It’s kind of nice to know we’re worth that much, at least. But according to the AP, it’s apparently a million clams less than we used to be worth.

The Environmental Protection Agency uses this figure as part of their cost-benefit analyses, trying to determine whether life-saving environmental measures are, you know, worth it.

Our lives used to be worth $7.8 million to the EPA, so one would assume that they worked a little harder to protect them. But they just lost about 12% of their incentive to save our asses. Some number cruncher just made it statistically cheaper for the government to toxify the planet.

The devaluation of our lives has happened gradually over the past five years (and to be honest, we could sort of tell, right?)

If it makes you feel any better, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.), head of the Environment and Public Works Committee, says she’ll introduce legislation to raise our value again.

In March, after the mayor submitted his fiscal 2009 budget, several city hall wags told LL to check out the cover of the budget books produced by the Office of Budget and Planning. The cover contains background art composed of what looks to be an image of one of those new Metro canopies superimposed over a picture of cute, smiling kids in parks-and-rec T-shirts on Freedom Plaza, with the Wilson Building in the background. Also in the background: Standing just behind the kids, oh-so-faintly, is a woman wearing, gasp!, a Playboy bunny T-shirt!

It’s not often that LL finds a piece of political controversy too minute for his attention, but this was one of those occasions.

But things have changed! Yesterday, LL picked up a fresh set of budget books—the ones issued when the budget is through the council and ready for submission to Congress. The cover, at first glance, appeared to be the same: very same smiling kids and very same Metro canopy. But lo and behold, Playboy bunny lady was gone—Photoshopped out!

Check the closeup:

LL applauds the budget office’s attention to detail; you wouldn’t want some Neanderthal Republican congressman catching a glimpse of America’s foremost symbol of lasciviousness while sitting in judgment of the District’s financial plan, would you?

LL has inquired about the Bowdlerization with the Office of the Chief Financial Officer and will completely on top of this story as it develops.

Full covers after the jump.

UPDATE, 2:23 P.M.: OCFO spokesperson Karyn-Siobhan Robinson reports that he agency wasn’t aware of any complaints about the original budget books. Rather, the design changes can be attributed, she says, to a desire to make the two versions look different. Besides the Playboy editing, Robinson points out that all of the teenagers in the background were deleted, as well as the name tags on the kids. “It appears to me that they wanted to simplify the design,” she says.

Read the rest of this entry »

About a hour ago, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty showed up at Fort Reno park, along with a gaggle of District and federal officials, to sound the all clear for arsenic.

A little recap: On May 14, the National Park Service closed the park after U.S. Geological Survey scientists discovered a test sample taken there, prompted by a map outlining areas with “distressed vegetation,” well exceeded the federal safe levels for arsenic.

So the Environmental Protection Agency did some more tests and the USGS retested the original sample they had taken. All of those tests—121 readings taken with an X-ray florescence meter and 33 soil samples—turned up no evidence of unsafe levels of arsenic.

As for what caused the false positive, USGS spokesperson Michael Gauldin said a “number of factors” could be responsible and says his agency is undertaking an “aggressive review” of the matter.

However, Fort Reno’s toxicity problems are not quite over. NPS honcho Adrienne Coleman announced that one of the test readings revealed high amounts of lead in the soil in one small patch of ground in the northwest corner of the park. That approximately 150-square-foot area, she says, has been cordoned off and the soil will likely be dug out and hauled away. There is no indication as to what caused the lead contamination. George Hawkins, director of the District’s environment department, said folks shouldn’t “be overly concerned” about the lead.

But otherwise, all the cyclone fencing is down, the grass was in the process of being freshly cut, and kids from adjacent Wilson Senior High and Deal Middle Schools were milling about.

Before the press conference, a beret black-newsboy-cap-wearing Fenty picked up one Deal student’s cell phone and sent the good news to whoever was on the line: “Fort Reno is safe! They can do backflips, play football, whatever. It’s safe!”

UPDATE, 5:45 P.M.: Mayoral press secretary Dena Iverson calls LL to report that Fenty was not wearing a beret, but rather a “black newsboy cap.” LL apologizes for his lack of fashion sense.

