B4 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19 , 2019
His was not a notable name.
He did not graduate from college
or hold a position of power. On
his employer’s website, he is
listed as a “custodian/bus driver.”
But if you sat in Washington
National Cathedral on Monday
night, you would have seen it fill
with people who came for his
memorial service and who saw
the stately setting as a fitting
place for it. You would have heard
people describe a man who was
rare in his kindness and who
spent most of his life working in
or near the iconic building.
You would have seen the grief
on the faces of teenagers and
women he literally cheered on.
Magoba was in high school
when he first started cleaning
Washington National Cathedral,
and at 18, he took a job at the
nearby all-girls National
Cathedral School. He worked
there for 47 years, until his death
on Aug. 4.
“A s he often mentioned when
he was reminiscing, Edward was
terrified of the girls at first, afraid
to say much or give a fist-bump or
a high-five, or whatever the
equivalent was back at that time,”
Becky Rivera told the crowd at
his service. She first met Magoba
when her daughter attended the
school and later worked with
him. “But over time, and as many
of you in this cathedral
experienced firsthand, he became
your biggest fan and your
guardian angel.”
She described how he drove
students on the bus to their
athletic competitions and then
stood on the sidelines, cheering
loudly for them. You can do it,
girls! And how sometimes, if
opposing teams didn’t have many
fans, he took on that role, too.
“Mr. Magoba was the most
selfless and giving individual
many of us have ever known,”
Rivera said. “Edward was unique
in his ability to absorb and reflect
the happiness around him, no
matter his own circumstances,
and that continued until the very
end.”
Magoba, who was married and
had a stepson, died at the age of
65, after a five-year battle with
prostate cancer. Before his death,
he received thousands of letters
from former and current
students, their parents and his
co-workers.
Heather Dent, the school’s
athletic director, read many of
those letters to him. She told
those gathered at the service that
their words made a difference in
his life. She also confessed that
she hadn’t written him a letter
before sharing what hers would
have said.
“Dear Ed, I miss you,” s he said.
“I want you to know that I carry
you with me each day, and I
promise to pass on your legacy of
VARGAS FROM B1
kindness and love. I want you to
know that kindness counted, and
you made a difference in people’s
lives, especially mine. You knew
all of us. When we felt no one saw
us, you called us by name and
shared in our stories by saying
hello and asking how we were
doing.”
“I never told you in person,”
she continued. “But I believe you
are and will be the best teacher
that National Cathedral School
will ever have. You helped so
many generations of women feel
seen, feel supported and feel
loved.”
After his death, she slipped his
ID badge behind hers and now
carries both with her every day.
She shared that detail with me
when we spoke the day after the
service about how Magoba came
to loom so large in the lives of so
many people who have passed
through the school in the past
four decades.
For the service, alumni came
from near and far, and the event
was streamed live on YouTube for
those who couldn’t make it.
Online, people have left
comments about him that read, “I
love him so much” a nd “Ed, you
are amongst my favorite
memories of NCS.”
The field hockey team recently
put an image of a ribbon wrappedaround his name on their hockey
sticks. Before that, the rowing
team put his name on the side of
a boat. Dent said she expects
other teams will also create
tributes to him as their seasons
begin and “they start to feel the
emptiness” of his absence.
The closeness Magoba
achieved with s tudents is
striking, e ven without knowing
much about him. It’s e ven more
so when you consider how
distant his life started from many
of theirs.
He spent his early childhood in
Uganda. His family moved to the
District because of his father’s job
as an educational attache for the
Ugandan government. But when
it came time for the family to
return, Edward did not join his
parents and siblings.
Maria Walker recalled how his
father, Joseph Magoba, asked her
late husband, Bishop John T.
Walker, if his son could stay with
them until he finished high
school. At the time, the couple
had a 2-year-old daughter and a
6-year-old son.
“He just sort of became a part
of our family,” Walker said. Even
as a teenager, she recalled, he was
“gentle” a nd “sweet” a nd, despite
the distance between him and his
relatives, he never sulked about
his situation.“I don’t know if there’s another
person on Earth who was like
Edward,” s he said. “Most people
complain about this and
complain about that, or ask ‘Why
did this happen to me?’ But
Edward did not. He was just
resilient and able to navigate
life.”
While attending Wilson High
School, he worked at a Hot
Shoppe restaurant, but he wasn’t
happy and the hours ran too late,
she said. So, he started working
at Washington National
Cathedral, doing custodial work
after school. T hen, he saw that
the girls school had an opening
and applied for it.
