Bowser Time!

DC politricks keep on rollin'..........

Big money for the White House and for Congress. Now for D.C. city hall, too?

Close allies of D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) have begun amassing large sums of money that could have unprecedented sway over city politics.

They have created a political action committee similar to a federal super PAC, in that it can accept contributions of unlimited size, and are pushing to raise $1 million before the end of the year.

That would be enough to finance the bulk of a mayoral reelection bid three years early, but Ben Soto, treasurer of the PAC and former campaign treasurer for Bowser, says the money will probably be spent long before then, beginning with bolstering her D.C. Council allies on the ballot next year.

“We’re reaching out to folks who are happy with the mayor and who want to support her, and we’ve had a really good response,” Soto said. “We’re doing what we think is best to move the city forward, and it is independent of her.”

How the PAC is being funded, though, is beginning to draw intense criticism for a mayor who was elected by promising a fresh break from the campaign-finance scandal that clouded the tenure of her predecessor.

More than $300,000 has poured into the pro-Bowser PAC, mostly from corporations that either have business before the city or that are actively seeking it, according to campaign disclosures filed last week.

Multiple developers bidding for rights to parcels in the city’s $200 million revitalization of the Southwest Waterfront area, one of the nation’s largest public works projects, have each donated $10,000 or more. So has Phinis Jones, a longtime supporter of Bowser who stands to profit from a development near the mayor’s planned $55 million Washington Wizards’ practice facility in Southeast.

Three men that Bowser has appointed to powerful boards and commissions also have contributed $10,000 each before or after their position confirmations. A fourth has given $2,500, and a fifth is serving as the PAC’s attorney and is paid by the fund.

Health-care companies and their executives have been the most frequent and largest contributors.

Two — a Virginia company and a board member of a health-care nonprofit — have already contributed 10 times the limit allowed to a mayoral campaign of $2,000.

“It’s exceedingly troubling. This is nurturing a lack of reasonable regulation to keep companies from trying to buy government contracts,” said Craig Holman, who lobbies for stricter campaign-finance laws for the nonprofit Public Citizen. “I fully expect the city to run into similar scandals that we saw under the previous mayor: This is on the road to do so.”

Top aides to Bowser and the organizers of the PAC push back strongly on that suggestion, saying there are few similarities between the pro-Bowser PAC and the alleged “shadow campaign” conducted by city health-care contractor Jeffrey Thompson on behalf of the 2010 mayoral campaign of former mayor Vincent C. Gray (D).

“What people were upset about with Vince Gray was that money was given that was not reported,” said Bowser’s chief of staff, John Falcicchio, who is not affiliated with the PAC. “What you have here is an entity that was formed outside the government to promote and expand the mayor’s agenda, and everything they do is reported.”

Bowser cannot legally affect how the PAC spends its money, and it is not affiliated with her office. But she can fundraise for the PAC and has done so twice, appearing at a Dupont Circle steakhouse and an H Street NE restaurant where organizers were soliciting donations.

The PAC spent more than $30,000 on polling this year, Soto said, including questions to gauge the mayor’s popularity.

Under a quirk in a recently revised D.C. elections law, the pro-Bowser PAC can raise unlimited amounts from contributors in nonelection years. Unlike a federal super PAC, the source of all contributions must be publicly disclosed. The existence of the PAC was first reported by WAMU (88.5 FM).

Last week, Soto, the PAC’s treasurer, told The Washington Post that the mayor’s backers were embarking on a fundraising sprint to try to raise $1 million by the end of the year. After that, contributions to the PAC will be limited to $5,000 per person.


In a riff off her campaign slogan last year — a “fresh start” for all of the District’s eight political wards — Soto dubbed the group FreshPAC.

“If there are initiatives that she is taking on that we think are consistent with . . . bringing prosperity to all eight wards, then we’ll help in any way possible,” Soto said.

Among other local contests next year that the PAC could influence will be a race for a full, four-year term for the Ward 8 D.C. Council seat. LaRuby May, a Bowser campaign organizer, won the right to finish the term of the late Marion Barry there last year with the help of more than $100,000 in contributions from Bowser allies.

With the PAC money, May’s connection to Bowser could figure prominently again.
Even before next year, the PAC’s swelling coffers could affect the political dynamics on the council, especially if members think that their votes will be viewed negatively by the mayor and that the considerable resources of the PAC could be thrown behind a challenger.

Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D), who has sparred most with Bowser as she has attempted to consolidate power in her administration and away from the council and the city’s first elected attorney general, offered a terse response when asked about the PAC. “No comment,” he said.

Soto said it was too soon to disclose who of the six council members up for reelection next year the PAC would back.

But FreshPAC said it will support the “council members who think in the same way” as Bowser, he said. “Or if it’s inconsistent with moving all eight wards forward, their opponent may get our help.”

And there probably will be policy initiatives beyond next year’s council races in which the PAC may become involved, Soto said, including public-relations campaigns.

The concerted effort by Bowser allies to funnel money into the PAC is unique for a mayor in the 40-year history of home rule in the District and a rarity nationwide among big-city mayors.

In Los Angeles and Chicago, super PACs roiled recent mayoral elections with millions in outside spending. Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg also worked with federal PACs to further his efforts on gun-control legislation.

Holman, the Public Citizen lobbyist, said the pro-Bowser PAC is taking the city in the wrong direction, away from other notable big-city mayors who have recently sought to temper the influence of outside money, including Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter (D).

Linda Beebe, president of the League of Women Voters of D.C., said the organization has just begun to study FreshPAC and has a series of meetings planned next month about money and influence in D.C. politics. Of FreshPAC, she said, “I am sure this will be part of our discussion.”

Bowser appointees who have contributed $10,000 to the PAC include Frederick Hill, whose experience for a seat on the Board of Zoning Adjustments was questioned; Alan Bubes, a member of the Washington Convention and Sports Authority Board of Directors; and Buwa Binitie, a Housing Finance Agency board member. Messages left for the three were not immediately returned.

Binitie is also among a core group behind the PAC with close ties to former mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), including Jones, Bryan S. Irving, Earle C. Horton III and Soto, who also served as Fenty’s campaign treasurer.

Soto said that because the PAC’s internal polling is showing Bowser as popular in her first year, it was the perfect time to press for fundraising.
“D.C.,” he said, “to me, man, it’s always political season in D.C.”


https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/big-money-for-the-white-house-and-for-congress-now-for-dc-city-hall/2015/10/17/5072bcf2-744b-11e5-9cbb-790369643cf9_story.html

Where There Is Smoke, Is There Fire?

Hmmmmmmmmm.......

E-mails show D.C. schools officials were alerted to cheating at Noyes in 2010

By Emma Brown, Published: January 30

Teachers’ union officials in 2010 directly e-mailed D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson telling her that the principal of a D.C. elementary school had reported seeing employees cheating on a city-issued test, according to e-mails obtained by the Associated Press through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The e-mails — which offered no specifics about the allegations and said the principal’s claims were uncorroborated — show that Henderson quickly referred the matter to the school system’s then-chief of accountability, Erin McGoldrick, sending an e-mail about the matter less than two hours after she received the report. Henderson asked McGoldrick to be in touch with union leaders about the allegations and wrote to the union official: “Thanks for alerting us.”
McGoldrick replied, writing that the school system had already been informed of allegations at the school, Northeast Washington’s Noyes Elementary, and was in the midst of finalizing an investigation.
It’s not clear from the e-mails — in early November 2010 — whether McGoldrick knew that the allegations the union officials forwarded were new and had occurred only the day before; the union officials’ e-mails don’t specify a date. At the time, the school system was in the midst of investigating older cheating allegations at Noyes.
Adell Cothorne, the principal of Noyes at the time, left the school in 2011 and went on to file a whistleblower lawsuit claiming that school system officials ignored her efforts to raise an alarm about cheating.
Cothorne said that in 2010, she immediately reported the alleged cheating incident by phone to two central office administrators, who never investigated it. Henderson disputed that account at the time, saying there was no record that Cothorne had reported any such incident to school system officials.
The e-mails show instead that union officials contacted Henderson, and that union officials also investigated. Clay White, who was then the union’s chief of staff, said the next day that union leaders directed two field representatives to fully investigate the matter, according to an e-mail White sent to Henderson, McGoldrick and others.
The whistleblower suit prompted an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education, which did not find evidence to support Cothorne’s claims. Cothorne withdrew the case last year.
Cothorne told the Associated Press that the union’s 2010 e-mail exchange with Henderson shows that officials didn’t take cheating seriously because they didn’t follow up with her to ask what she had seen. School system officials said they take every cheating allegation seriously, and pointed out that Noyes has been the subject of multiple investigations during the past several years.
“It is perhaps the most investigated school in the city,” Pete Weber, the school system’s chief of data and strategy, said in an interview Thursday. Weber said that the school system investigated Cothorne’s claims when they became public in 2013 and found no substance to them.
Noyes and its fast-improving test scores became a model for success during the tenure of former Chancellor Michelle Rhee. But the school came under scrutiny after a 2011 USA Today investigation found an unusually high number of wrong-to-right erasures at Noyes and more than 100 other schools in the city.
Educators’ jobs and merit bonuses depended on improving test scores, and between 2007 and 2009, some schools saw huge increases that later reversed after test security was tightened.
Several employees have been fired for cheating at Noyes, but investigators have said they did not find evidence of the widespread cheating suggested by USA Today’s report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/e-mails-show-dc-schools-officials-were-alerted-to-cheating/2014/01/30/26cbc592-89ec-11e3-916e-e01534b1e132_story.html

HPV Immunization - Bachmann Got It Right - Who Else Does Merck Have In It's Pocket?

