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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—-“Fenty: No Comment on Council Budget Moves“
Morning all. After yesterday’s fiesta of self-congratulation on the council dais, the 2010 District budget is now headed to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty‘s desk. As for what’s in it, you devoted LL Daily readers know about most of it—-streetlight fee out, Emancipation Day in, summer jobs out, charter school facilities in, so on and so forth. But there was a lick of drama in the John A. Wilson Building yesterday, when legislators voted to hold off on funding DCPS at projected enrollment levels that councilmembers deemed unrealistic. Under the change, $27M will be held in escrow until DCPS can justify the 3,000-student increase. Chancellor Michelle Rhee, needless to say, was not happy, firing off a letter yesterday [PDF] listing the decision’s potential impact on every school—-broken down by ward, not to put to fine a point on it.
Check out general budget stories by Tim Craig in WaPo and Michael Neibauer in Examiner, plus schools-specific stuff from Neibauer, from Craig, from Gary Emerling in WaTimes, and from Bruce Johnson at WUSA-TV.
The feds get serious about the Chesapeake Bay, with President Barack Obama ordering the EPA to take a more active role in cleaning up the troubled waterway. ‘In taking the lead from a coalition of state governments, which admitted last year that their 25-year cleanup effort had failed, the administration is positioned to mandate more stringent cleanup goals than politically sensitive state officials could publicly embrace,’ reports Ashley Halsey III in WaPo. ‘EPA leadership and enforcement could serve as a cudgel over state legislatures whose focus on parochial issues has often fractured coordination efforts.’ Also Examiner‘s Leah Fabel; WaTimes‘s Matthew Barakat; WTTG-TV. Not mentioned in other stories, but related to LL by DDOE director George Hawkins yesterday: The EPA has named a top official, reporting to the director, in charge of Chesapeake Bay and Anacostia River matters. (Yes, the Anacostia is specifically mentioned!)
WHAT IT MEANS TO YOU—-Don’t get too attached to your phosphorus.
The family of David Kerstetter, the mentally ill man slain by D.C. police in his Logan Circle home, is suing the city for his wrongful death. WCP’s Jason Cherkis has the exclusive: ‘Attorney [Douglas Sparks] says the shooting appears to be plain overkill. He points to the autopsy report and his scene work. The bloody scene suggests that Kerstetter had been effectively caged in, that he had been trapped in the far left corner of the room between his bed and the bathroom door. So far there has been no evidence cited which supports a struggle between the cops and Kerstetter. The pictures on the bedroom walls remained untouched. A blood-stained vase next to the bathroom door hadn’t been knocked over….“We did a thorough forensic examination through a combination of highly respected experts in a variety of disciplines,” Sparks adds. He says that he would want to see law enforcement’s forensic examinations. “What was the available forensic evidence they relied upon? We’d sure like to see it. Not just we. When homicides are committed in our name with our money, the public has a right to know the facts on a basic moral level.”’ Also WTTG-TV.
Fun read of the day: Chicago Tribune’s Clarence Page takes a call from Marion Barry, who is none too pleased that Page referred to him as the ‘crack mayor’ in a blog post. ‘My life is complete. Little did I know I had earned the respect of Washington’s crack-smoking mayor, but I’ll take it wherever I can get it. Besides as he would point out to me, Barry still maintains that he was not smoking crack in that crack pipe that the world saw him smoking back in January 1990 on an FBI sting videotape….What does [his gay marriage stand] have to do with what Barry calls “the incident at the Vista Hotel?,” Barry wanted to know. Barry said he was shocked that I would dredge it up. I was shocked that he was shocked. If there are any words that Barry can expect to appear prominently in his obituary they are “arrested,” “FBI sting operation” and “smoking crack cocaine.”‘
LL ANECDOTE—-A Johnnie Walker-fueled LL spent much quality time chatting up Page at the open bar (ahem, ‘Captain’s Quarters’—-sponsored by Diageo, purveyors of Captain Morgan rum) inside the DNC media tent in Denver last August. Great guy!
Harry Jaffe checks in on cop Harold Wade, mowed down with a shotgun blast in 1998. These days, Wade is ‘get[ting] the runaround from the Metropolitan Police Department….In February, a drunk driver hit Wade. At the police clinic, he told doctors of severe shoulder pain. New X-rays showed one pellet had lodged in his shoulder socket. Police doctors scheduled him for immediate surgery. At which point Paul Quander, director of medical services, said he needed 30 days to review the case. He wanted Wade to prove the pellet was from the 1998 shooting. For a month, Wade suffered. The police department has yet to approve the surgery.’
LATE BREAKING—-Harriet Tregoning clears way for demolition of Third Church of Christ, Scientist (aka ‘Brutalist Atrocity’).
