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FRIDAY, JULY 16, 2010 Purple Line’s costs
for trail balloon Growing price tag is making some officials in Montgomery wince
by Katherine Shaver KATHERINE FREY/THE WASHINGTON POST A bridge to the past
Amateur videographer Bob Johnson documents the three covered bridges in Frederick County, including the Loy’s Station Bridge over Owens Creek in Thurmont. Arson nearly destroyed the bridge in 1991, but it was rebuilt using what could be salvaged from the original 1850s wood.
Same-sex marriage in D.C. is upheld
Court of Appeals rules 5 to 4 against foes’ referendum initiative
by Keith L. Alexander
The D.C. Court of Appeals nar- rowly sustained same-sex mar- riage in the District in a 5 to 4 vote Thursday. The nine judges were asked to
determine whether the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics act- ed lawfully when it rejected an initiative by opponents of gay marriage to have the matter voted upon in a referendum. The D.C. Council approved same-sex mar- riage in December. AD.C. Superior Court judge up-
held the board’s decision in Janu- ary, and the bill became law in March. In May, attorneys for oppo- nents of same-sex marriage — led by Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville who has a D.C. resi- dence — argued before the nine appellate judges that the board’s decision violated the District’s Human Rights Act and that the council had overstepped its au- thority. In an 81-page decision released
Thursday, the five affirming judges — Phyllis D. Thompson, Vanessa Ruiz, Inez Smith Reid, Noel Anketell Kramer and Anna Blackburne-Rigsby — disagreed with that argument, saying that the board was within the law in making such a decision.
The judges said they were con- vinced that the council would not have authorized “any initiative” that would have discriminated against residents and violated the Human Rights Act. The judges also wrote that the board “cor- rectly determined that the pro- posed initiative would have the effect of authorizing such dis- crimination.” The judges further stated that the council “was not obliged to al- low initiatives that would have the effect of authorizing discrimi- nation prohibited by the Human Rights Act to be put to voters, and then to repeal them, or to wait for them to be challenged as having been improper subjects of initia- tive, should they be approved by voters.”
Based on that conclusion, the Travel
judges ruled that the board acted lawfully in refusing to accept the Jackson initiative. Peter D. Rosenstein, a gay and lesbian rights activist, hailed the ruling as a “victory for decency and civil and human rights.” Because all nine judges heard the case, Jackson’s attorneys have no further course of appeal unless they take their case to the U.S. Su- preme Court and the justices choose to hear it. After the ruling, Jackson said he and his attorneys are planning such an appeal. He called the Appeals Court’s decision a “sad day” but added that he was “encouraged” by the split vote. “This is a very precedent-set- ting decision for District citizens because of the issue of whether an initiative can be blocked by Dis- trict laws,” Jackson said. “The people have a right to vote on this issue.”
Austin Nimocks, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which has been battling gay unions, said: “The decision from the District of Columbia Court of Appeals today means that those
Ante up: With the arrival of table games at casinos in West Virginia, the Travel section visits two very different scenes— The Greenbrier and Charles Town Races—for some poker.
Arts & Style Paul Taylor premiere: Legendary choreographer Paul Taylor turns 80, and will unveil a world premiere at Wolf Trap this week. Plus, D.C. is attracting some serious comedy names. What’s up with that?
The Magazine She’s the boss: Meet the woman managing the construction of Maryland’s Intercounty Connector, scheduled to open its first section by the end of this year.
Business Moral licensing: We look at how people negotiate with themselves, maybe even subconsciously — buy environmentally-friendly products, for instance, then feel free to drive two blocks to the grocery store in a gas-guzzling SUV. Some stories may not run due to breaking news.
living in our nation’s capital are being denied their most funda- mental freedom — the right to vote. We are considering our op- tions to right this wrong, which include asking the Supreme Court of the United States to con- sider this case.” The four judges who sided with
Jackson’s attorneys said they pri- marily questioned the board’s in- terpretation of the law that al- lowed them to reject the referen- dum and specifically indicated that they were not ruling against same-sex marriage. The court’s chief judge, Eric. T.
