Mike Cuthriell has navigated D.C. government regulations for two-and-a-half years to open a medical marijuana dispensary and now only needs a final inspection from the Department of Health before he can officially open his Metropolitan Wellness Center. But the center won't be able to stay open unless the health department sanctions one more thing: patients.
The executive director of the independent board that rules on labor complaints and resolves collective bargaining impasses between unions and the D.C. government is not a resident of the District, as required by law, but of Virginia.
You wouldn't know it from the curb, but a three-bedroom Colonial on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in Southeast houses 12 businesses, all set up to receive contracts from Washington, D.C., under minority-contracting rules.
Efforts by Washington, D.C., to include local, minority-owned and small businesses in city contracts have led to a system in which goods manufactured by major companies, including sensitive medical equipment, are routed regularly through residences where self-professed entrepreneurs — whose only client is the government — mark up and resell them.
The D.C. Council, always on the scout for a new way to pick the pockets of the people who live in Washington, now proposes to require gun owners to pay for exercising their constitutional rights. Under a proposal introduced by Mary M. Cheh, a member of the council, gun owners would be required to buy liability insurance.
A D.C. government-funded nonprofit group entangled in a theft scam that saw a D.C. Council member go to federal prison reported receiving $25 million in a newly filed report with the Internal Revenue Service, but officials won't say how they spent all of that cash.
The D.C. Council chairman will hold a hearing to look into concerns about the legitimacy of a contract award to overhaul a troubled city-owned hospital before a Feb. 19 vote on the deal.
The crowds weren't as big as they were four years ago, but hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic spectators flocked to Washington for Monday's inauguration, where they braved chilly temperatures and heavy security to witness the ceremonial start of President Obama's second term.
