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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