Friday, August 27, 2010

It's Alll Clear If You Would Just See It

Lanier boasts transparency but doesn't deliver data

By: Scott McCabe
Examiner Staff Writer
August 25, 2010


Shortly after D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier boasted that her agency was "the most transparent police department in the country," her spokeswoman said the report that purportedly supported the chief's claim of transparency was not available.

Speaking on TBD TV's "NewsTalk," Lanier said the Metropolitan Police Department offers more information and detailed statistics than any other police department in the United States. As proof, she cited an FBI audit earlier this month of the department's crime statistics that she said passed "with flying colors."

"If anybody has any questions," she said Tuesday, "I think the FBI can clear that up."

FBI spokesman Steve Fischer said he could not comment on the audit and said the release of the results were left up to the discretion of the police department. Auditors provided police a packet describing who they talked to and any areas of concern, and a formal report will be completed in a couple of months, Fischer said.

"But it's not really a pass-fail thing," Fischer said.

When asked to see the information that would back Lanier's claims, police spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump said Wednesday that it would be months before it was available.

D.C. Council member Mary Cheh credited Lanier for being readily available to meet with residents, but when it comes to releasing information, the police department has been less than forthcoming, Cheh said.

"If [MPD] is the most transparent, then police departments around the country need lots of work," Cheh said. "There's been a lot of foot dragging."

The department's history of withholding information and manipulating statistics to make crime numbers look better had been well documented:

¥ Last year, the FBI reported that violent crime in the District rose 2.3 percent in 2008 while Lanier was claiming that violence had fallen by more than 5 percent during the same period.

¥ Up until this year, D.C. had been the only major city in the country that did not provide preliminary crime statistics. When The Examiner asked for the preliminary numbers in 2009, Lanier vetoed their release.

¥ D.C. police have denied an FBI report that the police department had lost DNA evidence to more than 200 rape cases.

¥ The department has refused to provide credit card receipts and travel reimbursements for Mayor Adrian Fenty's protection unit.

¥ When thieves stole bikes from Fenty's home this summer, the incident was not initially logged into the police computer system.

smccabe@washingtonexaminer.com




http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Lanier-boasts-transparency-but-doesn_t-deliver-data-566809-101511479.html

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Contracting glitch leads to demand for payment on free D.C. energy audits

By Phillip Lucas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 16, 2010; B01

Hundreds of District homeowners signed up for free household energy audits last year through the D.C. Department of the Environment -- some hoping to cut their utility bills, some to be "greener" and some because it was free.

But this month, instead of the energy assessments they were promised, more than 100 homeowners received letters saying that liens had been filed on their property because the city never paid a contractor for doing the work.

Patuxent Environmental Group Energy Solutions sent letters to participants in the audit program telling them that the city was required to pay the cost of the audits -- about $310 each, according to the D.C. Department of the Environment. The letter said that because the city hadn't paid Patuxent, liens would be filed against residents' homes to recoup the costs. The letters, signed by Patuxent's vice president, JoAnn Spence, also directed all questions to the D.C. Department of the Environment.

"Honestly, I just laughed," said Emily Swartz, a Chevy Chase resident whose audit was done in January. "I'm sure it's just a last-ditch effort to get paid."

D.C. Council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) didn't find the letters amusing.

In a response to Patuxent on Aug. 9, she called the company's action harassment and questioned the legal basis on which it had acted.

Matthew Cooper, the company's chief executive, responded to Cheh's letter the next day, saying that the company had not actually filed liens and that Patuxent is in a valid contract dispute with the Department of the Environment over the audits.

The Fairfax-based company said it had a contract with the District. What it did not have, according to Department of the Environment officials, were purchase orders from the agency authorizing the audits it had done.

Christophe Tulou, the department's director, said the problem with the contractors arose when the department switched the source of the audit program's funding.

The program was initially funded by the Sustainable Energy Trust Fund, established by the Clean and Affordable Energy Act of 2008. The legislation included a surcharge on Pepco bills to temporarily fund the program.

Last fall, the Department of the Environment sought to use federal stimulus money for the program because funding was set to expire at the end of fiscal 2009. Tulou said that the agency has worked since late September to ensure the availability of stimulus funding for the program but that it was waiting for government approval to use stimulus funds that way when the audits were performed.

"That's literally this week getting resolved, so we'll have people out doing audits soon," Tulou said.

The agency has secured $980,000 in federal funding, enough to complete more than 3,000 audits, according to Taresa Lawrence, the agency's acting deputy director.

Tulou said it was too soon to comment on the issue of Patuxent's reimbursement.

Contractors working on the audit program, which included Patuxent and Elysian Energy, based in Silver Spring, were not authorized by the agency to perform audits after Sept. 30, 2009, because funding for their reimbursement had not been secured, Tulou said.

"We did 143 audits before we realized they weren't going to be paying us," Cooper said Monday. "We worked into the first week of February and then stopped."

