Despite ANC 7B’s forgiveness of council chairman Vince Gray‘s fence, the District Department of Transportation’s Public Space committee ruled today that the barrier is, in fact, too high and too far over his own property line to stand.
“What we do here sets precedent,” DDOT official Karina Ricks told the Post. “We try to hold very consistent, despite sympathies we might feel for property owners.”
That appeared strange to Gray’s attorney Robert Spagnoletti, who noted that he was “very surprised” and that “it appears the committee had made up its mind before we walked in.”
The strangest thing Housing Complex, though, is that Spagnoletti—D.C’s attorney general under former Mayor Anthony Williams and recent president of the D.C. Bar—would be the one brought in to defend Gray’s fence. His specialty is domestic violence and sex offenses, after all, not zoning and surveys. No slight to Spagnoletti, but it seems Gray might have wanted to go for experience over name recognition.