District Links
The comprehensive DC politics roundup, by Cuneyt Dil.
Send tips, links, events, things to cuneytdil@thedcline.org.
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Happy Wednesday. Join DL as we play a bit of ‘Where are they now?’ involving Jack Evans’ committee staff.
When the Finance and Revenue Committee dissolved in July as part of the fallout from the ongoing ethics scandal involving Evans, what might have been lost to non-Wilson Building obsessives was the future of that committee’s staffers.
Council members have personal office staff — which generally includes a spokesperson, a chief of staff, and others — as well as workers for the committee they chair. Located in a separate office at the Wilson Building, the committee staffers hold titles like legislative director and policy adviser.
At closing, four staffers from the Finance and Revenue Committee were automatically transferred from the authority of Evans to Council Chairman Phil Mendelson’s Committee of the Whole.
As of now, two remain on the chairman’s payroll: Daniel Bassett and Sarina Loy, says Evan Cash, Mendelson’s committee and legislative director. Bassett is “given extra work” when it comes up, and Loy is actually assisting Evans’ office, Cash says. Bassett had been listed in a May newsletter from Evans' office as senior policy adviser; Loy was legislative assistant.
Another longtime Evans staffer Ruth Werner — most recently the committee director until the July disbanding — has since moved to the Office of the DC Auditor. In the meantime, Evans added ex-committee staffer Windy Abdul-Rahim to his personal staff as “scheduler/legislative assistant,” Cash says.
Evans' spokesperson did not return a request for comment today.
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TODAY: Police launch overtime patrols to deal with violence; the six-person army cleaning up trash in Ward 8; commentary on bill to subject charter schools to FOIA ...
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Today is the day to support this newsletter and The DC Line — an independent, nonprofit news outlet for hometown Washington. For my birthday, I've launched a Facebook fundraiser with a goal to raise $2,000! Your donations go directly to Day Eight, our fiscal sponsor. (If you are not on Facebook, you can also donate via the instructions at TheDCLine.org/donate.)
Contributions will help fund this newsletter and my writing — in addition to the work of The DC Line's other writers and editors. — Cuneyt Dil
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NEW EXPERIMENT - ‘Could a community land trust help solve D.C.’s gentrification crisis?’ WaPo’s Peter Jamison: “A nonprofit is buying property in a way that insulates it from development pressure, creating islands of affordability for longtime Washingtonians and girding against gentrification before the process begins.
“The Douglass Community Land Trust, incorporated last month after years of planning and neighborhood outreach, will bring an increasingly popular approach to preserving affordable housing to the nation’s capital, which according to a recent study has experienced the country’s most intense rate of gentrification.
“While the land trust has ambitions to expand citywide, its initial focus is on neighborhoods in Southeast where full-scale redevelopment, and the accompanying displacement of longtime residents, still seem like relatively distant prospects.
“Douglass Community Land Trust — named after Anacostia’s most famous resident, the 19th-century abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass — is finalizing the acquisition of its first property, the 65-unit Savannah Apartments in Congress Heights.” [WaPo]
OVERTIME PATROLS - ‘D.C. police chief, mayor authorize overtime to combat shootings, homicides.’ WaPo’s Peter Hermann: “D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham has authorized paying overtime to patrol officers in three areas of the city hard-hit by shootings that have pushed the District’s homicide count upward as the year draws to an end.
“In addition, the chief said officers who work in drug and gun squads and some other divisions also will be working extra hours. ‘We intend to use whatever additional resources as needed to get these shootings under control,’ Newsham said.” [WaPo; also WTOP]
NEIGHBORHOOD TALE - ‘A six-person army is fighting to clean up Ward 8.’ By Will Lennon in The DC Line: “In his backyard in Congress Heights, Nathan Harrington has a collection of bowling balls. He found them in the woods. … He has also been picking up trash in wooded areas around Ward 8 for the better part of a decade, starting when he began working with the Committee to Restore Shepherd Parkway.
“In the summer of 2018, he launched Ward 8 Woods as a pilot project — a reimagining of the committee with expanded responsibilities and, until recently, oversight by the Anacostia Coordinating Council. Recently Ward 8 Woods became an independent nonprofit.
“… ‘Ward 8 residents were always asking, “Hey, are you hiring?”’ said Harrington. ‘And the answer was always, “No, we don’t have any money, but you can volunteer.” And they were like, “Well, thanks for doing it, but I need a job, I need some money, I need to support my family.”’
“To this end, the DC government stepped in to provide grant funding that allowed the committee to evolve into Ward 8 Woods and to hire and pay five ‘park stewards.’ The park stewards work with Harrington to clear trash and debris.” [The DC Line]
COMMENTARY FROM TWO SIDES …
‘Let’s be transparent — FOIA isn’t what makes schools successful,’ writes former DC Public Charter School Board chair Josephine Baker in The DC Line: “What spurs me to speak up is legislation the DC Council is considering that seeks to treat charter schools not as what they are — nonprofit organizations entrusted with tax dollars to provide the public service of educating DC students — but instead as governmental entities, which charter schools were explicitly established 24 years ago not to be. In particular, a bill introduced by Ward 6 Council member Charles Allen would require charter schools of any size and means to respond to every request filed with them under DC’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
“I agree with the many executive directors and board members of charter schools who oppose Mr. Allen’s bill — and were never consulted on its development. In the name of treating all public schools in DC the same, the proposed legislation unfairly piles on new responsibilities for a set of schools that have never been funded fairly in our city. Furthermore, it would not enhance the way most parents or teachers want to engage with their schools.” [The DC Line]
‘Collaboration, not division, is the path toward student success,’ writes EmpowerEd executive director Scott Goldstein in The DC Line, in favor of Allen’s bill: “Today the DC Council is holding a hearing on a bill that would subject DC’s charter schools to the same transparency standards as DC’s traditional public schools. The legislation introduced by Ward 6 Council member Charles Allen would require charter schools to follow the Open Meetings Act and the Freedom of Information Act, and to add teacher and student representation to their governing boards.
