Good morning, Washington. A string of home invasions and robberies in wealthy parts of Bethesda and Chevy Chase has police searching for links between the crimes, and local TV news stations doing what they do best: making area elderly people terrified that the same thing will happen to them. Montgomery County police think it’s possible the same man may be responsible for five home invasion robberies dating back to September, and have released a composite sketch of the suspect.
Budget Deficit Woes: In case you hadn’t heard by now, the D.C. government is facing a growing 2009 budget deficit, and that’s prompting every city agency to fight to save their own funding. Police Chief Cathy Lanier got into the game this week, writing committee chair Phil Mendelson to argue that a proposed cut of $2.5 million would affect her ability to hire more police officers. Mendelson told the Post her concern was “ridiculous” and that she merely wanted the money to do whatever she wants with it. In other budget news, Mayor Fenty’s budget chief, William Singer, has suggested that the answer to the 2009 deficit could be raising a tax on corporate property and delaying tax relief on local businesses, reports the Examiner
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Idle Cars Do the Devil’s Work: The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments has a Climate Change Steering Committee, which has put out a series of recommendations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the metro area that includes fining drivers who leave their cars idling for more than five minutes. We’ll just have to wait and see if the D.C. Council follows their advice.
Briefly Noted: A D.C. man was shot and killed on I-295 near Pennsylvania Avenue … Islamic divorce ruled not valid in Maryland … Man pleads guilty to traveling to D.C. to have sex with minor … D.C. lottery system could have been hacked again.
This Day in DCist: Last year the Smithsonian began looking for a new leader after a series of embarrassing scandals, and the year before that the Church of Scientology was planning an expansion in the D.C. area.
Photo by staceyviera
