…a Jerusalem Post story about D.C. paramedic Steven Chasin, one of several FEMS employees suing the city because city regulations forbid them to have beards. The dispute’s decades old; in 1994, this paper wrote about a similar dispute dating back to 1980. The issue rekindled in 1997, when the department issued a no-beards rule on safety grounds, saying bears interfered with safety equipment. A federal judge initially struck down the rule, but it’s still winding through the courts.

UPDATE, 3:17 P.M.: Bah, OK: hat tip to Ryan Grim of the Drudgico…I mean, the Politico!

On Wednesday, ABC 7, and Fox 5 last night, reported on a bizarre incident Tuesday evening at a Georgetown firehouse. At Engine 5, on the 3400 block of Dent Place NW, a fire lieutenant cut the hand of an emergency medical technician with a knife, requiring the EMT to be taken to the hospital and given 10 stitches.

So, a personal dispute got out of hand?

Nope: According to the press release issued by the Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department, the employees, identified by Fox 5 as fire Lt. Laurence Clark and emergency medical technician Edward McGlaughlin Jr., “were involved in what has been characterized at this point as ‘negligent horseplay’ by investigating law enforcement officials….it appears to have been the result of an accident.” Clark has not been arrested.

Here’s what McGlaughlin’s mom had to say about that to Fox 5: “I know he wasn’t playing, cause I know he’s not that kind of person to play, and he don’t carry no knife.”

Ken Lyons, head of the union representing city EMS employees, tells LL he also doesn’t buy the official story this far. “The investigation—and I use that term loosely—that followed the whole thing was handled in such a cavalier manner….It’s the old saying: It’s not the crime; it’s the cover-up.” Basic questions, Lyons says, weren’t asked of Clark by police on the night of the incident.

What Lyons alleges is being covered up is that the incident “may have been a culmination of repeated harassment by [Clark] against Mr. McGlaughlin,” he says. “This seems to have been something that was brewing.”

A finding of “negligent horseplay,” Lyons says, could mean that McGlaughlin is open to disciplinary action—including dismissal—just as Clark. “That can hold him just as much at fault as the person who assaulted him,” he says.

Furthermore, Lyons sees in McGlaughlin’s treatment the continuation of a pattern and culture of harassment of emergency medical employees at the hands of fire department staffers, often in supervisory positions. The FEMS Task Force formed in the wake of the David Rosenbaum death referred in its final report to a “continued culture clash” between the fire and medical portions of the department.

“I think there is a pattern there that is quite disturbing,” Lyons says. “We see this play out day in and day out.” He points out that for McGlaughlin to complain about any harassment, his complaint would have had to have been endorsed by his firehouse supervisor—a fire captain. “That’s the fox watching the henhouse,” he says.

FEMS spokesperson Alan Etter tells LL that there’s no evidence that McGlaughlin ever filed a complaint against Clark, and that D.C. police determined on Tuesday that no crime had been committed. “Having said that, we believe that the behavior described for us was inappropriate and unsafe.” The FEMS statement is after the jump.

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OK, so LL has been paying only the wispiest attention today to the hearing being held by At-Large Councilmember Carol Schwartz today. Folks like Inspector General Charles Willoughby, D.C. Auditor Deborah Nichols, and City Administrator Dan Tangherlini have been droning on and on about this failure and that—snooze! (Check D.C. Wire if you really care that much.)

But now, as LL watches on Channel 13, nearly 11 hours into the hearing, SURPRISE: Summer Spencer in tha house! The former head of the Department of Employment Services, fired in the wake of the summer jobs scandal, was not included on a list of witnesses provided at the start of the hearing.

Give it to Schwartz, she’s got a hell of a sense of drama. (That’s a no small part of the reason why she won LL’s endorsement for the Republican primary.)

LL is not in the room right now, but Tangherlini, who just finished three hours of testimony himself, can’t be too happy about this. Let’s she if she rips on Dan Tan or Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, who essentially threw her under the bus in this whole affair by saying she never told him there was any problem with the program before it began. Or will she fall on her sword like a good Fenty soldier? Oh, the suspense!

UPDATE, 9:35 P.M. Well, it’s sort of half-and-half. Spencer says she told the mayor’s office that DOES would need additional budget resources back in the fall. “We started sounding that alarm last October, November. We wanted to see $13 million added to budget; we only received $7 million [in the December supplemental appropriation].” But as far as the more proximate reasons for the program’s failure—contracting problems, technology problems, etc.—Spencer passes the buck. “A lot of the information I was told by my staff is that we had things under control….What I found out later is that there was misinformation that was given to me. I would ask the staff questions and I would hear what I think they wanted me to hear.”

