[Ward 3 councilmember Mary] Cheh, chairman of the transportation committee, said the public, including drivers, would have multiple opportunities to weigh in on the legislation. But as she described the details of the bill, one driver interrupted her, shouting, “I haven’t heard anything that is going to benefit me.”

The man, who complained the measure would make cab-driving a “minimum-wage job,” was later escorted out of the mayor’s briefing room. A few minutes later, another driver verbally sparred with [Vince] Gray after the mayor said he had previously met with drivers to discuss some of their concerns. “No, you didn’t, Vincent,” said Larry Frankel, an advocate for some D.C. taxi drivers.

“Don’t tell me what I did,” Gray responded.

After the briefing, Frankel told reporters that the legislation would cost drivers too much. “I don’t know of a single company that wants to put these instruments in [cabs] for free,” he said. “You are talking about close to $3,500 per cab.”

Drivers are also concerned that the new rules will lead to a de facto medallion system like the one in place in New York City.

Meanwhile, Gray is pushing legislation that would add a surcharge of up to 50 cents per ride to create a fund to help drivers pay for improvements to their cabs.

Photo by Wayan Vota via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution Generic 2.0 License

-News release, D.C. Office of Motion Picture & Television Development, December 2

To: Leslie Moonves, Chairman, CBS

From: Vincent Gray, Mayor, Washington D.C.

Re: D.C. Statehood–the TV show

Sir:

Please consider the following relevant programming data assembled by my crack One City Division of Televisual Marketing Advice (only two of whose employees are children of my political allies):

• Millions of Americans have spent 2011 watching televised reports of people taking to the street demanding justice as part of the "Arab Spring," and "Occupy  Wall Street," among other causes. Many of the participants in these movements come from the much-sought-after 18-35 year old demographic.
• Films focusing Middle Eastern current events have flopped, and movements like Occupy Wall Street disturb key advertisers.
• On the other hand, urban America is now associated with "edgy" music and fashion that appeal to key consumer demographics craved by your advertisers.
• Demographic changes in urban areas mean that government mistreatment now affects the upscale consumers desired by television advertisers.
• Thanks to initiatives like the District of Columbia's "Taxation without Representation" license plate program, 61 percent of people who purchased new tablet computers in 2011 tell consumer researchers that they are aware of the nation's capital's lack of local democracy.
• 91 percent of potential buyers of deodorant, English muffins, and midrange Korean automobiles express overwhelming disapproval for Congress.

Clearly, he time is right for a show capitalizing on the "justice" zeitgeist. But you should set the show in a multicultural, edgy-yet-retail-friendly stateside locale. The focus should involve the ideologically neutral issue of basic democracy. And it should feature a foe all viewers can rally against: Congress. The D.C. Office of Motion Picture and Television Development presents.... Stateless.

PILOT SYNOPSIS: It is day 42 of a federal government shutdown. Because of Washington's unusual status in the federal budget, local trash goes uncollected, local police are on furlough, local streets are unplowed. Beverage-industry lobbyist Eric Carpenter (Will Smith) is not bothered. Though he enjoyed a brief go-go music career before law school, he's a long way from his roots in D.C.'s "hood." His children go to private school, he lives in gentrified Logan Circle, he drives an SUV over the potholes that are exclusively caused by Congressional mistreatment of the city.

But his world changes during the opening episode's freak ice storm. Cut to:  South Carolina Republican Rep. Tucker Beauregard (Bradley Cooper) drinking at an upscale Dupont Circle bar, mocking the "freaks and foreigners" who he says populate the city. Cut to: Beauregard enticing a young intern into his SUV. Cut to: Beauregard's car skidding onto a tidy 14th street sidewalk where Eric's wife and children have just exited a chic vintage-furniture boutique. Eric's family is killed instantly.

There are only two witnesses: One is street musician Telly (hip-hop artist Wale, in his first television role). Telly has been reduced to bucket-drumming for pocket-change because he was forbidden from accepting a National Endowment for the Arts grant when heartless federal bureaucrats limited the grants to residents of bona-fide states. The other is boutique proprietor Artie Solomon (Justin Timberlake). Artie is a Harvard Law graduate who lost his job as a hill staffer because Congress selfishly exempts itself from D.C. laws forbidding discrimination against gays and lesbians.

