As much as it bothers me when people bring their pungent personal odors on the bus, I always just buckle down and tell myself to stop acting so spoiled and get over it. It's the bus. If I wanted to avoid all the annoyances that come along with public transportation, I should just drive my own car, catch a cab, or walk.

That said, this morning when I was about to board the 90 bus at 18th Street and Columbia Road NW, I knew I was in for a sensory experience. I'd dashed across 18th to make the bus before it pulled off without me. As I fell into the queue, I noticed that the last passenger to board before me had all the indicators of an ensuing stench. His jacket and jeans were torn and soiled, and he was toting two large, tattered black garbage bags. And then, when I got close enough, I did indeed smell the aroma.

After paying (with cash, not a transfer) the odorous man hurried to the very back of the bus. I sat in the front. All of the passengers who were sitting towards the back of the bus made kind of a rude show of huffing and puffing and gathering up their things and moving to the front. So the odorous man sat in the back alone and silent.

We rode a few blocks and it wasn't so bad. But at 15th and U Streets, the bus driver pulled over and walked to the back of the bus and told the man very indiscreetly, "Man, you've got to get off this bus. You've got to catch another bus. You've got people getting sick on here because of you."

The odorous man quietly gathered his bags and descended the back steps. The other riders then thanked their valiant bus driver for making the ride more comfortable. But something about the whole scene sort of hit me wrong. Of all the signs I've ever observed prohibiting various activities while on board, I can only remember "no smoking", "no eating or drinking" and "no stereos without headphones." But I can't recall any signs that read "no odors."

Which caused me to wonder, aside from it being mean and somewhat discriminatory, was this bus driver's action legal? If a person pays to ride, shouldn't he be able to ride regardless or his personal fragrance or odor? It's the friggin' bus! And furthermore, when has Metro ever given a damn about passenger comfort? I would think that repairing their decrepit vehicles would come before putting paying customers out on the street.

Shaw residents who have long wished for more cafes and restaurants in their up-and-coming neighborhood have some reason to hope: Shiloh Baptist Church, notorious for owning numerous fallow properties in the neighborhood, has undergone a changing of the guard.

Shiloh's board of trustees is comprised of 10 members who serve no more than two three-year terms, and according to Shiloh trustee Ralph Lee, four tenured members' terms expired in January, including the chairperson's, and more progressive members have been appointed to the board to replace them. Lee says there are now enough board members who favor developing the church's unoccupied properties, mostly along 9th Street NW, to get plans off the ground.

Lee says the neighborhood can expect changes soon. "We're still in the planning stages with our architects developing our master plan," he says. "It's long overdue."

Alex Padro, advisory neighborhood commissioner for the neighborhood and a longtime critic of the church, met with Lee and says he feels "encouraged" by the changes. Padro says the board hasn't presented him with an official timeline or plan of action, but he says he's hopeful.

"The difference is that the folks that have now been put into office have a clear mandate to move forward with the development rather than just continue to sit around on their hands and not make any decisions," he says.

Attention city bureaucrats: Anthony Muhammad, a member of the Anacostia advisory neighborhood commission, demands a little respect for his neighborhood. And if he doesn't get it, your job fair could be in trouble.

The city's Office of Unified Communications, which houses the citywide call center, 911, and 311 responders, sits on Martin Luther King Avenue SE, Ward 8's main drag. On March 6, the agency planned to showcase employment opportunities at the facility.

Muhammad heard about the job fair only after another resident spotted the announcement on a Virginia Internet discussion group. It wasn't on any of the groups serving east-of-the-river neighborhoods. "They sent it to Virginia, and they sent it to Ward 4," he says.

So he contacted the agency's director, and now the job fair has been postponed until March 17.

Debbie Knox, spokesperson for the Office of Unified Communications, says no slight was intended. "We didn't exclude anyone in the advertising," Knox says. "We're basically trying to select the best person for the job." The job fair, she points out, was advertised in several newspapers, and certain people "took it upon themselves" to distribute an announcement on their neighborhood Internet groups.

Knox says her agency was happy to honor Muhammad's request for a delay. "It was a collaborative effort to ensure that we work together with the local ANC," she says. Plus, she says, job fairs work better on Saturdays instead of in the middle of the week.

