WCP: Catania Abruptly Cancels Hearing on Barry Earmarks

EXCERPT:

Posted by Mike DeBonis on Jul. 13, 2009, at 2:48 pm

This afternoon, LL and other reporters hoping to follow his Friday scoop showed up to a Wilson Building hearing room to hear testimony on grants earmarked last year by Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry.

We were all disappointed.

At-Large Councilmember David A. Catania, which called the hearing to examine the role of “fiscal agents” in administering Department of Health grants, read an opening statement then announced he was recessing the hearing.

In his remarks, Catania explained that he had intended a “hearing of limited scope” about the fiscal agent relationships and “irregularities in the administration” of a particular grant, to Clean and Sober Inc., run by Sharon Wise. Wise, he explained, had contacted him about a contractual dispute, and Catania says he moved to resolve it, but was stymied when Brenda Richardson, Barry’s constituent services maven and a key player in the dispute, declined to cooperate further, via a statement from her lawyer, A. Scott Bolden that cited an ongoing Inspector General investigation.


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