether the employees would suffer retaliation, Janice Quintana, the office’s director, responded, “Absolutely not.” Both Jones and Geter have since...

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Staff moving into Capitol Visitor Center

The $621 million Capitol Visitor Center has earned a provisional certificate of occupancy and is on target to open in December after years of delays and cost overruns, observers said last week. Construction on the massive underground facility is “essentially complete,” Terrell Dorn, director of physical infrastructure issues with the Government Accountability Office, told a U.S. House panel. The fire marshal finished testing the fire alarm system and issued a temporary certificate of occupancy in July, Dorn said, and the architect of the Capitol “expects to have the project ready for opening on Dec. 2, 2008, as scheduled.” The center’s projected price tag...

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D.C. gun bill appears done for session

The U.S. Senate essentially closed the door on the D.C. gun rights bill when a handful of members objected to the measure, forcing it into a legislative process it likely can’t survive before the chamber adjourns this week. The bill, which passed the House on Sept. 17 by a 266 to 152 vote, would wipe out D.C.’s ban on semiautomatic weapons, its registration procedures, and laws barring District residents from buying handguns in Maryland and Virginia. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, on Thursday asked for unanimous consent to bring the bill to the Senate floor. But 12 Democrats objected. “To come here and say that we are going to write the D.C. gun law, we are going...

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Council demands more details in D.C. schools plan

The D.C. Council on Thursday threatened to reject or stall Mayor Adrian Fenty’s $2.5 billion school modernization plan unless the council is provided more detail and the community is afforded more opportunity to participate. Council Chairman Vincent Gray described the 10-year Master Facilities Plan for the D.C. Public Schools, released this month, as “more of a concept than a plan.” Whether it is approved, Gray said, “is in the administration’s court. ...” “After years of delay in getting a sound plan, we can either move forward readily, or we can limp along, spending only what is necessary to finish what has been started and to respond to urgent...

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Audit: D.C. boiler inspections lacking, leaving public at risk

A D.C. government agency has failed to inspect and certify thousands of boilers in District buildings, a city auditor recently found, raising the risk of explosions and other perils that already draw fire response about once every six days. The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, which is required by law to inspect every boiler in the city every year, is understaffed, overwhelmed by a massive backlog and has certified as safe some commercial boilers with problems such as leaking valves, the D.C. inspector general reported in a management alert issued last month. “Boilers that have not been inspected properly and timely and certified as safe to operate have the potential...

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District leaders eyeing $131M budget shortfall

D.C. leaders on Wednesday described a projected $131 million budget deficit as “manageable,” while cautioning residents to prepare for spending cuts and additional swings in the stock market that could deliver more financial punishment. Officials said everything is on the table to bridge the fiscal 2009 budget gap, which equals about 2.5 percent of the District’s $5.6 billion local funds budget. But there was a general reluctance to raise taxes and a sense that the $130.7 million shortfall could be closed without dire consequences. “It’s a significant amount, but in our budget it’s a manageable amount,” said Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans, chairman...

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Bill targets lead-based paint threat

The District is once again trying to crack down on the lead-based paint threat in D.C. homes and rental units, 30 years after the harmful building material was first outlawed. Legislation introduced by Ward 1 D.C. Councilman Jim Graham attempts to resolve lead threats before children are exposed to deteriorating paint or airborne dust particles. Current law demands abatement only after a child under 6 is found to have elevated blood lead levels, which may be too late to prevent learning disabilities, stunted growth and impaired hearing, among other issues tied to lead poisoning. “We should no longer be using our children as lead detectors,” said Graham, who will host a hearing...

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3 Minute Interview-Mathis

Sommer Mathis, 28, is editor-in-chief of the popular local blog DCist.com and a resident of Shaw. What sparked your interest in local issues? I moved here about three and a half years ago not being very familiar with the city at all and not knowing hardly anyone. I got involved in writing for DCist to get to know the city better, and the more I found out, the more I wanted to know. I guess I’m just the kind of person who wants to know what’s going on. Is there a great interest among the populace in local news? I think there are a lot of people who move to D.C. for work and they may or may not develop an interest in the city. There’s all those clichés about this...

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Fenty eases increases for ambulance fees

Mayor Adrian Fenty has pulled back the severest of his proposed ambulance fee increases, issuing new charges that are much more in line with surrounding jurisdictions while limiting bills for uninsured residents. Under the new fee structure, which must be approved by the D.C. Council, charges for emergency transportation will range from $428 for basic life support to $508 for advanced life support and $735 for advanced life support, level 2. There also would be a fee of $6.55 per mile traveled. Current fees, stagnant since 2003, start at $268 and go as high as $471. The charges are mostly paid by health insurers. “We’re going to adopt a pretty common policy not to shake down...

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Legislation attempts to solve church parking issues

Proponents hope legislation now before the D.C. Council will finally end the weekly friction between Sunday churchgoers and District residents over neighborhood parking. But is it really the silver bullet? Probably not, observers say. Under the bill, introduced last week by Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas, churches would develop neighborhood-centric parking plans allocating diagonal residential spaces to parishioners. The key to the proposal, Thomas said: The plans must be approved by the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission and be the subject of a supporting petition circulated in the community. “We hope this can be a model for not just the traffic patterns we have on Sundays...

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D.C. to enact $2 cigarette tax

D.C. will soon join Maryland with a $2 sales tax, the sixth-highest rate in the country, on every pack of cigarettes, generating as much as $12.5 million more for city coffers. The $2 tax, double the current charge, will take effect Oct. 1. The District’s rate is still puny compared with other large jurisdictions, such as New York City, which levies $2.75 per pack on top of New York state’s $1.50 per pack. But it far eclipses Virginia, home to Philip Morris, which charges 30 cents per pack. Cigarette tax revenues were up 5.9 percent in D.C. through the first seven months of the year compared to the same period in 2007, despite a near 2-year-old smoking ban and an aggressive...

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D.C. lottery manager hit with $1.4 million fine

The District’s lottery vendor was directed this week to pay D.C. more than $1.4 million in damages stemming from a 2006 incident in which contract employees manipulated the gaming system to invent thousands of fake tickets. The order against Lottery Technology Enterprises and its partner GTECH was issued Wednesday, a day after Mayor Adrian Fenty resubmitted to the D.C. Council a proposed $120 million, long-term deal with rival lottery firm W2I. The deal with W2I, a partnership of D.C.-based W2Tech and Greek firm Intralot, was tabled once and withdrawn twice before the council adjourned for summer recess. Fenty had promised to offer it again upon the council’s return,...

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Summer jobs program planning was ‘haphazard’

Unjustified sole source contracts, unwarranted exorbitant pay, failed data systems and meager planning transformed the D.C. summer jobs programs from a well-intentioned initiative to a $52 million catastrophe, investigators told a D.C. Council committee Thursday. Both D.C. Inspector General Charles Willoughby and D.C. Auditor Deborah Nichols laid out their preliminary findings with regard to Mayor Adrian Fenty’s Summer Youth Employment Program, which ran over its original $14.5 million budget by about $37 million. “I was continually assured that the Department of Employment Services had it all covered,” said at-large Councilwoman Carol Schwartz, chairwoman of the...

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House bill would gut D.C. gun laws

The U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday approved a measure that would allow D.C. residents to arm themselves with semiautomatic weapons in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down the city’s handgun ban. The move came hours after the D.C. Council attempted to avoid congressional action by lifting the District’s ban on semiautomatic weapons. But the House bill was more aggressive, as conservative members signaled they had little faith in D.C. to comply with the landmark high court ruling handed down in June. “Now they are trying to come forward and say just last night, I believe, that they were going to change the law again and that congressional...

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D.C. summer jobs payroll hits $31M

Final paychecks issued last week for D.C.’s summer youth jobs program brought the total salaries doled out during over 12 weeks to more than $31 million, nearly twice the original budget for the entire employment initiative. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s Summer Youth Employment Program wrapped up Sept. 12 after months of heavy fire from critics for cost overruns and mismanagement. Total payout for the summer, in salary alone, was $31.14 million, according to figures provided by the Office of the Chief Financial Officer. Contracts with vendors cost at least another $10 million. The program, initially budgeted for $14.5 million and 15,000 participants, ended up serving nearly 20,000...

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Council forces shelter to remain open

The downtown Franklin School homeless shelter must remain open until Mayor Adrian Fenty demonstrates that every man staying there has been placed in safe and humane housing, the D.C. Council decided Tuesday. The historic Franklin School at 13th and K streets NW has served as a 300-bed emergency men’s shelter since 2002. Fenty announced earlier this year that he would shutter the shelter Oct. 1. The administration started moving people out this summer, reducing the number of beds by roughly 70 in a matter of weeks. The council voted unanimously Tuesday to require that the shelter remain open until Fenty proves, in writing, that no fewer than 300 homeless men are moved into...

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CareFirst says D.C. bill to seize revenue ‘unwise’

A D.C. Council effort to seize a percentage of CareFirst’s excess revenue for community benefit is “misguided,” unfair, unwise and will lead to higher health care costs, the health insurer said Tuesday. “Quite simply, enough is enough,” said the Owings Mills corporation, which has 3.3 million area members. “CareFirst’s National Capital Area affiliate, while a not-for-profit, nevertheless paid $88 million in taxes in federal income and District premium taxes last year. CareFirst pays its share — and then some.” Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh, backed by 11 of her colleagues, introduced legislation Tuesday that would require the mayor to...

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Council eases D.C. gun laws

The D.C. Council adopted emergency legislation Wednesday allowing residents to register semiautomatic handguns and keep the weapons unlocked and loaded in their homes and businesses. The U.S. House of Representatives, meanwhile, was poised to pass National Rifle Association — and White House-backed legislation that would essentially wipe out the District’s firearm laws, to the dismay of D.C. leaders. “There’s every reason to think we’re moving in the direction of responsible solutions to this,” Council Chairman Vincent Gray said. “We have the capability to make responsible decisions, and we should be allowed to do so.” Wholesale changes to...

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D.C. considers drawing down CareFirst’s surplus

CareFirst of D.C. would be compelled to surrender a percentage of its burgeoning revenues for the community’s benefit or risk no rate increases for a year under legislation to be considered by the D.C. Council. Chartered by Congress in 1939 as a “charitable and benevolent institution,” the Maryland-based nonprofit health insurer and its D.C. affiliate, Group Hospitalization and Medical Services Inc., are under fire from critics who say they dedicate few dollars to charitable care — despite collecting roughly $2 billion a year in premiums and sitting on a $754 million surplus. Those critics are now attempting to force the money from CareFirst’s deep...

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Washington Gas: Agency order threatens public safety

A D.C. Public Service Commission order directing Washington Gas to act on all natural gas-related complaints within 50 minutes threatens public safety by spreading the utility’s resources dangerously thin, the company said last week. The commission, which regulates D.C.’s public utilities, implemented the rules last month “to ensure the quality and reliability of natural gas service.” But Washington Gas argued last week in a filing with the commission that the directive may put the public at risk and should be overturned. “Even if the Company adds resources, the Commission, by expanding the number of calls the Company has to respond to in 50 minutes, could...

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CSX to pay D.C. more than $650,000 for 2007 coal train derailment

The Anacostia River, 11 months after a CSX Corp. freight train derailment sent six coal-loaded cars plunging into the waterway, “has been returned to the condition it was,” a top D.C. official said. That’s not saying much, acknowledged George Hawkins, director of the Department of the Environment. But the polluted river may still benefit, thanks to a $660,000 settlement between CSX and the District. Under a consent decree signed Sept. 4, CSX will pay the District $50,000 for “alleged violations,” $60,561.79 to reimburse the city for its emergency response, $50,000 to restore the natural resources damaged by the derailment, and $500,000 to create an...

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Probe launched into D.C. ballot debacle

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty on Wednesday promised a full investigation by the District’s attorney general into the publication of thousands of inexplicable write-in votes that muddled ballot counting following Tuesday’s primary. The latest breakdown for the Board of Elections and Ethics comes less than 60 days before the Nov. 4 presidential election, when D.C officials expect record turnout. The elections board, said Ward 2 D.C. Councilman Jack Evans, “needs to get its act together.” “They’re going to have more [people voting] than ever in the history of this city and it’s a big deal,” Evans said. “This is the real deal. You’re going...

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After defeating Schwartz, Mara becomes underdog again

Fresh from his sound defeat of D.C. Councilwoman Carol Schwartz in Tuesday’s Republican primary, Patrick Mara fell right back to the role of underdog — a position familiar to District Republicans. The 33-year-old Mara, a newcomer to campaigns, dubbed his upset over the four-term incumbent as a “political earthquake,” but now reality sets in: Democrats will comprise 74 percent of the city’s electorate to the GOP’s seven percent in the General Election. “I’ll continue this message of fiscal responsibility and supporting and enhancing reform of the school,” Mara, a government relations manager and Columbia Heights resident, said...

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U.S. House panel passes bill to update D.C. gun law

A U.S. House panel on Wednesday approved legislation requiring the D.C. government to establish gun laws that comply with the Supreme Court’s decision striking down the District’s handgun ban. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the bill “respects the right of the District to write its own gun laws.” The measure was introduced by D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton. The panel’s 21-1 vote may be for naught: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly struck a deal with conservative Democrats to replace the language of Norton’s bill with that of a National Rifle Association-backed measure. That measure...

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D.C. gun laws in Congress’ sights

A U.S. House committee is expected to consider legislation today that would wipe out the District’s gun laws and strip the city of its authority to regulate the firearms beyond what federal law allows. The legislation, a bipartisan submission backed by nearly 50 Democrats and strongly endorsed by the National Rifle Association, would repeal the District’s ban on semiautomatic weapons, prohibit the city from setting rules that “unduly burden” the possession or use of a firearm, abolish D.C.’s registration requirements, and allow residents to purchase weapons in Maryland or Virginia. Conservative Mississippi Democrat Travis Childers introduced the bill less...

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Schwartz falls to Mara

Four-term councilwoman is first incumbent to lose in the District since 2004 D.C. Councilwoman Carol Schwartz lost her Republican primary fight Tuesday to a well-funded 33-year-old political upstart who successfully framed the long-time, at-large incumbent as a Democrat in GOP clothing. Patrick Mara foiled Schwartz’s try for a fifth term with the support of big business, the help of politically connected GOP leaders and the drive to knock on more than 8,000 Republican doors. Based on preliminary results from 134 of 143 precincts, Mara won 45 percent of the vote to Schwartz’s 36 percent. There were some questions about the early totals, however, including whether or not the...

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Homeless fight impending Franklin shelter closure

D.C.’s homeless are planning a three-week protest to save a busy downtown shelter, which Mayor Adrian Fenty intends to shutter on Oct. 1. About 50 homeless people and activists rallied Monday in Franklin Square, across 13th Street NW from the Franklin School, calling on Fenty to keep the 235-bed men’s shelter open until another downtown facility is established. Franklin’s regulars, they said, are being diverted to alternative shelters miles from the social services they currently receive downtown. “They don’t want to go way out in the boondocks,” said Eric Sheptock, a three-year Franklin resident. “These guys don’t want to get stuck out...

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D.C. Council's lone Republican in tough fight for re-election

Carol Schwartz is fighting for her political life. Despite earning four terms in office, often in cakewalks, the D.C. Council’s lone Republican concedes she is not assured of victory in Tuesday’s GOP primary against upstart Patrick Mara. “I can’t stand candidates who say, ‘And when we win,’ ” Schwartz said Friday. “I don’t like to be presumptuous. And no, I’m never confident I‘m going to win. It goes against my view that none of us win until the voters vote.” In a city of only 29,622 registered Republicans, Mara, 33, claims to have knocked on more than 5,000 doors. The Columbia Heights resident, a government...

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D.C. Public Schools enrollment shows 17 percent drop-off

D.C. Public Schools have experienced a sharp drop in enrollment so far this year, continuing a steep, decade-long decline in the number of children in the city’s school system. In the days before the school year started, Mayor Adrian Fenty predicted DCPS would serve “close to 50,000 students” in 2008-2009. Dena Iverson, schools spokeswoman, said as of Tuesday only 42,964 students were registered to attend classes — 7,200 fewer than last year’s final count. That meant there were 17 percent fewer students in school last week than the last day of the 2007-2008 school year. “We expect the number to increase as all of the students complete their...

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Bad weather causes traffic delays around District

Heavy rains, gusty winds and poor visibility led Maryland transportation officials Friday to back off the regular switch to two-way traffic on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, a move that was expected to cause extended delays during the evening rush hour. The Washington region was whipped by high winds and heavy rains Friday, inclement weather that was expected to linger into Saturday evening. As of 5:30 p.m. Friday, Reagan National Airport had recorded 1.31 inches of rain for the day, with winds averaging nearly 18 mph. The weather slowed traffic on virtually every major highway regionwide, but especially on southbound Interstate 95 between Springfield and Fredericksburg. The brunt of the...

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Lanier’s role in newspaper campaign ad the subject of federal investigation

A federal agency has started an investigation into District Police Chief Cathy Lanier’s role in a newspaper advertisement championing the re-election of a D.C. Council member. The full-page campaign ad for Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans, featuring a photo of the four-term councilman and a fully uniformed Lanier posing in Evans’ City Hall office, appeared in a mid-August edition of the Dupont Current. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which investigates violations of the Hatch Act, is looking into Lanier’s involvement, agency spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Thursday. The Hatch Act prohibits D.C. government employees — but not council members — from engaging...

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Evans, Silverman begin facing off in Ward 2 race

Jack Evans understands what ended the political careers of past D.C. Council incumbents like Harold Brazil and Charlene Drew Jarvis, both of whom were knocked off in primaries: They got lazy. “I’m taking this campaign very seriously,” said Evans, a 17-year Ward 2 councilman and resident of Georgetown. “It’s very easy when you’ve been around as long as I have to be complacent.” Evans faces Cary Silverman, a resident of Mount Vernon Square, in Tuesday’s Democratic primary. “I don’t think we’ve had someone who’s been a real hands-on, neighborhood-focused council member for the last couple years and that’s what...

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New jail discussed for Hill East

Top District officials are thrashing out whether to build a new D.C. Jail on prime Anacostia waterfront real estate in the soon-to-be-redeveloped Hill East community, The Examiner has learned. Discussions of a new prison focus on the site of a former psychiatric treatment center, called Building 25, on the grounds of the Hill East tract known as Reservation 13. The expansive 67-acre reservation, the planned site of a massive mixed-use project just south of RFK Stadium, comprises a patchwork of buildings including the existing D.C. Jail and the former D.C. General Hospital. The adopted Reservation 13 master plan features an extended Massachusetts Avenue Southeast running past the current...

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Proposed gas station fuels fight near H Street

Neighbors of a proposed Shell gas station on the north end of the H Street Northeast corridor have launched a campaign to stop the project, which they say is wholly unfit for a community undergoing resurrection. On one side of 1400 Maryland Avenue, a block south of H Street, is a Checkers, the doors of which have been boarded up since a sport utility vehicle barreled through them in May. Across the street is the site of Springfield-based DAG Petroleum’s proposed Shell station and convenience store, on a parcel that once housed a used-car lot. “That’s the gateway to the neighborhood, to H Street” said Bill Schultheiss, who represents the area on the local Advisory...

