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Good morning, Thanks to Michele Molotsky (a/k/a: MicheleFayeMolotsky.com) for sharing this with her colleagues. Welcome to the list.
DCGovClips blurb:
Most people who work with DC government need to know the media buzz early. Most aggregates come out after 9 a.m. I think people need a news aggregate that can be read on a Blackberry or iPhone BEFORE you get to the office. So you can hit the ground running and know what's being said about D.C. government / D.C. Council and other city-related items. Unlike Loose Lips and DeBonis, this includes no commentary... Just clips (and links to DeBonis and Loose Lips).
I'll send this in two ways by email: I'll embed the clips in the body of the email so you don't have to open any attachments. I'll also send it as an attachment.
Blog (clips online): http://dcgovclips.blogspot.com/
Twitter: DCGovClips
Facebook: DC Government Media Clips
Suggestions are always welcome.
Best, Karyn-Siobhan Robinson a/k/a DC Government Clips
D.C. Government/Council media clips for Friday, November 5, 2010.
Missed yesterday? http://bit.ly/akNoVz
D.C. on a spending spree? - Washington Business Journal
Gray Transition Trouble - WRC-4 / NBC
Gray Skips Cop’s Funeral For Lunch With Kwame - Loose Lips (Washington City Paper blog)
Police union supporters vexed by Gray funeral no-show - Washington Post
Gray criticized for missing officer's funeral - WTOP
No love for fallen cops, or on-duty officers in D.C. - Examiner
D.C. Democrat Norton Could Get Powerless House Minority Committee Post! - Loose Lips (Washington City Paper blog)
Another Fenty Campaign Worker Gets City Job Despite Hiring Freeze - Loose Lips (Washington City Paper blog)
Charter financial analysis draws fire - D.C. Schools Insider
UDC President Sessoms has D.C. Mayor-elect Gray's support in recharging campus - Washington Post
Metro staff starts working on next year's budget - Washington Post
Zanzibar on the Waterfront Closes Down - Arts Desk (Washington City Paper blog)
Agency proposes digging tunnels, paths to Washington Monument - Examiner
D.C. on a spending spree?
Washington Business Journal - by Michael Neibauer
Date: Thursday, November 4, 2010, 5:48pm EDT - Last Modified: Thursday, November 4, 2010, 9:31pm EDT
This post has been updated...
On Oct. 6, the District implemented a 10 percent, virtually across-the-government spending cut on supplies, materials, contracts, subsidies and equipment. On the orders of Mayor Adrian Fenty and the D.C. Council, new hiring was barred, vacant positions frozen and travel and training prohibited.
One would think, then, that the District's spending plans might have changed, even slowed. They apparently have not.
The District obligated roughly $1 billion through the first month of fiscal 2011, more than twice as much as it did through the same period of the last fiscal year. The numbers come from purchase order data updated almost daily by the Office of Contracting and Procurement.
The exact numbers: $1.01 billion in purchase orders issued the first 34 days of FY 2011 vs. $465 million during the same period in FY 2010. This isn't money spent, but rather money the city is committing to spend later.
There are a handful of capital projects that explain a part of the $540 million difference. The D.C. Department of Transportation, for example, issued a $254 million purchase order for 11th Street Bridge project on Oct. 8. The D.C. Public Library has issued a couple POs in the $10 million to $12 million range since early October, for construction and demolition services.
But capital projects alone shed little light on this purchase order surge.
Another explanation comes from Fenty's budget office. The FY 2010 budget was approved very late, officials say, and it took extra time to "load" agencies budgets ahead of the fiscal year. Executive agencies were running about 20 days late issuing their early year purchase orders. Wait a couple of weeks, they said, and you'll see the years line up. That was Oct. 18, and the gap has only gotten wider since.
Yet another explanation comes from David Gragan, the District's chief procurement officer. The procurement office, he said, has become much more effective and automated. Purchase orders that once took months to get through the pipeline are issued much quicker today.
"We're much more proficient at doing that," he said.
And still another explanation is just a theory of mine. D.C. faces a minimum $175 million budget gap this year, and a $400 million shortfall in 2012. Executive agency chiefs must realize that more cuts are coming. Is it possible they're spending as much as they can now to avoid those nasty reductions that loom later?
Not overspending, mind you, just spending earlier to get the most important orders out before the axe falls.