Mysterious, that is, because I still can’t get a reply from the National Park Service’s press office. But anyway, mourn not the Parcourse, maybe, because something’s getting built in the field below the Shoreham, just below Calvert Street NW. A pile of lumber. Some light construction equipment. A neatly dug shallow square. If only NPS cared to let us know what was going on, what a cracking story this would be!

“Holy Shit!” Story of the Day: CP alum Ryan Grim reports in the Politico: Reporter is working in North Cleveland Park home yesterday when intruder ties him up, steals his computer, phone, etc., and threatens to come back with muscle. Reporter realizes wife’s computer is still there. Reporter e-mails Tennesee senator’s press secretary, who calls 911 for him. Press secretary calls cops. Everyone is happy. Holy shit! —Mike DeBonis

Back in February, LL detailed a horribly complicated but tremendously juicy jurisdictional squabble over the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority. Long story short: The suburbs, which hold five of 11 seats on the WASA board, were pissed that District had asserted control over the agency’s finances and passed a law granting hiring preferences to District residents. To settle things, suburban congressional interests had nearly tacked a rider onto a federal appropriations bill late last year.

The meddling isn’t over.

Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen introduced a bill last week that inserts language into the Home Rule Act that explicitly takes WASA out from under the CFO’s oversight. It’s the sort of bigfooting that the District hates, and usually the District’s congressional delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, finds a way to make these things go away.

Not this time, though: Norton isn’t going to be on the District’s side. Yesterday, in a congressional hearing, Norton revealed she had sent a pair of letters to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray urging them to ease their hard line on WASA governance, citing her efforts to balance jurisdictional interests when the agency was established back in the mid-1990s.

“I write now to alert you that congressional action is imminent if recent Council bills remain in effect,” Norton wrote on March 14. “In the interest of maintaining WASA as a D.C. agency, I urge you to take the necessary steps that have allowed the Council to have continuing oversight of WASA as a D.C. agency.”

Outside the hearing yesterday, City Administrator Dan Tangherlini, also a member of the WASA board, said he still holds out hope that the dispute can be resolved without congressional intervention. “The [Van Hollen] approach is different than one we’d advocate,” he said. “We’d prefer that changes come through the D.C. Council rather than Congress.” Such changes to the Home Rule charter, he says, are not uncommon—the council, for instance, did so when authorizing the mayoral schools takeover.

Van Hollen told LL he doesn’t see that solving anything: “What we’re all looking for is clarity. The only way you can clarify federal law is through congressional action.”

As for overturning the District-resident job preferences, Tangherlini says, “That’s something we’re going to talk to the council about.” The draft fiscal 2009 Budget Support Act submitted to the council last month includes a provision to exempt WASA from any job preferences.

At the hearing yesterday, Van Hollen said, “We need to put the conflicts regarding governance behind us.” Republican committee members Tom Davis (Va.) and Kenny Marchant (Texas) submitted statements in support of Van Hollen’s bill; suburban reps—including Fairfax County Executive Tony Griffin; Timothy Firestine, Montgomery County’s chief administrative officer; and Jacqueline F. Brown, Prince George’s County’s chief administrative officer—also spoke in support of it.

For her part, Norton didn’t question the suburban board members about the governance dispute during the hearing. Afterward, she told LL that congressional intervention is permissible in this instance because WASA is not a “true home rule agency.” Rather, she said, it’s more akin to an interjurisdictional entity like the Metro board. “The only difference,” she said, “is that this was once a D.C. agency.”

And, Norton says, her stand on Van Hollen’s bill doesn’t reflect any attenuation of her usual fieriness. “If it’s a home rule issue,” she says, “I may go down, but I’ll go down fighting.”

Sen. Barack Obama’s cleaned up among the District’s pledged delegates, taking eight out of 10 based on his landslide win in the Feb. 12 primary. Now he’s inching toward similar results among the city’s unpledged “superdelegates.” Today, the District’s shadow senators, Michael D. Brown and Paul Strauss, both announced their endorsement of Obama.

The two join fellow superdelegates Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton as Barack backers, completing a sweep of the District elected officials. Sen. Hillary Clinton had notched nine of the remaining 19 superdelegates (most are members of the Democratic National Committee) as of Feb. 10. Ward 2 Council candidate Cary Silverman is keeping a handy tally of the “supers.”