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Power outages spur calls for investigation

The D.C. Council member with oversight of utility issues this week urged the D.C. Public Service Commission to investigate a rash of power outages and to perhaps sanction Pepco if it fails to make improvements. Pepco must be directed to explain the specific causes of its power problems and its strategy for preventing outages in the future, Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh, chairwoman of the Committee on Public Services and Consumer Affairs, wrote in an Aug. 25 letter to utility regulators. The commission should order Pepco to take corrective actions, she said, and “consider sanctions” if it fails to comply. “I regularly receive complaints from residents within Ward 3 and...

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In D.C., some kids crossing at their own risk

Crosswalks outside some D.C. Public Schools are not being monitored by crossing guards, city officials said Thursday, and the District won’t be able to broaden the program until October due to a lack of funding. It is unclear how many schools, or specifically which schools, do not have crossing guards. The crossing guard program has 149 part-time employees to cover 123 school buildings, said Karyn LeBlanc, spokeswoman for the D.C. Department of Transportation. “There are schools where there are no crossing guards,” LeBlanc said. “We are definitely looking to expand.” D.C. Councilman Phil Mendelson wrote letters this week to both Mayor Adrian Fenty and DDOT...

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Union bashes Fenty as anti-worker

D.C.’s union bosses shifted their fight with Mayor Adrian Fenty to the Democratic National Convention, slamming the District’s chief executive as an anti-labor leader who ignores the plight of workers. Full-color fliers being handed out in Denver condemn the “image-conscious Fenty” as a “budget-shattering, union-busting, promise-breaking political boss whose poor performance and bad management are costing DC taxpayers millions of dollars.” The Metropolitan Washington Council AFL-CIO also chided the mayor for the “badly bungled” summer jobs program and castigated his administration for ignoring unions, the D.C. Council and community groups in...

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More purged from DC summer jobs payroll

The D.C. government has cut a couple thousand more youths from the summer jobs program ahead of the fifth pay period, reducing enrollment to fewer than 16,500 but still pushing the budget to the limit. At the end of the week 16,480 individuals between the ages of 14 and 21 will be paid for their participation in the troubled Summer Youth Employment Program, said Mayor Adrian Fenty Tuesday. That is roughly 1,800 fewer than two weeks ago, reducing payroll by about $700,000. The vast majority, more than 14,000, will receive full pay whether or not they worked the hours, and the rest half pay. The current figure, Fenty said, “is as real a number as humanly possible.” The...

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Subsidized health care company owes city $1mil in taxes

The company given a $30 million D.C. government subsidy to buy Greater Southeast Community Hospital owes the city more than $1 million in unpaid property taxes racked up at the medical center formerly known as Hadley Memorial. The city’s Office of Tax and Revenue is threatening to auction the lien on Specialty Hospital of Washington-Hadley if its owner doesn’t pay up on the major-league tax bill by mid-September. New Hampshire-based Specialty owns United Medical Center, formerly known as Greater Southeast, in addition to Hadley and a third hospital on Capitol Hill. An attorney for Specialty said Monday his client didn’t learn about the debt until March — 15 months...

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DC schools open with few glitches

An estimated 50,000 D.C. Public School students returned to class Monday, many to renovated facilities, unfamiliar territory, new administrators and new models for learning. The troubled school system and its decrepit facilities have undergone drastic changes since June. Rhee hired 46 new principals and assistant principals, 103 new literacy coaches and 62 new math coaches. Every school, she said, is staffed with at least one art, music and physical education teacher and one librarian. Many schools now feature staffing plans targeted to their student populations — some keyed on academics, some on behavior and wellness and others on arts enrichment. There were 50 excess teachers as...

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Welcome back, DC public schools

Mayor Adrian Fenty and his chief education aides on Friday said all 134 D.C. Public Schools will be fully staffed and completely supplied as 4,000 teachers and 50,000 students arrive today for the first day of classes. The return of students closes an often chaotic summer for Fenty, his facilities team and DCPS administration. It also marks the second school opening with Fenty at the helm of DCPS and its $800 million budget. Some 70 school buildings underwent nearly $200 million in renovations since June, led by Allen Lew, executive director of the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization. Twenty-three schools were closed and 26 buildings were reconfigured to accept thousands...

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D.C. weighing options as plan for energy auction may falter

The District’s scheme to reduce residents’ electricity bills through a competitive auction is teetering on failure due to a lack of interest or a lack of awareness. The idea behind D.C.’s Municipal Aggregation Program was to amass the buying power of as many residents as possible, solicit bids from alternative energy suppliers and secure cheaper electricity rates than those offered by default provider Pepco. But fewer than 600 residents and small businesses signed up with the D.C. Department of the Environment by the Aug. 1 deadline, city officials said, thousands fewer than the government had hoped for. The District will solicit bids nevertheless, though expectations of...

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D.C. plans course of green building

D.C. officials hope to give District students and construction workers in training a leg up for future job openings with a new curriculum that addresses environmental trends in the exploding green building industry. The course is a primer on green building - the effort to design, build and operate facilities that use less energy and place less strain on the environment than traditional practices. It is geared, officials said, to the future “lunch bucket” construction worker who will need at the very least a basic understanding of environmentally friendly construction practices. “We are going to go beyond just teaching young people a trade,” Mayor Adrian Fenty said...

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Harvard, D.C. team up for cash reward program for students

Thousands of D.C. middle school students will be paid up to $100 every two weeks for attending school, staying out of trouble and getting good grades under a new program meant to inspire achievement with cash. About 3,000 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders from 14 of the District’s 28 middle schools will participate in what officials are calling “Capital Gains,” an alliance between D.C. Public Schools and Harvard University’s American Inequality Lab. Participating students, most no older than 13, will be rewarded simply for showing up, behaving in class and demonstrating academic gains, Mayor Adrian Fenty said Thursday during a news conference outside...

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Fenty, Gray offer different pictures of school progress

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty on Wednesday sought to lower expectations that all summer public school repairs would be finished in time for the return of students next week, arguing people would rather see work in progress than no work at all. Every D.C. public school will open on time Monday even as renovations continue, Fenty said during a news conference outside Cardozo High School. What most upsets people, he said, is “when nothing happens, when you walk into the school and it looks exactly as it did ... from when you left in the spring.” “When you come in and see work’s being done, and work in progress, I think that people have faith that people care, that change...

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Philadelphia demands that D.C. retract audit

Philadelphia officials this week demanded that D.C. Inspector General Charles Willoughby retract an audit that accuses a former District planning director, now a deputy mayor in Philadelphia, of an ethics violation. The District’s IG concluded in a July 31 report that Andrew Altman, former chief of the now-defunct , violated rules in 2005 when he signed a contract for real estate management services with a firm that had used him as a reference in its bid, and included a partner who was said to have formerly worked under Altman. Altman, who led the public development outfit for 10 months in 2005 and previously directed the D.C. Office of Planning, is now the deputy mayor for planning...

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Off-campus slums ignite campaign

The D.C. government hopes to deter thousands of college students from getting tangled up with slumlords and locked into leases for rat-infested firetraps with a new campaign launched as the fall semester is about to begin. At thisshouldbeillegal.com, visitors are linked to listings of licensed landlords, inspection request forms, complaint forms and fire safety tips. The Web site, an initiative of the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, also has a Facebook page and a Twitter feed — both popular social networking tools. The agency, which licenses landlords and inspects rental properties, expects more than 10,000 students at various schools to live off campus during the...

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Rent control boss departs, leaving tenant groups up in arms

The sudden departure of the D.C. administrator charged with resolving rent control disputes has tenant advocates accusing the District of appeasing well-heeled landlords who frowned upon her pro-tenant stance. Angelita Colón-Francia, spokeswoman with the Department of Housing and Community Development, would only say that D.C. Rent Administrator Grayce Wiggins is no longer with the District government. She declined to explain further, citing personnel rules. Tenant advocates, however, contend Wiggins was dismissed for her vehement stand against an agreement between tenants of the Kennedy-Warren apartments in Northwest and the property’s landlord, Bethesda-based B.F. Saul...

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Lanier’s image in Evans ad might spark probe

A full-page campaign ad for D.C. Councilman Jack Evans featuring Police Chief Cathy Lanier in uniform has been referred to federal authorities who will determine whether the city’s top cop violated a government law. Evans’ full-color re-election ad, titled “Working Together for Ward 2,” appeared in last week’s Dupont Current. Beneath a photo of the four-term councilman and Lanier, both posing and grinning in a City Hall office, is a bulleted list of reasons why Evans deserves another term in office. At no point does the ad mention Lanier, or even the Metropolitan Police Department. But did Lanier’s photo alone violate the Hatch Act, a federal law that...

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Fenty survives summer jobs debacle

Twice this week D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty said he bore full responsibility for the total collapse of the Summer Youth Employment Program. At the same time, he forced the resignation of Summer Spencer, director of the Department of Employment Services, and promised additional “management decisions” in the wake of the meltdown. “In this case, as has been the case in previous administration failures, the mayor is faithful to the old naval tradition that, when there is a disaster at sea, the captain designates a subordinate to go down with his ship,” Gary Imhoff, co-founder of D.C. Watch, wrote in Thursday’s edition of his watchdog organization’s online...

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The 3-minute interview: Kathy Cox

Kathy Cox is executive director of the Friends of Fort Dupont Ice Arena Inc., the nonprofit group that operates the District of Columbia’s only year-round ice skating rink. About this time of year, the rink, on Ely Place Southeast on National Park Service property, gets crowded with hockey, speed skating, public skating and the Kids on Ice community program.Is this the rink’s busiest time of year?It is, primarily because we’re in the thick of both hockey and speed-skating season. They both skate from September through February.Is D.C. Public Schools......

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The 3-minute interview: John B. Townsend II

John B. Townsend II has been the oft-quoted spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic since October 2004.Do you remember the first press release you wrote?There were the perennials. One of the first releases I did was deer/vehicle collisions, then winterizing your car. The big issue then was a spate of teen driving fatalities, especially in Maryland.What kind of car do you own?A Ford 500, my first six-cylinder. Every car I’ve owned previously, it was......

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The 3-minute interview: Joe Madison

Joe Madison, aka "The Black Eagle," continues to host his morning radio show on Radio One’s WOL-AM. Outspoken activist, NAACP champion and resident of D.C.’s Ward 8, the 58-year-old Madison has a nationwide following — his show is simulcast on Channel 169 The Power on XM. What are your thoughts on Continued...

 

The 3-minute interview: Cary Reines

Cary Reines is the executive vice president of Mason-Dixon Funding, an independent mortgage banking company based in Rockville.What’s your take on the mortgage crisis?Mason-Dixon, like every other mortgage company, has felt the impact of the last six months. I’ve been in the business for 30 years. I think we all know that the industry has its ups and downs and is subject to business cycles. This has been different. This is......

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The 3-minute interview: Terrie Rouse

Terrie Rouse is CEO for visitor services for the 580,000-square-foot Capitol Visitor Center, the $680 million underground gateway to the U.S. Capitol that is expected to open to the public later this year. She previously was with Kansas City’s Union Station, serving as the executive vice president and director of museums.This is quite a change from running Kansas City’s Union Station.A little different from Kansas. I’ve spent a good deal of my 29 years in the museum field, and I’ve developed an unusual skill set of being able to do......

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The 3-minute interview: Penny Fletcher

Penny Fletcher is the president and chief executive officer of the Lupus Foundation of America, Greater Washington Chapter, lupusgw.org.How did you get involved with the Lupus Foundation?My mother had lupus and so I was really inspired to find out more. And it’s become even more of a cause than it used to be. My mother had lupus for many years. What I......

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The 3-minute interview: Gen. Robert Magnus

Gen. Robert Magnus, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, has run in the Marine Corps Marathon, among other endurance races, regularly since 1984. The well-decorated general, 60, will run the People’s Marathon again Sunday — and start the race with Mayor Adrian Fenty — this time with a steel plate and eight screws protecting his right ankle, which he broke three weeks before last year’s race.Why did you start running?We get to run whether you like it or not in the Marine Corps. So you get to like running, but......

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The 3-minute interview: Jason Beard

Jason Beard, 29, is a Shaw resident and creator of treeboxvodka.com, a neighborhood-based blog. What is Treebox Vodka?It’s a blog that I started last year, basically to document and criticize all the trash in the Shaw neighborhood of D.C. That was essentially it, telling stories, little cleanups here and there, and finding funny trash along the way. There’s all sorts of stuff on the streets.How did you come up with......

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The 3-minute interview: Ken Walsh

Ken Walsh, 35, will assume the presidency of the Rotary Club of Capitol Hill on July 1.What do you do for a living?I am with a group called Partner Concepts, in the travel and tourism field. We develop marketing programs for international destinations and airlines, anyone looking to promote travel and tourism in the United States.Are higher fuel prices affecting your business?In the......

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The 3-minute interview: David Mallof

David Mallof, 51, a 25-year resident of the Dupont Circle area and a telecommunications consultant, has taken up a cause: to reverse the D.C. Council’s decision to declare public property on the city’s West End, including a fire station and a library, as surplus. The controversial move has stirred emotions on the West End; residents are still fuming that they had little opportunity to comment before the emergency resolution passed.Why have you taken up this issue?D.C. is my home. I’m proud of it and I care about the conduct and......

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The 3-minute interview: Walter Smith

Walter Smith is the executive director of D.C. Appleseed, an advocacy organization working to solve policy problems affecting District residents. Most recently, it released a 200-page report on the D.C. government’s child support system, which, after two years of research, it found to be dysfunctional.How does a broken child support system affect student achievement and school improvement?The one thing the District is not doing well is its child support program, and there’s a direct connection between parental support and a child’s ability to succeed in school. Over 65 percent of......

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The 3-minute interview: Dr. Clive Callender

Dr. Clive Callender is founder and director of Howard University Hospital’s transplant center and former chairman of the facility’s Department of Surgery. How long have you been a doctor?Since 1963, graduated from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn. When I was 7, I wanted to......

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The 3-minute interview: Tom Davis

Tom Davis, 26, is the entertainment coordinator for the Washington Nationals.What exactly do you do?I take care of a lot of the entertainment aspects of the game, such as booking national anthem talent, coordinating and booking the ceremonial first pitch, color guards, ceremonial flyovers. I manage the Nat Pack and Screech. Anything entertainmentwise that’s not the baseball game.What do you......

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Three Minute Interview: Joel Lawson

Joel Lawson, 42, is the newly elected president of the Dupont Circle Citizens Association.How long have you lived in Dupont?Since 1991. I’m in the 1400 block of Swann Street. You could say east Dupont. Some people call in Borderstan. What attracted you to the neighborhood?I moved to Northern Virginia in 1989, then......

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Fenty issues mea culpa for jobs program disaster

Mayor Adrian Fenty on Tuesday said he bore full responsibility for the chaos and mismanagement in D.C.’s summer jobs program, while forcing out the agency chief in charge and ordering nearly 5,000 youth removed from the payroll. The Summer Youth Employment Program has sparked rare havoc for the Fenty administration. Paying more than 21,000 youths to work, including many who never did any work, the program could cost the city $31 million more than it budgeted. The total will top $50 million, including $20 million from emergency reserves. “I’m personally at fault for the management issues we are announcing today,” Fenty, still jet-lagged from his trip to Beijing,...

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School reaps $3.65M in equipment after city drops TV studio plan

The District has scrapped plans to build a high-definition television studio that it could rent to commercial production companies, but not before spending more than $4 million to design and equip the state-of-the-art space. Rather than constructing a high-definition facility and offering it to the private sector for a fee, D.C. will instead use its $3.65 million worth of HD equipment to train high school students and create “the best municipal cable programming and services possible,” said Eric Richardson, director of the Office of Cable Television. The agency, Richardson said, is not in the business of making a profit. “We just don’t want to move in that...

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Cost of Fenty's 'bullpen' nears $1 million

The walls of the D.C. government continue to come down — literally. The District will pay another $657,000 to create "open-style" office space in the Reeves Center at 14th and U streets, putting the total cost of knocking down government center walls at nearly $1 million since Mayor Adrian Fenty took office in January 2007. Fenty fell for the so-called "bullpen" in 2006 after visiting New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's offices in Manhattan. The first D.C. version, in Fenty's office on the third floor of the John A. Wilson Building, was unveiled immediately after the mayor's inauguration. The concept later spread to the fifth floor, home to City...

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The 3-minute Interview: Tom Bridge

Tom Bridge, 29, is co-founder of WeLoveDC.com, a new blog that pays tribute to the nation's capital. Do you live in D.C.? I live across the river in Arlington. I get some constant disdain for that one, but I love it. My wife and I are actually considering moving into the District in 2009 or 2010. What neighborhood are you in? I live in historic Fairlington. Formerly 1940s Defense Department housing, it was turned into beautiful condos in the '70s. I have a yard and a garden. How could I pass that up? Why do you love D.C.? D.C. is a crossroads. People come here for so many reasons, and the intermingling of the political, the technical, the cultural, and the historical has an amazing...

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Payments for vacant Virginia Avenue building now top $6.5 million for D.C.

The District has spent millions to lease a property in Southeast that was to house critical police functions until the Fenty administration nixed the plan a year ago, leaving the city with an empty, costly shell. The 20-year, $546,000 per month lease for the former Washington Star printing plant at 225 Virginia Ave. SE was signed in the waning days of former Mayor Anthony Williams' final term. The plan: Move the Metropolitan Police Department's headquarters, 1st District, evidence storage, and violent crimes, narcotics, special investigations and special operations units into the building. But Lars Etzkorn, former director of the Office of Property Management, reversed course last...

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Verizon overbilling under investigation, credits imminent

More than 60,000 of Verizon D.C.’s residential customers will receive a credit in their August statement to make up for a recent billing error, which is now the subject of an investigation by utility regulators. Verizon has acknowledged that it started billing in May for a rate increase that wasn’t approved by the D.C. Public Service Commission until June. All told, 60,543 residential customers were overcharged a total of $66,173, Verizon says in filings with the commission. The overbilling won’t bankrupt Verizon’s customers: Subscribers of most local and regional phone service packages will receive a $2 credit — the difference between the old and new...

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Council members urge probe of summer job program

D.C. Council members on Thursday called for independent investigations of the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program in the wake of its severely busted budget and suspect paycheck practices. Council Chairman Vincent Gray, Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry and at-large Councilwoman Carol Schwartz have separately asked the D.C. inspector general and D.C. auditor to launch probes into Mayor Adrian Fenty’s summer jobs program. Schwartz, chair of the government operations committee, dubbed the program a “debacle.” What was originally a $14.5 million undertaking is now costing taxpayers $52.4 million. Most recently, Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi approved...