Tulou said contractors were most likely working from an old list of homeowners such as Swartz, who signed up for audits in 2009 but didn't have them completed by January. Swartz signed up for an audit on the Department of the Environment's Web site in August 2009, was contacted by Patuxent on Sept. 9, 2009, and was visited for an audit Jan. 7.

Jim Conlon, president of Elysian, said his company performed more than 100 audits and had to pay more than $100,000 out of pocket for the work. Conlon said Elysian did not dispute the city's nonpayment, however.

Both companies bid again in May for work with the District's audit program. Elysian was one of three companies awarded a contract in June. Patuxent was not.

The switch in funding sources caused a backlog of about 1,800 audits. Additionally, homeowners who were audited without authorization and got letters from Patuxent instead of their results were contacted by the department and will be visited again, Tulou said.

In her Aug. 9 letter, Cheh asked Patuxent to immediately write to homeowners to withdraw the initial letter and apologize. She is considering pursuing legislative hearings "and, if necessary, a legislative investigation," she wrote.

"I hope that they quickly act to repair the damage that they've done," she said in an interview Aug. 9.

Patuxent drafted a follow-up letter that it planned to send to audited homeowners, Cooper said. In response to what Cheh had written Aug. 9, Cooper wrote Aug. 10 that "no liens have been placed on homes, and as stated in the letter to homeowners, [Patuxent] has no further plans to pursue that avenue at this time."

In a letter the department sent to homeowners, Tulou said Patuxent has no legal basis to place liens on people's homes. He told homeowners that the D.C. attorney general's office would intervene if any liens were filed.

Kathleen Saunders, who lives on 12th Street NW near Shepherd Park, said the letter she received from Patuxent on Aug. 7 was more confusing than upsetting. She'd like to see the letter of apology Cheh suggested go a step further, to address the confusion over the audits.

"What I want is something in writing that says there's not a lien on my house," she said, "since I have something in writing that says there is one."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/15/AR2010081502853.html?sub=AR

Report The Crime, Lose The Evidence

My mayor keeps telling me that I am safer despite numerous examples of why in my area I do not feel safer than 4 years ago..........
In this article from the Examiner, it is reported / alleged that DC police have lost DNA evidence in numerous rape cases. Doesn't make me feel any safer. The DC police chief, Cathy Lanier, is primarily quoted as disputing the report. So how many rape cases are closed each year? How many result in a conviction?

Feds: D.C. police have lost DNA evidence in more than 200 rape cases

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Fenty Time

It seems to me a fairly reasonable response to the event described in the following account, to wonder just what is going on - quoting from the article:
"It's ironic for this to actually happen in the District's city hall and for all these juvenile justice experts to lose control over these girls," Walker said. "It's really telling."

As Arsenio Hall regularly said, "things that make you go hmmmmmm????".


Awards ceremony for rehabbed youth ends in brawl

By: Scott McCabe
Examiner Staff Writer
August 2, 2010

Police backup called
to put end to melee

An awards ceremony recognizing good behavior by youth in the District's juvenile justice system ended in a brawl and three arrests.

Mayor Adrian Fenty had just finished handing out the honors to the Department of Youth and Rehabilitation Services' most successfully rehabilitated offenders when three of the girls got into an argument, according to law enforcement sources and police records.

"One of the girls got a glazed look in her eyes, and it was on," said one witness who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.

Chairs and fists started flying, witnesses said.

Administration officials and security quickly moved in to stop the Thursday night fray, but the melee continued for several minutes, witnesses said. Police backup and D.C. fire and rescue workers were called to the Wilson Building to help quell the violence and take care of an injured person.

Neither the mayor nor any of the attendees were seriously injured.

Administration spokeswoman Mafara Hobson said the mayor did not have any immediate reaction to the fight.

"He was concerned about the kids' safety," Hobson said.

Police arrested Grace Ebiasah, 18, Anna Ebiasah, 20, and Deanna Morris, 19, with fighting in a public place. All are from Southeast Washington.

Johnnie Walker, past president of the local branch of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the mayor got a firsthand look at what his caseworkers are confronted with daily.

"It's ironic for this to actually happen in the District's city hall and for all these juvenile justice experts to lose control over these girls," Walker said. "It's really telling."

The brawl highlights the problems within the agency and the headaches it is causing the mayor during what was supposed to be a relatively easy road to re-election.

Under mounting pressure last week, Fenty fired his interim DYRS director and replaced him with a top aide to Attorney General Peter Nickles. The firings came on the heels of an investigation that found numerous problems at the agency. The report found that 71 percent of the juvenile offenders in DYRS were convicted again within two years, and that youths had been disappearing for weeks at a time before the agency sought an arrest order.

The investigation began in April after three DYRS youth were charged with killing popular District middle school principal Brian Betts.

Since the beginning of the year, at least 10 youths who were supposed to have been under the supervision of the agency have been charged with murder, and six of the agency's youth have been slain themselves.

smccabe@washingtonexaminer.com




http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Awards-ceremony-for-rehabbed-youth-ends-in-brawl-1005864-99720924.html