Lot of press about HPV today due to Michelle Bachmann's questioning of Rick Perry. The Washington Post did an article about Perry's connections to Merck, the manufacturer of the HPV immunization drug Gardasil. This is the link to the article - http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/perry-has-deep-financial-ties-to-maker-of-hpv-vaccine/2011/09/13/gIQAVKKqPK_story.html?hpid=z1&sub=AR
Following are comments I left on the article -


While I adamantly disagree with Michelle Bachmann on most things when she refers to crony capitalism, she is on to something.
I live in DC which requires this immunization unless parents opt out. On the strong advice of my daughter's pediatrician (female), we have opted out. Dangerous might ruffle some sensibilities but anyway you stack it up, there have been very serious side effects from this drug and the overall benefit / protection is at best questionable.
This immunization is first about profits for Merck. Somewhere down the line it might be about women's health but if you think that is the driving factor, I have a bridge to sell you. As I follow it in DC, by being required by government, Merck is absolved of liability. Pretty good deal for Merck, bad deal for for girls.
This immunization was approved by the FDA barely 5 years ago in 2006. Within a couple of years, Merck had succeeded in getting it required for school entry in countless jurisdictions. There was no great public out cry for this - it took Merck a lot of lobbying and yes MONEY to get it required. If Merck thought this drug was so needed, why would they need it required by government and thus relieve them of liability? If it is so good, why wouldn't people seek it out? Because it isn't so good.
By having the vaccine required by law it guarantees Merck a paying market and no liability - wow! I'd spend a lot of money too if I could have a business model like that!
Further, here in DC, the language is less than clear. After filling out the opt out, we still received a notice from the school nurse yesterday (how ironic) about our daughter not having it. Nowhere in the language of the letter does it say parents can opt out just because they want to - it refers to opting out for religious and/or medical reasons. Not exactly full disclosure.
In DC, David Catania is the man who pushed this requirement through the City Council. I would love the Post to do an article about his ties to Merck. This is crony capitalism at it's best.

Tighten Test Security, Scores Fall

Perhaps there is a pattern here...........

Scores fall for some D.C. schools amid test security questions

By Nick Anderson, Published: August 2

Reading and math scores on citywide tests fell this year in several D.C. schools that came under scrutiny for potential security breaches in the previous year’s exams, according to data made public Tuesday.

In a few cases, the plunge recorded through the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System was especially stark.

At Noyes Education Campus in Northeast Washington, the pass rate in reading dropped more than 25 percentage points, to 32 percent, and the pass rate in math dropped more than 20 points, to 28 percent.

Noyes was one of three schools for which some 2010 scores were invalidated in May after an investigation found evidence or strong suspicion of cheating.

The two others were Leckie Elementary in Southwest and C.W. Harris Elementary in Southeast. At Leckie, pass rates slid slightly this year in both subjects. At C.W. Harris, there was a two-point uptick in the reading pass rate, to 21 percent, and an eight-point drop in math, to 8 percent.

Test scores can rise and fall from year to year for various reasons, including teacher and student turnover. What is unclear is whether heightened test security this year played a role in changing results at those three schools or others where student answer sheets from years past have shown unusually high rates of erasures. Experts track erasure rates to flag classrooms and schools where cheating may have occurred, with adults switching or helping to switch answers from wrong to right.

Questions about test security have arisen this year in Atlanta, Washington, Baltimore and elsewhere. D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson, who has repeatedly expressed confidence in the city’s testing program, was not available Tuesday to comment.

Tamara Reavis, director of assessment and accountability for the office of the state superintendent of education, said D.C. officials are still analyzing the results. But she added that test security was strengthened this year. “We do feel the security for 2011 was superior,” she said, “and we stand by the validity of these results.”

Last month, D.C. officials released citywide summaries of test results that showed mostly flat achievement trends compared with 2010 in much of the school system, while scores for independent public charter schools showed modest gains. Tuesday’s release from the state superintendent’s office provided a detailed look at scores for each school.

Results are used to rate schools and are a factor in teacher evaluations.

A Washington Post review of data on 11 schools in which some classrooms were flagged for high erasure rates on 2010 tests found that scores declined this year in several. There were double-digit drops in pass rates for reading and math at J.O. Wilson Elementary and LaSalle-Backus Education Campus, both in Northeast Washington, and at Whittier Education Campus in Northwest.

But the trend was not uniform. Among the 11 schools, pass rates in math rose nine points at Plummer Elementary in Southeast, to 36 percent, and five points at Truesdell Education Campus in Northwest, to 42 percent.

Staff writer Bill Turque contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/scores-fall-for-some-dc-schools-amid-test-security-questions/2011/08/02/gIQA8KSArI_print.html

When Did Jim Graham Know His Chief Of Staff Was A Crook?

FBI tapes used to paint different portraits of former D.C. Council staffer

By Victor Zapana and Del Quentin Wilber, Published: June 7

Surreptitiously recorded audio and videotapes made by the FBI during a lengthy undercover sting of the D.C. government and the taxi industry were played in court for the first time Tuesday as prosecutors and defense lawyers sought to paint two very different portraits of a former top D.C. Council staffer being sentenced on corruption charges.

Prosecutors said the tapes prove that Ted G. Loza, a former chief of staff to council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), used his status to enrich himself as he accepted thousands of dollars in cash and free trips from a man seeking to influence legislation. Defense lawyers pointed to those same tapes as evidence that Loza was only accepting gifts from a close friend.

Loza, who pleaded guilty to accepting illegal gratuities and making a false statement, has admitted that he accepted $1,500 from an FBI informant who sought his help to influence legislation beneficial to some in the taxicab business. Loza, whose hearing continues Wednesday, will face eight to 14 months in prison when he is sentenced under federal guidelines by U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Crabb played 11 audio and videotapes of calls and meetings between Loza and Abdulaziz Kamus, an advocate for Ethiopian cabdrivers, who was working closely with businessmen in the taxi industry.

Kamus, who later pleaded guilty to bribery charges and became an FBI informant, and the businessmen were seeking legislation that would make their investments in the industry more profitable.

During a November 2007 phone call between Loza and Kamus, the staffer asked his friend for financial help, according to the tapes. “If possible,” Loza asked Kamus, “can you raise a little money for us to go on this trip” to El Salvador?

Within days, Kamus met Loza outside the John A. Wilson Building and handed the council aide $500 in cash, according to FBI special agent Jay Greenberg, who testified Tuesday.

In 2008, Kamus gave Loza a $500 or $1,000 “Father’s Day” present to spur taxi legislation; soon, he handed over an additional $2,000 in cash and a digital camera as a reward for getting a law passed, Greenberg said.

Kamus started working as an undercover informant in 2009, and the FBI began videotaping his meetings with Loza. That June, Kamus gave Loza $1,000 in cash as a second Father’s Day present. “Is this just a gift?” Loza asked Kamus. “What do you want me to do? I’ll talk to Graham.”

A few days after more taxi legislation was introduced by Graham, Kamus gave the staffer $500. “You know, I need it,” Loza told Kamus as he took the cash in Kamus’s car.

During that meeting, Kamus also handed Loza $2,600 in an envelope to pass along to Graham — money the council member did not accept, according to officials. During a meeting videotaped later, Loza returned the money to Kamus.

Graham said in an interview that he told Loza to immediately return the money but was so shocked by the experience that he did not call authorities.

“I accepted nothing of value, including cash, from anyone who may have had an intention of attempting to influence legislation,” Graham said.

