Potomac Confidential

Washington's Hour of Talk Power

Potomac Confidential fills the midday lull with discussion by Metro columnist Marc Fisher, who looks at the latest news with a rigorous slicing and dicing of the issues that define who we are and where we live.

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Today's Column: Adams Morgan Parking Problem An Uphill Battle

Fisher was online Thursday, Dec. 6, at Noon ET to look at the nightmare of parking in Adams Morgan, how to handle the homeless at Starbucks and the stunning power of the word "snow."

Check out Marc's blog, Raw Fisher.

In his weekly show, Fisher veers wildly from serious probing to silly prattle, and is open to topics local, national, personal and more.

Archives: Discussion Transcripts

A transcript follows.

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Marc Fisher: Welcome aboard, folks. Well, this was some kind of record--delayed school openings for what a bartender would call ice shavings. But we're masters of snow hysteria, so this is just a rehearsal for the big acts yet to come this winter.

Lots of interesting reaction to today's column on parking tickets in Adams Morgan and the dangerous blend of overzealous police, unruly partyers and frustrated residents.

Next Thursday is our Pretend Presidential Primary over on the big blog, where you'll have your only chance to cast a vote that counts even rhetorically in the selection of presidential nominees. More over on Raw Fisher.

On to your many comments and questions, but first, the Yay and Nay of the Day:

Yay to D.C. Superior Court Judge Neal Kravitz, who yesterday socked it to Metrobus driver Victor Kolako, the guy who knocked off two pedestrians early this year. Kravitz put the driver away for a year to teach him a lesson after he killed two women while trying to beat oncoming traffic and make his turn at 7th and Pennsylvania NW.

Nay to critics of the D.C. school closing plan, the whiners who are complaining that they had insufficient notice or public input into Chancellor Michelle Rhee's plan to close 23 schools. This has been in the works for many years, with all manner of public input, and there's a slew of hearings that start next week. The time has long since come to act to shut down buildings and get resources to the kids rather than to maintaining decrepit and empty facilities.

Your turn starts right now....

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18th Streeter: A Metro bus driver has just been convicted of negligent homicide of two women. He apparently was rushing to make a left-hand turn in order to stay within schedule. In my own experience downtown, I regularly see Metro buses run red lights. Does Metro encourage reckless driving by forcing its drivers to rigidly adhere to schedules? Or are the drivers poorly trained? Should Metro bus drivers be fined for running red lights just like the rest of us?

washingtonpost.com: Bus Driver Gets a Year in Pedestrian Deaths ( Post, Dec. 6)

Marc Fisher: In my years of riding the bus, I never saw much evidence of a schedule, so I can't imagine the drivers feel much heat in that way. Of course, they may have other motivations for getting to the end of their run quickly, and I'm all for that, but of course not at the expense of zooming through red lights or blithely ignoring traffic laws. This is a good sentencing that will send a much needed message.

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Washington, D.C.: Marc -- Couldn't disagree with you more about the parking solution for Adams Morgan (a subject I am happy you discuss, by the way). No one should build a garage -- more drunk driving should not be encouraged. The city and METRO should provide addtiional service, but walking and using cabs work well for the partiers now. Yes some people park illegally, and yes, they should be ticketed, but what's going on now isn't a problem that needs a solution -- the system basically works here, maybe with some extra enforcement.

washingtonpost.com: Adams Morgan Parking Problem An Uphill Battle ( Post, Dec. 6)

Marc Fisher: Well, the folks who live in Adams Morgan don't generally agree that there's no problem. They live with partiers who are loud and obnoxious as they return to their illegally parked cars at 3 a.m. They live with having access to their own private parking spaces blocked by folks who just take any available piece of pavement without regard to the law.

The retailers, bar owners, police, residents and city officials all agree that the parking situation in A/M is untenable. Metro is part of the solution, but it's a healthy walk from the nearest station to most of the bars and eateries and there will always be a lot of folks who decide to drive. And there really is but one lot of any size. A municipal lot would make a huge difference.

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D.C. Re: Adams Morgan parking: Marc, thanks for your column today.

Parking and DMV have always been questionable, but something really fishy is going on now. I'm still trying to understand how I could receive a letter doubling the fine for a parking ticket THAT I NEVER RECEIVED because I NEVER LEFT MY CAR.

And now they want to end the walk-in adjudication?

