If 2011 has left us with any political message at all, it’s that the term annus horribilis has to be recalibrated now and again, just to be relevant to a new generation. 2011 begin with the inauguration of Mayor Vincent Gray, and saw a nearly uninterrupted run of DC political scandals. The sheer quantity, if not quality, of these scandals runs fairly deep into the WTF scale (similar to the Beaufort scale, the WTF scale is measured in the amount of “This Blows” that local citizenry experience.) and have left many disillusioned and remembering the Fenty Administration fondly.

While this list is hardly comprehensive, the sheer volume of scandals this year make it impossible to pare it down to a single article, these are the five worst of the local political scandals to have rocked the DC area in 2011.

Number Five: “Put it in your panties.“

Jack Johnson, on the phone to his wife Leslie Johnson, as the FBI was pounding on their door, waiting to search their home.  Former Prince Georges County Executive Jack Johnson went on trial this year for corruption, related to payments made to him by developers in a pay for play scandal. He roped his wife Leslie into participating as well, and both will begin their prison sentences this year, him for 7 years, her for 12-18 months. The famous climax of the scandal was the $79,000 stuffed in her brassiere as she left, but the lasting gift was the audio from the FBI recordings as linked above, which has one of the best phrases of 2011: “Put it in your panties!”

This quote works in just about every situation.

Number Four: ANC5B’s descent into madness, $30,000 in missing money

When the chair of your Advisory Neighborhood Commission is alleged to have emptied the bank accounts (to pay his car note, natch.) with an shadily acquired ATM card, to the tune of $30,000, and then steps down, you’re in for some hard times. The problem is, that just started some of the chaos that followed. Numerous meetings were required with the remaining commissioners, and some got quite heated. Quorums that were required unmet for significant periods, delaying replaced officers, and requiring the city’s ANC liaison’s attendance at numerous meetings.

The city has settled with Shelton this week for repayment terms, according to the Post’s Mike DeBonis, include a $5,000 down payment, and $200/mo for the next 125 months. No interest has been assessed by the city in this settlement, granting Shelton a tax-free, interest-free loan in the matter. His case will likely also include federal prosecution, but the money settlement is a bit milquetoast.

Number Three: Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas Jr has home raided

Imagine the scandal of William Shelton, but writ much much larger. Councilman Thomas is alleged by the city to have misappropriated a significant amount of money (around $300,000) that was earmarked for a youth sports program, instead spending the money at Hooters, golf trips, and a luxury SUV for himself. The City Paper dissected some of the Team Thomas financials, which track the money earmarked by the council supposedly for use by youth sports programs to other sources unrelated to youth sports.

In addition, Brookland Heartbeat suggests that Thomas’ troubles might be a whole lot deeper, as the raid may have been related to two other grants totaling $832,000 that have concerningly light paper trails and connection to Thomas’ involvement in another youth activity program and a gang-prevention program. Look for this one to get worse before it gets better. Like Shelton, Thomas has agreed to repay the money involved so far, over three years, and without penalty or interest. He remains under federal investigation.

While Thomas was stripped of his committee by the city council, the council has taken no other action. A few of his cohorts have called for his resignation, but none have stuck.

Number Two: Fully Loaded.

Hooboy. Just weeks into his term as the Council’s new Chairman, Kwame Brown found himself embroiled in an ugly scandal involving his official vehicle from the city, which his staff requested be “fully loaded” and have a “black on black” interior, to match the Navigator that new Mayor Vincent Gray has. The lease on the vehicle turned out to be as much as a DC mortgage payment at $2,000/mo.

Unfortunately, that message wasn’t correctly read by the city, though, and they got him a grey interior initially. This was unacceptable, and his office ordered a new one that was correctly configured, again, Fully Loaded. That meant that the city was on the hook for two Navigators for the council chair.  In the end, that one was returned ($5,000+ including early termination fees) and the correct one was returned after the hue and cry ($12,000+ including early termination) and lead Chairman Brown to show off some new old wheels: a black Jeep mail truck.

The ensuing investigation by councilman Tommy Wells from the Transportation Committee eventually cost Wells his committee, though, as he didn’t realize he was supposed to smooth everything over for the new council chair, instead of making things a whole lot worse. in a shuffle that neat placed several long knives in the back of Wells, Brown shuffled off Wells to the Libraries, Parks and Recreation committee

Number One: Sulaimon Brown

Hooboy.

I don’t think I can write too much here without getting into a bit of a froth, but suffice it to say it took many by surprise when fringe mayoral candidate Sulaimon Brown was hired by the Gray Administration to work in the Office of Health Care Finance to be an auditor, and earn approximately $110,000 per year in the city’s employ.  Brown lasted about two weeks.

TBD had a fairly comprehensive take-apart of what happened next written by Erik Wemple and Kevin Robillard, back when some top names still worked for the organization. Essentially, Brown lost his job for failing to get along with his new coworkers, and began to make some seriously outlandish accusations, including that the Mayor’s campaign had paid him approximately $44,000 for his continued attacks on Mayor Fenty, and also promised him a job in the Gray administration.

