An IHOP opened in Congress Heights three days ago. Normally, this would not qualify as big news. The International House of Pancakes isn’t exactly a place of culinary wonder; its slogans are either corny (”An American Icon”) or sad (”This is My IHOP”). The sorriest thing in the world isn’t John McCain’s new ad featuring Britney or Fox’s morning show. It’s this video of a marriage ceremony performed at an IHOP. IHOP is no Original House of Pancakes (the best breakfast place of all time).

Still. The pancake/crepe/T-bone joint is the first major sitdown to open up in Ward 8 since forever. Or long before Barry used the ward’s council seat as his retirement fund. Zing! So Ward 8 finally enters the world of food–huge, huge portions, low, low price–made for old people and drunks.

The CW is that IHOP is a greasy spoon made somewhat depressing by the embarrassingly-named deals, super-sweet concoctions (it’s latest being an apple-cobbler-themed pancake special), and the fact that you must be hammered to consume such products. The food seems created by incredibly stoned evangelicals: wholesome turned vaguely unwholesome.

These are food stuffs mainly inhaled during the hours of 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. It’s dark outside and lonely inside. You only go to IHOP when you’ve struck out for the night. You aren’t getting laid. Fuck it, you go to IHOP, your drunken stupor made correct with eggs, sausage, bacon, three buttermilk pancakes, and bottomless coffee.

That was the Old IHOP.

The New IHOP is located on Alabama Avenue SE just inside the Camp Simms Giant parking lot. The New IHOP is bright, warm, inviting, clean, and boasts 37 cheery employees for every customer. The New IHOP has Karen: The Most Dedicated Waitress Ever.

Karen was our server.

When Karen approached our table, she glowed. This was her second night, she told us. Thank you sitting in her section, she told us. She is very excited, she told us.

My source I was eating with offered a nervous smile to all her replies. After she gave us our bottomless sodas and iced-Ts, she smiled some more. You guys ready, she asked.

My source wanted to know why she was so excited.

“I’m alive,” Karen said and then took in a deep breath proving she was alive.

OK.

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From the folks that brought you The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Holidays, The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Dating and Sex, and a wide variety of other books that probably were sold at Urban Outfitters comes The Worst-Case Scenario Almanac of Politics.

The book is not strictly focused on current American politics. No Louis XVI and Jefferson Davis also get proper thrashings. But, D.C. gets plenty of representation in the book’s 260 pages.

I flipped to the index already expecting to see one local name, and I was not disappointed. Read the rest of this entry »

For your afternoon viewing enjoyment, LL gives you Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry and Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh getting down to “Let’s Get It On.” (Yes, Marion Barry would be the one wearing the Marion Barry T-shirt.)

And here’s Barry dancing with at-large colleague and former mayoral foe Carol Schwartz to “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg.” Behind them, Cheh cuts a rug/lawn with council chair and legendary hand-dancer Vincent C. Gray.

The occasion, you might be wondering, was a picnic—complete with live band!—for councilmembers and their staffs held Saturday at Gray’s Hillcrest home. LL crashed the party; more to come in this week’s column.

Sources tell LL that more than a dozen people were laid off last week from the Washington offices of MacFarlane Partners, the development company owned by San Francisco real-estate magnate Victor MacFarlane. MacFarlane also owns the D.C. United soccer squad and has been pushing a soccer stadium at Poplar Point in Anacostia since buying the team in early 2007.

The most telling casualty is Linda Mercado Greene, the former top aide to Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry who became MacFarlane’s VP for public affairs and community relations in the summer of 2006. Greene was a crucial connection in securing Barry’s support for the Poplar Point soccer stadium and convincing other leaders in Ward 8 to follow.

According to LL’s sources, the only executive remaining in D.C. for MacFarlane will be Dana Bryson, once a top aide to former city administrator Robert Bobb.

The downsizing comes at a crucial time, with three crucial elected officials—Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray, and finance committee chair Jack Evans—all reticent to support the $225 million in public financing that MacFarlane has reportedly been seeking. Only Barry has been pushing hard to get a deal done, and with Greene out, it’s likely that will no longer be the case.

Meanwhile, investors and politicos in Maryland have been attempting to lure MacFarlane out of the District to sites in Howard and Prince George’s Counties.

It is unclear whether the layoffs were immediate; Greene’s assistant answered the phone at the company’s regional office on Connecticut Avenue this morning. Greene and other MacFarlane representatives have not returned repeated phone calls for comment.

UPDATE, 4:20 P.M.: MacFarlane spokesperson Julie Chase says Greene hasn’t been laid off, but rather that “her role has been moved.” The move in general, Chase says, isn’t a downsizing, but a “restructuring.” More to come.