Do some folks in Washington realize this is the type of stuff that makes people wonder (wrongly or rightly) about our fitness for self-government?

Marc Fisher: The decision by the District to end in-person hearings for folks appealing parking tickets is of course being billed as a money-saving step, but it's obviously more than that. The right to argue your case in open court is absolutely foundational and ought not be stripped away for pennysaving purposes or because the city thinks it might win more of these cases by handling appeals online or by mail.

And it's just as important to have those hearings be public so that we can all monitor the process and see how fairly our fellow citizens are being treated.

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washingtonpost.com: Losing The Right to Fight A Ticket ( Raw Fisher, Dec. 5)

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Marc Fisher: One more thing I wanted to get into today's intro but didn't have time for:

Today's D.C. political notebook in the District Extra takes us inside the battle over who will get the tickets to Washington Wizards games that Abe Pollin has given to the D.C. government as a snazzy thank you gift for $50 million the city is contributing toward renovations of the Pollin arena downtown. The mayor and the council are of course fighting over who gets the luxury box seats. How about this: Give the tickets to the bank teller who discovered the $40 million D.C. tax office scandal. This teller ought to be a public hero by this point, yet we don't even know the person's name. This person should get the tickets to the Wiz games, and throw out the first ball at a Nats game, and whatever other honors the District can devise.

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Reston, Va.: I would like to add to the list of heroes from last week. The 7-year-old girl in Detroit who stepped in front of her mother to shield her from a former boyfriend is a hero. She was shot 6 times and her mother twice.

I was glad to see national coverage of this story. If you want to read the whole story:

Girl, 7, Shot 6 Times Saving Mom ( Detroit News, Dec. 5)

Thanks again.

Marc Fisher: News to me--that does indeed sound heroic.

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Washington, D.C.: I can't believe that the Metrobus driver that ran down two people in a crosswalk is only getting one year in prison. So, by that logic, the bus driver that killed the pedestrian earlier this week should only get six months.

The ABC station is saying that the driver took a plea agreement so as not to affect his immigration status ( hFormer Metrobus Driver Sentenced to 1 Year in Jail ( WJLA.com, Dec. 6)). So what is his immigration status, anyway? And after killing two people, is there a good reason why he shouldn't be deported?

Marc Fisher: Deportation might well be in order depending on what Kolako's immigration status is--conviction on a felony charge is often the prelude to deportation of an illegal immigrant. Kolako, today's story says, came here a decade ago as a political refugee. If he has been granted asylum, odds are he would not be deported for something like this.

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Arlington, Va.: I have thought about writing my congressman about the parking ticket problem in D.C. If Congress steps in and puts a stop to the stupid idea of not being able to protest parking tickets, would you be happy or upset?

Marc Fisher: Yowza--that's a tough one, but I'd have to go with keeping the status quo rather than going crying to Mama on the Hill. Just as it's appalling that a Senator who didn't like the District's taxi zone system shoved his own preference down the throat of the city government, or that Congress uses D.C. as a plaything for its experiments with school vouchers, or that Congress stripped the District of its needle exchange program, forcing addicts back into disease-spreading behaviors, it's also just plain wrong for Congress to intercede on parking tickets.

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washingtonpost.com: Mayor, Council Battle Over Wizards Tickets ( District Extra, Dec. 6)

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Alexandria, Va.: I moved from Washington, D.C., when Marion Barry was mayor -- and I'm glad I did. The D.C. police are spending their time ticketing neighborhoods and no time ticketing cars that are blocking streets during rush hour. I know they don't care about residents from other jurisdictions being inconvenienced during rush hour, but shouldn't they care about the traffic jams that are a danger to the D.C. residents when fire trucks and ambulances can't get through the jams?

Marc Fisher: I do see the tow trucks out there taking away cars that remain in the parking lane during posted rush hours, but you're right--it doesn't happen nearly enough. Surely this is or ought to be a revenue-enhancer for the District, so they ought to pump up the volume on sweeping those cars off the road, then fine the owners like there's no tomorrow. That's good for residents, commuters and the city's coffers all at once.

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Arlington, Va.: What a lovely little snow. Just enough to make everything pretty, nothing to inconvenience people much. I'd like to see a snow like this every week for the rest of the winter.

Marc Fisher: Yes, but I'd like it to be a bit more snow than this--you couldn't even get a decent snowball out of this, let alone do any sledding. A nice four inches a week would be the best of all winters. And the schools would eventually have to come out of their caves and reopen.

