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The Barras Report NO one is terribly surprised that Mayor Adrian M. Fenty is poised to appoint his trusted friend and mentor District Attorney General. Since Peter Nickles took over as interim earlier this year, after pushing out Linda Singer, there were predictions that the mayor would eventually appoint him to the post. The only question was whether Nickles would move into the city as required by law. Currently, he lives in Great Falls, VA.
Carrie Brooks, the mayor’s communication director, without confirming published reports, says an official announcement will be made later this week. She also says that any appointee will have 180 days, as provided by law, to move into the city. In other words, Nickles will have been in his position for nearly a year before he has to relocate.
While Nickles tenure, both as general counsel to the mayor and more recently as interim AG, has been fraught with controversy, he knows how to help himself. Today, his office announced that it has filed a lawsuit against CareFirst, Inc and its D.C. based affiliate, Group Hospitalization and Medical Services.
That action paints him a man of the people.
The city was in discussion earlier this year with CareFirst, a charitable organization, about using its excess revenues to help expand the District’s healthcare program for uninsured residents. The company backed out, forcing a reduction in the plan’s reach. In 1998, CareFirst’s surplus was $159 million. By the end of 2007, it had grown to $754 million.
“Continuing to grow an excessive surplus may make GHMSI a more attractive takeover target, but doesn’t serve public health and it doesn’t ser the people who pay the premiums,” Nickles said in announcing the lawsuit.
Who wouldn’t salute—or confirm--a guy who willing to fight a large, greedy corporation on behalf of the poor?
Meanwhile, Fenty’s other management moves--ensuring that all bouncers like all doors belong to him-- are being made under the radar with little attention.
He forced John Hill to resign his post as chairman of the Children’s Trust Fund, a quasi-independent organization created by the D.C. Council, according to John Wilson Building sources. Hill, also the executive director of the Federal City Council, did not return telephone calls to his office.
Hill has been a fixture on the D.C. political and policy scene since the mid 1990s. He prepared the GAO report that eventually led to the creation of the financial control board. He later served as the board's first executive director before leaving to work for a youth organization. He was initially appointed as chairman of the Trust by then-Mayor Anthony A. Williams.
Some government officials have raised questions about whether the Trust Fund’s $8.1 million grant may be in jeopardy because of the changes in the organization. Sources say Fenty already has brought in a new chairman of the Fund who appointed, without benefit of a national search, a new director. Greg Robinson, the past director is moving to Kentucky.
Additionally the mayor stepped into the presidential search process at the University of the District of Columbia. He made the board of trustees halt its selection, concerned that candidates under consideration were not the best. Sources says individuals from the University of Virginia, the University of Delaware and the Albany State are on the board’s short list. (Stanley Jackson the current acting president is not on the list.)
Fenty also is asking for the resignation of some trustees, say government sources.
“Because of the stuff he’s been doing in education at the lower level, it’s not been easy to turn to focus on UDC,” explains Brooks. “But it’s time to look at what we’re doing in other areas of education.
“It can’t be business as usual; we have to raise the bar,” she added.
But the mayor’s moves have council members concerned that politics is being injected in all the wrong places. Friday, Chairman Vincent C. Gray intends to jump into the fray. He is holding a roundtable on the presidential selection process. He is worried that the failure to select a credible president would be the death knell for the university, especially at a time when there are efforts to create a community college.
Gray, according to sources, is talking with his colleagues about holding other roundtables on the mayor’s recent appointments including changes at the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission and the Walter Washington Convention Center.
Stay tuned.
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