But Muhammad's not buying it---he's started advertising the upcoming job fair himself. "They said that they were going to do it," he says. "But we believe them like we believed them the last time."

The Benning Neighborhood Library has been closed since December 2004, leaving lots of Ward 7 residents wondering when their community will be served by something more than occasional bookmobiles and a tiny kiosk in nearby Deanwood.

At a mid-February meeting of the Ward 7 Leadership Council, they thought they finally had an answer: D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray, attendees say, proposed rebuilding the Benning branch at the District Office of Employment Services (OES) site, currently under construction next to the Minnesota Avenue Metro station.

Whether it was a plan or just a remark, residents and community leaders have seized on his proposal, and Gray seems to have unwittingly stepped into a hornet's nest.

"The library going there would be a great addition to the community," says Villareal Johnson, an advisory neighborhood commissioner who was at the meeting. He cites the poor location of the original library as a reason to support the move. "But they need to put a library up as soon as possible because [the OES] project is still two years away."

Others are not so amenable to the prospects of relocation. "It's a big no-no," says Juanita Montague, president of the Friends of Benning Library. "What we really want is our library reopened or rebuilt. We are not interested in relocating."

Gray did not return several calls for comment. Monica Lewis, a spokesperson for the D.C. Public Library, says, "We are aware of this matter but we have had no formal discussion with Chairman Gray or any other city official."

"It does seem that this was an off-the-cuff remark," says Robin Diener, project coordinator for the D.C. Library Renaissance Project, a nonprofit that deals with library issues. "Quite a number of people heard this information and thought it was a plan," she says.

As recently as two years ago, the former home of Carter G. Woodson, father of Black History Month, was a complete mess. Vagrants slept on the stoop and inside the 9th Street NW row house, then owned by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (which Woodson founded), and squatters lit fires inside at night to stay warm. Then the National Park Service acquired the Woodson home as a national historic site in 2005.

But the house is still boarded up, and save for posting a sign announcing its historical significance, the Park Service hasn't done much with it. At a Feb. 28 meeting of the Shaw Main Streets group, an NPS representative told neighbors the plans were in the works and renovations can be expected by...2016.

Why take nearly a decade to renovate a smallish row house? Robert Parker, the NPS' site manager for the Woodson home, says that the process of restoring a historic site is extremely complicated, and his agency needs to do planning and research first. "All of the studies will determine our progress and how the site will develop. We have to uncover some things to determine our direction....We just got the site in 2005, so we're moving at warp speed."

Shaw Main Streets Executive Director Alex Padro says neighbors are growing antsy, but he takes some comfort in the fact that the property is now only partially dilapidated.

"The community is certainly disappointed that we're unlikely to see construction begin anytime soon," Padro says, "but at least the property isn't open to vagrants."

When a truck with D.C. government insignia and a bed full of salt remained parked on the 1500 block of Allison Street NW for almost two weeks, Louis Wassel and his neighbors thought perhaps the city had started giving individual neighborhoods salt trucks as part of a new DIY clean-up initiative. Wassel was rolling up his sleeves, readying to help.

But when City Desk contacted DPW earlier this week, turns out the truck was just broken down. It has since been towed.

DPW spokesperson Linda Grant thought the idea of a neighborhood truck made a lot of sense, though.

"Considering what it has been like with the snowstorms and ice storms," Grant says, "that might be a good idea."

Photo courtesy of Louis Wassel

Two weeks ago, Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham, responding to constituents' concerns, lobbied for and received 10 traffic-control officers to man the main thoroughfares of Adams Morgan during the busiest hours of weekend revelry. But residents had no idea that the officers would prove a bigger nuisance than the traffic jams they were hoping to prevent.

The traffic cops---the same ones that man the major intersections in the downtown business district during weekday rush hours---used whistles. And from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m., they stood in the busy intersections directing traffic and emitting high-pitched shrills, much to the annoyance of sleeping neighbors.

Linda Grant, spokesperson for the Department of Public Works, says that the officers were doing a fine job. They were just making too much noise while they were doing it.

"We did hear from residents that the whistles were distracting and annoying," Grant says. "So we've pulled back and our next step is to rethink how to have a better program on the weekends in Adams Morgan."