Washington, was joined by Judges John R. Fisher, who wrote the dissenting opinion, Stephen H. Glickman and Kathryn A. Oberly. The dissenters said they questioned whether the board was within its guidelines in re- jecting Jackson’s initiative and whether they correctly interpret- ed D.C. law in making their deci- sion.
But they agreed that Jackson’s
initiative would have led to dis- crimination prohibited by the District’s Human Rights Act. “Non-discrimination, tolerance, acceptance and inclusion are all fundamental values to be fostered in a pluralistic society,” their opin- ion said. “But these aspirations are best achieved through a sys- tem of laws, and it is vital that the institutions of the District gov- ernment observe the limits placed upon them” by District laws.
Council member Phil Mendel-
son (D-At Large) said he was “very pleased” with the court’s ruling and noted that all nine of the judges ruled — despite what Jackson and his attorneys argued — that the referendum would have been discriminatory.
alexanderk@washpost.com
Staff writer Tim Craig contributed to this report.
D.C. man charged in slaying
A District man has been arrest- ed and charged with first-degree murder in the May shooting of Antoine Buckner on 46th Place in Southeast Washington. On May 30, Buckner, 32, was found lying on the sidewalk about 10:25 p.m. near his home in the 600 block of 46th Place, po- lice said. Buckner was taken to a
hospital in critical condition; he died June 3. On Tuesday, police and fugitive task force members arrested Wil- liam Spriggs of the 4400 block of G Street SE. No information was available on the motive or circumstances of the shooting.
— Tom Jackman
LOTTERIES July 15
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All winning lottery numbers are official only when validated at a lottery ticket location or a lottery claims office. Because of late drawings, some results do not appear in early editions. For late lottery results, check
www.washingtonpost.com/lottery.
‡Free Ball LOCAL DIGEST THE REGION
Homicides down 23 percent in area
Homicides in the Washington area dropped 23 percent last year, according to a report released Wednesday by a regional govern- ing body. The decline helped drive an
overall slide of 8 percent in re- ported serious crimes — includ- ing homicides, rapes, robberies, assaults and certain property crimes, according to the analysis of 2008 and 2009 data by the Met- ropolitan Washington Council of Governments. The trend was found in each of the three regional jurisdictions — the District and the Maryland and Virginia suburbs. Northern Virginia showed the sharpest decline in homicides at 28 percent, followed by the Dis- trict at 23 percent and the Mary- land suburbs at 21 percent. In 2009, the Virginia region had 36 homicides, the District 143 and the Maryland region 107. There were 143,568 serious crimes reported across the region in 2009, the report said, down from 156,025 in 2008. Just four of the 20 jurisdictions included in the study bucked the decline, led by Bowie with 12 percent more se- rious crime, Manassas Park with 8 percent more, Takoma Park with 3 percent and Manassas with 2 percent. The report attributed the find- ings in part to the increased use of technologies such as GPS de- vices in police cruisers, automat- ed license plate readers and the Law Enforcement Information Exchange, a data-sharing system launched in 2007 that allows de- partments to quickly retrieve mug shots and crime reports. —Mike McPhate
VIRGINIA
Man sentenced in wife’s death
An Annandale man who fled to
Mexico after his wife was found fatally stabbed behind their home in 2007 was convicted of second- degree murder Wednesday eve- ning by a Fairfax County jury. On Thursday, the jury imposed a prison sentence of 30 years. Matilde A. Cruz, 57, had sep-
arated from her husband, Jose L. Cruz, 56, and moved out of their home in the 6500 block of Pine- crest Court. Police said that on Dec. 20, 2007, the couple’s 18- year-old son found her body in her car, which had crashed be- hind the family’s house. Photos at Jose Cruz’s trial this week in Fairfax Circuit Court showed that she had been stabbed repeatedly in the neck and upper chest, probably by someone in the back seat, and evi- dence showed that Cruz had pre- viously assaulted her. Police quickly obtained a mur- der warrant for Cruz, who had last been seen in bloody clothes walking away from his wife’s car. Court testimony showed that he then transferred $42,000 to his own account and left for Mexico. He was arrested there in 2008 and extradited to Fairfax in 2009. At the close of the trial, Cruz surprised his attorneys by insist- ing on taking the witness stand. He testified that two Guatemalan men had tried to extort money from him, that they emphasized that threat by killing his wife, and that he wired money to Mexico as payment to them to protect his own life. Prosecutors asked jurors to
convict Cruz of first-degree mur- der, but they opted for second- degree murder, with a sentencing range of five to 40 years. —Tom Jackman
THE DISTRICT
Md. man found slain in Northeast
AMaryland man was found fa- tally shot on a Northeast Wash- ington street Wednesday night, D.C. police said. Craig Thompson, 39, of the
7400 block of Drumlea Road in Capitol Heights was found about 9:45 p.m. in the 6200 block of Banks Place NE, police said. It ap- peared that he had been shot once, police said. The slaying is under investiga- tion by homicide detectives. Police ask that anyone with in-
formation about Thompson’s death call 202-727-9099 or 1-888- 919-2746. Anonymous informa- tion may be submitted to D.C. Crime Solvers at 1-866-411-TIPS or by texting 50411.