UPDATE, 10:10 P.M.: Couple of key moments: Schwartz asked Spencer why she didn’t speak up at CapStat meetings, implying the fact that they were televised might have led Spencer to hold her tongue. Spencer didn’t address that theory, but she says she told Tangherlini privately “within two hours or so” that she had problems with the contracting process. On that note, Spence also testified that she alerted contracting head Dave Gragen about teh problems in May. “I was very nervous about the contracts already,” she said.

Then there’s the whole issue of taking all comers to the program, budget be damned. On that note, Spencer says, “There needs to be a budget with some set parameters in place that need to be followed” and “I agree with the philosphy [of taking all comers]. The practical rollout of it…it is challenging.”

As part of the, um, celebration of something the folks at Homeland Security call National Preparedness Month, the feds will unveil their plot to use beloved Sesame Street characters to keep youngsters afraid, very afraid.

The program, called “Let’s Get Ready! Planning Together for Emergencies,” will feature Grover and other trusted Sesame Streeters explaining that youngsters should make sure their families have discussed what to do with “any type of critical situation” and that they all “strategize to confront emergencies.”

The specifics of “Let’s Get Ready!” will be disclosed at a press conference this morning at Tyler Elementary School in Southeast. Meryl Chertoff, wife of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, and Rosita, a Hispanic character on the kids’ show — turns out September is also Hispanic Heritage Month, and, besides, we want our children of color frightened, too — will lead the proceedings.

Devious as the government scheme surely is (Grover, how could you?) this make-sure-the-kids-are-terrified strategy is hardly new.

When I got to Westlawn Elementary School in Falls Church about 40 years ago, teachers made us hide under desks or get on our knees with face down on the floor and our hands over the back of our heads in the hallway once a month, which was plenty enough to get us to all grow up knowing the Commies were going to bomb us into oblivion.

Those routines are about the only thing I remember about elementary school.

But it’s not their fault.

Bike DC coordinator Sheba Farrin asked ANC 6A tonight for their approval of the East Capitol Street section of the tour route. The commissioners were angry at the short notice about a plan that would cut the city in half for several hours, effectively trapping some people in their homes for an entire Saturday morning.

But a representative of the Mayor’s Special Events Task Force had ordered Bike DC not to approach the ANCs until the route was finalized. They started working with Special Events on the route in January. It was finalized in July. The ANCs don’t meet in August.

ANC 6A voted 3-2 not to approve the route, falling all over themselves to affirm their support for biking and community events, but they just couldn’t put their stamp of approval on such bad procedure.

WABA had some supernaturally bad luck with Bike DC for a few years (with cancellations due to terrorist attacks and hurricanes) and they let it go. There was no Bike DC for a few years. But now the car-free ride is back, due to the sheer will of its committed coordinators and the money of a private investor who does the same thing for Portland, Oregon. (He’s counting on 10,000 riders and praying for good weather and no whammies September 27.)

Today, LL asked Interim Attorney General Peter Nickles about the investigation he’s been asked to do by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty into Tuesday’s voting irregularities.

Nickles’ probe is in addition to those launched by the Board of Elections and Ethics itself and one announced by the D.C. Council.

Nickles says he has begin looking into the matter, having “had a number of conversations yesterday”—but with who, he wouldn’t say.

LL asked what the product of the investigation would be, whether a written report on what happened Tuesday would be released to the public. Nickles wouldn’t commit.

“At some point,” he said, “I’m doing something.”

Finally, a look inside the madness at the Board of Elections and Ethics headquarters Tuesday night. When LL arrived shortly before 10:30, about a dozen people had gathered, including Ward 2 incumbent Jack Evans, who was poring over the questionable tallies. Within an hour, 50 people were in the board’s lobby and in the hallway, including Evans challenger Cary Silverman and a gaggle of his supporters.

Just before 11 p.m., board spokesperson Dan Murphy appeared to inform folks that the tallies were being examined and news would soon come. About 45 minutes later, everyone was directed downstairs, tot eh One Judiciary Square lobby, for his official statement.

Dan Murphy, spokesperson for the Board of Elections and Ethics, was kind enough to pick up his phone a few minutes ago and chat with LL about a few outstanding issues from yesterday’s primary.

Can all of the electoral troubles be traced to Precinct 141?

Yes, according to the statement distributed by Murphy (pictured) earlier this afternoon. The board claims a single cartridge from an optical-scan machine there registered the faulty results.

Is that the precinct which was outstanding until a few minutes ago? Or is it another one?

There are no outstanding precincts, Murphy says. The official Web results were updated at 4:24 p.m., to reflect a full 143 precincts reporting, but the vote totals did not change; the results issued at 12:47 a.m. were complete. The issue with the precinct that seemed to be missing, he explains, has to do with cartridges issued to Precinct 4. That polling place, at the West End Library in Ward 2, was issued three voting machines—two optical scan, one touch-screen—with one cartridge for each. One of the three cartridges was initially not returned to BOEE headquarters for the count, but it was eventually retrieved and found to contain no votes. “It’s very likely that machine was not even used,” Murphy says. The 12:47 a.m. totals, though complete, did not register 143 of 143 precincts because of the missing, empty cartridge.