Gragan said it's something he would have noticed.
"They can't go around me," he said. "They have to go through me. We can't snap our fingers and make contracts."
District agencies are required to submit a quarterly spending plan to the chief financial officer, said CFO spokeswoman Natalie Wilson. The reports are monitored to ensure actual spending does not exceed planned spending by 5 percent or $1 million. Agencies are reported to the Board of Review for Anti-Deficiency Violations if they top those thresholds, Wilson wrote in an e-mail.
Agency leaders who spend too much of their budgets at one time may face discipline for anti-deficiency violations, Wilson said. But neither the CFO nor the Fenty administration has rejected the idea that it might have happened.
The $540 million difference between years, Gragan said, is still an "interesting question."
Gray Transition Trouble
Mayor-Elect confirms he's reviewing financial background of key transition figure
By Tom Sherwood
WRC-4 / NBC
First Published: Nov 4, 2010 2:41 PM EDT / Updated 6:29 PM EDT, Thu, Nov 4, 2010
Workers are just hours into setting up the Vince Gray transition offices on the fourth floor of the city's Reeves Center at 14th and U streets in Northwest.
But controversy isn't waiting for the offices to open.
The Gray transition team confirmed to NBC4 Thursday that Gray is now reviewing the financial background of Reuben Charles, the little-known businessman that Gray tapped as the executive director of the transition. The office also confirmed that Gray said Charles has not been offered a job in the Gray administration that takes over Jan. 2.
So what's the fuss about? Charles, who's been in Washington only a few years, owes the Illinois state government about $236,000 in unpaid sales and use taxes, Washington City Paper's Loose Lips reported Wednesday. In September, Loose Lips reported that Charles has left a series of debts and judgements in St. Louis and Chicago.
When NBC4 showed up at the transition offices unannounced Thursday, Charles declined comment but did offer to set up a meeting soon to discuss his background.
On Wednesday at his transition announcement, Gray declined to let Charles answer any media questions despite reporters pressing to do so.
Several city government sources say Gray needs to quickly clarify the questions around Reuben Charles or risk that some of the well-known members of the Gray transition team may reconsider serving.
Gray Skips Cop’s Funeral For Lunch With Kwame
Posted by Alan Suderman on Nov. 4, 2010 at 5:20 pm
Loose Lips (Washington City Paper blog)
Is making your boss look like a total heartless and incompetent boob a fireable offense?
That’s the question o’ the day, after news broke that Almost Mayor Vince Gray was dining at the Fourth Estate with Almost Chairman Kwame Brown instead of going to the funeral of MPD officer Paul Dittamo, who died early Saturday morning in a car crash while on duty. (H/T to WeLoveDC for the initial report.)
Gray’s spokeswoman Doxie McCoy tells ABC7 that Gray’s staff goofed and didn’t tell him about the funeral. Ok, fair enough, but what is Gray going to do about it?
This is the third time this week the Gray camp has been caught flat-footed. First, it’s the election party at a club that’s hasn’t paid its city taxes, then there’s the disclosure that transition director Reuben Charles‘ has even more financial problems, and now this.
So, sweet readers, LL puts it to you: does someone’s head need to roll? Clumsy communications, after all, can come back to cost politicians down the line—just ask the guy Gray beat to get his next job, Still Mayor Adrian Fenty(who, by the way, did get to the funeral today).
Police union supporters vexed by Gray funeral no-show
By Mike DeBonis
Washington Post blog
November 4, 2010; 2:00 PM ET
UPDATED 7:05 P.M.
Officer Paul Dittamo, the D.C. police officer killed in a Saturday car crash, was eulogized and laid to rest today. But several prominent leaders were notably absent for the funeral -- the first for an officer killed in the line of duty since 2007. Mayor-Elect Vincent Gray, for one.
Mayor Adrian Fenty, who has been criticized for missing past funerals, did attend, albeit late.
Leaders of the police union, an early and enthusiastic endorser of Gray's, are irate. Union chairman Kristopher Baumann called the snub "unimaginable."
"The political leadership of D.C. sent a pretty serious message to the city's first responders," Baumann said. "I can't think of any city in the country when if you have had a line-of-duty death, the mayor or mayor-elect would not come to pay his respects."
