Dan Snyder’s spooky theme park chain, Six Flags, suffered some big setbacks yesterday in its fight to keep from going all Bennigan’s and Steak and Ale on us.

The haunted house at Snyder’s Largo outpost pretty much burned to the ground last night. No cause for the blaze has yet been disclosed.

The Frighttorium™, as Snyder’s marketing folks used to refer to what is now merely a charred carcass, was expected to be the centerpiece of the Frightfest festival come Halloween season.

Speaking of horror stories and Six Flags, just hours before the Frighttorium™ was reduced to a Shittorium™, a judge in Kentucky set a trial date for the lawsuit filed by Kaitlyn Lasitter, the teenager whose feet were cut off on the Superman ride at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom. The case won’t be heard until January 5, 2010.

That date gives Snyder’s chain plenty of time to collect depositions, or to just go all Bennigan’s and Steak and Ale on us.

Keep the dial right here for all the breaking news in Snyder’s Six Flags soap opera.

Chief Librarian Ginnie Cooper sent this e-mail to staffers last week explaining in detail the planned cutbacks in hours and services at the D.C. Public Library:

Date: July 24, 2008
To: All Staff
From: Ginnie Cooper, Chief Librarian
RE: Potential Impact of Adopted FY’09 Budget

NOTE: The attached memo will also be available on the DCPL Intranet

In keeping with our policy of being open with staff about potential steps that may be taken in order to assure that we continue in our mission of proving quality library service to library users in the best possible work environment for staff………….

POTENTIAL IMPACT OF ADOPTED FY ‘09 BUDGET

The ‘09 library budget adopted in June by the City Council includes a reduction of 74 positions available to the Library in FY ‘08. This is a result of two actions:

* In January, the Mayor’s proposed budget eliminated all positions in the District that were vacant at that point in time. About 550 positions were eliminated; 71 were library positions. Three additional positions were also eliminated in the budget process.

* In June because of concerns over new revenue projections, the
City Council eliminated the “bank of positions” that the Mayor’s
Budget included to allow for opportunity to add back many of the vacant positions that had been eliminated.

There was no specific intent to reduce the Library’s budget or library services. None the less, this reduction of 14% of the positions assigned to the Library was included in the final budget. As of this point, additional revenue has not been identified to allow return of these positions. We are planning for the potential that these positions will be eliminated from the library for the coming fiscal year.

No library staff will lose their jobs as a result of the elimination of these positions. We have held more than enough vacancies to accommodate these reductions. In fact, some of the existing vacancies will be filled this fiscal year.

The reduction of FTEs will be taken proportionally throughout the
Library. Because 71% of the library staff work to provide public service, reductions in open hours are necessary at neighborhood libraries (including interim libraries) and at Martin Luther King Jr.
Memorial Library.

We also anticipate closing the five kiosk libraries (formerly known as “community libraries”). These buildings, open only week days, were established as temporary service points in the early 70s. Use is very low (the busiest kiosk circulates less than 25% of the least busy neighborhood library) and the buildings are inefficient and expensive to heat and cool. And the buildings are worn out- metal is corroding, Plexiglas windows regularly break and more.

HOW WERE THE PROPOSED NEW HOURS DETERMINED?

In conversation with Library Staff, we set the following goals:

1. Maintain library service on weekday afternoons when students need the resources and assistance with school work.

2. Maintain library service on week ends when families can visit the library.

3. Maintain evening hours at neighborhood libraries.

4. Maintain evening hours at MLK.

5. Match hours open to library use as much as possible.

6. Consistent library hours will help save money and be easier for members of the public to understand and remember.

As of now, this is the plan:

* All libraries will be CLOSED on FRIDAYs.

* All libraries will be OPEN Sunday afternoon from 1 to 5 during the school year.

* All libraries will be OPEN on Saturday from 10 to 6.

* Neighborhood libraries will be open two evenings per week (same as now). On these days, libraries will open at 12 and close at 8
(single shift staffing).

* MLK will be OPEN Monday and Wednesday from 10 to 8; Tuesday and Thursday from 10 to 6.

Neighborhood libraries lose 15 hours per week; MLK loses 16 hours per week. These new hours may go into effect as early as October.

Questions and Answers

1. Did the City Council allocate less money for ‘09 than we have in
‘08?

No. In FY ‘08, $45 million in local funds were appropriated to DCPL. For FY ‘09, $16,000 more were appropriated. This amount had to accommodate a number of cost increases.

2. Why is staff just learning about this now?

Until about a week ago, we anticipated that additional funding would be made available to the library. This still might happen.

3. Why were there so many vacant positions in January?

Employees who left the library because of the retirement incentives and other personnel actions left by January 1. In addition, other vacancies had been held open until we knew how many would choose the voluntary option of retiring.

