Good morning, Washington. Mayor Adrian Fenty released his 2009 budget yesterday, and if the Post’s David Nakamura is right, it should sail through D.C. Council approval. Fenty is receiving a lot of praise for keeping the budget down to $5.66 billion, an increase of only 0.7 percent over this year’s budget of $5.62 billion. In recent years, the District has increased its budget 8 percent a year. Fees for certain city services will go up under the plan, like the cost of business licenses (increased to $35 a year) and the phone line fee for 911 services (increased to 23 cents). One criticism lobbed at the budget so far: the City Paper’s Erik Wemple thinks the mayor shouldn’t have short changed the affordable housing funding he promised.

More Security at Wilson High School: D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has ordered extra security measures to be put in place at Wilson High School after 13 students were arrested in two fights this week. Nineteen total incidents involving assault or fights among students have been reported at Wilson this school year. Rhee has assigned three additional security guards to the campus, and is confining students to eating lunch inside their classrooms, instead of letting them eat anywhere on campus. That’s got to stink for the students who do follow the rules and just want to sit outside now that it’s getting warmer.

Murky Coffee Definitely Done: The Post finally decided to cover to the story behind the closing of Murky Coffee’s Capitol Hill location. There’s not much new information in there that we didn’t already know. The shop was shut down for owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes, and the landlord is evicting them, so the store won’t be reopening. One thing the story told us we hadn’t heard: Nick Cho’s financial problems have also led to the end of his marriage. Ouch. That’s what we call a bad year.

Briefly Noted: City auditor wants more money … Man held for emailing a threat to Md. Gov. Martin O’Malley … Rights of protesters were violated during 2005 presidential inauguration … Osama bin Laden tape won’t affect Pope’s D.C. visit.

This Day in DCist: In 2007 we gave the Miss D.C. contest a hard time for allowing non-D.C. residents to compete in the beauty pageant, and in 2006 we took some time to whine about what really annoys us about Metro.

Photo by Lilliang