The funeral, held at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Prince William County, was followed by a procession into the District's 7th police district, where Dittamo served, before returning to Virginia for the interment. Baumann said that Mayor Adrian Fenty arrived near the end of the service to deliver brief remarks. No other elected official, he said, attended.
D.C. Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), who chairs the public safety committee, said he was not aware that the funeral was today. Police Chief Cathy Lanier, he said, had told him Sunday that it had been tentatively scheduled for this weekend. Mendelson said he regrets not attending. "I feel bad about it," he said.
Fenty came under fire on several occasions for skipping funerals where a mayoral presence would have been expected -- including for several victims of the June 2009 Metro crash and the grand sendoff for Abe Pollin, the developer, sports team owner, and civic leader.
It's unclear where Gray, considered to be more sensitive than Fenty to this sort of thing, might have been. An inquiry with his spokeswoman as to his whereabouts was not immediately answered.
"Needless to say, there are some questions being asked of me by my members right now," said Baumann.
UPDATED, 2:10 P.M.: Earlier this afternoon, Gray was dining at the Fourth Estate, the restaurant at the National Press Club, according to atweet from the restaurant.
Kudos to We Love D.C. for spotting the tweet -- then calling and confirming that Gray was with his replacement as council chairman,Kwame Brown.
Said Baumann: "I can't say how disappointing that is for the police officers and firefighters in the District. That's our leadership, and they failed us."
UPDATED, 7:05 P.M.: Gray called to explain that he and his staff were simply unaware that the funeral had been scheduled for this afternoon, calling it an "unfortunate situation where the information wasn't transmitted."
"I certainly would have been involved but frankly I didn't know about it," he said.
He added that he had spoken to Dittamo's father at length and had left a message for his wife. His office, he said, has also contributed to a benefit fund for his family.
Gray criticized for missing officer's funeral
WTOP
November 4, 2010 - 10:50pm
D.C.'s next mayor has already upset some constituents by missing the funeral for a city police officer Thursday.
D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray, who was elected Tuesday to replace Mayor Adrian Fenty, was a no-show at the funeral for D.C. police officer Paul Dittamo.
Dittamo, 32, died early Saturday morning after the cruiser he was driving while responding to a call crashed into a wooden electric pole in Southeast. His funeral took place at a church in Lake Ridge, Va., followed by a procession scheduled to leave at 12:30 p.m.
Gray's failure to appear at the ceremony was sharply criticized by D.C. Police union head Kristopher Baumann. The union endorsed Gray for mayor over Fenty, who reportedly arrived 90 minutes late for the funeral.
Baumann tells WTOP Political Analyst Mark Plotkin the politicians' attendance issues showed "disdain."
"The political leadership of D.C. sent a pretty serious message to the city's first responders," Baumann told The Washington Post. "I can't think of any city in the country when if you have had a line-of-duty death, the mayor or mayor-elect would not come to pay his respects."
Plotkin says Gray's chief of staff told him the mayor-elect was not able to attend the funeral, but his office did send a $400 donation to a memorial fund in honor of Dittamo. The D.C. Council also will honor Dittamo with a resolution Tuesday.
Gray's spokesperson released a statement Thursday night:
"Mayor-Elect Gray did not attend Officer Dittamo's funeral because staff was not aware of the services and did not inform him they were taking place today. Had we alerted him, Gray would have attended the funeral to give condolences to the family in person. It was an unfortunate staff oversight."
The website "We Love DC" reports Gray was having lunch with his council chair replacement, Kwame Brown, at the National Press Club's Fourth Estate restaurant at about 1 p.m.
Gray has called the Officer's wife and parents to express his sympathy and appreciation for Dittamo's service and sacrifice; as of this writing Gray has not been able to reach them.
"It's a very bad move on all sorts of different grounds," Plotkin says. "Adrian Fenty was defeated for not going to funerals of people that he should've gone to funerals for."
Baumann says there also were no members of the D.C. Council at the funeral. Councilmember Phil Mendelson, who chairs the committee with oversight of the police department, said he found out too late about the service.
The missed funeral is one of several moves made by Gray that have come under scrutiny in recent days. NBC4 reported the owner of Love nightclub -- where Gray held his victory party Tuesday night -- owes the District more than $860,000 in back taxes.
Reuben Charles, Gray's mayoral transition director and rumored chief of staff, also owes more than $230,000 in taxes in Illinois tied to a company of which he was a board member, according to the Washington City Paper.
