Now Hear This: For years, tuning your radio to 99.1 FM meant one thing, and one thing only—alternative rock. Lately, of course, it's meant bachata, merengue, bomba, and other Latin pop, as the former WHFS became El Zol on Jan. 12, 2005. The station's changing formats again at the beginning of next year—to all news, all the time. CBS Radio bought another frequency, 107.9 FM, to move El Zol (which it also owns) onto, and will launch a competitor to WTOP. Prediction: Between 'TOP and the new station, you will be able to get traffic and weather on the eights and on some other minute. +1

Bienvenidos Al Museo: The Smithsonian Arts and Industries building has been closed for renovations for a while now. By the time it reopens, it may have a new purpose, as the home of a proposed National Museum of the American Latino. Lawmakers have introduced a bill to put the museum there; doing so would cost $200 million, but that's probably cheaper than building a new one elsewhere. No word on whether the budget includes money to battle conservatives who complain about the very concept. +3

Bad Sign: After Uniontown owner Natasha Dasher was arrested on allegations of drug trafficking, patrons and neighbors rallied to the restaurant's defense. But D.C. liquor authorities may not be so forgiving. The Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration is starting its own investigation into the establishment; if Dasher is eventually convicted of a felony, she wouldn't be eligible to hold a liquor license. And everyone knows how well dry restaurants do in D.C. -2

Snow Days Ahead: Get those Snowmageddon-esque puns ready! Weather forecasters say this winter could see several "ferocious" storms (to borrow Bob Ryan's phrase), especiallyin January and February, in another year of extremes. There's a La Niña weather pattern in the Pacific, which usually means an easier winter, but is it really a surprise that a few months after an earthquake hits D.C., the usual patterns are being thrown out the window? Speaking of which, it's cold, close that window. -2

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 to give Metro its $50 million in dedicated funding if late night service on the weekend is cut in order to save money, according to WTOP.

That itself could set off a whole chain reaction of funding problems. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia are all supposed to chip in $50 million every year to keep Metro running. There's no telling what would happen if Metro were to lose all that funding—the $150 million pays for 42.4 percent of Metro's daily operations cost. Any recovery from a funding loss that extreme could involve even larger service cuts. Which is sort of a catch-22 for the transit agency.

Late-night businesses in D.C. could lose, too. Saturday night travel has been increasing far faster than ridership for the rail system overall. The number of people entering Metro after 7 p.m. on Saturdays has increased 142 percent between 1995 and 2010. In the same time period, commuter growth only increased 43 percent.

D.C. Councilmember Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), who's a new addition to the Metro board, has been against the proposal since the beginning. At a committee meeting in February, TBD reported he found the whole idea "foolish":

We're a world class city... To be a world-class city you have to support nightlife. We don't shut the lights off anymore at 5:30 in Washington. It does not make sense to believe Metro is merely for commuters.... We want conventions here, we want tourists to stay here. But it's more than that. It's [about] being taken seriously as a city that has nightlife.

Wells continued his argument at a hearing this Wednesday. "I am strongly opposed to cutting back the night hours of Metro," he said. "It would not only economically injure the District of Columbia substantially, but it would decrease our status as a major city in this country."

WTOP reports preliminary figures suggest weekend service on midnight could save Metro between $3 million and $5 million, as well as giving it an "8th Day" for track repair. That's a far cry from the $50 million they'd lose if the District follows through on its threat. (Not to mention the $7 million some estimate D.C. late-night businesses could lose if the cuts are approved.)

Though, hey—at least Metro General Manager Richard Sarles wouldn't have to worry anymore about drunk people riding Metro.

