The total is more than 10 times the initial estimate provided by Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office.

“History’s Greatest Monster” has met its match in a group of Ward 3 neighborhood advocates, including The Atlantic’s James Fallows.

Given how badly 2011 went, Mayor Vince Gray better believe in symbolic new beginnings. But no number of attempts to reset his administration can mollify his most fervent opponents, who will seek to recall him from office this year.

Phew! It’s been quite the year, huh? In this periodic end-of-the-year series, we look at the people and places that made 2011 what it was. In this installment, it’s Sulaimon Brown.

During the District’s September 2010 primary, one in five voters cast ballots at one of the four early voting sites set up across the city. For the April 3, 2012 primary, the number of early voting sites will double.

In March, Mayor Vince Gray ordered background checks for all of his appointees, a consequence of the hiring-related scandals that dogged him during his first months in office. But the recent hiring hiccup with new Deputy Chief of Staff Andi Pringle seems to indicate that the background checks aren’t as thorough as expected.

…Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) was out there winning his bid for re-election. Despite the fact that we’re in the midst of the summer doldrums and Evans hasn’t lost a re-election bid since 1992, the Ward 2 councilmember isn’t sitting idly by and enjoying the legislature’s recess — this week he launched his 2012 re-election website. The move follows something of a trend for Evans — being way ahead of the competition. Evans filed…

Campaign signage for the April 26 At-Large Special Election has only recently come down — but it will soon be replaced by signs for candidates vying for seats on the D.C. Council in 2012. With a new election calendar in place for the year to come — the primary date has been moved from September to April 3, while the general election remains in November — campaigning is beginning earlier than usual.

With early voting having begun this week and the election day less than two weeks away, the contest for the April 26 At-Large Special Election remains fluid and unsettled, with no one candidate yet rising above the rest. The uncertainties in the campaign to fill the seat once occupied by D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown is a product not only of the candidates, though, but of the ever-shifting political environment in the District.

During a candidate forum yesterday in Chevy Chase, seven of the nine candidates running for the At-Large seat on the D.C. Council announced that they’d be willing to fire themselves after two terms if they were to win the April 26 Special Election.