Meanwhile, Gray received an invitation to the White House for lunch with President Barack Obama Dec. 1. Plotkin says when Gray received the call from a staffer in the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, he replied "Why didn't the president call me? Why are you calling me?"
And Fenty's celebrity hasn't faded just yet. The soon-to-be former mayor will appear on HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher"Friday.
WTOP's Mark Plotkin contributed to this report.
No love for fallen cops, or on-duty officers in D.C.
By: Harry Jaffe
Examiner Columnist
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/No-love-for-fallen-cops_-or-on-duty-officers-in-D_C_-1458371-106725393.html#ixzz14Ogq8l9y
Examiner Columnist
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/No-love-for-fallen-cops_-or-on-duty-officers-in-D_C_-1458371-106725393.html#ixzz14Ogq8l9y
November 4, 2010
The D.C. police laid to rest Officer Paul Dittamo yesterday at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Lake Ridge.
Dittamo died on duty last Saturday when his police cruiser crashed into a utility pole. He had been on the beat for just more than a year. He was the first D.C. cop to die in the line of duty since 2007.
Dittamo was a well-loved local. He graduated in 1997 from Woodbridge Senior High. Shana Condie Dittamo, his wife, attended the funeral. She's pregnant with their first child. His parents, Hector and Theresa, were in the pews. Dittamo was also a chef. His customers at Fox's Pizza Den in Lake Ridge came to pay their respects.
But Dittamo got no respect from city leaders. No Vincent Gray. Not one city council member. Lame-duck Mayor Adrian Fenty showed up more than an hour late.
"It was a resounding message to us as police officers that will not be forgotten," police union chief Kristopher Baumann told me.
But cops don't have to make the ultimate sacrifice to get the message that the powers that be don't give a damn. Officer Leon Cureton learned that lesson of disrespect on the night of Sept. 10.
Cureton, attached to the school security division, went out for dinner that Friday night. He brought his wife, Patrice; her cousin, Damon Adams; and a friend. The four were seated at a booth at Indulj, a restaurant and club at 12th and U streets NW.
When Cureton got up to go to the bathroom, a woman took his seat and made herself comfortable. Her name was Lakia Barry; no relation to the former mayor and current council member.
Cureton asked her to leave, and she did.
At which point one of Barry's friends began hurling epithets at the Cureton table. Barry grabbed a glass, shattered it on Patrice Cureton's face, knocked her to the floor, and continued to slash at her face, according to a police report.
Officer Cureton freed his wife. Indulj bouncers removed Barry, who was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, and her friends. Patrice Cureton was rushed to Georgetown Hospital. She received more than 100 stitches.
Lt. Madeline Timberlake, the watch commander, arrived and told Cureton to go to the district office and complete paperwork.
"Lieutenant," he said, "with all due respect, my wife is being rushed to the ER. That report is administrative and can wait."
"Well," she said, "if you value your job, you will do what I told you to do."
Timberlake and Sgt. Andre Suber forced him to leave his car and ride in a cruiser. At 3rd District headquarters, Cureton waited and filled out forms for three hours.
"Neither official asked whether I was injured or how my wife was making out," he wrote in a statement. "Neither official offered to drive me to the hospital."
Patrice Cureton is healing. But anger over how his family was treated by the department lingers for Cureton.
"I will never forget how the department treated my family and I," he wrote.
Paul Dittamo's family might second that emotion about city leaders.
D.C. Democrat Norton Could Get Powerless House Minority Committee Post!
Loose Lips (Washington City Paper blog)
According to The Wall Street Journal, the change in power on Capitol Hill could potentially elevate the District’s non-voting delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, to a more powerful position. Since Minnesota Democrat James Oberstar, the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, was defeated on Tuesday, the committee’s top Democratic position will be up for grabs. (Republicans will gain the committee’s chairmanship.)
Reports Brody Mullins:
Next in line for the role is Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia, who narrowly averted his own defeat on Tuesday. Mr. Rahall is currently the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, so it’s unclear if he would change jobs.
Next in line for the job behind Mr. Rahall is Rep. Peter DeFazio, a liberal Democrat from Oregon who favors increased spending on public-transit projects.
Another Democrat in the running is Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is the elected representative from Washington, D.C. Because Ms. Norton doesn’t represent a state, she isn’t a full-fledged members of Congress. She is permitted to vote on legislation in committees, but she does not have vote on the House floor.
