THE REGION
Campaign Launched to Encourage Giving
A coalition of 20 nonprofit organizations and businesses kicked off its annual holiday season campaign yesterday to encourage more Washington area residents to donate to local charities.
The effort includes an ad campaign in local newspapers, radio spots, online ads and televised appeals asking residents to donate time and money through the Web site www.touchdc.org, which provides information on 23,000 of the region's nonprofit organizations. TouchDC.org, now in its third year, raised $1.6 million last year for the group, and organizers said they hope to beat that total this year.
THE DISTRICT
D.C. Credit Rating Rises to Best in Years
Wall Street analysts yesterday raised the District's credit rating to its highest level in 14 years, citing a reassuring commitment by city leaders to sound financial practices that make a return to the "junk bond" days of the late 1990s increasingly unlikely.
On the strength of the District's latest bond offering, Standard & Poor's upgraded the city's bond rating to A from A-, the first time since 1990 that the District has earned an unqualified A rating.
Meanwhile, Fitch Ratings revised its outlook for the District to positive from stable. Fitch declined, however, to boost the city's rating above A-, citing concerns about "high debt levels" likely to be exacerbated by "plans for debt financing a new baseball stadium and economic development in the Anacostia area."
Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi was nonetheless pleased. "Standard & Poor's and Fitch have recognized the city's financial stability and viability moving forward," he said in a written statement. "With soon-to-be-eight consecutive balanced budgets, substantial cash reserves, and a fund balance of $900 million and growing, the District is on an economic roll."
Former Convention Center to Be Imploded
The old Washington Convention Center will go out with a bang, or a series of them, Dec. 18, when the 20-year-old building is scheduled to be demolished.
The Convention Center's steel and concrete columns will be rigged with explosives designed to collapse the steel roof sequentially. The implosion of the building at 11th Street and New York Avenue NW is to begin at 7:30 a.m. Convention Center officials said traffic closures, part of a safety perimeter around the dark-glass-and-concrete building, will be in effect from 5:30 to 9:30 a.m. The entire event likely will last about 20 seconds.
Tony Robinson, spokesman for the Washington Convention Center Authority, said he does not anticipate widespread problems with traffic, noise or dust. He said Convention Center officials have met with nearby property owners, the Secret Service, hotels and city agencies to coordinate the implosion. The 10-acre site will be a parking lot while the city determines how to redevelop it.
VIRGINIA
4 Employers Win Family-Friendly Awards
Northern Virginia Family Services, a Fairfax County-based social services agency, gave its 12th annual CARE (Companies As Responsive Employers) awards yesterday to four area employers, citing them for their family-friendly workplace policies.
The small-company award went to Herndon-based National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corp., the mid-size company award to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association of Arlington, and the large-company awards to Freddie Mac in McLean and the consulting firm of KPMG LLP in the District.
