Yesterday we threw together a list of the people in the District we considered influential, taking after a similar annual list put together by GQ that compiles the movers and shakers on the federal side of the city. One of our nominees was Dorothy Brizill, a well-known civic activist and political gadfly who runs DC Watch, the closest thing we have to a citizens’ inspector general. And as we expected, last night she offered us…

UPDATE: We’ve now gotten word from intrepid boy reporter Kriston Capps that the D.C. Council’s Committee on Education, Libraries and Recreation voted to table Bill 16-734, in a motion brought by At-Large Councilmember Carol Schwartz, which carried 3 to 2 with Marion Barry, Schwartz and surprise vote Vincent Gray against Kathy Patterson and Phil Mendelson. What does this mean for the future of Williams’ library plan? Hard to say. Tabling a bill is usually a…

Town-gown relations between George Washington University and their Foggy Bottom neighbors have always been somewhat contentious. Those relations may soon be getting worse. As noted in the Washington Business Journal, the development of Square 54, the site of the university’s old hospital, has been linked to a possible university expansion, one which the neighborhood does not seem to be a fan of. The university’s plan to develop the site into a $250 million shopping, housing…

The timing may have seemed odd for a left coast D.C. encomium, but the picture painted by a Sunday L.A. Times piece was clear about the current business environment in the Washington area. While we turned our attention toward council-member Marion Barry’s latest drug-related difficulties, Times writer Johanna Neuman drew on numbers released from George Mason’s Center for Regional Analysis and the Greater Washington Board of Trade to illustrate the sharp contrast between the city…