Graham Opposes Using Fast Track For Kingsman Sale

Mayor Anthony Williams may try on Monday to introduce legislation that would allow the City Council to approve the city's sale of Kingsman Elementary School to the Charter Schools Development Corporation on an emergency basis, according to staff members at two City Council offices — those of Council member Harold Brazil (D-At Large) and Jim Graham (D-Ward 1).

At least one lawmaker would oppose an emergency resolution on Kingsman. If four oppose it, the measure would fail.

"I won't be supporting that," Mr. Graham said in an interview yesterday, referring to a possible emergency resolution on the sale of Kingsman. He said the fiasco of the city's decision to rent property for an impoundment lot in Prince George's County shows "what happens when we don't have proper oversight of dispositions."

According to a Washington Post article yesterday that reported on a hearing held by Mr. Graham's committee Thursday, District officials had the option to lease the impoundment lot at 4800 Addison Rd. for $225,000 a year but instead decided to rent property in Prince George's County for nearly $1 million a year.

Mr. Graham said he wants to make sure the public has a chance to air any concerns before the council votes on the measure, and that he could not support pushing the measure through without the measure's first having received a proper hearing. "I'm not willing to take that responsibility on my back. ... The Department of Housing and Community Development has been sitting on this for two years. ... The appraisal [of the school building] is two years old. ... I just don't have any facts. ... Until I get some facts, I don't know what's going on here."

An emergency resolution would allow the legislation to bypass committee approval, thereby significantly speeding up the approval process. If introduced on Monday, it could be voted on by the council as soon as Tuesday. It would require the support of nine council members instead of seven. However, it would first have to be approved by each committee separately and then by the Committee of the Whole, according to Barry Kreiswirth, a member of the staff in Mr. Brazil's office.

At the request of the mayor, Council Chairwoman Linda Cropp had introduced legislation (PR 15-59) on Jan. 17 to approve the sale of Kingsman. The legislation was referred sequentially first to a committee chaired by Mr. Graham, and then to one chaired by Mr. Brazil.

Two weeks ago, Mr. Graham scheduled a hearing on the proposed resolution. He said in an interview yesterday that he still intends to hold that hearing as planned, on Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. (see Calendar). According to Mr. Kreiswirth, the Brazil staff member, Mr. Brazil has not yet scheduled a hearing because Mr. Brazil expected the mayor to introduce the legislation on an emergency basis.

Michelle Gelsino, vice president of the Charter Schools Development Corporation, warned yesterday that plans to renovate Kingsman School for use by the Sasha Bruce Charter School in September could be jeopardized if the City Council does not soon approve the sale of the land and building to the corporation.

"If the resolution is not approved by March 15, probably we're going to run into a lot of trouble, because if we don't start the renovations — we need to be able to close on the property so that we can start renovations to the annex portion so that it'll be ready by August 15, for Sasha Bruce to be able to move in," Ms. Gelsino said in a voicemail message yesterday. "If the construction gets delayed beyond April 1, it's gonna be almost impossible to do all the necessary environmental abatement, permitting, zoning, architecture — all of those things that go into developing and rehabbing a building. So it's a very, very tight timeline, which is why we really need the council to approve it by mid-March, so we can close and begin work on April 1."

Ms. Gelsino said she didn't know anything about plans for an emergency resolution. Council member Sharon Ambrose (D-Ward 6) did not respond to a phone message about Kingsman left for her yesterday in the early afternoon. Mayoral spokeswoman Germonique Jones said she was unable to find out any information on the mayor's plans for the Kingsman legislation yesterday. §