Vincent C. Gray

Position: D.C. Council chairman

Address: 2619 Branch Ave. SE (Hillcrest)

Observations: Not a good showing for the chairman here. Gray's stately Hillcrest home sits on a well-trafficked corner, but the sidewalks on Erie Street and Branch Avenue appeared not to have been touched. In fact, the only signs of habitation were a pair of foot tracks leading to Gray's back door. A point in Gray's defense: A strong sidewalk-shoveling culture does not appear to have developed in the neighborhood, making Gray's scofflawism more the rule than the exception. Even more in his defense, Gray's spokesperson said on Monday that Gray and friends shoveled the sidewalks not long after LL's visit at about 3:30 p.m. Sunday. "He even cleared some parking spaces," she says. Maybe so---but with sunrise at 7:10 a.m., Gray did so more than eight daylight hours after the last snowfall---outside the statutory grace period!

Grade: D+

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT---'Shovel Patrol'---in which LL checks up on VIP sidewalk compliance; and tweets galore!

Morning all. Has Adrian Fenty snatched snow defeat from the jaws of snow victory? Hizzoner, it seems, is suffering from a self-inflicted case of inflated expectations when it comes to his storm response. Let's rewind to December's weekend blizzard, when Fenty presided over what was by all accounts a fine job clearing city streets ahead of the Monday rush. Another big weekend storm, another triumph, right? Hasn't worked that way---this snow is wetter, heavier, and there's simply more of it. But Fenty on Saturday pledged to have the city 'open for business,' writing a check he could cash only by annoying parents and city employees, who are expected at work even though roads are still a mess, public transportation is spotty at best, and virtually all other major employers are requiring only essential personnel to report. For some insight into why this is so, check Steve Hendrix's front-page WaPo piece examining what LL will call 'snow machismo.' Fueled by Barack Obama's well-worn 'flinty Chicago toughness' line, Fenty has 'seized on a massive snow-removal effort as a way to burnish his credentials as a leader who can get things done,' with 'his aides gleefully point[ing] out that the D.C. government was open Monday while Obama's federal workforce was told to stay home.' So snow removal can indeed be treated an quasi-athletic endeavor, a test of mettle---the feds lost, and D.C. won. Pardon the residents if they don't share your glee, Mr. Mayor.

AFTER THE JUMP---Fenty unaware of actual meaning of 'mens rea'; Smart Car handles well in snow when advanced by heavy plow; city emergency reserve funds are dwindling; Muriel helps fix DCRA mess; Santos to help pick new DCHA chief; DOJ honcho to D.C.'s federal bench?

DO NOTE---'Efforts to reach an official representative of flinty Chicago to comment on Washington's new winter resilience failed. A recording at the City of Chicago's office in the District, its Office of Intergovernmental Affairs on Pennsylvania Avenue, said the agency was closed "due to inclement weather."'

Question still outstanding: What accounts for Sunday's early decision to open DCPS schools, followed by the (thankful) move to close them? Bill Turque didn't get much of an explanation from Michelle Rhee, nor did LL, but Examiner's Leah Fabel got a tidbit: 'Rhee said the decision was made "based on information needed to run schools effectively," including the final call from public transportation officials at 8:30 Sunday night to keep buses off the roads early Monday morning.' Fenty wasn't interested in detailing his decisionmaking process, telling WaPo, 'I don't get into my mens rea....We made the right decision.' For those unawares, mens rea is a Latin legal term that 'refers to the mental state in which one commits a criminal act.'

ONE EXPLANATION---Via WaPo: 'Many parents wondered aloud whether Fenty was pushing to open the schools as a way of showing that he had managed to keep the city functioning during the record-setting storm. "It was the mayor trying to say he did an excellent job of snow removal," Marvin Tucker, a parent at Anacostia High School, said in an interview.'

WaPo covers the governmental scramble to clear roads, noting that '[h]ow governments handle the storm could have significant political implications, especially for area leaders up for reelection this year'---noting, in the process, the infamous Marion Barry 1987 Super Bowl disaster. The piece ledes with one Hillcrest resident's plea for plow service before moving on to this bit of bad mayoral optics: 'Fenty...reported having no trouble driving himself through the city Monday in a convertible SMART car,' Sandhya Somashekhar and Ann E. Marimow wrote. 'Moments before Fenty began a news conference Monday afternoon, a snowplow worked frantically to clean up slush and ice on the road in front of the Bald Eagle Recreation Center, where the mayor was announcing an expansion.'

MORE---'In the District, many cars were still encased in cocoons of snow, and some intersections remained an obstacle course of hardening slush and chunks of ice. Several residents in wards 7 and 8, including Council member Yvette M. Alexander, said they saw plows getting stuck in their neighborhoods. Alexander...who lives in Penn Branch, questioned whether heavy plow equipment was being equitably distributed throughout the city. "We all have been stranded for three days---not one plow," Alexander said. "There is no love for Ward 7." But snow drifts blocked roads elsewhere as well, including in Dupont Circle. "The snow does not seem to be going anywhere," said Robin Diener, president of the Dupont Circle Citizens Association.'

METRO IMPACTS---Still rather dire, reports Kytja Weir in Examiner: 'Metro continued only limited underground rail service Monday, the third straight day without a complete rail system as the agency struggled to clear snow from its 39 aboveground stations. It planned expanded service for the first part of Tuesday but up to 6-feet drifts have hampered the Red and Blue lines....The third rail needs to be deiced, sometimes repeatedly, so electricity can power the trains. Metro doesn't want trains to stall on the tracks, forcing officials to rescue riders, he said.' Some 15 stations remain closed today, including Brookland, Rhode Island Avenue, and New York Avenue. Also WaPo.

WaPo's Carol Morello and N.C. Aizenman cover the struggles of workers, mostly low-income, trying to get to their jobs: '[B]eing snowbound was not an option for the army of service workers who staff the area's restaurants and hotels, guard its offices and government buildings, restock grocery shelves and clean houses. Many went to extraordinary lengths to get to work during and after the storm, driven by dedication---and their need for a paycheck.'

Examiner's Bill Myers grades regional jurisdictions on snow response. A C- for the District: 'D.C. became capital of the region's outrage after the weekend blizzard....Fenty's street was well plowed, but hardly anyone else's were. "I appreciate the many workers who have worked long hours to plow the streets," said [Phil Mendelson]. "But in my hour-and-half walking to work, I didn't see a single plow."' Fairfax County got a B. Really?

Questions of snow-removal etiquette occupy WaPo reporters Ian Shapira and Aaron C. Davis. 'Every snowstorm generates complaints about homeowners and business people who fail to do their part, as well as extensive debate about who's supposed to clear sidewalks, who's not doing the job and why freaking not?' They call out one Adams Morgan resident, and several businesses in the neighborhood, for failing to comply with the urban compact. Shame on you, Optic, Pharmacy Bar, Maggie Moo's, and Saki Asian Grille! NC8, WUSA-TV cover parking-space savers.

NWS FORECAST---'A WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM NOON TODAY TO 7 PM EST WEDNESDAY. * PRECIPITATION TYPE...SNOW. * ACCUMULATIONS...10 TO 20 INCHES. * TIMING...EARLY TO MID AFTERNOON TODAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY. * TEMPERATURES...TEMPERATURES NEAR FREEZING AT THE ONSET THIS AFTERNOON. TEMPERATURES WILL DROP INTO THE UPPER 20S TONIGHT AND WEDNESDAY. * WINDS...LIGHT SOUTHEASTERLY WINDS TODAY BECOMING NORTHWESTERLY 15 TO 25 MPH WEDNESDAY.' WaPo details storm prep.

***

Examiner's Michael Neibauer details $99M in spending cuts ordered by Fenty: 'The D.C. Public Schools, Child and Family Services Agency, Metropolitan Police Department, and Fire and Emergency Medical Services were spared, but most other agencies were hit hard. The property management budget, for example, was pared from $81.5 million to $71.2 million. The office of Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso was gutted, losing more than half its $778,000 budget. The Department of Transportation was cut by $2.8 million, the Department of Public Works $7.4 million, the Department of Mental Health $5.4 million and the Department of Employment Services $6.2 million.' Buried lede: 'There are only 18 days' worth of working capital in emergency reserves, roughly $284 million, well short of the 30 days considered best practice. Reserves are down from $415.7 million in fiscal 2008.' Nat Gandhi says he's 'gravely concerned.'

There were 220 instances of corporal punishment reported in DCPS last school year, Bill Turque reports in WaPo, but it's unclear how many of those were sustained after investigation. 'The allegations, provided to the police by Hawk One, the school system's former security contractor, were obtained by The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act. They provide no names or results of follow-up investigations. But they nevertheless offer a vivid glimpse into an issue usually out of public view. That issue surfaced last month when [Rhee] told a business magazine that an unspecified number of teachers laid off during October budget reductions "had hit children."' For instance: 'At H.D. Cooke Elementary School in Ward 1 on Oct. 24, 2008, according to the records, a staff member reported passing a boys' bathroom and hearing a child say "ouch" and cry. She said she then heard an adult male voice say: "Now you know how it feels to hit someone."' Why the numbers might not be so shocking: 'Many instructors say they are still constantly vulnerable to false claims of mistreatment. Students use the rules to settle scores; administrators can trigger corporal punishment investigations to intimidate or harass instructors they'd like to get rid of, teachers say.'