UPDATE, 7:53 P.M.: The positions being cut, 14 of them, were not in the D.C. office only, Chase says, but also included the New York and San Francisco offices. As for Greene, she says, MacFarlane “no longer has a need for the role that Linda Greene was filling in D.C.,” which included responsibility for securing support for the soccer stadium. But Chase says that Greene has been offered a position with D.C. United itself “that would allow her to continue to focus on the team’s stadium in DC and Prince George’s County.”

Tomorrow, Ward 8 Councilmember and Mayor-for-Life Marion Barry will be holding his campaign kickoff at the Temple of Praise Church, at 700 Southern Ave. SE. The event is scheduled for 1 p.m. until 4 p.m., which is a pretty hefty window.

It also raises the question, when will the famously unpunctual politico actually show up to his own event?

So LL puts it to you, dear readers: Guess which time Marion Barry actually shows up in the comments (please leave a genuine e-mail address). LL will be there and will note the first moment the guest of honor is seen on the premises. Closest will be mailed the grand prize—a watercolor-it-yourself portrait of the man:

Last night, the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club—the city’s leading gay-and-lesbian political organ—wrapped up their endorsements for this year’s Democratic primaries, with picks for Ward 4, Ward 7, and at-large D.C. council seats. (Read LL’s rundown of what happened last month, when the club endorsed in Wards 2 and 7 and for the congressional delegation.)

Unsurprisingly, each incumbent—Ward 4’s Muriel Bowser, Ward 8’s Marion Barry, and At-Large Councilmember Kwame R. Brown—won endorsements handily.

But LL goes to these things for reasons other that merely recording the outcomes. He speaks of the lively debate, the friendly company, and the distinct possibility that Rick Rosendall might freak the fuck out.

Which he did. The Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance’s VP for political affairs did so while questioning Bowser about her vote last year against a council action to relocate the gay clubs dislocated by the construction of Nationals Park. Even though the measure had been heavily diluted by amendments, Bowser voted against it anyway. Asked why she did so, Bowser gave a classic cop-out line: I was just following the will of the councilmember in the affected ward (Ward 5’s Harry Thomas Jr.).

Bowser also claimed that the bill would limit neighborhood input, and Rosendall wasn’t having any of that. “That’s not true, Muriel!” he shouted. “You’re mischaracterizing it!”

As club president Mario Acosta-Velez tried in vain to keep order, Rosendall kept on, his voice quickly rising to freak-out levels. “They did have a voice! They do have a voice!…You know what the bill said!”

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LL was hanging out outside the office a few minutes ago when another City Paper employee passed and said, “Marion Barry blocked me in.”

Indeed, Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry is currently appearing on WPFW-FM, with whom we share our Adams Morgan building, speaking about his personal health issues and issues in the African-American community on the Heal DC program.

Behold his champagne Mercedes E320, complete with Ward 8 councilmember plates, on the City Paper’s cramped parking deck:

After the employee went down to the radio offices to complain, an aide came out to move the car into a proper space.

Oh, and here’s a tidbit from the interview: “I don’t ever want to be mayor again. I don’t even want to hear that word,” he said. “I just want to be mayor-for-life.”

UPDATE, 1:45 P.M.: Here’s some detail from the rear bumper, which shows some damage, which may or may not be related to the whole bus run-in thing.

Campaign finance reports were due Tuesday. LL’s spent the last couple of days poring over them to give City Desk readers the inside dirt not found in certain daily newspapers. It’s grueling work, so LL will be sussing out the various races piecemeal today and tomorrow. First up, Ward 8:

• Marion Barry: Unsurprisingly, the mayor-for-life has been raking it in with a shovel—a snow shovel. On the contributions side, the donor list is a veritable who’s-who of the city power elite. LL feels the best course of action is just to start listing names (unless noted, all donations are the $500 max):

  Former/Current Public Officials: Former Ward 3 Councilmember Jim Nathanson, Former Ward 7 Councilmember H.R. Crawford (plus a max donation from his Crawford-Edgewood Management Co.), Shadow Sen. Paul Strauss (plus max donations from wife Katherine and the Law Offices of Paul Strauss), Law Offices of (former at-large councilmember) Harold Brazil ($350), former Ward 1 Councilmember Frank Smith, former Ward 7 Councilmember Kevin Chavous, Acting UDC President Stanley Jackson ($200), former Democratic State Committee chair A. Scott Bolden (plus $500 from his law firm, Reed Smith), Sports and Entertainment Commission vice chair Bill Hall (plus wife Melissa), Taxicab Commission chair Leon Swain ($200), and—wait for it—former Mayor Anthony A. Williams