These were earthshaking accusations, put off only by how completely unhinged and crazy Brown appeared. He crashed Mayor Gray’s press conference, turning the whole thing into a circus, and then resisted multiple council and federal subpoenas for his testimony in the matter. He finally did testify before the City Council, and though he left the juiciest bits of his side of the story out – at the request of the FBI – he did it with an absolutely amazing style. Brown wore sunglasses the entire day, frequently made personal attacks on council members during his testimony, and generally made an ass of himself.

The biggest question out of this was – how much of what he said was true? Could he really be so crazy as to have said these things without backup? Worse – what if he had the proof he suggested he did, and the city hired him anyway?

This one may not have made the national news, like so many of the other scandals here this year, but boy did this one prompt the most embarrassing questions.

Hi there, and welcome to the first of an occasional series called Anatomy of a Scandal. There’s always something to fight about when it comes to DC politics, and that’s just the local stuff, not what happens over at the Capitol. Unlike national politics, though, not every local political adventure has a clear set of sides and players. We’re here to help figure some of this stuff out. First up? Department of Parks and Recreation. It’s been sort of a long drawn out cluster of scandals, and you should probably know some of the people involved.

Dramatis Personae
Adrian Fenty, Mayor of the District of Columbia
Peter Nickles, His Attorney General
Vincent Gray, Chairman of the City Council, rival to Fenty
Kwame Brown, At-Large Councilman
Marion Barry, Hizzoner Emeritus
Ximena Hartsock, Interim/Acting Director of the Department of Parks & Recreation, appointed by Mayor Fenty (twice…)
DC Housing Authority, a quasi-governmental entity
Omar Karim, friend of the Mayor, fraternity brother to Adrian Fenty.

This begins in April of 2009. Mayor Fenty “requests” (by requests, I means demands) that Clark Ray step down from the top of Parks & Rec. Why is a subject of much discussion, and he ends up dishing to Kojo that he got fired in the most unfortunate and undignified manner. It’s a pretty crappy situation, but that’s okay, he’s running for the Council to compete with Phil Mendelson for an At-Large seat.

Enter Ximena Hartsock. She was a principal at Ross Elementary before she was snapped up by Michelle Rhee to run the out-of-school programs, that is, before she’s tapped to be Ray’s replacement. But, there’s some concern that because she’s just an educator, that DPR might not be the best choice for her to run. Her advocates point out that the out-of-school programs at DCPS are extensive and frequently involve managing 30,000 students’ post-school activities, including sports.

‘Beauty in the District’
courtesy of ‘NCinDC’

Fast Forward to early October. Ms. Hartsock goes before the Parks & Rec subcommittee of the Council for confirmation hearings. Let’s just say that things go badly. There’s concerns over an order by Ms. Hartsock, to preserve the operation of daycare centers in the face of privatization and/or closings, which is considered by some councilmembers to be a fiat action outside of her purview. Unfortunately, that’s not what gets said. Instead, Marion Barry says that Ms. Hartsock doesn’t understand ‘our’ culture. Hilarity ensues.

She’s voted down by the committee 4-1, and then by the council 7-5. Councilman Harry Thomas responds to the Post editorial by trying to go back to the legal issue in the public eye, but the damage is done. The Attorney General, speaking for the Fenty Administration, sticks out his finger and does the For Shame gesture.

Faced with the defeat of his nominee, Mayor Fenty decides that the only thing to do is appoint her to be the interim director of parks and rec. The Mayor’s sly ploy ends up causing a little mini-scandal when Councilwoman Mary Cheh calls the Fenty administration “lawless,” which results in AG Nickles calling her an “angry woman.” If you said to yourself just now, “Oh that must’ve gone over like a fart in church,” you are so right. Nickles later sends Cheh flowers. And an apron. (Okay, he didn’t send the apron, but he probably thought about it.)

So, that’s the most drama-heavy of the whole thing. Ximena Hartsock got some apologies, but some scowls, as well. She can serve 180 days this time around, which means that mid-to-late April 2010, we might be back at this. However, this isn’t the whole of the situation over at DPR. The other part that’s got undergarments in a rotational configuration is $82M in funding that got transferred from the Parks & Rec department over to the DC Housing Authority, which in turn gave out some no-bid contracts to Fenty-ally and fraternity brother Omar Karim, who runs Banneker Ventures. Loose Lips has the full breakdown of benefactors who got no-bid contracts with no oversight. AG Nickles says the contracts are good, but the hearings are much more skeptical, and legislation to put a halt to those contracts is before the Council today. Expect to see some fireworks, though, as the Council is pretty much pissed over this. Things are still shaking out, but the editorial in today’s Post is a must-read. There’s plenty of blame to go around here.

Welcome to the proxy war that continues daily between Mayor Adrian Fenty and the City Council over control of the budget, the day to day governance of the city, and the rewarding of campaign contributors.

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