attended Council hearings in person you tuned in to our televised proceedings on channel 13. now you have the chance to listen to us on the radio as we demystify our work and the people who do it this is not a council hearing this is hearing the council with your host Josh Gibson thank you deep voice person with a funky BackBeat indeed this is not a council hearing this is here at the council you can't have a government without a council so you can't have a government radio station without a council show this is it I'm Josh Gibson director of communications for the council and you might also know me as our voice on social media at Council of DC uh and we are now joined by our uh for a momentous occasion indeed uh council member brandado Ward one uh who is joining us for her 10th 10th appearance on this show um which is uh you know on this on Saturday Night Live they have the five-timers club I'm sorry I don't have a special Blazer or uh you know Crystal trophy to give you but uh just from the bottom of my heart I am profoundly profoundly grateful you've spent as much time with this show you were our first ever guest our first ever Zoom appearance um we've we've come a long way together so thank you so so much for coming back it's my pleasure to be here as always congratulations on making it to round 10. yes 10 times first round April of 2018 was the biographical getting to know you a second time June of 2018 we did highs and lows and we talked about why you're so iffy about cake right uh third round uh November 2018 role models and heroes um May 2019 Public Safety uh January 2020 the comp plan April 2020 first covid uh post covet interview and like I said first Zoom interview and we talked about baby Madeline um and then um May of 2021 we talked about the passing of your grandfather which was I was before the interview I was a little uncertain but I'm really glad we did it I think it was really powerful and hopefully that that um gives you another little time capsule to um to remember him by um uh September 2021 we did covid schools and Council oversight um and September of 2022 we did uh migrants abortion rights and statehood um and that was number nine and number ten today uh we're gonna talk about your new committee uh it's jurisdiction it's role we're going to talk a bit about dpw's parking enforcement uh role and hopefully we'll also have time to get to your street vendor legislation so there we are ricotta upgrade yes thanks again for the the uh nine going on 10 interviews so you have a brand new committee um listeners might not realize this but as the new uh two-year Council period comes the chairman sits down council members and gets a sense of what are the topics that interest them um and uh so talk a little bit about how this came to be your new committee great uh thanks Josh I am very excited to be the new chair of the Committee on Public Works and government operations which is um it's great actually so the centerpiece of it is the Department of Public Works which has two main aspects to it one is waste management and with that waste diversion and Greening our city through putting Less in landfills and getting more off the ground and the other is parking enforcement which I think of as really the tip of the spear on road safety because um getting dangerous Vehicles off the street often happens through ticketing booting and towing so I'm excited about that the committee also has some really other interesting aspects to it so office of contracts and procurement which touches just about every agency in the city um the office of administrative hearings which residents will know if they've ever received a citation that they wanted to adjudicate related to their home or their trash or really any city services the office of human rights which is an agency that's work has expanded year after year as we add more protected traits to our human rights act and a number of other great agencies like um the Office of Veterans Affairs lgbtq plus Affairs religious Affairs and then some other agencies nestled in there but it's it's a great portfolio it's very meaty um and it's been exciting yeah I mean folks should not sleep on this committee this is a Powerhouse committee I when I was looking at the list of uh agencies with oversight I think I was leaning too much into public works and not enough into operations um because also um like you said human rights contract appeals Board office of contracts procurements Partnerships and grants for higher Vehicles higher Vehicles yeah uh and half the dcra yes yes so the department of licensing and consumer protection so really they're sort of like what I call the Justice aspect of this committee portfolio which includes licensing and and consumer protection office of risk management which is workers compensation and also people who's who've been injured by the government um operations like you know your property was hit by a trash truck something like that um and then the office of Human Rights and office of administrative hearings that's kind of like the Justice arm of our committee yeah that's huge that's huge um and of course the Public Works part is like if is there anything more meat and potatoes about being an elected service than making sure the trash gets picked up well and on time yeah and in Ward one which I always consider the epicenter of the city I have seen and and experienced through my constituents all of the many challenges that are facing DPW right now and so I really do think if we take what we know in Ward one and extrapolate that across the city um I've got a lot of experience to apply here and I look forward to working with the leaders in that agency to get this work done um and where do you um we're sort of between budget rounds at this point we've finished performance oversight and haven't started quite yet in budget oversight uh what are some takeaways that that have come from your first time uh do a performance oversight on your new committee it can be on public yeah well I'm learning a lot about every agency I think performance oversight is a really good opportunity for anyone who