Year-End Meeting Covers Lots of Ground

Although the D.C. Council's last legislative meeting of the year was close to the holidays, it was pretty much all business all the time. What follows are some moments from the marathon meeting.

Gray Dodged a Bullet

The council's gun vote this week, which requires gun owners to have five hours of training, came with a cautionary tale from Chairman Vincent C. Gray.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the District's 30-year ban on handguns this year, leaving D.C. officials struggling to find legislation that balanced their need to comply with the court and a desire to regulate guns. Gun violence has been a major thread in the city's narrative for decades.

The council voted Tuesday, 10 to 3, to pass the gun registration bill after a spirited discussion and a childhood story from Gray, who talked about a close call he had with his older brother when they were growing up.

Gray, who an aide said was in elementary school at the time of the incident, talked about being in his family's living room as his brother was cleaning a gun. He said he left the room to go to the bathroom but "heard this loud noise. When I came back, there was a bullet hole in the couch near where I had been standing."

"My brother did not realize that there was a bullet in the chamber," Gray said. "I think that the Lord decided that this wasn't my day to go."

Gray told the story to lobby council support for the training requirement, introduced as an amendment by member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3).

Equal Pay for Paramedics

By a 7 to 4 vote, the council passed the Emergency Medical Services Act of 2008, which is designed to provide pay equity for paramedics and firefighters.

The bill categorizes emergency medical technicians and 13 paramedics who are not firefighters as hazards/emergency medical services specialists so they can receive pay parity and retirement benefits equal to firefighters.

The council passed the bill at the request of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and in response to the Rosenbaum Commission, a panel established to produce reforms after the death of former New York Times journalist David E. Rosenbaum, who had been severely beaten but was mistaken by EMS workers as being intoxicated. Rosenbaum died from his injuries.

EMS workers are represented by the American Federation of Government Employees; the firefighters are represented by the International Association of Firefighters. Some council members objected to the bill because they said they feared Fenty would use it to break the AFGE.

"There are various serious federal regulations of what we can and cannot do," said council member David Catania (I-At Large).