An (increasingly rare) DCRA horror story: Marina and Mark Marich needed a year to secure a license to rent out their Capitol Hill townhome, Marimow reports in WaPo. 'In February, March and April, their phone messages to schedule an inspection went unanswered. In June, the inspector was a no-show, after he called the wrong number. In July, when Mark called to complain that the inspector had failed to show for a second time, a city worker answering the phone hung up, telling him, "Call the mayor." And in December, after Marina's call was bounced to four people, she turned to her neighbors' on the Shepherd Park listserv, which got Muriel Bowser's attention. The problem was solved soon after. Says Linda Argo, 'It's inexcusable. How can you defend it?' Measures have been taken!

CONSTITUENT SERVICE FTW!---'[S]he turned to the e-mail group list on Dec. 30. Within 10 minutes, Marina got a response from an aide to [Bowser], and later a personal message from Bowser. "The timeline you describe is appalling. Missed visits and unreturned calls are especially troubling," Bowser wrote in a message to the Internet mailing list and to Argo. Bowser forwarded a copy to the mayor, who said he would wait for word from Argo. Once Bowser's aide connected Marina with his department contact, she quickly received a call from the supervisor, who apologized for the ordeal.'

Look who's going to be helping to pick the new executive director for DCHA: Why, none other than DMPED Valerie Santos, Jonathan O'Connell reports at WBJ. The backstory: 'Fenty appointed a new board chair, developer Bill Slover, last spring, only to then replace him with LaRuby May, who heads a faith-based nonprofit, during the brouhaha over a dozen city parks contracts. The initial search committee for a new director, named by Slover, included himself, public housing resident Aquarius Vann-Ghasri and Ken Grossinger, an appointee of the Metropolitan Washington AFL-CIO. When May took over, she assumed Slover's spot on the search committee — a natural move for the new board chair. But she also replaced Grossinger with none other than [Santos], which will give the administration an early and weighty say over candidates for the post. That selection could further irk those who believe Fenty is overreaching in trying to control independent agencies.' Ya think?

The District's next federal judge? Main Justice's Joe Palazzolo identifies Mary Patrice Brown as undergoing vetting for a seat on the D.C. District bench. Brown is head of the Office of Professional Responsibility at DOJ, where she ran into a spot of controversy over investigations of Bush lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee. There are other seats open, and according to sources, 'The lawyers being considered for the other two vacancies are Venable LLP partner Robert Wilkins, former special litigation chief for the D.C. Public Defender Service, and D.C. Superior Judge James "Jeb" Boasberg, who was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in District before his confirmation in 2002.'

Check out Track DC, OCTO's new 'accountability' Web site---'a rich, interactive site where visitors can track the performance of District government agencies and connect directly to each agency to ask questions and express views and concerns.' LL hasn't had much time to play with it yet, but it promises real-time budget data, performance indicators, and more. In terms of accountability and transparency, LL would prefer if the Fenty administration would just answer a question now and again, but this is nice, too. If nothing else, great headshots of agency directors!

Michelle Rhee op-ed on 'Ending Poverty through Education.' A snippet: 'I believe we can solve the problems of urban education in our lifetimes and actualize education's power to reverse generational poverty. But I am learning that it is a radical concept to even suggest this....As the leader of a school system in a privileged country, I know we cannot have the same conversation about poverty in developing nations as we can about urban and rural poverty in the United States. But when we ask what it will take to ensure that no child anywhere has to "beat the odds" to have viable future choices, the answer is the same whether we are in Washington, DC or in a brave Haiti enduring disaster from a poverty-stricken stance. The obstacle is not one of knowledge but of social and political will, with education as the lynchpin.'

Examiner covers CoStar building deal. WBJ's Jonathan O'Connell notes latent hypocrisy on the part of building's former owner.

WaPo ed board chair Fred Hiatt wants to know why Obama hates vouchers so much: 'The Obama administration said it was going to respect science and respond to evidence---a contrast, many Democrats said, to the previous regime. So why is President Obama killing off the program that offers the best chance to find out if school vouchers work?'

Carol Joynt would like to know when Georgetown's going to get plowed. 'Yesterday I received a blast email from the DC government, saying they were about to launch an "all out effort" to dig us out from under the Blizzard of 2010. Today I walked downtown and wondered, "where in the hell is that effort?" Sidewalks were cleaner than most of the city streets.'

Richard Layman posts a pic of a well-plowed 17th Street NW, near Fenty's house in Crestwood, making the rounds on listservs. His reasonable take: 'I don't see what the big deal is. First, the snow clearing isn't that much better than the snow clearing on my street (which, granted, is a key street that the police department uses to get from one part of Ward 4 to another). Second, it's reasonable to ensure that the street of the city's chief executive is passable....There is so much anger and animus in advocacy circles that logic gets thrown out the window.'

D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute affordable-housing report is available on their Web site. Also: The DCFPI crew points out several noteworthy hearings later this week (if they happen), including one on a bill that would 'authorize the Mayor to exercise eminent domain authority to acquire property in the area of the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and Minnesota Avenue, S.E.' because the area is 'afflicted with buildings and improvements that are obsolete, dilapidated, and deteriorated to the point of being nuisances to the community.'

'Homeland security challenges for the Washington D.C. police'

Harry Jackson has some issues with WaPo polling.

Point/counterpoint: D.C. school gardens need help! D.C. school gardens must die!

Trenchant tweet from Patrick Mara.

Meet Leo Alexander Feb. 20 at Big Chair Coffee. Light refreshments will be served!

D.C. COUNCIL TODAY---2 p.m.: Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary meeting (scheduled), JAWB 123; 4 p.m.: Committee on Libraries, Parks, and Recreation meeting (scheduled), JAWB 120.

ADRIAN FENTY TODAY---8 a.m.: remarks, snow update, 1413 W St. NE; 10:30 a.m.: remarks, CoStar relocation announcement, 1331 L St. NW.

Dorothy Brizill & Gary Imhoff

Position: proprietors, DC Watch

Address: 1327 Girard St. NW (Columbia Heights)

Observations: LL has criticized the First Couple of municipal kvetching for their home upkeep in the past, but Snowmageddon 2010 really brought out their neighborly spirit. A narrow but tidy path had been shoveled into the snow by late yesterday afternoon, including a handy trench out to the street. And Brizill and Imhoff deserve special kudos because few others on their block bothered to do the same.
Grade: A

Robert L. Allbritton

Position: chairman and CEO, Allbritton Communications Inc.

Address: 3124 Q St. NW (Georgetown)

Observations: Allbritton---owner of Politico, WJLA-TV, and NewsChannel 8, inter alia---bought the massive Bowie-Sevier House for $24 million in 1997. Apparently he didn't have much left over for the snow budget. The manse has frontage on both Q Street and P Street; the much shorter south frontage was shoveled by 4 p.m. yesterday, albeit in skinny single-file fashion. The sidewalks in front, on Q Street, were hardly touched---though it appeared that someone had cleared one side of a dual staircase ascending from the street to the door. The rest of the walk---the part the plebians actually walk on---was thick with boot-compacted snow.

Grade: D-

Q Street stairs:

P Street frontage:

David A. Catania

Position: at-large councilmember

Address: 2122 Newport Place NW (Dupont Circle)

Observations: Of all the VIPs surveyed, Catania has the most modest responsibilities when it comes to sidewalk frontage---his midblock rowhouse on cozy Newport Place only stretches a few yards wide. Indeed snow had been cleared from the stoop and walk, but not completely, leaving a not-thin layer of snow. With nighttime temps dipping into the single digits, that's a recipe for hazardous late-night re-icing!

Grade: B-

Eleanor Holmes Norton

Position: delegate, U.S. Congress

Address: 10 9th St. SE (Capitol Hill)

Observations: When LL visited the Norton residence Sunday, he happened upon a gentleman, shovel in hand, clearing the driveway. LL knocked and inquired with Norton, 72, who said she was quite aware of the responsibility of property owners to clear their walks in a timely fashion and had engaged the shovel-wielding gentleman to do just that. Said gentleman did a fine job, completely clearing a wide path on the bricked walk. He had yet to free Norton's Toyota Camry, however---which might be just fine given all we now know about Toyotas.