4. How are we able to be open the CURRENT hours if there are so many vacant positions?

By the use of overtime. Thanks to many of you for being willing to work these additional hours.

5. Will this change affect my work schedule?

Yes - this change may affect your work schedule. Your work location may also be affected.

6. How can we increase the number of TEENS employed at the library if we do not have money?

Increasing to 100 the number of teens we employ was specifically funded and is included in the library’s budget.

7. How about library administrative office? Will they also be closed on Friday?

No. The rest of City government, vendors and many who will contact administrative office will expect offices to be open the traditional business week.

8. How can this budget impact be avoided?

We can avert this by having the 71 positions restored or being allocated $2.05 million

More questions? There is a lot we don’t know, but please ask. We’ll
tell you what we know… email me at

Questionsforginnie@dc.gov

George Michael and Larry Craig in the same town for one night only!

WTOP is reporting “anxious” atmosphere in area men’s rooms.*

*WTOP isn’t really reporting this. But George really is at the Verizon Center tonight, and the U.S. Senate really is in session.

Getting past security at Redskins games can take as long as getting past security at Dulles Airport. Only the guards at FedExField, home of the $5 bottle of water, are frisking for illicit peanut butter sandwiches and Makers Mark pints, not weapons of mass destruction.

Now, Dan Snyder comes in to save the day — or at least half an hour of it.

For a price, of course.

Snyder is introducing the FLO Card to the NFL. That’s the same I.D. system used at a lot of U.S. airports, where those who register and pay a fee get to buzz past the hoi polloi and get waved past security.

“I am excited to bring red-carpet treatment to FedExField on game day for thousands of loyal Redskins fans,” says Redskins Chief Operating Officer Mitch Gershman in announcing the FLO Card rollout. “This affordable and innovative new service enables the average fan to enjoy premier fast lane-access, a service not available at any other sports venue in the country. This fan-centric membership helps to advance our ongoing quest to improve the total fan experience on game day.”

This particular improvement on the total fan experience will cost $100 a year.

Presumably, fans who shell out for the FLO Card can more than make up its cost by sneaking in all the hoagies and beer bottles they can stuff down their inseam.

Dans Snyder and Steinberg are still playing the feud!

First Dan Sn. banned Dan St. from using video from inside Redskins Park on his washingtonpost.com blog.

Now Dan St. gets one of Dan Sn.’s own pets, Chris Cooley, to invite him over to shoot video of lunch at his mom’s. Since the video comes from outside the gates of Redskins Park, Dan Sn.’s odd ban doesn’t apply.

So Dan St. throws it up on his Bog.

This has gotta hurt Dan Sn.

Especially coming so soon after Dan St. spurned Dan Sn.’s effort to hire him.

Is Dan Sn. just gonna let Dan St. do him like that?

Full Disclosure: Steinberg is a neighbor and I still owe him money for a bag of coffee beans from Costco.

Yes, that’s right–you kept putting it off, putting it off, and now you’ve only got three days to get to all those shows you meant to see. Or maybe you never meant to see any shows at all. Maybe you were just lying to yourself. Whatever, here’s a roundup of some recommendations from the Fringe & Purge blog (in addition to the ones I listed here last week). And if you’ve got any of your own, put ‘em in the comments. Because we value everyone’s opinion.

Prototype 373-G
Trey Graham says:
See it if: You’re attracted to frivolity for its own sake — or you’re an sucker for tight ensemble work.
Skip it if: Whimsy makes you queasy, and no quantity of stagecraft will settle your stomach.

Born Normal
Glen Weldon says:
See it if: Your bookshelf leans more Chris Adrian and Kevin Brockmeier than Clive Cussler and Nicholas Sparks.
Skip it if: In your estimation, the complex psycho-social terrain of the Normal-Child-in-Wacky-Family dynamic has already been mapped, and definitively so, by The Munsters.

Slave Narratives Revisited
I say:
See it if: You like stuff that’s good.
Skip it if: You dislike stuff that’s good.

Carnal Node
Brett Abelman says:
See it if: You’ve never seen anything with more risk - and possibility of reward - than a bar band.
Skip it if: You don’t go listen to music live unless you can already sing along to the CD.

Children of Medea
Sheffy Gordon says:
See it if: You love your mother.
Skip it if: You’re a budding female playwright and dramatic solo performer but you can’t handle new competition in town.

The Redskins would pick a fight with Gandhi.

He’s not around, so they’re going after Dan Steinberg.

The team ordered the DC Sports Bogger to stop posting videos he’d taken from inside Redskins Park on washingtonpost.com. Steinberg tried to get around the ban by embedding videos from other local media websites, but the team contacted the paper’s lawyers and made him stop that, too, if the videos include training camp footage.

