Nearly one year into his mayoralty, Vince Gray's report card is in, and it's not pretty. Kind of. A poll released overnight by Clarus reports sagging approval ratings for both the mayor and the D.C. Council. more ›

There has been plenty to fret about this year for Mayor Vince Gray. But today he may well take a break and enjoy a little celebration, as he turns 69. more ›

The last three mayors of our fair city have all been tripped up by exactly the same thing -- travel. more ›

Good morning, Washington. Howard University refuses to relegate homecoming to a single weekend’s football game. Instead, the historically black university boasts a multi-day bash that’s said to be unrivaled in the Mid-Atlantic. The 87th annual cultural celebration kicked off last week, and this morning is the university's spirited homecoming parade. The event kicked off at 9:30 am, so go grab a spot along Georgia Avenue near Banneker High School for a good view of the procession. more ›

Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) is the D.C. Council's longest-serving member, represents one of the city's richest wards and presides over the very committee that deals with financial matters. He's also an aggressive campaigner, as his October 10 campaign finance report proves. more ›

He’s back. Former Mayor Adrian Fenty is hosting a fundraiser on Oct. 6 for D.C. Councilmember Jack Evans, who has served on the council since 1991. The Washington Post reports that the event will be held at Fenty's law firm, Klores Perry Mitchell. more ›

There are plenty of folks who think that a signature says a lot about a person. So what can we draw from the marks of the District's mayors? more ›

Today, Mayor Vince Gray announced two new major senior appointments for his troubled administration -- Chris Murphy as his Chief of Staff and Andrea Pringle as his Deputy Chief of Staff, the latter responsible for one of the hardest-hitting campaign mailers put out during the divisive 2010 mayoral contest. more ›

There's suddenly another high-profile vacancy at the District's Board of Elections and Ethics -- the Washington Post reports this afternoon that the board's chairman, Togo West, is resigning. more ›

"Guess Who's Back" in the news? Adrian Fenty, who earned himself a shoutout from rapper/mogul/entrepreneur/NBA owner Jay-Z in a recent interview. more ›

I would have never bet that former D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty would have been beaten to the world of the myopic little twits by current Mayor Vince Gray, but here we are. more ›

Mayor Vince Gray has responded to the letter that 80 Congressional Republicans (and yes, two Democrats) sent him earlier this week, demanding that he "immediately" and "faithfully" ensure that the District of Columbia doesn't spend any more of its money on "public funding for the destruction of innocent human life" and provide Congress with information about abortion spending. So how did Gray respond to the condescending request? Perhaps he used the opportunity to fan the flames of voting rights discontent and, as one DCist commenter suggested, simply "fax back a copy of his ass"? Nah, Gray used it as a chance to take a potshot at former mayor Adrian Fenty's administration. more ›

In a bit of a letdown for local cycling aficionados, promoters of the Giro d'Italia announced today that the professional cycling race will kick off its 2012 installment in Denmark, not the District. How do you say "well, that sucks" in Danish? Ahh yes -- nå, der suger. more ›

Sinclair Skinner sure is trying his best to grab our attention these days. First, it was a call to investigate Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham after he had a dust-up over the Council tickets to the Lady Gaga concert at Verizon Center. Today, he upped the ante again. In light of a report about the allegedly improper awarding of Parks and Recreation contracts which vindicates former mayor Adrian Fenty but throws him under the bus, Skinner took to a podium outside city hall and delivered the following statement in response, which, well...it stands on its own, really. Enjoy! more ›

Do you want to read 258 pages about former mayor Adrian Fenty's involvement in controversial Parks and Recreation contracts, but lack the time? Thanks to those who have started to read the report about the parks and rec scandal -- commissioned by the D.C. Council and produced by attorney Robert Trout of Trout Cacheris law firm -- we know that it exonerates Fenty of any wrongdoing regarding contracts which were awarded to his fraternity brothers Omar Karim and Sinclair Skinner. more ›

Former D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty made an appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe program this morning. So what did the former mayor have on his mind? Was he there to talk about the various scandals which have been uncovered since his successor, Vince Gray, came into office in January? Was he there to chat about the Navigators? Sulaimon Brown? The University of the District of Columbia? The impending appointment of Kaya Henderson? Well, no, he wasn't there to talk about any of that. (Though one has to admit that the wry grin on Fenty's face when host Mika Brzezinski asked him what was going on with him of late served as his comment on those matters.) But if you were pining for the former mayor's viewpoint on the labor struggle in Wisconsin and the potential Presidential runs of Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump, well, this was the interview you've been waiting for. more ›

