Why? Dark horse mayoral candidate Alexander was the first to show at the Public Interest Civic Association's candidate forum, held in the basement of Brown AME church on Capitol Hill. Alexander had the forum all to himself for a while, before D.C. Council Chair Vincent Gray showed up. He was followed by Kwame Brown, who is running for chair, and dark horse No. 2 for mayor, Sulaimon Brown.

Not there? Mayor Adrian Fenty, who has been scarce at forums lately.

Robert Vinson Brannum, the moderator of last night's event and a strong critic of schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee—and by extension Fenty—said it was his understanding that Fenty had confirmed that he would come.

"Mayor Fenty’s habit of reneging at the last minute and failing to show to community forums in certain wards is a continuing demonstration of his arrogance, notwithstanding his current political ads," Brannum said in an email to LL.

Ouch—no wonder Fenty didn't want to come by.

To be sure, last night's forum was not one of the must-see-TV forums of the campaign. But LL asked asked William Lightfoot, who heads Hizonner's re-election campaign, what gives anyway.

Lightfoot didn't know the specifics of last night's event, but had this to say in general:

"He tries to go as many as he can, but he can't go to them all, he will miss some, but that's the nature of office. When he misses he'll be criticized, when he goes he'll get some credit and he'll be criticized for his performance. It comes with the territory."

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—"Closing Arguments In Wone Case," "World Cup Roundup," "Photos: Terry Huff"

Morning All. You better enjoy Metro today and Saturday. Those big fare increases are set to start on Sunday. WaPo's Ann Scott Tyson and Anita Kumar report that Metro approved those complicated fare hikes yesterday: "Metro's board of directors authorized an extensive package of fare increases Thursday as the agency approved a $1.4 billion operating budget and a plan to cover a projected $189 million shortfall for the fiscal year that begins July 1. The new fares include nearly $109 million worth of increases for people who ride rail, bus and MetroAccess, the service for the disabled. Because of the complexity of the fare increases, they will be implemented in three stages: on Sunday, on Aug. 1 and in the fall. One potentially confusing component is a new 20-cent 'peak-of-the-peak' rail surcharge that will start in August and affect riders who travel during the busiest times. The board had indicated in a vote last month that it would approve the changes. Rail fares this weekend will increase about 18 percent, with the peak boarding fare going from $1.65 to $1.95. The bus boarding charge will go up 20 percent, from $1.25 to $1.50 for SmarTrip users and from $1.35 to $1.70 for cash customers. Metro's board also agreed to cut the cost of SmarTrip cards in half, from $5 to $2.50, because the cost of the cards has fallen and because Metro wants to encourage riders to use them, said Peter Benjamin, the board chairman. Board member Jim Graham, who serves on the D.C. council, cast the only dissenting vote. He said he was concerned about the effect of the higher fares on the people least able to afford them."

AFTER THE JUMP—Peter Nickles would stay on if Fenty gains second term, Metro gets into the movie rental business, WaPo columnist stands up for social workers fired in wake of Banita Jacks case, and tragedy hits Ward 8 ANC Commissioner.

FOUR MORE YEARS OF NICKLES? District AG Peter Nickles, aka Fenty's Troll Doll, tells Jonetta Rose Barras on her WPFW radio show that he's open to remaining as the city's top lawyer for four more years. WaPo reports: "In a DC Politics interview on WPFW 89.3 FM, Rose-Barras told the city's top lawyer that there are some residents who will not vote to re-elect Fenty because of Nickles, his strained relations with the council and the view that he is a 'cantankerous old man,' who is to blame for 'a lot that has happened in this administration is bad.' 'I don't know if I'm cantankerous,' Nickles said, joking about his age, 71. 'I'm ready to take it on as long as the mayor wants me to take it on.' Nickles acknowledged that he has long had a cantankerous relationship with former mayor Marion Barry (D-Ward 8). But Nickles said he has had 'very good relations' with council members Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4), David Catania (I-At Large), Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), and at times, Chairman Vincent Gray. But, he said, 'I have found these other council members – particularly Barry, Michael Brown (I-At Large), Kwame Brown (D-At Large) and Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5) – completely unwilling to listen. No matter what the issue is, they are instinctively against the mayor.'" What about your biggest critics, Councilmembers Phil Mendelson and Mary Cheh? Anyway, Nickles ruled out running for attorney general; voters can decide in Nov. if the position should be an elected office. [Nickles opposes such a move].

