Archive for the ‘City Paper’ Category
Adrian Fenty, the No-Show: Loose Lips Daily
As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com. And get LL Daily sent straight to your inbox every morning!
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—”Taking a DMV Driver Test? Prepare to Bring Your Own Car“; “These D.C. Summer Jobs Are Smokin’ (Marijuana)”
Morning all. The federal government has the day off. The District government has the day off. But LLD is still here! And LL will, of course, be on the job tomorrow for the annual Palisades 4th of July Parade. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, when he gets back in town for that event, will be greeted by this unwelcome WaPo A1 headline: ‘Missteps in Crash’s Aftermath Dull Fenty’s Luster.’ Prime among those missteps is blowing off all but one of the Metro crash victim funerals, and not even bothering to send a proxy. Come on, why not deploy some of these best-and-brightest types you’ve hired and whom you’re always crowing about? Then you wouldn’t have read stuff about how ‘the mayor and his staff were noticeably absent from a string of memorials, funerals and wakes’ and how ‘Fenty showed up at services for train operator Jeanice McMillan, but he was an hour late and was wearing a light-colored summer suit that some said was inappropriate.’ Oof…even Terry Lynch gets in on the beatdown!
LL SEZ—Is this as bad as Marion Barry dallying at the 1987 Super Bowl during a massive snowstorm? Well, the ‘optics,’ as they say, are nearly as bad. Fenty was right here during the crash—the most important local disaster since 9/11—and he simply could have canceled his vacay, or sent the wife and kids on their way while he tended to some pretty standard mayoral duties. But he didn’t, neglecting one of the basic rules of local politics: Fruit baskets and ‘parking logistics’ are nice, but showing up matters. And, that no subordinates were detailed in his stead demonstrates either that (a) he’s insanely tone-deaf or (b) his need to be at the center of all public happenings in his administration is pathological.
AFTER THE JUMP—MoCo cops raid D.C. home—for ‘Prison Wives’; FEMS flack gloriously sells out his soon-to-be-former boss; meet Gabe Klein; and no more Reagan for National Airport?
Record-Setting Folklife Festival Weather?
If you believe weather.com, temperatures over the next several days in the Washington area will stick in the mid-80s, with mostly sunny skies. It’ll be a glorious and active holiday weekend for everyone.
Yet the nice, mild weather is worth noting not just because people will be able to go biking and sailing and drinking.
It could be among the most newsworthy weather developments in the history of the Smithsonian Institution.
The Fateful Wee-Z Bond: Loose Lips Daily
As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com. And get LL Daily sent straight to your inbox every morning!
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—”Gay Marriage in Washington, D.C.: Coming Tuesday at 12:01 a.m.
IN LL WEEKLY—LL’s lights are out this week, preempted by WCP’s fab Housing Complex Day coverage.
Morning all. The WaPo editorial board handed a spanking today to the D.C. Council, calling ‘ill-advised’ attempts by Councilmembers Mary Cheh and Phil Mendelson to prevent broadcasts of Ronald Moten’s ‘open deposition’ on the fishy fire truck. ‘Even more troubling is that a council whose members are so obtuse about what the public is entitled to know will now apparently have total control of a public access channel….Perhaps there were reasons for keeping [Moten's] testimony secret, but if so the council should have figured out lawful ways of keeping the questioning confidential. It cannot retroactively take something off the public record. With the council’s decision to take control of the channel devoted to council proceedings, we can only imagine what else—a misstatement? an embarrassing moment?—might be deemed unsuitable for public consumption.’
AFTER THE JUMP—The fateful ‘Wee-Z’ bond; Fenty alleged to order tear-gassing of suspect; political strings said to be pulled on Gold Coast sidewalk installation; gay books back on summer reading lists; Colombians flood D.C. Jail; and how OTR sent a bad refund check to the wrong guy.
Futbol Diplomacy: Bring Zelaya to RFK!