Press release after jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

OK, folks, we’re about six hours into the Potomac Primary, and LL’s been working the phones. Here’s what he’s got:

Anyone willing to stick their neck out and make an early judgment says that turnout is high. Anita Bonds, chair of the D.C. Democratic State Committee, says people are out to the polls in D.C. in significant numbers. “My thinking is that we may be having very brisk turnout in the District of Columbia,” she says.

The early numbers back her up—at least compared to four years ago. Here’s some secondhand key precinct numbers from after the a.m. rush:

• Precinct 25, Goodwill Baptist Church, 1862 Kalorama Rd. NW—500 (2004 ballots cast: 544)
• Precinct 52, St. John’s College High School, 2607 Military Rd. NW—270 (2004: 291)
• Precinct 66, Backus Middle School, 5171 South Dakota Ave. NE—900 (2004: 821)
• Precinct 89, Hine Jr. High School, 335 8th St. SE—estimated 1,200 on the day (2004: 518)

Currently, the GOTV operation should be in full swing for Obama. Tom Lindenfeld, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s longtime political honcho, says anywhere form 800 to 1,200 canvassers should be on the streets using as many as 250 private vehicles to ferry folks to the polls. (Unlike the mayoral race, this is an all-volunteer operation.) Obama made an appearance on Capitol Hill this morning, but he’s not jetted off to Wisconsin for his next race. (Hillary Clinton’s already in Texas.) Obama campaign aide John Falcicchio reports a few minor problems, such as long lines driving seniors away and broken scanner at a Ward 6 precinct that has since been fixed.

Today’s also a big day for politicians not on the ballot—particularly D.C. Council candidates who have their best opportunity between now and the September primary to reach likely voters.

In the at-large race, Carol Schwartz challengers Adam Clampitt and Dee Hunter are on the street. (Well, Clampitt himself isn’t on the street, but he has an excuse—he’s on a mission. As in he’s a naval reserve officer on assignment for exercises through the end of the month.) Clampitt campaign manager Lane Hudson reports covering the morning and evening rushes at about 25 to 30 precincts. The most enthusiastic man of the day so far is Hunter, who says that his 30-some volunteers are on pace to pass out some 10,000 pieces of literature today at a similar number of precincts.

As for Ward 2, the Jack Evans machine is out in force, reports campaign manager Keith Carbone. Certain reports had reached LL that Clinton electioneers were doubling as Jack backers (not surprising considering Evans’ endorsement) but Carbone says there’s no connection between the two campaigns aside from anyone’s personal preferences. Challenger Cary Silverman reports that his people are out in force (though one source reports there was no Silverman rep during the a.m. rush at the key Precinct 18 at Shiloh Baptist Church, in the middle of a Shaw neighborhood where Evans is vulnerable).

As for tonight, the mayor and the official Obama crew will be at the Madison Hotel, 1177 15th St. NW, the grassroots crew will be at Busboys & Poets (of course), 14th and V Sts. NW, and Clinton folks will be at Penn Quarter Sports Tavern, 639 Indiana Ave. NW. Put any other results watches in the comments.

On the way out of his polling place, at Garnet-Patterson Middle School, shortly after 7 a.m., Loose Lips learned that, to that point, Barack Obama (D-Ill.) led Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) 19-1.

LL offers this information with two caveats:

• LL’s precinct, which encompasses the northeast portion of the U Street corridor, is rich in two key Obama demographics: yuppies and African-Americans.
• LL gleaned this information from the exit polling of an Obama electioneer.

Happy voting, folks.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty finally got on his horse for Sen. Barack Obama this morning, appearing in Ward 6 to open the presidential candidate’s local offices.

Arriving in his trademark black fedora, Fenty started up by leading the crowd of more than 150 in a chants of “Fired up! Ready to go!” and, yes, “O-ba-ma.”

Hizzoner then gave his best Obama pitch to D.C. voters. “We are here to say that for the nearly 600,000 residents of Washington, D.C., he’s by far the right candidate at the right time.”

Fenty went on to detail Obama’s promises to support any and all efforts for congressional voting rights for the District back when Fenty gave his endorsement in July. “I told him I was a one-issue mayor—if you support voting right with that bully pulpit of the president of the United States…you’ve got my support….He has not wavered.”