On this day last year, former mayor Adrian Fenty decided that he didn't have to follow the D.C. Council's financial directive to repeal the $19 maximum fare on taxi rides beginning and ending inside the District of Columbia. Fenty cited a legal opinion rendered by then-attorney general Peter Nickles, which stated that Congress "delivered to Fenty dictatorial control of the taxicab industry." The then-mayor upholding the cap on fares inside the city was one way he could flex his muscle -- but now with both Fenty and Nickles out of the way, Mayor Vince Gray appears dead set on reversing the policy and, potentially, nudging the District back towards non-metered cabs. more ›

Not only is former Mayor Adrian Fenty going to be a paid speaker -- $20,000 a pop! -- and Oberlin professor, but as WAMU reports, he'll also be advising language instruction company Rosetta Stone. more ›

Former D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty may very well be spending some time in the near future raking in the dough as a motivational speaker/education reform advocate, but that isn't his real post-mayoral calling. Philadelphia-based consulting firm Heffler, Radetich & Saitta LLP announced this morning that Fenty would be joining their ranks as "an outside advisor and counsel." more ›

So how much will it cost you to book former D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty to deliver his "Changing Tomorrow, Today: An Afternoon with Mayor Adrian Fenty" education reform speech at your event? A cool $20,000, plus first-class travel. WTOP's Mark Segraves reports that industry sources tell him that's the going rate for Fenty's new gig. Not too shabby for the former chief executive of the District -- at that rate, he'll only have to give ten such speeches in 2011 to match the maximum amount what he was pulling in yearly as mayor. more ›

Yet another new job for a prominent Fenty administration figure: former D.C. Attorney General and Fenty consigliere Peter Nickles will be returning to Covington & Burling LP as senior counsel. Nickles had previously worked at the firm for four decades and sued the District on numerous occasions. more ›

What's former mayor Adrian Fenty up to these days? It's been a whole three days since he passed the torch over to the new guy and, last we heard, he was thinking about heading back to Oberlin College to teach political science. Of course, Fenty also said that he was "literally exploring everything" when it came to his next job. more ›

It hasn't been a particularly good couple of weeks for Mayor Adrian Fenty. First, a whole bunch of people that he appointed to office were told that their services would no longer be needed. Then they started a press conference without him, striking a blow to what little ceremonial authority Fenty might have been clinging to in his last weeks as chief executive. Mayor-elect Vince Gray implicitly taunting him during another presser is just the cherry on top. more ›

While he was at the Wilson Building today, Michael Neibauer uncovered the guidelines for how Fenty cabinet members will handle their upcoming resignations from a human resources standpoint. The guide, which outlines information about employee benefits, also includes the knowledge that "separation pay will not be paid if an Executive Service employee separates before December 17, 2010." Hmm, we can think of at least one individual who left the administration before that point and whose severance payment has been a topic of curiosity. more ›

Before the election, I had guessed they would garner 7,000 votes. But the committed movement to write-in Mayor Adrian Fenty was the driving force behind the casting of 27,828 write-in votes in yesterday's general election, nearly 23 percent of the approximately 125,000 votes cast. The vote total is all the more impressive when one considers that the movement to write-in Fenty was working with almost no money and lacked the support of the candidate it sought to elect. more ›

The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics gets our tweet of the day award for this gem, describing what happened when a D.C. voter tried to use a stamp bearing Mayor Adrian Fenty's name to cast their vote for him. Such stamps, which have been handed out by organizers of a small write-in movement that favors Fenty, are not an unprecedented strategy: a similar tactic was utilized by Mayor Anthony Williams' campaign after Williams was knocked off the primary ballot in 2002. Of course, as this voter probably discovered, the stamps are meant to be used on paper ballots, not on electronic voting machines. more ›

Based on the accounts we've heard, it sounds like there is a small number of people who are involved with the campaign to write-in Mayor Adrian Fenty out and about at the polls today. But the D.C. Office of Campaign Finance says that the people behind the write-in campaign can't use Fenty's primary materials to promote their effort -- City Paper's Alan Suderman reports that OCF told the group that the leftover campaign literature they had been distributing did not have the appropriate disclosures. Something tells us that the ruling -- even with its threat of $500 fines for continued use -- will do little to stop people who are really behind the write-in effort from trying to give you some contraband recycled Fenty lit at the polls today. more ›