It was difficult to tell last week whether D.C. Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. had begun rewriting history or had fallen down the rabbit hole. This much was clear: The probe of a 2009 contract to renovate recreation centers wouldn’t end soon. And I was feeling like Alice. Follow me, if you dare.
In creating the special investigation committee last month, council Chairman Kwame Brown said it would sunset at the end of February. But the panel, chaired by Thomas, voted to extend itself through early summer.
Thomas told me the committee extended to March 11, the date for special counsel Robert Trout to issue his final report from the investigation. Further, the Ward 5 legislator said there “always was the understanding the committee would take another 120 days to conclude its work.”
A. Scott Bolden, the managing partner at Reed Smith who is representing business owners targeted in the probe, disputed the latter assertion. He said Thomas is “confusing the investigation against my clients with his own investigation issues.”
Ironically, the District’s attorney general and the Office of Campaign Finance are reviewing Thomas’ operation of a nonprofit organization known as Team Thomas. The OCF also is investigating Brown. District elected officials are swirling in scandals.
Yet, they are obsessed with the recreation centers investigation, which began in 2009. That was after it was revealed the city’s public housing authority had signed a multimillion-dollar project management contract with Banneker Ventures-Regan Associates, without receiving prior approval from the council as required by law. Banneker Ventures is owned by Omar Karim, a fraternity brother of then-Mayor Adrian M. Fenty. Thomas and others accused the mayor of deliberately circumventing the process to steer a contract to his friend.
In March 2010, Trout was enlisted to clean up the legislature’s hysterical examination and to produce a coherent report. Thomas said, then, he expected a report in 45 days. But in December, Trout told me the legislation appointing him allowed him 60 days after the conclusion of his investigation. His probe officially ended Dec. 23.
Now, Trout’s report is supposed to be ready March 11. Don’t hold your breath.
Thomas said council members wanted to give people mentioned in the document an opportunity to review it. “We saw what happened to [Marion] Barry when there was no opportunity for him to have input in the report [issued by special counsel Robert Bennett],” Thomas said. “We learned from that lesson.”
Thomas said Bolden and his clients will read the draft in Trout’s office.
“All I know is we’re going into March with an investigation that concluded in December and there is still no report,” Bolden said. He complained that his clients also have been unable to collect money they are due. The council sued the executive branch to prevent payment until the report is released. That case is still in court.
Whew! Instead of resolving an issue, the council has created a huge, never-ending mess.
Jonetta Rose Barras’s column appears on Monday and Wednesday. She can be reached at [email protected].
