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Georgetown University junior James Fogarty’s position as ANC commissioner may be in legal limbo, but that hasn’t stopped him from throwing around his newfound political weight.
Fogarty, along with three buddies, drew
a housing lottery number that would have forced them into a shabby underclassmen’s dorm. A quick study in D.C. politics,
Fogarty sent a crony to lean on Georgetown’s housing office. Sympathetic office staffers responded warmly, bumping the foursome up 115 slots to the 13th pick in
the lotterygood enough to snag an “endowment house,” Hoyaspeak for the popular Prospect Street digs in Fogarty’s district. When the rest of the campus got wind of Fogarty’s Boss Tweed-style tactics, the phone calls started pouring in. Upon fielding complaints into the wee hours
from more than 20 irate students, a
contrite Fogarty nixed his preferential
pick. “I never should have tried what I
did,” says Fogarty. “But there was no
conspiracy to subvert the housing process.” On lottery day, Fogarty’s crew ended up with a spot in Village B, down the hall
from where Fogarty lived his sophomore year. Says Fogarty, “At least it has a bigger
living room.”
Reacting to announcements that some 831 people have spent the night in the Lincoln bedroom since 1993, most
pundits are railing at President Clinton for unethical pandering to moneyed interests. But local AIDS activist Steve Michael has his own financial interest in the controversy. According to Michael’s careful calculations, Clinton owes the District “at least one
million dollars” in hotel/motel taxes
an estimate derived from the District’s 13-percent tax on nightly hotel charges,
plus a $1.50 per-room toll. “This is just another example of the federal government cutting into the District’s revenue,” he says, calling the Lincoln controversy a potential “cash cow.” Clinton “should be subject to the same hotel taxes as the honest innkeepers doing business in the nation’s capital,” Michael says. He faxed his demands to the Democratic National Committee (DNC)
and the White House last week. At press time, Clinton and DNC officials had no
comment. After losing his bid in the 1996 elections to control the Lincoln bedroom, Michael is running on the AIDS Cure
ticket for the Ward 6 D.C. Council seat.
Like all big-city police forces, the Metropolitan Police Department has gone to great lengths to root out all
vestiges of racial discrimination in its
ranks. But judging from the lobby in the department’s 7th District station, it still
has a ways to go. The wall is adorned with photos of Mayor Barry and 10 past and
present councilmembers, from John Ray
to Charlene Drew Jarvis to Hilda Mason. Trouble is, 7D’s roster of locally elected luminaries omits the various white politicos who have served on the D.C. Council
since the inception of home rule. Station
commander Winston Robinson says he has “no idea” why the department’s diversity training makes no appearance on his lobby’s wall. Robinson says he “feels like he
remembers seeing” shots of Dave Clarke
and Jack Evans on the wall and conjectures that the pictures were somehow removed.
“I have no account of how their pictures
disappeared,” says Robinson, adding that
his own mug got the same treatment. The station’s “person in charge of pictures”
was unavailable for comment.