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Redevelopment chief accused of violation over ballpark-area contract

The former chief of the defunct Anacostia Waterfront Corp. and now a top aide to Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter is alleged to have committed an “ethics violation” by D.C. auditors for his role in a questionable real estate services contract. Andrew Altman should have removed himself from any involvement in awarding “real estate project management services” in the area of Nationals Park because of his direct ties to the contractor, the D.C. inspector general concluded in a recent audit. But Altman signed the deal, which ultimately paid out nearly $1 million for services “that could not be substantiated or were questionable at best,” auditors...

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Economists blast plans for public subsidy to help fund new D.C. United stadium

A proposed $150 million public subsidy for a new D.C. United soccer stadium at Poplar Point is a waste that "likely will not generate notable economic or fiscal benefits" for the city, more than two dozen economists argue in a joint statement.There is no formal proposal or legislation on the table, but opponents of a public subsidy are nevertheless organizing for a battle they expect to come. D.C. United and District leaders are negotiating a stadium subsidy ranging from $150 million......

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Barry’s hold severely impeding school work, Fenty aide says

The District’s school modernization chief is warning of dire consequences for dozens of facilities if Ward 8 D.C. Councilman Marion Barry doesn’t lift his hold on millions of dollars destined for school renovation. Barry’s disapproval of $8.9 million for school fixes, issued July 25, “will severely impede” the ability to “complete repairs to critical school projects scattered throughout the city before students return to the classrooms,” Allen Lew, executive director of the D.C. Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization, wrote in a letter to Council Chairman Vincent Gray. Included in the list of affected projects are those to...

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D.C., Verizon reach agreement

The District and Verizon have struck a deal to bring its cable television service to D.C., heralding the first major competition for Washington’s dominant cable provider, Comcast. Nearly a year of negotiations between the D.C. Office of Cable Television and Verizon recently concluded with a proposed video franchise agreement, a compact establishing the District’s first new cable provider in three years. Verizon’s FiOS, the company’s fiber optic network that links voice, cable and Internet service over a single wire, could be available to some D.C. customers by early 2009. “We have an agreement in principle,” said Eric Richardson, OCT director. The...

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Cheh expresses Tenleytown/Janney project concerns

A key D.C. Council member is threatening to oppose the combined Tenleytown library and apartment building project over concern that the project will reduce green space and take years too long to complete. In a July 24 letter to Neil Albert, deputy mayor for planning and economic development, Ward 3 D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh said she was “deeply concerned that the Janney/Tenley public-private partnership project will not meet the essential ingredients” she had spelled out months ago. Cheh represents Tenleytown, the Northwest neighborhood where Mayor Adrian Fenty and developer LCOR Inc. have proposed a 130-unit residential tower combined with a new 20,000-square-foot library,...

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High price for lot meets opposition

The District has agreed to purchase empty land behind the Howard Theatre for nearly twice its assessed value and 12 times what the current owner paid for it, spurring a threatened rejection of the deal from the D.C. Council.The contract, which was submitted to the council the day members were scheduled to leave for summer recess, calls for the city to pay $2.01 million for a vacant lot at 1830 Wiltberger St. NW immediately behind the historic......

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D.C. Council to consider borrowing cap

D.C. Council members will consider setting a legal cap on the amount of bonds the District may issue for new projects, heeding warnings of debt-related financial peril if the city continues to borrow at an "unsustainable" rate.Council Chairman Vincent Gray last week introduced legislation that would restrict the District’s overall debt level to 12 percent of its annual expenses. The ratio is expected to reach 11 percent next year, already a percentage point above Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi’s recommended ideal limit."This legislation will send a strong message to the......

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D.C. cops near 200 crashes in first six months of 2008

D.C. police officers have been involved in nearly 200 wrecks through the first six months of the year, and many of those investigated by a formal review panel have been judged preventable, District officials report.As of July 21, 186 crashes had been reported to the Metropolitan Police Department’s Crash Review Board in 2008, or more than six a week, said Cmdr. James Crane, the panel’s chair. The review panel has looked at 116 of 186, but Crane could not provide a breakdown of the board’s rulings.A weekly report from the......

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D.C. Council eases restrictions on earmarks to help nonprofits

The D.C. Council last week eased the way for the recipients of millions in earmarks to receive their grants, whether or not those groups have satisfied conditions meant to ensure the money will be well-spent.In their last two meetings before the summer recess, council members voted to water down the stipulations they had placed on all fiscal 2009 earmarks — more than $56 million worth for roughly 170 community organizations. The most substantial amendment: Rather than restricting......

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D.C. child welfare head resigns leaving backlog, uncertain future for agency

Turning around D.C.’s child welfare agency will demand strong leadership, accountability and resources that the troubled department has long lacked, District officials said in the wake of the office director’s resignation.The Child and Family Services Agency, which emerged from federal receivership in 2001 and is now under court-ordered monitoring, measurably improved during the 13-month tenure of its now former Director Sharlynn Bobo, said Ward 6 D.C. Councilman Tommy Wells, who has legislative......

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District agrees to land swap with homeless shelter

The D.C. Council  approved a land swap Thursday with a Christian ministry and shelter, which calls for the city to relinquish a high-valued property in return for the provision of homeless services for at least 150 men. The emergency resolution approved during a special legislative session enables the swap of the D.C.-owned Gales School at 65 Massachusetts Ave NW for four tracts in the 3500 block of......

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Council considers raising taxes on Nationals tickets

The D.C. Council will consider tacking on another 5 percent sales tax to tickets and most items purchased at Nationals Park in an effort to close a potential shortfall in revenue needed to pay off the stadium debt.Legislation introduced Tuesday by at-large D.C. Councilman David Catania, and co-sponsored by seven of his colleagues, would boost the gross sales tax......

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Council OKs rules on handgun possession

The D.C. Council on Tuesday opened the door for law-abiding District residents to keep a handgun in their homes for self-defense, lifting a three-decade-old ban that the U.S. Supreme Court rejected as unconstitutional.The Metropolitan Police Department’s gun registration office, at 300 Indiana Ave. NW, is scheduled to open Thursday morning — more details are to come on the exact time — and make gun applications available.Emergency legislation......

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Infant under CFSA watch dies

Another infant whose care was the subject a D.C. child welfare agency investigation died Monday, hours before the D.C. Council was to convene a hearing on the failings of the District’s tormented child protective services department.The 4-month-old boy was found unconscious by emergency responders just before 8 a.m. in a residence in the 600 block of 46th Place SE, a police spokesman said. He was declared dead on the scene. An autopsy will determine the cause of......

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D.C. handgun ban tobe lifted, but obtaining a firearm may be tough

District residents may be able to register a handgun as soon as today, as the D.C. Council is expected to adopt emergency legislation lifting the 32-year-old firearm ban and replacing it with regulations allowing pistols in the home for self-defense.Less than three weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the District’s handgun ban as unconstitutional, Mayor Adrian......

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D.C. expands rebuilding of Eastern Market

The D.C. government will invest $1 million to replace Eastern Market’s North Hall roof simultaneously with the restoration of the historic South Hall, which was gutted by fire nearly 15 months ago.Minkoff Construction, the same company charged with rebuilding the South Hall roof in the aftermath of the April 30, 2007, three-alarm blaze, will extend its work to the North Hall, under a revised deal worth an additional $767,000. The $950,000 South Hall roof work is scheduled for completion this month, according to a revised schedule from the Continued...

 

Fenty aides bypass hearing on schools, vexing D.C. Council

The D.C. Council, a week away from its summer recess, is still lacking critical information about expensive school modernization plans, infuriating members who assert the Fenty administration is fixing education facilities slapdash.The council is slated to vote Tuesday on nearly $60 million in school modernization contracts. A hearing Friday that might have cleared up confusion about those deals and others was paralyzed, to the Council’s dismay, because no member of Continued...

 

Old-style mayors since home rule

Walter E. Washington Washington was elected by D.C. residents in 1975 following seven years as the District’s presidentially appointed mayor-commissioner. The 1948 Howard University Law School graduate, a tireless advocate for D.C. rights, was key to the development of the Home Rule structure of government the city knows today. Washington died in 2003.Continued...

 

Fenty a global citizen of Adams Morgan

In the 1970s and ’80s, Adams Morgan was the closest thing in Washington to Barack Obama’s multicultural, international milieu.While Barack Obama was a grade school globe-trotter, growing up in Indonesia and Hawaii, Adrian Fenty’s neighborhood was a microcosm......

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Is Fenty our Obama?

When Adrian Fenty endorsed little-known Barack Obama for president last summer, a handful of reporters and 50 or so supporters came more as courtesy to the Washington mayor than to meet the first-term Illinois senator.The event was surreally low-key compared with the chaos that a Barack Obama appearance brings today.There is a "new era of......

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D.C. population continues to grow, census data show

D.C.’s population in 2007 edged up by another 2,500 residents, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures released Thursday, continuing a growth trend that followed a five-decade-long collapse.The city’s population as of July 1, 2007, was 582,049, the Census Bureau reported, up from 579,621 in 2006 and 577,467 in 2005. The District is the nation’s 27th-largest urban jurisdiction.The number of residents in the nation’s capital steadily declined after the 1950 Census, when the population peaked at more than 800,000. The drop-off......

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Protesters confront Fenty over plans to redevelop Tenleytown library in new apartment building

The District has chosen a developer to rebuild the Tenleytown library beneath a towering 130-unit apartment building, sparking a backlash from neighbors who dread increases in traffic, loss of green space and delays in library construction.Mayor Adrian Fenty announced the partnership with Berwyn, Pa.-based LCOR Inc. during a news conference Thursday at the intersection of Wisconsin......

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Gandhi letter urges District leaders to limit the amount of debt issued

D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi called for legislation Wednesday to limit the amount of debt District leaders are allowed to issue for capital projects, raising doubts about the viability of big ticket redevelopment projects, including a new soccer stadium.Officials face difficult choices as revenues decline and the economy continues to slump, Gandhi said during a briefing with reporters. D.C.’s plan to borrow $1.4 billion through 2014 leaves little room for......

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Test scores up, but most students still lack basics

D.C. Public School students showed significant gains in both reading and math test scores this year, though still less than half of all elementary and secondary students are proficient in the basics, according to preliminary figures released Wednesday.The "dramatic" results of the annual D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System tests validate his administration’s focus on education andclassroom instruction, Mayor Adrian Fenty said during a news conference at Southeast’s Continued...

 

City settles with developer over stadium parking

The D.C. government has agreed to pay a prominent Georgetown developer $2.5 million to drop one lawsuit, and the threat of another, that he levied after claiming D.C. stiffed him on a pair of development opportunities.Herb Miller, chairman and chief executive officer of Western Development Corp., sued the District for $140 million in November 2006 after D.C. pulled the plug on his ambitious......

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District threatens Verizon over lack of FiOS progress

The District’s consumer advocate on utility issues is threatening to back out of a rate settlement with Verizon if the company cannot show it is actively pursuing the expansion of its fiber-optic network into the city.In a June 25 filing with the Public Service Commission, People’s Counsel Elizabeth Noël demanded Verizon provide sworn testimony on the company’s plans to deploy FiOS, its......

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Fines for breaking District smoking ban could soar

D.C. bars and restaurants would face fines as high as $16,000 for failing to abide by the District’s strict no-smoking laws, under rules being developed by the Department of Health.The proposed regulations would boost existing fines by as much as 3,200 percent, according to documents obtained by The Examiner. Eight infractions would be classified as the most serious Class 1, with penalties starting at $2,000 for a first offense and climbing to $16,000 for a fourth violation. Another 10 infractions would be listed as Class 2, with fines increasing from......

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D.C. Police Blotter

Crash kills off-duty officer from Department of DefenseOne person was killed early Sunday in a four-car crash in Landover involving a Prince George’s County corrections van, a taxicab, a Nissan Altima and a Chevy Camero. The incident occurred about 1:50 a.m. near the intersection of Landover Road and Kilmer Street. Few details were available on how the collision happened, but......

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Lack of progress on Verizon FiOS spurs threat

The District’s consumer advocate on utility issues is threatening to back out of a rate settlement with Verizon if the company cannot show it is actively pursuing the expansion of its fiber-optic network into the city.In a June 25 filing with the Public Service Commission, People’s Counsel Elizabeth Noël demanded that Verizon provide sworn testimony on the company’s plans to deploy FiOS,......

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Fenty replacing taxi commission members who opposed meters

Three members of the D.C. Taxicab Commission who opposed replacing zone fares with time and distance meters will be replaced by new mayoral appointees.Mayor Adrian Fenty, who did not let a deadlocked taxi commission stall his plan to install meters in every D.C. cab, last week appointed three people to replace all but one of the members who voted against meters.Current Commissioners Theresa Travis, Continued...

 

Fenty replacing taxi commission members who opposed meters

Three members of the D.C. Taxicab Commission who opposed replacing zone fares with time and distance meters will be replaced by new mayoral appointees.Mayor Adrian Fenty, who did not let a deadlocked taxi commission stall his plan to install meters in every D.C. cab, last week appointed three people to replace all but one of the members who voted against meters.Current Commissioners Theresa Travis, William Carter and Stanley Tapscott are out. Appointees Scott Kubly, Paul Cohn and Bart Lasner are in.Dena Iverson, Fenty’s spokeswoman, said the new members are "filling......

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Pepco faces tough restrictions on disconnections for summer

Pepco will be prohibited from shutting off electricity to any residential customer either on, or in advance of, a very hot day under emergency legislation to be considered today by the council.The resolution bans Pepco from disconnecting residential electric service during the day preceding, and the day of, a forecast of "extreme temperature." The resolution defines extreme as a heat index of at least 95 degrees."It’s obviously a short-term protection, that’s for sure," said Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh, who......

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Council moves today to relax District’s firearm restrictions

D.C. Councilman Phil Mendelson will propose today tweaking the District’s gun laws to repeal the ban on handguns and allow residents to register and possess working, loaded firearms in their homes.The bill that Mendelson will introduce responds to the explicit orders in last week’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling — that District residents have the constitutional right to maintain a working handgun in the home for self-defense. It does not tackle questions......

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District seeks to collect on millions in owed taxes from corporations

The D.C. government will employ an auditor to collect millions from corporations that exploit gaping tax loopholes in a cat-and-mouse game to avoid paying local taxes.The Office of Tax and Revenue’s compliance division has hired Dallas-based ACS State and Local Solutions to audit corporate filings and then collect on what the District terms "routine underpayments." Under the contingent fee agreement, ACS is to be paid 15 percent of what it......

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D.C. handgun ban struck down

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday declared that Americans have a constitutional right to keep a gun in their homes for self-defense, a landmark decision ending D.C.’s long-standing handgun ban in favor of an individual’s right to bear arms.The 5-4 decision, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, offers the first decree from the high court on the meaning of the Second Amendment — that the constitutional right to own a gun is......

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Supreme Court ruling on D.C. gun ban expected today

Anxious District officials prepared Wednesday to respond if the city’s handgun ban is struck down when the U.S. Supreme Court issues its decision in a case challenging that ban, a ruling the court signaled will come today.  D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray said the high court was not likely to come down on the District’s side in D.C. v. Heller. But the inability to take any action in advance of the......

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D.C. targets slum properties, to take owners to court, jail

The D.C. government will swarm slum properties with inspectors and take their owners to court in a broad, aggressive battle to rid the city of its most neglected dwellings, District officials announced Tuesday.The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs will soon start an inspection program that targets all multifamily buildings in a routine cycle, director Linda Argo said during a news conference outside a slum in Southeast.......

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Stadium challenges loom for D.C. United owner

Real estate mogul and D.C. United owner Victor MacFarlane has cut key personnel from his District office in a restructuring move as the legal and financial obstacles mount to a possible soccer stadium on parkland just east of the Anacostia River.MacFarlane Partners, the San......

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Replacement windows cost school $6,300 each

Nearly 150 windows installed last year in Northwest’s Shepherd Elementary School will be replaced this summer at a cost of roughly $6,300 each, and parents are hopeful the District’s new contractor will be an improvement over the last "catastrophe."Roughly 140 rotting wooden windows at Shepherd, located on 14th Street just north of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, were replaced in 2007 at a cost of $4,042 per window......

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District paid up to $700,000 a year in past due fees to Washington Gas

The District government has paid Washington Gas up to $700,000 annually in late fees over many years for failing to remit its gas bills within 20 days of the due date.The gas company’s longtime policy of billing per meter has left D.C.’s Office of Property Management and the Office of the Chief Financial Officer flummoxed by monthly statements. The District has been unable to pay......

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Congress OKs silver coins to raise funds for disabled veterans memorial

Congress has approved legislation requiring the U.S. Mint to issue 350,000 silver coins to raise money for a memorial near theU.S. Capitol honoring disabled veterans.Across Independence Avenue from the U.S. Botanic Garden are two acres dedicated to the American Veterans Disabled for Life Memorial, but raising the $86 million for design, construction, maintenance and outreach has been a campaign for supporters. A $3 million pledge from Continued...

 

Property auction delayed until fall due to tax theft

The annual D.C. government sale of properties with unpaid tax bills will be delayed at least two months as the District’s scandal-plagued tax office attempts to reduce the chances of being ripped off through the auction process.The real property tax sale, traditionally a rite of summer for the Office of Tax and Revenue, will not be held until September, said Natalie Wilson, OTR spokeswoman. At this time last year,......

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Council aims to widen sales ban of single containers of beer in D.C.

The D.C. Council is continuing its campaign against single containers of beer in the District, moving to outlaw their sale from Shaw to Logan Circle and in much of Ward 6. Legislation prohibiting the sale of single containers of beer, ale or malt liquor in less than 70-ounce bottles was introduced Tuesday by Ward2 Councilman Jack Evans and......

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Low-cost, regional bus companies forced to load in designated zone

Say goodbye to the Chinatown Bus and hello to L’Enfant Coach.Responding to the exploding popularity of inexpensive bus rides between Washington, New York and other destinations, the District plans to funnel all buses that load and unload passengers on city streets into a single "intercity bus zone" in Southwest. The myriad bus services, a staple of the downtown for years, will face fines up to $1,500 for loading outside of that zone, which......

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FEMA drops plan to extend downtown floodplain

The Federal Emergency Management Agency this week rescinded a new D.C. flood map that would have forced thousands to buy flood insurance and radically altered future downtown development. In a letter to Mayor Adrian Fenty dated Monday, Harvey Johnson, FEMA’s deputy administrator and chief operating officer, wrote that the proposed modified flood map had been retracted. The letter does not go into further detail.......

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Trinidad survey finds rejection of checkpoints

Residents of D.C.’s Trinidad neighborhood overwhelmingly oppose the use of police checkpoints in their community, according to a recent survey that directly challenges Mayor Adrian Fenty’s claim of broad support for the tactic.A third of the D.C. Council argued during a committee hearing Monday that the "neighborhood safety zone" checkpoints are a constitutionally questionable quick fix and have done little but embarrass the District on a national scale.......

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Hundreds of D.C. officials fail to report financial disclosures

Mayor Adrian Fenty and 11 members of the D.C. Council all claimed in their recent financial disclosure reports to have received no gifts in 2007 worth $100 or more, an assertion government observers say is hard to swallow."It’s just not believable," said Gary Imhoff, co-founder of watchdog group D.C. Watch. "That they didn’t receive a single gift worth more......

