Well, gangs and violence, anyway.

A City Desk reader captured this sight with a cell phone cam yesterday morning, around 10:30 a.m., on the 1500 block of Marion Street NW:

The reader explains: 'Took some photos yesterday of 6 kids from the Mayor's Conservation Corps rolling [a] joint and smoking pot....I did call the police but they didn't show up before the kids finished up. You can see a lighter and smoke in the photos. You can tell what he's smoking from how he's holding it. :-) I could smell it...(don't ask me how I know what it smells like).'

(Because the alleged tokers are likely minors, City Desk has blurred their faces.)

Plenty of folks at this point (hat tips: Scott's Take, DCist) have pointed out that the Mayor's Conservation Corps---part of the city summer jobs program---have spent their first days on the job handing out paper doorhangers.

Many of them have ended up on the street and sidewalks, and then there's the obvious irony of promoting a green initiative by distributing tons of thick paperstock around town.

LL called up the D.C. Department of the Environment, which runs the Green Summer Jobs Program, and asked spokesperson Alan Heymann about the doorhangers and the ironical elements at play.

The point of the doorhangers, Heymann says, is "to announce to the community that the conservation corps is going to be out doing this type of work" and to solicit project suggestions from residents.

But why use dead trees to do so?

"Not every resident of the District of Columbia is on a listserve or a blog," he explains.

In any case, they're printed on 100 percent recycled paper with vegetable inks, 100,000 of them have been printed, and they're being distributed everywhere the corps operates---which is pretty much everywhere but Ward 3. (Not as much work there, Heymann notes, but if you have a suggestion for a project there, call 535-2325.)

Soon the kids will move on to more substantial work---some have already started tree box inspections. "This is kind of by way of introduction," Heymann says. "It's a long summer."

And in any case, Heymann says, kids shouldn't be tossing the hangers on the ground. "When we get a report [of littering], we send the kids back out to fix it," he says. "We certainly don't want any litter on the ground."

The 7-6 vote came on an emergency measure introduced by Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry that would cut this year's Summer Youth Employment Program from the nine weeks planned by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty. (Emergency legislation requires nine votes to pass.)

In remarks introducing the measure, Barry called last year's disaster an "embarrassment for the nation"---this, of course, from a man who knows from national embarrassment.

D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray also spoke in favor of the bill, and spoke highly of Barry's efforts to create and nurture the program, which, he pointed out repeatedly, has "historically" been six weeks. "I think we have an obligation to the young people in this city to show that we can make this program work," he said.

Ward 7's Yvette Alexander had more prosaic concerns---why take up kids' entire summers with work? "Let a child be a child," Alexander said. "Let our children enjoy their summer!"

At-Large Councilmember Kwame R. Brown expressed skepticism at the Fenty administration's claims that they had already identified jobs for all 22,000 registered participants in the program. "This is a joke," he said. "I was born at night, but it wasn't last night....Can we be real here?" He went on to take the Fenty administration to task for planning for a $40 million-plus program, when the current budget supports only half that.

Also voting in favor were Mary Cheh, Phil Mendelson, and Michael A. Brown. Barry still didn't have enough votes.

"It is too late in the season for us to be changing the rules," said At-Large Councilmember David A. Catania, who also took a shot at Barry's pet program: "I don't want to look through rose-colored glasses here: This program has never been perfect....The time has come for us to reinvent this program."

Muriel Bowser, of Ward 4, got at the politics at play in her comments: "Truncating this program, in my view, doesn't teach the children of the District of Columbia anything. It's an attempt to teach the mayor of the District of Columbia something....It's an attempt to criticize and deal a blow to the administration. I'm not going to get involved in that."

A notable vote against the cut came from Harry Thomas Jr. of Ward 5, who broke traditional alliances and expressed concern as a parent looking for summer activities for his kids and as a ward resident concerned about a possible effect on crime. "I don't often go against my mentor, my leader, my friend," Thomas said, referring to Barry. "I'm not worried about the politics; I'm worried about the realities---where the rubber hits the road."

Fenty has committed to accommodating all comers, even though last year's program went more than $30 million over budget under a similar lack of constraints.

In recent days, the spiritual godfather of D.C. summer jobs has made it clear he doesn't share Hizzoner's expansive view of the program.

"I'm not going to participate in this craziness," says Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry, who started the Summer Youth Employment Program as mayor in 1979. It's widely regarded as one of Barry's political masterstrokes, engendering almost unanimous and endless goodwill from an entire generation of Washingtonians.

Barry, however, is not sold on Fenty's plans, he tells LL.

For one thing, through his council committee, he has proposed cutting $20 million from Fenty's proposed $42.9 million budget for the 2010 program. To do that, he recommends that the program be scaled back from 10 weeks to 6 weeks, that registrations close on April 1 rather than continue through the summer, and that participation be capped at 21,000.

And, as far as this year's program goes, he wants to see a spending plan. Two weeks ago, Fenty announced he was seeking to double the $21 million he'd originally budgeted. To do that, he's asking the council to tap a "community benefit fund" associated with the Nationals Park authorization, though no spending plan has yet to be submitted.

"You're asking for trouble," Barry tells LL---intimating a tough council fight to get the supplemental spending approved.

Fenty's approach to the program, Barry says, "teaches these kids bad habits"---that anyone who applies is simply handed a job. Some of the placements are made in the private sector and federal government, but the vast majority of kids are employed by the District government.