Meanwhile, the D.C. Council rebuffed Nickles' attempt to allow indefinite response times for FOIA requests. WaPo's Ann Marimow reports: "Attorney General Peter Nickles' request for more time to respond to public requests for government information is unlikely to gain traction in the Council, where two members — Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) and Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) — have introduced legislation to increase access and transparency. Nickles said the District is inundated with complex Freedom of Information Act requests and needs a 'safety valve' of additional time to respond, similar to what federal law allows. But Cheh said Nickles 'is looking for an open-ended excuse not to comply, and he's not going to get it. It's a simple invitation to delay, an invitation to mischief.' Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray, who is challenging Mayor Adrian Fenty in the September Democratic primary, also rejected the idea, calling the current response period 'sufficient.'"

CFSA AND BANITA JACKS FALLOUT: WaPo columnist Petula Dvorak takes up the cause of the social workers fired in the wake of the Banita Jacks case. She believes they should get their jobs back: "All of the social workers who had anything to do with the Jacks case were thumped in grand fashion by an angry and decisive Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D). For a city reeling from the discovery that Jacks's four children were dead and that Jacks had been living in squalor for weeks with their decaying bodies until she was found in January 2008, it felt righteous to fire everyone having anything to do with her case. A new director of the Child and Family Services Agency was installed, and Jacks was convicted of killing her girls. But [Carl] Miller and two other social workers are still fighting the case every day. And the city is fighting back. The case touched Miller's life in late 2007, when a school social worker called and told Miller that a student at her school had been truant, the mom wouldn't open the door when she came to investigate, and she was worried. On the phone, Miller was matter-of-fact, reminding the social worker that the woman had no legal obligation to let her inside. It seemed like educational neglect, nothing more; the social worker said the kids looked unkempt and were watching TV. That sounds like my own childhood. As satisfying as it may have been to can Miller because he didn't swoop in to save these girls, it's not realistic to end the career of a 34-year-old man who had been a reliable social worker for eight years." Dvorak doesn't say that the CFSA director resigned not over the Jacks case, but over her inability to handle a huge backlog of cases in its aftermath. She also doesn't mention that the court monitor had flagged CFSA's poor investigative skills a few months prior to the Jacks case making headlines—so social workers and their supervisors had ample warning that they needed to be more vigilant. Still this is a must read for anyone that followed the Jacks case, and Dvorak can be convincing especially regarding the one social worker fired after relying on the police to properly visit the Jacks home. The police officer lied to the social worker saying that he had seen the Jacks children and they were fine. He had never seen the kids.

GRAY VS. LEO ALEXANDER: Leo Alexander takes it to Vincent Gray during the latest mayoral forum, WaPo reports: "Alexander, who has been struggling to gain attention in what so far appears to be a two-man race, went on the offensive against Gray, accusing him of being as much to blame as Fenty for the city's problems. 'When you think of everything that has happened in the last three years, you cannot criticize this man, without looking at this man,' Alexander said, pointing at Gray and Fenty. Alexander specifically challenged Gray for not doing more to prevent Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee from laying off 266 teachers last year. 'It wouldn't be fair to talk about the betterment of DCPS, without talking about leadership of our council chairman,' Alexander said. 'When this council had the opportunity to stop those firings, but he did nothing.' A clearly agitated Gray fired back, accusing Alexander of misrepresenting his record, noting he and Council member Harry Thomas (D-Ward 5) worked on legislation to try to force Rhee to rehire the fired teachers. 'Let me begin by saying it's easy to sit up here when you've done nothing and pontificate,' Gray said to Alexander. 'If you did the research, you would understand the council wouldn't have the authority to turn this around despite the fact we tried.' Alexander responded: 'The gentleman said I have done nothing, let's talk about his do-nothing leadership on the city council.'"

OUR CONDOLENCES: WaPo is reporting that Ward 8 ANC Commissioner Anthony Muhammad's two sons were killed in a car crash in Silver Spring: "Muhammad family members did not comment. They were planning a vigil at Kennedy High School in Silver Spring on Thursday evening. Commissioners in Ward 8 said they were pulling together to support the family. 'Mr. Muhammad is an active, dedicated person in our community, and we're grieving with him. It's a tragic loss,' said Ward 8 commissioner Lendia Johnson. 'He's devastated, as far as I can say. He adored his children. He was an excellent father.' Barbara Clark, another Ward 8 commissioner, said she contacted Muhammad through a text message after the accident. Johnson said she admired Muhammad's sons for being upstanding and disciplined. 'They weren't the pants-hanging-down-low type,' she said, 'They were neat, clean, straightforward, obedient young men.'"