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Councilmen: Fenty slow to act with troubled youth

A pair of D.C. Council members claim their efforts to move troubled youth out of the District’s jail and into a more rehabilitative setting have been stymied by a slow-to-act Fenty administration.D.C. Councilmen Phil Mendelson, at-large, and Tommy Wells, Ward 6, had scheduled a hearing for Wednesday to continue the discussion of how best to deal with young detainees,......

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Partial collapse of Dupont house shows cracks in District’s inspection system

An illegal, dilapidated Dupont Circle rental property known to its tenants as the "Demon House" partially collapsed last weekend, forcing six people from the home and raising the question: How did no one see this coming?"We all knew it should have been condemned," said Mike Corcoran, a former tenant of 1841 16th St. NW. "It was collapsing." At 2 a.m. Saturday, a portion of the second-floor interior brick wall fell in on......

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Big name donors support GOP D.C. Council candidate

D.C. Councilwoman Carol Schwartz’s lone challenger in the Republican primary raised a stunning $50,000 in two weeks from a slate of powerful GOP business and political leaders, a signal that Schwartz faces a nomination fight like never before.Patrick Mara, 33, a government relations manager, collected $50,125 since starting his campaign for Schwartz’s at-large council seat on May 27, according to his June......

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$3.1 million shortfall projected for District’s road construction fund

The D.C. Department of Transportation’s road construction coffers will be drained within two years, a new report shows, and critical projects may need to be put off unless new revenue sources are found.The department’s Highway Trust Fund is expected to run a $3.1 million deficit in fiscal 2010 and a $180,000 deficit in fiscal 2011, according to an annual forecast conducted by the Office of the Inspector General.The gap, a result of DDOT’s plan to spend more......

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Civil rights group to protest as first checkpoint introduced

A coalition of civil rights leaders today is expected to denounce Mayor Adrian Fenty's plan to quarantine crime-ravaged neighborhoods as a knee-jerk reaction implemented with little community input or support."Granted there are people who are tired of the violence, but I don't know if this is going to solve anything," said Mark Thompson, who heads up the NAACP Metropolitan Police Task Force. "And it......

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Checkpoints draw heated criticism in cyberspace

Reaction from the blogosphere was swift and overwhelmingly critical of D.C.’s plan to barricade crime-ravaged neighborhoods, many describing the District as a "police state." When people need permission to enter a community via a vehicular checkpoint, as Mayor Adrian Fenty and Police Chief Cathy Lanier have proposed in their Neighborhood Safety Zone program, "that is a police state," Mark Draughn wrote on windypundit.com."One of the hallmarks of police states everywhere is the......

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U.S. attorney questioned constitutionality of sealed safety zones in May

A top prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office warned D.C. officials two weeks ago that Mayor Adrian Fenty’s plan to seal off high-crime neighborhoods might be unconstitutional, documents obtained by The Examiner show.  Fenty and Police Chief Cathy Lanier defended the Neighborhood Safety Zones on Wednesday as an "extreme" but worthy tactic to fight surges in violent crime. Interim Attorney General Peter......

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Pepco outages add up to 6.5 years in 2007

Pepco’s D.C. customers cumulatively spent almost seven years in the dark in 2007 thanks to a medley of breakdowns that caused thousands of power outages, according to the company’s 2008 consolidated report.The utility reported 57,533 outage hours in the District last year, equal to 2,397 days without electricity, numbers provided to the D.C. Public Service Commission show. Twenty-six percent of all outages were caused by trees; 22 percent by "deterioration," equipment and infrastructure failures; 7 percent by lightning; 5......

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Pepco outages add up to 6.5 years in 2007

Pepco’s D.C. customers cumulatively spent almost seven years in the dark in 2007 thanks to a medley of breakdowns that caused thousands of power outages, according to the company’s 2008 consolidated report.The utility reported 57,533 outage hours in the District last year, equal to 2,397 days without electricity, numbers provided to the D.C. Public Service Commission show. Twenty-six percent of all outages were caused by trees; 22 percent by "deterioration," equipment and infrastructure failures; 7 percent by lightning; 5......

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Fenty proposal to ban fireworks not likely to pass D.C. Council

Mayor Adrian Fenty’s bid to ban fireworks in the District is likely to be extinguished today by the D.C. Council.Ward 1 D.C. Councilman Jim Graham was relentlessly ribbed Monday by his colleagues as he promoted the emergency bill to bar the sale or use of fireworks, a measure that, if passed, would take effect immediately. Graham is introducing the......

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Taxi meter enforcement under way in the District

Inspectors were poised to hit meterless cab drivers with $1,000 fines Sunday, the first day of enforcement of the city’s switch to a time and distance meter fare system after months of debate and protest.The crackdown comes less than eight months after Mayor Adrian Fenty announced he would ditch the District’s zone fares in favor of the meters. Fenty’s hand was forced: U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., mandated the change, though he......

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D.C. initiates emergency crane inspections

The D.C. government Friday began immediate inspections of construction cranes currently in operation above the city, in the wake of the second deadly crane accident in New York City this year.The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs called on all construction companies to schedule inspections for the roughly 40 cranes flying high above D.C. Whether they call or not, "We'll get to them either way," said......

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Fishing the Anacostia River? Eating your catch could be unsafe

In 2004, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that automobile exhaust, asphalt particles, spilled engine oil and other fossil fuels were altering the DNA of bullhead catfish found in the Anacostia River and "driving their liver and skin tumors to a surprising level."The D.C. government, meanwhile, has in recent months laid out plans to build new communities along the Anacostia: on the Southwest Waterfront, at Poplar Point and......

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Anacostia riverfront projects threatening District debt cap

More than $300 million in public subsidy aimed at a pair of Anacostia riverfront projects threatens D.C.’s debt capacity and puts future bond sales at risk of higher interest rates, District finance officials say.Between the Southwest Waterfront and Poplar Point developments, D.C. leaders are talking about investing $348 million in new communities along the Anacostia. But a spokesman for Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi said Thursday the amount of debt proposed comes perilously close to the CFO’s recommended caps."The District’s......

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Nats fall into slump on field, in revenue

Attendance at Nationals Park has fallen more than a quarter short of a consultant’s projections for the stadium’s inaugural year, cutting into the revenue needed to pay the ballpark bonds and spurring a D.C. Council member to demand the city’s money back.The District’s ability to pay down the debt on the publicly financed ballpark depends in part on the number of people who show up to the games,......

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Council Chair Gray’s home burglarized

D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray’s home was burglarized sometime early Monday while he was asleep upstairs, he said Tuesday.Gray, a resident of the Hillcrest community in Ward 7, said he came downstairs late Monday morning and heard a noise "that sounded like traffic." In the basement, he found that a window facing busy Branch Avenue Southeast "was completely gone." A burglar tossed a "boulder" through the window, entered the home and stole a stereo receiver, the chairman said. Gray, who was......

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D.C. to allow ‘idiots,’ ‘lunatics’ and syphilitics to get married

The D.C. Council is moving to repeal long-standing provisions in District law that bar "lunatics," "idiots" and people infected with syphilis from getting married.Marriages "of an idiot or of a person adjudged to be a lunatic" have been illegal since 1901, when Congress inserted the condition into the D.C. Code. Also void, even today: any marriage in which either party "shall be incapable, from physical causes, of entering into the married state."The council took the first step......

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Fuel prices for D.C. fleet take toll on budget, spiking by nearly $3M

Gassing up the D.C. government’s vehicle fleet has cost nearly $3 million more this fiscal year than last, but District officials say they saw the fuel price spike coming and adequately budgeted for it.Between October and April, the District spent $8.31 million on gasoline and diesel for the city’s vehicle fleet, paying an average blended price of $2.76 per gallon, according to numbers provided by the Office of Property Management. The city spent $5.48 million during the same period......

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Councilman: Fees won't raise enough revenue

Mayor Adrian Fenty's contention that Medicaidand private insurers will fork over millions more dollars for higher ambulance fees was "bogus," leaving D.C.'s 2009 budget with a gap more than $5 million wide, a D.C. Council member claims.At-large Councilman Phil Mendelson, chairman of the public safety committee, said Friday that the $7.2......

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District cops lose guns, drugs, money from evidence warehouse, audit says

The Metropolitan Police Department lost guns, drugs and cash seized as evidence and jeopardized criminal prosecutions by failing to secure its evidence warehouse and databases, a scathing new audit finds.After inspecting the MPD’s Evidence Control Branch, the D.C. inspector general concluded that the department "is not achieving its mission [of] preserving the integrity of evidence in its custody." Property records were in disarray, unauthorized personnel were allowed unregulated access to property vaults, evidence was lost and no one could say who had access to the computerized evidence database.There is a......

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Audit blasts D.C. Parks and Recreation’s building program

The government’s total failure to monitor the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation’s $160 million building program over the past seven years exposed residents to safety risks and wasted taxpayer dollars by the millions, a damning new audit finds.The parks department paid management firms millions of dollars for work that may never have been done and allowed major projects to go forward despite poor planning, the inspector general found after a yearlong review."As a result of these conditions, the risk to the health and safety of facility patrons is increased;......

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Mayor shakes up D.C. elections board

Mayor Adrian Fenty this week replaced the chairman of the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics, angering a D.C. Council member who argues the middle of an election year is not the time to shake up the key panel.Errol Arthur, a lawyer and member of......

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House panel told neglected National Mall a ‘disgrace’

The National Mall is a neglected "disgrace" that demands at least $500 million in upgrades to restore, preserve and perhaps expand for future generations, a U.S. House panel was told Tuesday."There’s no great national park that suffers from this kind of neglect," D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton told the National......

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Smithsonian’s plans for National Zoo include aerial tram, more parking

The future National Zoo may be one in which walking the park’s steep terrain is a struggle of the past.The Smithsonian Institution on Thursday will unveil to the public its preferred alternative master plan for the 119-year old zoo, which features an aerial tram running the length of the 163-acre park, expanded exhibits, new visitor centers and a public plaza on the current site of the Great Ape House."If we don’t plan for expansion, if we don’t plan for the future,......

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Clinton campaign has District councilman’s vote ... again

Ward 2 D.C. Councilman Jack Evans said Monday he is again backing Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, one day after he threw his support to Sen. Barack Obama."I’m a pledged delegate for Hillary Clinton and I will vote for her at the convention," said Evans, who is in Las Vegas for a retailer’s conference.Evans,......

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D.C. officials returning to Vegas to court retail opportunities

Mayor Adrian Fenty will lead a delegation of D.C. leaders to Las Vegas tomorrow for the be-all and end-all of retailer conventions, where they will attempt to lure businesses to the city and stem the bleeding of local dollars to the suburbs.Former Mayor Anthony Williams made the International Conference of......

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New assault category considered for attacking D.C. guards with bodily fluids

D.C. Jail inmates have attacked guards with bodily fluids nearly three dozen times in two years, and the U.S. attorney’s failure to demand stout punishment has provided little deterrent to end the assaults, a District official said Thursday.Inmates "commonly" use body waste to strike staff in the face, causing injury, emotional trauma and potentially serious illness, Corrections Director Devon Brown told the Continued...

 

At Smithsonian, audit finds slow progress

Reforms to executive pay, benefits, travel and entertainment expenses instituted by the Smithsonian Institution in the wake of its former chief’s resignation will require time and constant vigilance to prove successful, a new report concludes.A year afterthe exit of embattled Secretary Lawrence Small amid outrage into his luxurious tenure, the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents has in place revised policies for setting......

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D.C. begins redeveloping Hill East waterfront

D.C. officials on Wednesday started the redevelopment of 50 acres along the Anacostia waterfront, a massive project that promises to transform the western banks of the long-suffering river immediately south of RFK Stadium.The District is seeking a master developer to lead the resurrection of Reservation 13, a 67-acre Southeast parcel that includes the former D.C. General Hospital and 19 other government buildings, many vacant. The developable land totals 50 acres, more......

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$5.77 billion ’09 budget gets approval

The D.C. Council on Tuesday adopted a 2009 budget that sets aside more than $50 million for 170 community organizations as it cuts the commercial property tax rate, doubles the cigarette tax and plots a course toward universal health care.Facing a $35 million deficit and a slowing economy, the council "was able to focus resources to meet important community priorities" in recrafting Mayor Adrian Fenty’s $5.77 billion local......

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Library plan for old convention center nixed

Prospects for a new central library on the site of D.C.’s old convention center have been dashed in favor of a 400-room hotel and retail hub, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced Monday.The 10-acre parcel bounded by New York Avenue and Ninth, H and 11th streets, now dubbed "City Center DC," will be redeveloped with a mix of office, condominiums, apartments, retail and public spaces, Fenty said. Former Mayor Anthony Williams had sought......

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D.C.’s budget has tax relief, though level in doubt

The D.C. Council is scheduled to vote today on the District’s $5.7 billion fiscal 2009 budget, which will likely include tax relief for small businesses, though not nearly as much as the council had previously sought.A statement issued Monday by Council Chairman Vincent Gray’s office promised a budget that supports "sensible" school reforms, fixes school buildings, improves the learning environment, and provides tax relief for small businesses "that......

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Plan for siren on National Mall finds opposition

A D.C. proposal to install sirens across the National Mall to warn visitors of impending terrorism or other hazards has run into a federal roadblock over aesthetics, District officials say.The National Capital Planning Commission objected to the pilot siren project based "on the look," said Jo’Ellen Countee, spokeswoman for the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. The......

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The name of the game: Finding a Wii

Ward 3 D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh didn’t know that her idea to donate a Nintendo Wii to a senior center would send aide Asher Corson dashing through Northeast Washington in a robe and slippers.But that’s what a Wii will do."He enjoyed the assignment," Cheh said Thursday of Corson, her spokesman. "It took him out of the usual routine."Cheh will donate the Wii......

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D.C. Council tearing apart Mayor’s proposed budget

The D.C. Council is poised to reject several high-profile initiatives in Mayor Adrian Fenty’s proposed 2009 budget legislation, including a much-maligned strategy to slash public comment on the annual school spending plan.More than 1,000 individuals and organizations had signed a petition as of Thursday urging the council to rid the Budget Support Act of language limiting the public’s opportunity to participate in school budget deliberations. Fenty wants to......

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Top priorities for DDOT don’t top everyone’s list

Mayor Adrian Fenty has ordered the D.C. Department of Transportation to address the "top transportation concerns" citywide, but critics question whether the list the agency compiled was based on real need, or on who made the most noise.The top 26 concerns, from sidewalk repairs to crosswalk repainting, were immediately moved to the front of the line for DDOT action, and mostshould be resolved by Sept. 30, according to......

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To ax deficit, budget chief eyes delaying tax relief, raising rates

Mayor Adrian Fenty’s budget chief suggested Tuesday that the answer to a growing 2009 budget deficit may be raising a tax on corporate property and delaying tax relief on local businesses.William Singer, in a memo to City Administrator Dan Tangherlini, summed up the $130 million gap matter-of-factly: "Since the 2009 budget was released, the national economic picture has not improved." Continued...

 

Neighborhood leaders say loss of agency liaison could slow response to construction problems

Mayor Adrian Fenty’s 2009 budget proposal eliminates a government position that neighborhood leaders say was critical in their fight against illegal construction and scofflaw businesses.The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs’ liaison to D.C.’s advisory neighborhood commissions has been vacant since January. The job is being dropped as part of Fenty’s move to purge the government of unfilled positions.But by killing that slot, the mayor has stripped......

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Can’t finish that wine? Cork it, take it

For D.C. restaurant patrons, "Check please" may soon be followed by a new mantra: Cork it and bag it.A long-standing prohibition on leaving a restaurant with an open bottle of wine was ditched Tuesday by the D.C. Council. The council passed legislation allowing restaurants to re-cork the wine, seal it in a tamper-proof plastic bag and send it off with the diner."Consumers will no longer have to feel like they’re wasting an entire bottle of wine when......

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’09 budget deficit soars to $130M

D.C.’s anticipated budget deficit for fiscal 2009 has soared to more than $130 million, Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi will tell city leaders today, placing further strain on already-tense budget deliberations.In his latest revenue forecast, Gandhi is projecting $13 million more revenue for fiscal 2008, which ends Sept. 30, and $35 million less for fiscal 2009. All told, Gandhi expects a $93 million surplus for this year and a $130.8 million deficit for next year.The numbers, obtained by The Examiner,......

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Council backs noise restrictions; area unions furious

The D.C. Council on Tuesday narrowly backed an effort to limit daytime noise levels on city streets, a measure heralded by community leaders but condemned by local unions as a crushing blow to their First Amendment rights.The measure, approved by an 8-5 vote, would limit non-commercial amplified speech between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. to 70 decibels in residential areas and 80 decibels downtown and in certain mixed zones — or 10 decibels louder than the surrounding......

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Survey: D.C. hospitals ill-prepared for mass casualty event

D.C.’s emergency rooms are among the least prepared in the country to handle a major terrorist attack despite the city’s status as a major target, according to a congressional survey released Monday. The District’s emergency medical system is incapable of handling a mass casualty event on the scale of the 2004 Madrid bombing, which killed 191 and injured 2,000, said the report.The review by the House Committee......

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CareFirst leaves Healthy D.C.; city to move forward with plan

The city  will move toward universal health care without the aid of insurer CareFirst, whose apparent withdrawal from the evolving Healthy D.C. initiative has angered city leaders and could spur legislation targeting its revenues.Healthy D.C. was unveiled as a publicly subsidized partnership between the District and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, in which about 25,000 uninsured city residents would pay a small percentage of their income to get on the insurance rolls.But CareFirst, the city’s largest insurer, had a "change of heart" and......

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Emergency call center director slammed by D.C. Council panel

The head of the District’s citywide emergency and public service call center is an inexperienced leader whose behavior toward staff and on-the-job performance have angered employees and failed to win the confidence of the D.C. Council, a legislative panel contends.The council’s public safety committee, chaired by Councilman Phil Mendelson, slammed Office of Unified Communications......

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Open cases at D.C. child welfare swells to 'historic' 2,000

An overwhelmed D.C. child welfare agency has been hard-pressed to close 2,000 investigations into possible child abuse as the District's elected leaders roll out a slate of reforms to improve the city's response to abuse allegations. The Child and Family Services Agency's child welfare hotline has received 9,900 calls since January, when the four daughters of Banita Jacks were found dead in their Southeast home, CFSA Director Sharlynn Bobo said Friday. A......

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D.C. Council committee rejects camera money, E-911 fee hike

A D.C. Council committee on Thursday stripped Mayor Adrian Fenty’s 2009 budget of nearly $900,000 slated for the city’s new closed-circuit camera program, an initiative the panel said was started prematurely.The five-member public safety and judiciary committee, chaired by Councilman Phil Mendelson, also erased an increase of a fee levied on phone lines and directed Fenty to reduce recently......