The voting-rights spiel got big ups from the crowd, outdone only perhaps as when Fenty mentioned that Obama “stood strong against us going into Iraq.”

fter pulling out the requisite John F. Kennedy comparision—by proxy, seeing as he was about a decade away from birth in 1960—Fenty finished by rallying the troops for Election Day. “The polls open at 7 a.m. We want to see you there at 6:45,” he told them—”vote early and often,” it was not.

How big of a deal is the new office? Well, not huge. The storefront, at 1225 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, will be open from today until next Wednesday. The space, not much more than 500 square feet and worth $900 for the six days of use, was donated by George Simpson, who also gave the $2,000 maximum to Fenty’s election campaign.

Fenty says the arrangements for the building weren’t finalized until about 36 hours ago. John Falcicchio, the Fenty aide tasked with getting out the Obama vote, says the office will be used as a storage space and staging area for convassing and get-out-the-vote ops, as well as a spot for some limited phone banking.

As for the big mystery—where’s Barack?—Fenty says there’s still no firm plans for Obama to make any appearances in the District before Tuesday, though he says the campaign is “still working on all that.” Falcicchio says there’s a likelihood that Obama will be in town Tuesday, possibly to take in the results and give his end-of-night speech.

A parting note: LL did not immediately agree with his colleague Jason Cherkis on the awfulness of that goddamn “Yes, We Can” song. But after listing to it running on a continuous loop outside the office before and after the rally, he can see where Cherkis is coming from.

Marc Fisher kinda stole my thunder on this post, which I had been saving until I could get a definitive answer from the Marion Barry camp—which has been hard, since Barry is back to not talking to LL. But Fish has the Barry scoop, and here’s the complete list of the District’s elected officials and their presidential preferences:

CLINTON
At-Large Councilmember David A. Catania
Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham
Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans (D.C. campaign co-chair)
Ward 3 Councilmember Mary M. Cheh
Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr.

OBAMA
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty
Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton
Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray
At-Large Councilmember Kwame R. Brown
Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser
Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells
Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander
Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry
Shadow Rep. Mike Panetta
Shadow Sen. Paul Strauss
Shadow Sen. Michael D. Brown
Acting Attorney General Peter Nickles (not elected, but LL ran into him at the Wilson Building yesterday and surprisingly got a straight answer)

UNCOMMITTED
At-Large Councilmember Carol Schwartz
At-Large Councilmember Phil Mendelson

And if you haven’t already, watch the video.

UPDATED, 3/7

Do you love Barack Obama? Do you want to share in his inspiring come-from-behind victory/soul-crushing defeat/some sort of unsatisfying third outcome with like-minded fellows?

The young grassroots crowd is favoring Busboys & Poets, 1390 V St. NW. (LL recommends you stay away from the lousy panini.)

The older, not-so-grassroots crowd is doing Georgena’s (aka Players Lounge), 2737 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. SE. (LL recommends you not stay away from the mac and cheese.)

Just in case you weren’t convinced by Marc Fisher that Barack Obama and Adrian Fenty are in fact the same person, know that Fenty happens to have innate knowledge of Obama’s emotions. To wit, this dispatch from the New York Observer:

Adrian Fenty, the mayor of D.C., is here at the Obama…party?

How would he feel in Obama’s position?

“I’d be thrilled,” he told me. “I know personally that he’s ecstatic.”

Oh, had he spoken to Obama tonight? “No,” he said.

Last night, the D.C. Democratic State Committee held its holiday party and presidential straw poll at the 18th Amendment bar on Capitol Hill.

The big winner: New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, who won a narrow victory—55 votes to 49—over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. John Edwards, Sens. Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd, and Bill Richardson captured another 18 votes between them.

The other big winner: The District Dems themselves, who seem to have righted the ship after nearly depleting their bank account earlier this year (Loose Lips, “Democrats’ Checkbook Dwindles,” 4/27). According to committee chair Anita Bonds, the committee has money in the bank (she declines to say how much, citing still-pending bills), thanks largely to the group’s Kennedys-King dinner last month—the first such dinner in three years. “We’re in much better financial shape, and we’re grateful for that,” she says.