Photo by isuperwang via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0

Pandas Stay Put: People think of the District as a transient place, but the dirty little secret of most people who move here for work is that once they arrive, they find they kind of like it. And they stick around (just ask former Sen. Byron Dorgan, who recently signed up with a D.C. law firm instead of moving back to North Dakota). That rule goes for pandas, too. Chinese officials, in town for President Hu Jintao's state visit, announced that the pair of pandas at the National Zoo will extend their stint in D.C. for another five years, in exchange for $2.5 million. Remember, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian—you're required to get a D.C. driver's license once you've been here 30 days or more. +4

WTOP Gets Owned: In the famed "glass-enclosed nerve center" from which all-news radio WTOP monitors the region, there's only one big story today–the station's been sold. Deseret Management, a for-profit arm of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, sold 'TOP and other Bonneville International stations in Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati to Hubbard Broadcasting Inc., which operates out of Minnesota, for $505 million. No word yet on rumors that weather and traffic will now move from the eights to the sixes. +1

Park Underneath, Please: The days of vast, and often empty, parking lots standing between the sidewalk and D.C. retail could be coming to an end. New rules proposed by the Office of Planning and Zoning would require stores to put parking lots under or behind their main building, instead of in front. Prediction: If that makes it into law, AAA will declare this yet another piece of D.C.'s war on cars. Oh, and also, streetscapes around town will look a lot better. +2

D.C. Council Bonanza: Say one thing for whichever D.C. voters actually bother to turn out for the April 26 special election for an at-large D.C. Council seat—they won't lack for choices. Two candidates officially declared their interest in the race today, Republican Patrick Mara and Ward 1 activist Bryan Weaver, and Vincent Orange (who is rapidly becoming the Harold Stassen of District politics) tells the Post he'll probably run, too. By the time Election Day arrives, is there anyone who's registered to vote in D.C. who won't be on the ballot? +2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 52 Today's score: +9 Today's Needle rating: 61

So what's the next fun ranking/list/survey that gives us a snapshot of where we live? According to WTOP, there's something called the AutoVantage Road Rage Survey that says that D.C. has the sixth-most courteous drivers in all the land. Adam Tuss notes that this "is a marked improvement from the 2008 survey, where Washington was ranked fifth from last."

Yay, we're more courteous on the roads! (But that doesn't make some area drivers "good" drivers. As Dr. Gridlock reported earlier in the year, "District of Columbia drivers are the third worst in the nation, according to a survey by an insurance company on rules-of-the-road knowledge.")

DCist rightfully questions the new driver-courtesy survey:

The rankings are based on the "likelihood of seeing fellow drivers talking on cell phones, or eating and drinking behind the wheel." I'm going to call BS on this one. I'll be the first to joke that Maryland and Virginia drivers are nothing short of criminally negligent (it's a joke, people), but I won't ever line up defend the idea that our local city drivers are all that nice or courteous behind the wheel. Maybe it's because I often experience them from the vantage point of my bike, or maybe because I become a rageful bastard when I drive around here.

Indeed. But does Ward 1 D.C. Councilmember Jim Graham still think that Maryland drivers are the "devil incarnate?"

Illustration by Alex Eben Meyer

Ack! WTOP does a good job today freaking out people with its tips to avoid bedbugs. New York City seems to be in the midst in an uptick of bedbug paranoia: The blood-sucking critters have found homes at Abercombie & Fitch and Hollister! They not only strike poor hipsters in Brooklyn; the rich on Manhattan's Upper East Side get them, too!

But what about D.C.? Certainly, there have been reports and horror stories. There's even an online bedbug registry for the D.C. area, which means 'TOP's warning may not have been entirely just for show.

Last year, Washington City Paper examined D.C.'s bedbug problem: "Bedbugs are the vampires of the insect class—nocturnal, sanguivorous, and legendarily hard to kill." The D.C. Department of Health later held a citywide bedbug summit at One Judiciary Square aimed at sparking a "dialogue on creative and effective approaches to dealing with bedbugs." There's even a helpful Department of Health video on what you can do to avoid being a bedbug victim.

Look on the brighter side, it's a good thing that Metrorail doesn't have wooden benches where bedbugs can hide. That doesn't mean they can't hang out on the bodies of your fellow commuters, though. Happy travels, D.C., and sleep tight!

The winner of the blog contest, which 'TOP says about 10,000 people voted on, was 2 Birds, 1 Blog, narrowly edging out GW Slept Here and Prince of Petworth.

