This just in (via e-mail from the NewsHour PR dept.):

Friends,

When we decided to follow rookie superintendent Michelle Rhee one year ago, we had a feeling that we’d have a good story on our hands. After all, 37-year-old Rhee was new to Washington, a Korean-American in a predominantly African-American city who had never been a superintendent before (or even a school principal!).

She was also the 7th leader in 10 years to try and turn around Washington’s failing schools-and she was the first to do so under the charge of the city’s mayor, with no school board to answer to. But even we were surprised at what unfolded as Rhee fired more than 15% of her office staff, removed 36 principals and 22 assistant principals, and announced plans to close 23 underenrolled schools, all before the last day of school.

Now she’s promising to radically change 27 more schools before opening day at the end of August, and finish negotiations with the teachers’ union on a new contract that she says will be unlike anything the country’s seen before.

Tonight on The NewsHour, we’ll sit down with Rhee—and her critics—to reflect on the year.

Thoughts on the other five episodes? Missed ‘em? Find them here.

Whatever you may think of the Washington Post’s series on the murder of Chandra Levy, please know this: It is driving wonderful amounts of traffic for washingtonpost.com.

According to an informed source, the pageviews are in the same ballpark as those that flocked to the 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning Post series on the dark maneuvering of Vice President Dick Cheney, and they’re even surpassing the numbers for the paper’s first Walter Reed series, another Pulitzer winner from last year.

The paper doesn’t part with pageview numbers for specific stories or series.

Says outgoing Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr.: “Traffic’s very high, and everything that I hear from neighbors, friends of friends, and people who are not in the business—people who are not in politics—is that ordinary readers are following this very closely.”

Last week, Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans sent out a press release about the installment—in Shaw—of new ShotSpotter sensors, which can pinpoint the origin of gunshots by picking up their sound.

I blogged about the news. One disbelieving commenter wrote in, with a very reasonable question: “Is it really here this time?”

Well, Capt. Michael Eldridge, who is overseeing the ShotSpotter technology, insists the sensors are up and running, though he refused to tell me where they are located, for good reason. (Every time I think about this, I see, flashing in my head, the opening credits of HBO’s The Wire—you know, the part where the kids throw the rock at the security camera.)

So, according to Eldridge, the “Shaw ShotSpotter” will cover: north on 10th Street from New York Avenue, west on S Street to 16th Street, north again on 16th Street. The system does cover Kalorama Road, the 17th and Euclid Area, and continuing north on 16th Street, west on Spring Road and Rock Creek Church Road, south on 2nd Street, to New York Avenue.

Check out a map. That’s a big, big area (significant chunks of Liquorridor and Land of the Loft, in CP terminology.)

ShotSpotter’s coverage area is expanding significantly within the next few months, as the Washington Post originally reported.

Read the rest of this entry »

LL is going to take the departure of D.C. Department of Transportation Director Emeka Moneme as an opportunity to mention a problem that he knows is being solved by Moneme’s old agency in a thoughtful and thorough manner but has been such a longstanding menace to LL’s quality of life that he feel compelled to rant about it to no particular end.

Seriously, what the hell is up with Columbus Circle?

OK, DDOT, LL knows that you’re aware of the problems and you’ve done a painstaking redesign, but let me tell you: As he rides his bike across the cracked and bus-deformed asphalt in front of Union Station, almost popping his tire there for the 900th time in his life, He had to wonder: What in AASHTO is taking so long?

The thing isn’t just a menace to cyclists (which it has been for years). When LL drives through there at night, he can never tell if he’s in the proper lane, seeing as (a) the lane markings are severely worn and (b) the lighting is piss-poor. Seriously, coming off Mass Ave from the west after dusk, it’s suddenly like you’re on a desolate stretch of rural interstate highway at 3 a.m. (That probably has something with special lighting regs for the federal core, but Jesus, it’s dark!)

A WTOP article from last summer suggested this whole thing could be done by 2009. DDOT spokesperson Karyn LeBlanc says design work on the plan—which isn’t just about repaving, but re aligning lanes, including “intermodal” features, etc—is now 90 percent complete, and designs will be presented for approval by the federal Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission in September. Best case scenario, reconstruction starts in January; most likely, LeBlanc says, it won’t kick off till later in spring.

Yarrrgh!