“He loved working with the
kids,” s he said. “I think he saw
that as his calling.”
John Magoba, who now lives in
Maryland, said when his older
brother first decided to stay in
the District, he missed him. At
the same time, he knew his
brother was thinking about him
because every once in a while, a
package would arrive containing
money or clothes.
He recalled how when his
brother first came as an adult to
visit Uganda, he handed out
$100 bills, until a cousin told him
he shouldn’t do that. The next
time he visited, he squeezed
people’s hands and discreetly left
money in their palms.
At the school, people swapped
similar stories about his
generosity. Once, he saw a
woman on the bus without a coat
and gave her money to buy one.
Another time, he went to
McDonald’s with a co-worker and
before they could walk in the
door, he gave his meal money to
someone outside.
“Edward comes from a long
line of very giving people,” J ohn
Magoba told the crowd at
Washington National Cathedral.
He mentioned their grandfather,
their father and Bishop Walker.
“So he had a lot of teachers that
told him humility is what the
world is all about. My father gave
us three things to live by that you
can do in your life: You can fade
away, and nobody knows you
existed. You can do something so
bad that you’re not forgotten. Or
you can do something good, and
you will always be remembered.
And I know that my brother will
always be remembered.”
His family held an earlier
funeral that packed a church in
Silver Spring. But the
significance of seeing his brother
honored at Washington National
Cathedral was not lost on John
Magoba. He was given the seat
normally reserved for presidents.
“I was sitting where presidents
have sat,” he marveled after the
service. He ticked off the names
Obama, Trump, Bush. “It makes
me feel like my brother is right up
there.”
[email protected]THERESA VARGAS
The cathedral he cleaned was packed for his service
ployee would have a say in their
own discipline or a criminal de-
fendant getting a vote o n a jury on
their own conviction.”
Evans, the council’s longest-
serving member, is the target of a
federal grand jury investigation.
Among other things, he is under
scrutiny for appearing to use his
council position to solicit employ-
ment from law and lobbying firms,
and f or receiving m oney a nd stock
shares, which h e says he r eturned,
from a sign company that ben-
efited from legislation he promot-
ed.
Earlier this year, Evans voted
against launching an internal
council p robe o f his conduct.
He b acked a nominee t o the c ity
ethics board, which had been in-
vestigating him. Evans even cast
the d eciding vote t hat allowed h im
to keep his committee assign-
ments when the council moved to
punish him in July.
Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the
watchdog group Public Citizen,
said Evans’s votes on the council
EVANS FROM B1 investigation are especially dis-
turbing after documents showed
the veteran lawmaker attempted
to s tymie a separate Metro i nvesti-
gation of his conduct when he
recently served as the transit
agency’s board chairman.
“He can rig the investigation,”
Holman said. “We’ve seen Jack
Evans over the course of the last
few years actively try to derail or
influence i nvestigations involving
his scandals. That just shows ev-
ery reason to believe that if he has
an opportunity to get involved in
matters affecting his own investi-
gation, he will try derailing or
influencing the course of that in-
vestigation.”
Holman said the D.C. Council
could stop Evans from voting on
his own investigation b y changing
legislative rules to prohibit law-
makers from taking action “that
directly and substantially affects
that member.”
Current rules define a conflict
of interest as taking a ctions “likely
to have a direct and predictable
effect” o n the financial i nterests of
the lawmaker or a “close associ-
ate.” Recusals are uncommon.
In neighboring Maryland, state
lawmakers do not vote on their
own r eprimands or censures.
But D.C. lawmakers routinely
vote on their own disciplinary
crackdowns. The late former
council members Jim Graham
and Marion Barry voted against
their punishments in ethics scan-
dals earlier this d ecade.
D.C. Council Chairman Phil
Mendelson (D) did not return a
request for comment Wednesday
but h as p reviously said that Evans
is under no obligation to recuse.
“The fact is, he’s a member, s o he
gets to vote,” Mendelson said in
July after Evans voted to protect
his committee assignments.
Even Evans’s harshest c ritics on
the c ouncil did not t ake issue with
his vote Tuesday on the measure
asking D.C. Superior Court to en-
force subpoenas issued by the
council in its Evans ethics investi-
gation.