MoCo pulls money from D.C.-based Food & Friends because CEO Craig Shniderman is making too much money, Examiner’s Alan Suderman reports. County Councilmember George Leventhal ‘said he recognized that Food & Friends was entitled to set its own compensation levels, but said he wanted to “send a clear signal” that Shniderman’s pay was unacceptably high. “They can keep paying him, but we’re not going to contract with them,” he said.’ Shniderman, as first brought to light by the Blade, made $357,447 in salary and benefits in 2007.
Crotchety old Courtland Milloy don’t like no Internet commenters—-you know, expect for the good ones. ‘Who are you people? You get invited to make comments about my work on The Washington Post Web site, and you turn my online message post into a dart board. You swagger into cyberspace under assumed names and start hurling invectives like drunks in a barroom brawl. Sorry, but I must ask some of you to go elsewhere.’ ATTENTION TROLLS—-LL still loves you!
Nominated to replace Rafael Diaz on the Superior Court bench: GWU law prof Jeffrey S. Gutman; GAO lawyer Sharon L. Larkin; and DOJ lifer Elizabeth J. Shapiro.
Marc Fisher will be moving soon of his award-winning biweekly metro column to a job directing WaPo’s enterprise reporting. This, per Erik Wemple: ‘Though it doesn’t yet have an official name, Fisher’s unit will focus on breaking news and enterprise stories in the Washington region. It’ll operate under the paper’s reorganized local news desk, but don’t necessarily think of this beast as just a Metro thing: Fisher’s people will reportedly file pieces for various sections of the paper, in a bureaucratic free agency of sorts.’
WTOP: Police believe they have found the body of Jorge Rivera, 11, who died after falling into a swollen Potomac late last month.
Dan Snyder, Ted Lerner make Sports Illustrated’s list of worst owners in sports.
WaTimes ‘CITIZEN JOURNALIST’ Joseph Young covers last week’s Funk Fenty concert. ‘Braving the light rain, the protesters also cheered as speaker after speaker called for Mr. Fenty’s defeat in the 2010 mayoral race. “Mayor Fenty, I hope that you are listening because of your attacks upon working families you are about to be run out of office,” said Roger Newell, chairman of DC Jobs With Justice. “A $2 million war chest is nothing against the will of the people.”‘ LL SEZ—-His money’s on the $2 million war chest.
WaTimes ‘CITIZEN JOURNALIST’ Sandra Butler-Truesdale covers the ownership conversion of the Campbell Heights Apartments, formerly the Dunbar Hotel, at 15th and U Streets NW. ‘The dream of ownership is slowly becoming a possibility for 171 residents at Campbell Heights as the association’s executive board continues to pursue funding through the proper process, which should take about two years.’ (Butler-Truesdale is on the Campbell Heights board.)
John Kelly covers the historical researchings of Stuart-Hobson Middle School students. Their object of study: Stuart-Hobson Middle School, or at least its forebears. ‘Seventh-grader Courtney Thomas Jr., 12, studied Julius Hobson Sr., the civil rights activist who was one of the school’s eponyms. “He was basically the Dr. King of D.C.,” Courtney told me.’
14th Street Bridge warnings begin. NC8 tees up the construction, which begins Monday.
WaPo honors 21 teachers; two of them are from D.C. public schools: Aris Pangilinan, who teaches math at H.D. Woodson SHS, and Kathryn Procope, who teaches math at Maya Angelou Public Charter School.
NC8 covers neato garbage trap installed on Watts Branch.
Hyattsville man, 26, suspected in Sunday morning stabbings in Columbia Heights.
PoP reader not happy with the policing going on near the MPD Patrol Services Bureau at 801 Shepherd St. NW.
WaPo reader hates Metro food kiosk idea: ‘Stations and rail cars are already trashed daily. I often see mice on the tracks, and the other day I saw a rat at the Fort Totten Station.’
HURRAY TOURISM!—-Tourism reps rally downtown ‘to demonstrate how important their industry is to the local economy,’ WRC-TV reports.
D.C. COUNCIL TODAY—-10 a.m.: Committee on Government Operations and the Environment roundtable on PR18-118 (“District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics Omar Nour Confirmation Resolution of 2009”), JAWB 123 [LL NOTE: Seeing as Nour’s name was withdrawn last week, this may not be happening]; 11 a.m.: Committee on Human Services hearing on PR18-137 (“Director of the Child and Family Services Roque R. Gerald Confirmation Resolution of 2009″), JAWB 500; 1 p.m.: Committee on Statehood and Self-Determination hearing on “the history of the District of Columbia and its impact on the attainment of voting rights and statehood,” JAWB 412; 3 p.m.: Committee on Health hearing on preliminary findings about sexual health information awareness and perceptions of District youth, JAWB 123.
ADRIAN FENTY TODAY—-10:30 a.m.: remarks, announcement on housing for victims of domestic violence, The Lighthouse Center for Healing, 5321 1st Place NE; 4 p.m.: guest, NewsTalk with Bruce DePuyt, NewsChannel 8.