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Washington, D.C. (Tenleytown): Roads haven't been this bad after a storm since Marion Barry was mayor. They opened schools without salting the streets in front of them. It was a total mess around Janney School with cars stuck on hills, fender benders on side streets. The temperature was 25 degrees. Maybe the Mayor and Chancellor need to go back to school and figure out when water freezes to ice.

Marc Fisher: There was a surprising lack of preparation of the roads around most of the city. It had seemed in the later Tony Williams years as if the District had finally mastered the art of clearing and prepping streets, but perhaps the managers who made that happen are no longer around. Certainly there appears to be slippage in the new administration.

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First snowfall: Well, that's predictable. On the day after the first snowfall, curmudgeon Mark Fisher gripes about school closings. Only its not closings, its 2 hour delays. Hey it's icy out here! Better to wait 2 hours until some of it melts. I thought you'd be praising us because the schools are, in fact, open.

Marc Fisher: I don't understand the appeal of the two-hour delay, except to give teachers a nice morning in bed, which I grant you is a good and well-deserved bonus.

The delays wreak havoc on parents, who still have to be at work at the usual time. And the delays do nothing to assure safety, especially on a cold day like today, when the temperature at 10 a.m. is still below freezing, so there's no less ice then than there was at 7 or 8.

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Arlington, Va.: One more (I'm sure) weather rant: if our hothouse Metro system is so delicate that yesterday's snow caused the slightest bit of delay then it is time to just shut it down rather than throw more good money after bad. Maybe they could use the tunnels to build a network of underground highways through the city?

Marc Fisher: Metro has actually been more paralyzed by ice and snow in the past than in the last couple of years. Policy changes that kept more train cars inside tunnels during a big storm have helped. But the system is getting old and it does seem to break down more often. I was at a hearing this morning that was considerably delayed because folks were stuck on the Red Line, where at least one train was stopped because a passenger had taken ill. That doesn't seem to be weather related.

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Arlington, Va.: MF: "Well, the folks who live in Adams Morgan ... live with partiers who are loud and obnoxious as they return to their illegally parked cars at 3 a.m."

I thought you were big into the idea that people who move into an area knowing what it's like should not complain about the area continuing to be that way after they move in.

Marc Fisher: Good point, and that's why I have little sympathy for the folks who moved into new condo buildings in the heart of Adams Morgan--surely they knew exactly what the street scene is like there on Friday and Saturday nights.

But here we're talking about folks who live four, five, eight, even ten blocks away from the bars, who really should not be expected to have made their housing decisions based on the idea that loud, rude party people would come bellowing into their street at 2 or 3 in the morning, retrieving cars that block emergency vehicles' access.

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Washington, D.C.:"When the temperature at 10 a.m. is still below freezing, so there's no less ice then than there was at 7 or 8."

Please. Stop being ridiculous. Sometimes you get so stubborn you refuse to admit you're wrong.

Marc Fisher: Weather.com says it is 29 degrees in D.C. right now. The same ice that was there at 7 this morning is there now. What is the advantage of a two-hour delay?

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Washington, D.C.: The tickets given to D.C. govt by Abe Pollen as well as the tickets given to PG County officials by the Redskins should be considered a bribe. I know that it's upfront and the officials can only use them while elected, and a whole bunch of other lame excuses. Abe and any elected official that uses them without making full payment to the Wizards should be prosecuted.

Marc Fisher: If it's not a bribe, it's certainly a sleazy and unseemly reward for a big fat gift. For government to support the construction and infrastructure for a sports facility is justifiable when the arena or stadium contributes to building the tax base, as the Pollin Arena most manifestly did. But to come back years later and seek help for a new scoreboard and other such updated amenities is really a bit much, no?

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Rockville, Md. :" A nice four inches a week would be the best of all winters. "

Have fun. I retired last year. You won't see me out. Not with Peapod.

Marc Fisher: Peapod, Netflix and broadband and you're set for life. As soon as online funerals and cremation come along, we'll be able to stay inside for eternity.

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Kensington, Md.: I had a book shop for 23 years, and if you gave me a choice of browsers, I'd gladly take the homeless over the folks who smiled and said "This is a lovely store -- I'll have to come back when I have more time."

