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

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Feds_-D_C_-police-have-lost-DNA-evidence-in-more-than-200-rape-cases-1008635-100393964.html#ixzz0xcegU0dT

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

Energy-conscious riled by stores that leave doors open and A/C on

By Leslie Tamura
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 31, 2010; 1:27 PM

Christopher Moline was spending a sweltering afternoon with his son Nicholas at the Bowie Town Center mall when he noticed that the doors of Rave clothing store were wide open.

The cold air rushing from the store was refreshing, but it also made his temperature rise as he thought of all the wasted energy.

"I don't know about most folks," said the 42-year-old Bowie man, "but my father always told me to close the door so we wouldn't be heating or cooling the outdoors."

Leaving the doors open while running the air conditioner can increase electricity use by 20 to 25 percent, according to one power company's estimate. The amount wasted depends on location, weather and humidity.

"The equipment is working extra hard to condition a space that'll never be conditioned," said Sarah O'Connell, energy outreach coordinator of the Arlington Initiative to Reduce Emissions. "Businesses are paying extra to condition the outdoor air."

Moline made videos of the wide-open doors throughout the mall and posted them on YouTube. With his camera phone, he taped his conversations with managers, who often claimed that it was the store's general practice to keep their doors open. Open doors made it easier for parents with strollers to get inside, one associate said.

When Moline revisited the mall a few days later, one of the shops he had visited had a broken air conditioner.

"That is not a coincidence, man," said the former Marine, who said the broken system was probably a result of the store overworking it earlier in the week. In addition to being a father of three, a husband and a small-business owner, Moline has trained to be a U.S. Green Building Council LEED Accredited Professional so he can recommend and implement green-building practices in commercial interiors.

"I'm not a sandals-and-granola guy," Moline added. His interests are primarily clean air and energy independence, he said.

In New York, retailers who drain the grid by air conditioning city sidewalks can be fined. Moline and others would like to see a similar policy in the Washington area, or at least a public awareness campaign.

"We need to . . . get the word out: A closed door is a good thing," said Joan Kelsch, Arlington County's green buildings program manager.

The county's Environment and Energy Conservation Commission discussed the issue during a public meeting Monday.

"It is a pet peeve of mine," Bob Coyne, 50, a biologist from Arlington, told the commission. "It's a terrible and unnecessary waste of energy when air streams out into the street."

The commission decided to write to the Arlington Chamber of Commerce and to the county, advising them to start outreach campaigns and include closed doors as a criterion in future county recognitions of energy-efficient retailers.

"We can't fine them as of now," Kelsch said, "but we can encourage, incentivize, educate."

When Kelsch sees "irksome" open-door retailers, she goes inside and tells owners and consumers about the wasted energy.

"The more electricity we use, the more coal we have to burn, and that creates a lot of air pollution," Kelsch said.

On a recent afternoon, a walk down M Street in Georgetown was a mix of tropical heat and cool breezes flowing past doors held open by wooden yoga blocks, door-mounted doorstops, traditional rubber wedges and decorative rocks.

"Unless it's raining or snowing, we keep the doors open," said John Zittrauer, supervisor at the Lacoste apparel store. "It's just more inviting."

Uyanga Bold, working at the Sisley clothing store, said, "It lets people know we're open."

The scent of minty watermelons filtered through the open doors of Lush. The cosmetics company touts biodegradable and eco-friendly packaging, and according to Shama Alexander, environmental officer for the company's North American operations, it has considering installing on-site industrial compost systems in its stores and upgrading to more efficient energy and water systems.

Still, she said, "The issue of closing the doors has been a highly debated topic."

Lush products can melt, so managers decide how to control store temperatures, Alexander explained. But an open door is also a good invitation to shoppers, she added, directly affecting store traffic.

Ryan Wolfe, general manager of the Thunder Burger & Bar, agreed. "It's just a marketing blast of cool air," he said. At the climate-controlled restaurant, anything that could open was open to M Street: the wooden front door, the shutters, the windows.

Kelsch suggests that instead, stores simply post signs advertising their cool air.

