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Articles
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| The Pope, 'power trips' and Powerball ... |
VOICE writes, " We're telling you now.
From the time the pope gets into Washington on the afternoon of April 15 and leaves in the morning two days later, those snarled in traffic could be cussin' and fussin'.
Police Chief Cathy Lanier says that when the popemobile rolls through the city, streets on the route will be cleared of traffic and parked cars.
For extra precaution, there will be little advance notice of this rolling gridlock, so prepare yourself.
The pope's visit certainly qualifies as worthy of all that police worry.
But the real "power trip" we have in mind is the city's new tourism slogan for the coming seasons, "Create Your Own Power Trip."
We were stunned when we first heard it.
In all our years of journalism, we've never heard or seen "power trip" used other than with a negative connotation. So now we're going to have a whole campaign of telling families and others to come to Washington for their own power trips?
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We've thought about this long enough that we can see how ad executives working together -- or with focus groups -- might come to the conclusion that powerless people may want to feel powerful.
But most of the tourists we see come here for the incredible beauty of their nation's capital and to see their government and Smithsonian museums, not for some fantasized power trip.
Maybe we're too jaded, but expecting ordinary Americans to relate to a "power trip" seems a stretch.
If tourists were that powerful, maybe they'd move all those ugly security barriers and metal detectors and I.D. checks and police cars parked in crosswalks and alleyways that make visiting Washington like visiting an armed camp.
Now that would be power.
¥ Powerball problems. OK, we admit it. We play the D.C. Lottery games like Powerball, Hot Lotto and D.C. Daily 6. We take random picks from the machine. We don't pick our own numbers because it's too hard to fill in those little squares. And we don't have a sure-fire scheme to pick numbers from birthdays or other random events.
There's been nothing random about the millions of dollars that have been flowing to the city treasury from the lottery, now about $70 million a year, since its inception in 1983.
Leonard Manning has held the lottery contract all that time. His LTE firm has made millions, too.
Now, in something of a political surprise, there's a new proposal from the lottery board and chief financial officer Natwar Gandhi that Manning's firm be dismissed and the lucrative contract given to something called W2Tech.
At a hearing on Monday, it turned out that W2Tech is about nine months old and won its minority business certification -- a crucial element -- only at the last minute as the contracts were being considered. The new firm has virtually no modern experience.
At least not in lotteries.
It turns out the company includes Warren C. Williams Sr. and his son, Warren Jr.
They may be best known to you as owners of the late, but not mourned, Club U at the intersection of U and 14th streets NW.
At the hearing Monday, Ward 1 D.C. Council member Jim Graham recalled how the club had "for years" caused administrative headaches and endured violence that threatened the neighborhood. It was closed finally after someone at the club was stabbed to death.
Graham and council finance chair Jack Evans said there were other complaints that those involved allegedly own slum properties and have strong ties to the Fenty administration.
The hearing room also swirled with political rumors that, at bottom, this lottery switch was to a group of young Turks who, through fraternity or other connections with the mayor, are trying to take over all the lucrative private-business partnerships run by the city.
That would be a pretty brazen goal -- but not unheard of in any city undergoing generational changes. Manning is old school.
Mayor Adrian Fenty's office flatly told NBC4 that the mayor and his administration had nothing to do with the change, just routinely submitted the proposal on behalf of Gandhi. Gandhi's spokesperson said during the hearing that the Office of the Chief Financial Officer wants the lottery better managed by a more modern company to make more money for the city.
But this lottery deal will have a bit more light shined on it before the issue is decided.
Finance chair Evans said he was recommending to Council Chairman Vincent Gray that the council reject the request that it approve the new contract on a "fast track." Evans was clear. We need to know more.
¥ Correction. In last week's column we lauded architect Paul Devrouax for his work on the new city ballpark and noted that he sat in the stands the previous weekend with the common folks rather than in a luxury box seat.
All true, except that we misspelled his last name. A nice reader of The Current and admirer of Devrouax pointed out the mistake. We thank her, and we regret our error.
Unfortunately, we also misspelled the name of Mark Tuohey, former chair of the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission. We're sorry for that one, too.
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Posted on Apr 20, 2008 14:36pm.
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