Next week, 'TOP will tell the world what the best Italian restaurant in the area is—City Desk is waiting eagerly!

Tune in to hear McKenna, whose column last week took note of Redskins GM Bruce Allen's newest role—season ticket pitchman. (Update: This post originally said you could see McKenna, but as he's advised in the comments, MASN has opted—perhaps wisely?—to take an audio feed only from him. You'll have to keep waiting for McKenna video.)

Let the media frenzy begin! Appearing on The Colbert Report last night, Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher kicked-off World Cup fever in true American fashion–by trashing the game of soccer entirely. "Soccer is un-American," Fisher, proud owner of the title America's Most Prominent Soccer Hater, told host Stephen Colbert. "It's a great game for little kids running around on a field, they get a little cardio in, they go eat cookies, but then they grow up." No fan of the footy himself, Colbert, who denounced the sport as "just another thing the rest of the world tries to shove down our throats like the metric system and the Geneva Convention," was nonetheless looking foward to Saturday's marquee matchup, the United States versus England: "We will finally have a chance to get back at those limey bastards for the oil spill!"

WTOP's Neil Augenstein interviewed a South Africa fan at Cafe Citron in Dupont Circle about the allure of watching Friday's opening match at her local D.C. watering hole. "If things are going well for South Africa, you can always, you know, trash talk," she points out, "whereas if you're sitting on your own...who are you going to trash talk?" No one was trash talking on this day: South Africa and Mexico battled to a 1-1 draw. Meanwhile, Uruguay frustrated former World Cup champion France, 0-0.

WJLA-TV's Julie Parker staked out Summer's Restaurant in Arlington, where some 40 people where waiting to get in at 7 a.m. on Friday, followed by a visit to busy Lucky Bar near Dupont Circle. "I'd say, by this time of day, my sales have easily tripled," bartender Meredith Pearson reported. "We had a packed house the other night for the Nats game when Strasburg was pitching but this is even well beyond that."

DCist shows us that World Cup fever has even reached the Smithsonian's National Zoo, where small mammals have been "playing with soccer balls covered in peanut butter." Animals!

Games resume at 7:30 a.m. Drinks at 8 a.m. Where to go? Consult our trusty guide: Where to Watch the World Cup.

"It is certainly possible that in certain areas of the city it would be free," District Department of Transportation Director Gabe Klein tells WTOP.

City officials yesterday unveiled a 66-foot-long, 168-seat Czech-designed prototype of the streetcars planned to one day shuttle Washingtonians to and fro. (Our own Lydia DePillis was on the scene.) The city's proposed 37-mile streetcar system will cost a reported $1.5 billion to build. But, at this early stage in development, the price of a fare seems harder to pin down:

"We could also design something where you pay once per day, or it could just be inexpensive — it could just be a dollar," says Klein. "So we will structure it in such a way that people feel very comfortable using it at will, anytime they need it."

Klein points to Portland's "fareless square" as a model of what might be possible in terms of free transit.

Closely examining the streetcar prototype on display, the, um, Examiner yesterday couldn't help but notice the metal arms atop the car that would connect to overhead power lines, noting:

A law dating from the 1890s bans overhead wires in much of the District.

DDOT's Scott Kubly told the paper the city "hasn't given up on changing the law. But it is working on creating the nation's first hybrid system to use overhead wires in portions of the city, then switch to an alternative power source for areas with views of the Capitol, the Washington Monument or other landmarks."

Footage of the incident, released yesterday by McKenna's attorney, has now found its way onto YouTube, along with additional footage showing more revelery turned to chaos that night:

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—Famous Channel 4 sportscaster George Michael dies at 70. Also, more on the snowball fight, as City Desk reports on an effort by D.C. police to make "conversation" on this troubling incident melt away like the snow that made it possible in the first place.

Morning all. Hope all you LLDers had a good holiday weekend. And if you're not checking out this week, have faith: LLD is on the case, though under a different by-line (see above).

