For Release: Monday, March 27, 2017
Contact: Vaughn Bennett, 202-557-9516, Vaughn_Bennett@yahoo.com
The Coalition for DCRA Accountability, a new group of DC residents, is protesting the multiple failures of Melinda Bolling as director of the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and demanding her immediate removal for failing to serve and protect the people of the District.
What: Demonstration for removal of DCRA Director Melinda Bolling
When: 11am, Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Where: At DCRA headquarters, 1100 4th St. SW
Director Bolling’s many failures include several at Brookland’s Dahlgreen Courts Apartments, 10th Street NE:
- the waste of $11 million in taxpayer funds allocated to rehab the building because DCRA has not required the abatement of multiple housing code violations after the rehab was supposedly completed, including peeling and cracked lead-based paint, rodents and insect infestations, raw sewage backups and water leaks, cracked exterior bricks and broken floors;
- a DCRA housing inspector recently allowed an unlicensed worker to attempt to patch a hole in a false ceiling without following lead-safe work practices–and the hole remains.
DCRA’s failures have been repeated citywide. Perhaps most notably for the buildings owned by Sanford Capital where DCRA has failed to track building code violations in the multiple Sanford-owned buildings.
In addition, the city has approved Sanford’s lucrative plans to replace existing rent-controlled residential buildings in Congress Heights despite testimony about horrific conditions in this property.
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