From
NBC4, word that on Tuesday the city council unanimously passed legislation to allow street vending at
Nationals Park: "On Tuesday, [Ward 3 council member Mary] Cheh introduced emergency legislation requiring Mayor Adrian Fenty to come up with 40 vending spots in 21 days, including 23 spots for veteran vendors of RFK. The spaces will be distributed by lottery." The council had passed legislation to overhaul of the city's vending rules
last month, but the new regulations weren't getting written quickly enough to get vendors in place by the ballpark. The
Post has more.
The council also voted unanimously to "create a body within the D.C. Auditor's office that will perform a one-time audit of completed projects on land that is now controlled by Neil Albert, deputy mayor for economic development, but was once under the control of the defunct public-private National Capital Revitalization Corp. and the Anacostia Waterfront Corp.," according to the
Washington Business Journal. This would include
Canal Park and
Diamond Teague Park, and is being done to "ensure that developers keep promises to build affordable housing, meet environmental standards, hire District workers and involve local and disadvantaged businesses when they receive public land or financing."
Meanwhile, Bruce Johnson
reports on his blog (with photo credit in place--thanks!) that there's been some behind-the-scenes battling between the city council and the mayor's office over who would control the complementary tickets to the two suites at the ballpark designated to the city. It sounds like an agreement has been reached where the mayor will control tickets to one suite and council chair Vincent Gray the other. (Geez, even *I* could have come up with that solution.)
UPDATE, 4/2: Now Bruce says
there's still no agreement. Part of the problem is that the executive branch, city council, and sports commission had 148 tickets to work with at RFK, and only have 48 at Nationals Park.