A source at the Sports and Entertainment Commission tells me that there’s not any hint that next week’s Gold Cup soccer match between the beautiful losers of the USA national team and the Honduran national team will be affected by what’s gone on. It’s on.
I’ve read there’s been a coup down south.
Apparently newly ex-President Manuel Zelaya, who was just thrown out of the country by his military, can’t go home. Coup leaders say that if he shows up in the capital city of Tegucigalpa he’ll be arrested.
The U.S. is in Zelaya’s corner in this one. So why not turn this game into something huge? Let the State Department invite the deposed guy to our Nation’s Capital to watch his old soccer team play our boys. If Zelaya sucks up to the futbol fans back home, and the Hondurans manage to escape with a win, he could fly back with the team and take his job back.
Goodbye, Mother Harriette: Loose Lips Daily
As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com. And get LL Daily sent straight to your inbox every morning!
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—”How Harriette Walters Made Up For Her Crimes; “D.C. Council Asserts Control Over Channel 13; “Civil Gang Injunctions Again Foiled by D.C. Council“; “Superior Court Judge Denies Gay Marriage Referendum”
Morning all. Harriette Walters, the greatest, most audacious thief in the history of District government, will spend 17-and-a-half years in federal prison for her theft of nearly $50 million from 1989 to 2007 while working at the Office of Tax and Revenue. Read LL’s account of the sentencing, in Judge Emmet G. Sullivan’s courtroom; Del Wilber covers for WaPo; Scott McCabe for Examiner; Sarah Abruzzese for WaTimes; Sam Ford for WJLA-TV/NC8; Tom Sherwood for WRC-TV; Bruce Johnson for WUSA-TV; and Karen Gray Houston for WTTG-TV. The eagle ears of Wilber and others caught this killer quote uttered by Walters: “If you put me back in there today…I could get each of you a check.”
AFTER THE JUMP—Fishy fire truck masterminds finally named in WaPo; Jim Graham wants taxi medallions; gay marriage opponents running out of legal avenues; Kris Baumann being illegally investigated by MPD?
Our Morning Roundup: New Neighbors Edition
Good Morning, City Desk Readers! Â It’s the first day of July and the forecast doesn’t call for 90 degree temperatures so it’s already looking like a good one. Â On the news front, the nation’s capital is expecting some new residents that are already getting attention before moving in.
- Minnesota has finally come to its senses and decided that Al Franken will be its second senator.  It only took the ballot counters and lawyers eight months to figure that out.  The former Saturday Night Live writer will take his seat following the July 4th recess.  Franken will be the 60th Democrat in the Senate, making it possible for the party to break a Republican filibuster but he wants everyone to know that he’s not looking to block legislation on a regular basis.
Judgment Day for Mother Harriette: Loose Lips Daily
As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com. And get LL Daily sent straight to your inbox every morning!
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—”D.C. Council Riled Over TV Airing of Fire Truck Testimony; “White House Again Fends Off D.C. License Plate Questions
Morning all. Del Wilber tees up this morning’s Harriette Walters sentencing for WaPo: ‘Was she a deeply insecure and lonely civil servant who stole tax refunds out of an insatiable desire to be seen as a benefactor? Or was she a manipulative and greedy employee who pilfered the District’s coffers to selfishly fund an extravagant lifestyle? Federal prosecutors and Walters’s attorney will skirmish over those questions today in federal court during Walters’s sentencing in the $48.1 million, nearly two-decade-long embezzlement from the D.C. government. Under the terms of Walters’s plea deal, which still awaits the approval of U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, Walters faces 15 to 18 years in prison.’ Says her lawyer: ‘Harriette Walters is a pretty complex lady….She gave the District exemplary service on the one hand and on the other engaged in conduct that even she will say should result in the kind of serious punishment she faces.”‘
Stay tuned at City Desk today for all Walters-related developments.
AFTER THE JUMP—Car lot crackdown continues; saying goodbye to the Wherleys; is FEMS too black?; and what happened to all the murders?
