Above The Fray, In Beijing

By David Nakamura
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 7, 2007

What is it about D.C. officials and China?

In October 2005, just as the D.C. Council began another nasty round of bickering over the question of who would pay for the new Nationals baseball stadium, Mayor Anthony A. Williams jetted off for an 11-day "cultural and economic mission" to Beijing and Bangkok. By the time the mayor returned, his stadium plan was headed toward renewed chaos.

Now the city leader in the hot seat is School Superintendent Clifford B. Janey, who could get a new boss -- Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) -- by Tuesday. So what's on Janey's agenda in the first couple of weeks after that?

Yep, a week-long jaunt to Beijing.

Janey said he's going June 24 along with about a dozen other school officials, as part of a national program to increase Mandarin language instruction in urban school systems. The subject came up at a news conference this week that was supposed to be about the kickoff of an extensive audit of the school system by city officials.

Asked about the China trip, Janey bristled at suggestions that this might be a bad time to be out of town. He noted that he had signed an agreement last year with the Chinese government to promote Mandarin instruction and was proud that D.C. schools were participating in the program. The system has expanded its Mandarin instruction to six schools, Janey said.

But given that Fenty, whose plan to take over the school system has been steadily advancing, is said to favor replacing Janey, it is not even certain whether he'll still be in charge before he leaves -- much less what will happen when he returns.

Legal Fees Top Legal Limit

Stop the presses: The new baseball stadium costs appear to have exceeded the D.C. Council's $611 million cost cap!

Forgive our sarcasm, but we've heard this song before. The Notebook has covered the stadium from the start, back in September 2004, when Mayor Anthony A. Williams and his aides said the project would cost about $435 million in public money.

Then it was $535 million.

Then $611 million.

Now comes word from D.C. Auditor Deborah K. Nichols that costs for legal services provided to the District by Venable LLP on the city's eminent-domain case for the stadium land have gone well above the $1.87 million included in the cost limit -- and that the D.C. Attorney General's Office appeared to allow a little funny business in the final year of the Williams administration.

Let's start at the top.

To get control of much of the 20 acres of land in Southeast near the Navy Yard where the stadium is being built, the city invoked its powers of eminent domain against several landowners, who challenged the city's financial settlements in court. The cases are proceeding.

Venable has been assisting the city. But according to a report from Nichols this week, the "amount of expenses incurred with Venable alone totals approximately $2.4 million as of February 28, 2007, and significantly exceeds the $1.87 million initial budget."

That would threaten to put the total costs for the stadium project above the cap, Nichols said.

A bigger problem is this: Nichols said the city must find alternative funding sources to continue paying Venable and to recoup any excess money paid to the law firm.

And the eminent domain cases are far from over. They could last months, according to attorneys for the landowners who have been kicked out.

So how did Venable come to be paid more than the budget would allow by law? That's tricky. It appears the company had a contract originally worth $800,000. As costs rose, however, the fees went up -- to nearly $1.2 million in the first year alone.

All contracts worth more than $1 million must be approved by the D.C. Council. However, it appears the Venable contracts were renewed several times without the matter ever appearing before the council, Nichols's report found.

The report goes on to explain all the machinations in greater detail, but the upshot is that city leaders will have some scrambling to do to figure out how to keep fighting the eminent-domain cases -- with or without their friends from Venable.