Grade: A-, with only slight demerits for hiring out the job

Sally Quinn and Ben Bradlee

Position: Party columnist and former executive editor of the Washington Post, respectively

Address: 3014 N St. NW (Georgetown)

Observations: The Quinn/Bradlees have it a bit tougher than the average privileged residents of Georgetown. Where most Georgetown residences might have, say, 15 or 20 feet of sidewalk frontage, these great Washington hosts own a good portion of their fine N Street block---say, a good 100 feet or so. For the entirety of that real estate (aka the Laird-Dunlop House), the Q/B fam had excavated a workmanlike channel. Georgetown couples looking to saunter abreast are going to have some problems, though: Points off for narrowness! When a reporter asked for Quinn to explain the household's approach to sidewalk maintenance, he was told that Quinn was "out on her walk," suggesting that this was something that Quinn did on a regular basis. Then Bradlee was summoned. Happy, feisty, and dressed for the season in a light sweater and some sturdy cords, Bradlee said that he'd shoveled "about one tenth of it," while other family members and an itinerant shoveler finished it out. Bradlee was careful to point out, too, that his sidewalk responsibilities end at the garage, which is where the scandal starts. Q/B's neighbor, financier Carl J. "Rick" Rickertsen, has completely fallen on his face, failing to shovel the entire southwest corner of the 30th and N intersection. (Rickertsen's driveway, however, was well-cleared.) Not even the slightest of effort here. Quinn must have started her walk in the other direction.

Grade: B+

---Erik Wemple

Rickertsen's driveway:

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT---'Kwame Brown 'Seriously Considering' Fenty Challenge'; 'Harry Thomas Jr. to Enjoy Super Bowl, Not Snow Bowl'; 'Snow Homework: Crowdsource Fenty's Campaign Finance Report!'; and tweets galore!

Greetings D.C.! What you thought was a snowstorm this weekend was in fact a political event, perhaps even a campaign event. The prospect of 20-plus inches of snow lit a spark in Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, offering him the opportunity to show city residents, suburban jurisdictions, and even Barack Obama that D.C., with 750 employees and 270 pieces of equipment working 12-hour shifts, could handle it---that the city would be 'open for business' today regardless of what Mother Nature came up with. But was that wishful thinking given a storm of this magnitude, much more crippling than the 16.4 inches we got December? There was some recognition of that fact in the decision late yesterday evening to close the D.C. Public School, hours after it was announced that they would in fact open. That early decision prompted no shortage of rage on blogs, listservs, article comments, and good old-fashioned phone calls. The reversal came hours later. But no quarter was given to the remainder of the District workforce, which was ordered on the job today (albeit an hour late)---even as neighborhood streets stayed clogged, Metro service lagged, and the federal government kept its doors closed. How's that for flint, Obama?

AFTER THE JUMP---Union takes credit for school closings, Rhee says switch was due to 'new information'; Kwame tweets about 'underdogs' and such; WaPo polling shows strong support for gay marriage, medical marijuana, elected AG; Colby King says racial divisions are deeper than Fenty; affording housing dwindles; CoStar makes its move; Doug Duncan to run Metro?

ABOUT THE SCHOOL CLOSINGS---After the school openings were announced in late afternoon, one teacher posted to a listserv: 'I picture schools throughout the city tomorrow with 5-15% attendance and everybody sitting around doing nothing. Classes will be combined, some desperate subs will be on hand, and the kids who could really use the extra help won't be there. Whatever happens, rest assured it will be a joke. But that [Michelle Rhee], she's tough, ain't she?' Wrote another person: 'The decision to open DC Public schools at all tomorrow - even with a 2-hour delay - shows a callous disregard for the safety and welfare of the students.' Ward 8 activist Sandra Seegars e-mailed: 'How does [Fenty] expect children to go to school tomorrow when the snow is taller than the average 3rd grader. He is doing a terrible job clearing the streets.' Added Ward 7's Life in the Village, 'Everyone else seems to get it, but our Mayor.' And DC Teacher Chic sent Rhee a 'plea to reconsider.' After DCPS indeed reconsidered, WTU President George Parker e-mailed the union membership last night (via DCist), writing, 'Your calls to the office of the Mayor and Chancellor expressing your disagreement and outrage has resulted in success!' Rhee tells LL this morning that teacher outrage had nothing to do with the snow call, that instead the decision evolved as 'new information kept rolling in.' Rhee declined to detail the precise factors that led to the switch. 'I don't want people to get over obsessed about it's this or it's that,' she says.

WHAT FENTY'S BATTLING---From Examiner: '[T]he District seemed to be benefiting from its residents' low expectations. "I don't think they're equipped to handle something like this," Larry Levin said. Passing by, a man who identified himself only as "Ron," said, "It's a very dysfunctional city." [Nicolas Shi] said he was willing to give the city an A for effort. "They're trying their best," he said, shrugging. "I know it's been a hard winter for D.C."'

IT'S KWAME TIME?---On Sunday morning, Kwame Brown suggested to Hizzoner that he close the government today. LL couldn't think of a better way to guarantee that the D.C. gov would stay open. LL did visit Brown at his home yesterday (more on that later today at City Desk), and getting in and out of the Hillcrest gully in which he resides was no small feat. Brown said he spent much of the weekend ferrying seniors and others around the neighborhood to get essential drugs and sundries. Later in the day---after the Super Bowl ended---he did some tweeting: 'Never count the underdog out! The people's choice always win,' he tweeted, later adding, 'Never count the underdog out. People like those that really care!' Unclear whether he was talking about the game, the late school closings, or the mayoral race.

MORE SNOW NEWS---Even Obama called it 'Snowmageddon.' A tree snapped by the weight of the snow destroyed the 102-year-old Joshua's Temple First Born Church on Sheriff Road NE. Still, do NOT try to clear ice off your roof. More than 100 D.C. National Guard members were on duty transporting doctors, nurses, and cops in Hummers---'even transport[ing] Metro Police Chief Cathy Lanier to a shooting scene on Stanton Avenue.' An estimated 2,000 showed up for a Dupont Circle snowball fight. Plenty of fans (including LL) made it out for Georgetown basketball and Caps hockey games at Verizon Center. There was cross-country skiing. At least one wedding went through as planned. Airports reopened for limited service today. One Northwest woman walked six miles for a sandwich. A sandwich from Giant. Jim Sebastian, DDOT's bike czar in less snowy times, left a 12-hour overnight shift running plow operations to find his car---wait for it---hopelessly plowed in. Radius Pizza in Mount Pleasant went to great lengths to maintain delivery service on Super Bowl Sunday, WaPo reports.

POWER CHECK---Pepco says 'most District and Prince George's customers would have power back by Monday morning, with the rest back on by Wednesday morning.'

TRASH CHECK---Residential pick-ups will be disrupted through the week (or later, based on tomorrow's storm). The Fort Totten transfer station is closed today, as well.

GET THIS---More snow's coming late Tuesday. 'Although the National Weather Service said the next storm had the "potential for more than five inches," other forecasts indicated that as much as a foot might fall,' WaPo indicates.

***

The District of Columbia: Still liberal, still racially divided. WaPo releases still more results from their recent polling, highlighting such politically sensitive issues as gay marriage, medical marijuana, and the bag tax. In their lede, Tim Craig and Jennifer Agiesta write that residents are 'generally supportive of the progressive, activist social agenda being pursued by the D.C. Council.' On other words, 'majorities favor same-sex marriage, want medical marijuana to be legalized and support the creation of an elected attorney general....confirm[ing] the city's reputation as one of the most left-leaning jurisdictions in the country.' Still: '[O]verall support masks racial divides on many of the new policies approved by the council, underscoring that residents in majority-white areas feel far different about a variety of issues than their counterparts in majority-black neighborhoods.' See full results.

CRUCIAL STAT---'Although most District residents are in sync with the council in support of same-sex marriage, there is widespread public support for putting the question to a city-wide vote. Nearly six in 10 residents say they would prefer to vote on the issue....If it lands on the ballot, however, the District would be well positioned to become the first state-level jurisdiction in the country where voters embraced same-sex marriage, according to the poll. Nearly six in 10 D.C. residents, including 83 percent of whites, favor making it legal for gay couples to marry.' The race divide is confirmed, with only 37 percent of black poll respondents in favor. Bottom line: 'The poll indicates that council members Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) and Yvette M. Alexander (D-Ward 7) were representing their constituents' views when they became the only two members to vote against the same-sex marriage bill.' In case you forgot, GLAA Forum reiterates all the arguments against a popular vote. Marriage opponents, meanwhile, used the majority favoring a vote to call for one.

AS FOR THE BAG TAX---'Support for the new tax peaks in mostly white wards 2 and 3, and opposition to the tax is widespread in the heavily black wards. Overall, one in three black residents approved of the new tax.'

AS FOR THE GANJA---'According to the poll, eight in 10 Washingtonians favor allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana, with broad support across demographic and ideological groups. District residents are split on legalizing small amounts of marijuana for personal use, with 46 percent in favor and 48 percent opposed.'

