Photo by ekelly80.Good morning, Washington. It’s Opening Day, but the weather isn’t cooperating. The Nationals are scheduled to take the field for the first time at 1:05 p.m. this afternoon, but a nor’easter making its way up the east coast could brush by the District and bring some light rain to the proceedings. It sounds like the game will probably still go on as planned, but it’s hardly going to be baseball weather: cold, windy and wet. If you’re still thinking about heading down to the game on a whim despite the forecast, do note that there will be a few hundred $5 tickets released at 10:35 a.m. this morning — or you could just pick up a ticket on the secondary market for a little more than a buck.
Barry’s Car Troubles Escalate: Marion Barry’s silver Jaguar has been the topic of two high-profile stories over the past few months. In November, it was stolen and returned to him three days later; then on March 1, the vehicle was booted by the Department of Public Works because Barry had not paid several tickets. You’d think that during one of these incidents, police would have noticed that Barry’s car didn’t have active tags or the DMV would have figured out that the car wasn’t registered with the city — but nope. Tim Craig reports that the situation means that Barry’s been driving the car illegally, and that he might have even avoided paying taxes on the sale — but Barry blamed the dealership for “misplacing” the car’s title and told Craig that he had “better things to talk about” than the vehicle.
Taking Advantage: Alan Suderman digs into the Trout report and finds that yet another indictment of the District’s Certified Business Enterprise program — the popular law which requires the city to give minority-owned local small businesses preferential treatment in the bidding for city contracts. The report notes that various applications of the CBE law enabled Sinclair Skinner to add an extra layer of management to the contract and skim over $500,000 in city funds; Skinner claims that he and Omar Karim were simply making “the CBE work in the best interest in the District.” (This morning, Skinner has gone on the Twitter warpath, accusing Suderman of race-baiting.)
Metro Board To Address Weekend Service: The WMATA board of directors is scheduled to meet today — will they vote to eliminate late-night weekend service to save Metro some money while infuriating a large portion of its riders and many bars and restaurants? We’ll see.
Briefly Noted: Excellent piece on D.C. police raids for mixtapes, with an excellent lede by Rend Smith: “On the evening of Nov. 23, Jeremy Beaver woke up with a shotgun in his face.”…Residents remember South Capitol Street massacre…Worthwhile comparisons of Aldi and Walmart…D.C. United starts professional women’s soccer team…D.C. obesity rates among lowest in country…Other schools could be investigated by DCPS for test tampering…Police investigating fight on Metrobus in Silver Spring…Maryland passes Pepco accountability law…D.C. Taxicab Commission chair Leon Swain on witnessing the Reagan assassination attempt: “I looked up in the rearview mirror; I’m looking at his face, and I said to myself, ‘Damn, this guy just shot the president of the United States.’”
This Day in DCist: Last year, Metro accidentally deployed a 14-car train; in 2009, a woman who was arrested for dancing at the Jefferson Memorial filed suit against the arresting Park Police officer; in 2008, we offered some alternatives for those who want to look at cherry blossoms, but don’t want to battle the Tidal Basin crowds.