Hey Jason, if the rumors are true on the Mount Pleasant forum, you could eat at a McDonald’s sometime soon. “People” say the chain wants to open a restaurant in the newly vacated Mt. Pleasant Supermarket. The folks at Mount Pleasant Mainstreet say those rumors are nothing but speculation so far. Too bad. I have a weak spot for their ice cream. And I have to admit it would be fun, for a short time, to watch the neighborhood go bonkers with protests. Bank of America has also coveted the big parcel.

My hair has gotten to that point, folks. It’s time for a haircut.

I don’t know if this happens to anyone else, but there’s a point—an actual length—in the afterlife of my hair follicles when all hell breaks loose. In January 2007, I was so sick of it (and it was long enough, after the split ends) to donate the majority of my locks to Locks of Love. Yes, I did revert to looking like my sixth-grade self, but it was worth it just to get rid of the horrible tangles that kept me in the shower for 30-45 minutes shampooing, conditioning, pulling strands apart, and repeating.

I’m not willing to get a cut as drastic as before (I’ve realized that chin-length bobs make me look a little chunky above the neck). I just need to take a couple inches off.

Which brings me to my main problem: decision-making. Sometimes (and when it really counts), I’m able to go confidently in the direction of my dreams…ahem. But for everyday decisions, like, say, where to eat for lunch in a new area or a new place to get my hair cut, it takes me awhile.

I asked colleagues the other day and scoured Yelp! looking for a quality salon with moderate prices and near Adams Morgan. I did a new search online this morning (with, of course, the same results and reviews) and chose a couple of places to call. I thought today would be the day. Thursdays can be relatively slower in terms of content, so I figured I could leave for a long lunch, get my hair cut, and come back beautiful and ready for a date tonight. And then I came to work and promptly forgot about it until I ran my fingers through my hair.

I was thinking Trim (close but expensive), Blondie’s (a bit of a walk but moderate), Urban Escape (I could just tumble down the hill to get there), or Bang (more of a trek but moderate prices, I think). Any (helpful) suggestions?

The WaPo’s Lena Sun and David Nakamura are reporting that city transportation director Emeka Moneme is resigning to take Metro’s chief administrative officer post. The scoop is attributed to “sources”; here’s the juicy part:

The Fenty administration was said to be angered by Metro’s grab of Moneme; the news comes with Fenty out of town on vacation this week. But Moneme was said by some government sources to be irked by Fenty’s hands-on managing style…

Fenty spokesperson Dena Iverson confirms the news and says press releases will be forthcoming from the city and Metro around 2 p.m. As far as any Fenty frustration, she says, “There are no hard feelings.”

UPDATE, 1:50 P.M.: Let the replacement speculation begin! According to folks LL has consulted, the likely and safest choice for at least an interim replacement would be Kathleen Penney, the agency’s chief engineer, who has subbed for Moneme at public appearances he couldn’t make. Or will City Administrator Dan Tangherlini pluck someone with director experience at one of the city’s smaller agencies to do one of the highest-profile jobs in city government (and one Tangherlini once held himself). Clark Ray, perhaps?

UPDATE, 2:45 P.M.:The CW was wrong: Frank Seales Jr., DDOT’s general counsel and a generally unknown quantity, has been named interim director.

We’re used to getting haters who write to us, but usually it’s because they hate us. Today we got one from someone who hates Diane Rehm. Well, we like mail, even unsigned anonymous mail, no matter what, so keep ‘em coming. But, in the interest of full disclosure, I met Diane Rehm during a stint as a producer at WAMU and she is a lovely woman with fantastic hair… who happens to suffer from spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological condition affecting her vocal chords. Still, thanks for caring enough to buy a stamp!

I just got a new apartment at 16th and Irving Streets NW. After dropping off the security deposit, measuring a space for a desk and figuring out where my records would go, I had one more decision to make: Where to celebrate?

I turned down Irving and made it to Mount Pleasant Street. I knew it well having lived in the neighborhood years ago.

The problem: The strip hasn’t changed all that much since I left. Gone: the wildly expensive organic grocery, the amazing pho place and the diner. Still around: laundry joints, cluttered discount shops, a great hardware store, a terrible-but-beloved bakery, and crummy restaurants aimed at the new homeowners.