Having two sets of doors -- one set that opens to a vestibule, and another that opens to the outdoors-- is another option, said Christopher Conway, an energy auditor and president of Conway Green Construction, based in Bristol, Va. Keeping the front set of doors open and the second set of doors closed helps the store look open and inviting.

Lululemon Athletica in Georgetown has two sets of double doors. "We get the best of both worlds: Save the Earth and get people inside," said Wendy Christensen, assistant manager of the yoga-inspired athletic lifestyle store.

But last week, as temperatures climbed past 90, both sets of doors were open wide.

ksu499 wrote:

My first thought was "oh, please" but upon further contemplation of such things as the electric utilities's desire to build transmission lines from the Midwest to the Washington metro region and the Northeast, and their desire for more coal burning plants in south Virginia to services the growing energy needs of the Washington metro region and the Northeast, I realized that how such a small thing as not trying to air condition the whole outdoors by leaving store doors open can reduce the need for all this and may we won't have to build new transmission lines or power plants, or at least be able to stretch out the timetable.

7/31/2010 2:27:43 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/31/AR2010073101577.html?wprss=rss_metro/md

Crime Down In DC?

D.C. police stats show spike in serious sex crimes

By: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
July 22, 2010

Sexual assaults across the District spiked nearly 50 percent in the first five months of 2010 over the same period last year, according to internal police documents obtained by The Washington Examiner.

From Jan. 1 to June 8 there were 82 sexual assaults in the city, up from 56 during the same period in 2009, the documents show.

But Chief Cathy Lanier told The Examiner that the document is a "preliminary report to be used in conjunction with and read within the context of all the reports and totality of the data available to us." The statistics, she said, are subject to change "for a variety of reasons, including late reporting, reclassification of some offenses, and discovery that some offenses are unfounded."

Lanier said when all classifications of sexual assaults are accounted for, including misdemeanors, there has been more than a 3 percent decrease when compared with last year. She did not elaborate when pressed to provide specific data showing the decline in sexual assaults.

Police union chief Kris Baumann said Lanier's formulation is designed to hide the number of serious violent sexual assaults.

"Sexual assaults are on the rise," he said. "If the department had aggressively informed the public of the danger, some people may not have become victims."

The difficulty is that there's different ways of measuring crime, said D.C. Councilman Phil Mendelson, whose committee has oversight of the police department.

There's always a conflict between the D.C. crime statistics the police department releases and those reported by the FBI. At the end of 2008, Lanier reported to the D.C. Council that violent crime had fallen over the previous year. When the FBI's uniform crime statistics came out in September 2009, they showed the number of murders, rapes, robberies and assaults had increased by 2.3 percent in 2008 from 2007.

Mendelson is sending a letter to Lanier that will "make the point that there needs to be a better explanation of these numbers."

Lanier said she's committed to providing "full and complete" crime information.

"If anything," she said, "more confusion arises because we do provide data in a variety of formats that allows people to analyze the data themselves."

fklopott@washingtonexaminer.com

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/D_C_-police-stats-show-spike-in-serious-sex-crimes-1002401-98961469.html

Youth advocates call for investigation into Nickles’ relationship with DYRS

By: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
07/20/10 12:35 PM EDT

Youth advocates are calling for an investigation into D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles’ relationship with the city’s troubled juvenile justice rehabilitation agency after it became clear on Monday that Nickles played a key role in a Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services leadership shakeup.

Before he became Attorney General, Nickles was the lead attorney representing a group of juveniles in a class-action lawsuit filed against the city that ended in a court ordered cleanup of DYRS, which is ongoing.

“As a lawyer for these youth, Peter Nickles may have a conflict of interest in conducting an investigation, then using it to urge the dismissal of Marc Schindler, whose leadership benefited youth in the system and community safety,” said Daniel Okonkwo, executive director of D.C. Lawyers for Youth. “We are asking the Inspector General, the Bar Association and the D.C. Council’s investigator to look into Nickles’ role in both this investigation and the replacement of interim DYRS director Marc Schindler.”

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/blogs/capital-land/youth-advocates-call-for-investigation-into-nickles-relationship-with-dyrs-98839159.html