  Biz Types: Developers John Akridge, Jair Lynch, Herb Miller, and PN Hoffman, Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington (plus their top lobbyist, Andrew J. Kline), Sam Wang Produce (which is hoping to redevelop the Florida Avenue Marker in Ward 5), lobbyists David Wilmot and Max Brown, Tina Ang (lobbyist John Ray’s right-hand woman; their firm, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, also kicked in), and Paramount Title & Escrow, the outfit run by Fenty money man Ben Soto, plus various lawyers and construction interests galore

  The Soccer Lobby: D.C. United, MacFarlane Partners spokesperson Julie Chase, United prez Kevin Payne, and MacFarlane lobbyist Craig Engle

  Charter School Advocates: Public Charter School Board chair Tom Nida, Friends of Choice in Urban Schools (FOCUS) Executive Director Robert Cane ($100), FOCUS Deputy Director Ariana Quinones-Miranda ($200), Building Hope prez Joe Bruno ($400), Building Hope VP Kathleen Padian ($100)

  Others: Mega health insurer CareFirst’s political action committee (why this is important), MedStar EVP Michael Rogers, former Barry chiefs of staff E. Faye Williams ($100) and Keith Andrew Perry ($100), and get this: Alice Rivlin, the former control board chair who spent years trying to undo Barry’s fiscal mismanagement. The current Brookings Institution fellow gave $500.

  As far as the expenditures go, two in particular stand out: $5,000 to Barry’s son, Christopher Barry, to serve as a consultant; and $4,000 given to this year’s Martin Luther King Day Parade in Anacostia for “advertising.”

  One thing’s for sure: Barry will have the best-advised campaign in Ward 8. For a campaign just announced a couple of weeks ago, he’s got a lot of well-paid folks around to help him out. Hakim Sutton, who was involved in failed campaigns to elect Kathy Patterson council chair and Michael A. Brown Ward 4 councilmember, alone has received nearly $21,000 since late March. In all, 10 different folks have been listed as “consultants,” hauling a total of $40,000. Also notable: a $2,400 phone bill and a $10,000 printing bill.

  The Totals: In: $108,545; Out: $74,922.51; Cash on Hand: $33,622.49; Debts: $0

• Darrell Gaston: Young Garfield Heights activist Gaston hasn’t exactly set his neighborhood afire just yet. Of the $941 he’s raised, $433 has come from Ward 8. All of that, incidentally, is listed as coming from the same address Gaston gives as his own. Besides $3 and $5 cash donations, Gaston himself has pumped $300 into the race. All of Gaston’s expenditures to date have been on campaign materials.

  The Totals: In: $941; Out: $795; Cash on Hand: $146; Debts: $0

• Sandra “S.S.” Seegars: The longtime Congress Heights rabble-rouser seems to have benefited from Barry’s support of a single-beer-sales ban: She’s piled up more than 20 big checks from liquor stores and groceries throughout the ward. Only one $200 check doesn’t come from a beer-dealing business or Seegars herself (she pumped in $2,000). She’s spent a pittance so far on printing and advertising, giving her the biggest challenger war chest in Ward 8.

  The Totals: In: $7,500; Out: $629.57; Cash on Hand: $6,870.43; Debts: $0

• Yavocka Young: Young, executive director of Main Streets Anacostia, raised LL’s hopes that her run might attract the support of forward-looking development types. That doesn’t seem to have happened yet. Young’s garnered mostly small neighborhood donations, most of which have been spent on trips to Staples and Kinkos.

  The Totals: In: $1,563; Out: $984; Cash on Hand: $579; Debts: $0

• Did Not Report: Ahmad Braxton-Jones, Howard Brown, Chanda McMahan, Cardell Shelton, Charles E. Wilson

As longtime readers know, the Loose Lips column has always been obsessed with candidate literature, but this campaign season, LL has seen little to truly light his passion for the subject. That is, until recently, when in LL’s found some bold, colorful, and often inscrutable items in his e-mail inbox from Ward 8 council candidate Sandra “S.S.” Seegars. LL is going to go ahead and declare these, three months ahead of the primary election, the campaign materials of the year.

Here’s a card sent out by Seegars about a week ago:

Seegars must have a lot of faith in her name-recognition efforts over the years: Her actual name, as it will appear on the ballot, appears nowhere on her materials, only her “S.S.” sobriquet. The pièce de résistance, however, accompanied this message from Seegars earlier this week:

Greetings,

Summer is upon us. Try to stay cool.

June 2008 calendar attached.