Read More “Judgment Day for Mother Harriette: Loose Lips Daily” »
Now 1,000 LLDers Strong: Loose Lips Daily
As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com. And get LL Daily sent straight to your inbox every morning!
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—”Lawyers Use Web Site, Google Ads to Find Metro Crash Victims; “New D.C. Lottery Bids: Woodson, Wiggins, Green Emerge as Local Partners
Morning all. LL Daily reached a milestone over the weekend, when the 1,000th person confirmed a subscription to the District’s most comprehensive compendium of local news and political intelligence. That person joins a stable of highly influential readers (the 1,000th subscriber, in fact, is a certain member of the D.C. Council who shall remain nameless). LL doesn’t mean to crow (much), but he does want to thank all of you for your support over the past seven months, as LL has sacrificed his late nights and early mornings to keep you up to date on all District happenings, political and otherwise. And it’s only going to get better: Have some suggestions for LLD? Let LL know!
AFTER THE JUMP—Metro funding mishegoss; Nat Gandhi ‘exploring’ an escape?; Harry Jackson calls D.C. the ‘Armageddon of marriage’; and the real DCision 2010: medical marijuana.
Did Tax Shelter Keep Old Metro Cars in Service?: Loose Lips Daily
As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com. And get LL Daily sent straight to your inbox every morning!
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—”Mayoral Official, Friend Implicated at Council Fire Truck Proceeding; LL’s coverage of the New DCRA—part of Housing Complex Day!
NB—Check LL on the Politics Hour with Kojo Nnamdi and Tom Sherwood today, 12 p.m. on WAMU-FM, 88.5. Guests are City Administrator Neil Albert and Metro board vice chair Peter Benjamin.
Morning all. Your Metro investigation update: It’s looking more and more likely that a computer-equipment malfunction is responsible for Monday’s deadly collision. In WaPo, Lena Sun and Maria Glod report that ‘investigators positioned a train in the same location as the train that was rear-ended Monday. The system failed to detect that the idled test train was there, the NTSB said. Investigators did not say what caused the malfunction, and they stopped short of saying the system failure caused the crash.’ Furthermore, ‘A senior Metro official knowledgeable about train operations said an internal report confirmed that the train control system failed to detect the idling train when the crash occurred.’ All system circuits will now be inspected. Also Examiner, WaTimes, AP, WTOP, WAMU-FM, NC8, WRC-TV, WUSA-TV.
Another fascinating thread has emerged: Did the use of tax shelters delay Metro from replacing the old, less crashworthy 1000-series cars—and possibly contribute to the high number of fatalities in Monday’s crash? LL was first to report Monday that WMATA cited ‘tax advantage leases’ in telling that NTSB that they would be unable to retire the cars till 2014. Sarah Lawsky, a GWU law prof and a person much more qualified than LL to explain these complicated deals, explains their ramifications at the Concurring Opinions blog. Wall Street Journal follows up, getting this WMATA reponse: ‘If the agency had wanted to break the leases, said Chief Financial Officer Carol Kissal, it would likely have had to pay penalties and fees on top of the cost of buying newer rail cars….Ms. Kissal said in an interview Thursday that the lease agreements were a barrier to swapping out the 1000 series cars but not an absolute impediment.’ (Also NYT, Bloomberg) The tax shelter, incidentally, was banned in 2004.
AFTER THE JUMP—Sinclair Skinner paid for fire truck transport; Jim Hudson snags Obama post; Chris Donatelli explains what his political donations get him; and is the council considering a mini-TARP?
Read More “Did Tax Shelter Keep Old Metro Cars in Service?: Loose Lips Daily” »
Mayoral Official, Friend Implicated at Council Fire Truck Proceeding
The D.C. Council saw one of the livelier proceedings in recent memory this morning, when Peaceoholics co-founder Ronald Moten appeared before councilmembers Mary Cheh and Phil Mendelson in connection with their investigation into the donation of used city emergency equipment to the Dominican Republic.
