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D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) has nominated a veteran public safety official to head the city’s office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, one of the most important positions in city government.

Gray is asking the D.C. Council to confirm Christopher T. Geldart who is currently president of G2 Solutions, a Severna Park-based company that provides homeland security advice to local governments and corporations.

Mayor Vincent Gray is asking the D.C. Council to confirm Geldart after Millicent D. West resigned from the position. (Jim Cole - AP) Gray nominated Geldart after Millicent D. West resigned from the position in January amid questions about her previous job as head of the DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corp. When West headed the Trust in 2008 and 2009, former D.C. Council member Harry Thomas used more than $300,000 in grants from the organization for his personal use.

West, who former mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) tapped in 2009 to head homeland security, had not been accused of any wrongdoing in the Thomas scandal. But West said in January she was stepping down “to ensure the work of the agency can carry on without any distractions.”

Extending his apology tour to a new day and a new ethnic group, D.C. Council member Marion Barry issued a seven-word statement Friday morning attempting to quickly clarify his reference to “Polacks.”

Marion Barry (Bill O'Leary - The Washington Post) “I misspoke: I should have said, Polish,” Barry said.

The statement, coming less than 24 hours after Barry’s gaffe, represents Barry’s attempt to more quickly respond to what has become his near weekly use of offensive or politically incorrect language.

Last month, it took 48 hours of mounting public pressure for Barry to apologize after he called Asian-owned businesses in Ward 8 “dirty.”

A few weeks later, Barry offended Filipinos when he said the District needs to “grow” its own nurses instead of having to “be scrounging around” to hire them from the Philippines and other countries.

It’s likely that fewer veterans are sleeping on the streets or in vehicles in the District than earlier this week.  

On Wednesday, the D.C. Housing Authority successfully matched 80 homeless veterans and their families with permanent housing, boosting the number of veterans who receive free or subsidized housing vouchers in the District to 744.

File photo of a homeless war veteran washing dinner dishes at Central Union Mission, which provides emergency shelter for homeless men in Washington, DC. (Jahi Chikwendiu - WASHINGTON POST)

Using part of a $1.5 million grant from the federal Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Program, the agency held a daylong housing fair where eligible veterans were placed with pre-screened landlords. 

As in other District housing programs, qualified recipients receive a voucher that averages $15,000 annually to use secure an apartment.  Recipients are expected to match the voucher with 30 percent of their incomes.

 “They receive a voucher, with a voucher they can go anywhere they want and rent an apartment,” said Dena Michaelson, a spokeswoman at the Housing Authority. “Many of these folks, since they have had issues, and have been homeless, their income is zero, so it’s totally subsidized.”

District correction officials on Wednesday categorically denied that D.C. Council member-elect Kenyan McDuffie visited the city jail to convince inmates to vote for him in the May 15 special election, squashing rampant rumors and online listserv chatter about his alleged campaign tactics.

Kenyan McDuffie, candidate for the DC Council Ward 5 , voted at Mt. Bethel Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, May 15, 2012. He is holding daughter Jozi, 2. (HO - Tony Ponds/Courtesy of Kenyan McDuffie campaign)

“Please be advised that there is no truth to the allegations made regarding Kenyan McDuffie’s visits to the D.C. Jail as a council candidate,” said Sylvia Lane, a spokeswoman for the D.C. Department of the Corrections. “We have fully reviewed our visitation records and found without question, that he has not been in the facility. “

 McDuffie, who won a landslide victory to replace former council member Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5), will be sworn in May 30 after his election is certified.

But in the days since his victory, McDuffie’s has been dogged by continued gossip that he may have improperly pressured inmates at the jail to vote for him by absentee ballot.

D.C. activists may not have a vote in Congress, but they do have props and sarcasm, and they brought plenty of both to a protest outside Rep. Trent Franks’s office Wednesday.

D.C. Vote organized the rally outside the Arizona Republican’s office in the Rayburn Building in response to the hearing Franks held last week on his bill that would ban all abortions in the District after 20
D.C. protesters came to Rep. Trent Franks’ office Wednesday, but he wasn’t there. (AP Photo/Matt York)weeks’ pregnancy. Local leaders view the bill as an intrusion on the city’s self-governance, while Frank, a strong abortion opponent, has pointed out that the Constitution grants Congress the authority to “exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever” in the District.

In that case, the protesters reasoned, Franks must be interested in solving all kinds of other local problems. But when they went to his office Wednesday to ask for help, the door was locked. The phones went straight to a full voice mail box. With the House on recess this week, Franks was likely out of town.