“The need for these measures should be obvious; they simply bring DC in line with the rest of the country. But the fight over this issue has exposed an underlying and urgent problem in our efforts to successfully turn around struggling schools: the constant and deeply disturbing efforts by some to pit adult interests against student interests instead of doing the essential work of including all voices in our work to end the opportunity gaps that plague our incredible young people.” [The DC Line]
‘Betting contract’s suspension is extended — Judge hopes to rule soon on suit filed over D.C.’s online gambling deal’ is below the fold on the WaPo Metro front. Steve Thompson: “A lawsuit filed last month by Dylan Carragher, a D.C. resident and the founder of a sports betting technology business, said the $215 million contract with Intralot violates federal law because District officials awarded it without competitive bidding. Last week, a Superior Court judge granted Carragher a temporary order blocking the contract.
“At a hearing Tuesday, a different Superior Court judge, John Campbell, extended the restraining order until Oct. 18, saying he hoped to decide on the lawsuit by then without a lengthy legal process.
“‘It seems to me that we might as well just grapple with the issue,’ Campbell said. ‘The merits are what they are. The legal argument is fairly straightforward.’” [WaPo; also WTOP]
'Bowser does an end run around D.C. Council, transfers traffic camera program to DDOT.' WaPo's Luz Lazo: "D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser has moved the city’s automated traffic enforcement program — which deploys speed, red-light and stop-sign cameras — from D.C. police to the District Department of Transportation, doing an end run around the D.C. Council, which opposed [the] move.
"The transfer, effective Tuesday, ramps up an ongoing fight between the mayor and the council over some of the city’s transportation priorities. And it comes after the council nixed a request by Bowser (D) to move the nearly two-decades-old automated enforcement program to DDOT, citing doubts about how the transfer would increase its efficiency.
"Bowser administration officials said that the mayor did not need the council’s approval to move the team of 20 city employees overseeing the traffic camera program to DDOT. The mayor had proposed the transfer multiple times in recent years, and each time her request was denied by the council." [WaPo]
‘D.C. mayor joins janitors in rush-hour march through downtown Washington.’ WaPo’s Marissa Lang: “A wave of purple flooded streets in downtown Washington on Tuesday as unionized janitors and building workers sang, shouted and rattled homemade maracas while they pressed through idling cars and buses during the afternoon rush hour.
“Hundreds of workers and supporters had gathered in McPherson Square to demand a new labor contract and fair wages for thousands of janitors in Maryland, Virginia and the District.
“They were ushered into the street by Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who, with a megaphone in hand, told the crowd that the District stands by its workers.” [WaPo; also City Paper, DCist]
POPULATION BOOM - ‘Dolphins thrive — in the Potomac’ is center of the WaPo Metro front. Karin Brulliard: “REEDVILLE, Va. — Five decades ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared the polluted Potomac River a ‘national disgrace.’ Although it is now much cleaner, officials in Washington are still not convinced the water is safe for humans to swim in.
“But many miles downriver, where the Potomac widens to lakelike proportions as it flows toward the Chesapeake Bay, it teems with a different species of swimmers whose presence may signal healthier waters: dolphins.
“During the past four years, researchers who study the common bottlenose dolphins swimming this part of the Potomac have hardly been able to keep up with their numbers. Dolphins are easily identified by their distinct fins or marks on their bodies, and in 2015, scientists identified about 200 individuals in one section of river off Virginia’s Northern Neck. Now they have counted well over 1,000 dolphins, which sometimes congregate in groups of more than 200.” [WaPo]
COLUMN - ‘Entrepreneurial women of color still face long odds’ is Courtland Milloy’s WaPo column today: “From 2007 to 2016, women-owned businesses in Washington saw a growth rate of 51 percent, one of the fastest in the nation, according to a 2019 report by Beacon, a D.C.-based organization that connects and supports female entrepreneurs.
“The District is home to 68,236 small businesses, according to census data, with 27,000 owned by women. Black women own about 12,400; white women about 11,000.
“But behind those numbers are indications of the formidable challenges that await women of color seeking careers in business. ‘Though Black and White women in D.C. have comparable numbers of businesses,’ the Beacon report said, ‘the differences in total receipts is alarming: with about 11,000 firms, White-women-owned businesses earn nearly $3 billion in receipts, while the approximately 12,000 Black-women-owned businesses earn $600 million in receipts. This gap only widens when factoring in other minority groups.’” [WaPo]
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DC’s first open streets event is this Saturday along 3 miles of Georgia Avenue. Vehicular traffic will be closed for 8 hours. [Curbed]
Office building selling spree before new commercial real estate tax hike went into effect Oct. 1 [Bisnow]
Development roundup: the units planned east of Starburst Intersection on H Street NE [UrbanTurf]
Forever 21's store in the Woodies Building on list of likely closures amid bankruptcy case [WBJ]
'For sale: Eastern Market building once home to unique DC department store' [WTOP]
Newseum announces Dec. 31 closing date for 555 Pennsylvania Ave.NW museum [WTOP, Curbed]
'Man accused of sexual misconduct kept DC child care job' [NBC4]
'Georgetown University to build 11-story dorm near Union Station' [WBJ]
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DC's Teacher of the Year was announced today:
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Muriel Bowser and Cory Booker are Twitter buddies:
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Deputy mayor for public safety and justice ...
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