Is anybody sick of city officials promising “to look into it?” Yesterday, Councilmember Yvette Alexander told WaPo that last week a man pulled a pistol on her as she came to the aid of a Metro driver who was being robbed. She then had to wait eight minutes before a fire truck (!) arrived. Alexander’s account marries up well with the longstanding concerns of her colleague, Councilmember Phil Mendelson who has been consistently complaining about 911 response times. Mendo’s dismantling of the Office of Unified Communications during council hearings is a Wilson Building annual event.

All this is to say: this issue has been old news for some time. Even Alexander’s allegation is old—-it happened last week, an eternity for a big city government. And yet we get this really lame response from Fenty spokesperson Mafara Hobson. WaPo paraphrased Hobson saying: “The administration of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) is looking into the incident.”

Really?

What they mean to say is this: We’re not looking into this incident. In fact, we are hoping this incident will go away and that reporters never bring it up again. And if they do bring it up again, we will tell them no comment, that the investigation is ongoing.

When it became known that an inmate had been wrongly released from the D.C. Jail recently, city officials issued an anonymous statement that falsely blamed D.C. Superior Court staff for the screwup. I e-mailed Hobson to find out if “city officials” was actually Hobson and if she wanted to add to her statement in anyway. I never got a response from the mayor’s spokesperson. Maybe she thought the issue would just go away.

Must Reads:

The Washington Teacher questions a pro-Rhee add in WaPo by the Federal City Council. Amazing.

Prince of Petworth reports that Bloomingdale is getting a neighborhood bar.