The proceeding wasn’t hearing, exactly, but an open deposition. Moten had originally been scheduled to give his deposition behind closed doors on Friday, but he declined to testify, citing the council’s political motivations. Council staff agreed to let him say his piece in public today, in what Mendelson called a “very unusual” proceeding.
Moten set the tone early, with a combative opening statement decrying a “political smear campaign” targeting his organization. He accused councilmembers and media of “attacking the mayor at my organization’s expense” and engaging in a “political charade” that has affected his business and his family. “We hold the council directly responsible for creating an atmosphere where such stories could flourish,” he said of media accounts questioning his organization’s role in the shadowy transfer. The questions will remain, he says, until the “thirst for political blood is quenched.”
Read More “Mayoral Official, Friend Implicated at Council Fire Truck Proceeding” »
‘Anomalies’ Found in Trackside Controls: Loose Lips Daily
As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com. And get LL Daily sent straight to your inbox every morning!
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—”1000-Series Metro Cars: How to Avoid Them, If You So Choose; “Why the City Is Promoting Conservation With 100,000 Paper Doorhangers“; “Political Fixture Bill Rice Let Go from District Job”
IN LL WEEKLY—Why the Fire Truck Went to Sosúa: William Walker III, key player in Dominican donation saga, explains how it went down.
Morning all. ‘Anomalies’—that’s what federal investigators found in trackside electronic control equipment during testing yesterday, ’suggesting that computers might have sent one Red Line train crashing into another’ on Monday evening, WaPo writes. More from Lyndsey Layton, Maria Glod, and Lena H. Sun: ‘A senior Metro official knowledgeable about train operations said an internal report confirmed that the computer system appeared to have faltered.’ And that system, according to the NTSB’s Debbie Hersman, is ‘vital.’ Then there’s this: ‘The steel rails show evidence that McMillan activated the emergency brakes 300 to 400 feet before the pileup’—but she would have been traveling 59 mph. See also WTOP, NC8, WRC-TV, WUSA-TV, WTTG-TV, NYT, and Examiner, which notes that brake maintenance seems no longer to be an issue.
AFTER THE JUMP—Fishy fire truck hearing today; calls gather to replace old Metro cars; budget gap could delay council recess; and ANC commissioner accused of ‘potential’ hate crime.
Read More “‘Anomalies’ Found in Trackside Controls: Loose Lips Daily” »
Putting Fenty’s Face Forward: Loose Lips Daily
As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com. And get LL Daily sent straight to your inbox every morning!
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—Washington City Paper’s continuing coverage of the Red Line collision
Morning all. In WaPo’s A Section today, amid all the second-day stories on the horrific Metro collision, Nikita Stewart examines questions about Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s performance as the face of the government response to the tragedy, reporting that ‘his performance during the past two days rubbed already raw nerves, causing friction between Metro and city officials’ and that it ‘drew complaints behind the scenes about his controlling behavior in the 24 hours after the crash.’ Check on-the-record Metro grumblings (’The spirit of cooperation is not what we would like it to be’) and off-the-record Metro grumblings, over his decision to not report confirmed fatalities at a morning presser. Says ex-mayoral press aide Tony Bullock, ‘It indicates that we’re not really on top of it if we can’t count to nine.’ WCP’s Jason Cherkis looks more closely at the death toll figure.
LL SAYS—Fenty was absolutely right to take charge at the post-accident press events; it happened in the District of Columbia, and his employees were the first responders to the crash. Once in front of the cameras, he did a decent job, even exiting his usual robot-speak for a moment or two. Fire Chief Dennis Rubin—save for his habit of lapsing into firefighter jargon—did an even better job. WHAT IS ABSOLUTELY NOT COOL is silencing people with good information in the time when good information is needed. LL was driving up North Capitol Street at about 5:45 Monday, listening to FEMS PIO Alan Etter giving updates on WTOP. When LL got to the scene just before 6, he couldn’t find Etter or any other city, federal, or Metro spokesperson to give answers to basic questions until a 7:10 news conference. In a disaster, 75 minutes or more without official information is simply an eternity, a void that will be filled by the sorts of unconfirmed reports the shutdown strategy is ostensibly trying to prevent.