Grant says the whistles are vital to the job. They get the attention of motorists when officers are trying to direct their movements. The whistles also alert motorists to the officers' presence in the middle of intersections. So traffic cops sans whistles ain't gonna happen, and DPW is going back to the drawing board.

Grant admits that the plan, though well-intentioned, may have been ill-conceived. "At that hour of the morning," she says, "I would be annoyed."

Today's Washington Post detailed the inner workings of Mayor Adrian Fenty's "bullpen" office, where transparency is the priority and paper is a quaint notion. As the Post reported, there's nothing on Fenty's desk---not a sheet of paper or even a pencil---because he leaves the paper-pushing to his aides or lackeys or interns or whomever, and can't be bothered to deal with the stuff himself.

But I don't know. Why rely on silly things like human memories when you can rely on more tangible (and dare I say, more accurate) things like memorandums? Why depend so heavily on your chief of staff when you can look into your inbox and find your chief of staff's paper trail?

What do you think? Is this bullpen thing just a gimmick? Do you really see this improving staff efficiency?

Complaints about blight in Ward 8 are nothing new. But one advisory neighborhood commissioner is placing some blame on Mayor Adrian Fenty—and not just in a general sense. Anthony Muhammad, who represents a district in Anacostia, says that Fenty's old campaign banners, still hanging, are eyesores.

Particularly egregious, Muhammad says, is an enormous green-and-white Fenty for Mayor banner that cloaks a storefront on Good Hope Road SE, at the entrance of the Historic Anacostia commercial district. Muhammad claims the outdated banners once displayed all over the more affluent parts of town have all been taken down. And that's what irks him most.

“It's blight,” he says. “For it to still be up four months after the election, it's pitiful.”

According to the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics, political campaign materials are to be removed no later than 30 days following the general election. Muhammad says the sign first appeared last September. According to Fenty spokesperson Mafara Hobson, the Fenty campaign says there's no particular reason that the sign wasn't removed. “It was just an oversight,” she says.

After making a call to campaign workers in the field, Hobson promised to get the banner down. “We can get someone over there to take it down this week,” she says.

But Muhammad says that when he spoke earlier with one of “the mayor's associates,” it was suggested that he take the matter into his own hands: “He said I could take it down myself.”

These days, when an inmate violates his parole, he is taken to the D.C. Jail until a hearing examiner makes the trip from the Chevy Chase offices of the U.S. Parole Commission (USPC) to decide whether the charges are enough to hold the parolee and, if so, for how long. But the USPC now proposes to do away with the trip into the District and conduct the hearings by camera—and the city gets no say in the matter.

According to a USPC memo, the move is expected to allow examiners to move cases quicker, free up support staff, and save time and money by lessening downtime for employees. “It makes for a more efficient operation,” says Tom Hutchison, chief of staff for the federal agency, which has handled D.C. parole matters since the District-run Lorton Prison closed in 1999. He emphasizes that these hearings are “not a finding of whether someone is guilty or innocent.”

But prisoner advocates say that the decisions can be momentous all the same and that inmates deserve a face-to-face meeting. “The commission is making the final decision of whether so-and-so from Southeast D.C. is going to spend another 18 months in prison,” says Philip Fornaci, head of the D.C. Prisoners’ Project at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.

“When you're trying someone,” he says, “you generally want to watch their demeanor, hear what they say, watch their body language, see if they're telling the truth. And digital feed is not exactly lifelike.”

Fornaci disputes the USPC's assertion that cameras are a time- and money-saving tool. The agency isn't exactly swamped with federal criminals, he argues; D.C. parolees comprise the bulk of its cases, so the USPC should be obliged to provide live hearings. But Fornaci realizes there's not much that anyone outside of Congress can do about it. “They're an independent federal agency,” he says of the USPC. “They're answerable to almost no one. So they're doing this because they can.”

The Shaw advisory neighborhood commission's outgoing chair, Al Hajj Mahdi Leroy Joseph Thorpe Jr. has had a busy December. He was officially voted out of his elected position on the ANC, only to be appointed to a new role—parliamentarian and executive assistant to the chair—by new chair Barbara Curtis. He took over a Shaw neighborhood association and two days later allocated his new organization $3,000 in ANC money for new computers.

