Examiner Exclusive
D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh said her colleagues should go on an anti-pork diet, calling publicly Thursday for a moratorium on city earmarks.
“We will be looking at them very, very closely. And they may not survive,” Cheh told The Washington Examiner in a phone interview. “Certainly I think they should end until we’re satisfied that there will be no misallocation.”
The council will meet Friday for the first time since one of their number, Ward 8 Democrat Marion Barry, was accused of steering lucrative public funds to a woman with whom he was romantically involved. Every council member has tagged taxpayers’ dollars for favored charities and projects; Cheh said Thursday that the practice should end to “make sure that everything is proper and aboveboard and justified.”
City hall sources told The Examiner that Cheh and David Catania, I-at large, have been lobbying their colleagues to take a bolder stab at reform to prevent further embarrassment from Barry’s latest scandal. The pair met with Chairman Vincent Gray, Democrat, and Michael Brown, I-at large, while the four were in Philadelphia this week, the sources said.
If Catania and Cheh are to be successful in creating a legally binding moratorium, they’ll need seven votes. They’ll likely meet resistance from, among others, Ward 2 Democrat Jack Evans, who has set aside millions for arts groups in his long council career.
“I would never say that you should get rid of earmarks altogether,” Evans told The Examiner Thursday. “It’s a broad category. If you’re going to get rid of the earmark to the Washington Ballet, what about things that go to [Democrat] Jim Graham’s ward?”
In the most recent budget, Evans has preserved some $400,000 for the ballet company.
Phil Mendelson, D-at large, backed Cheh’s proposal Thursday, saying that earmarks “have been a source of embarrassment to the council for several years now.”
“I think we should use this opportunity to cut them back significantly — if not eliminate them,” Mendelson said.
