Well D.C., if you’re reading this it means you’re not one of the 3000 or so people in our area currently without power. NBC4 reported the outage in Foggy Bottom last night, although they focused on the problems for four ritzy hotels, rather than the 790 other folks left in the dark. D.C. Superior Court and the D.C. Court of Appeals are also closed today due to the lack of power.
Then, there’s the massive Cingular outage we so diligently reported last night. We’re getting reports that service was restored around midnight, but a check of their user support message boards say customers have been told it might take 24-48 hours for a complete fix.
Who’s with me in thinking we should all head for a cabin in the woods and just wait this week out?
Let the Mud Slinging Begin: Today Mayor Fenty meets with the D.C. Council to discuss the details of his sweeping school takeover plan. The scheme, which must gain Council approval, is expect to look a lot like D.C. School Superintendent Clifford Janey’s school proposal including a renewed focus on math and reading for primary schools and incentive based pay for teachers.
There’s Plenty of Blame to Go Around: As if Fenty needed further proof that D.C. schools need a major overhaul, The Examiner reports that an independent audit of the school system found serious budget waste and improper accounting. The U.S. Department of Education has already said District schools are at “high risk” of misusing federal money. Now school officials are refusing to sign off on the scathing report because it fails to include D.C. Chief Finance Officer Natwar Gandhi in the list of those responsible for the failures. This budget bickering come on the heels of Janey and Board President Robert Bobb’s announcement of a $75 million school repair blitz.
Briefly noted: Property values and taxes going down in Fairfax County… Baltimore gets its own smoking ban… Washington Hospital Center fined for improper storage of stillborn babies…
This Day in DCist: Last year we wondered if fruit roll-ups could save us from the next terrorist attack. In 2005, we were still talking about snow without the adding “-pocalypse”. Ah, those were the days.
Photo by Flickr user andertho.