Marc Fisher: Ouch! Nice shot. (This is a reference to my Sunday column about the Starbucks in Tenleytown that sought to ban homeless people until the corporate chieftains set the store managers straight.)

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Re: School Delays: The validity of a 2-hour delay is not just based on temperatures at 10 a.m. vs. 8 a.m. It also has to do with a lot fewer vehicles on the road, thus minimizing the possibility of an accident causing harm to our children. My daughter, who attends H.S. in Rockville, heard of 2 buses that had accidents yesterday. School bus accidents rarely occur, mostly because of these 2-hour delayed openings.

Marc Fisher: Nice theory, except that on days when school systems delay openings, the rush hour ends up being extended as well, and you have vastly more cars on the roads at 9 and 10 a.m. as parents try to make their way to work late, thanks to school administrators.

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Science Class: Marc, ice does evaporate. Therefore, technically, the amount of ice at 7 a.m. or 8 a.m. is not the same by 10 a.m. Sorry buddy.

Marc Fisher: Good point. So there is less ice, but not substantially so. At least not in the neighborhoods I drove through a couple of hours ago.

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Arlington, Va.: Yes but with a 2-hour delay the sun is up and kids aren't going to school in dark, moron!

Marc Fisher: Ah, so now it's a matter of light and dark. There's something we can agree on: Kids shouldn't be going to school that early in the first place. Any teacher and most parents will agree with virtually every teenager that kids just aren't wired to start up at times that might be convenient to county bus schedules. The perfect school day would be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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What is the advantage of a two-hour delay? : Gives the city time to put salt on the sidewalks/roads to melt the ice so thousdans of kids going to school don't slip, fall, get injured, sue the city, win, move to Hawaii, etc..

Marc Fisher: In theory, yes, but does that really happen? Did you see much salting or clearing out there this morning?

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Icy Roads: Marc, to really melt ice under these temperatures, you need a combination of snow removal, chemical treatment and aggitation from foot and vehicle traffic. Most of that happens on major roads, i.e. most of downtown is perfeclty dry, it takes more time on the secondary and lower levels of road. I think a one-hour delay would have helped regarding schools.

Marc Fisher: Agreed--you need all those elements to make a significant difference in road and sidewalk conditions. But you're not going to get that from a one- or two-hour delay. Most of those actions have to be taken in the overnight hours if there's to be any real impact.

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Arlington, Va.: True or false: When it comes to "snow events," drivers in the D.C. area, as well as the local infrastructure, cannot be expected to be on par with areas such as Vermont, which sees many many more days of snow per year -- and whose drivers and civil servants have far greater experience with dealing with snow. (In other words, Mr. Interviewee-on-the-TV-news, I don't want to hear about how "pathetic" it is that the D.C. area can't deal with an inch of snow and would-be black ice.)

Marc Fisher: Nice argument, but it just doesn't fly for an area that gets several snow or ice events every winter. Check out the number of closing and delay days used each year by our local school systems--it's on par with the numbers you see in snow belt cities. Lack of experience just doesn't hack it as an argument.

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Burke, Va.: Opening the schools 2 hours late lets me get to work before the inexperienced kiddies get out on the ice for their drive to school.

Marc Fisher: Now there's a good argument.

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Weather-School Delays: Marc

Don't be a curmudgeon just for curmudgeon's sake - there is a solar effect on melting icy roads/sidewalks -- even down here in Charlottesville.

I explain to my children that it only takes one Action News video of a school bus with children sliding off the road for heads to roll in a school system.

Marc Fisher: But wouldn't you agree that that's wrong, too? Why should any heads roll even if several buses slide off the road? Ice and snow are part of routine, annual weather in this part of the world. Drivers figure out how to deal with it, employers properly expect that workers will show up, and every other institution but for schools manages to carry on.

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Starubucks issue: There is a Starbucks on Rt 7 (King Street) in Alexandria that is extremely uncomfortable to use -- it is crowded constantly with men, none of whom seem to have jobs, do not speak English, and make ogling contact with women. Why can't the Star$$ mgmt make them leave? Why is it bad to expect paying customers only in an establishment?

Marc Fisher: If that store manager started to ask folks to leave because they are harassing women in the shop, I would certainly hail that manager as a good, strong advocate for his customers. If those guys you're talking about are panhandling or hanging around without buying anything, they should be thrown out. The problem is when managers toss out folks who are indeed paying customers and aren't bothering anyone, but just happen to look dirty and are dressed inappropriately for the weather or have big bags of belongings--folks who "look homeless." I have no problem with tossing folks because of inappropriate behavior, but I do have a problem--as Starbucks corporate policy does--with throwing anyone out just because he's homeless.