On the topic of our racially divided city expounds Colby King. He starts with a victory lap for noting Fenty's divisive attitude months ago. Then he talks about divisions that go deeper than Hizzoner: '[W]hile the District of Columbia may be desegregated, an integrated, racially unified city, we are not. The poll reveals sharp differences in black and white perceptions not only of Fenty but more significantly of the direction in which the District is headed....Fenty's single-minded focus on the success of his political agenda and his standing with opinionators has caused him to lose touch with many of the people who put him where he is today. But Fenty is not the cause of our racial divide. He may tolerate, exploit or even be blind to it. But he is not the reason African Americans and white residents regard their city so differently....Race, income and economic interests inform D.C. government policy. They determine priorities, decide winners and losers, and chart the city's direction. They are reflected in the work of the mayor and the D.C. Council....It is no mistake that white residents feel better these days.'

WaPo editorial board dubs bag tax a rousing success, calls on Virginia and Maryland to follow the District's example. 'It's useful in viewing this issue to look back a few years to when the District moved to ban smoking in restaurants. There were grim warnings: Diners would flee to the suburbs, businesses would close, workers would lose their jobs. None of those predictions materialized, and it wasn't long before jurisdictions surrounding the District followed its example. The bag tax is another example of the city showing leadership on an important issue. Virginia and Maryland should follow suit.'

SPEAKING OF THE ED BOARD---WaPo ombudsman Andy Alexander tsk-tsks WaPo editors for handling of Bill Turque blog post.

New D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute study says city is approaching an affordable housing crisis. 'Rents have increased more in the District than they have in most major cities, and renters are spending a larger portion of their paychecks to keep a roof over their heads,' WaPo's Ovetta Wiggins writes, covering the report. Says DCFPI honcho Ed Lazere, 'Every D.C. resident can point to numerous neighborhoods that look vastly different than they did 10 years ago, and while those improvements have brought many good things---more retail and better housing stock---it also means that the availability of low-cost housing had to go down.' Key stat: 'There were 23,700 fewer apartments that cost $750 or less a month in 2007 than in 2000, a decrease of more than 33 percent....As a result, two in five households in the District spend more than 30 percent of their income, the federal housing affordability standard, on rent.'

The Jonetta Rose Barras procurement reform column we've all been waiting for! She reviews the Fenty draft legislation, finds much to admire. The council may differ: 'Oddly, Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas called the legislation "redundant." He said it was "premature for the Fenty Administration to introduce a contracting reform bill at this time." What?!...Thomas' gripe is that "no one from the administration talked with him." That's a perfect example of the charge I made recently that some elected officials think it's all about them. The proposal isn't perfect: It includes weak qualifications for the CPO job; doesn't mandate the continuation of the integrity unit launched by Gragan; and leaves too many agencies with independent procurement authority.' OCP chief David Gragan tells Barras there's little daylight between Fenty bill and Mary Cheh alternative.

It's official: CoStar's moving to the District, WBJ reports. But effort to lure the company to an off-the-beaten-path commercial district seem to have failed, with the company putting an offer in on 1331 L St. NW, a property recently vacated by the Mortgage Bankers Association---a group that ran into...mortgage trouble. The move 'complet[es] one of [Fenty]'s first attempts to lure a major company to the city. CoStar is paying $41.25 million for the 168,000-square-foot Class A building, a bargain compared to the $76 million that the mortgage bankers group paid for it less than two years ago, according to the association's tax filings.' Also WaPo, which quotes Ernie Jarvis: 'There was an exodus [of corporations] out of the city 10 years ago....Now companies are rediscovering Washington as a great place to do business.' And this tidbit: CoStar CEO Andy Florance 'recently relocated from suburban Maryland to the District's Cleveland Park neighborhood, buying the home of former Fannie Mae chief executive Daniel H. Mudd at a discount.'

Doug Duncan to run Metro? The former Montgomery County executive has thrown his hat into the ring for the WMATA GM job, AP reports. Two anonymous officials 'monitoring the selection process' say that 'Duncan called them this week to say he is interested in being considered.' FWIW, he has the support of Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, with a spokesperson saying that 'Doug Duncan is a respected and talented public administrator and would be a good candidate for the position.' Duncan, since leaving elected office, has worked for the University of Maryland and a private consulting firm, all while mulling runs for governor.

GOP political consultant, Alexandria resident Glen Bolger has some advice for Hizzoner (who he deems 'Mayor Dangerfield'): 'I'm usually not in the habit of offering advice to Democrats....However, given the overwhelmingly Democratic nature of the city, and its importance to the region in which I live, I'll make an exception. First, stop taking mysterious foreign trips and get out and about in the District. Connect with people in their neighborhoods, their churches, their shops. Don't be aloof and arrogant. Listen and be seen listening. Second, call a truce to your childish war on the D.C. Council. The city has enough problems that you don't need to be bickering over baseball tickets, much less policy. Third, pick one area of D.C. government and focus on making it much more responsive to the people. From the poll, it appears voters think the city government is doing pretty well in spite of your leadership. Make a big show of providing some, then humbly take credit for your successes.'

WaPo's Matt Zapotosky covers how a federal pullout has left the future of WAVE---the Washington Area Vehicle Enforcement Team---in serious doubt. 'The U.S. Marshals Service, the only federal member of the regional task force, pulled out in the fall, saying that combating car theft was not one of its core missions....The effect has been crippling, many officials say. Because they are no longer deputized by the Marshals Service, local members of the team can no longer cross borders seamlessly to conduct investigations and make arrests. Effectively, enforcement took a step back to a time when Prince George's averaged an auto theft every half-hour.' MPD has also pulled out, but 'Maryland officers still enjoy informal relationships with their D.C. counterparts that make cross-border investigations possible.' Why did the Marshals call it quits? Looks like jurisdictional turf war with FBI.

Apropos of auto theft: Capitol Hill woman had her Jeep Cherokee stolen four times, and Robert McCartney writes it up in his Sunday WaPo column. The woman, Heather Harrell, 'feels torn between anger at the perpetrators and her instinct to be compassionate. "On one hand, I'm liberal, and the poor guys that this happened to, I hope they learned something when they crashed. But they shouldn't have taken it in the first place," she said. Harrell still wouldn't think of leaving Capitol Hill, where she has lived for 16 years. She treasures the neighborhood feeling and the convenience of having the Potomac Avenue Metro station a block away. Nevertheless, her SUV's ill fate is a reminder of the price of residing downtown. "Capitol Hill is just wonderful," she said, but "there's an urban living part of this---your places being broken into, your things being taken."'

THANKS, BOB---'[I]t's not for me to tell her or anybody else where to live. But I note that there are plenty of places with friendly people and less crime. Montgomery County's population is considerably larger than the District's, but in the past six months, Montgomery had 440 auto thefts, and the District had 2,298.'

WaPo's Mary Pat Flaherty looks at how local emergency responders deal with the severely obese: 'Calls for patients weighing 350 pounds come daily in the District. A patient between 400 pounds and 600 pounds is part of every workweek for many crews throughout the region. Patients topping 600 pounds are transported by emergency teams every few months....Across the Washington region and the country, departments have been adapting steadily to plus-size patients. They have added specialty equipment and training to reduce their back injuries and avoid the spectacle of moving a person on planks, tarps or the floor of an ambulance....Among local departments, District crews have regular access to a winch-and-ramp ambulance under an agreement with Medstar, which runs a big unit out of Washington Hospital Center in Northwest.'

D.C. police wound man critically, after he threatened to kill himself. Reports WaPo: 'Police were sent to an apartment in the 3300 block of 18th Street NE, but received no response to their knocks. Firefighters were asked to force open the door, and after authorities entered, a man with a knife approached firefighters "in a menacing manner," according to Assistant Police Chief Al Durham. Police opened fire, and the man was taken to a hospital.' Cherkis is on it.

Paul Strauss picked a good weekend for his first-ever junket: Harry Jaffe reports that the shadow senator's 'down in Florida at Kennedy Space Center watching Endeavor lift off.' How's did happen? 'Strauss let it be known that he wanted to see a shuttle launch, D.C. residents who work for NASA took note and tried to get him on the schedule, finally a spot came free.' Says Jaffe, 'Strauss deserves better perks, even if he's only a shadow of a real senator.'

Jordan Weissmann of Legal Times covers ongoing problems for Magistrate Judge Janet Albert---even after the conviction of stalker Taylar Nuevelle. 'For Nuevelle, the only uncertainty left is her sentence. The 40-year-old Nuevelle, who already has another felony conviction on her record, faces a maximum of 16 years in prison. For Albert, the remaining question is what happens to the judicial misconduct complaint lodged against her by Nuevelle after their 2008 breakup. Nuevelle's complaint, filed in October 2008, is being investigated by the Superior Court's Committee on the Selection and Tenure of Magistrate Judges, which has not yet held a formal hearing, according to a source with direct knowledge of the process.'

ALSO---Legal Times covers judicial reform package now before council. 'The legislation, introduced Tuesday by Councilmembers Phil Mendelson and Jack Evans, would let the mayor select judges for the D.C. Superior Court and the D.C. Court of Appeals with the council's consent....The new bill would bill would leave the [Judicial Nomination Commission] in place, while changing who picks some of its members. Equally important, the legislation would hand the responsibility for funding and administrating the courts back to the District government for the first time since 1997, when the federal government took over the responsibility.'

