The mayor and the city council have been at one another’s throats for three years.
There was the skirmish over the baseball tickets Mayor Adrian Fenty declined to share.
And the squabble over the firetruck Fenty wanted to send to the Dominican Republic.
And the constant skirmishing over schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s handling of school reform.
But the behind-the-scenes dispute over the council’s right to review city contracts is more dire. It has the potential to shut down the city. It is nearing Armageddon.
Want your trash picked up? Your health clinic to stay open? Your driver’s license renewed?
If the mayor and city council cannot come to some agreement, funds to pay for basic city services could quit flowing. Today.
The city council last fall unanimously passed a law that the executive branch must send over contracts worth more than $1 million for review. The wrinkle in the new law gave the council the right to review “option year” contracts. The council had reviewed them when they were first proposed but not when they were renewed. The new law gave the council the power to see them every year the option was exercised.
Curiously, Mayor Fenty never actually signed the legislation. He allowed it to become law by letting it “lay over.”
The council set a Jan. 20 deadline to review the documents. At issue are contracts worth $875 million.
Fenty declined to send them to the council. His message: Screw you. He wanted to avoid scrutiny and potential hearings at all cost.
Rather than confront the mayor, Council Chairman Vincent Gray rolled over. He gave Fenty another week. The second deadline was Wednesday.
Attorney General Peter Nickles met with Gray and the council’s lawyer, Brian Flowers. He was willing to allow Flowers and council Budget Director Eric Goulet to review the contracts — on one condition: They would guarantee not to challenge them.
Gray said no dice. Nickles refused to budge.
The Wednesday deadline came and went. Gray blinked again and again let it slip.
Meanwhile, Nickles sent a letter to the council in which he argues that its law is unconstitutional, because the legislative branch cannot abrogate a contract. True or not, the matter might be headed to the courts.
Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi is the adult in the room with the power to keep the funds flowing.
“The independent CFO recognizes his responsibility,” his spokesman David Umansky told me, “and will not do anything that allows the financial stability of the District to be compromised.”
In other words, Gandhi will keep paying vendors. He understands that Wall Street doesn’t care a whit about the brinkmanship between the mayor and the council. He knows Congress could step in if the city shut down.
Gray and his 12 colleagues are left in the lurch. They passed a law the mayor refuses to obey. It is Marbury v. Madison, in a much smaller arena.
In this arena, Fenty has won — again.
E-mail Harry Jaffe at [email protected].
