Three D.C. Council members called on embattled Mayor Vincent C. Gray to resign Wednesday, just hours after he defended his integrity in his first public comments since federal prosecutors outlined a politically damaging "shadow" effort by members of his 2010 campaign.
A D.C. Council committee Tuesday approved a trio of nominees to serve on the city's newly created Board of Ethics, despite lingering concerns about the number of times its chairman-to-be must recuse himself from cases.
D.C. Council member Mary M. Cheh is calling for a formal investigation into Pepco's response to the storm that thrashed the D.C. area Friday and caused widespread power outages, a multiday trial that has city leaders talking about a piece-by-piece effort to bury power lines underground despite an astronomical price tag.
Former D.C. Attorney General Robert Spagnoletti told a D.C. Council committee on Monday he can be an effective member of the newly created ethics board - despite what his critics may say - and that his ties to city government are unlikely to force his recusal from many cases.
D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray will send a package of campaign finance reforms to the D.C. Council by mid-July that answers mounting calls to eliminate pay-to-play politics without resorting to sweeping bans that the nation's highest court has deemed unconstitutional, the city's top legal officer said Monday.
D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie won office last month on a platform of restoring ethics to city government, swearing off so-called "bundled contributions" and eliminating pay-to-play politics.
With the bow tied neatly on the political career of former D.C. Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown, U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. now has taken down two members of the 13-member legislative body in a scant few months. That's as many council members as D.C. voters have thrown out of office in total since the elections of 2004.
In the days leading up to Kwame R. Brown's resignation and guilty pleas in a most embarrassing set of criminal circumstances, the former D.C. Council chairman loosened his grip on economic development and housing, turned over jobs and workforce development to a newcomer and added the city's real estate portfolio to Adrian M. Fenty supporter Muriel Bowser.
Concerned stakeholders of Ward 5 have been raising red-light issues for a couple of years now, mostly in response to a proliferation of strip and adult-entertainment establishments, shelters for homeless and wayward young adults in motels along the corridor and marijuana shops.