wants to understand government better even if you're just listening in and not contributing testimony and so it really is the first sort of get to know you round um in in this job in this role as chair um it's almost like legislative speed dating right because you have to get all these hearings in in this short window of time get as much information as you can and then turn around and think about what's the next thing I'm going to do here so um there isn't like an elimination round or anything but um but I do think that uh I've got a few things now from each agency that we've heard from the public needs to be improved we'll be looking to the mayor's budget getting dropped this week to see if she's making any enhancements that will help those issues and then if not thinking about where we can move money around to do that here's an example of something you know in my old committee I had a lot of work on um serving people with disabilities and the one of the big issues facing the department for higher vehicles is wheelchair accessible Vehicles being available on demand because what we heard in testimony was people who who use wheelchairs can't necessarily get around the city reliably and that means they choose not to go out one of the women testifying talked about um you know she'll never go to the Kennedy Center because she's not sure she can get a ride home after the show which is really sad because we live in an incredible City with so many offerings and everyone should be able to access them and I think most able-bodied people just assume you know that there's a way to get around um through the various months of Transportation one should assume that but it's just not true with the supply and demand issues that we have so that was really interesting and by the way in that hearing we heard testimony from Judy heumann who recently died a couple weeks ago she was the first director of the department of disability services in the District of Columbia and really the mother of the disabilities access movement in schools and we have a resolution honoring her that um it's going to be introduced into the council um I believe in April so um there's there's a whole lot of good stuff going on that's just and that was just one hearing yeah exactly um and and the one you just spoken of was a national Pioneer in in disability rights as well if if what I read was uh was true so it was wonderful that she brought her gifts from a national stage to the local stage when she opened that office exactly and I I so that was cool and then um just the fact that she was at my hearing right it was perhaps her last public testimony ever and I had known her a little bit from her work in DC but not as as I didn't know her in a way that so many other Advocates did um and then you know we we had some good conversations with orm about our workers comp program The Office of Veterans Affairs was a really interesting hearing because we I got to learn so much about their day-to-day operations and what they offer our veterans and just the improvements they've made and the way they interact with the the Veterans Affairs Department nationally and um so that was really great and I I get to think about ways that I can support veterans in DC my husband's a veteran so that's one that's very close to my heart um the lgbtq Affairs office is knocking it out of the park as they have for many years but can always use more resources so just hearing the things that we we do from the public really gives you sort of um uh an edge on what you need to be thinking about for Budget season as a committee chair right and I would think that by having new council members on uh agencies they didn't previously have oversight of that's a kind of a good set of fresh eyes um you know I think that um not not that you keep hammering the same thing if you keep the same agencies but if you have a new agency you have a whole different look at it you can bring your past experience see how it intersects with your current committee and I would think that would kind of shake loose new new thinking yeah I feel like I have that freshman energy again you know when you first come on the council and you're learning everything for the first time and floating around because you're not sharing a committee as you're floating around all the hearings and trying to learn everything you can so um it's been very exciting and I don't know if not even tracks this but I would think that your piece of the pie your committee's piece of the overall budget pie probably has greatly gone up um in the new committee role Oh you mean our budget yeah the dollars and cents and agencies that you have oversight over yeah it's it's a pretty significant budget so um you know it'll be interesting to see how fluid it is that's always the question for the council when the budget gets to us is what can be moved what's obligated um you know I am I keep hearing it's going to be a year of austerity because of the the revenue estimate being revised downward and um so it'll be interesting to see I mean typically when you are looking for funds the first place you look is vacant positions because you're not firing anybody if you want to take that money you're just preventing the agency from hiring more people and hiring phrases are a very standard budget saving mechanism right so if the mayor is already doing that then the question will be how much does the council have to play with because oftentimes what we do is take away you know reallocate the vacancy funds that she has left behind so we'll see what happens um could be a tight year we'll see yeah it could I mean it could be a transition year not tight but not tightest um this could be that the first one where it's really uh some tough call us after being made yeah um okay so one of the responsibilities you talked about is uh parking oversight and um you know in the news has been a horrible crash on Rock Creek Parkway uh where three lives were lost um and the driver of the vehicle um that caused the accident had a ton of moving violations which are not under your committee jurisdiction but um it's raised