If Ms. Norton becomes the top Democrat on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, she could draw the ire of tea party Republicans, who are already opposed to government spending — much less spending-bills promoted by a lawmaker who doesn’t have full voting rights in Congress.
Norton currently chairs the Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on economic development, public buildings, and emergency management.
Another Fenty Campaign Worker Gets City Job Despite Hiring Freeze
Loose Lips (Washington City Paper blog)
Uh-oh! LL has found another former campaign worker for Still Mayor Adrian Fenty‘s failed re-election bid who just landed a city job—despite a hiring freeze.
LL’s already spilled ink (and bytes) on former Fenty campaign aides who got jobs working for the District just before Fenty ordered a freeze in promotions and hirings to deal with city’s crummy financial situation. Some of them, LL, noted were associates of failed dry cleaner Sinclair Skinner, Fenty’s best bud who is at the heart of the council’s investigation into alleged cronyism.
The previously mentioned campaign aides/new city employees started the jobs right before the hiring freeze (though not before everyone knew how bad the city’s finances are). But Pamela Whiting, who campaign records show worked on Fenty’s campaign for months, was hired Oct. 26, payroll records show. The hiring freeze went into effect Oct. 4. If you don’t have your calendar handy, that means she was hired three weeks after the freeze.
According to a source, Whiting’s salary is $40,000 a year (which is considerably less than what some other Fenty aides are now making in their short-lived city jobs) and her title is “clerical assistant.” Whiting works in the mayoral bullpen. When LL called for comment, her reply was, “I’m not answering any questions.”
LL also sent an e-mail to Fenty’s spokeswoman trying to get an explanation about why Whiting was hired after the hiring freeze and will update as needed.
It’s worth noting that the hiring freeze is not absolute and allows City Administrator Neil Albert to sign off on exceptions. Maybe there’s a solid case to be made that the mayor’s office really needed a new clerical assistant, but LL kinda doubts that. Fenty’s been pretty much phoning it in lately, at least as far as his (practically non-existent) public schedule is concerned. LL doesn’t begrudge Fenty for coasting, but sheesh, quit adding to the payroll!
And one more thing: Whiting’s Facebook page (or at least, LL is pretty sure it’s her page) shows that she recently changed her profile picture to a “Write Fenty In” sign, and added Sinclair Skinner as one of her friends.
Charter financial analysis draws fire
By Bill Turque | November 4, 2010; 11:36 AM ET
D.C. Schools Insider
D.C. Schools Insider
Tom Nida was on the hot seat in late 2008 when a Washington Postinvestigation revealed his financial connections to the schools he regulated as chairman of the D.C. Public Charter School Board.
The Post reported that while he was chairman, the bank where he worked as a loan officer lent more than $55 million to charter schools, their developers or landlords. It meant, in essence, that as those charter schools thrived, so did United Bank's loan portfolio. Nida denied any wrongdoing, citing his recusals on some votes. D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles found that he did not violate District conflict of interest laws, although he recommended that the board tighten up its ethics guidelines.
It nevertheless caused some heartburn when Nida, who stepped down from the board in February, unveiled what amounted to a collective balance sheet for the 57 publicly funded, independently operated charters, as a way of showing their financial strengths and weaknesses. In an Oct. 28 keynote address to the D.C. Association of Chartered Public Schools, he said:
"If the D.C. public charter schools were a single entity, this entity would have total assets exceeding $521 million, of which more than $354 million represent fixed assets owned: This excludes the values of leased facilities. Total debt approaches $356 million, of which more than $333 million is long-term debt related to facilities. Total capital (net worth) exceeds $165 million. Gross revenues are almost $439 million, of which 54.8 percent, over $240 million, is payroll, and more than $44 million is spent for occupancy (mortgage payments, rent, utilities and maintenance). Our hypothetical single entity has a positive current ratio of more than 2X (current assets cover current debt by 2:1) and a debt-to-worth ratio of 2.15x (total liabilities are just over two times the net worth). As a banker, I would describe the balance sheet of this entity as one of adequate liquidity, with moderate leverage, and good capitalization."