The presence of eyewitnesses appears to mean Beauregard will be easily convicted. But then, a Congressional committee forbids the local police force using testimony from people who do not live in one of the fifty states in any case involving members of Congress from one of those fifty states. Beauregard is effectively  off the hook. The episode ends with Eric, Telly, and Artie vowing to end D.C.'s colonial oppression...and to also get their man.

EPISODE 4: Through contacts from his old Congress Heights neighborhood (now much-improved, thanks to efforts by Washington's wise, deliberative mayor), Eric learns that a Beauregard aide is procuring medical marijuana from a newly legalized local dispensary. This is despite the fact that the Congressman has railed against the decriminalization of pot by "that liberal, un-American D.C. government." Masquerading as a law-abiding customer, Telly snoops about the store and learns that the marijuana is actually for the Congressman himself. The trio are about to expose the hypocrisy when federal agents (led by Jon Voight as uptight bureaucrat Davis Hamilton) raid the place as part of an executive branch effort to stamp out the marijuana that D.C. voters have voted to approve. Though Carpenter bundled money for Barack Obama in 2008, his appeals go unheeded, underlining the District's miserable condition.

EPISODE 7: Artie is set to marry his longtime partner, Gustavo (Mario Lopez), a Salvadoran immigrant entrepreneur who has taken advantage of many of the District government's helpful small-business initiatives. But on Capitol Hill, legislators are trying to undo Washington's legalization of gay marriage. With comic pacing, the episode shows Eric and Telly rushing to different locations around the city (one in each of Washington's eight diverse, vibrant wards) to gather supplies in order to ensure that their friend's festivities come off before the dastardly Congress unfairly undermines local law. At the wedding, Eric meets Artie's former law-school classmate Sarina (Kristen Stewart), now a top political organizer. Sarina has also known pain: Her brother, a heroin addict, died after being infected by a dirty syringe during a period when Congress banned the District from funding needle-exchange programs.  The pair dance long into the night, beginning a romantic arc.

EPISODE 13: In the season finale, tens of thousands of residents are preparing to march to the mall to demand freedom for Artie, who has been arrested on trumped-up charges that he had driven the SUV that killed Eric's family. (The charges, we later learn, were fabricated by the ambitious former local schools chief, played by Sandra Oh, who wants to please the Congressional leaders funding anti-union advocacy group). Sarina has organized the rally brilliantly. It opens with performances by local music legend Chuck Brown. The plan is that once the full crowd gathers, a giant video screen will display newly discovered footage from a Department of Homeland Security camera that captured video of the accident. But just as the tape rolls, the power dies. Cut to: Voight's character smirking as underlings wheel away a National Park Service generator. Cut to: DHS agents racing toward the stage to confiscate the tape. Cut to: Eric and Telly, running for their lives towards the bridge over the Anacostia. It's a cliffhanger.

As credits roll, we see Beauregard on the phone, ordering feds to redouble their efforts to track down the D.C. freedom-fighters. As the camera pulls back, we see that someone has scribbled graffiti over a nearby sign marking Pennsylvania Ave.

"D.C. Statehood Blvd.," it says.

Fight Night Gallery, 1900 Block Connecticut Ave, Nov. 10.  © 2011 Matt Dunn

Oddly enough, according to NBC Washington, one of the men is named Vincent Gray, which will probably cause some consternation in the Wilson Building when the mayor's aides get their Google News alerts today. The other is named Delron Atchison. The suspects are aged 21 and 22, respectively.

On June 21, 2006, Anthony Williams took his final cannonball plunge into a D.C. swimming pool as mayor, his traditional way to open the city’s pools for the summer. Williams' two terms as the District's fourth Home Rule-era mayor began with a splash in 1999, when he made his inaugural dive. In 2006, Williams, who earned the nickname "Cannonball," stripped down to his red trunks for one last dip at Turkey Thicket Recreation Center in Brookland. The Washington Post described his final dive as "vintage Williams—neat and precise with nary a wave as he sliced into the pool."

