Public Employee Board Standoff Enters Head-Scratching Phase

The Battle of the PERB continues.

First, the D.C. Council rejected Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's nominees to the Public Employee Relations Board, citing the inexperience of the running buddies and friends he chose to oversee labor and collective bargaining issues.

Then the council approved emergency legislation to allow a single member to handle the work of the five-member board, because, without a quorum, nothing was getting done. Late last week, Fenty vetoed the legislation.

Meanwhile, the mayor submitted four new nominees, but council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3), who heads the committee handling the PERB, said she wants a fifth name that comes from organized labor, as required by city law.

On Tuesday, the council approved emergency legislation to allow a union representative on the board to continue serving until the standoff is resolved.

Confused? So are we.

"The objective here is a simple one: to get a full board, five qualified members so that they represent the interests as the statute contemplates," said Cheh, chairman of the Committee on Government Operations and the Environment. "And we haven't worked it out quite yet."

Cheh has extended a carrot to Fenty. "If the mayor would send over a fifth name according to the statute, which is to say chosen from a list presented by union representatives, I will move all five of them like a rocket docket and have a fully functioning board," Cheh said. "What I don't want to have happen, however, is by some sort of strategy or default, is that we have four members, all of whom are mayoral appointees fairly representative of the management prospective."

If Fenty does not send over the fifth name, Cheh said, an override attempt of his veto could occur next month.

Lips Semi-Sealed on Teacher Contract Talks

Speaking of employee relations, contract talks between the D.C. public school system and teachers union representatives resumed last week, but the principal players aren't saying much. That includes newly minted mediator Kurt Schmoke, who, when asked for an interview -- even with the provision that he didn't have to wade into any pesky contract details -- said he would have to take the request to Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.

He must have misplaced our phone number, because we haven't heard back.

One shaft of light did escape this week, and it doesn't suggest that things are going all that well. In a Q and A with education writer Linda Kulman, posted yesterday on Politicsdaily.com (full disclosure: Your D.C. Wire/Notebook correspondent is married to the editor in chief), Rhee pronounced Weingarten a liar. It came in the course of lamenting the "misinformation" in the press about her proposals.