In late July, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan called for an investigation into the discovery abuses in the Pershing Park case. Sullivan suggested that the D.C. Council should get to the bottom of how evidence went missing or got botched.

Councilmember Mary Cheh called for AG Peter Nickles to resign. Councilmember Phil Mendelson, who heads the Judiciary Committee, stated that he "definitely" would be considering an investigation into the matter.

Now, a D.C. Council investigation appears unlikely.

Mendelson tells City Desk that he hasn't ruled out holding hearings on the mass arrests and troubling OAG response. But considering Nickles' relationship to the council, he says it might be a waste of time.

"The difficulty with holding a hearing is Nickles may not show," Mendelson says. "He might even claim privilege....I'm not sure what I could get out of a hearing."

Mendelson counters that the bulk of any investigation into the disappearing evidence is already coming from the plaintiffs attorneys. He's just not sure what more he could discover from holding a public hearing on the case. "I just don't know how we could have an effective hearing given Nickles' obstructionism," he explains.

Mendo says he's still trying to get police documents related to the DeOnte Rawlings case. Pershing Park could be another never ending document chase.

Still, Mendo assures: "Pershing Park is not off my radar screen in terms of Nickles' bad behavior. I'm not sure how I'm going to follow up on it....In some way, and I don't know how right now, all that's going to come back to haunt him."

*photo by Darrow Montgomery.

Hours after the Committee on Public Safety and Judiciary approved the bill Tuesday, the Catholic Church sent a letter to Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) calling for additional changes to the legislation. If church officials are not successful, the letter states, "services will be impacted."

"The exemption language contained in the committee [bill] is far too narrow, and must be expanded to include appropriate safeguards to protect religious freedom to preserve the ability of Catholic Charities and other service providers to continue to serve the growing and unmet needs of the residents of the District of Columbia," wrote Jane G. Belford, the chancellor of the Archdiocese.

Apparently, the church is afraid of lawsuits if it denies healthcare to legally married same-sex couples. With the District's unemployment rate well past 10 percent and budget cuts to homeless services still on the table, this is an astonishing threat.

Update: Councilmember Phil Mendelson says the archdiocese e-mailed him their letter late yesterday evening. "To me this is political," he says.

In the letter, the church mentions not facilitating adoptions to same-sex married couples. Mendelson says: "They've said it before and they've said it in other states. The language that we have is borrowed heavily from New Hampshire. We're not doing anything substantially different from what other states have done. I heard no testimony about adoptions coming to an end in the other states."

This month as the Council is aging
'Round town many parties are raging
Got mayoral hopes?
Then get off the ropes
With donors, you'd best start engaging

Your birthday means more than a bash
It's also a chance to raise cash
The constituent fund
Is best when fecund
Get in there and add to your stash!

Attorney General Peter Nickles & Co. fought over whether plaintiffs could depose a government witness. They lost that battle and the deposition provided devastating evidence of more discovery abuses.

The losing fight over the depo has yet to put a dent in Nickles' M.O. The AG has not backed down from further stonewalling in the cases. In a curious move, the OAG argued in federal court filings that plaintiffs should return 211 pages of documents claiming that they were "mistakenly produced." The OAG contended that these documents were attorney-client work product.

Last night, Legal Times reported that U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled against Nickles on the matter.

So what are these mystery docs?

Legal Times wrote in its piece that Sullivan's ruling "followed a flurry of filings" asking the judge to "stop the plaintiffs from using the documents in discovery or to issue an order that would keep any information related to the documents out of the public eye."

Legal Times cited one filing in which city lawyers argued: "In addition to the privileged nature of the communications, several of the documents include statements by high-ranking officials in the District of Columbia Government which, if disclosed to the public, would only serve to embarrass while not shedding light on any matter of controversy in this case."

Plaintiffs attorneys argued in their response:

This is yet another bald attempt by the District to forestall and stymie Plaintiffs' discovery efforts. Faced with only six months of resumed discovery, the District has unleashed a torrent of objections and privilege assertions, including forcing the Court to issue an emergency order to force compliance with a deposition demand.

The plaintiffs' attorneys go on to contend that the OAG is only pressing for those documents because they would be used during a deposition of city lawyer Stacey Anderson, set to be taken this Thursday. They call the document request "farcical" and illustrative of an "effort to continue its prior delaying and dilatory tactics."

Among the documents the OAG wanted back were documents the office turned over on July 22.

Plaintiffs' attorneys contend that the documents were used in exhibits and discussed multiple times between the parties; to prove their point, they produced e-mails in which OAG attorneys discuss the documents.