While prosecutors sought to portray Loza as a corrupt official — “Was Ted Loza Abdul Kamus’s father?” Crabb asked Greenberg after the Father’s Day payments were disclosed — attorneys for Loza argue that he was only accepting gifts from a friend.

They noted that the aide had scant influence in the legislative process, that the taxi bills were popular and that Loza was a good friend of Kamus’s. During one videotaped meeting, Loza hugged Kamus and said, “I love you.”

“These were just gifts, not bribes,” said Pleasant Brodnax, one of Loza’s attorneys.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/fbi-tapes-used-to-paint-different-portraits-of-former-dc-council-staffer/2011/06/07/AGpwBRLH_story.html

Details emerge in FBI effort to investigate D.C. Council’s Jim Graham

By Del Quentin Wilber and and Victor Zapana, Published: June 8

D.C. Council member Jim Graham sat in his office, an envelope stuffed with $2,600 in his hands. He had just been given the cash by a trusted aide, who said it came from a businessman.

After a minute or so, Graham said, he shut the flap, secured it with tape, and initialed and dated the envelope. As he handed it back on that July afternoon in 2009, Graham (D-Ward 1) told his chief of staff, Ted G. Loza, to return it immediately.

“I think I saw that in a movie someplace, where you have to initial it,” Graham said in an interview Wednesday. Aspects of the encounter first emerged in federal court Tuesday during a sentencing hearing for Loza.

Loza, the former chief of staff who passed Graham the money, has pleaded guilty to corruption charges tied to his acceptance of $1,500 in cash gifts from an FBI informant — the same man who had asked him to give the cash to Graham.

Graham said that he was shocked by the attempted payment and that he did not report the matter to authorities. In retrospect, he said, he should have. But he insists he never suspected that the cash or his aide were connected to illegal activity. “I trusted him,” Graham said of Loza. “I was angry at him, though.”

What Graham didn’t know as he examined the envelope was that the money was really from the FBI. The attempted payment illustrates how investigators working a long-running, wide-ranging inquiry into the D.C. government’s ties to the taxi industry tested the longtime council member.

Graham has not been charged with any crimes related to the probe, which has resulted in the arrests of more than three dozen people — mostly would-be taxi drivers seeking to illegally buy licenses. Loza, Graham’s longtime confidante, is the highest-ranking D.C. official to be ensnared.

That federal agents had focused on Graham in their inquiry was widely known, but little has emerged about the government’s efforts to investigate him. As recently as this week, federal authorities refused to say whether Graham was, or is, a target of their inquest into the taxi industry, code-named “Cash Cab.”

But Graham said the money wasn’t the FBI’s only attempt to see whether he was corrupt. Agents tapped his phones, he said. And, he says, an undercover agent posing as an investor offered him a lavish trip to Miami to discuss potential projects in the District. “I had no idea why they wanted me to go to Miami to discuss that,” Graham said. “That’s why I said no.”

At his 63rd birthday party in 2008, Graham said, he accepted a colorful portrait of himself as a gift from the Ethiopian community. He said he later learned that the FBI had paid for it. Tempted to report the painting on disclosure statements as an “unsolicited gift” from the FBI, Graham said he thought better of it. “I was advised not to antagonize them further,” said Graham, who keeps the portrait in a closet.

William Miller, a spokesman for the District’s U.S. attorney’s office, declined to comment “on any aspects” of the case. FBI agent Kate Schweit, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Washington Field Office, also declined to comment.

The disclosure of the cash payment and Loza’s sentencing, which is to continue this month, come at a challenging time for elected officials in the District. Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) has been dogged by accusations that his 2010 election campaign struck a deal with a fellow candidate and rewarded the man with a job and cash payments. D.C. Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown (D) is under investigation for unreported fundraising from his 2008 campaign, and questions remain about his role in having the city government procure the leases of two expensive sport-utility vehicles. And council member Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5) has been accused of diverting hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars and charity funds for personal use.

Legal experts said Graham did not appear to break the law in failing to alert authorities to the attempted cash payment. In not doing so, however, he opened the door to questions about his conduct. The D.C. Council’s ethics code urges its members to report activity that they know or “should know” might be illegal.

“I can make that argument he was under no obligation to report it because it’s not clear on its face what it is,” said Steven Levin, a former federal prosecutor who focused on public corruption matters. “It’s not clear it’s bribery. It’s not clear it’s a thank-you. It’s not clear it’s a campaign contribution. Out of an abundance of caution, a smart councilman should have reported it, if only to protect himself from later accusations.”

The FBI got close to Graham through an FBI informant named Abdulaziz Kamus, an advocate for Ethiopian taxi drivers and a close associate of powerful figures in the D.C. taxi industry. Kamus, who pleaded guilty to bribery and conspiracy charges for his role in the influence-buying scheme, allowed agents to secretly record him giving cash to Loza while in his car as he sought legislation beneficial to some in the taxi industry.

After accepting a $1,000 “Father’s Day” present from Kamus, Loza asked the man: “What do you want me to do? What do you want me . . . I’ll talk to Graham.”

A month later, again in Kamus’s car, the informant gave Loza $500 after the aide handed him copies of taxi legislation that had just been introduced by his boss.

Kamus then passed Loza an envelope filled with cash. “And this is for council member Graham,” he told Loza, “for introducing, you know, the legislation.”

Kamus told Loza the money was from the businessman — the undercover agent — who got a refund after Graham refused the first-class airline ticket to Miami.

“And if he doesn’t take it?” Loza asked.

On July 23 — nearly two weeks after trying to give Graham the money — Loza returned the cash to Kamus during another videotaped meeting in the informant’s car. After Kamus counted the money, Loza told him that Graham wanted to “thank you for the intention but he can’t take it.”

Loza encouraged Kamus to have his associates donate to Graham’s constituent services fund. Two months later, Loza was arrested.

Staff writer Mike Debonis contributed to this story.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/details-emerge-in-fbi-effort-to-investigate-dc-councils-jim-graham/2011/06/08/AGs0EXMH_story.html

Can't Blame The Youth

I have met and talked with Harry Thomas a number of times since before he was elected to the DC Council. I know him through baseball. Most recent time I saw him was over the past winter at a baseball practice facility in Maryland. He was there with his son and I was there with my son. These are serious charges; a sad day.

D.C. attorney general: Council’s Thomas diverted public funds

By Mike DeBonis and David Nakamura, Published: June 6

D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. intentionally diverted more than $300,000 in public funds intended for youth baseball programs and spent it on a luxury sport-utility vehicle and personal travel, Attorney General Irvin B. Nathan said Monday.

In a lawsuit filed in D.C. Superior Court, Nathan alleged that Thomas (D-Ward 5) used the funds for his Team Thomas organizations to purchase a $59,000 Audi SUV and pay for jaunts to Las Vegas and Pebble Beach, Calif. Nathan seeks to force Thomas to repay the city money that he is accused of rerouting to his operation, plus damages and other costs totaling more than $1 million. Thomas denied any wrongdoing.

The allegations represent the latest in a series of scandals that have tarnished the District’s top elected officials and given the appearance of a government in disarray. Nathan announced his findings just hours before former mayoral candidate Sulaimon Brown (D) testified under oath at a council hearing that Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) gave him improper payoffs and a job in a quid pro quo to smear his key opponent.

Several council members also are caught up in political controversies, including neglecting to account for campaign donations, failing to pay taxes and purchasing luxury vehicles with taxpayer funds. The scandals are weighing on a city trying to rebound from an economic slump and last year’s divisive mayoral campaign.

“We are extremely disappointed in this violation of public service by Mr. Thomas,” Nathan said, calling his behavior “willful, intentional and knowing. ”

Nathan has asked U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen to consider filing criminal charges against Thomas. William Miller, Machen’s spokesman, said federal prosecutors have been investigating Thomas.

“The U.S. Attorney’s Office is aware of the referral and will review the information . . . as we continue our investigation,” Miller said in a statement.

Thomas, the son of a respected three-term council member who died in 1999, vowed to fight the allegations. “There is no settlement that I would make that would imply that there was some wrongdoing on my part,” he told reporters in front of the John A. Wilson Building.

Thomas, who arrived at his news conference in the blue Audi, said he would provide proof that the money was spent on sport programs and maintained that his business paid for the vehicle. He added that he would not resign his council seat or step down from his chairmanship of the powerful Economic Development Committee.

Timothy Day, a Republican who first raised the accusations against Thomas during an unsuccessful campaign to unseat him last fall, called his alleged actions “a disgrace” and added that “his lifelong quotes of giving back to the children were false. He clearly gave more to himself.”