The schools turned a collective net profit of $24 million in 2009. But Nida said 92 percent of that was generated by just six schools, and 58 percent by one charter alone -- none of which Nida named. He said the have-and-have-not picture underscores the need to improve access to credit markets for charter schools which -- unlike DCPS schools -- have no centralized capital budget or construction program and must rent buildings or seek private financing. Nida called on charters to lobby Congress for a change in federal regulations to allow access to certain loan guaranties that would open up access to credit markets.
The debate over equity in the funding of public and public charter schools continues to simmer and is likely to get more attention in a Gray administration. Nida's banker's-eye view of the charter sector did not sit well with some school advocates, who said private financing and public schools are a toxic brew. Mark Simon, a DCPS parent, an education policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, said he found Nida's speech "abhorrent."
"This is the same Tom Nida, the banker who headed up the D.C. charter board while retaining his position as a bank vice president overseeing a profitable increase in his bank's mortgage portfolio due to mortgages extended to charter schools he was helping to oversee," Simon said. "The two concepts of private profit and public education should not be intertwined as Mr. Nida is wont to do. ... He represents what is wrong with mixing private profit and the management of public education."
Nida responded: "I would expect that kind of comment. I think the issue here is if charter schools had access to the same funding and facilities that DCPS did we wouldn't have to worry about funding."
UDC President Sessoms has D.C. Mayor-elect Gray's support in recharging campus
By Daniel de Vise
Washington Post Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/04/AR2010110404398.html
Washington Post Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/04/AR2010110404398.html
Thursday, November 4, 2010; 10:01 PM
In the past two years as president of the University of the District of Columbia, Allen Sessoms led a campaign of reform to rival the efforts of his counterpart in the D.C. Public Schools, Michelle Rhee, supporters say.
The ouster of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty at the polls in September spelled the end for Rhee, his handpicked schools chancellor. For Sessoms and UDC, it is more like a new beginning. Mayor-elect Vincent C. Gray will enter the executive office as UDC's champion in chief. He pays regular visits to the university, holds frequent strategy sessions with Sessoms and made the institution's success a central theme of his campaign.
"He has just stepped up to the plate, and without being asked, for the most part," Sessoms said in an interview at his office. Of the election, he said: "We are both pleased with its outcome."
With only sporadic help from city government, Sessoms has quietly wrought the most sweeping changes in UDC's 33-year history. He successfully split the foundering school into two pieces, a community college with open admissions and a four-year university with higher tuition and entry standards.
Enrollment and tuition revenue are up. In June, UDC was named Emerging Business of the Year by the D.C. Chamber of Commerce, ironic for an institution that traces its history to 1851.
In an interview this week, the District's deputy mayor for education, Victor Reinoso, likened the president's accomplishments to those of Rhee, who attained national stature for closing schools and moving against low-performing principals and teachers.
"I think Dr. Sessoms has been refreshing leadership for the university and exhibited similar drive and focus in advancing the university's interests," Reinoso said. "When someone delivers, you give him props."
UDC leaders say the mayor has neglected UDC and its president, who, unlike Rhee, was not Fenty's hire. Sessoms was appointed by UDC trustees after a year-long search that Fenty delayed, bidding for a stronger role in the process.
Some at UDC contend that Fenty subsequently punished the university by ignoring it. Sessoms and Fenty met once, six months into the president's tenure.
"This university, as far as I can tell, has never been on the mayor's radar," said Sessoms, 63, a physicist and former diplomat who came to UDC from Delaware State University.
Reinoso dismisses the theory that the search process poisoned relations between the two men.
"I think people believe we had some candidate for the university, or that we didn't want Dr. Sessoms to be the candidate," he said. "We didn't have a guy for president. . . . We let it be."
Sessoms came in as a celebrated agent of change for the District's sole public university, an institution that had chewed through interim and permanent presidents at a rate of about two a year. He earned a doctorate from Yale, taught at Harvard and served in the State Department before taking the presidency of Delaware State, a historically black institution whose currency he raised.
Some in the university community contend that Fenty periodically thwarted the UDC president.
They say Fenty tried to sabotage the university's governing board by refusing to fill vacant seats. Seven seats are now empty. Fenty aides say the mayor submitted more than enough names to fill the vacancies. University leaders say his nominees were cronies.
Last summer, UDC sought the mayor's help in securing a $10 million appropriation from Congress to finance growth of the new community college. Congressional leaders asked for a joint letter from Gray and Fenty to justify the investment. Fenty "refused to support it," Sessoms said.