As far as mayoral traditions go, Williams'—appearing shirtless in public and leaping into a pool—may be the most unique among the nation’s elected officials. The Post reported at the time that his spokesman, Vincent Morris, said, "We are very aware of how exposed he is—just a pair of trunks and nothing else." But Williams’ poolside antics had a purpose: He aimed to draw attention to D.C.’s summer programs.

The bow-tie wearing mayor urged his successor to keep the season-opener tradition alive, and D.C.’s political media was not quick to forget Williams' legacy. His successor, Adrian Fenty, dodged the question when reporters asked if he would carry on Williams' annual cannonball stunt. DCist wrote in 2007 that at one point Fenty challenged NBC4 reporter Tom Sherwood to take his place. But Fenty never took the leap, which Post and former Washington City Paper Loose Lips scribe Mike DeBonis tweeted was an early indicator of his aloofness.

This summer, Washingtonians wondered if the mayoral cannonball was a rite of the past, or if Mayor Vince Gray would put his administration’s controversy aside and dive in. In May, City Paper declared Cannonball Watch 2011 officially on during a sweltering Memorial Day weekend. But Gray stayed dry and fully-suited at the Barry Farm Recreation Center in Ward 8, where he ushered in the summer with the opening of 17 of the District’s public pools. Filling in for Gray, Jesus Aguirre, director of D.C. Parks and Recreation, gave the crowd their Williams-inspired entertainment.

Photo by Flickr user Lee Coursey via an Attribution 2.0 Generic Creative Commons license

"Last week, seven of the city’s Fire and Emergency Medical Service Department 25 basic life support ambulances—or 28 percent—were out of service. Many ambulances suffered from dysfunctional air-conditioning systems. One ambulance without a working air-conditioner was ordered back in service by a deputy chief even though a Department of Health inspector ordered it off the road after finding the patients’ compartment was 107 degrees. Another ambulance had a makeshift box fan to try to cool the patient compartment when its air-conditioner did not work."

The labor groups that signed the letter—National Nurses United, the DC Nurses Association, and the D.C. Fire Fighters Association Local 36—say they're bringing up the hobbled transports because the city is ub  its "second heat wave of the summer" weather season and “it is simply unacceptable for patients in need of emergency care to either not have an ambulance to transport them when needed or to have to be transported in an ambulance without a functioning air-conditioner."

We've reached out to the mayor's office for a comment. In the meantime, try not to get sick in the heat—a stifling and stuffy ride to the hospital may make it worse.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

2000 Block Vermont Ave, NW.  June 2nd.  © 2011 Matt Dunn

Barry Farm Rec Center, 1230 Sumner Road, SE.  May 27th.  © 2011 Matt Dunn

Pretty soon, a dreadful document will cross the desk of Mayor Vince Gray.

It's called the Child Fatality Review Committee Annual Report, and it's prepared by the District medical examiner's office. The report lets the mayor know just how many kids the city lost to forces like disease, homicide, and suicide. The office says it's almost done compiling its 2009 report.

In June 2010, then-Mayor Adrian Fenty got the same sort of update. The report told him there had been 178 child and youth fatalities in the District in 2008, 18 more casualties than in 2007.

The two leading causes of death would have given Fenty plenty to think on. Of the 178 children who died in 2007, 114 died of natural causes, and most were under the age of 1. But 47 others died as a result of homicide, and were between 15 and 20 years old.

Many of the statistics connected to the homicides weren't that surprising in a city where black males make up most of the city's murdered adults. 73 percent of those youths who fell to violence were male, and 93 percent were black.

The report headed for Gray will likely help shape policy for the often-under-fire D.C. juvenile justice system. In 2008, 22 youth fatalities involved residents who'd been involved with the juvenile justice system in the two years before they died. Of those, 21 were homicides. 18 were shot and three stabbed.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

2500 Block Georgia Ave.  © 2011 Matt Dunn

Councilmember Jack Evans announced today that he would be taking on a cause dear to, apparently, every D.C. fire fighter. No, this doesn't have anything to do with the hydrant issues or suspect arson investigations. This has to do with the new fire chief changing the department's logo. The chief wants to call his department "FEMS."

