D.C. Councilman Phil Mendelson chastised the Fenty administration Monday for failing to publicly explain why the city has agreed to pay twice the market rate to continue to store police evidence in a crumbling Anacostia warehouse.
The D.C. Council will vote today on whether to spike a proposed lease renewal that would require the city to pay nearly four times its current rent at the dilapidated warehouse at 2235 Shannon Place Southeast, a facility that the chief of police has called “a danger of becoming an embarrassment.”
No official who negotiated the deal for the District showed up Monday to explain the agreement during a council committee hearing chaired by Mendelson.
“It certainly raises questions,” Mendelson said. “But perhaps that is the answer, that they don’t have a defense.”
Mayor Adrian Fenty’s spokeswoman, Carrie Brooks, did not return calls Monday.
This is not the first time that the administration has snubbed a hearing chaired by Mendelson, the most aggressive Fenty critic on the council.
The District agreed to the huge rent increase after officials learned that the city had been underpaying for the space for years, Office of Property Management interim Director Robin-Eve Jasper told The Examiner last month.
With plans to build a state-of-the art police evidence warehouse on the grounds of St. Elizabeths Hospital by 2009 or 2010, the District was looking for a short-term renewal, and the landlord, Curtis Properties Inc., had another tenant lined up, leaving the city in a difficult position, she said.
Under the renewed agreement, the District will lease the warehouse for16 months, with the option for an 18-month extension. The District agreed to increase its rent from $2.69 to $11.81 per square foot, and for $12.50 per square
foot under the 18-month extension.
In January, the D.C. inspector general found that police evidence kept at the Shannon Place warehouse is threatened by poor conditions there.
