This edition of The Collins Council Report looks back at two legislative meetings (yes, two meetings) the D.C. Council conducted on Feb. 18.
For nearly two hours, the D.C. Council deliberated on matters involving Title IX sexual assault reporting, returning citizens affairs, and funding of affordable housing providers. Council members also approved legislation firmly designating July 15, 2025 as expiration date of the pre-trial provision of the Secure DC omnibus bill.
Read more about events of Feb. 18 and the special Ward 8 D.C. Council election that’s underway.
A special shout-out goes to the third graders of Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School in Brookland who filled the council chambers during their trip to the John A. Wilson Building.
An Extra Legislative Meeting for Returning Citizens
Toward the end of the council’s Feb. 18 legislative meeting, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) announced the start of an extra legislative meeting to finalize what he described as a process that D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) let fester for far too long.
Minutes later, the council approved the Multiyear Contract No. DHCD-2025-50 with Jubilee Housing, Inc. Emergency Act of 2025, legislation that allocates nearly $34 million over a 20-year period to subsidize 18 permanent supportive re-entry housing units that Jubilee Housing manages on Kalorama Road in Northwest.
Minutes before the vote, Mendelson said DHCD dropped the ball in renewing the contract with Jubilee Housing that expired last November. He said this happened even with taxpayer dollars carved out for the endeavor.
“For each meeting, we were promised a contract,” the council chairman said. “We even expected it for [the] Feb. 4 legislative meeting. DHCD’s tardiness is inexcusable and can’t be justified.
Such actions, Mendelson said, require the Executive Office of the Mayor (EOM) to take extreme measures.
“I suggested someone be fired,” he told his council colleagues. “And I’m not speaking of someone low level.”
Last November, after the expiration of DHCD’s contract with Jubilee Housing, an organization that provides services to thousands of low and moderate-income D.C. residents, the council attempted to facilitate the renewal of an arrangement that Mendelson said had been funded in the Fiscal Year 2025 budget.
DHCD, under the purview of the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, is tasked with: preserving and increasing the supply of quality affordable housing, increasing homeownership opportunities, revitalizing neighborhoods, promoting community development, and providing economic opportunities.
Mendelson’s remarks come amid concerns council members had long expressed about the Bowser administration’s handling of contracts. While a provision of the D.C. Home Rule charter mandates the timely submission of the contracts totaling more than $1 million, agencies such as Department of General Services and Child and Family Services Agency, two agencies cited for work order mismanagement, haven’t maintained fidelity to the law.
With Colleen Green at the helm, DHCD has allocated millions of Housing Production Trust Fund last year and continues to support landlords whose properties are in disrepair and facing foreclosure due to alleged tenant rent nonpayment.
However, as Mendelson explained, the agency’s delay on the renewed contract with Jubilee Housing jeopardized the nonprofit’s work. Neither DCHD nor the Executive Office of the Mayor immediately returned The Informer’s request for comment.
Since its purchase of the Ritz and Mozart apartment buildings in 1973, Jubilee Housing has provided District families with housing and supportive services. In 2002, Jim Knight joined the nonprofit as executive director, spearheading initiatives resulting in the development of multi-million dollar properties, delivery of services to youth and families, and the first-of-its-kind housing for returning citizens.
Knight stands among those pushing for a recalibration of the housing ecosystem, as he explained in a 2024 Washington Business Journal op-ed. Through an investment fund, Jubilee Housing continues to purchase and invest in property, yielding hundreds of new units.
Once online, the new 18 units of housing funded by DHCD will be located near 52 other units that serve as an incubator of workforce development opportunities for returning citizens.
“We have a housing crisis and returning citizens are at the back of the line,” Knight told The Informer. “It’s part of a continuum of support that Jubilee provides. This is a model that can be used across the city to support this community.”
D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto Avoids Record-Sealing Controversy
On Feb. 14, as District residents awaited President Donald J. Trump’s signing of an executive order to displace the unhoused and intensify prosecution of local crime, D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) submitted the Safety Cluster Resource Alignment and Clarification Emergency Amendment Act of 2025 to the council for a vote.
Days later, during the council’s Feb. 18 legislative meeting, Pinto withdrew the controversial emergency bill, which included a provision delaying implementation of a 2021 law that facilitates the removal of citations, arrests, charges, prosecution, disposition, or conviction from a person’s public record.
While Pinto didn’t speak directly to her rationale in the last-minute bill withdrawal, she hinted at tensions between local and federal elements of the public safety ecosystem.