What exactly was the problem at the Reeves Center? Were the ballots rescanned? Or was data from the scanner re-downloaded?

Murphy could not say whether the ballots had to be re-scanned or not. He said he would provide an answer to LL. As for what exactly went wrong with the cartridge, Murphy declined to say, pending an investigation by the board and the system’s manufacturer.

Why weren’t the preliminary results given a once-over? Even a cursory glance would have turned up irregularities.

According to the board’s statement, “it is the Board’s standard practice to generate unofficial results reports, and to thereafter conduct an internal audit process to verify the accuracy of the results contained in these reports. During this process, it was determined that one defective cartridge caused vote totals to be duplicated into multiple races on the summary report issued by our office. The Board immediately caught and addressed this error, as is reflected in the last unofficial results report issued on Election Night.”

What was being discussed in the closed-door meeting that lasted most of the day? Who is in the meeting?

“What we were doing was looking at all the numbers, precinct by precinct,” he says. The meeting was attended by the board and its staff only, Murphy says; no one from the mayor’s office or from the attorney general’s office was there.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

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LL has been trying to reach to reach anyone in a position of authority at the Board of Elections and Ethics all day to no avail. Spokesperson Dan Murphy has not answered or returned numerous phone calls made by LL. Just now, he was told by a very kind, very polite BOEE receptionist that, “I was told to tell you that they are in a meeting.” Asked when that meeting would be over, she said, “I’m not sure.”

The last official communication between the board and any media, near as LL can tell, was late last night, when Murphy briefed reporters in the lobby of One Judiciary Square. There he explained that an erroneous tally from one precinct, with its polling place at the Frank D. Reeves Center of Municipal Affairs, were responsible for bad numbers in citywide and Ward 2 races.

From LL’s point of view, the explanation might make sense, now that it is clear that the bad precinct, 141, was a Ward 2 precinct. (The Reeves Center is actually outside the precinct, in Ward 1, leading to much confusion.) Also, there is no evidence, as LL reported earlier today, that new numbers were issued this morning. The most recent numbers, posted on the BOEE site at of 12:46 a.m., count 142 of 143 precincts, with one outstanding in Ward 1 Ward 2.

Lots of unanswered questions:

• Can all of the electoral troubles be traced to Precinct 141?
• Is that the outstanding precinct? Or is it another one?
• What exactly was the problem at the Reeves Center? Bad optical scanner? Were the ballots rescanned? Or was data from the scanner re=downloaded?
• Why weren’t the preliminary results given a once-over? Even a cursory glace would have turned up irregularities.
• What is being discussed in the meeting? Who is in the meeting?
• Why has information been so scarce? Why is the spokesperson been behind closed doors all morning instead of being a spokesperson?

Headed down to One Judiciary! Throw your additional unanswered election questions in the comments.

UPDATE, 3:15 P.M.: Shortly before 3 p.m., Murphy emerged with a stack of statements. He was prompted to do so, LL is told, only after Channel 9’s Bruce Johnson stormed, with a cameraman, into the back area of the office here. (LL arrived after all this went down.) The statement essentially reprises Murphy’s explanation last night, that “one defective cartridge caused vote totals to be duplicated into multiple races.” The board stands by the most recent results, and board chair Errol Arthur says both the board and vendor Sequoia Voting Systems are reviewing how the error occurred.

After passing out written copies of the statement, Murphy retreated into the office, only to return to read the statement out loud before the cameras, LL is told. He answered a few brief questions then left.

A few minutes ago, a gentleman named Dan Rene of PR firm Impact Strategies left the board’s office suite. He directed reporters’ questions to his boss, who did not immediately respond to inquiries.

Are you a campaign pollworker in the District of Columbia? Are you curious about the restrictions on electioneering around polling places in the city?

Perhaps this illustration, furnished by the Board of Elections and Ethics, will help:

Or perhaps not.

On a recent visit to the National Gallery of Art, I made a pit stop at the mezzanine bathroom. Only two people stood ahead of me in line, but I still had a long wait: there were just two bathrooms and both were occupied. By the time I finished, the other bathroom was still occupied. My fellow waiters confirmed that no one had come in or out for a long time, at least fifteen minutes. I knocked on the door and got a grunt in response. A man made some noise about being fine, but his slurred sing-song voice sounded far from “OK” and more like really high or really sick. I was concerned enough to mention the matter to a guard, who told me checking on sick folks in the bathroom was “not in my job description.” I mentioned it to another member of the museum staff, who, horrified, sent someone to check in on the situation right away. I never noticed EMTs running through the galleries, so I was probably just being a worry-wort. But still. The museum guards must be pretty disgruntled to refuse to see if the back up in the bathroom line is caused by a dying grandpa.

