By Dave Statter
dstatter@wusa9.com
STATter 911 — http://www.statter911.com
WUSA9 — http://www.wusa9.com
WASHINGTON — It was called “Buff and Scrub”. Mayor Adrian Fenty touring a District of Columbia school in early August. The mayor was making sure it was ready for the coming school year, the first year he is in charge of the school system.
It is not unusual to hear cynical news people refer to these types of press gatherings as dog and pony shows. Planned events, that can often be not much more than a photo opportunity for a political leader to walk through a controlled environment.
As a reporter with this assignment, you are usually hoping to find something more in depth. A story with some meat on its bones, whether it is good news or bad. You want either the pony to be a Kentucky Derby winner or the dog to poop on the carpet. In the case of “Buff and Scub”, my 9News Now colleague, reporter Audrey Barnes, got a little of each.
Audrey followed her instincts and found a very clear look at the infrastructure challenges in the school system. She also has now discovered that somewhere along the chain of command leading up to the mayor, someone didn’t like the actions of an inspector for the D.C. Fire & EMS Department.
Inspector Alan Lancaster is currently on desk duty. Assistant Fire & EMS Chief Larry Schultz said Friday, “There is an internal investigation ongoing”. According to Chief Schultz, “We have expected behavior of all of our personnel when they are dealing with the citizens who are our customers”.
In this case, it appears the only “customers” Inspector Lancaster dealt with are all fellow city employees. They include the principal of Francis Junior High School, Stephanie Crutchfield and Deputy Mayor for Education, Victor Reinoso.
On August 6th, Inspector Lancaster came to the school at 2425 N Street, NW on a follow-up visit to a July inspection. It was at the very same time the mayor, the deputy mayor, and the principal were leading the press tour. Audrey Barnes and a photographer took a detour when they noticed that the inspector went to the school officials about a major problem that had not been corrected from the previous visit.
What 9News Now viewers saw on TV that day was less of the mayor and more of a mud filled boiler room that Deputy Mayor Reinoso called “appalling”.
Within a half-hour school officials and work crews began assessing the problem. It was fixed just days later. As the principal put it, “The response was immediate”.
But as reporter Barnes discovered, it was the other response that left Alan Lancaster with a problem. Barnes cites city sources who say some of the mayor’s staffers complained about how the fire inspector pulled them away from the media event.
On Lancaster’s side, Audrey Barnes writes, “His supporters say he was just doing his job, to help the city meet the mayor’s October 15th deadline to have a working boiler in every DC school”.
Francis Junior High now has its working boiler in a safer environment, but the District of Columbia currently has one less inspector to make sure this and other schools are hazard free.
Since 1972 Dave Statter has covered the news. A good deal of Dave’s reporting has focused on how fire and emergency medical services are delivered in and around Washington and Baltimore. Along the way, Dave was also a volunteer firefighter, an emergency dispatcher and a cardiac rescue technician.