Councilmember Wells has successfully maneuvered 2 bills through passage at today's Legislative Meeting.  These measures are the opening shots in a battle to confront the underlying causes of the Jacks/Fogel tragedy.  They will be followed by Tommy's other measures to "Mend the Safety Net" that Banita Jacks and her family sadly slipped through.

The Child Abuse and Neglect Investigation Record Access Amendment Act of 2008 gives CFSA critical authority to investigate claims of abuse or neglect of the District's children.  The bill allows CFSA investigators to request records from mandatory reporters when those records bear directly on an allegation of abuse or neglect.  These records had previously been unavailable to investigators until the Agency had engaged in formal proceedings.  Now investigators have the necessary tools to thoroughly investigate all reports of abuse and neglect rapidly and effectively.

The Child and Family Services Agency Grant-Making Amendment Act of
2007 allows the Agency to issue grants to community groups that provide services that enhance the lives of children in the care of CFSA.  Such projects include mentoring services for children in CFSA custody, post-permanency services, and Safe Shores, the DC Children's Advocacy Center.  This authority had been extended to the agency on a temporary basis and the passage of this measure will make this authority permanent.

These two measures will be joined by other measures – two of which were introduced today – intended to address the current inadequacies of our Child Welfare system.  With Councilmember Wells taking the lead on this crucial battle to save the District's most vulnerable citizens, our children will be safer and our vulnerable families will get the help they need.

Councilmember Wells has been working with the DC Board of Elections and Ethics over the last several months to add a new voting precinct for downtown neighborhoods. Currently, residents in Penn Quarter and some other downtown neighborhoods share a voting precinct on Capitol Hill. The result creates barriers to the poll for many residents. So rather than waiting for the next census and redistricting to take place in 2011, Tommy asked the Board to look now at this problem as the number of residents in the downtown neighborhood continues to grow quickly.

You can read one of Tommy's letters to the Board here.

Now there's good news to report on this front. The Board is planning to take final action on Wednesday, May 7th, regarding the creation of Precinct 143 in Ward 6 -- the District's newest voting precinct -- essentially splitting the current Precinct 130 into two parts.

The proposed boundaries are (click here for a map of the proposed new boundaries):

Beginning at the intersection of H Street and North Capitol Street, N.W.; thence south on North Capitol Street, N.W. to the intersection of North Capitol Street N.W. and Louisiana Avenue, N.W.; thence southwesterly to Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.; thence west on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. to 9th Street, N.W.; thence north on 9th Street, N.W. to E Street, N.W.; thence east on E Street, N.W. to 6th Street, N.W.; thence north on 6th Street, N.W. to K Street, N.W.; thence east on K Street, N.W. to 3rd Street, N.W.; thence south on 3rd Street, N.W. to H Street, N.W.; thence east on H Street, N.W. to the meeting beginning point of North Capitol Street, N.W.

Anyone can submit comments to the Board for consideration and should do so by sending a letter to the Board of Elections and Ethics, 441 4th Street, NW Suite 250N, Washington, D.C. 20001. Comments are requested to be received by the close of business on Tuesday, May 6th. If you want to attend the Board meeting in person, it will be held in room 280-North of the One Judiciary Square building at 441 Fourth Street, N.W., May 7, 2008 at 10:30 a.m. For further information, please call the Board at 202-727-2525 (TDD: 202-639-8916).

UPDATE: Want to email DCBOEE? You can email at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Thank you very much to everyone that came out on Wednesday night for our community meeting on the future of the Hine Jr. High site. When closures were announced by the Mayor earlier this year, I immediately called for a community planning process to decide the future of these sites. You responded and over 150 residents and neighbors joined us to develop a shared vision for the future of this site. The feedback, ideas, suggestions and work that you did in over 20 breakout groups was very impressive.

In case you missed the meeting, please feel free to download the handouts by Clicking Here.

My office will be compiling all of your comments and feedback into a report and we'll share that as soon as its completed.

Thanks again for all your hard work on Wednesday night.