D.C. Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown (D) said in a statement that he was “greatly disheartened” by the allegations. Brown met with Thomas on Monday and said he would issue “a plan of action” Tuesday.

Nathan’s allegations again bring unwanted attention to a council marred for months in embarrassing political controversies.

Gray is accused of giving jobs to unqualified campaign supporters. Brown has been rebuked for purchasing a luxury SUV upon assuming office in January and for his failure to report a quarter-million dollars in donations during his 2008 campaign for a council seat. Council member Michael A. Brown (D-At Large) failed to pay city property taxes, and member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) was censured and stripped of his committee chairmanship last year for giving a city contract to a former girlfriend.

Thomas’s supporters said they would wait until the lawsuit is fully heard before judging the council member.

“From a community perspective, it’s pretty regretful these allegations have been made,” said Angel Sherri Alston, an advisory neighborhood commissioner who is president of the Ward 5 Democrats. “These are very serious allegations, but there is still a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Until then, we will keep council member Thomas in our prayers.”

The allegations concern two district groups controlled by Thomas: a for-profit business created in 2004, which remains active, and a now-defunct nonprofit group created shortly after Thomas joined the council.

The nonprofit group never obtained federal tax exempt status, the lawsuit alleges, and it was never licensed to accept charitable contributions. Yet it collected some money, largely through a pair of fundraisers held at Langston Golf Course, and Nathan alleges they paid for travel and a Washington Nationals suite worth $696, not the youth sports programs Thomas advertised to donors.

In his report, Nathan also lays out a scheme in which Thomas is alleged to have used his influence to send taxpayer money to his Team Thomas groups.

In 2007, the council voted to budget $400,000 for “youth baseball programs” via the Children and Youth Investment Trust Corp., a public-private intermediary that offers grants to nonprofits serving youths. Although the council did not identify a specific organization to receive the money, Thomas, it is alleged, directed the trust to give it to the Langston Golf Course.

A grant of $392,000 was sent to the course’s foundation, Langston 21, whose board of directors included the longtime resident golf pro and Thomas friend James Garvin. Nathan’s lawsuit alleges that Garvin helped reroute three-quarters of those funds back to the Team Thomas organizations.

Nathan said Monday that Thomas’s council staff fabricated documents for the Langston 21 foundation, describing programs and sports camps that never existed and never mentioning Team Thomas. Yet the council member personally picked up checks from Garvin and Langston 21 President Marshall Banks made out to Team Thomas, Nathan said.

On Feb. 8, two days after picking up two checks worth $75,000, Thomas took a cashier’s check to Tischer Audi in Silver Spring, where he used it to buy a 2008 Audi Q7 4.2 Quattro Premium SUV, Nathan alleges.

The cashier’s check and a $9,000 trade-in for his Dodge Durango weren’t quite enough to complete the purchase. To pay the $1,074 difference, Thomas used the Team Thomas charity’s debit card.

According to Nathan, the vehicle was initially titled under HLT Development, but Thomas had the car retitled in his own name in May 2009. To justify the nearly $60,000 apparently spent on the Audi, a report provided to the Children and Youth Investment Trust included an invoice for $58,472 worth of training equipment. Langston 21, according to the lawsuit, saw none of that equipment.

Last fall, Thomas called the initial allegations against him a “useless fishing expedition,” and he sought to portray himself as a victim of a political vendetta by then-Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and Peter Nickles, Fenty’s attorney general. Frederick D. Cooke, Thomas’s attorney, called Nickles’s probe “blatant retribution” in one court hearing.

Nathan, appointed by Gray, assumed the investigation in January after Nickles left office. Observers questioned whether Thomas, as a Gray ally, would be subject to as tough a probe under Nathan.

Nathan said the Langston 21 foundation has agreed to pay the city $86,000 for the portion of the earmarked funds that it did not pass on to the Team Thomas groups. Vandy L. Jamison Jr., an attorney for Banks and Garvin, declined to comment.

Staff writer Del Quentin Wilber contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/politics/dc-attorney-general-councils-thomas-diverted-public-funds/2011/06/06/AG1gFdKH_story.html

Deception & Corruption, The Gift That Keeps Giving

Ahhhhh, just love that corruption............. new boss, like the old boss. What's a little nepotism? I think Kwame Brown thinks we are all idiots. As voters put up with him, maybe he is basically correct. Recall?

Brown's campaigns paid friends, family

D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown's campaigns have a history of hiring companies owned by close friends that then paid his family members.

An audit of Brown's 2008 re-election campaign for an at-large council seat revealed this week that Brown paid nearly $400,000 for get-out-the-vote efforts to Banner Consulting, which was owned by the treasurer of his 2004 campaign. Banner then in turn hired Partners in Learning, owned by Brown's brother Che Brown, and paid it $240,000 to provide the same services, the audit by the office of campaign finance said.

In 2004, when Brown first ran for office, a similar system ended with cash payments for his brother and father, campaign finance reports and media reports at the time show.

Three days after Brown won the Sept. 14, 2004, Democratic primary, he hired Capitol Solutions Group LLC. The company was owned by Kevin McGhaw, who had run Brown's campaign through the primary. Finance reports show the 2004 campaign has since paid $78,400 to Capitol Solutions. The majority of payments ??-- $64,000 -- were made in 2004, but the most recent was for $3,333 on July 31, 2010.

Che Brown and his father, Marshall Brown, told the Washington Post in January 2005 that Capitol Solutions paid them a total of $7,500 for working on the 2004 campaign. The two had been paid about $24,000 directly by Brown's campaign from August 2004 through May 2004, but the payments stopped after Brown's opponents criticized him because of them, media reports said.

Che Brown has not responded to requests for comment from The Washington Examiner.

Other campaigns have hired Capitol Solutions, including Linda Cropp's 2006 mayoral campaign. Finance records show the company was also sometimes reported as Capital Solutions, and when Cropp hired the company, payments totaling $382,000 were sent to Marshall Brown's address on 16th Street NW. Payments from Kwame Brown's campaigns went to a post office box in Maryland.

Attempts to reach Marshall Brown through at-large Councilman Sekou Biddle's campaign were unsuccessful Wednesday. Biddle has paid Marshall Brown $5,000 for a "salary/stipend" as Biddle fights to retain his seat in an April 26 special election.

Kwame Brown hired both companies - Capitol Solutions and Banner - at times when his campaigns appeared to need little help. In the 2005 Washington Post article, Brown said he hired Capitol Solutions even though his victory in the primary all but ensured success in the general election because he "wanted to win and get a mandate."

Brown told The Examiner Tuesday that he raised and spent $825,000 for a race when he ran uncontested in the 2008 Democratic primary because he wanted to overwhelm the opposition.

"When you talk about Kwame Brown and talk about how we campaign, we are the best ground operation this city has ever seen," he said.

fklopott@washingtonexaminer.com

http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/dc/2011/04/browns-campaigns-paid-friends-family

Deals That Get Better And Better (What Shmucks)

City's options limited under Banneker settlement

By: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
July 8, 2010

The $550,000 settlement agreement between the District and Banneker Ventures prevents the city from reclaiming millions in previous payments and makes it impossible for the District to sue the company if investigators determine the contract was obtained through fraud.

The July 1 settlement reached by D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles and Omar Karim, a longtime friend of Mayor Adrian Fenty, ended a Banneker claim that the city owed the company $2.3 million on the parks and recreation contract. The D.C. Council expects to receive an independent investigator's conclusions on the contract next week.

Late last year, the council canceled the Banneker contract after it determined the Fenty administration had circumvented a law requiring the council to vote on contracts exceeding $1 million.

On Wednesday, D.C. Council members Mary Cheh, Harry Thomas and Phil Mendelson sent a letter to Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi requesting that he not issue payments on the settlement because it's still under investigation by the council.

"It's extraordinarily irregular and questionable to settle this without first settling all of the issues against Banneker and on top of that determining first whether Banneker should be paying us," Cheh said.

The settlement requires Banneker to pay its subcontractors a total of about $285,000, allowing the company to keep $265,000 on top of the $2.5 million it already received in a controversial Christmas Eve payment.

Nickles responded to the council members' threats to cancel the payments, saying "I don't think that would be lawful." He added, "it might lead to a test in the courts and they would have a whole bunch of contracts tied up in litigation."