The documents in question may point to then-Chief Charles Ramsey's direct involvement in ordering the Sept. 27, 2002, mass arrests, and the ensuing cover-up (the D.C. Council concluded in its investigation that Ramsey had participated in a lame attempt to obscure his involvement).

One Mystery Doc Revealed!

The attorneys point to one document in particular as the cause of Nickles' latest fight: "Prosec 00055." It's a handwritten entry that shows Ramsey's involvement in the decision to make the Sept. 27 mass arrests. The entry appears to be a lawyer's record of an assistant chief's statements concerning that day's events. It appears to place Ramsey in the middle of the decision-making---that he either ordered or "needed to make arrests."

To put "Prosec 00055" in context, the attorneys had filed excerpts of Ramsey's deposition along with testimony from several other police officials. The excerpts focus on the decision to make the arrests, why that decision was made, and who was involved in that decision.

Read then-Executive Assistant Chief Michael Fitzgerald's testimony before the D.C. Council's Judiciary Committee. Fitzgerald states that he was OK with the mass arrests.

Read Ramsey's deposition from September 2007. Ramsey states that he thought the arrests were OK.

Read then-Assistant Chief Alfred Broadbent Jr.'s deposition from October 2007. Broadbent states that he advised against the arrests.

That was the rationale offered today by the administration of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty for why at least $120 million in city money has been sent to the D.C. Housing Authority and, in turn, handed to politically connected contractors with the faintest whiff of oversight.

The revelations at the D.C. Council hearing today shocked LL's conscience. And LL's conscience, for the record, is not easily shocked. The revelations included:

---That tens of millions of city dollars were moved around the city budget without independent review, in clear violation of the Home Rule charter.

---That the money was handed to a so-called 'quasi-independent' public concern, the D.C. Housing Authority, who in turn engaged in a contracting process that saw little, if any, legal review. For their trouble, that concern was paid $700,000.

---That project management functions were outsourced by DCHA to a private company, Banneker Ventures, that was paid more than $4.2 million to do a job---capital project management---that the Department of Parks and Recreation already employs a staff of 11 to do.

---That Banneker Ventures, in turn, was allowed to run a subcontracting process with only the faintest adherence to accepted procurement practices, with immense power to distribute millions of dollars in public money to the contractors of their choice (including, incidentally, to Sinclair Skinner's Liberty Engineering & Design). And, with the input, LL might add, of the deputy mayor's office.

---That Banneker Ventures' contract described the scope of the work to be done for several projects---in some cases costing taxpayers more than $10 million---in a single paragraph of about 100 words. (An Office of the Inspector General chief noted that the language was "problematic" and "needs to be redone.")

---That this whole scheme was created and calibrated in such a way as to elude oversight by elected officials, and that the D.C. Council took as long as it did to figure out that this was going on under their noses.

The most surprising testimony of the day came from a family-owned local contractor, HRGM Corp., which talked about the subcontracting process that ensued after Banneker Ventures was handed the project management contract. Ramesh and Rachna Butani, father and daughter, both testified, essentially, that the process was a farce---that they were given limited information on what they were supposed to bid on, that the judging process was opaque, and that there was no attempt afterward to explain why they had lost the bid.

Said Rachna Butani, "It has been unclear to me what value Banneker Ventures adds....They're not responsive....They can't answer questions."

She added: "I don't believe they are professional or capable to handle these contracts."

Faster, better, cheaper?

Please.

Ugh.

And this from Nickles: "I think Mary Cheh is great....Mary Cheh is a great councilmember."

The issue goes beyond the $82 million in parks spending already identified. According to figures obtained by LL, the Fenty administration has authorized $120.7 million in spending to be sent out to the D.C. Housing Authority. Those funds came from projects budgeted by both the parks department and the deputy mayor for planning and economic development. About $72 million of that has already been sent to DCHA.

The projects built through this method included not only the parks projects already identified, but rebuilds of Walker-Jones Education Center and the Deanwood Recreation Center totaling over $74 million. Both of those projects were managed by a team that included Banneker Ventures, the firm owned by developer Omar Karim, who has close ties to the mayor. And the scope of parks work has expanded to include as many as 26 projects.

LL will be following the hearing from the John A. Wilson Building, and will be Tweeting away!

That was a nice, if unexpected twist to the disclosure that his boss, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, had sent $82M in parks construction contracts to DCHA in such a way as to elude council oversight. For once, it seemed, Nickles had put the kibosh on a pet Fenty project.