The prohibition recalls Snyder’s banning WJLA-TV from shooting inside the Park in 2000, while at the same time allowing news crews from other local network affiliates to shoot and air such footage on newscasts.

WJLA had refused to pay a fee demanded by Dan Snyder, who had only recently taken over the team, to become a “partner” of the Redskins.

Other local stations paid the fee, so, for example, George Michael of rival WRC-TV did his spots from the practice field.

But WJLA sportscaster Rene Knott would show up during each night’s telecast standing outside the gates in the Redskins Park parking lot.

Some of Steinberg’s best work comes in parking lots. But still…

This latest round of bizarre vindictiveness wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Steinberg rejected the Skins’ effort to lure him away from the Washington Post and onto Snyder’s payroll several weeks ago, would it?

Full Disclosure: Steinberg is a neighbor and I owe him money for a bag of coffee beans from Costco.

Dan Snyder’s penny-stock-or-bust theme park chain, Six Flags, today announced the launch of a voter registration drive at its parks.

To help publicize this democratic effort, called “Voice Your Vote,” Snyder has partnered with, ahem, Seventeen magazine.

It’s been a few years since I’ve read that publication or the Constitution. But, based on my recollections of both, and, well, the magazine’s name, I’d wager that Seventeen’s readership is as eligible to vote as the inmate population at Gitmo.

With marketing moves like this, how hard is it to believe Six Flags will be Chapter 11 by election day?

Keep the dial right here for all the breaking news in Snyder’s Six Flags soap opera.

Falls Church blogger Blueweeds reports that Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh will not overturn his office’s decision to not prosecute Brandon Paul Gotwalt for the 2005 killing of Steve Cornejo. 

Cornejo was unarmed when he was beaten and shot in the back by Gotwalt, who was never arrested. In a civil trial, a Fairfax County jury found Gotwalt liable for the wrongful death of Cornejo, and ordered Gotwalt to pay Cornejo’s family $1.96 million plus $15,588 for funeral expenses.

Gotwalt declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy and didn’t pay the dead man’s family a dime.

Blueweeds reports that in a letter to Mayor Robin Gardner of Falls Church, Morrogh said the eyewitness and other testimony of Gotwalt’s actions during and after the killing of Cornejo — who grew up in Falls Church — didn’t change his original opinion that no prosecution was warranted. Morrogh’s office had initially told the public that Gotwalt was acting as a “good Samaritan” and shot Cornejo while preventing Cornejo from assaulting a woman.

At the civil trial, evidence showed there was no woman on the scene when Cornejo was shot, and Gotwalt admitted being the aggressor in the altercation that ended with an unarmed man being shot in the back. Two witnesses testified that they heard Cornejo plead for his life just before being shot in the back.

The jury was told Gotwalt flushed his bloody clothes and the spent shells down the toilet and initially lied to police about being on the scene.

I’ve followed the case from the start, and it has long seemed plain to me, as plain as it apparently did to that civil jury, that Fairfax County coddled a killer. 

But why?

If Dan Snyder’s expansion of Triple X Radio wasn’t intended just to silence his critics, well, what’s the point?

Snyder has now bought six radio stations in this market that will bring him the same audience he’d have gotten if he’d just paid for one of those, WTEM-Sportstalk 980. 

But, Snyder now has Andy Pollin and Steve Czaban, hosts of “The Sports Reporters” and the biggest Snyder bashers in local broadcasting over the last couple years, in his afternoon drive slot. And, more to the point, he now has Pollin and Czaban on his payroll. 

Snyder’s network debuted its new schedule today. “The Sports Reporters” are in “Best Of” mode.

Speaking of Best Ofs: Snyder axed City Paper’s Best Radio Show, “Baseball Roundup,”, and its host, Phil Wood, shortly after acquiring WTEM.

There is no baseball show on Snyder’s roster. 

On the plus side: It look as if somebody convinced Snyder to move away from giving his stations those bizarre, quasi-pornographic XXX names: WTEM is referred to as “ESPN 980″ in Snyder’s new press releases.

In September, Washington Post Media will be launching a colorful new glossy called FW–code for “Fashion Washington.” Sounds like an advertising vehicle for a paper with big revenue problems, but let’s go with the company’s spin on the product: “Fashion Washington covers everything from luxe jewelry lines, trunk shows and store openings to profile so style-world insiders and star-studded parties.” The monthly publication will be delivered to Washington Post subscribers.

But not to all Washington Post subscribers, mind you.

