Photo by jim_darling.Good morning, Washington. Well, today’s the day — the Council will hold its first vote on the city’s 2012 budget this morning. Council Chair Kwame Brown’s counter proposal was released to the media late last night, giving interested parties a little less than 12 hours to dig in to the details before the Council convenes at 9:30 a.m. What made the cut? According to Mike DeBonis, who was tweeting up a storm on all things budget late last night, Marion Barry’s Ward 8 tax abatements are in, as is combined reporting, an increase in taxes on parking garages, and a new law which would allow the sale of liquor until midnight and early on Sunday mornings. The much-talked about “theater” tax is out, and there’s also a proposal to include more kids in the Summer Youth Employment Program by paying them the federal minimum wage instead of D.C.’s, the latter of which is slightly higher. In his budget, Brown also outlines several priorities for revised revenue estimates which could bring anywhere from $20 to $90 million back into the District’s coffers — most of which would be used to hire more police officers, on affordable housing concerns and rolling back parking meter rates. You can watch today’s budget’s meeting here.
City Might Have Failed To Collect $100 Million: Talk about interesting timing — as the city’s political leadership wrestles to settle the deficit, a group of attorneys claim that the government may have missed out on a large amount of revenue. D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi is investigating claims that the city failed to collect a tax that is to be levied on large property transactions for the last several years. In a letter to the CFO, one of the attorneys looking into the collections failure called the lack of enforcement “pervasive” and “potentially resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars of unpaid taxes.” It’s hardly a silver bullet, though — the city is leery of how much money is actually missing, how much they’d actually be able to collect without costly litigation, and whether or not they want to pay the attorneys to conduct an audit of the situation.
Shooting at Largo Town Center Parking Lot: This morning, shots were fired in the parking lot outside the Largo Town Center Metro station. A carjacking was reported to police according to WaPo; NBC4 reported on-air this morning that a woman was shot and a man injured in the incident, and that authorities are looking for an orange Camaro. Metro service has not been disrupted and the station remains open.
Briefly Noted: Man killed at intersection of 34th and D Streets SE…Congress won’t vote on long-distance flights at National until June…D.C. hospitals: please tax us more…Police searching for assault suspect with “unpleasant odor”…Religious leaders conduct LGBT equality rally on Hill…Gray supporters apparently quite fractured regarding their guy…D.C. to get charging stations for government’s new electric cars…”This has been a dream of mine for over 30 years and to have it whittled down…”.
This Day in DCist: Last year, the HFStival’s lineup was a time warp (though certainly not as randomly constructed as this year’s bill!); in 2007, then 61-year-old New Jersey Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen showed some Georgetown street tough who was boss.