LLD, even under a guest columnist, can never resist the opportunity to self-indulge, and this time it has plenty of pretext. In the Dec. 27 edition of themail, Dorothy Brizill and Gary Imhoff do a lot of grousing about local news coverage, with an emphasis on the alleged downgrading of the Washington Post's coverage of all things D.C. And in Imhoff's little riff on the matter, he tips his hat a bit to the toils of LLD:

Online news coverage has taken some halting steps. For the past several months The Washington City Paper’s Loose Lips, Mike DeBonis, has written an opinionated news aggregation column every weekday: Loose Lips Daily, at http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk. It’s useful — and could use competition.

So, Mr. Imhoff, with that whole "could use competition" thing, just what are you getting at? That LLD could possibly be any better than it now is? That you have enough time to read yet another 4,000-word news roundup each and every weekday?

After the jump: More Imhoff-Brizill; Barras on the end of the year; Mathews slams Gray and Cheh; more!

Well, we at LLD love competition. And that's where you come in, Mr. Imhoff. How 'bout providing that competition yourself!

As for superactivist Brizill, here's what she has to say about local news:

There was a time when the Washington Post hit the floor of our front porch early in the morning and I would arouse myself, stumble downstairs, and read the newspaper cover to cover before Gary even woke up. Now, there are many times when the paper stays around the house for days, unopened and unread, and finally opened only to retrieve the grocery ads. Too often, worthy news is edged out by fluff. For three successive days, beginning December 21, the front page of the Style section was dominated by long stories and large photographs of Michaele and Tariq Saladi, the White House gate crashers. On December 11, the front page of the first section had a long story and big photo about a vice president of the Washington Nationals, Gregory McCarthy, who was training to run the Antarctic Marathon to complete his quest to run a marathon on each continent, worth being a human interest story inside the Sports section.

A reply to Brizill on behalf of LLD:

1) It's Michaele and Tareq Salahi, not whatever butchered spelling you offered. If you want to criticize media outlets, best to get your facts straight first.

2) The Salahi story wasn't fluff; it was a huge news scoop, as evidenced by the thousands of outlets that picked it up.

3) The McCarthy story was a fine feature. If you don't think that good features are worth paying for, then move just about anywhere else in the country, save L.A., New York, and Chicago. Pick up the paper that's sold in your new hometown. All of a sudden, you'll appreciate that McCarthy feature.

4) Brizill asks this question in her rant against the Post: “What has happened to the high quality of investigative reporting the newspaper had been known for?”

Hmmm, did she miss this series on the fate of D.C. AIDS programs east of the river? Perhaps those stories ran when the paper sat around Brizill's house "unopened and unread."

Tis the season for roundups, and LLD today will feature that of Examiner columnist Jonetta Rose Barras. In this particular iteration, Barras takes the stream-of-consciousness approach to wrapping up the year. She just goes off, like so:

Sarah Palin may have gone rogue. District elected officials went insane. Their madness consumed the government and vexed residents, causing many to fret about the city's future.

Huh? Let's try some more:

Ward 3 D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh accused Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's administration of being lawless. The legislature wasn't exactly law-abiding. It's surprising no one called back former Metropolitan Police Department Chief Charles Ramsey to throw a dragnet around the John A. Wilson Building and hogtie its occupants. No one was innocent.

Officials violated the intent and spirit of local laws. The mayor circumvented procurement and privatization regulations. Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry abused loopholes in contracting rules; Chairman Vincent C. Gray claimed ignorance of campaign finance laws.

When the two branches weren't trashing rules, they were savaging each other. On multiple occasions the council accused Fenty of lying, contract steering, mismanagement, ageism and racism. In a take-one-to-know-one move, the executive asserted that the council's rejection of Department of Parks and Recreation nominee Ximena Hartsock was sexist and racist.

OK, now it's all starting to make sense. But then, Barras goes back to her roots. Remember, she formerly worked as a staffer at the Washington Times. And back in those days, the times used things called "scare quotes" and other copy-editing oddities to show their feelings on certain issues of the day. One of their tics was refusing to use the word "gay," opting instead for "homosexual." Now here's Barras in her roundup: "homosexuals were given the opportunity to marry each other."