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Norton seeking to end voucher program

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton said Wednesday she wants Congress to eliminate the District’s federally funded school voucher program, and route kids using the stipends into charter schools.The five-year pilot D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, started in 2004, provides vouchers of up to $7,500 per child per year to attend one of 60 private schools. More than 1,900 students are participating this year.President Bush included $18 million in his 2009 budget......

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D.C. on the prowl looking to ticket overgrown lawns

The D.C. government issued nearly 1,400 citations last year and placed liens on the homes of hundreds of District residents who failed to keep their lawns mowed and their properties free of weeds.Mowing season in D.C. starts Thursday and runs through Oct. 31. Overgrown lawns, defined as grass and weeds exceeding 10 inches, may subject homeowners and renters to a $500 fine, plus the cost of a mow if the District does the work.The Department of......

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Deluge of Palisades flooding complaints brings sewer study

The D.C. Department of the Environment is studying the District’s Palisades neighborhood to confirm what long-suffering, water-logged residents already know: The community’s storm sewer is utterly inadequate.Along Sherier Place Northwest, at the bottom of steep hills between Macarthur Boulevard and Potomac Avenue, hundreds of residents face the threat of flooding virtually every time it storms. The water surges are the result of the confluence of heavy development, low-lying homes and an undersized 48-inch sewer main carrying storm water......

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IG: Lack of regulation raises threats of lead, asbestos

The D.C. government's regulation oflead and asbestos removal is ineffective, insufficient and may increase health risks for District residents undertaking renovation projects, according to an alert issued by the D.C. Inspector General. Neither the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs nor the Department of the Environment are doing enough to protect residents and workers from the potential risks of asbestos or lead, the IG reported in a management alert. Gaping holes in existing laws allow basic......

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14th Street Bridge work starts Monday night

The D.C. Department of Transportation will shut down up to three lanes of the northbound 14th Street Bridge over several nights next week for repairs. The project is scheduled to take four nights, with all work anticipated to be finished by Friday morning. The shut downs will start at 9 p.m. Monday,weather permitting, and all lanes will reopen in time for the morning rush hour, said transportation spokeswoman Continued...

 

Club shooting victim dies; venue temporarily closed

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier ordered an emergency closure of a jazz and go-go club near the Farragut North Metro Station on Thursday after a 30-year-old Northeast D.C. man was shot and killed Wednesday night.The victim left The Meeting Place at 1707 L St. NW at about 10:20 p.m. and was waiting near his car when he was shot by an unidentified gunman. He was taken to the George......

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Budget standoff delays nearly $100 million for schools

Nearly $100 million slated for the D.C. Public Schools is tied up in a budget tug of war between D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray and Mayor Adrian Fenty, leaving school consolidations, buyouts and pay raises in limbo.What started seven months ago as a dispute between the District’s two top elected officials over DCPS maintenance funding now affects about $93 million pegged for the schools, for transportation improvements and for the Continued...

 

Lack of progress angers Hill East neighbors

Residents of D.C.’s Hill East community are furious that the city has let a tract of prime Anacostia waterfront real estate languish as a "dumping ground" for social service facilities rather than concentrating on its redevelopment."Our neighborhood has more than carried its fair share of social service programs for the city and its officials," resident Frank Zampatori wrote Wednesday in a letter to neighbors. "We are tired of it. And we are definitely tired of those so called enlightened city officials......

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Bill to add defibrillators recalled for further study

Emergency legislation requiring the installation of automated external defibrillators in dozens of D.C. government buildings was withdrawn at the last minute Tuesday for further study.  Less than a week after the death of a 10-year-old boy in a D.C. public school gym, the council was set to consider an emergency bill mandating AEDs in 52 District recreation centers and libraries at a cost of roughly $250,000. But Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas pulled it back for two weeks with the expectation......

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Council weighs taxing free employee parking

The D.C. Council is considering a tax on private employee parking spaces, a measure that could cost businesses tens of millions of dollars and lead to a fee for drivers who now park for free.Councilmen Jim Graham and Phil Mendelson co-introduced the bill, which would levy a $25 per month "Clean Air Act Compliance Fee" on any employee garage......

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D.C. auditor blasted for missing tax scam despite charging extra

D.C. Council members challenged paying an outside company $1.5 million extra for an audit that failed to uncover "a fairly simple" scam that ripped off the city tax office of up to $40 million.  "It’s a legitimate and important question why their auditing samples completely missed $40 million in theft," Councilman Phil Mendelson said of auditor BDO Seidman.In......

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D.C. takes anti-graffiti, anti-littering fight to TV

Soaring reports of graffiti and litter sullying D.C.’s streets and buildings have led the city government to lay out more than $300,000 to change the behavior of District youth. The number of requests to the Department of Public Works for graffiti removal skyrocketed by 80 percent in three years, from 1,760 in fiscal 2005 to 3,169 in 2007. Between Oct. 1, 2007, and Feb. 29, the agency’s mechanical and manual street sweepers collected 2.36 million pounds of garbage from the District’s streets.DPW......

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District’s working poor lack skills but want to work, new report says

The District should establish a community college system, require training components in economic development projects and raise wages in "women-dominated sectors" to address educational and skill barriers that have an impact on D.C.’s working poor, a new report finds.A third of all working families, about 60,000 people, earned less than 200 percent of poverty in 2005, or $31,000 a year for a family of three, according to the report produced by D.C. Appleseed and the D.C. Fiscal Policy......

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Audit: D.C. unemployment system open to fraud

The D.C. government’s unemployment compensation system has been manipulated using a simple technique to create unauthorized claims worth thousands of dollars, an audit found, and the fraud may be widespread.A user of the automated benefit program operated by the Department of Employment Services could select an arbitrary Social Security number, alter the name and address on the account and redirect the weekly benefits, according to auditor BDO Seidman."The Web Enabled Benefit System does not have adequate access controls to......

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D.C. bailing out of bad bonds

Scrambling to recover from a collapse in the high-risk bond market and a sudden surge in interest rate payments, the D.C. government will soon convert $550 million in tanking variable-rate debt to another, more stable security, city finance officials said.The District holds roughly $1.2 billion in auction-rate securities, a long-term debt with variable interest rates that reset every time they go to auction - in D.C.'s case every 35 days. Until recently, the securities were a popular though risky financing tool for municipalities, universities and other institutions.But the auction-rate market......

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Top lawyer reaches deal to keep risque nightclub fliers off streets

Nightclub promoters who used fliers featuring nearly naked women to advertise events have agreed to stop distributing the cards in D.C., including the busy Southwest Waterfront where they were most prominent.D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles reached a legal agreement with promoters Eric Hudson and Wayne Mason to stop passing out the fliers, which prominently display the ample and barely clad......

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Few D.C. cabs ready as meter deadline looms

With three weeks remaining until all D.C. cabs are required to power up their time and distance meters, few of the city’s roughly 7,000 licensed taxi drivers have had the equipment installed in their vehicles.Drivers still haven’t been told where or how to have the work done, and the D.C. Taxicab Commission’s Web site does not list the names of licensed meter installers. The taxi industry appears unprepared to ditch the zone system come May 1 in......

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Fenty withdraws D.C. lottery deal

Mayor Adrian Fenty has agreed to withdraw a controversial $120 million deal that would turn the D.C. Lottery over to a foreign company and a bevy of local investors with questionable pasts.Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi told the D.C. Council on Wednesday the contract with W2I, a joint-venture of Greek firm Intralot and D.C.-based W2Tech,......

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Audit knocks D.C. tax office

An outside audit of D.C.’s scandal-ridden tax office found that Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi’s staff has operated an ineffective anti-fraud program, failed to justify manual tax refunds and may have approved refund checks without review.The audit of internal control failures across the D.C. government, performed by BDO Seidman and released Wednesday, delves deeply into the deficiencies that riddle the city’s financial management. The first 18 pages of......

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D.C. councilman no longer member of Clinton camp

A D.C. Council member and unpledged Democratic delegate has withdrawn his prominent public support for Sen. Hillary Clinton, preferring instead to be listed as undecided in the race for the nomination.Ward 5 D.C. Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. was elected last week by the D.C.......

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Tax theft totaled nearly $9M in fiscal 2007 alone, report says

The massive tax office theft uncovered in November cost the D.C. treasury nearly $9 million in fiscal 2007 alone, according to the city’s first concrete account of the scope of the scam.The Consolidated Annual Financial Report, released Monday by Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi, claims that $8.8 million was taken between Oct. 1, 2006, and Sept. 30, 2007.In the so-called "Yellow Book" audit attachment to the CAFR, outside auditor BDO Seidman documented numerous failures of internal controls over financial reporting within the D.C. government. Those included three material weaknesses, the......

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Pepco rates to rise again in June

Pepco will raise rates for its D.C. customers by about 15 percent on June 1, the second increase in five months facing the power company’s 235,000 District customers.The increase was first announced last week in an insert mailed with April bills. The cost of standard service is expected to jump $12.75 per month for the average residential customer for "Generation Services," Pepco’s term for the electricity it buys on the open market via auctions. Monthly bills will increase from $82.38 today......

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MPD plans to link crime cameras, ShotSpotter

The Metropolitan Police Department is planning to link its closed circuit television cameras with its gunshot-location technology to get immediate pictures of an area where shots have been fired, Police Chief Cathy Lanier said Friday.The MPD’s fiscal 2009 budget includes $2.5 million to expand the department’s network of closed-circuit TV cameras, to install additional ShotSpotter gunshot-recognition systems and then to connect the two, Lanier told the Continued...

 

40 years since D.C burned

Forty years ago tonight, Rick Lee and his mother stood guard inside the family’s flower shop on U Street, shielded from the rioting outside by a 12-gauge shotgun and a sign in the window marking the business as black-owned: "Soul Brother."Like Ben’s Chili Bowl a block away, Lee’s Florist weathered the violence sparked by the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Today, said Lee, now the owner of Lee’s Florist, U Street is a destination for the bar crowd, a home to singles and not much of a......

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D.C. suing two companies for fraud that have been given $100M contracts

The D.C. government recently awarded a pair of $100 million contracts to two managed-care providers that are being sued by the city for allegedly defrauding it of millions.One of those companies, Amerigroup D.C. Inc., on Wednesday walked away from its $102.9 million fiscal 2009 deal. The 38,000 Medicaid recipients who currently subscribe to Amerigroup as their managed-care organization will be......

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D.C. Council member makes new lease deal for warehouse

A D.C. councilwoman successfully pulled off what the city’s Office of Property Management could not, or would not, do: She negotiated better terms in the new lease on the Metropolitan Police Department’s evidence warehouse.In a meeting last week with the owners of the 98,039-square-foot facility at 2235 Shannon Place SE, Carol Schwartz, R-at large, won a stipulation that the price per square foot would not increase in May of next year, contrary to the deal OPM had accepted.......

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Interest rates soar on $25 million of D.C. stadium bonds

The D.C. government faces at least two months of steep interest payments after the rate on $25 million in bonds tied to the construction of Nationals Park rose to a staggeringly high figure.The interest rates on the so-called "auction-rate securities" held by the District as part of its stadium bond package shifted in mid-March from 4.75 percent to 14 percent, Bloomberg News reported this week. The nearly 10-point difference will......

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D.C. councilman to propose universal health care

A key D.C. Council member will propose today bringing the District ever closer to universal health care through a new, publicly subsidized insurance program, one that also requires every city resident to carry insurance or face fines.Healthy D.C., as conceived by at-large Councilman David Catania, would provide "accessible and affordable health insurance" to as many as 25,000 uninsured individuals who do not qualify for Continued...

 

Fenty, D.C. Council go head-to-head on budget spending and earmarks

The D.C. Council on Monday challenged Mayor Adrian Fenty to justify a 2009 spending plan that throws millions at nonprofits, raises fees and taxes to generate more than $100 million and dips deeply into crucial reserve funds.Council members were most critical of Fenty’s proposed $10 million earmark for Ford’s Theatre, an award destined for a Continued...

 

Fenty quietly doubles ambulance fees

Published: Mar 31, 2008

Mayor Adrian Fenty’s decision to nearly double the cost of a D.C. ambulance ride has raised the ire of one D.C. Council member, who claims the public comment process was ignored and District residents were ripped off.Using his emergency rule-making authority, Fenty last week bumped the cost of basic life support from $268 to $530 per ambulance ride, raised the cost of advanced life support from......

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Through the nose or on the cheap, Nats fans have options

Published: Mar 29, 2008

Fans attending a game at the swanky new Nationals Park may spend plenty on the experience, but Nationals officials say a a day at a game can be had on the cheap, too. "There are many different kinds of people with different interests and different budgets," team President Stan Kasten said Friday. "We cater to them all." A family of four could catch a game for as little as $48......

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Opening Night plans

Published: Mar 27, 2008

The Washington Nationals unveiled plans Wednesday for the nationally televised Opening Night game against the Atlanta Braves, and they will feature a party atmosphere inside and outside the new Nationals Park.Among the scheduled events Sunday: Local Dixieland jazz band Sheiks of Dixie playing outside the Navy Yard Metro Station; barbershop quartet The Ringers entertaining by the Centerfield Gate; face painting......

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District to become largest donor to Ford’s Theatre

Published: Mar 27, 2008

The largest earmark in Mayor Adrian Fenty’s proposed 2009 budget is not for children, the impoverished or health care, but rather a $10 million grant to Ford’s Theatre, the National Park Service-owned venue in downtown D.C."That’s outrageous," D.C. Councilman Phil Mendelson said of the proposed funding. "We’re struggling to......

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District considers no tax break for less-efficient hybrid vehicles

Published: Mar 26, 2008

For D.C. residents, plunking down $50,000 on a Chevy Tahoe hybrid banks a decent tax break for being "green," even though the massive sport utility vehicle gets no better than 22 miles per gallon.But that benefit may be going the way of the 8-track.The District government is debating whether to eliminate the 6 percent excise tax exemption for vehicles that don’t get at least 40 mpg, which would rule out most "clean fuel" hybrids on the market today — the......

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In Southwest, parking comes at a premium

Published: Mar 26, 2008

At $3,000 over 83 games, the going rate for a private parking space in Southwest D.C. immediately across South Capitol Street from Nationals Park is more expensive than a season-ticket package in the Centerfield Club seats."We have all received notes in our mailboxes from people who want to rent our parking spaces on game days, which spaces are owned by each resident as part of our contract when we bought our homes," Continued...

 

Petition urges zone meters in D.C. cabs

Published: Mar 25, 2008

A coalition of D.C. taxi drivers has launched an online petition urging Mayor Adrian Fenty to ditch time and distance meters in favor of an advanced zone system. Drivers have already taken the mayor to court over the switch; now they're trying the court of public opinion. The petition, which had 9 signatures as of 4 p.m. Friday, claims time and distance meters produce "totally unpredictable fares" and are "more susceptible to over-charging riders and will likely unfairly victimize riders......

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Mayor Fenty moves on restoration of Klingle Rd.

Published: Mar 24, 2008

The 17-year wait for restoration of Klingle Road through Northwest D.C. may finally be coming to an end, as Mayor Adrian Fenty’s proposed 2009 budget includes $2 million to jump-start the controversial project.Ward 1 D.C. Councilman Jim Graham, who represents the eastern side of the shuttered three-quarter-mile link between Mount Pleasant and Continued...

 

A guide to the best ways to reach Nationals Park

Published: Mar 24, 2008

Only the most wildly optimisticexpected the trip to 41,000-seat Nationals Park to be easy. But a great fear of excruciating, unbreakable gridlock may be mitigated for most — if fans take heed of certain restrictions and follow recommended routes to the stadium, officials said.The 2008 home schedule includes 53 games on weekday evenings and one on a weekday afternoon."Our goal is to provide fans with as many options as possible to reach the game — Metrorail, Metrobus, bicycles, walking, satellite......

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South Capitol — a boundary of change

Published: Mar 24, 2008

Construction cranes rise above the neighborhoods near the Washington Nationals’ new ballpark as the community continues it radical conversion from industrial to mixed-use. The change is striking, at least on the southeast side of South Capitol Street, where commercial and residential high-rises are proliferating.But with all the change has come some chaos. And, with all the change, some area problems persist. Andre Tobe, a community liaison with the Capitol......

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Fenty budget holds spending line, closes projected revenue gap

Published: Mar 21, 2008

Mayor Adrian Fenty on Thursday proposed slashing hundreds of vacant positions, slowing a promised tax cut and keeping new spending to a minimum in an effort to close an expected budget shortfall in fiscal 2009.The $5.66 billion proposed local funds budget amounts to a .66 percent spending increase over the current year — significantly less than the 8 and 9 percent increases of the recent past. The $8.7 billion gross funds budget, including all federal funds and grants, represents a......

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Extra time for annual D.C. audit to cost $1.2 million

Published: Mar 21, 2008

The company that audited the city’s finances while prosecutors said a massive tax office theft was ongoing now wants an extra $1.2 million to complete its annual review, saying the alleged fraud has complicated the task.But at least one city councilman said BDO Seidman shouldn’t profit from missing clear warnings that the city was being ripped off to the tune of at least $20 million."I don’t think we should be paying them a dollar more," said Ward 1 Continued...

 

Justices hear D.C. gun ban case, appear to back individual rights

Published: Mar 19, 2008

A majority of the U.S. Supreme Court suggested Tuesday that the Constitution provides individuals the right to keep and bear arms, and that D.C.’s handgun ban may be overly restrictive of that right.But while questioning lawyers who argued the issue, some justices appeared ready to affirm a state’s right to strictly regulate guns. During 97 minutes of oral arguments over whether the District’s outright ban on handguns violates the Second Amendment to the Constitution, justices seemed to tilt toward......

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No easy access near ballpark for disabled

Published: Mar 18, 2008

Several crosswalks and curb ramps near Nationals Park are not in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, creating potentially dangerous situations for pedestrians in an increasingly busy corridor, a cyclist group claims.The obstacles are prevalent along M Street, outside the new U.S. Department of Transportation headquarters, and around the stadium, said Eric Gilliland, executive director of the......

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Fenty: State of D.C. 'strong'

Published: Mar 15, 2008

Mayor Adrian Fenty on Friday declared D.C. "strong" during his second State of the District address, an optimistic speech in which he laid out his administration's successes while barely touching on the work still to be done. The 32-minute speech, delivered at the Washington Senior Wellness Center in Ward 7, was mostly a positive reflection of his first year in office, rather than a look ahead. Touting a......

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Major money gap in Ward 2 race

Published: Mar 14, 2008

Cary Silverman, the only opponent of Ward 2 D.C. Councilman Jack Evans in the 2008 campaign, ended the most recent fundraising period $248 in debt and $155,000 behind the incumbent, according to reports filed this week.But the president of the Mount Vernon Square Neighborhood Association and former president of the Continued...

 

‘Paper police’ creating a furor in hunt for delinquent recyclers

Published: Mar 14, 2008

D.C. government inspectors on the hunt for delinquent recyclers have issued thousands of citations after picking through the garbage of private offices, drawing the ire of the business community and raising constitutional concerns."It was like a bad ‘Candid Camera’ show," said the office manager of one Vermont Avenue office after an inspection this week. "I couldn’t believe we were being threatened like that by the paper police."That inspection, according to the office manager, brought threats of fines for mislabeled recycling boxes, and plastic wrap co-mingled with a single paper napkin.......

