The interim chief of the District’s licensing and permitting agency abruptly resigned Wednesday, a day after Mayor Adrian Fenty slammed the overall performance of her department and suggested that the permanent director would be hired from outside the agency.
Lisa Marie Morgan left her post at the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs following a discussion with Fenty and City Administrator Dan Tangherlini, she told her staff in an e-mail. The resignation doesn’t take effect until Tuesday, but Morgan has been out of the office on leave since giving notice.
The Examiner reached Morgan Thursday at the phone number listed for Simple Solutions, the consulting firm she directed until joining the District government Jan. 2. She declined to comment and the e-mail to her staff does not explain why she left.
Her exit comes on the heels of Fenty’s comments in Tuesday’s Examiner that DCRA is “managed, administered and structured substandard.” The agency, he said “is like the schools without kids.”
Fenty reiterated his criticism on Thursday.
“If the agency is not working the way it’s supposed to, the mayor can’t go around and sugarcoat things,” he said. “And I won’t do that.”
Fenty said a new interim director will be named within days, and a national search for a permanent DCRA director could take as long as six months.
Fenty spokeswoman Mafara Hobson said Thursday that Morgan was appointed interim DCRA director because “she was familiar with DCRA operations and was willing to take on the responsibility as DCRA director.”
Morgan worked in the D.C. government, though never for DCRA, through late 2004. She handled customer service for the city, oversaw Mayor Anthony Williams’ citywide call center and implemented a personnel information system.
Her ties to the city continued after she left government.
Simple Solutions won a $97,515 contract in 2005 to improve customer service at DCRA – only months after a government steering committee on which Morgan served recommended that the city hire a consultant for that purpose. Then-Ward 4 D.C. Council Member Fenty took issue with the contract, calling it a “type of coziness” that “residents feel is borderline corruption.”
Metro last year awarded Morgan’s firm a $100,000 contract. Tangherlini ran the transit agency at the time.
In the e-mail to her staff, Morgan said the agency could point to many achievements under her direction, among them reducing permitting and licensing backlogs, opening a temporary permit center, and implementing customer service and ethics training. The agency, she said, is “poised for success.”