According to a promotional card for FW, this promising product will be sent to 96,500 of the paper’s “most affluent” subscribers–plus an additional 500 to “luxury hotels, elegant spas and FW events.” What’s going on here–is the Post ripping off the Examiner’s biz model?

Not exactly. FW will come bundled with the regular newspaper, so you won’t find it scattered all over your lawn–unsolicited and unwanted–the way you do with the Examiner. For the uninitiated, the Examiner delivers free to high-income people around the area, but those high-income people often don’t appreciate being in the Examiner’s club.

Maybe things’ll be different with FW. Maybe walking around with a copy of this pub will say to others, Hey, I am in the top sixth of Washington Post subscribers in terms of wealth.

Yet one question remains. In its promotional lit, FW says that its audience will “read about the fascinating cast of characters–designers, shop owners and famous faces–contributing to Washington’s fashion scene.”

Just who are they talking about here? And where’s this fashion scene? At Cosi or something?

The espresso war is raging in Arlington. This guy can’t show his face at Murky anymore. I guess I can understand wanting coffee the way you want it — but sometimes you just don’t argue with the barista. So they don’t serve espresso on ice. So what? Do you really need to yell and scream at the under-paid student who makes your drink? Do you really need to leave this in the tip jar?

And really, what kind of dweeb throws a temper tantrum in a public place and then goes online to complain about how badly he was treated? His rant inspired threats from Murky’s owner, specifically:

“F*@k you, Jeff Simmermon. Considering your public threat of arson, you’ll understand when I say that if you ever show your face at my shop, I’ll punch you in your dick.”

Dan Snyder’s anti-solvent theme park chain, Six Flags, should be out of its misery very soon.

Stock in Snyder’s company, which sold for nearly $12 a share around the time he took over its board of directors, was selling for a quarter during today’s trading.

A quarter.

Twenty five cents.

That means it would cost you 140 shares of Snyder’s stock to park at Snyder’s football stadium.

A quarter!

Is this the story of the year or what?

Keep the dial right here for all the breaking news — what’s left of it, anyway! — in Snyder’s Six Flags soap opera. 

The D.C. Times wrote a nice story this week about the refurbishing of Cardozo’s football stadium, which should be the grandest in the city by fall.

But the article turns tragicomic when reporter Amanda McClure gives a brief and off-the-mark history of the venue and the school.

The stadium was built along with the school in 1916, and hosted Central High School football games and track meets until it was renamed Cardozo in 1928. The name honors Francis Lewis Cardozo, the first black to hold administrative office in South Carolina.

Cardozo became segregated as an all-black school in 1950 but was reintegrated in 1954.

Cardozo’s current plant was in fact named Central High School—with alumni that included J. Edgar Hoover—until 1950 and was the flagship of the white portion of the city’s totally segregated school system till its dying day.

The transfer of the building, located on a hill off 13th Street NW, from all-white Central to all-black Cardozo made for one of the ugliest chapters in the ugly racial history of D.C. Contrary to what the story infers, no public high schools in this city were ever “reintegrated”—they were all-black or all-white from Day 1 until the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

But, again, no matter its history, as the story points out: Cardozo is gonna have a helluva football stadium.

Dan Snyder’s post-viable theme park chain, Six Flags, remains headed toward Chapter 11 at a pace that reminds me of my nephew the morning after he got Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

A pace so fast, in fact, that there’s no time now to talk about all the dis-leggings, decapitations and other deaths and viruses that have plagued Snyder’s parks of late.

No, with Six Flags stock (SIX) hitting — stop me if you’ve heard this one lately! — ANOTHER RECORD LOW during today’s trading, at just 72 cents a share*, let’s go right to the big board!

To recap: Snyder controlled 10,921,300 shares of SIX, mostly owned by him and staffers of the Washington Redskins, when he took over Six Flags in 2005.

The stock at one point shortly after his ascension hit $11.93 per share. That means Snyder was atop a green mountain totaling $130,291,109.

Today, that cabbage patch is worth just $7,863,336.

Snyder and his followers have lost $122,427,773.

Snyder went into this venture hailed as a marketing genius. But, let’s be serious, the Six Flags numbers during Snyder’s reign couldn’t be worse if Charles Barkley was handling the books.

Six Flags is scheduled to release its financials for the second quarter of 2008 soon. And God only knows what this report will bring.

Oh, wait a sec! Make that: God AND Dwight Schar might know!

Schar is one of Snyder’s Redskins partners and a member of Snyder’s Six Flags board.

He just dumped two million shares of Six Flags stock.

Way to stay with the ship, Capt. Stubing!

Keep the dial right here for all the breaking news in Snyder’s Six Flags soap opera.

*SIX dipped to 71 cents a share before I could hit “post.” Like I said: Snyder’s a quick one! I’m not re-crunching numbers.