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Shuttle service, beer sales among issues still to work out before Opening Day

Published: Mar 13, 2008

Several critical items remain unfinished at Nationals Park less than three weeks before Opening Day, including a deal to shuttle fans from the RFK Stadium parking lots and a policy for the sale of alcoholic beverages at the ballpark.Opening night at the 41,000-seat Nationals Park is March 30, a nationally televised game against the Atlanta Braves. While construction is nearly......

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D.C. United, city still talking lease deal for 2008

Published: Mar 13, 2008

D.C. United’s first home game of 2008 is less than a week away, but the team has still not reached a new deal with the District to play its season at RFK Stadium."Our hope is to get something finalized before the first game," said Gregory O’Dell, D.C.......

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Pepco directed to improve manhole checks

Published: Mar 12, 2008

Pepco was ordered by D.C.’s utility regulator to update its training regimen for manhole inspectors days before an explosion in Northwest charred an automobile and left thousands of residents without power.The training directive from the Public Service Commission was issued Friday. Late Monday night, a manhole fire and explosion on 14th Street near Clifton Street set a sport utility vehicle ablaze, left more than 5,000 people without electricity and closed streets through the Tuesday afternoon rush.The manhole responsible for Monday’s incident was last inspected Aug. 15, 2001, Pepco spokesman Continued...

 

Agency agrees to independent review of D.C. water quality

Published: Mar 11, 2008

The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority has agreed to allow an independent review of what critics argue is suspect, perhaps dangerous water flowing through thousands of District faucets.Jerry Johnson, WASA general manager, told a D.C. Council committee Monday that despite his "confidence in our stewardship of this system," bringing in the Continued...

 

Verizon, D.C. consumer advocate reach rates deal

Published: Mar 11, 2008

Telecommunications giant Verizon will cap its residential D.C. rates for nearly two years, upgrade its customer service and repair responses, and improve maintenance of its existing lines under a settlement with D.C.’s top consumer advocate.The deal between Verizon and the Office of the People’s Counsel is part of a yearlong case before the D.C. Public......

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Welfare applicants may face mandatory drug screening

Published: Mar 10, 2008

All D.C. residents who apply for welfare benefits would be required to undergo drug screening as a prerequisite for getting financial help under a bill being considered by the D.C. Council.The measure, introduced last week by Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry, is designed to tackle a "powerful disease" that afflicts some 60,000 D.C. residents, or about 10 percent of the city’s population, Barry said."The ideal world......

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Report: Transit gets short end of stick

Published: Mar 08, 2008

Use of public transportation in the D.C. metro area saves 245 million gallons of oil a year and more than $640 million in gas, according to a study released Friday that promotes taxpayer investment in transit. The report from U.S. PIRG, the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups, concludes that America's "automobile-centered transportation system" is "increasingly out of step with the challenges of the 21st century." Projects such......

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City’s desire for overhead power lines complicates streetcar program revival

Published: Mar 07, 2008

Any planned streetcar line within historic Washington that features overhead power lines would violate federal law and threaten the open character and scenic views of D.C. streets, a regional planning body told District leaders Thursday.D.C. is moving forward with a $1.3 million, four-stop streetcar demonstration project in Anacostia, which is outside the District’s historic center and will feature overhead power lines. The city also is planning to lay streetcar tracks along H Street Northeast, though much of that corridor — as......

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Report: Area vehicle crashes more costly than congestion

Published: Mar 06, 2008

The cost of vehicle crashes in the D.C. region tops $5 billion a year and significantly outpaces the price tag of congestion, but elected leaders have refused to commit sufficient resources to road safety, AAA claims in a new report.Across the country, the cost of car crashes totals $164.2 billion a year, 2.5 times the $67.6 billion cost of congestion, according to the AAA study, prepared by Bethesda-based Cambridge Systematics......

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Dozens of CFO employees investigated

Published: Mar 06, 2008

The D.C. chief financial officer’s integrity office opened more than 50 investigations last year into employees accused of theft, embezzlement, bribery and other misconduct, as the effort intensifies to weed out workers who may be ripping off taxpayers.The disclosure comes as prosecutors are continuing their investigation into the theft of millions of dollars from the D.C. treasury by a pair of Office of Tax and Revenue employees. Harriette Walters and Diane Gustus are accused of manipulating the tax-refund process for two decades under the nose of CFO Natwar Gandhi. "I......

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Council adopts sick leave bill

Published: Mar 05, 2008

All D.C. businesses will be required to provide paid sick leave under legislation unanimously approved Tuesday by the D.C. Council.The District follows only San Francisco in guaranteeing sick leave for about 200,000 workers who have none, though the D.C. bill goes further by allowing leave for recovery from domestic violence or sexual abuse.Jaime Contreras, director of......

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Council: No more shock therapy for D.C. special education youth

Published: Mar 05, 2008

The D.C. Council wants to end the District’s long-term practice of placing youth in special education facilities that practice shock and other potentially painful therapies.Legislation introduced Tuesday comes in response to the dispatching of dozensof D.C. youth to the Judge Rotenberg Center, a shock-therapy clinic in Canton, Mass.The Examiner has written extensively about abuses at Rotenberg, recently detailing an incident in which three students were repeatedly shocked in error after clinic staff fell for a prank. Four D.C. students remain in the facility today, Attorney General Peter Nickles said Tuesday,......

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Coucilwoman calls for buyout decrease and bonus for staffers who stay

Published: Mar 04, 2008

The D.C. Council today may attempt to alter an early retirement buyout plan recently implemented by Mayor Adrian Fenty, perhaps slashing the amount paid to those who leave, but then extending an ample bonus for employees who stay.Fenty adopted his early retirement program by a Feb. 20 executive order, choosing to pay thousands of D.C. employees, including police officers and firefighters, up to $25,000 to leave......

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Sports commission, in dire straits, eyes Armory overhaul for concerts, events

Published: Mar 04, 2008

The largely unused D.C. Armory might be transformed into a 10,000-seat concert hall and expo center by a District government agency as that agency struggles to avoid financial collapse, officials told the D.C. Council on Monday.The 14-year-old D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission could be insolvent as soon as this year unless the city government comes up with a public subsidy, its leaders said during......

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Final rules for taxi meters now in place

Published: Mar 01, 2008

The final rules regulating the switch from zone taxi fares to time-and-distance meters are now in effect, leaving cab drivers less than two months to buy and install their meters before the crackdown begins. The emergency rules, published Friday in the D.C. Register, reintroduce the extra passenger surcharge, which Mayor Adrian Fenty had proposed to eliminate, raising it to $1.50 per additional rider. They also increase the capped cost of an intra-District ride from $18.90 to $19. "We've gone through......

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District’s property values to rise again

Published: Feb 29, 2008

The value of D.C. real estate will rise an average 7.54 percent in 2009, according to property assessments to be mailed today, a drastic reduction from previous years but still far stronger than in surrounding areas.The mailings come two days after Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi announced that the District faces a $96 million budget deficit in 2009. That shortfall is blamed on a crash in income, property transfer fees and sales taxes, not the real estate......

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D.C. Council threatens to spike lease for police evidence warehouse

Published: Feb 29, 2008

The D.C. government has agreed to shell out millions of dollars to continue leasing the police department’s dilapidated evidence warehouse in Southeast, but D.C. Council members are threatening to reject the deal over its inexplicably high cost.The decrepit, 98,039-square-foot warehouse at 2235 Shannon Place is slated to be replaced in 18 months with a new facility on the grounds of St. Elizabeths Hospital. In the......

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D.C. Lottery paid out big in 2007

Published: Feb 28, 2008

ForD.C. Lottery players, fiscal 2007 was a very good year. A bizarre and historic year, in fact.The lottery’s overall prize payout in the year ended Sept. 30 was $145.3 million, or a record 56.7 percent of overall sales, Jeanette Michael, executive director of the D.C. Lottery and Charitable Games Control Board, told a Continued...

 

Gandhi projects budget shortfall

Published: Feb 28, 2008

The District faces a $95.8 million budget gap in fiscal 2009, as the national economic slowdown finally catches up to a city that reaped and quickly spent bountiful surpluses in recent years.Revenue estimates prepared by D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi show a crash in property transfer fees, income tax revenues and sales tax collections. Property tax collections remain strong, Gandhi told Mayor Adrian Fenty and the D.C. Council, but that growth will be offset by a reduction in the commercial real estate tax rate.The District has accumulated massive debt......

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City to tighten enrollment in Healthcare Alliance

Published: Feb 28, 2008

D.C. leaders on Wednesday unveiled a strategy to reduce fraudulent enrollment in the District's health care safety net, as an outside audit confirms that the initiative is easily cheated by nonresidents.The $129 million D.C. Healthcare Alliance serves some 45,000 low-income residents who are otherwise ineligible for other medical benefits, such as Medicaid. A new audit from consultant Bert Smith & Co., first reported in The Examiner last week, reveals......

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District settles on ideas for representation on quarter

Published: Feb 26, 2008

The concepts for D.C.’s quarter submitted to the U.S. Mint include famous names, maps of the city, a flag and one common theme: Taxation Without Representation.A committee of D.C. residents fixed on three ideas for the 25-cent piece, slated for circulation in 2009. The narratives, which will be transformed into designs by U.S. Mint artists, were submitted to Mint Director Edmund Moy on Monday.The first is the D.C.......

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Crime creeps higher in 2007

Published: Feb 26, 2008

The District experienced a rise in crime in 2007, leading Police Chief Cathy Lanier to express disappointment Monday while vowing that changes she is now implementing will eventually reverse those trends.Lanier, who took over as head of the Metropolitan Police Department in January 2006, told the D.C. Council’s public safety committee that crime increased by 4 percent overall last year. Violent crime was up 1 percent......

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Georgetown library finds architects

Published: Feb 23, 2008

The effort to rebuild the fire-gutted Georgetown Neighborhood Library is moving forward with the award of the design contract to a D.C. architectural firm.Martinez & Johnson Architecture, with its partner firm Seattle-based Hoshide Williams, won the $1.67 million, 10-month deal to redesign the Georgetown library, which was heavily damaged in an April 30 three-alarm blaze. The contract includes renovation of the historic......

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Slain journalist’s family drops suit against D.C.

Published: Feb 22, 2008

The family of David Rosenbaum announced Thursday it will withdraw its $20 million lawsuit against the District, citing the city’s progress in improving its emergency medical services."Today we want to announce that we believe the city has thus far lived up to its side of the bargain, and we will live up to ours: We are dropping the lawsuit," Mark Rosenbaum said during a news conference at Reno Road and......

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Monitor: D.C. child welfare ‘struggling’

Published: Feb 22, 2008

The D.C. child welfare agency is at risk of backsliding into ruin as an understaffed team of social workers is overwhelmed by soaring hotline calls and investigations into child abuse, a court-appointed monitor said Thursday.The problems flow from the case of Banita Jacks, who is accused of murdering her four daughters after Child and Family Services Agency employees failed to follow up on warnings of trouble in the family’s Southeast home. The high-profile arrest last month spurred a fourfold increase......

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Fraud rampant in health network

Published: Feb 21, 2008

A new audit details the complete failure of the D.C. government to prevent outsiders from ripping off a health care program financed by city taxpayers that is designed to provide a safety net for the city’s poorest.Thousands of ineligible people may have gained access to the D.C. Healthcare Alliance by skirting any number of gaping loopholes, according to a late draft of the audit obtained by The Examiner.Among the audit’s specific findings: Eleven District addresses, not including homeless shelters, accounted for 271 Alliance members, and another 216 addresses accounted for......

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CFO: Using surplus on soccer stadium is risky

Published: Feb 18, 2008

Using tax revenues earmarked to pay down D.C.’s debt to instead publicly subsidize a new soccer stadium is a chancy policy decision that puts taxpayers at risk, Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi warned in a recent memo.In his Feb. 7 analysis, Gandhi advised that the District would collect enough money through ballpark taxes and fees to retire the Washington Nationals’ stadium debt by 2026, 10 years earlier than projected.......

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Councilwoman blasts board over voting process

Published: Feb 16, 2008

D.C. election officials on Friday touted their success pulling off the presidential primary election despite myriad voter complaints of precincts running out of ballots, voting machines breaking down and lines running 100 people long. Alice Miller, executive director of the Board of Elections and Ethics, told a D.C. Council committee that voters "were......

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Critics slam idea of using funds from public for United stadium

Published: Feb 15, 2008

Critics lined up Thursday to slam the idea of a tax subsidy to build D.C. United a stadium east of the Anacostia River, as Mayor Adrian Fenty insisted that public financing would be necessary for the project but denied a final deal had been struck."There is nothing final in place," Fenty said from the upper deck of the Continued...

 

Pepco soon to increase rates for District customers

Published: Feb 15, 2008

Pepco will soon implement its first distribution rate increase in a decade for its D.C. customers, raising average residential bills by about $1.75 a month, far less than the utility had sought but still more than observers thought it deserved.The power company applied for a 7.79 percent increase in late 2006, which the D.C. Public Service Commission drastically scaled back in its final ruling. Under the commission’s order, the average monthly statement for Pepco’s 235,000 residential customers is......

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D.C. a huge Obama win

Published: Feb 13, 2008

Barack Obama thumped Hillary Clinton in D.C.’s Democratic presidential primary Tuesday, trouncing an established Washington insider amid very heavy turnout.With most precincts reporting, Obama was up 75 percent to Clinton’s 24 percent — 77,432 votes to 24,563. A 35 percent turnout tripled the 2004 primary."Although we won in Washington, D.C., the movement won’t stop until there’s change in Washington, D.C.,"......

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D.C.’s been generous to Clinton

Published: Feb 12, 2008

Although D.C. might prove an easy victory for Barack Obama in today’s Potomac primary, the city overall has been very, very good to Hillary Clinton’s campaign coffers.Clinton had outraised Obama in the District $4.7 million to $3.14 million, according to campaign finance data through Dec. 31 compiled by opensecrets.org. The New York senator also has collected more regionwide, $10.3 million......

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Absence of debate dimmed spotlight on lack of voting rights for District

Published: Feb 12, 2008

D.C. leaders hoped a meaningful Potomac primary would bring national attention to the District’s disenfranchisement in Congress, but the lack of a debate between the two Democratic contenders likely spoiled the golden opportunity. Both Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama support full voting representation for the roughly 600,000 D.C. residents. But the issue has languished since the Senate last fall rejected legislation giving the District a single vote in......

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George Washington University finalizes deal to develop Foggy Bottom

Published: Feb 11, 2008

George Washington University announced Friday that it has finalized a long-term lease agreement with a private partner for the redevelopment of the nearly three-acre vacant site of the former GW Hospital.The parcel known as Square 54, to be developed by Boston Properties, is adjacent to the Foggy Bottom Metro station, where Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington Circle, I Street and 23rd Street converge.The 842,000-square-foot project is expected to include several high-rises featuring office, retail and residential space, in addition to a new supermarket and 1,000 parking spaces.The 60-year ground lease has Boston......

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GWU tuition rises again

Published: Feb 09, 2008

Tuition for incoming George Washington University freshmen will increase by 3 percent in the fall to $40,392, President Steven Knapp said Friday, maintaining the school's position as one of the most expensive in the country to attend. Between tuition, room and board and fees, the total cost of attending GWU climbed to $50,660 in 2007-2008. The university's board of directors agreed Friday to ramp up financial aid efforts......

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Days before primary, Fenty opens Obama's D.C. headquarters

Published: Feb 09, 2008

Mayor Adrian Fenty on Friday opened Barack Obama's D.C. headquarters in Southeast, firing up more than a hundred supporters who anticipate a big victory in next week's Potomac Primary. Looking as comfortable on the stump as he did during his mayoral campaign, Fenty told the crowd gathered outside 1225 Pennsylvania Ave. SE that Obama is the "right candidate at the right time with the right message and the right values."......

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D.C. fears changes to floodplain maps; FEMA not backing down

Published: Feb 08, 2008

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is refusing to retreat from new floodplain maps that D.C. officials fear could drastically affect future development across downtown Washington.The new maps incorporate much of the city’s core into the 100-year floodplain, generally between Pennsylvania and Madison avenues and between Third Street Southwest and South Capitol Street. Most homeowners and businesses within the new plain will have to obtain flood insurance......

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No deal yet on Clinton/Obama debate in D.C. region

Published: Feb 08, 2008

The Democratic presidential contenders’ campaigns sparred Thursday over whether to debate before next week’s Potomacprimary, with Barack Obama remaining cagey about accepting Hillary Clinton’s challenge.George Washington University is prepared to host one debate between Clinton and Obama, perhaps Monday night on Fox News from the 5,000-seat Smith Center. ABC News’ "This Week" with George Stephanopoulous has proposed another for Sunday, and WJLA/Politico are bidding for a third any time before the polls open.Clinton, who has seen her lead in the polls fade away, has accepted all three offers, and has......

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Dems have teams in place in D.C.

Published: Feb 07, 2008

Supporters of the two Democratic candidates are busy plotting their last moves in advance of Tuesday’s D.C. primary, targeting the 15 delegates up for grabs in an extremely tight presidential race.Sen. Barack Obama’s District ground game is well-established with about 2,000 volunteers, a Web site listing upcoming events, wide outreach to enlist additional help and Mayor Adrian Fenty’s political machine propelling the effort. "D.C. for Obama" is a year old, said chair Ian Martinez, and though it was established to tackle out-of-state primaries, the focus now is squarely on the......

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City is likely providing free health care to many nonresidents at a hefty cost

Published: Feb 07, 2008

The D.C. government is likely paying millions of tax dollars to provide free health care to thousands of non-District residents who have managed to improperly enroll in the District’s medical safety net, documents obtained by The Examiner show.An ongoing audit of the $129 million D.C. Healthcare Alliance by consultant Bert Smith & Co. found a "significantly high occurrence of individuals using the same address, raising concern of whether non-District residents may be enrolled in the program." The Examiner obtained a draft of the audit.The auditor also discovered multiple case records......

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Council backs paid leave for D.C. workers

Published: Feb 06, 2008

The D.C. Council Tuesday tentatively approved legislation that would guarantee paid sick leave for all workers in the city, rejecting concerns that the measure may cripple small businesses. The bill, which proponents describe as a historic step for about 200,000 workers who receive zero paid sick leave, was approved on first reading by an 11-2 vote. The second reading will come in March. "When all is said and done, we shouldn’t lose sight of the essential feature......

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Obama victory in D.C. uncertain despite Fenty, Kennedy endorsements

Published: Feb 06, 2008

Even with Mayor Adrian Fenty’s endorsement, a 7,000-person turnout at a recent rally and seemingly favorable demographics, Sen. Barack Obama still hasn’t locked up a victory in Tuesday’s D.C. primary, political analysts said."The polling nationwide shows that a substantial majority of African American voters are inclined to support Obama," said Peter Shapiro, director of the Continued...