Washington Post educolumnist Jay Mathews starts his latest bit of opinionmongering with a marvelous slam on a couple of D.C. councilmembers. Here goes: "Sometimes it is the smartest, most concerned policymakers who do the most harm to schools. My favorite recent example is the Healthy Schools Act, a bill introduced two weeks ago by D.C. Council member Mary M. Cheh and Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray."

So just what is Mathews' gripe with the councilmembers? Well, they're mandating a huge boost in the number of hours that children spend each week in phys-ed classes. Though that may sound fine on the surface, says Mathews, there's only so much time in a day, and D.C. schools need all the time they can get to make their students competent in reading and writing and math.

WaPo's Paul Schwartzman profiles the declining fortunes of D.C. developers, complete with a lede about a high-flying developer hit hard by the housing and credit crises and who's soon off to Buenos Aires for some reflection. Maverick developer Jim Abdo sums up the status quo:

"Where we might have gone out to the Capital Grille to eat steaks, we now meet in a conference room and drink ice water. The mood is a mood of humility and contriteness and self-reflection. There were a lot of people who were intoxicated by the times and the easy access to capital. A lot of them are gone."

PASSED AWAY— Percy Sutton, prominent civil rights lawyer and media entrepreneur.

MIGHT AS WELL INCLUDE A NOTE ON THE WEATHER SINCE THERE'S NOTHING ELSE GOING ON—We're looking at a wet end of the year, with snow or rain or ice likely sometime from Wednesday through New Year's Day.

WaPo edit board issues a plea to lawyers around the region to offer services to parts of the District hardest-hit by unemployment. "Washington has long been known as the pro bono capital of the country, a place where lawyers generously volunteer to help all manner of clients who cannot afford counsel. Area lawyers and law firms are hurting, too, but D.C. area firms and lawyers — among the wealthiest in the country — need to dig deeper to fulfill their professional obligation to provide legal help to those who cannot afford it."

ABSOLUTELY—nothing going at at D.C. Wire.

AP, via Examiner, reports on D.C. effort to crack down on buyer of tax liens. Also AP via Examiner, D.C. Councilmember Phil Mendelson is pushing a bill to change PCP possession from a misdemeanor to a felony.

AP, via WTOP, reports that free health clinic may hit D.C. in 2010. Story first appeared in WaPo.

WAMU's Rebecca Blatt reports on the beginning of an overhaul of Pennsylvania Avenue under the aegis of the Great Streets Project. Here's the money graphs:

The project is supposed to make Pennsylvania Avenue more accessible to pedestrians. One of the lanes will become a landscaped median.

Drivers should expect some temporary lane closures between 9:30 am and 3:00 pm in the first five months of construction. The second phase of the project will include some more long-term lane closures. That is expected to begin in May.

NC8 reports that a pedestrian was killed near 16th Street and Park Road NW early today. "Few details were immediately available." WUSA.

NBC4 reports on an incident in which D.C. police shot and killed a knife-wielding suspect. WUSA.

Speaking of anarchists, President Barack Obama phoned in yesterday to WTOP's "Ask the Governor," on which Virginia's outgoing chief executive, Tim Kaine, was taking a final goodwill lap. This "Barry from D.C." stunt would have been all fine and good, except that it came at 10:18, when the station was due for its traffic update ("Traffic and weather together, on the 8s"). And then Obama made a joke about traffic! In Northern Virginia! Does he not know how many poor boobs were still out there on the Beltway, trying to get to work, desperately awaiting the next "8" so they could plot (or re-plot) their alternate route?

Just a little heads-up to the commander-in-chief: If you have a helicopter, and, if when you're not using that helicopter, you travel around in a street-clearing motorcade that can get you across the river to Ray's Hell Burger or anywhere you wish in, like, four minutes, even during the peak of the rush, I'm pretty sure you don't have a right to joke about traffic, especially while you're preempting coverage of it. Anarchist indeed.