DROWNING: Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr. says he will hold a hearing on this week's drowning death of a child at the Turkey Thicket Rec Center pool. WaPo reports: "Yiana-Michelle Ballard, 6, was found unconscious at the rec center's crowded indoor pool about 2:20 p.m., officials said. She had been swimming with her family. Lifeguards tried to resuscitate her, but she was later pronounced dead at Children's National Medical Center. Police said Thursday that their special-victims unit was still investigating the circumstances of the death. Autopsy results were pending. 'This should have never happened,' said D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5), who chairs the Committee on Libraries, Parks and Recreation. 'We are doing everything that needs to be done to make sure that this doesn't happen again.' Thomas said he plans to hold hearings next week to examine whether the city's pools are safe. He said he is consulting with officials from the American Red Cross to review pool safety procedures and might introduce emergency legislation to address the issue." More coverage via WUSA9.

FOLKLIFE FEST: WUSA9 offers a preview of this year's fest on the Mall.

RHEE: THE MOVIE STAR? Maybe not. But the school's chancellor gets a star turn in front of the cameras for a new education documentary.

METRO MOVIES: Rental kiosks are coming to Metro, reports WBJ. More coverage via the Examiner.

OF COURSE: People are raising pigs in Takoma Park.

FIRST LADIES: Duke Ellington students woo a pair of First Ladies with a little MJ.

THINK YOU GOT IT BAD: Tenants in one building are fighting landlord over broken AC.

HYDRANTS: D.C. officials are encouraging residents to not turn on hydrants as a way of combating this ridiculous heat.

FREE: HIV/AIDS testing.

MUST READ: WaPo's Paul Duggan's story on the murder of Manual Sanchez: "Fleeing poverty in El Salvador, he walked into the United States illegally across miles of desert in 1998. He worked as a bricklayer or as a laborer, depending on the economy, and drank heavily for a time, often squandering his wages. On May 28, behind a vacant tenement in Southeast Washington, where Sanchez, 29, and two of his cousins had been bagging trash and cutting weeds, the men were accosted by a pair of would-be robbers. Now Sanchez is gone, air-freighted back to his rural home town in a coffin, allegedly shot by a suspect six days past his 16th birthday, a ward of the city's youth rehabilitation agency. The accused killer, Javon Hale, and the other suspect, Rafael Douglas, also 16, are due in D.C. Superior Court on Friday for a preliminary hearing, each charged as an adult with murder after two witnesses identified them to police. Some killings rivet the media and the public: An esteemed lawyer mysteriously stabbed in Northwest Washington townhouse; a University of Virginia lacrosse star savagely pummeled in her apartment; a beloved D.C. school principal shot in his Silver Spring home. And some homicides go largely unnoticed beyond the tumbledown blocks where they occur, beyond the families and friends of the slain and the handcuffed and the authorities seeking justice. The shooting of Manuel DeJesus Sanchez was such a crime....The suspects, locked up without bond, have pleaded not guilty. Hale, who has a record of juvenile crime, had been let out of Boys Town, a group home, on a weekend pass just hours before Sanchez died bleeding on a dingy patch of Hillside Road SE in Benning Heights."

KOJO: Today's guests: Virginia congressional candidate Keith Fimian and Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot.

MAYOR'S SCHEDULE:

10:45 a.m.
Remarks
Ribbon Cutting for Deanwood Recreation Center and Library
Location: Deanwood Recreation Center and Library
49th and Quarles Streets, NE

D.C. COUNCIL'S SCHEDULE:

10 a.m.
Committee on Human Services (Round Table)
"Status of the District's Low Barrier, Transitional and Permanent Support Housing Programs for Adults, Youth and Families who are Homeless"
Location: John A. Wilson Building, Room 500

Given the crowd, it was hardly surprising that Council Chair Vincent Gray dominated Fenty in the straw poll, beating him by an impressively lopsided 703 to 190.

The mayoral forum itself was a rather chaotic affair, and with just 30 seconds each to respond to questions, much of the nine candidates' statements consisted of sound bite generalities.

Opening with "How many people remember the early 90s?" Fenty kept to his go-to debate strategy of contrasting his administration with that of Sharon Pratt Kelly, under which Gray served as director of Health and Human Services. Gray, meanwhile, trumpeted his "one city" mantra and promised to end cronyism and "restore fiscal responsibility."

With the front runners sticking to their scripts, most of the interesting oratory came from the second-tier candidates. Ernest Johnson promised he would accomplish "something kind of close to" what Alvin Greene did in the South Carolina Democratic primary. Sobin, who lives in Foggy Bottom, advocated using private police forces like George Washington University's throughout the city to reduce crime.  Carlos Allen proposed that kids should start school at two instead of five, arguing "instead of 'goo goo gah gah's it should be ABCs."