 

Challenger of D.C. gun ban fires back

Published: Feb 05, 2008

Lawyers representing Dick Anthony Heller filed their first brief with the U.S. Supreme Court Monday in support of their effort to overturn D.C.’s gun ban, which they deem the "most draconian infringements of Second Amendment rights."Alan Gura, arguing his first case before the high court, issued the reply in response to the District’s filing early last month. Gura......

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Group: More cabbie strikes ahead

Published: Feb 05, 2008

Many District cab drivers stayed home Monday to protest the impending switch from zone fares to time-and-distance meters, but Mayor Adrian Fenty offered no signal that he would change his mind at the 11th hour.The 12-hour strike was the first of many, warned Willie Wright, president of the D.C. Taxicab Industry Group. The plan, for now, is to strike once a week for two months, followed by a possible escalation......

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Bush budget mixed bag for D.C.

Published: Feb 05, 2008

President Bush rejected most of D.C.’s funding requests for the proposed fiscal 2009 budget, offering instead nearly the same amount as was provided in the previous federal budget.Overall, the proposed federal payment to the District came up short of what the city requested of the Office of Management and Budget. The city’s $104.6 million bid for education was cut to $74 million. Its $12.7 million......

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Proposed fee would fund D.C. auto-theft program

Published: Feb 05, 2008

The D.C. Council will consider legislation today that would raise the District’s vehicle registration fee by $5 to finance a more aggressive campaign against motor vehicle theft.Introduced by at-large Councilman Phil Mendelson, the bill would establish an independent nine-member authority charged with combating auto theft in the District, and provide the group a dedicated revenue source of roughly $1.3 million a year to implement its plans."These......

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Gandhi: D.C. to face slowdown in 2009

Published: Feb 04, 2008

The District of Columbia’s elected leaders are facing an economic slowdown as they head into their fiscal year 2009 budget deliberations next week, though it is unclear whether they will respond by reigning in spending.Though he anticipates an $80 million surplus at the close of the current fiscal year — fiscal 2007 closed with $248 million in unanticipated revenues — Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi has warned the mayor and council repeatedly that 2009 is when the slowdown will hit home. The District, unlike its neighbors, has remained generally shielded......

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D.C. ends FY 2007 with another $80M

Published: Feb 02, 2008

The D.C. government ended the last fiscal year with a $248 million surplus, which includes $80 million in cash it could spend or opt to save for an expected economic crunch, figures obtained by The Examiner show. The revenues for fiscal 2007 came in 7.3 percent higher than Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi's May 2006 estimate and 6.6 percent more than his most recent projections, according to numbers culled from the unaudited results of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report.......

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New owners: Hospital is taking baby steps to improve conditions

Published: Feb 01, 2008

The new owners of Greater Southeast Community Hospital told the D.C. Council on Thursday that they have already moved to upgrade equipment, facilities and management since taking over the tormented facility in November. But it will take years, administrators said, before the hospital is in "normal operating mode.""It took 10 years to break this hospital, and we still believe it will take two to three years to fix it," said Frank Wilich, co-founder of New Hampshire-based Specialty Hospitals of America, Greater Southeast’s parent company.The District withdrew $79 million from its......

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D.C. gas stations may take on vehicle inspections

Published: Jan 31, 2008

Mayor Adrian Fenty’s top aides are developing a plan to allow vehicle inspections at the city’s gas stations rather than limiting drivers to the lone District-run facility in Southwest.The mayor has directed the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Department of the Environment to look at decentralizing emissions inspections, shuttering the DMV’s facility at 1001 Half St. SW and eliminating most safety inspections. Detailed recommendations should be ready by March, said Janis Hazel, DMV spokeswoman."Yes, the administration is very seriously looking at decentralization," said George Hawkins, District DOE director. "It......

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Neighborhoods to gain from $95M infusion

Published: Jan 30, 2008

A half-dozen struggling D.C. neighborhoods will receive $95 million in tax revenue-backed bonds to support retail and parking projects that officials hope will accelerate revitalization, District officials announced Tuesday.The plan calls for the establishment of tax-financed districts along six corridors: Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue Southeast, H Street Northeast, 7th Street and Georgia Avenue Northwest, Petworth, Minnesota-Benning, and Pennsylvania Avenue Southeast. The District will make $95 million in bonds available on a per-project basis, money that must be repaid with the property and sales tax revenues generated by each project.Called......

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Georgetown University students are at risk for identity theft

Published: Jan 30, 2008

Thousands of Georgetown University students are at risk for identity theft after a computer hard drive containing their names and Social Security numbers was stolen from an office earlier this month, school officials said Tuesday.The external drive was taken from a locked room within the Office of Student Affairs in the Leavey Center on Jan. 3, said Julie Green Bataille, university spokeswoman. The device contained the names, addresses and Social Security numbers of 38,000 current students, alumni and staff, but did not include any bank, credit card or health records.Affected......

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Nickles spars with council, denies he is a ‘puppet’

Published: Jan 29, 2008

D.C.’s acting attorney general, Peter Nickles, disputed charges Monday that he is a mere "puppet" of Mayor Adrian Fenty even as a key D.C. Council member said he would not support Nickles’ appointment as permanent attorney general. "I will not support him as the new attorney general," at-large Councilman Phil Mendelson, chairman of the judiciary committee, said of Nickles. "In my view there have been too many mistakes, errors of judgment."Nickles, Fenty’s confidant and former general counsel, was called to testify on a proposal to shift the authority to......

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Appeals board out of the shadows

Published: Jan 26, 2008

The enigmatic D.C. panel charged with hearing appeals to property tax assessments has finally launched a Web site that names its members and some of its processes, a key step toward transparency, the panel's longtime critics say. The Board of Real Property Assessments and Appeals is the second level in the appellate system, handling more than 3,400 cases this tax year of residents and businesses who believe their properties were assessed too high. Shrouded......

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Sharp contrast in Fenty's initiatives

Published: Jan 26, 2008

Mayor Adrian Fenty Friday laid out a modest set of priorities for his second year in office that are in sharp contrast to the major initiatives he undertook in his freshman year as mayor.Where there was the high-profile D.C. Public Schools takeover in 2007, Fenty begins 2008 with an aim to create individual graduation plans for high school students and to increase the number of 9th- to 11th-graders taking the PSATs in October. An overarching objective to reintroduce community policing......

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D.C. street cams would double revenue

Published: Jan 25, 2008

Attaching cameras to D.C.’s fleet of street sweepers to nab parking violators will generate up to $2.67 million this year alone, more than double the revenue currently garnered from sweeper-related tickets, a District study found.The analysis by the Department of Public Works assumed an average of 89 vehicles parking illegally on any given street-sweeper route. Over the course of a six-month sweeping season, DPW expects to issue upward of 89,000 $30 tickets by camera alone — assuming that compliance with thelaw increases to 60 percent by the fourth month of......

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Call takers predict trouble with new 911/311 system

Published: Jan 25, 2008

The District’s new 911-311 system will provoke massive call volume and delays as an undermanned, inadequately trained staff struggles to handle a wave of new service requests, employees of the Office of Unified Communications said Thursday.Mayor Adrian Fenty rolled out the two-number system this week, retiring 202-727-1000, the longtime direct route to the mayor’s call center. Instead, residents are now asked to dial 311 to obtain city services......

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9 D.C. workers fired for viewing porn

Published: Jan 24, 2008

Nine D.C. government employees were fired Wednesday and 32 more will be disciplined for viewing pornographic Web sites thousands of times on the job last year, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced.The worst offender, according to data provided by the Office of the Chief Technology Officer, was a single employee whose computer registered 48,002 porn site page views in 2007. That averages to about one hit every 2.5 minutes, if one assumes the person worked eight hours a day, five days a week for 50 weeks."Obviously this is not just egregious behavior,"......

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Fenty elections board nominee gets torpedoed by D.C. Council

Published: Jan 23, 2008

The D.C. Council has rejected Mayor Adrian Fenty’s nominee to serve on the city’s elections board, leaving a vacancy on the key three-person panel just as the presidential and local election seasons heat up.Fenty’s nomination of Hiram K. Brewton never left the government operations committee, chaired by Continued...

 

Top court sets date for gun ban case

Published: Jan 23, 2008

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the D.C. gun ban case on March 18, the court announced Tuesday.Justices have cleared their slate for D.C. vs. Heller, perhaps the most important 2nd Amendment case the court has tackled in 70 years. Arguments will begin at 10 a.m. At stake is the District’s total ban on handguns, its drastic limits on other firearms, and perhaps gun control laws in cities and states nationwide.The fight boils down to whether the U.S. Constitution guarantees individuals or militias the right to keep......

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Porn downloads in City Hall

Published: Jan 23, 2008

Nine D.C. government employees were fired Wednesday and another 32 were disciplined for accessing thousandsof pornographic Web sites on the job last year using their government-issued computers, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced. The worst of the bunch, according to data provided by the Office of the Chief Technology Officer, was one employee whose computer registered 48,002 hits on porn sites in calendar year 2007. That averages out to about 100 hits a day. "Obviously this is not just egregious behavior," Fenty said during a news conference at One Judiciary Square. "This......

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Stadium $43M over budget

Published: Jan 22, 2008

The costs of acquiring land needed to build the Washington Nationals ballpark have exceeded original estimates by $50 million, busting the publicly financed stadium’s $631 million budget with more increases yet to come, documents show.Thanks almost entirely to land acquisition, the tab for the stadium is now pegged at $674 million, an increase of $43.2 million over the original budget, according to a Jan. 16 report provided to the D.C. Council by the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission. The 25 landowners whose 63 parcels were located on the stadium site......

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D.C. workers scramble to replace doctors

Published: Jan 21, 2008

The D.C. government last month abruptly ended its relationship with its largest health care provider, forcing about3,000 city employees into a new plan and leaving many scrambling to replace doctors no longer covered. The Department of Human Resources told its CIGNA users about the change in a Dec. 21 e-mail. On Jan. 6, all CIGNA clients were transitioned to a newly offered Aetna plan, whether they wanted it or not. Employees were caught off guard, said Kristopher Baumann, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, who said he was receiving......

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Parks director overhauls head office

Published: Jan 19, 2008

The director of the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation has overhauled the agency's upper management and fired two administrators since being confirmed this month, as he moves to motivate reform in the 800-employee operation. After his appointment as acting director six monthsago, Clark Ray immediately noticed that "morale was at a very low level" in the $60 million agency, he said Thursday. After taking a......

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Parking meter problems,complaints skyrocket in 2007

Published: Jan 18, 2008

Complaints about broken D.C. parking meters soared last year by nearly 40 percent over 2006, for a total of more than 94,000.The District chalks the increase up to better reporting, but one activist blames the failing mechanical systems in the city’s roughly 16,500 coin-operated meters.The Department of Transportation registered 94,049 service requests for broken meters in 2007, up from 67,813 in 2006 and 58,954 in 2005. But Karyn......

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Old Post Office eyed for redevelopment

Published: Jan 17, 2008

Congress will consider legislation aimed at spurring redevelopment of the Old Post Office building, the massive structure in the Federal Triangle that has languished nearly empty for decades with no clear purpose.The bill, introduced Tuesday by D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D, would compel the General Services Administration to strike deals with the private sector for the renovation, management and operation of the historic block-long facility at 1100 Pennsylvania Ave. The GSA sought expressions of interest from developers in 2005 but the effort has since stalled."You can’t stop something like......

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Fenty announces cuts to cab fares

Published: Jan 17, 2008

Mayor Adrian Fenty announced Tuesday that he would slash the base fare for taxicab passengers under the new meter system, bowing to pressure from thousands of riders who complained the price as first suggested was too high.But lower fares have only emboldened the opposition of some D.C. cab drivers, who are threatening to strike starting next month."We’re going to fight back," said William J. Wright, president of the Taxicab Industry Group. "We’re not losing our jobs and everything we’ve worked for to play dead for the mayor. We’re working for......

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Council challenges response

Published: Jan 16, 2008

D.C. Council members challenged whether Mayor Adrian Fenty’s response to the deaths of four sisters has gone far enough during a day of heated probing into the city’s failure to respond to the family’s plight."Here’s all these agencies of the government that were supposedly involved, yet no one was involved," said at-large Councilwoman Carol Schwartz during an oversight hearing of the Human Services Committee.Banita Jacks and her family were touched by at least five D.C. agencies in a span of two years.But Fenty has focused his reform efforts on one......

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D.C., residents not seeing eye to eye on customer service

Published: Jan 16, 2008

Whether the grievance israt infestation, a littered alley or a busted parking meter, D.C. and its residents are not on the same page when reflecting on the quality of the government’s response to service requests.The District claims to meet performance and on-time yardsticks for the vast majority of complaints received every year, but survey data through early December reveal widespread dissatisfaction among residents, spawning what Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration has dubbed a customer service "perception gap." Those gaps top 70 percent in some cases and have spurred an effort in......

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Fenty fires 6 in girls’ deaths

Published: Jan 15, 2008

Six D.C. government employees who failed to help Banita Jacks before she allegedly killed her four daughters were fired Monday, as Mayor Adrian Fenty rolled out a lineup of reforms aimed at fixing mistakes that contributed to the tragedy.The employees — front-line social workers, supervisors, call-takers and the child protective services director among them — all work for the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency. Two other staffers stand to be fired as the investigation advances. Their names and official titles were not released."CFSA had all the information they needed,"......

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D.C. moves to restrict popular detergents

Published: Jan 14, 2008

The District is considering several steps to improve water quality in area rivers and waterways, including a virtual ban on the sale of dishwasher detergents that contain a popular but Chesapeake Bay-killing additive.Under a bill introduced last week by D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh, most if not all brand-name dishwasher detergents currently on store shelves would have to come off, from Cascade to Palmolive. The products contain phosphates that are slowly choking the life out of the Bay and its tributaries, Cheh said."We’ve all read stories about the fish in the......

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Mayor releases phone call tapes in Banita Jacks case

Published: Jan 14, 2008

Mayor Adrian Fenty Monday released tapes of two phone calls from last April, one to the Child and Family Services hotline and a second to 311 nonemergency communications, which demonstrate the failures of CFSA to take the case of Banita Jacks seriously. Jacks was charged last week with the murders of her four daughters. The woman who made both calls, a social worker at daughter Brittany's charter school, urged CFSA to take action immediately, citing Banita Jacks' apparent mental illness and the possibility she was holding her children hostage. Hear......

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Fenty: City agencies failed Jacks' girls

Published: Jan 12, 2008

Mayor Adrian Fenty vowed Friday to hold accountable city workers who failed to do their jobs after contact with the family of Banita Jacks in the two years before prosecutors said she murdered her four children. Jacks and her four daughters were touched by at least six city agencies over the course of two years, including child and family services, and the police, human services and health departments. Fenty and......

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D.C. still not enforcing year-old affordable housing zoning law

Published: Jan 11, 2008

The District of Columbia is wasting opportunities to boost its dwindling affordable housing stock because Mayor Adrian Fenty has yet to implement a year-old law requiring affordability in larger projects, D.C. Council members contend.An inclusionary zoning law adopted by the Council in 2006 mandates that developments of at least 10 units include a certain percentage of......

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Cordi is new D.C. tax office director

Published: Jan 09, 2008

D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi on Tuesday named a former Maryland official as the new head of the D.C. tax office, where he has pledged to restore public confidence in the scandal-plagued agency.Stephen M. Cordi, who retired as Maryland’s deputy comptroller in 2005, will join the CFO’s office Jan. 22 as director of the Office of Tax and Revenue.He will be asked to rebuild an agency rocked by the largest case of theft in D.C. government history — the bilking of at least $20 million.Prosecutors have charged a pair......

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Council report calls for legislative branch to take more aggressive role in public education overhaul

Published: Jan 08, 2008

D.C. Council members must forcefully insert themselves into education reform rather than simply react to the initiatives tossed out by Mayor Adrian Fenty, the council’s policy arm concludes in a new report.The findings of the fledgling Office of Policy Analysis are illustrative of an ongoing conflict between the executive and legislative branches in the......

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D.C. measure would protect jobs of injured firefighters

Published: Jan 07, 2008

Sgt. Michael LaCore and firefighter Charlie Shyab, both with D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services, were seriously injured Oct. 29 as they fought a raging row house fire on Capitol Hill. Neither has returned to work, and under existing District law, both will be forced into retirement if they’re not back on the job by April."The mayor has said and......

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D.C. fires first in gun ban appeal

Published: Jan 05, 2008

The D.C. government on Friday filed its first major brief before the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the city's gun ban, arguing on three counts that the District's unusually tough restrictions on firearm possession do not violate the Constitution."The Second Amendment was not intended to tie the hands of government in providing for public safety," reads D.C.'s 59-page brief. "Reasonable regulations of firearms have been common place since the founding of the Republic."Continued...

 

Senators call for Metro funding

Published: Jan 05, 2008

A trio of U.S. senators from the Washington area on Friday called on their colleagues to approve a $1.5 billion federal payment to Metro for capital upgrades, on the condition that regional jurisdictions come up with dedicated transit funding as well.Maryland Sens. Benjamin Cardin and Continued...

 

Union Station: Tax threatens retail

Published: Jan 04, 2008

The caretakers of the Union Station shopping center are claiming that a D.C. tax imposed on some federally owned properties could torpedo the popular commercial hub.Federal real estate is exempt from the District’s commercial property tax. But D.C. adopted legislation in 2004 to tax the "possessory interests" of federal sites — those areas leased to commercial entities for for-profit purposes — in the hopes of capturing some lost revenue.While the tax affects about 186 businesses, no building is charged more than Union Station and its 100-plus stores. And the organization......

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Needle program get $300,000

Published: Jan 03, 2008

Mayor Adrian Fenty on Wednesday infused a privately funded needle exchange program with $300,000 in taxpayer dollars in the hope of reaching thousands of additional intravenous drug users before they are infected with HIV.Fenty, joined by three D.C. Council members, delivered a check to Prevention Works! only a week after Congress lifted a decade-old ban on publicly financed syringe exchanges. The nonprofit supplies clean needles to about 2,000 drug users a year, while also providing substance abuse treatment and HIV testing in partnership with the District’s Department of Health."This program......

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Rent may tank D.C. aquarium

Published: Jan 03, 2008

The oft-overlooked National Aquarium in D.C. is fighting plans by the federal government to charge rent for its space in the basement of the Herbert C. Hoover Building, after putting in more than 70 years in the same location at no cost.Not nearly as well-known as its affiliate in Baltimore, the nonprofit National Aquarium welcomes roughly 175,000 people a year to what Continued...

 

Washington Gas quietly installs minor rate hike

Published: Jan 01, 2008

A rate hike for Washington Gas’ 151,000 D.C. customers went into effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday, but the increases are so negligible most consumers probably won’t even notice a difference in their monthly statements.The D.C. Public Service Commission approved the amended rate system Friday, though Washington Gas had yet to publicly announce the changes as of Monday morning. The increase, which is expected to generate an additional $1.4 million in revenue, is "reasonable and necessary for the company......

