Photo by philliefan99.Good morning, Washington. Well, it may have cooled down considerably this morning, but a large portion of the city’s Northeast quadrant still had to wait for the sun to come up this morning to see around their home. A cable-related outage along North Capitol Street hit shortly after Pepco had fixed an underground issue last night, leaving the electric company with yet more work to do. Several city agencies which were closed yesterday are once again non-operational today, as is J.O. Wilson Elementary School and some federal agencies. (A complete list of the power-related closures can be found here.) It could be noon until the 1,800 or so people affected by the second outage get their power back.
Burning the Midnight Oil: A contentious public hearing on the city’s redistricting plan wrapped up around 1:30 a.m. last night, though it’s unclear whether it’ll actually change the redistricting committee’s mind about anything. What is clear is that the hearing unsurprisingly featured quite a bit of tough talk — whether that’s threats by residents to move out of Ward 6, “native Washingtonians” asserting their opinions should be taken more seriously, or simply Marion Barry taking the chance to remind everyone that his ward is a “dumping ground.” For the curious, there’s an easily digestible record of commentary available via Twitter.
Breathalyzers To Wait Until 2012: While the talk of the Council’s hearing on the city’s Breathalyzers was debatably the discovery of an interesting statistic on PCP usage, the hard news is that the city likely won’t have a simple way to breath-test suspected drunk drivers until next March. The Examiner reports that MPD, the Attorney General and the city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner are “taking their time to be ‘responsible'” in instituting a new program, but Councilmember Phil Mendelson, among others, is concerned that the city has “lost [its] deterrent for drunk drivers.”
Briefly Noted: An interesting look inside the District’s first theatre talent agency by Ben Freed…Gray pushes bill to force some juveniles to register as sex offenders…Rend Smith on D.C. massage parlors: “Sometimes, you get nervous when you see an erection,” says one masseuse…Escalators out at Bethesda Metro station…Police investigate fatal stabbing on 700 block of 24th Street NE…Metro to open early on Saturday…”Dulles Metro: Officials meet, nothing accomplished” (or, for a less cynical view)…Why isn’t there a south bridge in Southbridge?…Hey, free cookies!
This Day in DCist: Last year, voting rights advocates marched into Rep. Travis Childers (D-MS) office and told him to stay out of the city’s business, while D.C. teachers ratified a new contract and the 9:30 Club celebrated its 30th anniversary.