Yesterday, in a surprise move, Shaw residents filed a complaint with the city auditor “alleging questionable allocation of thousands of DC taxpayer dollars.”

“The era of cronyism, mistreatment and disrespect of residents, and misallocation of funds is over,” says Cary Silverman, president of the Mount Vernon Square Neighborhood Association, in a news release. “Shaw residents will no longer stand for this type of blatant abuse of power.”

In their complaint, residents have dug up and detailed years of ANC impropriety and questionable spending. It requests special attention be paid to the 18 computers and other equipment given to neighborhood organizations that have close ties to Thorpe, Curtis, and current commissioner Doris Brooks. Those organizations are Thorpe's East Central Civic Association, Rhode Island Avenue through P Street Neighborhood Association (which the complaint alleges to be a fictional organization), COPE (which does “red-hat” patrols), and the Gibson Plaza Tenant Association (where Curtis resides).

The complaint alleges that on paper, there are over a dozen computers floating somewhere around Shaw, but no one knows where they are or what they're being used for. According to residents, the organizations that received the equipment fail to post meeting agendas, minutes, or newsletters. Furthermore, the organizations do not use a Web site, e-mail, or anything else that would demand the use of a computer.

“Given the number or computers supposedly purchased for public use, the residents and students of our neighborhoods should legitimately expect to have a public access computer lab readily available for their use,” the release states. “Of course they do not.”

A curious thing happened this Tuesday afternoon across the street from the Adams Morgan Safeway: the Latin music stopped.

CDs were seized as evidence when D.C. police shut down three street vendors allegedly hocking counterfeit wares on Columbia Road. Recording-industry investigators and a dozen or so D.C. cops boxed up the hundreds of counterfeit discs and carted the plastic bins and cardboard boxes away.

According to Andy Pappas, an investigator with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the bust had been in the works for weeks.

“We identified some individuals down here after some complaints from the citizens that individuals were selling counterfeit CDs and DVDs…and we came down here probably about two weeks ago and verified that in fact that was going on,” Pappas says. He says that D.C. police agreed to assist him. “Basically what you see now is the removal of all the counterfeit CDs and DVDs and those individuals being arrested for selling them.”

This is hardly the first time RIAA investigators have teamed up with police to shut down an alleged bootlegger. In 2004, Baltimore city police raided Joe's Record Paradise in Rockville based on an RIAA spy's affidavit.

As for the 100s of CDs and DVDs that were confiscated, some counterfeiter's long hours of bootlegging will be for naught. The discs will all be destroyed.

“Depending on where we are,” Pappas says, “[a counterfeit disc] either gets incinerated or there's actually a mulching machine that tears it all up.”

Proof that the gentrification of Columbia Heights is a work in progress: Three armed robbers crashed the Wonderland Ballroom, at 11th and Kenyon Streets NW, in a daring heist during peak Friday evening drinking hours.

According to owner Matthew McGovern, the thieves came in around 9 p.m. and were in and out within three minutes. “At first everybody thought they were kidding, because everybody knows each other,” he says. “And then when it became clear it was in earnest, people were quiet and let it happen.”

The bar wasn't jam-packed, he says, but all the tables were full and the thieves, identified by police as three black males, made away with an unknown sum of cash. “They took the money from behind the register, took the money from customers, and then they left,” says McGovern, who says this is his bar's first robbery.

Die-hard barflys refused to let gunmen stop the party. McGovern, who opened the bar with his wife in August 2004, said his patrons continued chugging their Yuenglings even after having pistols waved at them.

“The good thing is that everybody stayed,” he says.

The Wonderland does have security, but McGovern says the doorman wasn't able to stop the incident. The restaurant has a surveillance camera, he says, which will be reviewed to try to identify the culprits.

Police say it's just par for the season. Though neither would offer details because the case is still under investigation, two officers in the neighborhood questioned separately had the same explanation. Said both: “It's Christmas time.”