The neighborhood joints range from just pretty good (Haydee’s) to always fun (the Raven). It’s the new places that are such disappointments.

A salad, a pizza, and two beers comes to $50 at Radius. Only the beer is worth it. Their pasta seems inspired by elementary-school cafeterias and Wheat Thins-covergal Rachel Ray.

Dos Gringos. Even the name is offensive.

Marx Cafe is the worst restaurant on the strip. I’ve eaten there twice. When it first opened, I tried a tofu dish that managed to be both bland and salty. A few months ago, I ended up there and attempted their hummus. It was the worst hummus I’ve ever eaten. It tasted like it came out of a can.

Tonic is pretty decent. But it’s bar food. Skip their brunch. Service is kinda slow and the food is pretty bland. Nothing inventive.

After some tense moments, we ended up at Radius for their pasta special. Big mistake! We grimaced through the greasy pasta. I came away thinking we should have just eaten in a different neighborhood. We could have walked down to U Street.

There has to be better food options on Mount Pleasant Street. Is the neighborhood only known for Laurie Collins, bad food, and people hating on Dos Gringos?

Last year, Mount Pleasant restaurant Tonic opened another outpost in Foggy Bottom, smack in the middle of The George Washington University’s creeping campus sprawl. Despite the name of the joint, Tonic co-owner Jeremy Pollok had a hard time getting the okay to use his beautiful new bar to serve campus regulars anything stronger than grape juice.

“We were open for the first six months with nothing,” says Pollok, who graduated from G.W. in 1994 with a Psych degree. Last winter, though, Tonic was freed to sell some tonics—beer, wine, and Bloody Mary’s for brunch. “We got a full license from the city, but we had agreed with the University to start off with just beer and wine to see how the students reacted and to see what sort of purveyors we were,” says Pollok.

After a successful semester, Tonic has finally earned a passing grade with the U., and is free to start stocking the harder stuff. Still, the Foggy Bottom outpost won’t offer up all the options of the Mount Pleasant location.

“We won’t be carrying Red Bull, we are not going to be serving shots, and we won’t have things like Jagermeister—you know, the foo-foo stuff,” says Pollok. “We are trying to reduce the risk of students—or anybody, for that matter—over-indulging. We are aware that we’re on a college campus, so we want to keep that at the front of our minds.”

*Question trend stories, which thrive “thanks to the journalists who never let the facts get in the way when they think they’ve discovered some new social tendency,” says Jack Shafer of Slate.com.

*The Washington Post’s Courtland Milloy solicits “A Street Corner Analysis of D.C. Crime.” How to stop the killings? Punish the young’uns more. Sentence killers to the death penalty more frequently. Or “Let’s Face It: No One Has a Clue How To Fix Trinidad.”

*Get your fix: The Washington Post writes about “transcendent coffee moments.”

*Washingtonian has news on “Restaurant Week” participants. “On the list this summer are Hook, Poste, Charlie Palmer Steak, Equinox, Farrah Olivia, PS7’s, the Oval Room, the Prime Rib, and Vermilion.”

*And now for some summer news: Is sunscreen not to be trusted? Everyone stay inside until we figure this one out!!! The New York Times gets to the bottom of the story.

It’s that time of the election season: When political candidates gang up on each other and try to knock the competition off the ballot.

How does this happen exactly? Well, to get a ballot position, you’re required to collect the signatures of a certain number of registered voters. Anyone can challenge those signatures by claiming they don’t belong to a registered voter, are forged, or that there were irregularities in the collection process. Most of the challengers are typically associated with a rival campaign.

Today, preliminary hearings on petitions for the Sept. 9 primary ballot were held at the Board of Elections and Ethics headquarters at One Judiciary Square. Ward 8 council candidate Sandra “S.S.” Seegars disputed the petitions of no fewer than four of her fellow Barry challengers, and managed to knock off at least one, economic-development consultant Yavocka Young.

The issue with Young’s petitions was that the date of the circulator’s signature was dated prior to the dates of the collected signatures, indicating that the circulator signed off on the completed petition before collecting the signatures—a no-no.

Young says she’ll run instead on the general-election ballot as an “indepedent Democrat.” She picked up new petitions after her primary petitions were ruled invalid.

“It gives me much more time to reach out to the people of Ward 8,” she says. “I’m excited.”