AFTER THE JUMP—Fenty says ‘lives are more important than finances’; Metro’s Orwellian ‘mechanical difficulties’; DCPS “scrubs” gay-themed books from reading lists; and the de facto vacant property tax cut.
Read More “Putting Fenty’s Face Forward: Loose Lips Daily” »
Our Morning Roundup: One Day At A Time Edition
Throughout yesterday, more details about the Metro crash were released, including the names of the nine individuals who died in Monday afternoon’s accident. City Desk also reported that the train that hit the stopped train outside Fort Totten was 2 months overdue for its brake maintenance service. Â The train that initiated the crash was also made up of 1000-series Metro cars, the oldest in the system. Â Now the Washington Post is reporting that the driver of the train, who was killed in the crash, had activated the emergency brake on the train, but it did not stop.Â
Other things are happening beyond the Red Line, of course. Â Read about them after the jump.
Read More “Our Morning Roundup: One Day At A Time Edition” »
Tragedy on the Red Line: Loose Lips Daily
As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com. And get LL Daily sent straight to your inbox every morning!
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—”Red Line Trains Collide Near Fort Totten: Deadliest Crash In Metro History“; “On the Scene: Metro Collision Eyewitness Accounts“; “Rammed Train Had Been Stopped for 10 Minutes“; “Old Questions About Crashworthiness of Metro Cars“; “District Revenues Keep Falling, Gandhi Says”
Morning all. LL thought yesterday’s big news was going to be Nat Gandhi’s new revenue projections. Sadly, he was wrong: Minutes after 5 p.m. yesterday, a Red Line train heading inbound toward Fort Totten careened into the rear of another train stopped on the tracks underneath the New Hampshire Avenue NE overpass. The impact killed nine (as of this writing), including train operator Jeanice McMillan, 42, and injured scores. It is the worst accident in Metro’s 33 years of carrying passengers. Please do check City Paper’s coverage of the collision, including LL’s interviews with train passengers and Darrow Montgomery’s aftermath photographs. A lot of very, very good journalism was being done yesterday. That includes the WaPo lede-all, WaPo rider accounts, WaPo blog, Examiner lede-all, Examiner rider accounts, WaTimes lede-all, WaTimes rider accounts, WaTimes on emergency response, NYT, LAT, ABC News, AP, NC8, WRC-TV, WUSA-TV, WTTG-TV.
AFTER THE JUMP—More Metro collision reports; where to find $340M in three weeks?; Fenty pulls out the line-item veto; Kevin and Michelle on the town!
Grahamstanding Hits Home: Loose Lips Daily
As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com. And get LL Daily sent straight to your inbox every morning!
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—”City Lawyers Ejected From Fishy Fire Truck Depositions”
Morning all. Thursday’s double shooting outside the Columbia Heights Metro has ended in ways both expected and quite unexpected. Expected, in that on Friday, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, top public safety deputies, and four councilmembers stood on the site of the shooting, using the violence to press civil gang injunction legislation. As Gary Imhoff puts it in themail, ‘they didn’t try to claim that the provisions would have applied to the participants in Thursday’s shooting or could have prevented it. The mayor admitted that they were holding the press conference at the Columbia Heights station simply because Thursday’s shooting was in the news. In other words, it was cheap-jack exploitation.’ The twist, of course, came when the suspect was revealed as 17-year-old Devyn Black, who had been working for Jim Graham for less than a week as part of the summer jobs program. Graham told the whole story to WCP’s Jason Cherkis. Also WaPo, WTOP, NC8, WRC-TV, WTTG-TV, PoP, DCist.
AFTER THE JUMP—Marion Barry hits the red carpet; will cab drivers ’start stealing’?; more on Michelle Rhee’s silent treatment; and guns, guns, guns!
