Proudly the Flood Comes In: American River Taxi broke the news this morning that Georgetown Washington Harbour was closed—due to floods: "Needless to say, with gtown wash harbour under water, the morning runs are all cancelled," the company wrote on Twitter. Usually, flood barriers are erected in such situations to keep high water out, but according to a D.C. fire department spokesman,"there was a problem raising the flood gates along the waterfront." More pictures of the soggy plaza—home to a bevy of restaurants, including Sequoia, Farmers and Fishers, and Tony and Joe's, that suffered waist-deep water damage and had to be evacuated this morning—appeared this afternoon. Though the affected businesses likely have an expensive renovation process ahead, American River Taxi joked appropriately, "we could offer doorside service to washington harbour shops and eateries." A flood warning has been extended until noon on Tuesday.  -3

Strong Words, Schwartz: Carol Schwartz is threatening to pull a Marion Barry at tax time next year if she (or, presumably, the entire District of Columbia) doesn't receive a vote in Congress. In a letter to the editor in The Washington Post, the former councilmember wrote, "Dramatic action is needed. Taking to the streets and getting arrested is one such action, and it is fine with me. But better still would be taking “no taxation without representation” literally, the way our forefathers and foremothers did. Next year at tax time, if I am still denied my right to vote in Congress, and no real movement is afoot, I am ready to deny the federal government my taxes. I will look at setting aside my taxes in an escrow account. I hope my fellow disenfranchised D.C. residents will join me in this effort." Mike DeBonis reports that tax resistors don't often face charges, but escrow accounts are still subject to taxes and penalties. Nonetheless, them's some fightin' words. +1

Department of Historical Accuracy: The Meridian Hill Neighborhood Association has launched a new initiative to compile online the neighborhood's history. First in the archive is a silent film of President Warren G. Harding, circa 1922, dedicating the statue of Jeanne d'Arc that lies smack in the middle of Meridian Hill Park. No word on whether the video will be accompanied with a charge to recover Joan's sword, which has been snatched several times over the past few decades. +3

Edit Your Mania: The Wikimedia Foundation has chosen the District and Georgetown University to play host to its annual conference, the delightfully-named Wikimania, in 2012. The foundation, the non-profit that backs Wikipedia and other open-source, democratically-written wiki projects, says in a press release that attendees will include "active participants from a wide variety of online wiki projects, including Wikimedia Commons, a Web site that hosts nearly 10 million free-use multimedia files, and the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which is among the top-ten most-visited Web sites in the world with an average of 5 million visits per day." This puts D.C. on the level of previous host cities, including Boston, Mass., Taipei, Taiwan, Alexandria, Egypt, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Gdańsk, Poland, and Haifa, Israel. Hey, we'll take those tourism dollars. +2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 61 Today's score: +3 Today's Needle rating: 64

At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown had a gigantic truck at the July 4 Palisades parade. (Photo by Michael Grass)

After leaving the post-parade festivities at Palisades Park, complete with free hot dogs and moon bounce, City Desk surveyed the remains of the parade along its MacArthur Boulevard route. Parts of it were quite malodorous. (Who wants to have some dinner on Kemble Tavern's patio?) But it wasn't necessarily trashed like last month’s Capital Pride Parade. And no unclaimed free condoms on the sidewalk, either!

All the candy that Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans and his supporters showered on parade-goers seemed to be snapped up. The children of Ward 3 certainly love their sugary treats! City Desk wonders if Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh, fresh off her legislative victory to mandate healthy school lunches, will soon start a push for a Healthy Parades Act. Will someone not think of the children and their dental health?

Cheh, meanwhile, had her supporters pass out miniature copies of the U.S. Constitution, not particularly exciting as a freebie but quite fitting for a George Washington University professor specializing in constitutional law.

Some savvy politicians targeted parade-goers with implements to beat the heat. The campaign of D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray, who is challenging Mayor Adrian Fenty in the September Democratic primary, passed out miniature fans. Team Fenty, meanwhile distributed water bottles and green towels, to which DCist’s Martin Austermuhle remarked via Twitter: "Not very soft, like the candidate!" (When City Desk touched a Fenty towel, it was indeed quite abrasive—a mix between sandpaper, chamois and ratty gym towel. Did Hizzoner not test the hand-out on his bald head prior to distribution?)