Then there’s Ward 1 resident and state committee candidate Lynn C. French, representing the “Obama’s Ward One Democrats” slate, who is challenging four candidates on the competing Obama4UnityBeatsMcCain slate. Among the challenged candidates: Ian Martinez and Jason Barry, who happen to be actual live Obama staffers! Also noteworthy is that one of the signatures that French is challenging belongs to Cecily E. Collier-Montgomery, director of the Office of Campaign Finance. She forgot to fill in her address, French alleges. The initial word is that French’s challenge will not stand.

The real show, though, is in the shadow senator race. Current Shadow Sen. Michael D. Brown and former Shadow Sen. Florence Pendleton are challenging the petitions submitted by Phil Pannell, the ubiquitous Ward 8 activist who is challenging two-term incumbent Paul Strauss.

Brown, who is not up for re-election until 2012, says the effort is about making sure that Pannell’s signatures are “up to snuff,” and says that the challenge was led by Pendleton.

“Florence wanted to do this, and I wanted to back her up,” he says.

Strauss, both Pendleton and Brown report, had nothing to do with the challenge, though Brown has no trouble admitting he has a horse in the race. “I’d like to see Sen. Strauss re-elected,” he says. “I’m not hiding my loyalties.”

Pendleton, for her part, says her challenge was motivated by not only what she sees as faulty petitions, but her distaste for the candidate who submitted them. “I think Phil Pannell lacks the qualities that are necessary for him to be the senator. He just lacks what I think he should have. But I don’t want to go into it.”

Brown speaks in similarly oblique terms: “This is not something that I enjoy doing, but I think this is an important thing. It really has to do with the personalities involved as much as anything else.”

Allow LL to parse their words: Pannell is enjoying a taste of his own medicine. Two years ago, when Pannell ran for a shadow senate seat, he challenged incumbent Pendleton’s petitions and managed to knock her off the ballot, clearing the way for Brown’s victory.

Pannell says his efforts against Pendleton in no way resemble what she’s doing to him. “The thing about my stuff is that my stuff is very well-based. Mine wasn’t to throw out charges and hope something sticks,” he says.

The initial ruling today held that Pannell has the requisite number of signatures to get on the Democratic ballot, but word is that Pendleton and Brown will press further in a public hearing tomorrow, trying to prove charges of forgery on the part of Pannell’s circulators.

“This is really adversarial,” he says. “They still want to push it. They just want to mess with me.”

It appears that the financial crisis facing one of DC’s main health care providers for Latinos has been averted. In June, la Clinica del Pueblo announced it would have to cut services if it couldn’t recoup a $500,000 deficit. Interim executive director Enrique Cobham says an anonymous donor sent a check for $50,000 and has promised another $50,000 if the clinic can raise a matching sum of individual donations. Topped off with emergency help from the city, he says, the needed money will be in the bank soon enough to cover expenses.

La Clinica started as a one night a week drop-in center in the 1980s and now serves 7,500 patients a year, most of them uninsured Latino immigrants. For the most part, the clinic has kept up with growing demand. From 2000 to 2007, the budget rose from $1 million to about $7 million. But growth brought problems as well. Last summer, the federal government awarded the clinic certification as a federally qualified health center, which meant they could bill Medicaid at a higher rate and get access to additional grants and other federal funds. But the status also required an immediate expansion of services, which meant spending money they didn’t yet have. The cost of the expansion wiped out the center’s cash on hand, leading to the current situation.

Having overcome the immediate crisis, Cobham says his staff is “working on restructuring things to make sure we don’t get into this challenge again in the future.” In the long run, he says, la Clinica saves the city money by offering an alternative to the emergency room. “We play a major roll not only in serving community needs but also in reducing the incidence of more expensive health care that comes from people not receiving basic primary care,” he says.

Golden Girls matriarch Estelle Getty, who played Sophia Petrillo on the show from 1985 to 1992—and for eternity in “Lifetime” reruns—has died at the age of 84.

Revel in her sassiness!:

Rose: Dorothy, you’re the smart one, and Blanche, you’re the sexy one, and Sophia, you’re the old one, and I’m the nice one. Everybody always likes me.
Sophia: The old one isn’t so crazy about you.

Her son had this to say: “She was loved throughout the world in six continents, and if they loved sitcoms in Antarctica she would have been loved on seven continents.”