Event organizer Phil Pannell says the party helped line the coffers, raising about $2,000 in $10-a-head door fees. It’s almost enough to comfort Pannell, an Obama supporter: “To be honest about it, I was really surprised he lost,” Pannell says. He says 34 ballots that went unreturned might have made a difference. “Maybe people just got caught up in the party,” he says.

If so, he’s got no one to blame but himself. The night’s entertainment was karaoke, and the room didn’t show much interest in taking the mike before Pannell kicked things off with a snappy “Mack the Knife.”

From there, it was showtime for the east-of-the-river council delegation, past and present: Former Ward 8 Councilmember Sandy Allen did Etta James‘ “At Last,” and Ward 7’s Yvette Alexander indulged in a solid rendition of Bobby Caldwell’s 1978 classic “What You Won’t Do for Love.” After LL left, Alexander reports, she switched to more contemporary repertoire and gave an encore rendition of Jill Scott’s “My Love.”

But Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry stole the show with a ferocious take on T-Bone Walker’s classic “Call It Stormy Monday.” Barry later sang back up for a rendition of the Temptations’ “My Girl.”

His performance may have been enough to capture some hearts and minds: There was one write-in vote—for Barry.

NB: LL has a dark, fuzzy photo of Barry at the mike, but he’s having trouble getting it off his phone.

One of D.C.’s most annoying blowhards is crying foul (again). Perennial protester Adam Eidinger is complaining on the Adams Morgan message board about getting arrested during Monday’s recent anti-war/anti-global warming demonstrations.

Eidinger writes:

Dressed as a polar bear I was incarcerated for lawfully demonstrating at the US Capitol at the No War No Warming protests Monday. All the polar bears arrested are planning to fight their charges on November 15 when we appear in DC Superior Court on charges of unlawful assembly. The direct action of simply singing and dancing is not a crime. Police shouldn’t be so overbearing …. just because its time to step it up on ending war and global warming before its too late, is no excuse for cracking down on the lone voices who a few years from now will be the ones who got it right, just like the groups (I among them) who protested the war in Iraq 6 months before it started.

Eidinger doesn’t say whether he was blocking traffic on Independence Avenue or doing the arm-lock thing at an entrance to the Cannon House Office Building. Police had given the traffic disruptions as a reason for the arrests. Nor does Eidinger charge the police with using Pershing Park style tactics when they arrested him.

Eidinger just uses the news of his arrest as a way to pitch for more volunteers and to preach about the war. Great. Eidinger has been working this same schtick for years. Has he ever done anything more substantial than blocking traffic and vomiting up anti-Bush rhetoric in a city that is already very much anti-Bush?

Eidinger also seems or at least pretends to be woefully naive. Let me see if I understand this—the man dresses up in a polar-bear suit and stages a protest in a heavily fortified part of the city. Is it a surprise that he got arrested? Wasn’t that the point? If he didn’t get arrested, would there have been any press coverage? You can’t willfully play in traffic and not expect the police to notice. If police didn’t notice, the Post wouldn’t have either.

You just can’t complain about your arrest if that was the whole point.

There’s one thing in Eidinger’s message board rant I can get behind. He lists all the items seized by the U.S. Capitol Police:

Item Taken by USCP
Cost/Value
One Large Wagon (Red Metal and Wood trim)………$60
One 250 watt powered speaker……………………………$800
One Microphone……………………………………………….$100
One Pitch control CD Player………………………………. $40
One 1500 watt mobile power battery and inverter…….$440
Approx 60 music CDs……………………………………….. $900
One Large Chrome Courier Bag w Purple Fur…………$120
Various XLR and RCA Cables………………………………..$60
Approx 20 handmade paper mache polar bear masks…$200
Approx 6 Handmade Polar bear hoods……………………..$90
Approx 4 pairs of handmade Polar bear gloves…………..$80
One Stainless Steel Thermos …………………………………$20
Two Stainless Steel Water Bottles……………………………$20
Two dozen Alpsnacks snack bars…………………………… $50

TOTAL Value/Cost basis……………………………………….$3,100

No one should have to endure getting their Alpsnacks snack bars taken from them. No one.