You Don't Have To Go Home, But You Can't Stay Here: Nothing like some nosy House Republicans to bring a protest to an end. After last week's hearing in Congress, the National Park Service and U.S. Park Police began enforcing a long-ignored ban on camping in McPherson Square today, which could be the first step [...]
About three hours into today’s D.C. Council hearing over two taxicab laws—the modernization act, and a bill that would add wheelchair-accessible cabs to the fleet—it occurred to me that the reason drivers are seen as such a powerful bloc is because they share one interest: Being the underdogs.
Whether it’s by the councilmembers, the hotel association, [...]
Yesterday Mike Madden said that the D.C. Council's trip to New Hampshire was ill-timed. Instead of taking advantage of the hundreds of reporters up there for yesterday's Republican primary, they've opted not to send anyone until tomorrow when the New Hampshire legislature votes.
NBC4's Tom Sherwood, on the other hand, thinks the whole visit is a bad [...]
We were just wondering what the D.C. Council's support was looking like these days, after the most recent polling back in March showed them with 54 percent approval from registered D.C. voters—a drop from 63 percent the previous year. Clarus Research Group has come out with new numbers, and if they're right, support for the [...]
Hot Shoppes Is Back: The sprawling Marriott empire—with hotels everywhere from Rosslyn to Romania—started out as a root beer stand at 14th Street and Park Road NW. What came between that business and today's behemoth? Hot Shoppes. The restaurant chain closed in 1999, but in its prime, outposts were all over the District, the area, [...]
Party At Ground Zero: It's holiday party season for everyone, the D.C. Council included. Ethics controversies notwithstanding, the council will throw a $5,000 party for members and aides tomorrow night at the Washington Court Hotel; the money comes from donations of up to $380 per member from constituent service funds. Which, every councilmember would hasten to [...]
Certificate of Occupation: The big worry for the people occupying McPherson Square has been that a sudden police raid–like the ones in New York, Oakland, UC-Davis, and, oh, just about every other Occupy encampment—would clear them out. This weekend's demolition notwithstanding, they shouldn't have to worry about that: A judge has ruled that authorities need [...]
City Paper managing editor Mike Madden was at the home of Ward 5's Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr. this morning as it was being raided by FBI and IRS agents. He tweeted a few pictures:
More pictures after the jump.
This was the year that Marion Barry discovered the concept of nudge.
After a debacle—no turkeys!—at his 2010 annual giveaway, the Ward 8 councilmember announced plans earlier this fall to revamp the affair by using the prospect of a free bird to encourage positive behaviors: To get a turkey, constituents would have had to do things [...]
At WAMU, Patrick Madden reports that Rep. Darrell Issa is pumping the brakes on his plan to make more rules for people who don't live in his home district:
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has agreed to set aside a bill that would require background checks for top-level D.C. government appointees, according to D.C. government officials. Issa [...]
Let's All Go To The Lobby And Pay Some Taxes: Seeing movies in the theaters these days is an expensive proposition. There's the tickets themselves, which cost more than $10. There's the Metro fare to the theater. There's the $7 monthly payment to Netflix that meant you could have just held out a few months [...]
Last weekend, with another D.C. statehood protest underway outside the White House, Washingtonian editor Garrett M. Graff tweeted out some thoughts: “Congress might be more willing to give DC more rights if DC elected people who seemed more worthy of power.”
For a veteran of Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, never mind the editor of a District-based [...]
The confirmation hearing for Terry Bellamy's appointment to permanent director of the District Department of Transportation was less an examination of his skills, abilities, and progress than an airing of parochial grievances by members of the D.C. Council.
Today's four-hour hearing on Bellamy, currently DDOT's interim director, saw valuable input from testimonials by D.C. residents. But [...]
More Money, More Problems: Ordinarily, finding an extra $77 million in tax revenue floating around the District's budget would be great news. But since the D.C. Council was hoping to find an extra $135 million, today's announcement of new revenue projections actually came as a bit of a disappointment. The wait list for how to [...]
Why are gas prices so high at the infamous Watergate Exxon? The District’s gas king, Joe Mamo, turned out for a D.C. Council hearing Friday toting a slide show aimed at answering that question—or at least deflecting allegations that his company, Capitol Petroleum Group, is to blame.
On June 12, when the Watergate station was peddling [...]