A. Scott Bolden, who represents Karim, echoed Nickles.

"A deal is a deal," Bolden said. "Any effort to thwart these agreements that make sense and allow projects to move forward is extremely shortsighted and will undoubtedly lead to further litigation."

fklopott@washingtonexaminer.com

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/City_s-options-limited-under-Banneker-settlement-97968084.html



A letter from three City Council members to Mr. Nickles:


COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
THE JOHN A. WILSON BUILDING
1350 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, N.W.
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20004

July 6, 2010

Peter Nickles, Attorney General
Office of the Attorney General
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Suite 409 Washington, D.C. 20001

Dear Mr. Nickles:

We write out of concern regarding your recent decision to pay a reported $550,000 in settlement of a claim from Banneker Ventures. Your decision to settle at this particular time appears to be poor judgment and motivated by something other than the best interests of the District of Columbia.

As you are aware, the contract for work performed by this vendor was never submitted to, and thus never approved by, the Council. More importantly, a Special Committee of the Council is conducting an investigation into the contracting process, with conclusion of the investigation expected soon. Among the allegations is that Banneker or its subcontractors overcharged the District and failed to supervise properly the work done. The decision to pay this vendor prior to the conclusion of an investigation, prior to all the facts being known, for contracts that were not properly approved, and for work that may have been overcharged, is contrary to your duty to place the interests of the District of Columbia paramount to all else.

The contracting controversy has been marred since the public first became aware of it by a lack of transparency. The Executive, and particularly your office, have failed to provide sufficient detail about the contracting process, and prevented the Special Committee from questioning members of the Administration involved in the matter. District taxpayers are now twice injured by this matter -- the District having apparently paid an exorbitant mark-up when the contract was first issued, and now paying the vendor a large sum of money for no other reason than to bring this matter rapidly to a close. Indeed so far as we know no member of the Council has been given a copy of this settlement agreement, and we hereby insist that both the public and the Council know the terms of the deal you struck. We are particularly distressed that the best interests of the District will be compromised and that our ability to recover money for poor performance and perhaps even fraud will be lost. Accordingly, we hereby request a copy of the settlement agreement.

We have stressed, repeatedly, that the Attorney General is responsible for representing the public interest and upholding the law. For whatever reason, you still fail to grasp this, and your decision to settle this matter at this point is further evidence of that.

Sincerely

Phil Mendelson, Chairperson
Committee on Public Safety & the Judiciary

Mary M. Cheh, Chairperson
Committee on Government Operations & the Environment

Harry Thomas, Jr., Chairperson
Committee on Library, Parks & Recreation

http://www.dcwatch.com/govern/parks100706.htm

Skinner/Fenty Scam Gets Better

Makes me wonder....

D.C. licensed Fenty friend who failed engineering exam 7 times

By: Bill Myers
Examiner Staff Writer
July 7, 2010

A D.C. board issued an engineering license to a co-founder of a company with ties to Mayor Adrian Fenty even though the man has never passed the professional exam, The Washington Examiner has learned.

Abdullahi Barrow has emerged as a key figure in the ongoing investigationinto millions of dollars' worth of parks contracts awarded to companies owned by the mayor's friends and fraternity brothers. One of them, Sinclair Skinner, has said publicly that he relied on Barrow's expertise to win public parks contracts for Liberty Engineering and Design, a company founded by Skinner and Barrow.

But Barrow failed his engineer's exam seven times since 2002, sources said and documents obtained by ner show. In 2008, the Fenty-appointed Board of Professional Engineers unanimously granted Barrow the professional license because of his "eminence" in the field, board spokesman Clive Cooks said.

There are three ways to obtain a professional engineer's license in the District: passing the exam, having already obtained a license in another state, or for eminence. The board rarely issues eminence licenses, Cooks said. Since 2005, only four have been given out -- including Barrow's, Cooks said.

Barrow's lawyer, A. Scott Bolden, said any suggestion that Barrow wasn't qualified as an engineer was "nonsense."

"He's got a master's degree, he's got several years of experience in D.C. government, he's got substantial experience in the public and the private sector over several years, including being a former chief building inspector for the District government," Bolden said. "Sounds like he's qualified to me regardless of how many engineering exams he's taken."

Fenty spokeswoman Mafara Hobson didn't respond to requests for comment.

Barrow was deposed last month. Sources familiar with his testimony said that Barrow, like Skinner, had trouble recalling basic details about his company, including its first client and the last name of a third man, "Chris," who initially started the business with Skinner and Barrow.

Barrow said, however, that yet another company co-founded by him and his wife was paid by Liberty Engineering, the sources said. The company, Providence Construction, has also been given a contract to build a fence for the city's real estate agency, sources said.

The council canceled the parks contracts shortly after learning about them and ordered an investigation. The Washington Post first reported last week that Fenty's attorney general, Peter Nickles, agreed to pay $550,000 to Banneker Ventures to settle a lawsuit over the cancellations.

Council members Phil Mendelson, D-at large, Harry Thomas, D-Ward 5, and Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3, wrote Nickles a letter Tuesday condemning the settlement.

Examiner staff writer Freeman Klopott contributed to this report.

bmyers@washingtonexaminer.com

fklopott@washingtonexaminer.com

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/D_C_-licensed-Fenty-friend-who-failed-engineering-exam-7-times-97895459.html

Getting And Getting - Or Fenty/Skinner - The Scam That Keeps Taking

Fenty's tax payer provided pit bull, Mr. Nickles is often more than happy to litigate. Not here though - is Scott Bolden that good of a lawyer? Bolden's comments near the end make me nauseous. Such a f@*&ing liar!

D.C. will pay Fenty friend's company to settle construction suit

By Nikita Stewart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 2, 2010; 11:06 PM

The District has agreed to pay $550,000 to settle a $2.3 million claim by Banneker Ventures, the firm whose city contract to oversee the construction of renovated and new parks and recreation centers was terminated last year in the wake of an ongoing D.C. Council probe.

Banneker, owned by a friend and fraternity brother of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's, argued that it owned the drawings and designs produced by the architects and engineers that the firm hired as subcontractors for the projects.

Although Fenty (D) has repeatedly said the recreation centers and ballfields are on track to be built, there have been delays because Banneker served its subcontractors with "cease and desist" letters in February to prevent them from working with the city agency now managing the projects.

"They had threatened to sue the architects, engineers, because they said their work was intellectual property of Banneker," Attorney General Peter Nickles said in an interview Friday. "There were lots of issues, but now we have a settlement."

The agreement took effect Thursday, when it was signed by Nickles and Adrianne Todman, interim executive director of the D.C. Housing Authority. It comes two weeks before a special council committee expects a briefing from lawyer Robert P. Trout, who is heading the council's independent investigation on a pro bono basis. Trout is reviewing how the contract was handled.

D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5), chairman of the Committee on Libraries, Parks and Recreation, said Trout will present an update of the probe but that a final report is not ready. The investigation has been slowed by witnesses who remain reluctant despite subpoenas, he said.

The contracts controversy has been a campaign issue for Fenty, who is in a competitive contest against chief rival D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) in the Sept. 14 Democratic primary.

Thomas said he is aware that releasing a final report closer to the election could be perceived as politically motivated, but he added that Trout and his staff are trying to be thorough. "What we're trying to do is have true findings as opposed to thinking this is a political witch hunt. We want to do this right," Thomas said.

Omar Karim, owner of Banneker, and Regan Associates, the Virginia-based firm that served as Banneker's consultant, have been heavy contributors to Fenty's campaign. One of Banneker's subcontractors was Liberty Engineering and Design, a firm owned by Sinclair Skinner, another Fenty friend and fraternity brother.

The firm earned about $900,000 on its subcontract, according to testimony Skinner gave before the committee after a Superior Court judge threatened him with a costly fine for failing to appear. Skinner, who is not a licensed engineer, farmed out much of the work to other firms.

He remains a visible volunteer on Fenty's campaign.

Lawyer A. Scott Bolden, who represents Karim and Skinner, called the situation "a legal mess created by others."

"Unfortunately, the unnecessary and unreasonable scrutiny of this D.C. contract is ongoing with the D.C. Council at great expense to my clients and the residents of the District of Columbia, with the real victims being D.C. residents, Banneker and its many subcontractors who worked extremely hard to simply renovate and rebuild several recreation and community centers in the most challenged part of the city," Bolden said in an e-mail Friday.

The council began its investigation in October after learning that the mayor's administration had funneled millions of dollars through the D.C. Housing Authority for the projects. The transfer circumvented a city law requiring the council to vote on contracts exceeding $1 million.

Banneker's initial contract was $4.2 million and allowed the firm to collect a 9 percent markup on some subcontractors it hired for nearly $100 million.

In December, the housing authority and the Fenty administration were criticized for giving Banneker $2.5 million on Christmas Eve for work done by the firm and 12 subcontractors from September through November.

This week's $550,000 settlement is supposed to cover unresolved payments.