Diplomatic Security Service strikes Daily Caller staffer as he crosses street; MPD later shows up in his hospital room to give him a jaywalking ticket. Answers are hard to come by.

SPEAKING OF...the Daily Caller, another bag-tax screed.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) says D.C.'s minority-party set-asides for at-large council seats could serve as a model for Kazakhstan, DCist notes. Said Issa to Kazakh foreign minister, 'This is a one-party town, even though there are people who are not Democrats. And this town has decided to have representation, at least one member of the council, who is chosen simply to represent minorities.' Now what is it exactly that 'this own has decided'?

Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, amid mayoral-control battle in that city, covers D.C. school reform. Some, the paper reports, 'see cause for optimism in the two-and-a-half years since [Fenty] took control of the school district and installed a lightning rod...at the top. Since then, test scores that were already improving have continued the trend and, perhaps most telling, enrollment this school year did not shrink — the first time in recent memory in a district where charter schools have absorbed thousands of students fleeing city schools.'

Georgetown law prof Peter Edelman sticks up for Vinny Schiraldi in WaPo letter, calling Memorial Day escape incident a 'byproduct of constructive opportunities that the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services offers to youths. There is always a tension in a juvenile justice system that tries to engage young people in a rehabilitative process.'

Who judges 'Race to the Top' applications? WaPo takes a look: No names have been released, but the ranks 'include four lawyers, 15 former principals, 15 former district or state superintendents and 30 former K-12 teachers (with some overlap among the categories). Thirty-five reviewers have doctorates. Rankings from the reviewers will be forwarded to Education Secretary Arne Duncan and other senior officials. Duncan is authorized to pick winners out of order.'

Peter Rosenstein makes the case for an elected AG in DC Agenda op-ed. He's concerned about circumstances where the 'mayor's office will be investigating itself. This could lead to whitewashing the issue because there is no way we can be assured that the final report is totally independent and that the result of the AG's investigation won't be slanted in order to make the mayor look good. I am not suggesting that Nickles would do that. But we have no guarantee that some future AG wouldn't.'

David Catania has The Hoya's endorsement. 'If the fact that Catania is a two-time Georgetown graduate doesn't convince you to support him, consider his impressive achievements as a councilmember....'

American School Board Journal blogger express frustration at Rhee poll numbers: 'This is exactly the progress that Washington, D.C., residents have wanted to see for the past 30 years, a period when a revolving door of superintendents and a variety of school governance models ensured that every step toward improvement was disrupted by political infighting and a sharp turn in policy direction.'

TheCityFix looks at challenges for food-truck expansion.

D.C. Public Library techies say that iPad 'will make for an excellent roving reference tool.'

New leadership for GLOV.

Jennifer Budoff moves from CFO's office to head up Kwame Brown's economic development committee.

Big hearing on FY2010 spending set for Feb. 19. And Susie Cambria also notes the mayoral spending order published in Friday's DCR doesn't cover several key agencies, including CFSA, DPR, DYRS, FEMS, and MPD.

Hey, look: Robert Bobb's in trouble over no-bid contracts again!

Caps: So hot right now.

D.C. COUNCIL TODAY---10 a.m.: Committee on Health roundtable on 'United Medical Center,' JAWB 500; 10:30 a.m.: Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary hearing on B18-549 ('Community Impact Statement Amendment Act of 2009') and B18-556 ('Liquid PCP Possession Amendment Act of 2009'), JAWB 412; 1 p.m.: Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary hearing on B18-557 ('Private Fire Hydrant Amendment Act of 2009'), JAWB 412.

ADRIAN FENTY TODAY---11:15 a.m.: remarks, snow removal update, Barry Farm Recreation Center, 1230 Sumner Road SE; 2 p.m.: remarks, renovation update, Bald Eagle Recreation Center, 100 Joliet St. SW.

Courtesy of LL and his proprietary software capable of rendering unreadable OCF reports into easy-to-scan spreadsheets, you can take the raw data and extract all sorts of cool info---much as LL did a year ago. So download the spreadsheet [XLS format] and get a-crunchin'!

So all you data-analysis and visualization nerds, please have a look! What to crunch? Check out this old LL post for some ideas. LL will find some super City Paper swag for y'all.

LL will share the results of his crunching next week.

That would be Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr., whom LL reached this afternoon inside a Miami Subs location. That's right---his flight just landed, having left D.C. just before the potentially historic deluge began.

"Got out by the grace of god," Thomas says.

Asked what lured him down from his soon-to-be-snowbound ward to Super Bowl XLIV, Thomas started by talking about how he's looking to partner with the NFL on a punt-pass-and-kick contest in D.C. Then Thomas disclosed that he's in fact having a fundraiser down Florida way. LL asked who's hosting it: "Friends of Tommy," he says. "Just people I know, fraternity brothers, guys I played football with."

And in case you're wondering: "I bought my own ticket" to the game, Thomas says.

Of course, there's a history of D.C. politicos partying at the Big Game while snow slammed the city: In 1987, Marion Barry attended the Broncos-Giants tilt in Southern California; meanwhile the city was slammed with snow as the mayor partied (and was hospitalized for what was later revealed to be the result of drug and alcohol overindulgence).

Thomas says he isn't concerned Ward 5 will suffer in his absence.

"I have able staff," he says. "They've got a pretty good handle on it."

Said Brown, "Yes, of course, I am seriously considering it, if in fact there is not significant changes in the way this government is operated and the way people feel in this city. We don't need a city that's divided, we need a city that's together. And in order to be a great city, we can't have ANC commissioners and civic association leaders, and principals all feeling like they're not being heard and not being represented in a way that's fair, open, and transparent. We can't get to a great city that way."

Kwame Brown now joins Vincent Gray, Michael A. Brown, and R. Donahue Peebles in the "seriously considering" camp. Brown has the strongest record among all of them in citywide races, running an insurgent campaign in 2004 to knock off incumbent Harold Brazil, and, in 2008, fending off all serious primary challengers and coasting to a landslide win.

To date, Kwame Brown has been the most sheepish about his mayoral ambitions, though they clearly have long existed.

National Weather Service has updated their Winter Storm Warning for the D.C. Metro Area, which is now in effect until 10PM tomorrow. 20-30" of snow now expected in the D.C. area, with localized amounts exceeding 30". Conditions will deteriorate rapidly through the afternoon today. The heaviest snowfall will be from sunset today to Sat. morning. NEAR-BLIZZARD CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED DURING THAT TIME. Wind gusts of 20-30 mph expected by tonight, with some blowing snow. Visibilities will be appx. 1/4 mile. For your own safety, and to help your local responders, please stay off roads this evening and overnight.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT---'The First Political Attack Ad of DCision 2010!'; and tweets galore!

Greetings all. Not sure if you've heard, but it's going to snow, people. A lot. So much, in fact, that the D.C. Public Schools---new model of 'flinty Chicago toughness'---dismissed class at noon today. And D.C. government offices will close at 2 p.m. And hope your car isn't parked on any major thoroughfares: A snow emergency has been in place since 7:30 a.m. It's that serious, folks. Colleague Jason Cherkis spent three hours at Harris Teeter last night, ferchrissakes. Per WaPo's pre-storm A1 reporting, cold white fluff will be 'accumulating at a rate of three inches an hour during the worst of it and piling up more than two feet deep before it's over.' Also: This stands to be 'just the third time in almost 60 years that the region has experienced two snowfalls in excess of 10 inches in one season.' Very serious. Serious as a heart attack! Which reminds LL---don't shovel too hard.

AFTER THE JUMP---Procurement reform bill introduced; woman breaks into city tax system, pays businesses' tax bills; new bag tax regs released; BOEE deals another victory to gay-marriage supporters (plus a minor defeat); Evans slams out-of-towner judges; get ready for 'Super Snow Bowl'

MORE SNOW COVERAGE---From Capital Weather Gang, Examiner, AP, WAMU-FM, WTOP, NC8, WRC-TV, WUSA-TV, WTTG-TV, and, of course, 'The Best D.C. Snow Web Site Ever.'

FYI---'Policy: if your vehicle is not moved off the snow emergency route, DPW will tow the vehicle to a pre-determined lot. DPW will no longer relocate the vehicle in the local neighborhood. The resident will incur a $250 fine for parking on a snow emergency route during a declared snow emergency, a $100 towing fee and a $25 impound fee (this fee will double after 48 hours and then increase by $25 every 24 hours thereafter).'

FYI NO. 2---D.C. Code § 9-601: 'It shall be the duty of every person, partnership, corporation, joint-stock company, or syndicate in charge or control of any building or lot of land within the fire limits of the District of Columbia, fronting or abutting on a paved sidewalk, whether as owner, tenant, occupant, lessee, or otherwise, within the first 8 hours of daylight after the ceasing to fall of any snow or sleet, to remove and clear away, or cause to be removed and cleared away, such snow or sleet from so much of said sidewalk as is in front of or abuts on said building or lot of land.'