“The agencies do not feel they can implement or administer record sealing, but now it’s the law,” Pinto told The Informer on Feb. 18. “They had time to prepare so we will work with the agencies locally and federally.”
Had Pinto followed through with, and the council approved, the emergency measure, the start date for record expungement processes would’ve been Oct. 1, 2027 instead of March 1. Earlier in the day, before making her announcement, Pinto delved deeper into developments on the federal level that compelled her to introduce the emergency measure.
”The last U.S. attorney had concerns about administering the law when we moved up the timeline from October 2027,” she told The Informer. “They need to hire more people and [have] technology but our continued expectation is that they will do it.“
D.C. Councilmember Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) told The Informer he empathized with personnel shortages that may complicate the U.S. Attorney’s Office facilitation of the record expungement process. However, he spoke in support of a middle ground.
“A two-year delay is a nonstarter,” Parker said. “A partial delay for two to three months that allows us to staff up, we can talk about that.”
Advocates who spoke with The Informer said Pinto’s initial apprehension about allowing record expungement stemmed not only from questions about the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s capacity, but the installment of Ed Martin as U.S. attorney.
Martin, an attorney who defended some of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, is the first U.S. attorney in half a century without experience as a judge or federal prosecutor. Shortly after Trump tapped him for the role, Martin dismissed the charges of one of his former Jan. 6 clients, fired nearly 30 federal prosecutors who handled that case and ordered internal reviews of Jan. 6 prosecutions.
As the District continues to reel from the introduction of legislation that dismantles home rule, some people, like Patrice Sulton, said they don’t want fears about the second Trump presidency to spur further marginalization of Black people.
“D.C. has one of the most restricted and convoluted record sealing rules in the country,” Sulton said. “We have people with records of non-conviction who can’t get a record expunged… based on what else is on their record.
Throughout much of last week, Sulton, executive director of D.C. Justice Lab, sent emails to members of the council, urging them to strike down Pinto’s bill, which would change a crucial element of the Second Chance Amendment Act.
The Second Chance Amendment Act, approved in 2021 without D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s signature, mandates automatic record sealing for non-violent non-convictions and expands eligibility for the process.
Once passed, the legislation placed D.C. among nearly two dozen U.S. jurisdictions with what the Restoration of Human Rights Project calls “broader felony and misdemeanor relief.”
Since then, experts have continued to cite increased access to employment and education, and peace of mind among the several benefits of record expungement.
Sulton echoed those sentiments, telling The Informer that any effort to delay record expulsion, either from local or federal officials, would exacerbate on-the-ground conditions keeping Black people generationally impoverished.
“We can’t be surprised about the racial wealth gap when we deliberately lock poor and Black people out of economic opportunity,” Sulton said. “There’s no other state that has these problems.”
Pinto remains adamant that she’s acting in good faith.
“My intention,” she said, “is to save this law and make sure it can be implemented.”
The Council Further Shapes the Start of a New Chapter in DYRS Oversight
Months later, council members continue to build upon the Recidivism Reduction, Oversight and Accountability for DYRS Act, also known as the ROAD Act.
On Feb. 18, the council approved, on the second reading, The Office of Independent Juvenile Justice Facilities Oversight Plan Temporary Act of 2025. This legislation eliminates a requirement that the Office of Independent Juvenile Justice Facilities Oversight (OIJJFO) present a plan to the D.C. Council about how it would continue its oversight of D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS) at the end of the 2025 fiscal year.
OIJJFO, established via a settlement reached in Jerry v. District of Columbia, was scheduled to carry out this responsibility by March 1. However, D.C. Councilmember Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) pointed out that, with the ROAD Act expanding OIJJFO’s responsibilities under the Office of the D.C. Auditor (ODCA), that rule will no longer apply.
“Now that the ROAD Act has been introduced and passed, [that requirement] is redundant,” Parker said.
More than a year ago, after D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced the impending closure of the juvenile justice facility oversight office, Parker joined forces with At large Councilmember Christina Henderson (I) and then-D.C. Councilember Trayon White to keep it open until September 2024.
The Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Support Act, passed last spring, later moved OIJJJFO to ODCA.
With the oversight office housed there, and the probable funding of the ROAD Act in the Fiscal Year 2026 budget, Parker said he anticipates more accountability of D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, where youth residents and parents have complained of overcrowding and lack of access to toiletries, among other issues.
That is, if ODCA cooperates.