the question if someone has a ton of parking violations and or a ton of moving violations what is the procedure um and what if anything can be done to keep folks off the road if they are um uh a potential Hazard to fellow drivers you know this is a topic that's come up a lot over the past several years in particular as we've examined the impact of vision zero and really the lack of impact of vision and zero existing on paper um and that Vision zero for those who don't know is our plan to end pedestrian and Road deaths um and we're not doing it right now I mean we're not very far along the auditor just released her report on it and um we're losing too many people on the roads period so um we've looked at how do we one option would be assigning points to drivers on their license um with the automated traffic enforcement which we don't currently do um we'd have to adjust the way we do that um because right now our cameras photograph the license plate we don't capture the driver itself so a driver could make the argument that they weren't the one driving the vehicle you know there's legal issues there um but that um that would be one thing I mean the way I think about dpw's role here is how do we get dangerous Vehicles off the street while they're parked right because these are parking enforcement officers these are this is the booting team this is the towing team um and it's challenge because you have to find the car right it's it's not as though every scoff law vehicle that's what they call them those are ones with unpaid fines it sits in the same place all day now if it's a DC resident they have a DC address okay maybe your work is a little bit easier but a lot of times it's out of state vehicles that pass through and um so it's really it takes it takes some effort and and even some detective work for lack of a better word to figure out where is this vehicle going to be so I can get it off the street I'll tell you about a case in Adams Morgan that we had last year or maybe the year before where uh one of these scoffla vehicles was um driving recklessly in the neighborhood struck a pedestrian um and he was okay in the end um but then he started seeing the vehicle more in the neighborhood which of course re-traumatized him and he got in touch with me and said this vehicle is always here why can't we get it off the street I've pulled up its tags I see how many tickets it has then I worked together with DPW on this and with this constituent and we were kind of like real time doing updates like today the car is here today the car is there today the car is around the corner and finally they they got this car and they impounded it got it off the street um but it's not it's not always as easy as it seems and so I think I'll be looking at what are what are ways we can make it easier what are things we can do to get these cars off the street who are the other partners who can cooperate with us what are other cities doing um because you know as we've seen I say social media probably has exposed us the most is oftentimes you see a reckless driver out there and they do have a load of fines um that are uh towable or bootable offenses and people get outraged why is this vehicle still on the street so um that that's my question too so I'll be working that through with DPW making sure they have enough resources this week I'm actually going to the morning shift of the parking enforcement team to see them off um before they leave for their 6 a.m routes a lot of that team does the Rush Hour Lanes so they'll go and ticket and tow vehicles that are blocking the bus lanes um and I think you know I've heard from workers as well that they have concerns about safety and just when they're out on their Roots um and trying to ticket a vehicle you know being approached by the owner and and um having to de-escalate those situations it's a really interesting situation we're in right now um with people's stress levels and tension levels and so making sure that everybody who's out doing parking enforcement also has those skills and those de-escalation technique techniques is really important for their safety and for Community safety and I saw it and this goes back years and years I thought a lot of the parking enforcement was being done um was automated that basically the cars were driving down the street they had some kind of cameras on them that could scan the tags in Italy there's privacy issues but to the point of trying to track down Scofflaw vehicles I would think that data exists I mean whether it's allowed to access it whether it's advisable to access it is a different question but um and also I'm given that the uh speeding cameras and red light cameras are fully automated um why do we have parking agents placing paper tickets under windshield wipers when if you know that you know the GPS of this spot is an illegal parking spot you've scanned the license plate I'm surprised there hasn't been more move towards automating even dpws kind of parking enforcement oh that's a great point so there is a contract that's in procurement right now that should be implemented in spring for automated automated um it's still awesome I guess it's still called automated traffic enforcement but it's for like the bus and bike Lanes um so you need fewer people to do that um because it's hard to catch them quickly right so let's say that the traffic enforcement officer does their morning route where they're ticketing they're ticketing everyone in the bus lane before the 7 A.M Rush Hour the towing cranes come out and they move them they'll relocate the cars in that case most often but then I mean you're going down the bus you're riding the bus on 16th Street and all of a sudden a car pulls in well there may not be a parking enforcement officer right there at that moment um but putting cameras on that route allows that person to get that ticket and then they think twice about blocking it again um there's also some work to do with government vehicles in this realm so take the 14th Street bus and bike lane for example I use that with my kids when we're biking to and from school and there's