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Fenty coming up short on goals

Published: Dec 27, 2007

Mayor Adrian Fenty is on track to end his first year in office having fallen behind on several of his key priorities.Fenty laid out his 100 Days and Beyond plan in January, setting dozens of specific goals for year one of his administration in education, human services, public safety, infrastructure and environment, government operations, health care, and economic development. He pledged to match every deadline, but as of Wednesday, with less than a week until the new year, it appeared several major objectives would go unmet."No excuses," the mayor said......

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For Fenty, there’s no looking back

Published: Dec 26, 2007

Mayor Adrian Fenty isn’t much for perspective and reflection. He is hard to pin down when pressed to name the most weighty moment of 2007, his first year as the District of Columbia’s chief executive. Or his most decisive moment. Or what he would like to do over again.Fenty, 37, is all about looking forward."All I think about is what work needs to be done," Fenty said in a recent......

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Hospital struggles with water woes

Published: Dec 26, 2007

Patients at D.C.’s St. Elizabeths Hospital have endured five on-campus water-main breaks this winter, including one that knocked out water to the entire campus for eight hours and forced facility administrators to bring in portable toilets. The infrastructure beneath the century-old psychiatric hospital in Southeast is failing more frequently this year, nearly tapping out the hospital’s maintenance contingency fund for fiscal 2008, said Patrick Canavan, St. Elizabeths’ chief operating officer. "It’s been uncomfortable certainly and I don’t like the situation, but we’re doing the best we can," Canavan said. "It’s......

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Christmas Eve fire claims two

Published: Dec 25, 2007

Two elderly residents of a home in upper Northwest D.C died Monday in a tragic blaze, stunning a tight-knit community on Christmas Eve.George O’Keefe, 88, and Gisela O’Keefe, 80, had called 3128 Oliver St. home for 50 years, neighbors said. "This is a lovely couple, and their loss will be felt by many family members and many community members," Mayor......

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DC, Verizon agree to new $51M deal

Published: Dec 24, 2007

The D.C. government and Verizon have set aside past differences and entered into a $51 million, three-year contract for telecommunication services that District leaders expect will save taxpayers several million dollars annually.That the District needs the new deal, however, confirms its $100 million internal fiber optic network, called DC-NET, is not being expanded into government facilities as quickly as its architects would have hoped."We’re not just going to magically get rid of all Verizon lines, because DC-Net is not in every government building," said Vivek Kundra, the District chief technology......

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Wines may flow to D.C. restaurants

Published: Dec 22, 2007

Oenophiles rejoice: A decades-old law restricting the right of D.C. residents to import wine may be nearing its end. Legislation before the D.C. Council would boost the volume of wine a person could have shipped into the city to two cases per month, per home or business. Existing law prohibits imports of more than a single quart per month to any person who does not hold a manufacturer's, wholesaler's or retailer's license. In other words, going......

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D.C.'s annual audit will be 60 days late

Published: Dec 22, 2007

The District's outside auditor has asked for more time to perform its annual review of the city's fiscal 2007 finances, another consequence of the massive tax scandal. BDO Seidman will need until the end of March to finish D.C.'s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, a critical analysis of the city's financial books. The request for 60 extra days comes as federal authorities continue to investigate unprecedented theft within the Continued...

 

Savings from early retirements could top $20M

Published: Dec 21, 2007

The D.C. government could save roughly $20 million over the next four years if it purges more than 5,100 longtime employees from the payroll as Mayor Adrian Fenty has proposed, according to a fiscal impact statement.The D.C. Council, however, is putting the brakes on Fenty’s early retirement incentive plan — for now. The mayor, who rolled out his program Monday with a news conference and news......

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Meter stickers remind motorists not to pay on weekends, holidays

Published: Dec 21, 2007

Perhaps common sense dictates that there's no parking enforcement in D.C. on federal holidays or weekends, but that didn't stop the District from collecting nearly $1,500 from its multispace meters on Veterans Day.Responding to a request from D.C. activist Terry Lynch, the city's Department of Transportation will install stickers on its newfangled meters along K Street, in Georgetown and......

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Infant mortality rises in District

Published: Dec 20, 2007

The D.C. government will launch a broad effort in 2008 to tackle infant mortality rates that have ticked up in the last two years and remain double the national average, District leaders announced Wednesday.The city’s infant mortality rate dipped from 14.4 per 1,000 live births in 1996 to 13.6 in 2005, according to statistics released this week by the D.C. Department of Health. But the 2005 figure rose to its highest level since 1999, when 113......

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District to get a quarter in 2009

Published: Dec 20, 2007

D.C. might not have voting representation in Congress, the right to pass a local law without federal approval or the authority to spend its money without the president’s signature, but as of 2009 it will have its own quarter.The omnibus appropriations bill approved this week by Congress authorizes an extension of the U.S. Mint’s 50 State Quarters Program to include the District of Columbia and the Continued...

 

Washington Gas backs off rate hike

Published: Dec 19, 2007

Washington Gas Light Co. has agreed to drastically scale back proposed rate increases for its D.C. consumers, walking away from a yearlong case with next to nothing, under a settlement agreement reached last week with the District government and other parties. The 8.1 percent rate increase that Washington Gas sought for its residential customers has been slashed to less than 1 percent, according to details of the deal released by the D.C. Public Service Commission, the District's utility regulator. The proposed 5.1 percent increase for commercial gas clients is now......

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Hilda Mason, longtime D.C. councilwoman, dies

Published: Dec 18, 2007

Longtime D.C. Councilwoman Hilda Howland Mason died Sunday at the age of 91, and District leaders responded with praise for her as a champion for education and voting rights.Mason served on the council between 1977 and 1998, winning five campaigns before her defeat at the hands of current Councilman David Catania. Before her tenure on the council, Mason was a teacher, counselor and assistant principal in the D.C. Public Schools,......

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Portraits of homeless families on display at Wilson Building

Published: Dec 18, 2007

The portraits of more than 100 homeless families, all former residents of the now-closed D.C. Village shelter, will be displayed in the atrium of the John A. Wilson Building through Jan. 14.Roughly 150 families were photographed over the past year-and a-half through an initiative of the Homeless Children’s Playtime Project. "The need for shelter is a basic human need, and it has a human face," Mayor Adrian Fenty......

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Thousands of D.C. workers offered early retirement

Published: Dec 18, 2007

The D.C. government will offer thousands of employees a paid incentive to retire now as the District moves to transition out some its oldest staffers with new blood, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced Monday.Roughly 5,127 retirement-eligible employees could take advantage of the so-called "Early Out/Easy Out" program. Nearly one in six District employees is eligible to retire today and another 20 percent will be eligible in the next five years."This is a program that is used not only in the District......

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Revitalization plan a go

Published: Dec 18, 2007

The redevelopment of the 10-acre old Convention Center site into what is being described as the "heart and soul" of a vibrant new downtown D.C. will kick off in 2009, District leaders announced Monday.Long-term lease agreements and zoning approvals for the $850 million project are finished, Mayor Adrian Fenty said, allowing the project to move into the design and permitting phase, and construction to be completed by 2012. The development is slated to include 670 apartments and condominiums — 20 percent "affordable" — 250,000 square feet of retail, 456,000 square......

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Library in Bloomingdale’s sights

Published: Dec 17, 2007

D.C. leaders have been talking to Bloomingdale’s in recent months about locating a new store in downtown Washington, possibly in the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library or perhaps on the Old Convention Center site.Sean Madigan, spokesman for the deputy mayor for planning and economic development, would only confirm the city has "talked to Bloomingdale’s about a lot of sites in the city." Jim Sluzewski, spokesman for Bloomingdale’s parent company Macy’s, said the department store giant is "always looking for new store locations, but we do not disclose where we......

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Councilman claims he was badgered during 911 call

Published: Dec 15, 2007

A member of the D.C. Council who called 911 early Friday as a woman was being attacked outside his front door was harassed by a call taker who at one point asked if he was drunk, he said Friday. At 1:15 a.m. Friday, At-large Councilman David Catania was awakened by the muffled screams of a woman "pleading for her life," he said. Admittedly disoriented, he grabbed......

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Mental health agency passed up millions

Published: Dec 15, 2007

D.C.'s mental health agency has failed to recover more than $30 million in denied Medicaid claims that have piled up over several years, maintains unreliable technology systems and software and may have violated local and federal spending laws, a new audit finds. Of the roughly 1.4 million Medicaid claims submitted by the Department of Mental Health between 2002 and 2006, as many as 500,000 were rejected, the Office of the Inspector General......

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D.C. to pay Disney $200,000

Published: Dec 14, 2007

The D.C. government will cut a six-figure check to the Walt Disney Co. as compensation for the production company spending more than a month in the nation’s capital filming the sequel to the blockbuster "National Treasure."Crystal Palmer, head of the D.C. film office, said Thursday the District will pay Disney $211,432, refunding the company for 100 percent of the sales taxes it expended during preproduction and filming. Crews spent a month and a half in D.C. between March and April, laying out more than $3 million overall, Palmer said."That’s exactly......

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Study: D.C. residents carry average tax burden

Published: Dec 14, 2007

The overall tax burden shouldered by D.C. families generally falls in the middle of the pack among major U.S. cities and other Washington area jurisdictions, though taxes paid by the District’s lowest-earning households rank near the top, according to a new report.For a family of three earning up to $25,000 a year, the District’s tax burden is No. 1 among five regional jurisdictions — Montgomery, Prince George’s, Continued...

 

Fenty, Council clash on school closures

Published: Dec 13, 2007

Mayor Adrian Fenty flatly dismissed giving the D.C. Council a vote on every planned closure of a D.C. Public School as proposed by a pair of council members this week."The job of the legislature is to make sure that the executive makes the schools excellent," Fenty said in an interview with The Examiner. "So, I think everyone agrees on that. They have to oversee, make sure we’re doing our job. We actually have to do the work."Fenty won unprecedented control of the schools early in his administration with the council’s......

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A year later, little movement on rate hikes

Published: Dec 13, 2007

It could be much worse for D.C. residents hit hard by soaring prices at the gas pump: The D.C. Public Service Commission has yet to rule on a pair of utility rate hikes proposed a year ago.Both Washington Gas and Pepco went to the commission, the District’s utility regulator, in late 2006 to request rate increases. "We’re simply waiting for them to make a decision," said Robert Dobkin,......

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Democrats to get break from petitions for D.C. primary, will pay for ballot spots

Published: Dec 12, 2007

Democratic Party presidential candidates will be allowed to pay their way onto the D.C. primary ballot under emergency legislation approved unanimously Tuesday by the D.C. Council.Instead of pleading for petition signatures on the streets and outside supermarkets, Democrats will pay $2,500 each to the D.C. Democratic State Committee to get their names on......

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Fenty opposes development oversight agency

Published: Dec 12, 2007

Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration is spurning a D.C. Council plan to ensure developers are meeting promises to build affordable units and hire District residents, arguing the work "is already being done."The Compliance and Enforcement Agency, proposed by Councilman Kwame Brown, would target roughly 80 projects under the Continued...

 

Background checks for D.C. employees

Published: Dec 10, 2007

Most D.C. government and public school employees whose jobs entail direct contact with children will have to undergo criminal background checks no matter when they were first hired, under new rules published Friday.The emergency regulations issued by the Department of Human Resources will take effect in 30 days and could affect as many as 15,000 city workers. They require that each current employee or unsupervised volunteer in a covered position "be subjected to an initial criminal background check" within 45 days of the rules’ implementation, and then to submit to......

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Contracting office adds internal auditing division

Published: Dec 08, 2007

The director of the one D.C. agency with more buying power than any other has installed an internal audit division to root out the waste and fraud that has plagued it for years. "I'm the first to admit that this type of process in government is absolutely ripe for mismanagement, and any type of mismanagement leads to a loss of public money," said District Chief Procurement Officer David Gragan. Gragan oversees the Office of Contracting and Procurement,......

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D.C. revenue prediction up by $50M

Published: Dec 07, 2007

Embattled D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi on Thursday offered a rosy picture of the District’s finances for this fiscal year, predicting the city will end 2008 with an $80 million surplus.Gandhi edged up his revenue estimates for the year by $50 million over his September forecast, thanks in large part to the continuing strength of the city’s property market. Total general fund revenue in 2008 is projected at $5.19 billion, Gandhi said.Into 2009 and beyond, however, the outlook gets murky, and the growth is expected to slow dramatically."The revised......

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LED signs to target disenfranchised voters in D.C.

Published: Dec 07, 2007

Voting rights advocates called on the D.C. Council Thursday to install LED signs on two prominent buildings that would display the amount of federal tax dollars paid by disenfranchised District residents. Legislation introduced by Council Member Kwame Brown would require signs on the John A. Wilson Building and the new Washington Continued...

 

Fire department candidate died of natural causes

Published: Dec 07, 2007

A D.C. firefighter candidate who fell ill after strenuous training died from a skeletal muscle injury provoked by vigorous physical activity, the medical examiner said this week. But the revelation does not clear up whether poor care might have accelerated his collapse. Eric Allen, 23, of Temple Hills, died Oct. 15 of an acute breakdown of muscle fiber following strenuous exercise, which in rare cases can lead to kidney failure......

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Strange case leads to D.C. ladder bill

Published: Dec 06, 2007

A Logan Circle man who refused to remove a ladder from the side of his house, perhaps allowing thieves easy entry to his neighbors’ homes, has inspired legislation requiring District residents to keep their ladders locked away.The bill, introduced by Ward 2 D.C. Councilman Jack Evans, mandates that all ladders, when not in use, "shall be stored within a fully enclosed locked structure or locked and secured in a side......

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‘Pro bono’ audit getting costly

Published: Dec 06, 2007

The "pro bono" audit of the D.C. tax office by a high-profile law firm is growing less free by the day.In a letter dated Tuesday to D.C. Council leadership, firm WilmerHale said the city will be on the hook for up to $200,000 in out-of-pocket expenses, from photocopying to bike messengers. WilmerHale was enlisted by the council to lead the investigation......

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Fraud auditors coming to the District

Published: Dec 05, 2007

A team of a dozen outside investigators will soon descend on the D.C. government to interview employees, review electronic databases and study documents touncover the failures that led to the largest case of fraud in District history.The heavyweight team of lawyers and auditors with WilmerHale and PricewaterhouseCoopers, enlisted by the D.C. Council, will bring all its resources to bear in an inquiry not unlike that of major corporate scandals, said WilmerHale’s William R. McLucas, who will lead the pro bono review. The two firms are committed to determining where D.C.’s......

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City Administrator warns D.C. Council

Published: Dec 05, 2007

D.C. City Administrator Dan Tangherlini warned the D.C. Council on Tuesday that overburdening District employees with tiers of bureaucracy risks opening the door to abuse by enterprising thieves. In the wake of the largest corruption scandal in city history, Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration is focusing on stronger oversight, performance assessment and auditing, Tangherlini told the government operations committee, chaired by Councilwoman Carol Schwartz. But too many layers of review "reduce accountability and obscure transparency," he said. "The natural tendency after an event of this sort is to layer existing processes......

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D.C.-owned row house collapses

Published: Nov 29, 2007

The outer wall of a Shaw row house collapsed Monday night, and with it a 107-year-old home that community leaders say was abandoned by its current owner — the D.C. government — is now gone.The incident left neighbors wondering what other buildings under the District’s purview might be on the verge of buckling."It’s infuriating to see this kind of demolition by neglect," said Cary Silverman, president of the Mount Vernon Square Neighborhood Association. "It gets you mad when it comes by a private owner. When it’s a District government-owned vacant......

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Ballpark area contaminated

Published: Nov 28, 2007

The grounds of a mixed-use project just north of the Washington Nationals’ ballpark will be cleansed of potentially hazardous contaminants before it is redeveloped — a sign of things to come as once-industrial land is recast into a new community.McLean-based developer JPI submitted notice earlier this month that it would coordinate with the District to voluntarily remediate its property at 23 I St. SE, roughly three blocks north of the South Capitol Street stadium. JPI is planning a 12-story residential tower there with retail and underground parking, but first it......

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Contracting surpasses theft in money lost, auditors say

Published: Nov 28, 2007

Taxpayer dollars lost through mismanagement in the District of Columbia’s $2 billion contracting and procurement operation likely dwarf the amount stolen through overt theft, D.C.’s cadre of auditors say.The investigation continues into the alleged theft of more than $20 million by a pair of midlevel employees in the Office of Tax and Revenue — what has become the largest corruption case in D.C. history. But recent audits show that figure is a piddling amount compared with what the District is losing through poor contract management.A report from the D.C. inspector......

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UDC chief details waste of millions

Published: Nov 28, 2007

Acting University of District of Columbia President Stanley Jackson told D.C.’s elected leaders Tuesday that "gross mismanagement" allowed millions in public dollars to go to waste.Jackson, who was appointed in June following the forced exit of ex-President William Pollard, said UDC has left roughly $5 million per year unspent, set aside about $8 million more in a "discretionary fund" and let a community work-force development program languish, even with $3.6 million allocated to it.Council members were stunned."The needs are profound at that university, yet we have people asking for more......

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Cost for DMV records rising

Published: Nov 24, 2007

The price tag to buy access to a D.C. resident's personal information is about to get much more expensive, but privacy advocates question whether the identifying data should be sold at all by the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles. Under proposed rules circulated this month , the annual fee for electronic access to driver records will increase from $100 to $25,000, while periodic access to files containing registration-related information will jump from $1,200 to $36,000. The information is sold to data brokers that "are in the business of collecting data......

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O Street Market decision unpopular in Shaw

Published: Nov 23, 2007

Community leaders and Shaw residents are furious with a D.C. Zoning Commission decision this week to send a long-awaited $250 million project for the beleaguered neighborhood back to the drawing board. Groundbreaking for the CityMarket at O Street, a project of D.C.-based Roadside Development two blocks north of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, is slated for next year. But Roadside officials now say the project, designed to include three 110-foot residential towers and a 65,000-square-foot Giant supermarket, could be delayed following the commission's directive that the developer draw down......

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Fraud in scandal investigated

Published: Nov 22, 2007

D.C. Council’s formal investigation into the largest corruption scandal incity government history will focus on the current case of unprecedented fraud in the tax office, the council chairman said, and the panel might call on former Mayor Anthony Williams to testify."There’s some pretty fundamental deficiencies here that have got to be addressed that a criminal investigation would never address," Council Chairman Vincent Gray told The Examiner on Wednesday. "If we start this off with such a wide scope to take on the entire city, we may get nothing done at......

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U.S. Supreme Court takes District handgun ban case

Published: Nov 21, 2007

The U.S. Supreme Court announced Tuesday it will decide whether the District’s 31-year-old handgun ban is constitutional, a review that could decide the future of gun laws across the nation."We are united and committed to fight for the safety and welfare of the District’s people, and we are glad that the Supreme Court will allow us to argue on behalf of Washington, D.C., residents," Mayor Adrian Fenty said during a news conference, backed by members of the D.C. Council.At stake in