WISDOM_MARTIN's Blog

For the last 4 years I have covered the DC summer jobs program and how they can't figure out how to pay the students on time or the right amount. This year the drama  is even worse. They increased the amount of students to 18000. It's the highest it's been in decades. In the past they averaged about 14000.

 Well surprise surprise, the problem this year.... they dont have enough money to finish the program. The mayor has sent a letter to the CFO asking them to dip into the city reserve funds for 20 million dollars so that the students can get paid for the remaining pay periods.  In my story tuesday night, I spoke with councilwomen Mary Cheh about the matter. Just like me and a lot of other people she is stunned that there is no money. Her numbers indicate that they have blown through 10 weeks of money in 3 weeks. Meaning students are getting overpaid, people are getting paid who are not working and people who are working are not getting paid. How can this be? Why can't they get this right? Payroll people!!!!  When I did the story 3 years ago, fenty was a councilman. He went looking for answers and said we have go to get this right. Well now he is in charge and the problem has gotten worse.  What a message to send to the children in the district. COME WORK FOR US, EVEN THOUGH WE CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO PAY YOU YEAR AFTER YEAR.

   The city council will be looking into the issue when they  come back september 15th. 

I have lived long enough and covered enough stories to realize that crime has no boundaries. No restrictions. It can happen anywhere and anytime to anyone. Having said that, I am always surprised when someone has the nerve to go and rob a church at gunpoint.  Thats exactly what happened  Monday morning at a Lanham church. Just as Mt. Calvery Baptist church was starting its summer camp for kids, 2 masked gunman came in with weapons and took money from the staff members. They got away. The good news, the children were outside when it happened and no one was hurt.  The kicker is the pastor says every monday is the day parents pay for childcare. They pay with checks , not with cash. So he seems to think someone knows that monday is payday and decided to  steal from the house of worship. The senior pastor says this is just the times we live in and they will add extra security to make sure everyone is safe. Still, I wonder why people think they can make a quick buck by robbing the house of God. I don't  get it. Then again I never get most crimes we cover. But on a scale of 1-10, this has to be the worst of the worst.

 Once again radio man Don Imus has pulled out the  divisive race card in his show. The last time he called the Rutgers womens basketball players "Nappy Headed Hos". He got fired. He got back on the radio. And now read the comments he has made where he claims he was taken out of context.
The full transcript .

Wolf: "Defensive back Adam 'Pacman' Jones, recently signed by the Cowboys. Here's a guy suspended all of 2007 following a shooting in a Vegas night club."

Imus: "Well, stuff happens. You're in a night club, for God's sake. What do you think's gonna happen in a night club? People are drinking and doing drugs, there are women there, and people have guns. So, there, go ahead."

Wolf: "He's also been arrested six times since being drafted by Tennessee in 2005."

Imus: "What color is he?"

Wolf: "He's African-American."

Imus: "Well, there you go. Now we know."

  Now how is this taken out of context?  What exactly did he mean?  What does his color have to do with anything. When people make these kind of statements how can it be possibly taken out of context. It is a racist remark. There is no excuse for that  especially when you look at what happened with Rutgers. 

Right in front of Rockville high there are 2 speed cameras. One for southbound, the other for northbound. They have been there for a little more than a year. Guess what, those 2 cameras by themselves have accounted for more than half of all the speed camera tickets in the county. The police have issued  juse over 62 thousand citations from  all 6 cameras. More than 50 thousand have come from this stretch of road. The drivers who have gotten the tickets  tell me its a sneaky  speed trap because the cameras are there just as you come over the hill. They say as soon as you get over the hill , you get a surprise.  But the police say, if they  drive according to the speed limit this would not be an issue. They say the cameras were put there because of speed complaints and there is a lot of foot traffic from Rockville high students. Besides the speed limit has been 25 MPH since the road has been around. The police say it's not about money its about getting people to slow down. Drivers say they are just trying to make money.  Well here is the breakdown on that. $16.25 goes to the vendor who runs the cameras. 25 dollars goes to the city fo fund programs.(street lighting,bike safety,sidewalks,2 new police officers for traffic enforcement, etc.)   So  what's the real motivation? Depends on who you ask.   