The city’s Office of Campaign Finance has opened an official investigation into whether Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans improperly used government resources in connection with an ad featuring police Chief Cathy Lanier that ran in the Current newspapers last month.

The decision comes in response to a complaint filed Aug. 28 by Dupont Circle activist Dave Mallof and three other Evans foes. OCF spokesperson Wesley Williams says there’s no timeline on the investigation; nothing will be determined, he says, prior to tomorrow’s primary elections, where Evans is facing a challenge from Mount Vernon Square activist Cary Silverman. Williams could supply no other details on a pending investigation.

It won’t be the first time Evans has been subject to an OCF inquiry. In 2006, the office investigated the “Jack PAC,” an erstwhile political action committee that paid for travel and sports tickets for Evans. A report issued by the office that year concluded that Evans did not violate any city campaign laws, though it recommended that Evans repay more than $6,000 to the committee, which he had already done.

Reagrding the current complaint, Evans campaign chief Keith Carbone says, “I am confident that there is no violation. This is an attempt to get negative press before an election.”

The city’s Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) is looking into whether lifeguards manning Dupont Circle’s Francis Pool improperly collected parking fees from patrons. Over the last couple of weekends of DPR’s pool season, staffers at the facility, at 25th and N Streets NW, opened a dusty stretch of land on the western edge of the complex. When incoming pool users parked there, the lifeguards extracted a $5 parking fee.

I was one of their victims. Two weekends ago, I spotted an opening in this parking area. There was no sign indicating a fee, but a lifeguard hit me up for payment just after I’d parked. He dropped my fiver into a big wad of bills.

I later asked for a receipt. No go. I asked to see a sign. The lifeguard said they’d had a sign up the weekend before, but that someone must have taken it down. I then questioned him about the system: If there are no receipts, how does DPR know how much cash was collected? He replied that DPR has precise notions of how many people patronize the pool on a given day, and how much cash should be handed over by the lifeguards. (The pool charges $7 for non-D.C. residents).

The fishiness in this setup was also apparent to Brian O’Connor. He and his family showed up last weekend, parked in the “pay” space, and faced an immediate request for payment. He blew it off and proceeded to enjoy the pool. Then a lifeguard threatened to call the police on him. At first, he said he’d welcome the intervention of the cops, but ultimately just moved his vehicle.

O’Connor was suspicious of the scheme in part because a friend had previously handed over $5 for parking, only to watch the attendant/lifeguard slide the bill right into her wallet. O’Connor said he’d likely report the activity to DPR, “though we doubt it will do any good at this point.” (The pool closed for the year on Sept. 1).

Yesterday, I spoke with DPR spokesperson John Stokes about these parking “policies” at the Francis pool. He responded unequivocally: “We do not charge for parking at our facilities,” he said, positing that perhaps the folks who were collecting the fees weren’t DPR employees.

When I told him that they were dressed in white tanktops, red shorts, carried lifeguard equipment, and supervised the pool, he said, “We will be seriously looking into the situation.”

“That was a scam,” said Stokes.

“The only thing I can say is that calls are being made right now,” continued Stokes. “We really appreciate it when constituents note any type of illegal behavior at any DPR facility or location.”

In an e-mail dated August 25, Interim Director Roque Gerald confessed some bad news to Child and Family Services Agency employees: there were 1,442 cases still in the backlog.

In mid-July, the backlog stood at 1,708 cases, according to agency documents. It has been more than a month since Sharlynn Bobo resigned. Since July 14, the backlog has shrunk by 266 cases—and this is with the full throttle support of the Fenty Administration. Gerald wrote in his e-mail:

“Today’s message is with a heavy heart but also with no less passion and commitment to support you in every way I can. We remain burdened by our valiant attempts to address the current backlog crisis.”

Gerald goes on to state that the backlog had become enough of an issue (again) that he had to reach out to the mayor’s office. On August 22, he e-mailed City Administrator Dan Tangherlini. Gerald’s communique “led to a face-to-face meeting with the CA and some others on the EOM staff” on the evening of August 22.

“It was a good, productive meeting. Loren Ganoe, Camelia Pierre, Jim Toscano, and I all came away with a better understanding of EOM concerns—and with a sense that they gained a deeper understanding of the challenges CFSA is facing and strategies we’re using to meet them. You must continue to press to safely close backlogged investigations. Meanwhile, I’ll keep oversight authorities informed about our efforts, barriers, and successes,” Gerald wrote.

Gerald noted that “results” from his sit-down at the mayor’s office were “immediate.”

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