The minor candidates weren't able to wrest many votes away from Gray, though. Only Leo Alexander, who received 75 votes, Fenty, and Gray made it to double digits in the straw poll.

With the notable exception of the mayor's race, though, the convention's straw poll was kind to incumbents.

In the Wards 1, 5 and 6 straw polls the current councilmembers all came out on top of their competition. Current At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown also beat out former Ward 5 Councilmember Vincent Orange in the Chair's race.

Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton handily defeated challenger Douglass Sloan 732 to 171. Sloan spent much of their debate criticizing Norton's focus on voting rights rather than full, immediate statehood. Norton called his statehood bona fides into question, though, saying she had never seen her opponent at a rally or protest. "I don't talk a game, I do statehood," Norton added.

The debate between incumbent at-large Councilmember Phil Mendelson and former parks and recreation director Clark Ray was one of the most heated of the day, with Ray hounding Mendo on just about every topic the moderator put forward. On the issue of accountability, for example, Ray accused Mendelson of not once attending oversight hearings for the Parks and Recreation Department while he was director.

Ray was particularly hard on Mendelson in regards to public safety issues, quoting an email the councilmember had sent to a listserv saying that he did not believe crime was "a legislative issue" and accusing him of not understanding the severity of the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services's problems.

"It's very easy to criticize an incumbent, but I'm proud of my record," Mendelson said in his closing statement.

"Some incumbents are easier to criticize than others," Ray shot back.

The voters in the straw poll didn't find as much to criticize Mendelson on as Ray did, however, giving him 512 votes to Ray's 243.

Photo by Juliana Brint

When a question about the District's juvenile justice system was asked, for example, Fenty took the opportunity to remind the crowd that Gray had served as the Director of Health and Human Services under Sharon Pratt Kelly, "when the courts took over," the mayor said. While New Beginnings and the rest of the juvenile justice system may have problems currently, Fenty added, "we have gotten results."

Fenty approached budget issues in a similar way, touting his budget balancing skills while claiming "the number one agency that had a deficit in the early '90s was Health and Human Services."

After multiple mentions of his tenure under Pratt Kelly, though, Gray had enough. "Mr. Mayor, you keep coming back to my record at the Department of Health and Human Services ... I'll put my record against yours any day," he said. "You want to talk about my record? Let's get it on!"

While Fenty seemed intent on harping on Gray's record from decades' past, there were plenty of recent decisions on the mayor's own watch for Gray and the three other challengers to attack. Gray, for one, promised that "this council chair is not going to put three developers on the zoning commission" and called the Fenty administration "one of the most opaque" he had ever worked with.

Leo Alexander, the premiere second-tier candidate, decried declining SAT scores, a widening achievement gap, and the suspicious contracts given to Fenty's fraternity brothers. But Alexander was also eager to group the two front-runners together, referring at times to the "Fenty/Gray administration" and promising that neither would "do anything different."

The other candidates at the debate, Sulaimon Brown and Ernest Johnson, spent a good deal of time talking about their major issues—fiscal responsibility and providing services to low-income residents, respectively—but they largely served as comic relief.

After a heated sparring match between Fenty and Gray, Johnson quipped, "You can see from the back and forth why we haven't gotten anything done in the past three years." Later, when asked about the issues of D.C. statehood and home rule, Johnson said he was in favor of statehood but was also a realist—"we just got permission from Congress to pass out condoms," he noted.

Brown, for his part, ended the evening by imploring the audience to "vote for any color—Brown, Gray–just please don't vote for Fenty."

In his column this week, LL swatted away the candidacies of two declared challengers to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty in order to proffer a half-dozen more suitable candidates.

With regard to Leo Alexander, LL wrote that his "anti-illegal-immigrant rhetoric...leaves a bad taste in LL’s mouth."

That led Alexander's communication director, Debra Daniels, to issue a release last night calling LL a "second-rate reporter for having stated the attribution of "anti-illegal-immigrant rhetoric"...when you in fact have not even interviewed Leo Alexander." (Even though—yes, Debra—LL did.)

And now Martin Austermuhle has tackled the line in DCist, leading to a vigorous commenter debate.

For sure, Alexander deserves some more meat to be placed on the bones of LL's brief critique. So why does his anti-illegal-immigrant rhetoric leave a bad taste in LL's mouth?

Because it's easy, it doesn't solve much at all, and it does so by dividing the city.

Alexander speaks eloquently about how he knows poverty and how he wants to cure poverty. But he betrays little sophistication as to how to do it.