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Parking tickets...: Marc,

Did I read your blog right in that I'm better off trying to get my ticket adjudicated by mail rather than in person? I was one day late in re-registering my car (I never got a registration reminder from the DMV but I do know I should have been on top of it too) and got a c-note ticket for the offense which seemed a bit harsh since it was the next day.

Marc Fisher: Amazingly, yes, the stats in that story do indicate that a higher percentage of folks get off by mail adjudication than in person. I would never have predicted that, but the stats don't lie. A good argument for filing by mail--but I still prefer having the option of going in person, because there are some arguments that work better in oral presentation than on paper, and because the whole process ought to be visible to the public.

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Washington, D.C.: How do you report a bad driver to Metro? Their Web doesn't tell you.

We saw a bus driver (N4 Route, bus #2188) pass a stopped and blinking school bus on Mass. Ave. at 7:25 a.m.

Maybe next time the driver nails a kid. Maybe notice to Metro would prevent that.

Marc Fisher: Metro tends to monitor the chat, so perhaps they'll read this. But more directly, you can can reach Metro customer service at 202 637 1328

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Alexandria, Va.: I'm with you almost completely on the Starbucks/homeless issue, but have to say that, on occasion, homeless folks can drive others away by their actions and, shall we say, personal hygiene. I worked part- time in a video store during college. We tried to be as welcoming as possible but there were occasions on which we had to ask someone to leave.

Marc Fisher: And you should. Around the margins, it can be a tough call. If someone stinks, that might be grounds for asking them to leave an eatery but not necessarily a library or a video store. That's why these blanket policies such as the one the managers at the Starbucks in Tenleytown don't work--you need to leave room for people to work out these issues one on one, without the hammer of hard and fast rules.

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Riverdale, Md.: Marc, what is your take on why Ghandi has not yet resigned? Doesn't the buck stop with him?

It seems to me to be another case in the endless saga of 'rank has its privileges'.

Marc Fisher: Gandhi's not in the clear yet--there are still some on the D.C. Council who believe he has to go. There is concern that the city won't be able to replace him with someone of similar quality or stature on Wall Street. And there is the fact that he has otherwise done a stellar job. And he has lots of support in Congress, which is ultimately his employer.

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Washington, D.C.: While I would like to make a donation somewhere in memory of Sean Taylor, he did make over $20 million in salary and bonuses over the course of his Redskins career. So my question is, does his daughter really need money for her education?

Marc Fisher: It doesn't seem likely, and surely you'd think the Redskins and Dan Snyder would provide for her. I'd far rather see fundraising efforts in Taylor's memory go toward causes related to the problems that he had been moving away from in his last months.

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West Coast: Do you have any idea how the propossed underground Vietnam Vistors Center will deal with the Vietnam War without dealing with politics, or divisiveness or political deceit, etc.? Do you think rendering the war down to "honor, duty, sacrifice, and valor" is the true lesson of the Vietnam War? PS: And do you think veteran groups are qualified to "teach" the American public about the "meaning" of the Vietnam Wall, a minimalist masterpiece?

Marc Fisher: The Visitors Center is a travesty, a willful marring of an enormously successful piece of public art and collective memorial. If the government felt the need for a museum or visitors center, it should have commissioned something on its own, not ceded authority to an interest group with a very clear point of view. The Wall speaks eloquently and in a remarkably balanced way to people who had very different relationships to that war--the Visitors Center promises only to antagonize and exacerbate decades-old wounds.

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Fort Washington, Md.: I'm a retired trial attorney and the recent Hornsby mistrial points up one benefit of growing older: you no longer have to deal with such idiots. What part of the video did they not undetstand?

It reminds me of my favorite Pat Oliphant cartoon. During Contragate 20 years ago, President Reagan is looking at a duck. He says, "Hmmm. It looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...I have absolutely no idea what it is." Has anyone checked into whether Hornsby might have bribed them? Every trial attorney has tales of "wayward juries," but this is the most egregious I've ever come across.