UDC's $62 million annual appropriation from the city has not risen since 1996. But Reinoso notes that funding has "remained level" through the downturn "and that in and of itself suggests that the university got better treatment than most agencies in the government."
Sessoms is all the more impressive, his supporters say, for what he has accomplished without the mayor's help.
In fall 2009, the university executed a long-awaited split. UDC had languished for decades under an unusual structure that housed two- and four-year programs and students under one roof - a university operating like a community college, with no entry standards, minimal tuition and single-digit graduation rates.
Sessoms preserved the heritage of open access in the new Community College of the District of Columbia, with no entry requirements and flat $3,000 tuition. Four-year and graduate study is now housed in a separate "flagship" institution, with entry standards and higher tuition. The community college is effectively a branch of UDC.
The president's plan sparked protests last year, with students and some elected officials decrying the tuition increases and accusing Sessoms of trying to destroy a tradition of service to low-income African Americans.
Since then, most of the opposition has melted away. The university drew one-third more applicants in 2009 than in 2008. First-time enrollment grew by 17 percent. The university admitted only half of those who applied to the flagship institution, giving UDC cachet it had lacked for 30 years.
"It gave our students and our alumni some instant credibility," said Joseph L. Askew Jr., UDC board chairman.
Sessoms is nearing his goal of offering community college classes in every ward. A new headquarters building opened this fall near Union Station.
A $40 million student center will open in Van Ness in 2012. The dull gray concrete campus is being renovated with murals and canary-yellow paint. This fall, the university opened its first student residence hall.
"For the first time since I've been around this, there's a real vision for the university's future," Gray said in an interview. "I think now there's an expectation that UDC will succeed on its initiatives. That's a sea change."
There are still hints of the old dysfunctional UDC. New federal lending rules caught the university flat-footed this fall, and students waited weeks for federal aid checks. Sessoms has made little progress in dislodging underperforming faculty. He has installed whites into some high-level jobs, stoking fears among faculty that he is neglecting the school's historic role in the black community.
"He's moving very fast," said Meredith Rode, a UDC art professor since 1968. "And it's putting a lot of pressure on people."
Gray has stepped in to help Sessoms at pivotal moments. The Gray-led D.C. Council funded the student center. The council awarded the UDC board emergency powers to conduct business with reduced membership. The panel awarded UDC independent budgeting authority last year, freeing it from city procurement procedures.
Both Gray and Sessoms predict a more harmonious relationship between the university and the legislative and executive branches of city government, all of them aligned for the first time since Sessoms's arrival.
Gray has pledged to fill the UDC board within 100 days of taking office. He and Sessoms say they intend to work together to increase the institution's autonomy, and to give the community college greater freedom from UDC, as recommended in an independent report last fall.
"To me," Sessoms said, "it's a very, very positive political environment into which we're going to be embedded."
Mike DeBonis: http://wapo.st/aydS5h
Loose Lips (daily column): http://bit.ly/a8NIQD
DMV (P.J. Orvetti): http://bit.ly/aSvJGf
Of interest:
Metro staff starts working on next year's budget
Washington Post Staff Writer
http://wapo.st/ap80Ob
http://wapo.st/ap80Ob
Thursday, November 4, 2010; 8:19 PM
Metro's staff, now developing the transit authority's budget for next year, is hoping to do it without increasing fares or cutting bus and rail service, but that will be difficult. Among other financial challenges, Metro anticipates a 10 percent growth in ridership on the costly MetroAccess service for people with disabilities.
Zanzibar on the Waterfront Closes Down
Arts Desk (Washington City Paper blog)
You wouldn’t have known it at the time, but if you were at Zanzibar on the Waterfront this weekend for the Howard Homecoming event hosted by Erykah Badu, you were there for the venue’s last hurrah. It’s now closed for business.
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Agency proposes digging tunnels, paths to Washington Monument
By: Hayley Peterson
Examiner Staff
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Agency-proposes-digging-tunnels-paths-to-Washington-Monument-106739958.html#ixzz14OiWtCsY
Examiner Staff
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Agency-proposes-digging-tunnels-paths-to-Washington-Monument-106739958.html#ixzz14OiWtCsY
November 4, 2010
The National Park Service has proposed building a security screening center below the foundation of the Washington Monument, which visitors would reach by tunnels and concrete pathways dug into the grassy mound surrounding the historic landmark.
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