almost always MPD Vehicles right around Columbia Road and I feel like it's really been an ongoing conversation with me and MPD about all the kinds of safety that exists it's you know they they want their presence there to deter crime I get it I want their presence there perhaps just not in the bike lane and we talked about a couple alternative locations but here's the thing is so let's say the bus is trying to go down 14th Street and there's a police car in the lane so then it has to go out of the lane and get merged with traffic in a way that's not necessarily predictable to the cars and a cyclist may be able to get around the car maybe not but now it's navigating the bus getting out of the lane so it's a whole host of issues there's sort of a domino effect and so we do have to talk with our government Partners in the in the most common offenders so it's them it's the U.S Postal Service it's FedEx it's ups um and one other thing to think about with this committee is the whole curbside management ecosystem is now basically in my committee so you've got DPW parking enforcement you've got for higher vehicles and their parking enforcement plus they've got all the pickup and drop-off zones um and taxi stands which are other areas where people are coming and going so I'm thinking through all kinds of ways that we can make this all logical make it make sense um and really utilize all of the parking enforcement resources that we have in the city um and and also work with partners and I haven't gotten to the point yet where I'm say sitting down with FedEx and saying look we've got an issue here what do you need for your drivers to help me keep my constituents safe on the roads and all of the people of the District of Columbia I do think that there will be a time in the future where delivery trucks are uh smaller by necessity we use more cargo bikes for example for these types of deliveries and then the larger trucks are limited to things that only fit in large trucks like safe furniture yeah I mean a big challenge you're a parent I'm a parent is consequences and a lot of the questions that we've talked about are people don't see or feel the consequences if you can have a million moving and parking violations and continue to drive and you don't feel consequences that's a challenge if you're a cop car or a FedEx truck and you can park a million times and maybe you get tickets if you're a FedEx truck maybe you don't but you're certainly not paying them um and there's no like how how um I'm not suggesting we have a sphere severe government that comes down like a ton of bricks on everyone but people think rational thinkers avoid consequences or if they don't see consequences they don't avoid the things that would have triggered the consequences so I don't know I don't know what you want to say that but that to me well no I will say that like okay so we're doing more than we ever have but we need to do more right so I went and visited the impound lot last month two months ago and the impound lot is 85 percent full because they are Towing Vehicles they are impounding vehicles and that is progress and it is definitely consequential to those vehicle owners because you cannot even retrieve your vehicle with a payment plan you really have to be paying your debt info to get that vehicle back um so you know work gets out about that that helps um in fact they're looking at figuring out their plans for another lot because they understand at DPW that the public is demanding more of them um I think I think it was 50 some uh Towing cranes that we have in the fleet um and a lot of that work is Rush Hour um and street sweeping because we move vehicles for those two purposes on a routine basis but they're doing more overnight as well now with the nightlife task forces across the city dpw's role has been incredibly critical because what they do is they'll go into a nightlife area say you Street 8th Street and they'll start looking for vehicles that um are scoff laws and they will Boot and Tow them out of there um and that's actually had an impact on Public Safety because you know we do see um people drive down um to these nightlife areas and then you know they they get into trouble and they've got their vehicle right there and it's an easier way to get out of town so getting those those Vehicles off the street actually helps a lot for um a couple kinds of Public Safety too so I'll say I do think DPW has been stepping it up um but I definitely have notes and more more ideas for them and the council funded a bump in uh the number of boot Crews too if memory serves yeah and that's been um and they're also gonna they're either looking into or about to launch uh the um self um there's a word for this but it's like a self-unlocking boot basically you pay online and then the boot comes off and you put it away so you don't have to wait for someone to come take it off your car gotcha um I want to transition to another topic that we're going to talk about and it deserves its own show so feel free to come back and we can spend a whole half hour on it but uh the street founding legislation which has been a personal Journey for you a quest uh you've worked incredibly hard on it and it's uh almost there fingers crossed um so why don't you give me just kind of a quick status update in terms of where we are and what are the kind of speed bumps that might remain um despite yeah so um the the street vending bill um just quick history you know first introduced in 2019 after working a long time with our street vendors realizing we had to change the law to get them what they needed to legally safely vend um in Columbia Heights and Beyond um and was two bills and now it's one combined bill co-introduced with chairman Mendelson which was a huge Victory he held a hearing in November was very moved by the public testimony and said Okay I want to help make this happen and and to his credit he really listened and understands the problem and wants to make it possible for our small vendors to make a living in the District of Columbia as they have for a very long time um one piece of it is decriminalization