Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles cited a letter from the U.S. attorney as the reason they didn’t participate in a D. C. Council briefing into the scandal inside the Office of the Chief Technology Officer.
Jeffrey Taylor’s March 27 correspondence warned such a session could jeopardize the ongoing federal investigation and potential prosecution of perpetrators, who, in a bribery kickback scheme, may have stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Some people suspect the Taylor letter was requested. Nickles denies that. It doesn’t matter. The results are the same: another showdown between council Chairman Vincent C. Gray and the mayor and between Ward 3’s Mary Cheh and Nickles.
District government observers know there is no love between Gray and Fenty; they mostly tolerate each other. And, Cheh was a leading opponent of Nickles’ confirmation; he gained the seat in a narrow 7-5 vote.
The standoff over OCTO comes during the quiet but palpable start of the 2010 election season. The air in the John A. Wilson Building is thick with politics.
“Politics cannot interfere in a situation where people’s constitutional rights can be jeopardized,” Nickles told me Tuesday, adding that he sent a copy of Taylor’s letter to Cheh and Gray and asked to talk with them. He didn’t receive a response. He said he didn’t realize they had decided to convene the briefing.
“I’m not about to talk in public. It’s completely inappropriate,” continued Nickles.
His won’t be the last word.
Still, it’s hard to generate righteous indignation over the no-show. Sure, residents have a right to know what happened, who’s responsible and what’s going to be done. But the answers to those questions wouldn’t have been provided at Monday’s session any more than they were during a similar session following the $50 million theft at the Office of Tax and Revenue. It took more than a year for residents to learn the details of that scam, and there still are questions about the effectiveness of so-called remedies that were implemented.
Every time a scandal breaks out, council members morph into ambulance chasers. After the tax embezzlement, Gray and Chairman Pro Tempore Jack Evans raced to start that “investigation.” Now Gray and Cheh are demanding a “full accounting” of the OCTO circumstances.
Please.
If legislators are ignorant of District contracting woes, they shouldn’t just refuse that cost of living increase, they should return their salaries for the past two years.
The Government Accountability Office outlined the problems in 2007; the inspector general did it before that. Former At-large Council member Carol Schwartz was chairwoman of the government operations committee when the GAO released its report. But Cheh was a committee member; she should know the history and issues.
That executive branch mismanagement has led to thefts and other scandals should concern everyone. Equally important, however, is why the council’s oversight process isn’t helping prevent them.