Fenty and Gray "[b]oth did a good job keeping people cool," said Nate Bennett-Fleming, who is running for D.C. shadow representative and passed out around 1,000 Nate-branded bottles of water.

Campaigning has never been an especially environmentally friendly activity, with all the signs, stickers, Mardi Gras beads, pamphlets and the like that generally have a short life span before being trashed.

One resident of MacArthur Boulevard, hosting a July 4 parade-watching party on her front lawn, told City Desk that she wished Mayor Fenty’s Green Team would’ve been more green with the parade freebies.

"I support him on school reform. But these water bottles—look, they're everywhere!" The woman, who said she would be voting for Fenty, didn’t want to disclose her name. "I know not to criticize the mayor. He rides his bike up here."

The mayor, to his credit, did have his trusty Smart car at the parade, which was dwarfed by the monster truck At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown, who is running for D.C. Council chairman, had at the parade. City Desk was concerned that the gigantic vehicle would not be able to navigate some of the tight turns of the parade route, especially at Edmunds Place and Sherier Place where regular traffic jams developed as the parade snaked its way into Palisades Park.

The campaigns of Gray and former Ward 5 Councilmember Vincent Orange, who is running for D.C. Council chairman, did the best job at preemptively claiming all the good sign space along MacArthur Boulevard. (And on the lot in front of Palisades Park that once was home to the Jesse Baltimore House.) Four years ago, Fenty's mayoral campaign had the best ground game. This time, Gray bested the incumbent and had an excellent post-parade sign-collection operation. Two hours after the parade started, you would have had difficulty knowing that Gray was even at the event. (We pity the sign-collecting Gray campaign supporter that City Desk spotted walking all the way to his car parked out in front of the German Chancery on Reservoir Road, but not as much as the overheated Bolivian dancers who were weighed down by pounds of colorful costumes!)

Perhaps City Desk missed him, but we were hoping that Orange would be cruising MacArthur Boulevard on a Segway passing out candy and beads, just like he did during his ill-fated mayoral run four years ago. There were reports, however, that Orange was busy stumping for votes at an ice cream truck. Orange, known for his larger-than-life personality, seemed to be no match for Brown’s behemoth truck, which was a regular topic of conversation at the parade. (Orange, to his credit, had an aggressive signature-gathering operation.)

"This is the Washington, D.C., parade," said Patrick Mara, the school board candidate from Ward 1 who is better known for knocking off longtime At-Large Councilmember Carol Schwartz during the 2008 Republican primary, therefore depriving Palisades parade-goers of seeing Schwartz in her eye-popping yellow TransAm convertible. Even if Ward 3 voters—who form the core of the Palisades parade turnout—can't vote in your race, "you need to have a good showing here," said Mara, who had 20 supporters working the parade and post-parade party. "It says something about the strength of someone’s candidacy."

In that case, City Desk nominates the "Millwood Mob" for something, but we aren't sure what. Millwood Lane NW, a short street connecting Loughboro and Glenbrook roads, year after year fields a very organized showing at the parade, complete with its own queen. Imagine if the Millwood Mob would form its own political party! Watch out Mary Cheh!

Because of the hot weather, At-Large candidate Clark Ray, who was wearing a white sleeveless shirt, may have been the wisest person at the parade—though this writer’s recently deceased great aunt, a feisty, opinionated longtime Palisades resident, would have likely scoffed at any politician displaying bare shoulders.

But Team Ray was out in full force and was warmly received by the crowd, along with incumbent Phil Mendelson.

The one person who was missing was Don Peebles, the big-time developer and would-be mayoral candidate who kept political watchers on edge for months as he weighed a challenge to Fenty. (Through artfully crafted language, he decided not to run.) City Desk thinks Peebles should have teamed up with Matthew Lesko and his question-mark mobile—a perfect way to continue to toy with the populous!

Some people who live in an apartment building finish the holiday season with some extra wine that they never cracked. They look at the calendar, see that the inauguration is coming up and say, Hey, let's use this wine for a little inaugural party. Said party gradually grows in ambition, adding champagne, a caterer, plus a kickass jazz band. It becomes a full-fledged inaugural ball, complete with a A-list celeb in political commentator Mark Shields and other high-flyers who are overheard congratulating themselves for electing Obama.