Under the agreement, Banneker will get nearly $265,000 within 10 days. Banneker will receive the remaining $285,000 when it can show that it has paid money owed to nine subcontractors, including $11,863 to Liberty.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/02/AR2010070204030.html

Kinda Looks Funny Mistah Fenty

Former drug supplier to Barry now Fenty campaign contributor

By: Alan Suderman
Examiner Staff Writer
June 28, 2010

A restaurateur who testified 20 years ago that he supplied then-Mayor Marion Barry with cocaine, a Caribbean hotel room for his girlfriend, and money in return for political access is tied to $6,000 given to Mayor Adrian Fenty's re-election campaign.

Hassan Mohammadi, his wife, Yasaman Rowhani, and his Delaware-based restaurant each gave the Fenty campaign $2,000 on March 9, campaign records show.

So far, Fenty has declined to say whether he will give back the money.

Mohammadi testified in 1990 that he provided Barry with cocaine more than 30 times, according to published accounts of the former mayor's trial that followed an FBI sting operation at a D.C. hotel. Once, Mohammadi testified, he brought cocaine to Barry at the mayor's office in the District Building.

Mohammadi also testified that that he paid for a hotel room for Barry's girlfriend on a drug-fueled trip to the Bahamas and supplied the current Ward 8 councilman with thousands of dollars in chips for a casino. The value of the chips was not paid back.

"I covered wherever I could," Mohammadi testified in regards to Barry's drug use, according to published accounts. "I was a true friend for Mr. Mayor; I was always there for Mr. Mayor."

Mohammadi, an Iranian immigrant who used to own the Pardis Cafe in Georgetown, won a $195,000 city contract to do publicity work for the D.C. Lottery Board when Barry was mayor, accounts show.

His testimony against Barry was part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors to avoid deportation and a stiffer penalty over a drug charge.

The donations where first reported in April by the Washington City Paper, which also reported at the time that a Fenty campaign aide was unaware of Mohammadi's background.

Fenty's June 10 financial disclosure form showed only one refund, which was not related to Mohammadi's donations.

Fenty has been a prodigious fundraiser and reported in June he had more than $3 million on hand for his battle with D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray. The primary is less than three months away.

Mohammadi could not be reached for comment.

The Fenty campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Dorothy Brizill, founder of the local government watchdog D.C. Watch, said it's puzzling that the Fenty campaign wouldn't return Mohammadi's funds given his past reputation.

"You give money in essence for access and influence -- what access and influence is he seeking from the Fenty administration?" Brizill said, adding that Fenty is "not that desperate for $6,000 when he's got that much money in the bank."

asuderman@washingtonexaminer.com

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Former-drug-supplier-to-Barry-now-Fenty-campaign-contributor-97269139.html

Good Questions From William Jordan

Various people think William Jordan is goes on too much about too much on the various neighborhood list serves but in my opinion he asks good questions - a recent posting of his from the South Columbia Heights list serve:

Developer Accountability From the Mayor and City Council?

Posted by: "whj@melanet.com" whj@melanet.com whjmela

Fri Jun 11, 2010 4:32 pm (PDT)

Dear Mayor & Council,

According to accounts in the Washington Business Journal (June 11-17, 2010) reporting on finding recently released by the DC Auditor, Donatelli Development's failure to comply with DC First Source Laws has cost District Residents approximately $2,153,568 in wages. As well, may be out of compliance with city Storm Water Management regulations, Highland Park Project, yet during one of the toughest budget years in a decade, the Council & Mayor plan to reward this development company with over $8.0M in property tax relief, with zero strings attached. In fact, if the budget passes as is Donatelli Development will be issued a refund check for approximately $1.5M.

Are there any plans by the Mayor or Council to bring any accountability to this matter. Or does this development company fall under the AIG rule. Can someone explain this.

William Jordan, ANC1A 05



"FISCAL YEAR 2011 BUDGET SUPPORT ACT OF 2010" (page 217).

http://www.dccouncil.washington.dc.us/images/00001/20100413171523.pdf

9 SUBTITLE D. PARK PLACE AT PETWORTH, HIGHLAD PARK, AD
10 HIGHLAD PARK PHASE II ECOOMIC DEVELOPMET ACT OF 2010
11 Sec. 7041. Short title.
12 This subtitle may be cited as the “Park Place at Petworth, Highland Park, and Highland
13 Park Phase II Economic Development Amendment Act of 2010†.
14 Sec. 7042. Section 3 of the Park Place at Petworth, Highland Park, and Highland Park
15 Phase II Economic Development Act of 2010, signed by the Mayor on January 25, 2010 (D.C.
16 Act 18-290; 57 DCR 1186) is repealed.
17 Sec. 7043. Section 47-4624 of the District of Columbia Official Code is amended to read
18 as follows:
19 (a) Subsection (b) is amended to read as follows:
20 “(b) Starting on October 1, 2010, the Park Place at Petworth, Highland Park, and
21 Highland Park Phase II Properties shall be exempt from the real property tax imposed by Chapter
8 of this title for 20 years as follows: 10 years at 50% and a 5% increase in years 1 11 through 20
2 until the annual real property taxation equals 100%.†.
3 (b) A new subsection (b-1) is added to read as follows:
4 “(b-1) All interest and penalties associated with real property taxes that have been
5 assessed for the period beginning on October 1, 2008, and ending 45 days after the effective date
6 of the Fiscal Year 2011 Budget Support Act of 2010 against the Park Place at Petworth, Highland
7 Park, or Highland Park Phase II Properties, shall be forgiven, and any payments already made for
8 this period, as of the effective date of this act, shall be refunded or credited against real property
9 taxes owed on the properties.â€

Fiscal Impact Statement - Park Place at Petworth, Highland Park and Highland Park Phase II
Highland [http://app.cfo.dc.gov/services/fiscal_impact/pdf/spring09/B18-231_.pdf] http://app.cfo.dc.gov/services/fiscal_impact/pdf/spring09/B18-231_.pdf
Auditor’s Review of Environmental Standards Requirements Pursuant to the Compliance Unit Establishment Act of 2008
[http://dcauditor.org/DCA/Reports/DCA052010.pdf] http://dcauditor.org/DCA/Reports/DCA052010.pdf
Auditor's Review of Compliance With the Living Wage Act and First Source Act Requirements Pursuant to the Compliance Unit Establishment Act of 2008
http://dcauditor.org/DCA/Reports/Livg%20Wage%201st%20Srce%20Act_20100607162643.pdf

Why I Buy Drinking Water In 5 Gallon Bottles

People have asked me why I do not always subscribe to the CDC's version of things - here is an example -



CDC misled District residents about lead levels in water, House probe finds

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 20, 2010; A01

The nation's premier public health agency knowingly used flawed data to claim that high lead levels in the District's drinking water did not pose a health risk to the public, a congressional investigation has found. And, investigators determined, the agency has not publicized more thorough internal research showing that the problem harmed children across the city and continues to endanger thousands of D.C. residents.

A House investigative subcommittee concludes that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made "scientifically indefensible" claims in 2004 that high lead in the water was not causing noticeable harm to the health of city residents. As terrified District parents demanded explanations for the spike in lead in their water, the CDC hurriedly published its calming analysis, knowing that it relied on incomplete, misleading blood-test results that played down the potential health impact, the investigation found.

The city utility says lead levels have been in the safe range in D.C. water since 2006, after a chemical change to reduce lead leaching. But the House report raises concerns about children in 9,100 residences throughout the city with partial lead-pipe replacements. Their parents may not know CDC research has found that children in such homes are four times as likely to have elevated lead in their blood.

The House science and technology subcommittee investigation, scheduled to be released Thursday, was spurred last year by one scientist's research and Washington Post reporting suggesting that the 2004 CDC analysis was missing many test results for children who might have lead poisoning. With its final report, the committee reveals that the missing data showed clear harm to children from the water -- and that CDC authors knew the data was flawed. It finds that CDC officials "failed in their public health duty."

Pediatric lead experts advise concerned parents to monitor their children's behavior to determine whether they have noticed coordination, hearing or mental-focus problems or changes. Parents who witness such changes should have their children's blood tested for lead.

Late Wednesday, the CDC declined to directly rebut the House investigators' findings. Instead, it released a brief re-analysis based on the missing tests, which it said confirms the original 2004 findings that residents did not suffer significant harm.

The agency acknowledged, however, that its 2004 claim that no children had been found with lead poisoning was "misleading," because it referred to only one part of its study. Another part showed that children living in homes serviced by a lead pipes were more than twice as likely as other D.C. children to have unsafe lead in their blood.