Shaw advisory neighborhood commissioner Al Hajj Mahdi Leroy Joseph Thorpe Jr. may have lost the Nov. 7 election, but he's not gone yet. At his last meeting as the official leader of ANC 2C, Thorpe and his allies made sure he will remain a force on the commission well after his departure.

Well over an hour into the meeting, Thorpe recognized a grant request from East Central Civic Association, a neighborhood group active within Thorpe's single-member district. Not mentioned was that the ECCA is now run by Thorpe, who was named the organization's president on Monday night.

Eloise Wahab, secretary of the ECCA, walked the grant proposal up to Thorpe, who read over the proposal briefly before informing all present that the requested $3,000 was for two laptop computers, accessories, and a digital camera to do a documentary.

Charles Walker, a Shaw resident, asked for the floor. “There's been an election,” Walker started, “and looking at how the recount result is probably going to go, I think this commission doesn't have any democratic mandate to be giving out money like this. I think it should be left to the new commission.”

“Thank you,” Thorpe responded, dismissing Walker.

Thorpe won't be retiring his gavel anytime soon, either. After he resigned as chairperson, the new chair, Barbara Curtis, appointed Thorpe to be parliamentarian, as well as her unpaid executive assistant—marking the first time the ANC has had an executive assistant or a parliamentarian.

As parliamentarian, Thorpe will be responsible for conducting the meetings and maintaining order. In his new post as “executive assistant,” Thorpe's phone number will remain the official phone number for the ANC.

One resident was confused. “I think you are my representative,” she said to Curtis. “So does that make him my representative?” pointing to Thorpe.

Thorpe, who routinely answers questions for the oft-confused Commissioners Brooks and Curtis, clarified.

“If you want to do any ANC business,” he said, “you'll be calling [me].”

Every Tuesday and Thursday Friday, we run down what's going on in local Internet discussion groups.

AdamsMorgan
In Adams Morgan, the store next to the Starbucks at 18th Street and Columbia Road has been vacant for sometime, and Sid wants to know what's up. “It has been vacant now a long time. It looks like the have torn down the inner walls but work seems to have stopped,” Sid writes. “Its beginning to look like an eye sore.” Little did Sid know that his neighbors would defend vacant storefronts so vehemently. “That building is one of the handsomest in the neighborhood, and nothing about its exterior upkeep has changed,” Arthur writes. “It's a part of urban life that buildings sometime sit empty when waiting for new renters. It is far from an ‘eyesore’ and this is not Disneyland.” Sid took it personally. “Your tone suggests I annoyed you…that was not my intent,” he writes. “I didn't expect that simply addressing disappointment at the emptiness of such a nice piece of real estate (which has large windows into what looks actually worse than a simple eyesore) would turn into a correction of my character!”

Brookland
The Brookland Heartbeat, a local newsletter, just hit the doorsteps. But residents are wondering why the Heartbeat doesn't have much to do with Brookland. “Why is the Brookland Heartbeat, p.4, involving itself in the establishment of clubs along West Virginia Avenue (this is not Brookland),” writes Alex on Monroe. “The area in question is a heavily industrial area and not within a block of any housing.…Could it be that it is because these are gay clubs?” Joe on Newton agrees: “Not to mention the article misrepresents the facts by naming the clubs as “new” when in fact these clubs were already in existence and were displaced by the new baseball stadium.” Heather on 15th is upset because a local event (where she volunteered) received no coverage. “I noticed that the Brookland Day Festival was not covered in this issue of the Brookland Heartbeat.” Heather writes. “It seems like a pretty major Brookland event so I'm just curious as to why it was not mentioned at all?”

ustreetnews
On the U Street listserv, insults get hurled just as swiftly as referrals for plumbers. Dee thinks things have gotten out of hand. “Is this website monitored in any manner?” he asks his fellow neighbors. “Or can anyone post any racist and inflammatory remark they want with impunity?” One might think the comment would be answered cordially, or at the very least it would be ignored. But Hunter's neighbors pounce. “You seem to be pretty good at posting inflammatory remarks,” David shoots back. “Perhaps you should start your censorship campaign by removing yourself from this list.…” Jason says Hunter should toughen up. “It's called freedom of speech? You really need to get that chip off your shoulder and stop assuming everyone who is not on your side is racist. It makes you look ignorant.”