FYI NO. 3---D.C. government appears to have deemed this weekend's snow event the 'Super Snow Bowl.' LL prefers 'Super Snowl' (Twitter hashtag #supersnowl).

Oh, right: All of that snowplowing costs money. Big money. WaPo's Ashley Halsey looks at how local jurisdictions, with their snow budgets already busted, plan to pay for all this. The District's in somewhat better shape than Maryland or Virginia, because its fiscal year ends Sept. 30, not June 30, giving budget wonks more time to move money around. 'The District, with $6.2 million budgeted for snow this season, spent more than $4 million on the December storm alone. The budgeted amount seemed reasonable before snow began falling, $1.4 million less than was spent in 2007, but a good bit more than the cost of snow removal during the past two years.' DDOT declines to estimate a final tally.

Procurement reform! Procurement reform! Procurement reform! It's here! Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, with AG Peter Nickles and OCP chief David Gragan at his side, yesterday unveiled legislation overhauling how the District government buys goods and services. From a press release: 'The legislation would make improvements to most of the District's existing procurement laws, which were passed in 1985. It covers procurement authority, source selection methods, cost principles, contract types, procurement of infrastructure facilities and services, bonds and other forms of security, supply management, legal and contractual remedies, electronic transactions, and cooperative purchasing.' WaPo's Ann Marimow also covers: 'A reporter asked Fenty whether the proposed overhaul was in response to the Council's probe into contracts for recreation construction projects that were awarded to people with close ties to him. The mayor said the new rules had been in the works for the past year-and-a-half, and that the contracts in question were handled by the independent D.C. Housing Authority, not the executive branch.'

IN THE BILL---'Establishes a Procurement Training Institute for procurement training of OCP and non-OCP procurement staff....Calls for promoting the purchase of environmentally preferable products and services and green purchasing....Shortens advertising requirements, allowing commonly available items to be quickly procured....Updates construction procurement methods to include modern delivery methods such as design-build; design-build-finance-operate-maintain; design-build-operate-maintain; and operations and maintenance....Consolidates the CPO's procurement authority....Increases bonding thresholds to enable Certified Business Enterprises to more easily participate in construction-related procurements....Authorizes special procurements, as well as pilot, experimental and demonstration projects to enhance flexibility....Authorizes stipends to be paid to bidders to encourage competition on procurements in which proposal costs will be significant....Establishes competition exemptions for items that cannot or should not be competed such as farecards; postage; copyrighted and patented material; dues and memberships fees in trade or professional organizations; and subscriptions for periodicals and newspapers.'

Odd story from Michael Neibauer in Examiner: CAFR audit reveals that a 'mentally ill woman exploited a loophole in D.C. tax office online systems to gain unauthorized access to taxpayer accounts, establish herself as the owner of dozens of businesses and file returns on their behalf.' The woman wasn't a D.C. employee, though LL is not sure if that fact should be soothing or not. 'The transactions were caught before damage was done,' and OTR says it can't happen again.

In proposed regulations published this morning, the Fenty administration has moved to clarify the bag tax, Tim Craig reports in WaPo. They 'state the tax will apply to bakeries, delicatessens, grocery stores, convenience stores that sell food, restaurants, street vendors that sell food, liquor stores as well as "any business that sells food items." The tax also will apply to stores that sell both food and non-food items, such as many pharmacies, regardless of whether a customer purchases food or another item. But the new regulations, published in the D.C. Register, state the tax will generally not apply to bags used to package goods inside food stores.' And if you break the rules? 'A first offense will trigger a warning, but a $100 fine will be assessed for a second violation. The fine rises to $500 for a third offense.'

MEANWHILE---Poverty & Policy notes the impact on poor D.C. residents, who haven't gotten the 122,000 free bags promised by the government. And D.C. Republican chairman Bob Kabel points out in WaTimes that 'a Morton's Steakhouse patron won't pay the tax that a McDonald's customer will.'

This what you call a rowback, from Harry Jaffe: 'Jack Evans guided me to the corner of the budget classroom Thursday, turned me to the wall and stuck a dunce cap on my head. The veteran chairman of the city council's finance and revenue committee said I needed a refresher course on city finances. My last column, he said, was dumb and dumber, because it mixed capital spending with operational spending. Guilty!' The rest of the column deals with the specter of tax hikes: 'The council is split along racial and political lines. There's the tax and spend group, led by Marion Barry. They would raise taxes: income, property, sales. The money would pay for social services, public safety and schools, which soak up 70 percent of the budget. But D.C. already has the highest income and sales taxes in the region. Corporate income taxes are second highest in the nation. Barry and his allies have their eyes set on raising residential property taxes....Barry's crusade to raise taxes rings a bit hollow---since he has had a spotty record paying his own taxes for the last decade.'

SAYS EVANS---'"Are we prepared to freeze the education budget as we did last year?" Evans asked. Cops and services to homeless will have to be cut, too. "It's pain, pure and simple."'

Once more with feeling: The Board of Elections and Ethics has, for the third time, declared a gay-marriage-related measure to be unfit for the ballot, based on the strictures of the D.C. Human Rights Act. Lou Chibbaro Jr. notes in DC Agenda a perhaps-momentous secondary finding: 'In an action that could disappoint LGBT activists, the board additionally ruled that the proposed referendum would not violate a separate D.C. election law restriction by interfering with the appropriation of funds or the city budget....Some LGBT activists had hoped the budget argument could be used as a backup plan in the event the human rights law argument runs into trouble at the appeals court level.' Also GLAA Forum.

New charges likely for Ted Loza, the top aide to Jim Graham already accused of bribery. Prosecutors said in court yesterday that they'll be asking a grand jury to return more indictments within weeks, Del Wilber reports in WaPo. And this: 'Loza's attorney, Pleasant Brodnax...was concerned about a trial occurring near the September primaries. Graham, a close friend of Loza's, is running for reelection, and testimony is expected to deal with how Loza and his boss dealt with the taxi industry.'

The NTSB has added a third day to hearings on the June 22 Red Line crash, Kytja Weir reports in Examiner. 'The independent federal agency released a preliminary agenda on Thursday for the hearings scheduled for Feb. 23-25, extending the testimony from what was a two-day schedule.' Among those called to testify: Metro, Federal Transit Administration, Federal Railroad Administration, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689, Tri-State Oversight Committee, D.C. FEMS, Alstom Signaling Inc., and Union Switch and Signal. Check out the agenda.

Jonathan O'Connell reports in WBJ that the city is raiding ballpark business tax revenues to cover fiscal shortfalls that have nothing to do with Nationals Stadium. And that has business types rather upset. '[W]ith the taxes expected to raise $10 million more than projected in fiscal 2010, there was hope that the largest tax would expire early — maybe 10 years early....But facing hundreds of millions of dollars in budget shortfalls, D.C. used the $10 million last year to shore up its fiscal 2010 budget. For some companies, that decision rekindled the bitterness they felt when businesses were first hit with the taxes.' Says Chamber's Barbara Lang, 'My hope would be that if the mayor or the legislative body wants to do something different that they would come back to the business community and have a conversation about it.' Evans thinks the money should be used to pay off ballpark debt more quickly.

Jack Evans vs. the judiciary! WBJ's Melissa Castro covers Evans-introduced court reform bill that would allow mayor-selected judges. And one of the reasons behind it? Superior Judge Natalia Combs Greene's decision in the JBG-Marriott convention center hotel tiff. 'Despite the fact that Combs Greene worked for years as an attorney for the federal government, Evans considers her a Californian at heart and says he believes that may have contributed to her decision. "She made this decision in the hotel case that was very adverse to the city," Evans said. "Whenever judges make decisions that are adverse to the city, I always wonder whether they would have made that decision if they were from here. We have our own history and culture here — we're not some federal city that nobody lives in."' ALSO---AKA lawsuit, D.C. United cash crunch?

Perhaps he isn't as vindictive as they say? The Fenty administration renewed its $2.18M-a-year lease on space in Don Peebles' Anacostia office building last month, O'Connell reports. 'D.C. has leased the building, 2100 Martin Luther King Avenue Jr. SE, in Anacostia, since April 1988, with the Dept. of Human Services and the Dept. of Health occupying space there....Fenty approved the extension for his possible rival Jan. 12 and a week later the building became the unfortunate star in a Washington Post photo and story about the longer lines of city residents in need of welfare and other aid.'

ALSO IN WBJ---More on D.C. Council hotel tax fix; high-finance showdown over Allied Capital; more on Marine Barracks re-location.

Latest on Northrop Grumman move, from WBJ: A Ballston location is a front-runner. 'Sources say Northrop...has upped its space requirement to as much as 200,000 square feet. Other jurisdictions are not out of the running just yet. Northrop is also looking into 1801 K St. NW, 901 K St. NW and a North Bethesda office building near rival Lockheed Martin Corp., according to sources.'

