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July 1, 2007

Getting the Finger

Dear Fingered Citizens:

You’ve probably heard the story about how Philadelphia’s Mayor John Streeter Street camped out in line with ordinary folks to get an iPhone on its first day of sale, but have you heard about DC’s Mayor Adrian Fenty? Here’s an excerpt from the story that was printed Friday in Wonkette (http://wonkette.com/politics/dept%27-of-corrupt-geeks/dc-mayor-gets-his-iphones-delivered-suck-it-philadelphia-273911.php).

So we’re all waiting outside and some of the people around me notice a double-parked car with a driver and a few dudes outside all on Blackberries talking and looking into the store. A little while later, a guy comes out with three bags and gives them to the driver. AT&T was only allowed to sell one iPhone per customer. Then the same guy disappears back into the store, into the back room. The manager comes out to update people and someone asks him what just happened and we find out that the phones are for DC’s mayor, Adrian Fenty. The guy comes out again and quickly gets into an SUV parked in front of the store.

By this point, more than a few people are asking questions, and after a guy behind me yells out "fix the schools first," the guy gives him the finger and sneers, “there’s only 15 left.” The manager, who had come out a few times and been giving rough inventory updates, had estimated about 50 were left minutes ago, and he had also said that there were plenty of 8-GB ones left (which everyone behind me seemed to want). Manager comes out again and says there are now only two 8 GB iPhones left, and that a lot of people in the back of the line probably aren’t getting an iPhone today. He said that there were four people from the Mayor’s office in the store and they each only got one, but that was a pretty big drop in his estimated inventory.

Wonkette, of course, is a completely unreliable source, and sometimes they just make things up. So Dorothy wrote to Carrie Brooks, the mayor’s press secretary, to get her comment on the story. Here’s what she replied, complete and unedited, except to correct one spelling mistake:

The city’s technology office has been taking a look at ways that wireless technology can make the District government more efficient. The iPhone is one of the technologies OCTO would like to examine and the office purchased three devices this week for testing purposes. Mayor Fenty had no knowledge of this purchase and was not a candidate for any of the test devices. In an effort to avoid even the appearance of impropriety and out of an abundance of caution, the devices have been returned.

Believe what you want. Personally, we find it hard to believe that somebody working for the Office of the Chief Technology Officer would give a crowd of citizens the finger after he had pushed his way to the front of the line. But from somebody in the mayor’s office — yeah, that attitude is easy to believe.

Gary Imhoff and Dorothy Brizill
themail@dcwatch.com and dorothy@dcwatch.com

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Mies’ MLK Library a Landmark at Long Last
Alexander M. Padro, PadroANC2C@aol.com

The D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board approved a landmark application that added the 1972 Mies van der Rohe designed Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library to the DC Inventory of Historic Sites, granting it protection from demolition or significant exterior alteration and also protecting the ground floor’s significant public spaces.

The HPRB held off on declaring the building a landmark for nearly two years, during which time the Williams administration advocated selling or renting the Modernist building and constructing a new central library building a block away at the old convention center site.

Many library and preservation activists have spent years working towards this historic day. As the Recent Past Preservation Network’s DC representative, and as an activist and former DC Library Trustee active in attempting to have the MLK Library preserved so it can continue to serve the residents of Washington and visitors as both a memorial to Dr. King as well as our central public library, I look forward to working with the Historic Preservation Office staff to develop the design guidelines that will allow the building to be renovated while respecting key aspects of Mies’ original design, including the elevator cabs and fourth floor director’s suite, the only space in the building that still has original furniture (the rest was thrown away). For more information on the MLK Library preservation effort, visit http://www.recentpast.org/types/library/index.html.

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Ward Five Democrats Election Results
Hazel B. Thomas, thomashazelb@aol.com

The Chair of the DCDSC Party Organization and Functions Committee has provided the following elections returns from the June 25 meeting of the Ward 5 Democrats. The following officers were elected to the two-year term of office beginning July 1, 2007 through June 30, 2009: chair, Timothy Thomas; treasurer, Audrey Ray; recording secretary, Alice Harper; financial secretary, Jeannette Mobley; corresponding secretary, Annie Winborne; first vice chair, Angel Alston; second vice chair, Jamel Thrower; third vice chair, a tie between Debbie Smith and Rae Zapata.

