Two well-known Ward 1 residents with public service experience have emerged to possibly challenge three-term D.C. Councilman Jim Graham in his 2010 re-election campaign. The door might have opened to serious challengers with the arrest of Ted Loza, Graham’s chief of staff, on bribery charges tied to a recent taxicab scandal. The Ward 1 councilman is not linked to the scandal, investigators say, but the tight bond between Graham and Loza, and Graham’s coziness with taxicab industry leadership, is nevertheless disconcerting to some voters. “I do not look at this with glee, blood in the water,” said Bryan Weaver, a long-time Adams Morgan advisory neighborhood commissioner who is exploring a run against Graham. “I think he’s 100 percent innocent.” But the Loza incident, the 39-year-old Weaver said, has given residents the perception that there is a “pay-to-play” attitude at city hall. “What bothers me is there is, possibly, an environment of obligation that certain lobbies, certain contributors are able to do things or get support from the Wilson Building that regular citizens wouldn’t get,” Weaver said. Weaver, executive director of the Hoops Sagrado nonprofit, this week formed an exploratory committee to raise some money and “see if it’s just me or if others have the same vision.” Jeff Smith, a former D.C. Board of Education member for Wards 1 and 2, also is considering a campaign, The Examiner has learned. “I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t something I was going to be thinking about over the holidays,” said Smith, executive director of DC Voice, an education advocacy organization.

Smith resigned from the Board of Education in April 2007 to protest Mayor Adrian Fenty’s takeover of the D.C. Public Schools. “I remain interested in the leadership of the city I grew up in, the city I work in,” he said.