Today, in a one-page memo [PDF], Nickles says that's actually not true.

The contracts-must-go-to-council opinion applies only to future contracts, not ones already awarded.

"Generally," he writes in the memo, "retroactivity is not favored in the law."

Speaking of retroactivity, DCHA spokesperson Dena Michaelson noted to LL over the weekend that her agency had been seeking a ruling from Nickles "since his appointment" as AG as to whether DCHA's independent procurement authority applies to local-funded projects (as opposed to the federally funded projects that comprise most of the agency's work). That didn't come till Friday. "We are pleased that he has responded to our inquiries," Michaelson says, "and that we finally have clarity."

So, asks LL: Is this going to force that lawsuit that the council keeps threatening to file?

Such a determination comes less than 24 hours after news broke that the Mayor Adrian M. Fenty has sent a dozen parks-and-rec construction projects worth $81.6 million to DCHA in a manner that eluded council oversight. The contracts subsequently awarded by DCHA have gone to firms with close ties to Fenty---raising a whole lot of question about the process.

The opinion released this evening came in response to a question posed today by DCHA. In it, Nickles relies on a 1996 corporation counsel opinion that addressed an almost identical question.

So what does this mean?

In essence, Fenty is punting the ball to DCHA. Fenty is shocked---shocked!---that DCHA would have bid out contracts without sending them to the D.C. Council first.

This will help him make the case that this work was sent to DCHA because the quasi-independent agency (its operations are accountable to a mayorally appointed board) is better equipped and moves faster than the standard city procurement process---not because he was trying to avoid council oversight.

But, if that were the case, there would have been a more transparent way to do this: doing what's called a "reprogramming" of funds from the parks-and-rec capital budget. Reprogrammings are subject to council review. But that's not what happened here. The money was basically handed to DCHA under cover of night under processes yet to be disclosed.

I'm not sure Carter does himself any favors with this statement. Readers: Tell me what he's trying to say! Are there still going to be cuts? I think so. Carter does stress one priority: making sure the homeless have shelter during the hypothermia season. But he is fuzzy on what the looming cuts are going to do for family shelters or transitional housing facilities.

Read statement after the jump.

Carter:

"Statement from DHS Director, Clarence H. Carter, Regarding Budget for Homeless Services

October 9, 2009

The problem of homelessness in the District of Columbia is complex, and it has an impact on many individuals and families each year. The District is addressing the challenges of homelessness and has developed a continuum of care that includes outreach, mental health services, numerous shelters, and permanent housing with services. DHS is committed to assisting individuals and families experiencing homelessness through appropriate services and programs designed to bring stability to their lives and to enable them to become self-sufficient over time.

The District will fully ensure that resources are available to keep shelters open and meet the emergency needs of our homeless neighbors. DHS is committed, and has identified all the needed resources, to meet the full demand for homeless services during the hypothermia season, as outlined in the District’s 2009-2010 Winter Plan.

Due to decreased tax revenue in FY 2010, the District has to stretch its resources further across programs to maintain services.   To enable us to do this, the DHS is identifying efficiencies in operations, increasing performance based contracting, and better aligning budgets with expenditures for homeless service providers funded through the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness (TCP).   This is intended to be a collaborative, back and forth process, that will be executed to find cost savings while maintaining essential services.  Further, we are maximizing opportunities in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) that will help meet the gap between the local budget and the demand for essential homeless services.

DHS has requested that TCP cap spending for the implementation of the Winter Plan at 2009 expenditure levels.  Programs that operate outside of the Winter Plan will be asked to find efficiencies over the entire contract year.   Although I expect that there will be program implications to the reduced spending on the homeless program, I anticipate that DHS will be able to leverage resources to mitigate the impact on programs and maintain our current levels of capacity throughout the 2010 fiscal year.

I look forward to continuing partnerships with our community of service providers to ensure the safety and well being of our neighbors who are homeless and maintaining momentum in the execution of programs that prevent and find solutions to homelessness."

The Issue: Southeastern University, a private school founded 130 years ago by the YMCA near the Southwest Waterfront, has gone the way of the Titanic—and taxpayer’s money is going down with the ship. According to the Washington Examiner, three months before the Middle States Commission on Higher Education yanked the school’s accreditation, the floundering university received a $1.5 million earmark requested by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty. The university, which catered to low-income DC residents, reportedly “spent every dime”—to no avail. Now that the school’s fall semester has been canceled, and the students transferred to other universities, what should be done with the block?

