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A deliberative roundup of one city’s local politics. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com. And get LL Daily sent straight to your inbox every morning!
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
Good morning sweet readers! It’s Thursday, and we all know what that means: a new edition of Washington City Paper is being loaded into a rocket ship and sent into outer space, in hopes that the aliens might understand us better. This week’s cover explores the big business of natural childbirth (there are pictures of cute babies, fyi). LDP tells Ward 5 not to worry so much about pot cultivators moving in. Chris Shott explores who owns a new meatball shop in Penn Quarter. Dave McKenna looks at a coaching legend not named Joe Pa. And LL explores the complicated courtship in store between Mayor Vince Gray and the Redskins. “I don’t mean to be sexist, but generally the champions of these boondoggles are men who are one way or another superfans or frustrated athletes,” says Councilmember David Catania. “It’s the little boy in these politicians that comes out when it’s time to build stadiums.” News time:
Try Again: Word is that NBC4 is trying to ramp up its local investigative coverage and it looks like they’ve hired Tisha Thompson, she of UDC President Allen Sessoms‘s fancy travel fame, away from Fox 5. But their piece on the clustering of medical marijuana cultivation centers, or “pot farms” as Thompson puts it, in Ward 5 is pretty stale. DCist reported some time ago that most of the applications for cultivation centers were in Northeast. But NBC4 either missed that news, or just didn’t care. “And the News 4 I-Team is giving you the first look where the pot will grow.” False. Oh, and it’s also pretty sensationalist and one-sided, as TV tends to be. As LL noted above, for an explanation of why Ward 5 is the place to be for pot, see Housing Complex.
AFTER THE JUMP: What is Nude? Dumping on Greig; You’ve Been Brizilled…
What is Nude: LDP reports that the District’s Board of Zoning Adjustment has ruled that the Stadium Club strip joint isn’t “isn’t sexually oriented at all.” Former DCRA boss and charter member of the Mysterious Vince Gray Support Club Lloyd Jordan wins the quote of the day award with: “You see some of the Redskins cheerleaders’ buttocks, too.”
Dumping On Greig: Fiona Greig‘s decision to drop her challenge against Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans gets dumped on by Mike DeBonis, who says Greig needs to look at the woman in mirror, rather than trying to blame Evans for an “intimidation campaign.” “The path to victory is pretty simple: build a record and a voter base, start campaigning early, work your tail off. Greig didn’t do that. D-Bones also indicates that, in his opinion, evidence of a “crippling lack of savvy for a candidate hoping to win a ward encompassing the traditional heart of D.C.’s gay community,” is not enough on its own to merit a news story. Pete Rosenstein adds his two cents: “I actually believe that Greig withdrew for lack of support and because she found it hard to raise money.” And Chuck Thies bemoans the lack of any gifted challengers for council races, save for Ron Moten.
You’ve Been Brizilled: D.C. Watch says At-Large Candidate Sekou Biddle’s campaign is “legally deficient in two ways: it names only a treasurer, not a chairman, though by law a candidate’s principal campaign committee has to have a chairman; and it lists as its address a postal box at a UPS Store, when the code requires a campaign to name an actual physical address, not a post office box.”
In Other News:
- D.C. gov making it hard for TV and movie producers to work in the District.
- City to settle with ex-DYRS worker for $130,000.
- Editorial board wonders how lotto company based in the family room of a Maryland businessman’s mother’s house wound up as a CBE.
Gray sked: 9:15 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.: KIPP Public Charter School Douglass Campus Visit; 10:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.: District of Columbia War Memorial Reopening Celebration; 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.: Salvation Army National Capital Area Command 2011 Kettle Kick-Off; 3:00 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Day Concert; 4:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.: D.C. Chamber Of Commerce Policy Forum: Jump-Starting the D.C. Economy Through the Technology & Real Estate Industries; 7:30 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.: Fight Night 2011 and “Joe Robert Day” Proclamation; 11:30 p.m. – 1:00 a.m.: Knock Out Abuse Against Women After-Party Soiree.
Council sked: Health comm at 10:15; confirmation of BOEE picks at 10:30 a.m. Implementation of health care reform talk at 11 a.m.