With two (2) new board members sworn-in on January 24, 2017, and the Council considering both the Mayor’s proposed changes to the law and the Board’s Final Rulemaking to amend the Municipal Regulations, there are changes abound for the gamut of license types.
I can’t even count the number of times that a potential client has come to me, with a juicy, winning litigation case, with one big problem… the amount of money in dispute is less than the legal fees will be. Frustrating, for both of us.
The problem is that litigation is an alternate financial reality. In litigation world, $15,000 is not a lot of money. In the real world, it is.
“Rich, there is some crazy B[eep], in here and she is acting a fool,” is what the voice on the other end of the phone said to me. It had barely even registered to me who was calling when I heard screaming and cursing in the background, and some thumps, and crashes that I couldn’t identify-but didn’t sound good. “What, you mean right now?! Hang up and call the cops for God’s sake!”
I swear, a lot. I mean really, a lot. If you’ve ever had a conversation with me that has lasted longer than three minutes, chances are I said ‘fuck,’ probably more than once. I swear in casual conversation, in routine business dealings, and in ending arguments before repeatedly slamming the phone down in the cradle hard enough to obliterate the handset and send plastic phone shrapnel flying all over my office.
The District, through it’s tax, vacant, distressed and blighted property laws, owns a number of properties around the city. Over the years, different administrations have handled, and mis-handled these city-owned assets in a variety of ways. There have been sporadic sales, in a number of different forms, supposedly to meet various policy goals.