S.S.

Ah, a handy calendar of campaign events? Nope:

Seegars did not immediately return a phone call about the symbolic meaning of the floating eye and all those feathers. Here’s a possible campaign slogan: “S.S. gives you wings!”

UPDATE, 5:46 P.M.: S.S. speaks! The design was all done by the candidate herself, and had somewhat somber roots. The angelic theme, she says, is “related to death, and we’ve lost so many people over here in Ward 8.” The theme hit home last week, she says, when a campaign volunteer was killed in a motorcycle accident.

As for the name issue, Seegars says the S.S.-only branding is by choice—”it’s easier to remember”—though it has backfired in the past, such as when she ran last time around. “People asked me, did you get married? I thought you were [former Ward 8 Councilmember] Sandy Allen. The candidate’s name will appear on the ballot as “Sandra ‘S.S.’ Seegars.”

OK, like everyone else in town, LL’s been trying to figure out what the hell’s going on with the soccer stadium proposal. Here’s what LL has been able to determine:

• No deal is in place yet. According to Wilson Building sources, the sticking points include, yes, the amount of the District’s commitment—the Fenty administration is holding to a $150 million cap versus the $225 mil that the team is hoping for—and the issue of whether the District will be held responsible for any delays in turning the land over to the team, which, from the District’s point of view is untenable, seeing as the District doesn’t even have possession of the land yet (the feds do) and likely won’t for years, until the National Park Service figures out a way to get its facilities off the property.
• With Councilmember Marion S. Barry Jr. out of town in Tanzania all week, don’t expect a whole lot to get done. He’s the main force driving the stadium deal. Word is, Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray and Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans, though supporters of the project, are treading very lightly indeed.
• Last night, Gray told LL there was virtually no chance stadium legislation would be ready for the Tuesday legislative meeting. That means introduction and committal won’t happen until July, meaning first reading wouldn’t be until after the summer recess.

So, folks, hold your horses: Don’t expect any fireworks on this until the fall.

Greater Southeast Community Hospital, the long-troubled Ward 8 facility, is no more—in name, anyway. This morning, hospital leaders, along with a gaggle of dignitaries, announced the hospital will be “rebranded” as United Medical Center. By the time LL left the press conference, workers outside were stringing up new temporary signs over the old ones.

The hospital is six months into an overhaul started by new owners Specialty Hospitals of America and financed in part by a $79 million bailout by the city. About $20 million of that is to be paid back, and the hospital took the opportunity today to present the city with the requisite “big check” representing its first $1 million payment.

Among the boldface names in the house for the show: Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, At-Large Councilmember and health committee chair David A. Catania, health department head Pierre Vigilance, former Ward 8 councilmembers Sandy Allen of Ward 8 and Nadine Winter of Ward 6, interim attorney general Peter Nickles, and former Redskin great George Starke, who will be serving a community liaison for the hospital. Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry strolled in about 50 minutes after the scheduled starting time, to the wildest applause of the day—outstripping even Catania, who did the actual heavy lifting to keep the hospital open.

“Some of you may ask, what’s in a name?” said Specialty President Eric Rieseberg. “Not a whole lot actually.” Instead, he and colleagues pointed to a gaggle of new equipment being installed in the facility as evidence of progress, everything from radiology equipment to fetal heart monitors and sterilization machines. Improvements to the building’s physical plant continue, as well—a blue tarp covers one side of the hospital tower where windows and walls are being repaired. Said Rieseberg, to a nervous laugh, “this building in the future will not only be windtight but also waterproof!”

But, said hospital CEO Gary Lowe, “we’re not out of the woods….We have a long time before we can begin to feel comfortable.”

Perhaps the biggest issue for the hospital going forward will be to establish its accreditation, which it lost late last year based on evaluations done before the Specialty takeover. After the loss of accreditation, several private insurers have refused to pay for care at the facility.

Rowe says the hospital could have appealed that ruling earlier this year, but chose not to. “I didn’t think we deserved to be accredited,” he says. Losing that appeal would have meant a two-year wait before another application could be submitted. Rowe says a new application will be submitted next month, in the hopes of having accreditation back in place by early 2009.

One of the toughest jobs in the Wilson Building has been filled: Bernadette Tolson has been named the new top aide to Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry, according to a Barry press release. (Yes, Barry’s press freeze on LL remains—he was forced to rely on a leaked press release.)

Tolson, Barry says in the release, is “a time tested and battle proven manager” who came out of retirement from 31 years of service to the District, mostly in the Department of Employment Services. She will become Barry’s fourth chief of staff since he returned to the council in 2004, following in the footsteps of Keith Andrew Perry, E. Faye Williams, and Linda Mercado Greene. Perry left Barry’s office to start a consulting gig last month.