um and who I was just gonna say that we already passed that in the criminal code reform but I guess we did it um so it's good that we're moving it as a standalone and then the other piece is setting up vending zones across the city with Columbia Heights is the pilot a vending Zone will have a vending Zone Manager much like a farmer's market manager where they are familiar with Monitor and support all of the vendors in a particular area for the Columbia Heights spending Zone there is actually a map being transmitted with the legislation that shows every area where a vendor is allowed to stand and the entire Zone and you know we will take a situation that to be honest is a little chaotic right now and make it organized and um fruitful for those who are participating our street vendors contribute so much to our community through their culture through their food and deserve to be able to make a living just like any bricks and mortar store so the licensing process will be simpler there'll be more support we'll be providing amnesty for those who have unpaid citations that have actually prevented them from getting their licenses in the first place and um I really look forward to implementing it in the department of licensing and consumer protection will be the implementing agency and they are in my new committee so we'll be able to work together on that excellent so what comes next we've had a first vote I know there were some commitments to iron out a couple issues council members had raised um but are we uh success on the horizon yeah we're scheduled for our second vote should be the first week of April um and we're working with the Department of Health on uh late-breaking concern they raised about changes to the cottage food industry one thing I can say is that um these licenses require heavy um oversight from the Department of Health and so uh that is not something that I'm particularly concerned about the Department of Health approves their menu um before they get their license all of the things that that have to happen um they have to have food handling licenses all kinds of things so um I am looking forward to ironing out the last little Kink and getting it passed in April and did I hear there's maybe concern that Congress might try to once again stick its nose in or is that less of a concern I haven't heard that specifically about this bill although they do some members of Congress and journalists like Tucker Carlson do tend to keep a close eye on anything that I'm doing for immigrants it's something of a bizarre Fascination to be honest with you um and hopefully they'll be busy doing other things like running the country yeah they must have a brandedo Google or taco car Taco Tucker Carlson's show yeah that's something like that it's very bizarre yeah but hopefully it gets deleted um so we've returned to doing our fun question round uh which I'll go through quickly because we're already tight on time this is where I ask you about an oddball task and you say which of your colleagues past or present you would want to tackle that task with okay you've done this once before many moons ago um if you had to go on a camping trip or a walk in the woods who and why okay I gotta remember who my new colleagues are hold on a camping trip or a walk in the woods while Charles Allen was a Boy Scout so I think yeah he was an eagle scout and I have the Gold Award from Girl Scouts so I think the two of us oh my God that's like a dream team yeah and also like you know we will both have a lot of opinions on how to do things but I think you know the same skill level so you know less less exasperation yes and as I often say in response this round I would watch that reality show you and Charles go camping I would watch that I mean he's taken I think he's taken the troop camping and I've Got My Girl Scout Troop for Zoe that I'm doing camping in May so you know you could kind of you could kind of watch the reality show gotcha next question if you're on a 1-800 customer service call and they're giving you a real hard time and you need someone to break down the resistance and get you what you need who would you have past the present colleague who would you put on the phone Christina and why uh Christina will let them know how and why they're wrong but also in a way that gets things done whose Rolodex would you want to borrow or steal interesting I think Janice because she's had such an interesting career trajectory um and uh so I think I I'd meet a lot of interesting people gotcha how about mediating a dispute um let's see meeting it is dispute uh Robert I think I think Robert's got that calm cool energy that that can you know can help with that okay last two it's a pair and these are all based on the hypothetical that all of your um colleagues write poetry which we assume is false but assuming they all did whose poetry would you want to read trans and why uh because he's very real and he does not hold back whose poetry would you avoid like the devil stairs that's not very nice I I will avoid fills because it will be too punny like too many dad jokes in it yeah yeah yeah he is the universal winner of poetry to avoid so far and the three times we've done this and I'll point out you were the winner of whose poetry would you seek out from Robert White oh he thought that it would be before you say oh he thought it would be full of um uh bad words and it would be awesome in that sense sure I do drop a lot uh I actually used to write poetry okay I didn't it was not riddled with expletives back then I was younger more idealistic it was mostly just angsty okay well we'll save that for for show number 11. um well once again thank you so so much for taking the time for uh playing through the silly round um uh listeners just uh a reminder subscribe to our podcast on Soundcloud wherever you get your podcast search under hearing the council thanks again for joining us tune in next time we're on DC radio 96.3 on your fm hd4 dial or dcradio.gov I'm Josh Gibson this is not a council hearing this is hearing the council thank you councilmember appreciate your time have a good day