Yanna Lambrinidou, head of a parents' activist group that formed in the lead crisis, said the CDC, the city water utility, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the D.C. Health Department knew that lead was spiking in the water but did little to fix it or warn the public.

"CDC gave the perpetrators of D.C.'s lead crisis a 'get out of jail free' card," Lambrinidou said. "They will finally have to answer for what they did."

When nearly 1 million residents throughout the District and in small parts of Falls Church and Arlington learned from a Post article in January 2004 that they had been exposed to unsafe lead in water for at least a year, the CDC analysis was largely used to quiet public anger. The study has since been cited as evidence that even astronomically high lead levels are not cause for concern.

Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), the subcommittee chairman, said the CDC report "left the public health community with the dangerous and wrong impression that lead-contaminated water is safe for children to drink."

Lead is a toxic metal long known to cause brain damage and developmental delays in fetuses and children when they or their pregnant mothers ingest significant amounts.

Marc Edwards, a Virginia Tech scientist who early on questioned the paper, said it's time for the CDC to retract its findings and for the senior author of the 2004 report, Mary Jean Brown, to resign.

The House subcommittee's investigation also chides the CDC for not alerting the public to its subsequent research that contradicted its earlier claims. This 2007 research determined a clear link between the water problem and lead poisoning in D.C. children. For example, it showed that city children with high levels of lead in their blood were significantly more likely to live in homes with lead pipes, and after the city fixed its water treatment problem, the CDC saw a "dramatic reduction" in lead poisoning.

The committee also urged release of this research to alert residents to a continuing, lurking threat in the estimated 9,100 D.C. homes where water utility crews replaced part of the lead service pipe bringing water to the house. The CDC study concluded that the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority's $93 million effort to reduce lead risks after the 2004 lead crisis had largely backfired: Children living in homes with partial lead pipe replacements were four times as likely to suffer from unsafe levels of lead as those in homes without lead pipes.

The House science subcommittee reserves its strongest criticisms for Brown, the CDC's director of lead poisoning prevention. She worked with D.C. health officials to review blood-test results and frame the CDC's response. Brown led a team in publishing the conclusion that the lead problem wasn't having a serious health impact.

But the committee said it found evidence that Brown knew that the D.C. Health Department data was missing thousands of blood-test results in a critical period of the lead crisis. She told investigators that she believed all the missing data was for low blood-lead levels, but she never tried to obtain the original results to check.

The committee did go back to the labs for the original test results for 2002-03 and learned that three times as many children had elevated lead levels as reported, 954 instead of 315. This means child lead poisoning was rising, not falling or staying the same, as the CDC had claimed.

In one part of the 2004 report, the CDC paper analyzed the blood of children and adults living with lead levels in their tap water 20 times the amount raising concern -- and said not one was suffering from elevated lead. Brown and her co-authors knew, however, that most of those tested had been drinking bottled or filtered water before their blood was analyzed.

A public health expert and co-author suggested to Brown in an e-mail that the report mention this factor because "this may help to explain why currently none of the persons have blood lead levels above the level of concern." It was never mentioned.

Brown acknowledged to investigators that she "didn't have a lot of confidence" in the results but didn't delay the report's release because many federal agencies were pushing the CDC to publish.

In internal e-mails at the time, Brown expressed pleasure that the drumbeat of media reports was easing. "Today has been the first day in over a month that there wasn't a story on lead in water in the Washington Post and also the first that I haven't been interviewed by at least one news outlet," Brown wrote to her boss. "I guess that means it worked!"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/19/AR2010051902599.html?hpid=moreheads

Easy Parking For Some

More illegal overnight parking by government vehicles - this is not a cop on duty - often seen parked overnight during the fall of 2009. Notice that it is a 5th District cruiser - parked at the northwest corner of 11th and Fairmont Sts. NW, in the 3rd District.

A Pattern Of Illegal Parking With No Consequence

Here is some nice parking on the southeast corner of Fairmont and 13th Sts NW, on Fairmont, taken February 21, 2010. When you have a DC government vehicle, parking regulations for the common folk mean nothing. This is a person who gets to take home a DC government car. This person regularly parks overnight illegally.

Free Parking For Some

The daylight photo below is at the northeast corner of 13th and Fairmont Sts. NW, on Fairmont next to the Great Pleasant Plains Baptist Church, taken on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at around 7:20am. The nighttime photos fo the same car were taken earlier that morning around 3:00am at the same location. The white Honda Civic is parked in front of, to the left of in the first picture, a clearly marked "No Parking Anytime" sign pointing towards the Civic.



















Parking is an issue in many areas of DC. In the most congested of areas in Ward 1, in Columbia Heights and Adams Morgan parking can be very scarce and elicit many emotions. Over the past few months there have been two different Honda Civics belonging to the DC government that at various times, for extended periods of time, park illegally in a couple of clearly marked "No Parking Anytime" zones. As in overnight or for lunch break.

A few different residents in the area have reported the illegal parking to 311 as well as other DC government offices. A couple of weeks ago one of the illegally parked Civics actually got a parking ticket. Yet the illegal parking continues as the above recently taken photo shows.

Frequently cars in this area get a variety of tickets while parked overnight that are issued by patrol officers, not parking enforcement. For example a ticket issued at 2:30am to an otherwise legally parked car for not having the registration sticker properly affixed in the left lower corner of the windshield - a valid sticker is there but it is leaning against the glass perhaps while the owner is trying to deal with getting the old one off to make room for the thing; issued by a patrol officer driving a cruiser. Yet only once have I seen a ticket on these two cars and that was issued in the morning by parking enforcement at around 9:30am. Community policing is all about what community you are in I guess.

From the photos we can see that this person has free parking at two city parking lots in prime areas - the Wilson Building and the Reeves Center. In a city that in general does not build public parking garages, this person has a nice perk.

Contract Scam Investigation

D.C. Council hires lawyer Robert P. Trout to probe recreation contracts

By Nikita Stewart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 6, 2010; B05

In an escalation of its investigation into million-dollar city contracts awarded to firms with ties to the administration of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, the D.C. Council has appointed well-known defense lawyer Robert P. Trout to further probe the contracts.

Council member Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5), who has led the special inquiry into contracts for recreation centers since October, said Friday that he wants an independent examination of how the Fenty administration awarded the contracts without council approval.

The appointment of Trout, who will work pro bono, comes days after the council censured Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) following an independent investigation by Washington lawyer Robert S. Bennett, who concluded that Barry personally benefited from a $15,000 contract he secured for a former girlfriend. The council also unanimously voted to refer the public corruption allegations against Barry to the U.S attorney's office.

Depending on Trout's conclusions, the council could take the same approach with the contracts investigation, said council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D). "We're talking about tens of millions of dollars in contracts that were involved in this effort," Gray said Friday at a news conference at the John A. Wilson Building. "The testimony is stunning, shocking. . . . There's a lot of questions associated with this thing."

Four council committees launched a joint special investigation in October after learning that the Fenty administration had transferred millions of dollars to the D.C. Housing Authority to build recreation centers, ballfields and parks -- a process that skirted a law that requires council approval of contracts that exceed $1 million. Banneker Ventures, a firm owned by Fenty friend and fraternity brother Omar Karim, won a $4.2 million contract to oversee and select subcontractors for $82 million in construction.

Attorney General Peter Nickles has said that the contracts should have been submitted to the council for approval, but he deemed them legal and binding. In an interview Friday, Nickles said Thomas's goal is to malign Fenty (D). "Obviously, that's where this is headed," he said. "That's the motivation. It's political motivation. . . . It just seems to me it's being viewed by Thomas as a tit for tat."

Nickles said that he has provided documents to Thomas, the office of the inspector general and the office of the D.C. auditor, and that he would cooperate with Trout's investigation.

One of Trout's most recent clients was former Louisiana congressman William Jefferson, who was convicted of corruption after $90,000 in marked bills were found in a freezer in his home. On Friday, Trout said that he had been hired by the Montgomery County Council in the early 1980s to investigate corruption within the county's liquor-distribution operation, and concluded that there was no wrongdoing.

A. Scott Bolden, attorney for Karim and subcontractor Sinclair Skinner, said he expects Trout to draw the same conclusion in the contracts investigation. "While there may have been mistakes made, there was no criminal wrongdoing," he said. "It begs to question what the Trout investigation or Trout report will bring. Not one scintilla of evidence has been uncovered that someone or some agency engaged in criminal conduct."

Skinner, also a friend and fraternity brother of Fenty, has not testified before the council despite invitations and a subpoena to appear. Last week, Superior Court Senior Judge Stephen F. Eilperin ordered Skinner to appear before the council on March 24 or risk a $5,000 fine for non-appearance on that day and another $1,000 a day for continued no-shows.