If you're running for mayor of a platform of "eliminating generational poverty," surely you have some better plan than to kick illegal immigrants to the curb so the black Washingtonians you're pandering to can take low-income jobs parking cars and working in hotels? Is that the way out of "generational poverty"?

To be fair, Alexander's Web site doesn't mention his plan to mandate the troubled E-Verify system and it also includes a smattering of proposals to address unemployment, such as "vocational education, apprenticeship training, and partnerships with government, unions, businesses, and universities," not to mention the "mandatory, non-skilled labor percentages on District projects." But he has described none of those ideas in the detail he's put forth for his anti-illegal-immigrant plan in interviews (let alone have any sort of record on the issue).

The problem—identified by every think tank and business organization in town, and most of its politicians—is that the District's unemployed workforce is woefully underprepared to take the jobs that are being created in the District and the region. That's why Kwame Brown's so big on vocational training. Why Michael Brown's big on supporting UDC. And why Adrian Fenty's so goddamn serious about fixing the D.C. Public Schools.

While Alexander's talking about addressing the "root causes" of poverty, his most specific, concrete proposal to address chronic unemployment merely mists its leaves.

Why is Leo Alexander running for mayor?

LL stopped by his kickoff event at the Channel Inn on Monday evening to ask the 45-year-old Brightwood resident and newcomer to electoral politics the first question any decent reporter is obligated to ask a candidate—especially one convinced (deluded?) that he can knock off well-financed incumbent Adrian M. Fenty.

His response: "I'm running because of the suffering that's going on in our community," the former TV reporter and government spokesperson says. "No one has a plan to attack generational poverty in our community."

Alexander's got a few specific proposals: First, rebuilding D.C. General Hospital in a public/private partnership (such as the one that fell apart late in Anthony Williams' tenure); second, "hiring an army of social workers and turning them loose in this city" to address root causes of social decay; and third, keeping illegal immigrants from holding jobs in the District by requiring employers to screen workers with the federal government's "E-Verify" system.

"They're using it right now in Arizona, Mississippi, and South Carolina," Alexander says, namechecking some states that don't usually share much common political ground with the District. "A generation ago, Washingtonians worked in the hotel industry, parked cars in restaurants—they're still here, but they've been replaced by illegal working poor who will do the job for less money and won't complain because they're illegal. We've got to do something about that."

His anti-illegal rhetoric only extends as far as employment. Regarding housing or deportations or any other measure, he says, "let Obama take care of that federally."

More broadly, Alexander says he sees "a lack of compassion in this current administration," a malady he traces back to the Williams years. "My base," he says, "are Marion Barry's people."

To wit: "I want the disenfranchised. I want people who are unemployed and cannot find jobs. I want people who cannot access health care. I want people who are union employees. And I want working-class D.C. to understand I'm gonna be their alternative in this mayor's race....We are counting on the working class, the unions. They need to recognize that I am their candidate, and the sooner the better." (Barry, incidentally, tried to install Alexander as his cable-television chief in 1997, but dropped him after the plan was leaked .)

But every with the least, the last, and the lost in his corner, how's he going to even come close to beating an incumbent with nearly $3 million in the bank?

The plan, according to Alexander, is what you'd expect: door-knocking, an Internet blitz, free media, lots of community meetings. He's also convinced that, simply by being the first visible challenger, he'll scare off the competition. Vincent Gray, for instance: "If you know anything about his personality, he likes a safe bet....He knows that I would cut into his base, so he cannot win the mayor's office with me in the race. Same thing with Kwame Brown, Michael Brown, and any of the rest of them."

OK, then. What about the money?

Alexander says that if he can raise $250,000 by the Jan. 31, 2010, reporting deadline, he's for real. "That will determine whether or not I will be competitive in this race," he says. "If I can get $1 million [total], he's in for a hell of a race."

Alexander will join Sulaimon Brown, a former Fenty 2006 volunteer, as Fenty's only declared competition for the 2010 race.

Alexander was a Channel 4 reporter in the mid-1990s before moving on to communications jobs for the D.C. General Hospital and the D.C. Housing Authority. A Brightwood resident since 1999, Alexander now works in insurance sales and has been active in the Brightwood Civic Association and the D.C. Federation of Civic Associations.

Politically, Alexander is not a widely known quantity and won't gain the instant credibility and fundraising heft of a Vincent Gray or Kwame Brown or Michael Brown. But in the absence of a challenge from any of those parties, Alexander stands to capture support from the anyone-but-Fenty crowd.

Alexander will be kicking off his run tonight at 7 p.m. at Pier 7 Restaurant at 650 Water St. SW.