After what seemed like yet another scandal in-the-making for Mayor Vince Gray, the fight over grass-cutting contracts in the District seemed to largely fizzle late last week after a D.C. Council committee grilled city officials and two contractors that had bid to cut grass and clear snow in the city. more ›

You know, if you polled this editor and as to what the next big D.C. government scandal would be centered on, a landscaping contract wouldn't have been near the top of the list. But, alas, here we are. more ›

So, you have the means to land a seat for R.J. Cooper's pricey tasting menu at the newly opened Rogue 24, eh? Better get ready to sign a contract. more ›

UPDATE: Well, that sure was quick -- Ben Giles, who reported out the Examiner story cited in this post, tweeted this morning that the mezzanine/platform escalator on the K Street side of the Farragut North station has reopened. Huzzah! more ›

Freeman Klopott has the story that the District's Office of the Chief Technology Officer was overcharged by a D.C.-based company to the tune of $3.1 million, including $600,000 in profit, between 2006 and 2008. Delivering Business and Technology Solutions Inc. (DBTS), which had received close to a whopping 20 percent of OCTO's outsourced tech projects and employs at least one former OCTO staffer, had charged D.C. for its employees' paid time off and also lacked a paper trail for its subcontractors. (Both are pretty big no-nos in the world of procurement.) more ›

Earlier this year, several Cleveland Park homeowners signed up for a free home energy audit offered by the District's Department of the Environment. Now they have letters from the contractor that DDOE had perform the audits, claiming that liens had being placed on their homes in order to recoup payment for the service. What a deal! more ›

The Post reports that Marion Barry has been cleared on charges that he broke city law by giving his ex-girlfriend Donna Watts-Brighhaupt a sole-source contract in 2009. Barry wasn't cleared of all wrongdoing -- Office of Campaign Finance director Cecily E. Collier-Montgomery's order stated that "[d]isclosure of the relationship would have resulted in the transparency of the transaction and removed any cloud from the contract process," and concluded that Barry still broke city guidelines for employee conduct. The Watts-Brighhaupt contract -- and Barry's ensuing arrest on stalking charges -- was at the forefront of the investigation which eventually resulted in the Bennett Report and the censuring of the Ward 8 Councilmember. more ›

The quasi-governmental agency that's been at the center of D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty's parks contracting scandal will soon be under the financial supervision of D.C. CFO Natwar Gandhi, the Examiner reports. more ›

The highly anticipated testimony of Fenty confidant Sinclair Skinner is going on now before the D.C. Council. You can watch the hearing streaming live on Channel 13. Mike DeBonis is also live-tweeting from the John A. Wilson Building, if you want to catch up on the first 20 minutes or so. more ›

We've been busy since yesterday reading through the full 107-page report, prepared by Special Counsel Robert Bennett, on the findings of his investigation into alleged ethics violations by D.C. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8). While you've already read the gist of the report's biggest revelations, there's plenty more material in there that shouldn't go unmentioned. So we've excerpted some of the most revealing passages below: more ›

The ongoing contracts dispute between the D.C. Council and the administration of Mayor Adrian Fenty is heading to court. more ›

Remember back in mid-December, when the Council voted unanimously to remove Banneker Ventures -- headed by Mayor Fenty's fraternity buddy Omar Karim -- from the city's contracting rolls? Well, that obviously didn't stop the city from giving them some money. The Post's Nikita Stewart reports that the D.C. Housing Authority wrote a check to Banneker for $2.5 million dollars on Christmas Eve. At a another hearing on the latest Fenty/Council pissing match ongoing Department of Parks and Recreation construction kerfuffle, DCHA chief financial officer Debra Toothman testified that she approved the check's release, without Council knowledge. more ›

The Washington Times just keeps hammering away at D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray. After reporting last month that Gray had some unusual repair work done on his Hillcrest home by mega-developer William C. Smith & Co., a company with a long list of city contracts that does not normally do such small jobs, today there's this addition: Gray voted in July to award an $86 million contract to Smith & Co. to develop part of the Northwest One project. more ›

Tom already told you about Tim Craig's story in today's Washington Post, which outlines how D.C. Council Chair Vincent Gray used council stationery to solicit a $20,000 contribution from Comcast to help pay for Democratic Party activities at last year's national convention. But potentially even worse news for Gray also came today in the form of this story by Washington Times reporter Jeffrey Anderson, which alleges that some questionable work was performed on Gray's Hillcrest home by developer William C. Smith & Co. – a huge company that has a long list of contracts with the District government, and doesn't usually offer basic home repair services. more ›

With relations between Mayor Adrian Fenty and the D.C. Council as strained as they are, you'd think the city's chief executive might do what he could to make things just a little bit better. But if a hearing today before the council on the ongoing Department of Parks and Recreation contracting scandal serves as any indication, that doesn't seem to be the case. more ›

Do make sure to check out the Washington City Paper's latest update on the Marion Barry girlfriend contract saga, which reveals that a previous paramour of Barry's, Sharon Bowen (she's the one who lives in Ohio), had a job arrangement with the Ward 8 Council member that was remarkably similar to the one that Donna Watts-Brighthaupt did.

Like Watts-Brighthaupt, Bowen was tasked to work in the area of poverty research. According to her personal-services contract with the District, Bowen was paid to “conceptualize, design, plan and execute” a poverty summit for the council’s housing and urban affairs committee, which Barry chairs. more ›

The Capitals have agreed to terms on a one year contract with former MVP Sergei Fedorov. Fedorov has won three Stanley Cups while playing center, wing and defense. He has also been voted the NHL's best defensive forward. He reportedly had many contract offers from teams throughout the NHL and Russia's new KHL, but he took a 33 percent paycut from last season to stay with the Caps for $4 million. more ›