There were five challenged ballots cast, of which three are invalid because two voters did not sign or complete the challenge ballot form, and one voter was not registered in Ward 5. The remaining two ballots will be opened by the chair of the DCDSC Party Organization and Functions Committee on Friday, June 29 at 6:45 p.m. at the DC Democratic Party Office, 1341 G Street, NW, Suite 720. The telephone number to the party office is 737-DEMS. In the event that a tie remains, a runoff election will be held at the September meeting of the Ward 5 Democrats. All ballots from the June 25 Ward 5 Dems election shall remain at the State Party Office through July 23. Congratulations to the new officers.

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Variety?
Peter Turner, Adams Morgan, felinehostage@yahoo.com

At the risk of sounding repetitive (I believe that’s an FDA approved listed side effect of reading themail), may I suggest that perhaps issues of themail at least alternate between distributing the now fashionably loquacious, and usually melodramatic essays about the mayor for displaying such hubris by actually attempting to fix some of the root problems of the DC school system (which are in many cases, in case you hadn’t noticed, the very same DC school system). As its now the summer, maybe some topics could even take a short vacation to the beach. There are plenty of other well known issues that deserve our attention and affect the lives of thousands in our area, but this list seems to have become sadly blinkered and laboriously obsessed with just a very few of them.

[Peter wrote on July 10 as well as in this issue that he supports the mayor’s takeover of the schools and is tired of reading criticism or critical evaluation of it. That’s fair, but themail is written by its readers. If you want to read about something else, write about something else. Summer is always a slow period, with short issues of themail, so whatever you write will probably make it in, as long as it’s about living in the District of Columbia. — Gary Imhoff]

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The Circulator Bus
Faith Williams, faithmw@yahoo.com

[Re: Red Circulator Buses, themail, June 27] I love the Circulator Bus and so do my grandchildren. It seems to come reliably every ten minutes or so, and the one across town from Union Station to Georgetown seems to have a lot of riders whenever I’m on it. Tourists seem to like it. These buses seem less likely than regular Metro buses to congregate in herds with big gaps between.

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Arrested Development Update
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com

In the June 13 edition of themail, I wrote about having been arrested and falsely accused of assaulting a secretary when I went to the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education to secure a telephone number. On Tuesday, July 3, I’ll have a 9:00 a.m. hearing to answer the charges in the Criminal Division of the DC Superior Court, Courtroom C10. My legal counsel is Mark Tuohey, whom I have known since 1993, when he was president of the DC Bar, and William Lawler of the law firm of Vinson and Elkins.

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

DC Public Library Events, July 2-3, 5
Randi Blank, randi.blank@dc.gov

Monday, July 2, 6:30 p.m., Northeast Neighborhood Library, 330 7th Street, NE. Capitol Hill Mystery Book Club. Please call 698-3320 for the book title for July’s meeting.

Tuesdays, July 3-July 31, 6:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW, Room A-5. Hot movie hits. July 3, Smoking Aces (2006), Rated R; July 10, Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), Rated R; July 17, a discussion of filmmaker Michael Moore’s latest documentary, Sicko (2007); July 24, Norbit (2007), Rated PG-13; July 31, Ghost Rider (2007); Rated PG-13.

Tuesday, July 3, 1:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW, Enhanced Business Information Center (e-BIC), 1st Floor. Licensing and Tax Office Hours for Businesses at e-BIC. If you are starting a business or want to take your existing business to the next level, speak to experts from the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and the Office of Tax and Revenue during special office hours at the Library. For more information, call 727-2241.

Tuesday, July 3, 4:15 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW, Room 215. Assistive Technology Users Group and Support. Assistive technology users of all levels meet to share information about assistive technology for the blind and visually impaired. For more information, call 727-2142.

Thursday, July 5, 12:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW, Room A-5. Brown Bag Recital Series. Join us for a performance of Beethoven by Cellist Vassily Popov and pianist Ralitza Patcheva. Call 727-1245 for more information.

Thursday, July 5, 1:30 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW, Enhanced Business Information Center (e-BIC), 1st Floor. Local, Small, Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (LSDBE) Office Hours. Are you eligible for LSDBE certification? Come to the Library during LSDBE office hours if you are a small business owner in the District, plan to become one, or currently sell to the District Government. Please call 727-2241 to sign up for this session.

Thursday, July 5, 2:30 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW, Room 221. Let’s Talk About Books. We will discuss The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai. Call 727-1264 for more information.

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