The D.C. Housing Authority owes about $10,000 in unpaid parking tickets issued to its agency vehicles, including nearly two dozen it owns to transport officials back and forth to work, documents obtained by The Washington Examiner show. Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells requested the information on the housing authority as part of his council committee’s review of city vehicle purchasing policies that began in response to Council Chairman Kwame Brown’s request for a city-owned “fully loaded” Lincoln Navigator.
A draft report of the review concludes that high-level city officials routinely use drivers to get around town and city regulations of the vehicle procurement process have often been violated. The council’s transportation committee will vote on the report Tuesday. If they approve the report as it stands, the D.C. auditor will be asked to review aspects of the vehicle purchase process.
D.C. law only allows certain public safety officials — the police and fire chiefs among them — to take city-owned vehicles home, the committee report said. But “by law, [the housing authority] is an independent agency and its employees are not considered employees of the District,” the report says. That means the restrictions on bringing taxpayer funded vehicles home don’t apply to the housing authority, the report says.
Housing authority spokeswoman Dena Michaelson said the 23 vehicles agency officials use to travel to and from work are given only to those officials who are on call 24 hours a day. The $315 million agency oversees 8,000 public housing units and is the largest property owner in the District.
“These are people who are running departments,” Michaelson said. “They may need to respond in person to an incident in the middle of the night.”
Some of the vehicles, she said, are used by other members of a department during the day. For example, the vehicle Michaelson takes home with her may be used by the public information department’s photographer during the day.
Michaelson said the agency “will be paying” its $9,885 unpaid parking ticket tab.
The report does not include any recommendations related to handling the housing authority, although a council source said the committee may look at including the agency in city vehicle-use regulations.
