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Court judge, citing flimsy legal backing, tossed the eviction. The attempted eviction created one of Fenty’s most notable political de- bacles. “Peter has no sense of politics,
and that’s a good thing and a bad thing,” Cooke said. “The problem is . . . if you’ve got a political tin ear, you need to have somebody around you who doesn’t.” Nickles disputes that he has a
KATHERINE FREY/THE WASHINGTON POST
D.C. AttorneyGeneral Peter Nickles, 71, has been a mentor and guide forMayor Adrian M. Fenty, 39, since his childhood.
“tin ear,” saying that if he’s seen Fenty “getting out of line,” he has told him. “Have we disagreed? Yes. I
won’t be specific,” Nickles said. “He likes to say he’s moving a hundred miles an hour. I say, ‘Mayor, a hundred miles an hour sometimes violates the speed lim- it. Take it down to 70. Check to your left and to your right.”
The executive’s turf Nickles’s role has transcended
litigation; he’s tackled the most controversial matters to cross Fenty’s transom, with fewbounds on his responsibilities. When faced with uncomfortable ques- tions, Fenty has tended to say little and defer to Nickles. When news reporters inquired
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about Fenty’s travel to China and the United Arab Emirates in 2009, for instance,Fenty declined to answer questions, kicking the issue to Nickles. Nickles, in turn, issued a report revealing that foreign governments had paid for the trips. The payments, Nickles wrote, were “legally sufficient and in compliance with applica- ble law,” but Fenty absorbed deep criticism for not immediately dis- closing the donations. Shortly afterward, questions
arose about the city’s donation of an ambulance and firetruck to a Dominican Republic town. Fenty and his communications office
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directed the matter to Nickles, who issued another report, con- cluding that city officials did nothing wrong and that the city “was operating with the very best of intentions.” Left unmentioned wasthat twomenclose toFenty— city development official David Jannarone and friend Sinclair Skinner—had played key roles in the transfer. “It wasn’t relevant,” Nickles ex-
plained recently. But the omis- sion helped fuel a council inquiry, which found no criminal wrong- doing but concluded that pro- curement rules had been circum- vented. Nickles has gone to some
length to fend off the efforts of other governmental branches to venture onto what he considers the executive’s turf. The city auditor, Deborah K.
Nichols, clashed with Nickles last year after he blocked her office from having unfettered access to a cache of records belonging to two now-defunct city agencies, invoking several legal privileges. Nichols, who reports to the D.C. Council, filed suit in Superior Court, cueing a rare interbranch showdown before the case was settled shortly before a court hearing. Nickles has also playeda role in
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the council’s investigations of controversial parks and recre- ation contracts, management of which was awarded to a Fenty- linked firm, Banneker Ventures. In July, as a special counsel hired by legislators probed the contract award, Nickles signed a $550,000 agreement with Banneker, telling reporters that he did not consult with Fenty before settling the case. After news of the deal was released, Gray called for Nickles’s ouster as he has cited the contract as evidence of “cronyism” on the campaign trail — less than two years after Gray cast the decisive vote confirming Nickles as attor- ney general. The two also had a more per-
sonal run-in: Nickles kept a close watch this year on allegations that Gray had built an unpermit- ted, too-tall fence around hisHill- crest home. The city ordered its dismantling. “What’s important in terms of public confidence is that public officials are treated the same as ordinary citizens,” Nickles said, explaining his in- volvement in the matter.
Given a free hand In between his stalwart de-
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fense of Fenty and his preroga- tives, Nickles has been given a free hand to push the public-in- terest lawsuits that are the bread and butter for most attorneys general looking to make an im- pression. Nickles embarked on a litiga-
tion campaign against city slum- lords, leading to repairs at several of the city’s worst rental proper- ties.He proceeded to target used- car lots on Bladensburg Road NE and other locales, accusing them of being eyesores and, some, of being fronts for the drug trade. More recently, Nickles proudly
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touts his role in ending a two-year rent strike among tenants of the Marbury Plaza apartments in SoutheastWashington.Under the agreement brokered by Nickles, the building’s owner will install a new roof and upgrade plumbing and heating and air-conditioning systems. ButwhereNickles hashopedto
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make the most lasting impact is by bringing the city out from under ongoing court oversight, which now constrains the city’s handling of mental health pa- tients, the developmentally dis- abled, juvenile justice, child wel- fare and special education. Those cases,someof which Nickles him- self pressed, are the legacy of mismanagement dating back to Barry’s regime, and ending them, he said, will be proof of improved city governance. A federal judge has recognized continued improvements in the special education cases, raising the real possibility that the city could soon escape oversight. But in the other cases, such as the developmental disabilities case dating to 1976, progress has not yet been lasting enough to satisfy judges. U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle recently approved the appointment of an “indepen- dent compliance administrator” — a step backward that Nickles had hoped to avoid. With Fenty behind in polls,
Nickles has continued filing mo- tions in the class actions, pressing novel legal strategies to extract the cityfromoversight. “I thought I couldimprovethe lot of the folks I’d been representing for years,” he said. If Gray wins on Tuesday, Nick-
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les may be back to making those improvements from private prac- tice. “I’ll stick around a while if the mayor wins,” he said. “If not, next time you call me, I may have my name on a lawsuit.”
stewartn@washpost.com debonism@washpost.com
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