From a press release from Evans' office:

"The 'Fire and Emergency Services Logo Clarification Act of 2011' was co-sponsored by Councilmember [Marion] Barry and would provide that District firefighters may continue to wear the DCFD logo on their uniforms despite a controversial order from Chief Kenneth Ellerbe requiring all personnel to wear 'FEMS,' as well as to pay for certain changes to their uniforms."

Maybe one day we will come to view the Fire and Emergency Services Logo Clarification Act of 2011 as hallmark legislation. Probably not.

The new fire chief has wasted a lot of time and money with his logo change—not to mention he's given another opportunity to Examiner columnist Harry Jaffe to come off as vaguely sexist. Some fire fighters are pissed about the change.

But is this the kind of fight we want to the council to be taking up? Evans is the council's supposed budget guru. Not sure he needs to take on the role of branding expert.

Besides, one politician has endorsed the new FEMS branding: Mayor Vincent Gray. This afternoon, the mayor tweeted:

"Just had great tour at @DCFIREEMS training facility and proud that FEMS has earned high marks in fire-protection ratings"

File photo by Darrow Montgomery

In its preliminary review of the Gray's budget, the D.C. Behavioral Health Association found reductions in vital services for children:

"$900,000 reduction from DMH’s contracts for non-Medicaid reimbursed services for children.  These services may include mobile crisis response – which prevents children from being hospitalized for psychiatric emergency – and D.C. Choices, which works to prevent youth in schools and the juvenile justice system from being sent to psychiatric residential treatment centers.

$2,500,000 reduction from DMH’s funds that support specialized, non-Medicaid reimbursed mental health treatment for traumatized children through CFSA's intra-district transfer, including Choice Provider assessment, training and practice capacity funds.

There is a $3 million local-funding cap on DMH’s specialty, in-home treatment services; if this applies to Medicaid-funded services, it would translate to an overall $10.3 million reduction in treatment funds.

An additional $80.7 million reduction in Medicaid provider payments that is not further detailed, but which may further reduce Medicaid funding for mental health providers."

Shannon Hall, executive director of the D.C. Behavioral Health Association, said via email:

"D.C. already under-spends on children's mental health treatment: we spent $13 million on our children's mental health program while Vermont, which has a similiar population size, spent $72 million.  Now Mayor Gray's proposed FY2012 further reduces the mental health services that keep children out of hospitals and out of the juvenile delinquency system.  It reduces the treatment funds that help parents improve their parenting skills.  Perversely, while cutting these effective programs, Mayor Gray proposes spending significantly more on the expensive interventions that don't have the proven track record of efficacy."

Councilmember David Catania may have something to say about these cuts. This past week he announced a sweeping proposal that would address children's mental health in a comprehensive way.

One of the biggest costs putting the city in the red: the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services' continued insistence on placing youths in out-of-state residential treatment facilities. The juvenile justice agency is projected to spend $8.4 million more than originally allocated for this outsourcing. In a recent cover story we outlined reasons why this is an outdated, extremely costly, and ineffective use of public funds.

The DC Behavioral Health Association raised similar concerns about DYRS' emphasis on residential treatment in a 2010 report.

Throughout this hypothermia season, the District has managed to keep D.C. General's emergency family shelter from becoming overcrowded. The good news is there aren't families sleeping in hallways next to trash cans or enduring sleepless nights in the cafeteria (see here, here, and here). D.C. General has been held at a capacity of 150 families or so—down from last year's high of 200 families.

And yet the number of homeless families hasn't gone down. It turns out city administrators have come up with an expensive solution to D.C. General's limited space: The city has spent tens of thousands of dollars putting homeless families up at the refurbished Comfort Inn on New York Avenue.

Ashley Edwards, a sales coordinator at the Comfort Inn, estimates that at least 70 homeless families have stayed at the hotel since January. According to a mother who currently resides at the hotel and has seen her bill, the city is spending $89 per day on each family. She and her children have been staying at the hotel for more than a month. (Another mother says she was told her bill comes to $119 per day).

The number of families residing at the hotel could be a lot higher than 70. In an earlier interview, Edwards had estimated that closer to 140 homeless families had stayed there.