—Paul Duggan
Keeping the popular George- town Branch trail running along- side a future light-rail line be- tween Bethesda and Silver Spring would cost at least $40 million more than predicted, Maryland transit planners told Montgom- ery County Council members Thursday. The county could have to ab- sorb much of those costs under a long-standing agreement that it would build, own and operate the jogging and cycling trail as part of a Purple Line project, state and county officials said. However, a Maryland Transit Administration official said the state will look for other money — including pos- sibly using state funds — to help cover trail construction costs, which have ballooned from $25 million to at least $65 mil- lion. Michael D. Madden, the state’s
project manager on the Purple Line study, said about $20 mil- lion of the cost increases resulted from designers discovering part of the tracks would need to be sunk into the ground to squeeze the trail through a tunnel that passes beneath a downtown Bethesda office building at the western terminus. Other increas- es resulted from planners reclas- sifying as trail costs any work that would be done solely to ac- commodate the trail, such as building retaining walls to sep- arate walkers from trains, he said. “The bottom line is the trail will be built as part of the Purple Line project,” Madden said after a Montgomery County Council meeting on the subject. “We’ll work together to try to identify a source of funding for the trail.” The trail’s growing price tag made some council members wince. “That’s not a small chunk of
change,” said Montgomery coun- cil member Roger Berliner (D- Potomac-Bethesda), whose dis- trict includes the trail. “This is one of those unpleasant surpris- es.”
Council President Nancy Flo-
reen (D-At Large) said the county is committed to keeping the trail open. “Of course, our concern is how we can pay for it,” she said. The trail costs are likely to in- crease further, Madden said, be- cause the council asked the state to add lighting and to expand the trail’s width from 10 feet to 12 feet where possible to reduce the pos- sibility of collisions between walkers and cyclists. The council discussed the trail
as part of updating the county’s master plan to reflect state plans to build the 16-mile east-west light-rail link between Bethesda and New Carrollton in Prince George’s County. Montgomery’s master plan now includes only a previously proposed single- tracked trolley line between Bethesda and Silver Spring. The Georgetown Branch trail has long been a major sticking point in plans to link Maryland’s ends of the Metro system and provide a more reliable transit option for people now traveling east-west on buses. Montgomery County bought the land formerly used for a CSX rail line in 1988 to preserve for a trolley but turned it into a gravel path for cyclists and walkers in the meantime. Some trail supporters say they
favor a Purple Line because it would lead to the trail’s comple- tion to Silver Spring as an exten- sion of the paved Capital Cres- cent Trail. Other trail users and some residents in East Bethesda and Chevy Chase say a train line would destroy a rare swath of much-used green space and be dangerous for children who might try to cross the tracks. Berliner also said he is satisfied
that the MTA has adequately studied the possibility of using a single track to spare some trees in an especially narrow part of the trail between downtown Beth- esda and Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase. State planners said two tracks would be needed along the entire line to maintain fast and reliable travel times dur- ing rush hours. The state is seeking federal funding for at least half of a light- rail line’s construction costs, esti- mated at $1.68 billion. County of- ficials said they could seek feder- al grants, such as those for side- walks and bikeways, to build the trail.
shaverk@washpost.com
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