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Taking note . . .

Observations about public affairs in the nation’s capital
by the editor of The Common Denominator

THE MAYOR'S LONDON TRIP: What a difference a day – and news media reports – can make in the story coming from Mayor Anthony A. Williams' Office of Communications about who pays for the mayor's out-of-town travel.

The Common Denominator reported online Nov. 10 that an affiliate of Deutsche Bank, the German financial institution that wants to help finance a new stadium for the Washington Nationals, was picking up the tab for the mayor's four-day trip to London, Nov. 10-13, to participate in an urban planning conference. The information that the conference sponsors – a Deutsche Bank think-tank and the London School of Economics – were paying for the mayor's trip came from Sharon Gang, a longtime spokeswoman for the mayor and deputy director of Williams' Office of Communications.

But by the next afternoon, and apparently after Washington Post reporters also began asking about the mayor's trip expenses, the mayor's Office of Communications decided that the London School of Economics alone was footing the bill for the mayor's trip. Office of Communications Director Vincent Morris has promised to provide The Common Denominator with documentation this week to prove who paid the mayor's way.

The mayor participated in a Saturday morning debate on "The European City Model" and also discussed the District's New Communities initiative for revitalizing distressed neighborhoods at the the London conference, part of a two-year, six-city series of conferences called "Urban Age." The series, focusing on the future of cities, is sponsored by Deutsche Bank's Berlin-based Alfred Herrhausen Society and the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Mayor Williams also traveled to New York City in February to participate in the opening session of the series. In May, when The Common Denominator reported on that trip, Gang also said the conference sponsors paid the mayor's expenses. No one disputed that report.

"I think it raises eyebrows … it doesn't pass the smell test," said Councilman Vincent Orange, who chairs the D.C. City Council's Committee on Government Operations and is suing council Chairman Linda Cropp for blocking his effort to conduct a hearing Oct. 31 on the Williams administration's dealings with Deutsche Bank.

Cropp did not respond to a call for comment on the mayor's trip.

Gang said the mayor did not attend the second conference in the series, which was held in Shanghai in July. Other "Urban Age" conferences are scheduled for February in Mexico City, July in Johannesburg and November 2006 in Berlin.

In January, Deutsche Bank was among companies that presented private financing proposals for a new stadium. The city council, at Chairman Cropp's urging, required the Williams administration and Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi to investigate private financing options when it voted late last year to approve the mayor's deal with Major League Baseball officials, which relocated the former Montreal Expos franchise to Washington.

Deutsche Bank's financing proposal, favored by Mayor Williams, would provide the city with $246 million in cash toward the estimated $535 million cost of building a new stadium near the Washington Navy Yard to replace Robert F. Kennedy Stadium. While the plan would decrease the city's need for traditional bond financing, critics of the deal argue that the bank's plan would result in greater long-term costs for D.C. taxpayers to retire the total debt -- estimated to reach about $1 billion, including financing charges, before the stadium construction is paid off.

Copyright 2005 The Common Denominator