The controversial plan authored by Ward 1 Council member Jim Graham to relocate a number of strip clubs displaced by the new Nationals stadium into Ivy City, a neighborhood in Ward 5, got even more interesting this week. The D.C. Council on Tuesday agreed to spend $3.6 million to reduce the “impact” of the relocated clubs, in a rare earmarking of funds for a specific neighborhood. Ivy City is bordered by Bladensburg Road, New York Avenue, West Virginia Avenue and Mount Olivet Road in Northeast. From the Examiner:

But Ward 5 Council Member Harry Thomas, who vehemently opposes the measure, said Ivy City residents deserve some level of comfort if they are to be impacted by an influx of club patrons. The businesses, Thomas said, will have a major impact on infrastructure and could “create an unsafe environment.”

Thomas asked for and received, as part of Tuesday’s fiscal 2008 budget debate, $3.6 million to improve the major corridors that surround Ivy City …

So in exchange for having strip clubs moved into their neighborhood, businesses in the primarily industrial Ivy City are getting what amounts to a $3.6 million bribe from the Council to improve roads in the major corridors of the neighborhood. Sounds as though Council member Thomas knew he would have to live with the plan, and decided to get what he could out of it. But will the neighborhood be satisfied with the compromise? And will every other Ward that has anything seen as at all undesirable foisted on it now be able to shake down the Council for special project funding any time it wants?

Map image from Wikipedia