Here’s one reason Tolson might be close to Barry’s heart: She once headed up the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program—summer jobs, of course, being a key piece of any Barry campaign/governing platform for time immemorial.

Her LL profile has been slight over the years: She rated a react quote on Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s decision to low-key his first State of the District speech. She also turned up when LL raided Greene’s inbox in 2006, asking for gala ticket money from Barry.

Full release after jump.

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Tomorrow, D.C. commemorates two anniversaries: The 40th anniversary of the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination, and the 75th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition. Please do not commemorate these events concurrently.

If you’d like to commemorate Martin Luther King–assassinated 40 years ago on this day–head to Ballou Senior High School at 3401 4th St. SE at noon for the 29th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Parade. The parade is chaired by Marion Barry.

If you’d like to commemorate the occasion of prohibition not existing anymore, convene outside the Dubliner at 520 North Capitol St NW at 6 p.m. for Budweiser’s block party–complete with Bud Clydesdale photo-op. From the Post’s “now we can drink again” round-up:

[O]n April 7, 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an amendment to the Volstead Act that allowed brewers to sell beer that was 4 percent alcohol by volume instead of the previous 0.5 percent. According the national Brewers Association, more than 1.5 million barrels of beer were consumed in the first 24 hours.

Commence commemorating!

Tomorrow’s the monthly D.C. Council legislative meeting. This morning, Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray held his usual preview press conference. Here’s the rundown:

• Vince Gray Punctuality Watch: The presser kicked off at 9:42 a.m.—12 minutes late. Getting better, Mr. Chairman!
• Things kicked off with a presentation from At-Large Councilmember David A. Catania on his “Healthy DC” universal-health-care plan. The meat of the policy proposal is to provide an affordable health insurance option for a relatively small part of the city populace: the approximately 25,000 uninsured folks who make too much to be eligible for Medicaid or the D.C. Healthcare Alliance program. Will spare the details, but the costs are intended to be no more than 3 percent of annual income for participants, with a District subsidy covering the rest.

  Along with the bridge insurance program comes a requirement that all District residents over 18 years of age be continuously insured. Anyone filing a D.C. tax return will be required to check a box attesting they’re insured. Enforcement is still vague; Catania said liars could be prosecuted for tax fraud—another option, he says, would be to cross-reference all emergency-room visitors with their tax returns.

  How is it being paid for? Under Catania’s proposal, the individuals are expected to bear a little more than half of the cost through monthly premiums. As for the remainder, a new 2 percent premium tax on HMOs raises a chunk, and taxes paid by CareFirst, the local Blue Cross licensee, takes care of most of the rest. Also kicking in, but not directly: A doubling of the District’s excise tax on cigarettes, from $1 to $2.

  The plan is scheduled to kick in on July 1, 2009; Gray said he hopes to hold a hearing on the plan before the end of the budget season.

• Looks like Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry’s plan to rename the Southeast-Southwest Freeway and part of Maine Avenue SW after Martin Luther King isn’t going anywhere fast. Said Gray: “I have a number of concerns about that…as well as a number of my colleagues….I think this is one of those where I think I will have a hearing.”

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Back in December, Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry introduced a bill to extend Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE across the Anacostia River into Wards 2 and 6. Since then, the measure’s gone nowhere fast, but Barry’s looking to speed up the timetable a bit.

This week, Barry circulated a memo informing his colleagues that he would move his bill as emergency legislation at next Tuesday’s legislative meeting. The memo said the emergency action, which requires no public hearing, was necessary in order to honor the good Dr. King in time for the 40th anniversary of his April 4, 1968, assassination.

The bill would extend the traditional MLK Avenue, renamed from Nichols Avenue SE in 1971, from its current northern terminus at Good Hope Road SE across the 11th Street Bridge, along the Southwest/Southeast Freeway and along Maine Avenue SW to its new terminus at Raoul Wallenberg Place SW (itself a renamed portion of 15th Street SW). The new portion would be called Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.

An inspection of the route revels very few, if any, addresses will be affected, but it’s problematic to say the least that folks won’t get a chance to express an opinion one way or another about the change before action is taken.

Nine councilmembers co-sponsored the original bill, indicating a reasonably good chance of legislative success. Noticeably absent from the co-sponsor list: Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells, through whose ward most of the affected thoroughfares run. Wells is out of town and unavailable for comment, but his chief of staff, Charles Allen, says that Wells declined to cosponsor because “he wasn’t approached or consulted about the possible renaming of streets in Ward 6.”