Marc Fisher: No reason to dive into conspiracy theories. This was a case of jury nullification, not bribery. Jurors decided they weren't going to convict this guy even if they saw him commit the crime, which, of course, they did. There'll be another trial and the outcome will hinge largely on jury selection, which is indeed a sad commentary on how distorted our justice system has become.

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Starbucks corporate policy does--with throwing anyone out just because he's homeless.: well did they throw him out cuz he looked homeless or cuz he was using up a seat intended for a paying customer. I can't go to DC's finest restaurant and demand a seat if I'm not going to pay for dinner.

Marc Fisher: Al Szekely, the man I wrote about on Sunday, is a regular, paying customer. He's never there without a Starbucks product in his hand.

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Anonymous: Re: Starbucks and the homeless. Is this not a classic symptom of overbuilding? I've noticed newer Starbucks going into sketchy locations more and more.

Marc Fisher: Hmmm, well, are you saying that the company shouldn't seek to sell its wares in poor neighborhoods, or that people who live in those places shouldn't have access to the same kinds of retail choices that exist elsewhere? Not sure I see much of an argument there.

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New York: As a former D.C. resident, I still care very much what goes on in the city. It amazes me the amount of uproar that the school closing announcements and the reclassification of non-union employees has caused. Would those who are "outraged" and feel "disrespected" prefer to keep the satus quo? Maybe if they put in the same effort in improving the quality of teaching, parenting and governing, we would not be in this mess to begin with.

D.C.'s schools are an embarrassment, especially when you consider how much we spend on them. Close the underutilized buildings, reduce the inefficient administration, fire bad teachers and principals, and let's actually put the kids at the forefront of our efforts.

New York just closed six underperforming schools. Instead of outrage, the papers applauded Bloomberg's work.

Marc Fisher: There is also applause here for Rhee's effort to trim the system down to a manageable size. It's a loud minority that's getting the attention right now in the immediate aftermath of the proposals to close schools and get rid of central office workers. But Fenty and Rhee are where they are because of the much deeper consensus that supported the idea of a mayoral takeover and a housecleaning effort.

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Washington, D.C.: What do you think are the top 3 things that Ms. Rhee should focus on in order to make a go at fixing DCPS?

Friends and I had this conversation recently, and we didn't reach agreement, but came up with responses such as fixing the incredibly expensive special education situation, trying to replicate the success of schools that parents are clamoring to get their kids into (Oyster, Mann, Key), stealing some of the secrets of the successful charter schools (e.g., Capitol City), and making sure that every single elementary school in the city has an arts program.

Your three?

Marc Fisher: Those are good. I would say 1) create a very small number of marquee schools in various parts of the city designed to lure back families that have fled to Catholic and independent schools, 2) clean house downtown and close excess buildings, and 3) liberate principals to do their own hiring and stretch kids by putting arts and PE back into the daily curriculum, deemphasizing testing. (Yes, I squeezed a couple of extras in there. Sue me.)

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washingtonpost.com: We're experiencing technical problems. Marc will continue in a few moments.

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Oakton, Va.: Marc,

You do know that The Wall was built with private donations raised by veterans group, don't you?

Marc Fisher: Yes, but the choices about what the memorial would be were made through a very public process run by the government.

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D.C. -- Library rankings: I ran across Hennen's American Public Library Ratings (HAPLR) online, and D.C.'s library system spent the most (per capita) of nearly any state in the country and ranked 4th for the number of staff (based on population). But then D.C. ranked 50th or 51st in seven of 15 other key criteria. And D.C. is dead last for the percentage of the budget going to materials. So are the libraries underfunded, as my local librarian said, or are the funds going into another D.C. government black hole?

Marc Fisher: Probably both. The money being spent on books is awfully low these days, and there's a lot of waste in the central office. In fact, from what I hear, there's some cleaning out being done at library headquarters right now. And the system is saddled with old, decrepit facilities that have been poorly maintained for many, many years.

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Washington, D.C.: Have you TRIED to get a cab at 2-3 am in Adams Morgan? It is a nightmare. One has to walk 4-5 blocks out in somewhat sketchy areas to find anything. And Metro is not easily accessible or necessarily open when needed. So what else are the Adams Morgan partiers to do but drive? That's exactly why I avoid that area...

Marc Fisher: Adams Morgan is perhaps the biggest reason why Metro stays open much later now on weekend nights.

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washingtonpost.com: This abruptly concludes today's discussion (due to tech problems). Please join us again next week for Potomac Confidential.

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