D.C.'s Department of Human Services, despite repeated requests, couldn't say just how many families had stayed at the Comfort Inn. "I don't know," explains Fred Swan, head of the Family Services Administration with the city's Department of Human Services. "The need could be 20 one day, 25 the next. It changes every day just about."

Swan later says the number of homeless families residing at the Comfort Inn just wasn't public information. "We don't give that information out," he says. A few days later, he says he thinks the 120 figure "seems kind of high to me." But since he wouldn't give an actual number of his own, it's hard to know what to make of that.

The Comfort Inn provides for the families like any other hotel guests. In the morning, they receive a free continental breakfast of sugar cereals and bland muffins. Families can also use the hotel chain's fitness room and free WiFi. In their rooms, they could watch free cable on flat-screen televisions.

But homeless mothers tell City Desk life at the Comfort Inn lacked the one thing they desperately needed: A good case worker to help them find housing.

Advocates had argued for two years that the city's shelter capacity wasn't enough to meet demand. This past fall, Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser quashed the city's plan to convert a building on Spring Road into a shelter. The costs would have been minimal; city officials stated the building just needed showers installed. Instead of adding capacity, the D.C. Council spent months debating a stronger residency requirement for those seeking shelter. Of course, the consequences were brutal.

At the Comfort Inn, mothers say District officials spent the majority of time telling them they weren't like other hotel guests. In a mid-February meeting at the hotel, all the families were told they could not have guests, they could only eat meals in their rooms, and they could not visit other guests.

"We can't even go in the lobby basically," says current Comfort Inn resident Tasha Coleman, 20, who came to the hotel with a nine-month-old boy. She says she had previously slept outside a church. "When we go to breakfast, we have to show our keys. They tell us we can't go in the lobby to get a cup of coffee."

"If you do want visitors, you had to meet them off the property," recalls Teneisha Davall, 25, a mother of three and who stayed at the Inn for a month. "It just felt like they had no respect for us. We had nowhere to go. We were not a priority to [the Comfort Inn staff]. They just brushed us off."

That meeting was essentially the most attention these mother received at the Inn.The mothers say they wanted help finding apartments. Both complain they haven't gotten the help. "It's frustrating," one says. "You don't know who to talk to."

Coleman says she's been told by her case worker that "there's nothing they can do. You just have to wait to be placed in D.C. General. And then once at D.C. General, you go from there. Coleman has been living at the Comfort Inn since January 8.

A few weeks after the meeting, the mothers finally got some attention from the city. They were called and told they were being moved temporarily across New York Avenue to the Budget Motor Inn. The Comfort Inn needed to make way for some conventioneers. One mother says she was given 20 minutes notice to pack up everything she owns. Another got an hour.

Both say they woke up at the Budget Motor Inn to police making drug busts. They were shuttled back to the Comfort Inn that day. In the rush to get everyone back across the street, the hotel was still a mess. Davall says she saw bloody tissues in the hallway, alcohol in the stairwell, and black panties and black boxers stuffed between the wall and vending machine.

Davall says soon after, she and her three kids noticed the room's phone was broken. The Inn never fixed it. Later, her 1-year-old daughter dropped her sippy cup. Davall says when she reached down to pick it up, she noticed a new addition to the room: a used condom under the bed.

"It was disgusting. I don't even know if the sheets were ever changed to be perfectly honest," Davall says.

*photo of New York Ave. Comfort Inn courtesy of Comfort Inn.

Among the five issues highlighted, the team noted the agency must address its "weak management and top-heavy agency structure." Ouch.

The other points the team stressed:

* "Shift focus to preventing abuse and maintaining children in families, to address the expensive and harmful current practice of unnecessarily removing children from their birth families."

* "Implement key policy and practice changes to improve use of kinship care."

*Review performance of Collaboratives and chart course forward—either reengineering investment in prevention entirely; keep some dispense with others; or retain Collaboratives but require them to measure and report outcomes publicly."

*"Contract out services for older youth to providers with strong track records in youth education and development (agency currently receives $1M in federal funding to assist youth aging out of the system and reports only serving 30 youth)."