That it all happened in a Kalorama building, one of the toniest areas of the city, detracts only slightly from its value as a great 2009 ball of inaugural yarn. According to correspondent-in-the-field Mike Riggs, the narrative above is exactly how 2029 Connecticut Avenue came to be throwing a huge soiree tonight.

2029 Connecticut, you say? Where's that? Well, that's right on the crest of the Connecticut Avenue hill that separates the greater Dupont area from the Taft bridge and upper whitedom. One of its famous denizens is none other than Carol Schwartz, who, at a party she threw a decade ago, pointed out to a Washington City Paper reporter that she had a nice view of the Washington Monument...from the seat of her toilet. At the time of the 2029 Apartment Building Inaugural Ball, Schwartz's doggie was being walked. Correspondent Riggs wasn't quite sure what kind of dog it was, but describes it like this: "It was hairy and solid black–closer to a Newfoundland than to a collie. It's fluffy—long hair and a thick coat but it is flat."

Reporting by Mike Riggs, writing by Erik Wemple

Here's what LL had penned on the matter a couple of weeks back:

The council offices are passed out on the seniority system. [Jack Evans], the longest sitting member, says he’s perfectly happy with his first-floor corner digs. Next in line is Catania, who tells LL he hasn’t given the matter much thought, though he says he “couldn’t imagine” vacating his current digs. LL, however, thinks Catania might find it a suitable trophy after helping to oust Schwartz. If not, Mendelson has dibs, then Graham.

There is a caveat for whoever dares take the office: It is where political careers go to die.

The three occupants of the office since the Wilson Building’s renovation—Schwartz, Harold Brazil, and Charlene Drew Jarvis—all suffered humiliating electoral defeats while enjoying the plush confines.

So trophy it is! Now let the speculation begin: Has DAC jinxed himself should he choose to pursue another term?

That's what a lot folks working for Republicans are doing right now in the federal government. And, at the District level, there's some burrowing, too.

Nyasha Smith, who clerked the workforce development and government operations committee for outgoing At-Large Councilmember Carol Schwartz, has started a new job at the Office of the Chief Technology Officer. She's now chief of staff to agency head Vivek Kundra.

OCTO, along with five zillion other District organs, used to be under Smith's purview as committee clerk. Before working for Schwartz, Smith did a stint as legislative counsel on Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry's staff. (This is neither here nor there, but Smith's move would certainly be felicitous should Barry take a portion of Schwartz' committee portfolio, as LL has speculated he will.)

Smith did not immediately return a call for comment. LL sends out a friendly note to you HR types: If you're in need of a devoted public servant or two, give Carol's office a call—724-8105!

Trouble viewing? Try the YouTube version.

Let's begin with the Mara video, shot early in the evening before results came in. By 8:15 p.m., several dozen had gathered at Mara HQ at 6th and K Streets NW, including D.C. Chamber of Commerce head Barbara Lang and several of her colleagues, restaurant lawyer Andrew J. Kline, consultant and Board of Trade-r David Julyan, and Ward 8 Republican rabble-rouser Cardell Shelton. Upstairs, guests dined on crabcakes and other noshes from Clyde's, while waiting for their candidate to emerge from his private quarters below.

Also of note: Incumbent Carol Schwartz has deemed Mara's candidacy a conspiracy hatched by fellow at-large councilmember David A. Catania, a former Republican and longtime Schwartz-hater. The scene on Tuesday night did nothing to knock down those rumors: No fewer than five Catania staffers were present and wearing Mara T-shirts.

• Jack Evans
• Cary Silverman
• Muriel Bowser
• Baruti Jahi

And here are the lame-o's who didn't:

• Patrick Mara
• Carol Schwartz
• Yvette Alexander
• Marion Barry
• Charles Wilson

And here is the candidate whose e-mail box was too full to receive the questionnaire:

• Villareal Johnson

Silverman, who says cycling is his primary MOT, said he's in favor of striping bike lanes, adding bike boxes, increasing the number of racks, among other things. Evans likes bike lanes and thinks cycling should be taught in public schools. Bowser blew a bunch of hot air about encouraging cycling blah blah blah. Jahi said he used to be an avid cyclist but doesn't have much time for it these days.

Fair warning: The word Klingle is used frequently in this post.

You can read Loose Lips' primary endorsements here.