The Washington Post has another story (triple byline) this morning on the Salahis. City Paper's Jonathan Fischer noted in yesterday's Arts Desk roundup that the Post already had two Party Crashers stories this week. I'm just curious, does anyone not know these people are frauds? Does anyone care about them? I personally won't read past the third graf, which says:

The picture that emerges from court documents and interviews with detectives, sheriff's deputies and two dozen people who say they were bilked is that the Salahis created for themselves a fantastic world of champagne bubbles and fashion, famous friends and jet-setting good times, when, in fact, the reality was far different.

Speaking of a fantastic world of champagne bubbles and fashion, famous friends, and jet-setting good times, the Pope's newspaper has congratulated "The Simpsons" on its 20th anniversary! L'Osservatore Romano praised the show's philosophical leanings and its irreverent take on religion, which seems kind of ironic to me since the Catholic Church I grew up with didn't seem to think anything irreverent was funny. Actually, I don't think it found anything funny.

Homer's religious confusion and ignorance are "a mirror of the indifference and the need that modern man feels toward faith," the paper said.

It commented on several religion-themed episodes, including one in which Homer calls for divine intervention by crying: "I'm not normally a religious man, but if you're up there, save me, Superman!"

"Homer finds in God his last refuge, even though he sometimes gets His name sensationally wrong," L'Osservatore said. "But these are just minor mistakes, after all, the two know each other well."

The paper did say there was reason to, well, not like the "excessively crude language, the violence of certain episodes or some extreme choices by the scriptwriters." Now that sounds more like the Pope.

He probably wouldn't approve of some City Paper coverage.

Have a nice day!

"Barry from D.C." called in to WTOP's Ask the Governor today, where Tim Kaine was taking a final bow as Virginia's chief exec.

Barry, it turned out, was President Barack Obama, offering his good wishes to Kaine as he leaves office.

Hosting that day was WTOP reporter Mark Segraves, who says he was only informed of the president's call 10 minutes ahead of when he called in at 10:18 a.m.

To maintain the surprise, Segraves says, "I thought, what I'll do, I'll just say we have a caller from D.C. And it was the White House's idea: no, no, no—why don't you say Barry from D.C.?"

Kaine was indeed surprised. Listen:

Segraves gives the credit for the gubernatorial ambush to Kaine's press aide, Lynda Tran: "She really made the connection and put it all together."

The call–and the entire show, quite frankly—was nothing but good feelings for the outgoing Democrat. But there was a scandal in that phone call—because it came at 10:18, WTOP had to pre-empt its trademark traffic and weather on the 8's, delaying it for a couple of minutes.

"It's probably the first time we've ever bumped traffic for anything," Segraves says.

The interview will re-air this weekend on Segraves' News Plus show on WDCW-TV.

According to new D.C. Police data [PDF], there has been a total of 36 hate crimes committed in the District  as of September 30. That's about the same for 2008 and 2007's totals of 38.

By far, the majority of hate crimes have revolved around sexual orientation. As of Sept. 30, there have been 31 such crimes reported. There could be many more. As WTOP's Mark Segraves pointed out on his must-listen Ask The Chief segment, sometimes officers do not report hate crimes as hate crimes. [In a recent hate-crime incident I did some reporting on, D.C. cops did not report it as a hate crime].

On the WTOP segment, Police Chief Cathy Lanier did admit that since the report was issued, sexual-orientation based hate crimes have jumped to 35.

Numbers can be debated. But one number can not: the rise in sexual orientation hate crimes in Wards 7 and 8 [police districts 6 and 7].

In 2008, 13 percent of sexual orientation hate crimes took place in these wards. So far in 2009, the number jumped to 32 percent.

On a side note, only two councilmembers—Yvette Alexander and Marion Barry—voted against the gay marriage bill. Who do they represent? Wards 7 and 8.

*photo by Darrow Montgomery.

R. Donahue Peebles is starting to sound more and more like a man who's running for mayor.

On the same morning that Washington Times reporter David C. Lipscomb revealed that several Peebles-related Internet domains have been quietly snapped up, the megadeveloper appeared on WTOP's Politics Program this morning to address the mayoral scuttlebutt.

