To those of us who stalk the halls of the John Wilson Building hoping to catch a legislator in a compromising situation, Thursday was a bust. All 13 members of the D.C. Council were compromising themselves at a private retreat at the convention center. Incoming Chairman Kwame Brown called the special session so the legislators could get to know one another better, beyond the workaday world. He wanted to hash out a few internal matters, outside the glare of pesky reporters. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall! Just imagine David Catania trying to get all warm and fuzzy with Marion Barry. Can you say “mortal enemies”? Or imagine eavesdropping on new pro tempore Mary Cheh and her predecessor Jack Evans. Or hear how Capital Hill’s Tommy Wells feels about Barry trying to expand his Ward 8 across the Anacostia River to Wells’ Ward 6 under the expected redistricting.
But I did have a mole or two in the room. What topic engendered the most passion? Crime? Schools? Ethics? Nope.
Tickets to sporting events was the hot topic of the day.
I hear there will be no Ticketgate this baseball season. Remember when former Mayor Adrian Fenty hoarded all of the tickets to Nationals Park and refused to give the council its share? It had to be one of his more juvenile and petulant moves; voters never forgot, and council members never forgave.
This season, Mayor Vincent Gray, who had to demand tickets from Fenty when he was council chairman, will bestow the seats on his former colleagues. And yesterday council members agreed to each take two seats to all of the sporting venues where they have free access: the baseball and luxury boxes at Verizon Center for basketball and hockey. Whew!
Among the less fun subjects that came up during the retreat, members discussed emergency planning. What happens if there’s an evacuation or threat akin to the 9/11 attack? They agreed there is no plan, and that they need one.
What of the touchy subject of ethics? On the campaign trail, Kwame Brown vowed to establish an ethics panel. He told me two weeks ago he was committed to one. His colleagues? Not so much.
When the subject did come up, Barry fumed. He railed against former Attorney General Peter Nickles for starting “politically motivated” investigations. His colleagues piled on. No matter that Barry committed the most egregious ethical breach of recent years by bestowing city contracts on a paramour and taking kickbacks, for which his colleagues censured him and stripped him of his committee assignments.
Ward 5’s Harry “Tommy” Thomas has been asked to provide records for Team Thomas, a group that accepted funds from the city and businessmen, while it also paid for Tommy’s trips. Nickles started the investigation; new Attorney General Irv Nathan has taken it on.
Was it an ethical lapse when Barry and at-large member Michael Brown neglected to pay D.C. taxes?
Guess we won’t find out from the city council; Chairman Brown’s proposed committee seems to be dead.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