Bring On the Buckets: Some argue the city should work to save the school as a place for higher learning: Charles Allen, chief of staff to Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells, told City Desk: “The university is right in the heart of Southwest. Not having classes there is a major loss to the neighborhood in terms of educational resources…and just losing activity on the sidewalk.” There has been talk of merging the school with another institution.

Abandon Ship: Others complain that taxpayers have already given the school a fighting chance, both through Mayor Fenty’s earmark, and an additional $400,000 in public funds. Dee, commenting on US News and World Report, says: “The faculty was a joke…my marketing instructor recruited people to sell Amway products. If you didn’t show up to his house for his “sales pitch,” you didn’t receive extra credit.”

Next Step: Wells is working with the school to find a merger and possibly carry on the school’s medical associate degree program—but Allen says, “so far, none of the options have panned out.” As far as the money goes, a Mayor Fenty spokesperson told the Examiner, "We've asked them not to spend any additional money."

Photo of school by Alan Cordova, Creative Commons Attribution License

Penn Quarter Living debuts a new column called High Rise Life. The first one is on elevator etiquette. It's not so much a column as bad comment bait of which I am sometimes guilty of. Here's a sampling from PQL's rookie effort on sharing an elevator: "Fob in and offer to push buttons or don’t offer and make sure others belong in the building? Remind neighbors that bicycles and their owners usually ride the freight elevator or zip it? Heel your dog or let him/her sniff around and be friendly? What is good neighborly elevator etiquette?" Fascinating.

Frozen Tropics reports on the breaking news last night concerning the pedestrian hit by a Metrobus in Trinidad. The Post is reporting that the woman has suffered life threatening injuries:

"In Monday's incident, the woman had just gotten off the D-8 Metrobus on Mount Olivet Avenue NE, between Trinidad and Montello avenues. She apparently crossed in front of that bus and then was struck about 6:30 p.m. by another Metrobus traveling in the same direction, Metro spokesman Steven Taubenkibel said.

Two men who said they witnessed the incident told television stations that the woman was thrown a distance down the street, and appeared to be unconscious after being struck. One of the men said that after the woman was hit, the driver of one of the buses 'got down' and prayed."

The Georgetown Metropolitan answers the question: Just what are Georgetown's boundaries?

Do you want to see pictures of people buying records? Someone posted a bunch of pictures from the DC Record Fair held this past Sunday. We wish we could have been there. Meanwhile....Fair sponsor The Vinyl District is giving away tickets to this week's Gossip show at the 9:30 Club.

The New Teacher On the Block offers their take on the hundreds of teachers laid off last week. In the Rhee vs. Gray fight, the blogger sides with Gray:

"Now, of course, this has resulted in finger-pointing, name calling, and a complete lack of transparency on many people's parts (Standard Operating Procedure for DCPS, really). Rhee blames the City Council for not providing the money required to allow all of these teachers to keep their jobs. City Council member Vincent Gray the DC City Council fired back with a press release accusing Rhee of using the council as a scapegoat in executing her master plan of getting rid of large numbers of DCPS teachers.

In this case, I'm in Gray's corner. The numbers just don't lie. It's just another example of the lack of transparency Rhee feels she is entitled to. When I came here, I thought I liked her: I am among the legions of teachers she's supposedly replacing the entire DC teaching force with and I support a lot of the ideas she proposes. But both her behavior and her attitude are counterproductive and arrogant; since I have been here, she has done nothing but alienate, obfuscate, and out and out lie."

Last night, Graham played hard to get with us over this story concerning his intensely personal entanglements with Loza. All of a sudden Graham has become allergic to the cameras. This has got to be a first for the Grahamstander.

Today, Graham made his next move: killing the controversial taxicab legislation that has become part of the Loza bribery scandal, the Washington Post reports. The paper writes:

Reached Wednesday morning, Graham said he planned to withdraw the legislation. "This bill was introduced to provoke a conversation about the ever-increasing number of taxicab operators in D.C.," he said. In its place, Graham said he planned to hold a public hearing this month to discuss the state of the District taxi industry.

Graham went on to tell the Post that his killing of the bill has nothing to do with the growing bribery investigation.

Does he think D.C. residents are going to believe that?

Graham tells the D.C. Wire:

"Withdrawing this bill has nothing to do with the investigation and I am going to prove this by going forward with the substance of this issue," Graham said. "I think there is a real issue, under my jurisdiction, under my oversight, with a real concentration (of cabs) and I just want people to know what the issue is."

Glad to see the Grahamstander is back in fine form.