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, [...]
Well, that was fast. Councilmembers Muriel Bowser and Tommy Wells have tabled their proposal to reduce the residential street speed limit from 25 to 15 miles per hour. “My constituents asked me to take a step back and I listened. But, there still needs to be more done to advance pedestrian safety,” said Bowser in a [...]
Sure, everyone can be rude occasionally, even in the service industry. But at the Safeway at 1100 4th St. SW, near the Southwest waterfront, things went much farther last week.
Jason Morgan and his partner Brendan Harrington told Metro Weekly that they'd just put their food on the conveyor belt when they heard their check-out person [...]
With the first vote on the city’s new redistricted ward map set for Thursday, Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells and his supporters brought bullhorns to Lincoln Park last night to protest the proposed 17th Street dividing line that would send the eastern edge of Capitol Hill into Ward 7.
As Housing Complex's Lydia DePillis has pointed [...]
When it comes to late-night weekend ridership, Metro's most popular stops are not surprising: Dupont Circle, U Street, and Gallery Place. (If that raw data's hard to grasp, Greater Greater Washington made this very handy graph.) While that's probably not all late-night revelers, all those stops are inside the District—so some District officials don't want [...]
In an e-mail obtained by Washington City Paper, DYRS Chief Robert Hildum suggests that the agency may want ease up on going after juveniles who've absconded from the system. You can read the full story on the Loose Lips blog.
That's the question attorney Matthew Fraidin was tasked with finding out. Fraidin, an associate professor at UDC's David A. Clarke School of Law and visiting professor at Georgetown University, had been tapped by Councilmember Tommy Wells to investigate the conditions at D.C. General's emergency family shelter and figure out if the abandoned hospital was a [...]
Remember that homeless bill that the New York Times editorial board slammed as inhumane? The one that every nonprofit in the District condemned? The residency-requirement bill that the city's CFO stated would produce zero cost savings? Tomorrow, Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells is going to put it up for a vote. Just in time for [...]
This week, various poverty rights orgs tried to blogged on what they're thankful for. Save Our Safety Net led the effort and a bunch of local progressives penned heartfelt thanks on their own blogs—maybe giving Councilmember Marion Barry material for his next op-ed. It's also their way of highlighting programs that they hope Mayor-Elect Vincent Gray [...]
In yesterday's edition, the New York Times editorial board took on Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells' residency requirement for homeless services bill. The board called his proposal "inhumane" and suggested it was simply "very bad public policy." The board also cited the CFO which stated that Wells' bill wouldn't save the city any money. Late [...]
Today, the New York Times' editorial board took the unusual step of issuing an opinion on a local D.C. issue. The board thoroughly shreds Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells' incredibly lazy proposal to limit homeless services to District residents. If only the Washington Post would be so bold.
Times editorial after the jump.
After a short hiatus during the recent campaign season, Save Our Safety Net is back up and fighting. The group's latest issue: taking on Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells' bill that would restrict homeless services to only District residents. The Safety Netters show that there's more to this bill than the residency requirement.
On Oct. 30, WaPo's editorial board took precious space away from either praising Michelle Rhee's school reforms or using it as a litmus test in deciding who to support in tomorrow's election (see the board's non-endorsement of Councilmember Mary Cheh) to address the growing numbers of D.C.'s homeless residents. Despite local government's stagnant efforts to [...]
Councilmember Tommy Wells may have held off on trying to pass an emergency bill on homeless services. But he's still seeking passage of a non-emergency version of the same bill which would impose residency requirements for families seeking shelter. Here's the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless response to the bill on their blog:
"Rather than [...]