Thomas said the investigation, which he hopes will wrap up in the next 45 days, could have ended earlier if witnesses, especially Skinner, had been more cooperative. "I don't know about you, I can't be left at the altar but so many times," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/05/AR2010030503858_pf.html

Takes Money To Get Money - When Welfare Is Development

D.C. gives H Street developer $5 million tax break

By: Bill Myers
Examiner Staff Writer
March 4, 2010

The D.C. Council has given a multimillion-dollar subsidy to a developer of the gentrifying H Street corridor. Without dissent, the council approved an emergency measure that grants a tax abatement to Steuart Investment Co., owner of the lot at the corner of Third and H Streets Northeast. The tax break is designed to help the Chevy Chase developer build a high-rise building with shopping, restaurants and apartments or condos. Under the law, Steuart's property taxes will be frozen at what it paid in fiscal 2010 for 10 years. The company then will pay a portion of taxes above the fiscal 2010 level through fiscal 2030. The breaks are capped at $5 million -- 7 percent of the project's expected costs.

Third & H Street project

» $67.5 million

» 42,000 square feet of retail, including a multi-story grocery store

» 210 apartments or condos

» Parking garage with up to 270 spaces

A planned grocery store gets its own 10-year tax break, but that isn't capped. In the fall, Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi warned the council against the legislation because the city -- facing nine-figure budget gaps -- can't afford it. The legislation was championed by Councilman Tommy Wells, D-Ward 6, who represents H Street. The Steuart development, he said, "is the linchpin to the revitalization of H Street." "H Street, since the riots of 40 years ago, has been a street noted by chaos, disorder, drug sales," Wells told The Examiner. "The street is really rebounding, but it takes investment and city help." Developers and city planners have been eyeing the H Street area between Third and 15th streets as a potential real estate gold mine as young professionals spill out of Capitol Hill and head north looking for nests. A series of boutiques and high-end restaurants and bars have sprouted on H Street in the past decade, and the city is planning to build a streetcar line there. In related legislation, the council also passed a bill that would allow business owners along H Street to obtain a property tax deferment this year. Wells said the deferments would help compensate owners whose businesses are being hurt by the city's reconstruction efforts on H Street. A similar law was passed last year. Two businesses inquired about the tax deferment, and one applied for it, finance office spokesman David Umansky said.

bmyers@washingtonexaminer.com

Fenty Hanky Panky

Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Northwest Current
Council refuses to ratify contract

■ Parks: Legislators return
project funding to agency

By ELIZABETH WIENER
Current Staff Writer


The D.C. Council yesterday refused to ratify a controversial construction management contract to oversee a dozen stalled park and recreation projects. Council members said the $4.2 million contract with Banneker Ventures is, in the words of Ward 3 member Mary Cheh, “irregular and unlawful — on all levels unacceptable.”

The council then voted to return funding for the individual projects to the embattled Department of Parks and Recreation. Actual construction will be overseen by the Office of Public Education Facilities Management, headed by Allen Lew, who has won wide praise for actually getting numerous facilities renovated or built.

“This is not a perfect solution, but it allows projects to move forward without circumventing the laws of the District of Columbia,” said Ward 5 member Harry Thomas, who chairs the committee on parks and recreation. “We resent having the council put in the position to clean up a mess not of our own making.”

“We have projects with clearly problematic contracts, and on the other hand, communities promised these projects,” said Council Chairman Vincent Gray.

Tuesday’s unanimous vote was the latest step in a saga that began in October, when the council learned that nearly $50 million in parks department funding had been funneled through the city’s economic development office to the D.C. Housing Authority — all without council approval.

The total amount at issue is now close to $100 million. The council is supposed to review all contracts for more than $1 million. Tuesday’s vote rejected a $4.2 million program management contract awarded to Banneker Ventures, which was supposed to oversee individual park projects across the city.

Attorney General Peter Nickles asked the council last Friday to approve the contracts retroactively. Without emergency action, he said, the individual projects would run out of money and be stalled.

They include improvements to Justice Park and the Parkview Recreation Center in Ward 1; parks at 7th and N streets and 10th Street and Massachusetts Avenue in Ward 2; the Guy Mason Recreation Center and Newark Street dog park in Ward 3; Raymond Recreation Center in Ward 4; and five more facilities in the eastern part of the city.

Nickles said emergency action was needed because the council froze the transfer of funds for the projects while it investigated the contracting scandal.

“Abandoning any of the projects would likely result in additional costs due to civil actions and claims from involved parties,” the attorney general wrote. He recommended quick council action “to avoid construction delays, community frustration and costly litigation.”

But the council was not swayed. It takes nine votes to pass emergency legislation, but even normally reliable allies of Mayor Adrian Fenty and his administration would not buy in.

“We cannot move the city forward on the basis of illegal contracts,” said at-large member Michael Brown, a frequent Fenty critic.

The council will also ask Nickles to conduct a “full investigation” of possible illegalities. Cheh said the inquiry could result in the recovery of money already spent and “consequences” for city employees who approved “unlawful actions.”

An oversight hearing last Thursday revealed further irregularities like those that have already eroded the council’s confidence in the handling of capital dollars. The project management contract awarded to Banneker Ventures has caused particular concern.

For example, council members learned that Liberty Engineering and Design, a subcontractor for Banneker, has already received some payments in violation of the original contract. That document says subcontractors can’t be paid until their individual contracts are approved by the housing authority — which hasn’t happened yet.

Housing authority officials testified that Banneker submitted six invoices after its contract was finalized in July, some reflecting work done before the contract was officially signed. Four were paid, according to Deborah Toothman, the housing authority’s chief financial officer.

The total paid so far is $1.9 million, including $387,850 invoiced for Liberty Engineering, owned by Sinclair Skinner, an outspoken friend and fraternity brother of the mayor. Omar Karim, Banneker’s founder, testified that Skinner is also a friend of his, and had
worked as a volunteer for his firm two years ago.

Adrianne Todman, the housing authority’s interim executive director, said she read the Banneker Venture contract this fall, realized that subcontractors like Liberty should not be paid yet, and held up payment of the last two invoices. “Prior to my reading, there was some misinterpretation [of the contract] among my colleagues,” Todman testified.

Skinner was asked to appear at the hearing, but he declined. He will be subpoenaed for another council oversight session Dec. 21.

The council also learned that, on the eve of its latest oversight session, the housing authority board voted to approve an amended contract with Banneker, upping the total cost of projects it would oversee from $50 million to $99 million. Under questioning, officials said the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development requested the action.

Todman said parks projects added to the original contract had increased that contract’s scope, and the board needed to approve the increased dollars before the document was presented to the council. “The intent is that the contract that would finally get to the council reflect the full scope,” she testified. “The intent is to be more transparent.”

Again, council members were skeptical. “I was flabbergasted when [economic development officials] recommended they increase it from $50 to $99 million,” said Ward 8 member Marion Barry. “What made you think this was the solution?”

“You’re just giving away the people’s money,” said at-large member Kwame Brown. “Whoever signed this contract should be fired. And in the middle of this, the DCHA board approves a bigger contract?”

Council members also pointed out that some of the projects in the Banneker contract were either not approved by the council — a separate process from approving contacts — or not funded for the current year.

In response to queries from The Current, a spokesperson for the economic development office
acknowledged a “mistake” in plans to upgrade the Chevy Chase Recreation Center and playgrounds on Livingston Street, one of the projects assigned to the housing authority and then to Banneker Ventures.

Spokesperson Sean Madigan said his office had submitted a “reprogramming” request to the council last February to move funding for the project up from 2012 to 2009. “We assumed it had been approved and we proceeded with work. But the reprogramming was actually not approved,” Madigan wrote in an e-mail.

The Banneker contract also includes at least two projects — Parkview in Ward 1 and the N Street park in Ward 2 — that council members said they have not specifically authorized. “Funding was originally made available out of a general improvements line and some members believed we should have submitted for a reprogram, yet we disagree,” Madigan wrote.

Karim, Banneker’s founder, testified under subpoena at the council hearing last week. He said he started the firm five years ago “to change the world, starting in Washington, one neighborhood at a time.” The firm now has nine employees, including staff with engineering, architecture and law degrees.

Karim, also a fraternity brother of the mayor, denied any favoritism in the award of the project management contract. “Possible government missteps” do not involve his firm, he said. “I have nothing to do with any government function,” he testified.


http://www.currentnewspapers.com/admin/uploadfiles/NW%20Dec.%2016%201.pdf