The District still has not settled with a leasing company that provided the luxury Lincoln Navigator sport-utility vehicle rejected by Council Chair Kwame Brown last year. The spokesman for the city’s attorney general told the Washington Examiner that word in the office is the outstanding dispute could land the city in court over the issue.
“[A colleague has said] it is likely to end up in court because there’s this dispute over how much money should be paid over this,” Ted Gest told The Examiner.
Gest said he wasn’t at liberty to say more because it’s the city’s policy not to talk about negotiations it may be entering.
The SUV in question was the first of two luxury vehicles ordered last year by Brown after he won the council’s chairmanship. After returning one fully-loaded Navigator because its interior was not black as he had ordered, Brown received a nearly identical one at a cost on the lease of nearly $2,000 per month to D.C taxpayers.
After the public uproar, Brown returned the second SUV and now drives a Toyota Prius. But unbeknownst to him, that first SUV wasn’t returned to the leasing company as Brown had assumed, according to his statement a year ago. Instead the city maintained it in its fleet.
According to City Paper columnist Alan Suderman, the District settled in September with the leasing company that provided the Navigator Brown actually drove, paying $12,450.23 to break the lease. The lease agreement on the first SUV — the one with the gray interior — is still in limbo.
