We get it: Mayor Fenty is one helluva busy guy. In his first few months on the job, he’s hit the ground running on issues ranging from public safety to schools to Congressional representation. One area where some residents feel he’s been curiously quiet, though, is on the District’s ongoing HIV/AIDS crisis. Among them is the newly formed Metro D.C.chapter of The Campaign to End AIDS (C2EA), which writes that with “Adrian Fenty’s first 100…

We noted earlier this month that D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty planned to overhaul the D.C. Department of Health in his first 100 days, and the Examiner reports that this is well under way. Earlier this week the pyramid underneath reappointed Director Gregg Pane got a little narrower, as the eleven agencies were consolidated into seven, and a number of senior deputies and chiefs of staff were let go. Notably, pregnancy prevention and care and school…

Mayor Adrian Fenty’s major campaign pledges mostly dealt with the District’s troubled schools and public safety departments, so it’s no surprise that changes in those departments get the headlines during this transition period. However, in the new administration, no struggling agency is spared, including the underachieving Administration for HIV Policy and Programs (AHPP). After officially being sworn in on Tuesday, the Mayor noted that AHPP director Marsha Martin – who had only been on the…

When we last checked in on the state of HIV/AIDS in the District last August, things were looking rather grim. A report published by the D.C. Appleseed Center for Law and Justice lambasted the District’s efforts to deal with a severe HIV/AIDS crisis in the city, noting that the District remained some 10 to 15 years behind where it should be in mounting a defense against the disease. Shockingly, the report found that the District’s…

World AIDS Day, observed today, has particular relevance and importance for the District. The city has the distinction of suffering from one of the nation’s highest rates of HIV infection, afflicting 1 in 20 residents, ten times the national average, and 1 in 7 African-American men. The District’s response to the problem has been so ineffectual (some say the city is 10 to 15 years behind where it should be) that in August D.C. Mayor…

Traffic Cameras Failing to Prevent Accidents: D.C. drivers may hate them, but may also grudgingly accept their use in preventing serious accidents cause by red light running and speeding through city streets. But according to the Post, the city’s 45 traffic enforcement cameras may not even be doing that all that well. While generating over 500,000 tickets and $32 million in revenue over the last six years of their use, the cameras have thus…

The Washington Business Journal broke the news late last night that the director of the District Department of Health, Gregg Pane, has chosen Marsha Martin, a longtime HIV/AIDS activist and director of the non-profit organization AIDS Action, to head up the city’s troubled HIV/AIDS Administration (HAA). Once the appointment is officially announced, Martin would take the helm of an understaffed government bureaucracy which has been accused of failing to adequately address the HIV/AIDS crisis in…