Normally when you get ready to pick a hospital , several things come into play. Location, urgency,type of care and a lot of times word of mouth(reputation). Now  the department of health and human services has created a website where patients can log on and leave their comments about their experiences at the hospital. Anyone can go to the site and check different areas, make comparisons  based on care. It's an interesting idea. But some hospital experts are concerned that it will not rate them correctly. For example some of the hospitals in the area known as the best, may not be number 1 in a specific catagory. I spoke with the govenrment agency and they tell me, all they are trying to do is give people information so they can make an informed decision. They also want to encourage hospitals to improve service. Would you go to a website to get hospital information or would you just ask someone and go based on reputation?

Let me get this straight. Senator Waxman who ran the congressional hearing about Roger Clemens and his steroid use is now saying he didn't want the hearing in the first place, he regrets it, and that the entire dog and pony show was Clemens attorney's idea!!!!  Clemen's attorney fired back saying it was all Senator Waxman.  Are you serious? Our elected leaders are telling the public a baseball players lawyers caused them to have a congressional hearing? This is amazing. How would the public feel about their taxpayers money being wasted like this.

Like many others I sat in front of the television watching yet another congressional hearing on baseball steroid use. This time the characters were Roger Clemens and his former trainer Brian McNamee.  Listening to all that carefully chosen language it was hard to tell who is telling the truth. Maybe they are both telling fibs. Maybe they are both telling the truth. The strange part was watching the angry congressional leaders. They argued among party lines. They chose sides. They introduced evidence on behalf of one of the men. This was strange because are there not more important things to have hearings over? What about Iraq. What about the economy? What about forclosures and bad lending practices? What's the point of 3 years of baseball hearings? Are they going to take action? Are they trying to get someone to tell a lie on the record so they can come back and get them later?  Can any of this stuff be  proven over who did what several years ago? Is this because of the baseball Anti-trust?  Why did they not meet with the commisioner of baseball in private from the start to deal with this instead of having a big dog and pony show in the form of a hearing. All I am saying is we have sat  through Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Palmero pointing his finger then getting busted later. What has 3 years of baseball hearings really accomplished?  

  Now Senator Arlen Specter is fueding with the NFL commish over the Patriots destroying  illegal videos. There may be a hearing on this!  

This Mitchell report investigation into baseball use in major league baseball came out today. It cost 60 million dollars to investigate. But here is the thing, the people running baseball knew their players were cheating and they did nothing to stop them. The commish has put all his eggs in the Barry Bonds basket while turning a blind eye to the fact a number of other high profile players were getting juiced for a competative edge. This is the ultimate  example  of "ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL."  Do you really think this is new information to the people running major league baseball?   The way they have been acting over the last couple of years Bonds had all the steroids and he was the only one cheating!!!!  To me if a 38 year old  pitcher is getting bigger and better each year after they had started to decline, something is not right.  Maybe thats just me.

Check this out bloggers. 5 teams in Prince George's county and 1 team in DC have been caught playing players who lived in another school zone. Basically recruiting the best players in other areas to play on their teams. The rules are clear in DC and the county.  The teams who made the playoffs were suspended from the post season. 2 coaches have been disciplined and 1 assistant coach has been fired .

   So is it fair for the entire team who played by the rules to pay for  a coach and a player who broke the rules? Should this even be an issue? Should schools just let people  jump from zone to zone? I understand in Prince George's county you can transfer leagally for academic reasons but you have to do the paperwork and get approved. None of the players involved did this. 

Investigators busted  a manager at the DC office of tax and revenue  along with 5 other people for allegedly running a scam that stole at least 16 million from the taxpayers.  According to court documents the manager would sign off on these fake property tax refund checks. Investigators uncovered 42 fake checks so far. Some of her relatives would deposit them into their bank accounts, then issue them back out to the others involved in the scam.   Each one of the checks was nearly 400 thousand dollars. They were made out  to fake corperations and signed off on by the manager.  The documents also state the manager spent more than a million dollars shopping at Neiman Marcus. Money was sent to banks in the Dominican Republic. The investigation is still going on and the government says their could be more money missing .  This is another example of  "IF ONLY CRIMINALS COULD USE THEIR POWERS FOR GOOD!"  One of the people busted was a bank manager involved in the con.  The only way it got caught...someone at a Maryland bank raised the red flag when the big checks were coming in.