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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:
Mary Cheh is Annoyed
Good morning sweet readers! It’s Thursday, and you all know that means Washington City Paper is having a fire sale on newspapers. In this week’s edition, WCP has a great cover story on one of LL’s wife’s favorite pastimes, rollerskating. No, it’s not dead. See also Rend Smith‘s piece on how having a majority black police force is a good thing for D.C. And LL looks at just how annoyed Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh is these days at suggestions she’s pulling punches in her investigation of Mayor Vince Gray‘s hiring practices. News time:
Same As The Old Boss: Terry Bellamy, congratulations, you’ve won the job of being the permanent new D.C. DDOT director and with it, LL presumes, the free lifetime membership to Capital Bikeshare. Gray announced Bellamy was his pick yesterday, half a year after Bellamy took over as interim director when Gray gave former DDOT boss Gabe Klein the boot. Reached yesterday by WTOP (probably at a kegger in Rahm‘s backyard), Klein praised the pick and said Bellamy was the Kaya Henderson to his Michelle Rhee. LDP says “the selection of Bellamy would seem to disregard the administration’s transition report, which harshly criticized Klein’s management (many of its allegations turned out to be untrue).”
AFTER THE JUMP: School Cheating; Decertified ME; Kwame v. the Mob …
Your Cheating Heart: Take that, USA Today, city officials found only three DCPS classrooms where cheating occurred on standardized tests, not any widespread cheating the paper of record for airports implied a few months back. But uh-oh, look what the Post‘s Bill Turque reports: “Whether Wednesday’s action will dispel questions about the reliability of the city’s test scores remains unclear.”
Decertified: LL is having a hard time getting excited about the news that “the D.C. medical examiner’s office has lost its national accreditation.” It makes for a sexy headline, but the back story is kind of dull: “The National Association of Medical Examiners withdrew the accreditation in March after noting that Chief Medical Examiner Marie-Lydie Y. Pierre-Louis was not board-certified in pathology, as the association requires of top agency officials. … Pierre-Louis’s board certification is far from a new issue. The D.C. Council voted twice, in 2004 and 2007, to excuse her from a statutory requirement that she be board-certified. The American Board of Pathology does not allow doctors to apply for certification 10 years or more after their most recent medical training.” Also, Pierre-Louis appears to be doing a good job.
Try Decaf: LDP smartly notes that Gray sounded like his old chum Mayor Adrian Fenty yesterday when asked about a recent audit that raised questions about the legality of City Administrator Allen Lew’s management style when he was renovating the city’s schools. “Put on the spot about it at his weekly press conference, master-of-process Vince Gray responded very much like his predecessor might have: Well it turned out all right in the end, didn’t it?” Moments later at the same presser, Lew made fun of D.C. Watch’s Dorothy Brizill, telling her to “try decaf” after she got a little amped up peppering Lew and the mayor with questions.
Can I Finish?: The social services advocates of Save Our Safety Net went on a tour of the Wilson Building, and recorded their Q & A with Council Chairman Kwame “Fully Loaded” Brown. Brown says he’ll do “everything” he can to restore funding to some social services, except raise taxes.
In Other News: Rhee and former WTU President George Parker are reunited for the sake of the children, says Rhee. Mess with D.C., see your political career die like the rest. No clear link between police staffing and crime rate.
Gray sked: Mayor parties at his old stomping grounds, the Covenant House, before heading off to an awards dinner hosted by the building industry.
Council sked: Budget hearing was canceled.