Under questioning from host Mark Plotkin, Peebles said he was "giving some serious consideration" to announcing a mayoral run, and that he'd have a decision in seven to 10 days.

If there's any doubt in Peebles' mind, he certainly did not express it. He also committed on the air to spending as much as $5 million out of pocket to finance his bid.

Peebles tried out some campaign rhetoric and answered some of the tough questions he'll be hearing often over the next 10 months.

Asked why he left the District for Florida in 1998, Peebles said that he "needed some consistency" for his young son, who was starting his schooling at the time. He then deployed this line to defuse any claims of carpetbaggery: "I never left D.C. I continued to do business here, creating jobs and economic opportunity for D.C. residents....Washington, D.C., is my home; I believe in Washington, D.C.; I love Washington, D.C."

Expect to hear that line a lot, and this one, too, which hearkens back to his roots as a local developer and close 1980s ally and appointee of Marion Barry: "I want to serve. I owe the city a great debt. It gave me a tremendous opportunity to build an exciting company and I'd like to pay it back."

Peebles' top issue: Jobs. WTOP reporter Mark Segraves tried a bit of a gotcha exercise, getting Peebles to admit that he did not know the District minimum wage. But when he asked whether he knew the unemployment rate, Peebles was prepared with the facts and embarked on a long spiel on getting D.C. residents ready for employment and getting local employers to hire them.

The WTOPsters pressed hard to get Peebles to slam Fenty, and the billionaire indeed obliged. He pointed out that he was at yesterday's jobs summit hosted by President Barack Obama. "I was there discussing the District's interests," he says, in a not-so-subtle jab at Hizzoner

"I chose to attend the jobs forum. I made it an emphasis of the types of activity I want to be involved in," Peebles said, contrasting that with Fenty's attendance at last month's White House state dinner, where he was "actually photograhed with" the party-crashing Salahis. (Under Plotkin's questioning, Peebles admitted he wasn't actually invited to the dinner.)

Peebles went on to claim that he is in fact an erstwhile Fenty supporter who has been "very disappointed in the way he's run this city and the lack of attention to our neighborhoods," then embarking on an extended "two cities" riff.

The hosts tried to pin Peebles down on Fenty's signature issue—education. The candidate-in-waiting proceeded to attempt an outflanking maneuver: "I don't think school reform is been moving efficiently, and I don't think there's been enough education reform." He added that he's "heartbroken" about Fenty's treatment of the University of the District of Columbia.

Asked whether he'd keep Michelle Rhee as schools chancellor, Peebles said, "We can't have education reform if you're fighting the teachers, the unions, the council, and the parents....She should be given the opportunity to run this school system on her own with the direction of being told that the has to work with these stakeholders."

Later, he said, that "she would not be consistent with the style I'd have running for mayor so I would not ask her to stay under those circumstances."

A caller solicited his view on gay marriage, and Peebles attempted to thread a needle, saying he believes that "marriage is between a man and woman." But, as a matter of "basic freedom, to have a choice to do what you want," he supports the council's vote in favor of it.

Behind the scenes, Peebles has been in the process of assembling a campaign team.

LL hears rumors that veteran political consultant Marshall Brown is among the likely team members. Such a development augurs a split in the coalition of business and union types that supported Linda Cropp against Fenty in 2006. Brown, father of At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown, also said to be mulling his mayoral prospects, was Cropp's field operation chief.

Brown denies he's on board, because Peebles "hasn't decided."

"I certainly think that if he did declare that he would be a formidable candidate," says Brown, who has known Peebles since his years as a political hand to Barry. "If he decided to do it, I would take it under consideration."

Kendall Pryles, a spokesperson for Peebles, declined to name any campaign hires.

"There are a lot of people excited at the prospect of Don running," she said without naming names, except to say that her boss has met with "community activists, elected officials, CEOs—it's really across the board."

Photo by Darrow Montgomery