Barry's objections come at the same time that the Brookings Institute's Greater Washington Research program has raised questions about summer jobs---a effort providing "uncertain, uneven, and sometimes really bad outcomes"---sucking up the vast majority of the local dollars spent on employment programs in the city.

No matter what happens with the funding, Barry says he vows to hold weekly oversight hearings into the operations of the program---all 10 weeks of the program, "even during the council recess."

"I'm gonna put pressure on him," Barry says of Fenty. "I'm gonna blow the whistle if it ain't right."

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

According to a budget report released tonight, Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray is proposing to cut the office of Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso by some 80 percent. Where the mayor had proposed a $4.04 million budget for the office, Gray is proposing outlaying only $778,000 for the office. He proposes taking the office from 21 employees down to seven.

In other big news, all the lobbying by charter schools and their advocates has paid off: Gray's looking to restore $16.7 million to the charter facilities budget (though not the full $24 million). Where did the council find much of the money to do so? From Fenty's beloved summer jobs program.

The proposed reduction in the deputy mayor's budget corresponds to a movement of various functions out of Reinoso's shop and into others. Some agency oversight functions are being transferred to the State Superintendent of Education; the Interagency Collaboration and Service Integration Commission and its $2.3 million budget is being sent to the DCPS Office of Youth Engagement; and the schools ombudsman will fall under the State Board of Education's purview.

As for charter facilities funding, under the committee plan, the method of funding will remain the same for another year, delaying the mayoral effort to move to a "cost-based" system. However, the formula will decrease from $3,100 per student to $2,800 per student.

If you think mayor-council relations were bad before, consider this a declaration of all-out war. Gray is taking direct aim at what Fenty considers the cornerstone of his mayoral legacy: public education reform. Reinoso was tasked with being Fenty's big-picture, behind-the-scenes guy responsible for steering the whole educational ship in the District, from early education to charter schools to facilities management to DCPS to UDC. But Gray never saw much strategic direction out of Reinoso's office, and it didn't help that Reinoso repeatedly clashed with Gray when he testified before him---if he testified at all.

That's borne out by the report, which reads, "[S]ince the creation of the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education, no statewide education strategy has been created or established, even though approximately $2 billion is invested annually in public education in the District of Columbia, not including the District’s educational facilities capital program....The Committee is concerned that there is a continuing environment of uncoordinated efforts, initiatives, and budgets between early childhood education, the traditional public schools and charter schools, and the University of the District of Columbia, as well as the strategic planning of educational facilities for all public education sectors."

The slap being delivered by raiding the Summer Youth Employment Program for $10 million is even more vicious for who is delivering it: Marion Barry, the father of the summer jobs program and current chair of the committee on housing and workforce development. It's rare for a committee chair to willingly give up a huge chunk of the budget under his oversight, but make no mistake that Barry considers it worth it to send a message to Fenty.

The plan is still subject to a vote by the full council---this is the committee of the whole, after all---but expect Vince to have the votes on this one.

UPDATE, 12:30 A.M.: After having a closer look at the COW report, LL realizes he may have buried the lede. Gray is proposing to essentially triple the proposed budget of the State Board of Education and to make it "a separate entity within the District of Columbia Government, with sufficient resources and staff to fulfill its important mission." That responds to concerns that, under the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, the board did not have sufficient institutional distance from executive functions of government. But before you start thinking this is the second coming of Peggy Cooper Cafritz, read this: "No additional roles, responsibilities or authority over educational decisionmaking will be assumed by the Board as a result of this transition."

Another item of note: Gray has found $5.4 million in his proposal to fully fund the "Pre-K for All" legislation passed by the council last year. The report had strong words for the gap in the mayor's budget plan: "Disappointed is a mild description of the Council’s response to the failure of OSSE and this Administration to honor its commitment to the expansion and enhancement of pre-kindergarten (pre-k) services to District residents."

Just look at the program's Web Site: "Welcome to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's Summer Youth Employment Program for 2009," reads the banner headline.

Politicians are know for attaching their names to everything in sight, but not usually to programs which nine months ago had imploded in a cloud of overspending and fraud. Others might have scaled back expectations, but not Fenty. At a press conference at Ballou Senior High School this afternoon, he announced it's full steam ahead on summer jobs.

The details for SYEP 2009, such as they exist so far, are impressive. The registration process is online-only.Three times as many slots have been offered by private employers. All sorts of database checks are in place to prevent mass fraud. A top private contractor will be handling payroll. And 3,000 kids have already signed up.

Joseph P. Walsh, director of the Department of Employment Services, was hired to make this thing work above all else---he replaced Summer Spencer, who was forced out after last year's debacle---and Fenty pumped up the "sweat equity" Walsh has poured into the program in his three months in office.

Perhaps most impressive is the fact that private employers have increased their commitment after last year---from less than 400 positions to more than 1,000 this time---after some business types expressed sotto voce disillusionment with what happened last summer. Walsh says he's been on a speaking tour of local business groups---he namechecked the Federal City Council, the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the D.C. Hospital Association, and Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington---to ease concerns. "A lot of them wanted to hear what was new this year, what we're going to do differently, to sort of restore that confidence," Walsh says.

After the presser, Fenty joined a group of Ballou students in a computer lab as they went on laptops to sign up for jobs. The computers worked fine, but the building didn't: As reporters filed into the room with Hizzoner, a tile fell from the ceiling onto a table, breaking apart.

Hope that isn't an omen.