Good morning, Washington. Usually, we get pretty excited about coming in to work only to discover that the big, unwieldy and potentially troublesome meeting that was scheduled has been canceled. That’s often a gold star kind of day that deserves a special trip out for a fancy coffee, and maybe doing a little jig behind the closed door of your office, right? But we have to express some serious disappointment that this meeting appears to have been put off. In clichéd interweb parlance, it would have been the Best. Meeting. Ever. Here’s to hoping it’s rescheduled soon.
Metro Proposes Fare Hike: Forget about increasing revenue by plastering rail cars with advertising or pinching pennies by no longer vacuuming the carpet: Metro General Manager John Catoe is now proposing a fare hike. We knew this was likely to happen at some point soon — after all, fares haven’t increased on Metro for more than three years, and despite bringing in a consultant to propose cost saving measures, Catoe warned us that the agency’s budget wouldn’t be sustainable in the long run without asking riders to pay their share. Fortunately, the new proposal looks nothing like the convoluted tiered fare system that was bandied about back in December. Instead, Catoe now says a system-wide increase that would be tied to inflation, which would go into effect in January, is necessary to make Metro solvent. Nobody likes paying more for transportation, but at least this is a concept we can get behind. No doubt DCist Colin will pipe up with more on this later.
Norton to Introduce Bill Preventing Felons from Running Security Firms: Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton plans to introduce a bill that would ban felons from running companies with government security contracts. The move comes after one company, the Springfield company, which was run by a man who served five years in federal prison in the 1990s for bank fraud and money-laundering, failed to pay its guards at federal buildings in D.C. for several weeks.
Briefly Noted: Walter Reed shooting result of name-calling … Residents in Southeast dealing with power surges … Two teens arrested in barber shop shooting … Beltway chase cops didn’t follow procedure … Top District real estate official tied to real estate company.
This Day in DCist: In 2006 we sympathized with former D.C. Council candidate A. Scott Bolden on his struggles with comment spam and in 2005 we offered up a recipe for you to bake those controversial Cake Love cupcakes at home.
Photo by lightboxdc