Just in time for the new snowstorm: Cathy Lanier tells WTOP that the internal investigation into the gun-wielding behavior of Detective Michael Baylor is complete. But she had no details on what it had found, because the report 'had not come to her...But she added that she has the final say on the outcome.'

Students stand up for soon-to-be-ex-Hardy MS principal Patrick Pope, Bill Turque reports in at his Schools Insider blog: 'Pope's ouster hit some of the kids hard, so they wrote to Fenty asking him to reconsider. When they got no answer, they wrote another round of letters and hopped the number 36 Metrobus to the Wilson Building (two buses, actually, with boys and girls separated) to deliver them personally. They climbed the front steps of the Wilson Building chanting "Pope! Pope! Pope! and flashing signs such as "Don't Smash Hope, Keep Principal Pope." Security guards allowed English teacher Janelle Henry to take three students to Fenty's third-floor offices with the shopping bag full of letters.' And how's this for election-year politicking: 'While Fenty wasn't available, [Vincent Gray] invited the entire group out of the cold and into a first-floor room, where he held an hour-long impromptu version of one of his "youth hearings."' Also WTTG-TV.

More IMPACT misgivings: WaPo's Jay Mathews writes about a DCPS instructional coach who has some problems with the teacher evaluation regime she's partly responsible for enforcing. Marni Barron, at Hearst ES, 'likes tough, deep assessments that measure student progress in many ways, such as portfolios and behavior.... Barron said the IMPACT guidebooks are too vague and too subjective. An assessment system will work only if it includes a major effort to show teachers how to improve through evidence-based instructional strategies, she said. There isn't enough time for that in the five or six days set aside each year for professional development and the spare moments she has to talk to them during the regular school day....Barron thinks D.C. schools are trying to build this ship when it is already at sea, without involving the crew.'

Republican congressman Joe L. Barton and Greg Walden, prompted by WaPo investigation of D.C. AIDS spending, want federal probe into fraud and mismanagement complaints concerning Ryan White Act funding. 'Many of the troubled nonprofit groups identified by The Post had received Ryan White funding from the city, including an organization launched by a man who once ran one of the District's largest cocaine rings,' Debbie Cenziper reports. 'The group, which was awarded more than $1 million from the fund, had been criticized by city monitors, former clients and other AIDS groups for a lack of services and supplies, missing records and questionable expenses.'

Investigations continue into death of Todd Angelo Jackson, 28, inside the Columbia Heights Village apartments Wednesday night. Police are investigating the domestic-related death as a homicide. WCP's Will Sommer has more detail: Responding officers found 'a man holding [Jackson] in a headlock, according to the police report. After the officers ordered the man to release Jackson, they discovered that he was unconscious. An ambulance took Jackson, a resident of Congress Heights, to Washington Hospital Center, where he was pronounced dead at 8:18 p.m. The cause of death has not been released and the suspect has not been named by police.' No guns were involved.

Gold Coast raid nets 50 pounds of marijuana, plus $5,000 in cash. Courtney Prince, 45, has been held in the crime, Wilber reports in WaPo.

WaPo deems Tai Shan's journey to China 'a trip to obscurity and sex.' Also full WaPo coverage of his final sendoff, AP.

NC8 covers Phil Mendelson/Mary Cheh hearing on bill targeting aggressive animal-rights protesters. 'Deputy Police Chief Patrick Burke repeated some of the epithets hurled at residents, including "puppy killer" and "baby killer." Burke argued the police need more legal tools to deal with protesters who often disperse before office can actually see them breaking the law.' Unions, ACLU oppose the bill.

Joe Lieberman moves to reauthorize voucher program.

Informer covers St. E's job search.

Good news for real-estate agents: D.C. Bond program could be back.

Appeals court judges say pants judge has to file a new brief in workplace retaliation case, following the rules this time.

How much is a used iPod worth? That's a question pondered by the D.C. Court of Appeals.

New Facebook group: 'Dear Mayor Fenty, Where's the New United Stadium?'

'Monster' dog terrorizes Fairfax Village!

Anonymous law blog commenter not a Nickles fan.

SAY IT AIN'T SO!---Bob Ryan to leave WRC-TV for WJLA?

Washington Gas earnings forecast is up.

D.C. COUNCIL TODAY---10 a.m.: Committee of the Whole public briefing on the FY2009 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, JAWB 500.

ADRIAN FENTY TODAY---10:30 a.m.: remarks, 10th Street Park construction update, 10th Street NW between L and M Streets; 11:15 a.m.: remarks, snowstorm update, 10th Street Park, 10th Street NW between L and M Streets.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT---'Ebony Magazine Still Loves Adrian Fenty'; 'Elected AG: Was Peter Nickles For It Before He Was Against It?'; and tweets galore!

IN LL WEEKLY---Fixing Fenty: Five things Hizzoner can do to return to his winsome ways.

Morning all. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty has still not examined the Sunday WaPo poll, he tells WRC-TV this morning: 'I haven't got a chance to read it. I will. I've been around politics so long I know that in order to really be able to respond accurately and with some sense of what you're talking about, you've really got to read the poll itself, and I will. This week has been very busy with the snow and everything else. I just haven't gotten to it.' But he takes a stab at a response anyway: 'What I try and do is stay engaged with residents daily. I don't wait for polls to come out. As you know I'm in the midst of a campaign so almost every day I'm out talking to voters, and there are a lot of issues that are driving people and that they want to see more results from the government on. There are a lot of things that people are really excited about, like school reform and public safety initiatives and the population going up and the bond rating going up. So we know we've got a lot of work to do. That's the job of a big-city mayor. We've said that we're excited about doing it for another four years, and we know we've got to get re-elected first.'

AFTER THE JUMP---More polling reax; Lightfoot says younger blacks are 'getting their piece of the pie' with Fenty; snOMG Part II is a-comin'; WaPo ed board wants city to pony up for vouchers; Schiraldi screwed up big-time in 2008 youth escape, IG finds; the first mayoral campaign ad of DCision 2010

WaPo columnist Robert McCartney tries to get to the bottom of black animosity toward Fenty. His findings: 'Fenty has come up short in supplying substantive change in some key areas, especially ones important to the District's African American majority. Blacks fault Fenty for providing little or no progress in handling gentrification, unemployment and AIDS, according to African American politicians, community leaders and average residents whom I interviewed this week....At a time when blacks are nervous about giving up their majority status in the city (54 percent and falling), there's also unhappiness that so few of Fenty's top appointees are African American. Black leaders and residents told me that it's right for the mayor to find the best people available---but that he also needs to show blacks that the city isn't going back to a time when there wasn't opportunity for them at the top....Fenty has failed to reassure residents that he cared as much about low-cost housing as upscale development. He's also criticized for doing too little to protect the interests of the less advantaged while neighborhoods are revitalized.'

QUOTE---From Bill Lightfoot: 'The older generation feels it's losing something....When I talk to younger black professionals, they're not disenchanted with Adrian. They feel they are getting their piece of the pie.' (McCartney notes: 'the Post poll showed no statistically significant difference between the level of disapproval of Fenty among blacks younger than 40 and those 40 and older.')

In Examiner piece, Jonetta Rose Barras also examines black attitudes toward Fenty. 'The black political brand began changing in the 1990s, when African-Americans started choosing more pragmatic leaders who brought a corporate approach to governing. Williams was the first District mayor of that class; Fenty is the second. They achieved measurable results but forgot that personality and communication can be as important as policy....As the Ward 4 city councilman, Fenty touched and talked. As mayor, he has been called remote and aloof. He has hemorrhaged African-American support since 2008. Nasty fights with the council, highly publicized investigations, employee firings and a recession more pronounced among blacks made matters worse.'

After you've read LL's Fenty turnaround tips. check out Barras' in her Examiner column: '[L]eave the athletic mentality at the gym' says Terry Lynch; poet E. Ethelbert Miller wants him to '[s]how up at some art functions, an exhibit, a theater production, or participate in the Big Read'; an anonymouse says he should '[h]ave the press corps over for beer and chips' (a quick path to LL's heart for sure); and Bernard Demczuk says he needs a dose of humility: 'The more human, humble and appreciative you are, the more the black community loves you....If you've made a mistake, apologize in a genuine way, reach out and ask forgiveness.'

Gary Imhoff unspins the poll-spinners in themail: 'They make several false and weak assumptions...[T]hey assume that his conflicts with the city council can be reduced to just trivial disputes, like the distribution of baseball tickets, when in fact Fenty withholds and refuses basic government information to the city council, and even refuses to provide them with city contracts, with government witnesses for their hearings, and with records that they need to perform oversight over the administration.'

TOON TIME---Tom Toles, in yesterday's WaPo, questions whether we really want a warm-and-fuzzy chief exec. (This one's much better for Hizzoner than than the last one).