“The auditor had placement concerns and didn’t want the oversight function there… but I think they will find a way to honor the spirit of the ROAD Act and constant oversight of DYRS,” Parker told The Informer.
While D.C. Auditor Kathleen Patterson, a former council member, said ODCA will execute the ROAD Act, she told The Informer that her office’s unique functions might complicate oversight efforts.
“It’s not an argument about additional oversight but we are an audit shop that looks at programs and tells what we found and what should happen in a singular report,” Patterson said, pointing out that her analysts don’t have expertise in the type of oversight the council expects. “Continuous oversight of a program is different in function. If you want more oversight, shouldn’t the council be doing that or an office within DYRS?”
Councilmember Bonds Works to Ensure Fiscal Responsibility and Safety at DOES
On its second reading, the D.C. Council approved the Youth Workforce Development Programs Temporary Amendment Act of 2025, legislation.
D.C. Councilmember Anita Bonds (D-At large) introduced the bill to:
- Modify the use of D.C. Department of Employment Services (DOES) funds for food and non-alcoholic drink purchases for workforce development programs
- Designate volunteers and employees of DOES summer youth employment worksites as a covered youth or child services provider
- Authorize background and motor vehicle record checks of host site employees and volunteers with “direct contact or unsupervised access” to young people.
Bonds, chair of the council’s Committee on Executive Labor and Administration, said conversations with federal officials inspired the legislation, especially as it relates to background checks.
“In the past,” Bonds said, “DHS took over that role but the FBI notified us that’s not the way to go.”
Last month, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) and DOES Director Dr. Unique Morris-Hughes marked the launch of 2025 Marion S. Barry Summer Youth Employment Program portal with an event at ARTEHOUSE where they encouraged District youth — and host sites — to register.
Each year, with the support of those host sites, teenagers and young adults acquire professional experience in the public and private sectors. This summer, many of them will be able to learn about finances and public budgeting under what’s called the Pathways to Finance Grant, elements of which align with the District’s newly implemented financial literacy standards.
As the council also prepares for an economics lesson of its own during the upcoming budget season, Bonds expressed a desire for DOES dollars going directly to young people who are involved in summer employment and enrichment activities.
The legislation, she said, helps to meet that goal.
“We’re making sure when monies are expended, it involves the participants in our summer program,” Bonds told The Informer. “DOES wants to make sure they have the money for programs so we want to be responsible and make the law clearer to provide resources for those vendors.”
At Least Three Candidates Confirmed for Ward 8 D.C. Council Special Election
During the latter part of last week, D.C. Board of Elections (DCBOE) revealed the details of a special election for the Ward 8 council seat, vacated during last month’s legislative meeting when the council expelled Trayon White for his alleged acceptance of bribes.
The special election, per DCBOE, is scheduled to take place on July 15, with the winner to serve the remainder of a four-year term that ends on January 2, 2029.
By May 23, the agency would have compiled a finalized list of candidates. Weeks later, on June 9, more than 55,000 Ward 8 voters will receive mail-in ballots.
While no one has officially thrown their hat in the ring, at least one person — Sandra Seegars — said she received automated calls from pollsters who floated the names of: Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Salim Adofo, Mike Austin, Sheila Bunn, D.C. Shadow Representative Oye Owolewa, and D.C. Democratic Party Chairman Charles Wilson.
Adofo told The Informer that he will announce his campaign on March 1 at We Act Radio in Southeast. A source familiar with the situation confirmed that Bunn, former chief of staff for Councilmember Vincent C. Gray has also gelled plans together for her run, while Austin said he plans to make an announcement next week.
Meanwhile Owolewa said he hasn’t yet made a decision, opting instead to focus on his promotion of D.C. home rule and statehood across the country.
The Informer unsuccessfully attempted to gather comment from Wilson.
Seegars declined to reveal who, if anyone, she would support. She however presented a set of criteria.
“I want someone who’s familiar with the legislative process and includes everyone in the ward, not just a handful of people,” Seegars told The Informer. “The last council member couldn’t mingle with everyone. We have a variety of people from different walks of life — those who are well off and those who aren’t.”
For Seegars, it remains to be seen whether Ward 8 rallies around a person who truly qualifies for the council seat. As the clock winds down to May 23, Seegars remains skeptical about the future of D.C. politics.
“The next person will think they can do better and not get caught,” Seegars told The Informer. “They’re not gonna stop because they think they can get away with it. You’re better off robbing a bank. At least the bank’s insured and it’s not money going to constituents or residents.”