Another chance for Fenty to prove his service-delivery bona fides: Forecasts indicate that a Friday-Saturday snowstorm could drop even more white fluff than the December snowpocalypse. National Weather Service guy tells WaPo to expect 'at least a foot, with localized depths of more than 20 inches' in what will look 'like a repeat of the big snow in December.' Capitol Weather Gang is calling for 12 to 16 inches. WTOP says it will be a 'near blizzard.' Also WRC-TV.

The WaPo editorial board is back on vouchers. Citing the Obama budget and opposition among congressional Dems, the editorialists claim that they 'have already written the epilogue to this worthy program. Their disregard for how vouchers have helped children is so complete that it seems that the best chance, perhaps the only chance, for the program's survival is for local officials to step in....[A]t one point, [Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)] pretty much dared local officials to take over the program if they thought it was so important. The program is important to low-income families who see it as their children's only path to a good education. If the president and Congress won't see that, then we hope that [Fenty] and the D.C. Council will.' In a fiscal year when they're facing a $550M budget gap?

ALSO---Heritage Foundation says Obama is 'crushing dreams' with budget decision.

Inspector General report lays blame for Memorial Day 2008 youth escape from Vinny Schiraldi's home squarely on Vinny Schiraldi. The now ex-head of the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services 'allowed 2 1/2 hours to pass before police were notified that a 17-year-old inmate had escaped from Schiraldi's home in May 2008---one of several rule violations he committed in the incident,' Nikita Stewart reports in WaPo. Furthermore, the report 'found that Schiraldi's less-restrictive approach toward juvenile detention led to the escape,' whatever that means. '[T]he incident began when [Darius Hodge] asked Schiraldi's wife for permission to go to the basement to look for his cellphone. He went "alone and unescorted," which violated requirements that visual contact be maintained at all times, according to the report. Hodge was discovered missing about 6:15 p.m. Instead of immediately reporting the escape and notifying police as required, the staff members at the event searched the area for half an hour. They later called Hodge's home and "searched near his home for approximately two hours."...No one notified a DYRS officer of the escape until 8:45 p.m., when the group returned to Oak Hill without Hodge.'

Another Debbie Cenziper-penned WaPo health-funding expose---this one touches the Department of Mental Health. Marilyn Hill, who ran 'a city-funded AIDS program that recently closed amid reports of alleged fraud and neglect,' also ran 'eight facilities for the mentally ill that were racked for years by similar problems.' The District's long-term care ombudsman 'verified 59 cases of abuse, exploitation, poor care, financial irregularities and other problems at the facilities, dating to 2005.' Patients 'regularly complained about a lack of staff, electricity and food.' As with most of Cenziper's AIDS-funding stories, this article describes a problem that appears, by and large, to have been fixed: In 2008, DMH refused to relicense Hill's outfit; she never received city funding to operate the facilities.

You have no more chances to see Tai Shan. Said one farewell visitor yesterday, 'A piece of me is being ripped away....Tai is one of a kind. There's never going to be another bear like him.' But what now for the National Zoo? Michael Neibauer explores the question in Examiner: 'National Zoo is losing its gravy train with no new draw immediately ready to take his place.' Pandas are out, and elephants are now in, says a zoo official. But the Elephant Trail won't open for two years.

That extremely empty parking garage underneath the DC USA development may soon fill with commuters' cars, Jonathan O'Connell reports in WBJ via DMPED press release. '350 spaces in the garage [are] available for daily and monthly parking contracts, with a daily rate of $6 per day for parkers who arrive before 9 a.m. and leave by 7 p.m. weekdays.' DCist covers the issue, commenters go wild.

Delving into the DCPS 'Race to the Top' application, WaPo's Bill Turque finds that the system 'desperately' needs federal funds to implement the new IMPACT teacher evaluation regime. From the application: 'Despite the significant achievement of the initial implementation of IMPACT, DCPS can barely keep up with ongoing IMPACT demands: it needs human and technological horsepower to analyze these data and determine which interventions are needed. Additionally, DCPS desperately needs to train and support its Master Educators to ensure that they can execute real-time interventions to help teachers who are minimally effective climb a steep learning curve.'

More on yesterday's early-morning fire that left three children seriously injured: 'The father of the children, ages 5 months to 5 years, had left them alone when he went to work, asking a neighbor to look in on them,' WaPo reports. 'The fire, which started in the apartment's kitchen about 6 a.m., filled the unit with thick, black smoke, firefighters said. The smoke detectors in the apartment were not working, but the building's fire alarm sounded, alerting a neighbor, who called 911....The fire was probably sparked when paper towels on a countertop came into contact with a hot burner.' Theola Labbé-DeBose and Hamil R. Harris also chat with the firefighters of Engine 15/Rescue 3, who saved the kids. Also Examiner, WRC-TV, WTTG-TV. NC8 and WUSA-TV have security-cam video of the rescue!

WaPo covers Senate legislation to madate gay-marriage referendum. From a news release by Utah Sen. Robert Bennett: 'The definition of marriage affects every person, and should be debated openly, lawfully, and democratically....The board's decision to deny the people of Washington, D.C. a vote was incorrect and reminiscent of the judicial activism that has imposed gay marriage by fiat and stimulated such discord in other venues. Congress should act to ensure that the question is settled by a democratic ballot initiative process.' CNN, too. Eleanor Holmes Norton issued a release yesterday pledging to keep the bill bottled up in committee.

Another bag tax story! From WaPo's Jura Koncius: 'Local shoppers are assembling a wardrobe of bags that are functional, fashionable or both. They are getting used to bringing their own, even if they have to rush back to their cars to retrieve them. [Muriel Bowser] equipped her car with blue-and-white bags from Ikea last year. [Jim Graham] keeps handy a red cloth bag autographed by go-go musician Chuck Brown for quick shopping trips. Many are buying reusable bags at store registers at Giant, Safeway or Whole Foods. Some have watched in dismay as customers have handed cashiers beat-up, dirty paper bags.' This one also comes with a lovely pic of Bowser posing with her own reusable bag.

National study finds that charters schools 'are less racially diverse than their traditional counterparts,' WaPo reports. As for D.C.: 'Recent data show that 84 percent of the city's charter school students are African American, compared with 78 percent in regular public schools.'

'Metro needs a CEO,' argues David Alpert at GGW. 'Many of the problems Metro faces resemble those of large companies. It's a big organization with many employees and complex operational requirements. It has to drastically reduce administrative staffing while trying to maintain its capacity to get things done. It needs to improve its customer service, again with limited resources. These are the kinds of problems that a top manager who's run a large operations-oriented company can solve.'

Rhode Island Avenue Safeway is closing! NC8 covers: 'Many residents say the supermarket is the center of their community where the elderly and others push their carts to shop. pick up their prescriptions and keep up on what's going on. ANC Commissioner Marshall Phillips is angry...."They're just closing us down and leaving our community and where they going to take the money they've taken from here…"' The closing is set for
March 9; a newer Giant is a few blocks east, across from the Home Depot, but that's a long haul for Edgewood Terrace seniors.

Valerie Santos talks job creation on the Kojo Nnamdi Show. And Jack Evans talks to Federal News Radio about a possible Northrop Grumman deal.

Hatchet covers Duke Ellington School non-move and new parking regulations. Love this quote on the latter from a GWU senior: 'It is so practical to have a car as a student in this great city. But because the parking is so out of control I can't even enjoy the advantages of having a car here.'

Hizzoner and the First Lady attended Tuesday's KenCen opening-night benefit for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Fab Empire has pics!

Former ANC commissioner raises questions about DMPED award for shuttered Cook ES in Bloomingdale.

Girl, 12, struck and injured on 1700 block of Benning Road NE.

WUSA-TV covers forensic issues in Chandra Levy case.

Fuel spill briefly evacuated the 2D police station yesterday.

Rents are down on 'trophy' office space.

More on the Rev. Anthony Evans' gay-marriage rants, from Rick Rosendall in Metro Weekly.

GWU medical school is off probation.

DCFPI's Ed Lazere looks at council's hotel-tax-reform measure.

OCTO will help feds test radio interoperability.

WaPo covers AKA suit dismissal.

WAMU-FM on Circulator expansion.

Holocaust Museum shooting prosecution comes to an end.

It's that time of the year: Your water is about to start smelling like chlorine.

HERE IT IS!---The first attack ad of DCision 2010.

D.C. COUNCIL TODAY---10 a.m.: Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary hearing on B18-63 ('Residential Tranquility Act of 2009'), JAWB 412.

ADRIAN FENTY TODAY---6:45 a.m.: guest, Connecting with the Mayor with Barbara Harrison, WRC-TV; 7:10 a.m.: guest, Fenty on Fox, WTTG-TV; 10:45 a.m.: remarks, contracting and procurement legislation announcement, 441 4th St. NW; 6 p.m.: remarks, Watkins Hornets key to the city award ceremony, Watkins Recreation Center, 420 12th St. SE.