Mendelson said the legislation
was necessary because several of
Evans’s consulting clients refused
to talk with lawyers from an out-
side firm hired to conduct the
probe. Evans said Tuesday that he
opposed the bill because he op-posed the original resolution au-
thorizing the p robe.
He did not return a request for
comment Wednesday.
Council member Mary M. C heh
(D-Ward 3) said she did not think
Evans needed to recuse himself
from that vote. “It’s simply asking,
even though the matter involves
him, should this law firm as an
extension of the council have cer-
tain authorities t o enforce subpoe-
nas?” Cheh said. “That’s a more
generic kind of q uestion.”
Council member Elissa Silver-
man (I-At Large) said the reason
she d id not object w as that “ I knew
that it would p ass easily.”
Silverman and Cheh s aid Evans
should not vote on future punitive
measures, especially once the
council decides what steps to take
after t he internal probe.
“Given t hat council member E v-
ans is under investigation by sev-
eral entities, having him vote on
his own d iscipline — even if it’s n ot
in violation of our rules — just
makes us look like we are either
covering up for him or unable to
police ourselves,” S ilverman said.
Council member Robert C.
White Jr. (D-At Large) said that
Evans’s action on the internal
probe “ deteriorates our credibility
as a body” but that lawmakers had
limited o ptions to stop him.
Other council members did not
return requests for c omment.
Some critics said the council
has damaged the public’s trust by
allowing Evans to repeatedly vote
on the investigation.
“If he doesn’t even recuse him-
self on t he most obvious c onflict o f
interest, you can’t trust him to
re cuse himself on anything,” s aid
Laura Fuchs, a teachers union ac-
tivist. “I can’t really trust o ur coun-
cil has any mechanism to hold
anyone accountable if they are
clearly ignoring his constant con-
flicts of interest.”
[email protected]Critics: Evans’s votes are a clear conflict of interest
think it needed to.
For months, MWAA and its
contractors, which also include
Hensel Phelps, have been grap-
pling with a growing list of prob-
lems on the $5.8 billion project,
including rail ties with too much
curvature in them to meet Metro
standards, defective concrete
panels at several stations that
must be treated with special seal-
ant, and contamination in the
ballast that supports the track in
the new rail yard.
The project, which is the sec-
ond phase of Metro’s Silver Line
rail extension, is more than a year
behind schedule. MWAA is man-
aging construction of the project;
Metro will own and operate the
line once completed.
At its regularly scheduled
meeting Wednesday, MWAA’s
board appeared unfazed follow-
ing a project update report, say-
ing it was moving forward and
would be ready to carry passen-
gers in July 2020.
“I want to compliment you and
your staff,” Robert W. Lazaro Jr.,
who represents Virginia on the
17-member board, told Charles
Stark, the project’s executive di-
rector.
“A lot of folks would prefer to
run around s aying their hair i s on
fire,” Lazaro said. “There are no
surprises here. We’ve heard
about this for a long, long time
and we’re working through those
issues.”
The board members’ attitude
did not sit well with Metro offi-
cials, who heard a lengthy pre-
sentation at a meeting of their
board last week on the project’s
problems.
“Metro’s inspector general,
board of directors, and leader-
ship team could not have been
more clear last week: The defi-
ciencies on this project are signif-
icant, impact safety and reliabili-
ty, and must be resolved before
Metro will accept the project,”
Metro spokesman Dan Stessel
said. “We hope this message is
getting through to the Airports
Authority’s contractor.”
The prohibition on running
test trains could further delay the
rail project. Contractors began
running test trains in February.
Earlier this month, Metro In-
spector General Geoffrey A.
Cherrington, who is conducting
his own audit of the project
expected to be released later this
year, issued two management
alerts to top agency officials and
members of Congress about
problems that needed immediate
attention. He found the sealant
being applied to fix the defective
concrete panels might not beMETRO FROM B1 working. He also identified prob-
lems at the rail yard being built.
He urged Metro not to accept the
project until all the problems are
fixed.
Accepting prematurely, Cher-
rington wrote, “will create ex-
traordinary cost, maintenance
and operational issues early once
[Metro] takes ownership and
control of this project.”
In a separate letter sent the
same day to MWAA chief execu-
tive Jack Potter, Metro General
Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld also
expressed concerns about the
quality of the work on the rail
project, saying that “there have
been a series of significant quali-
ty related issues with certain
elements of the project.”
On Wednesday, Lazaro also
played down reports of tension
between MWAA and Metro, say-
ing that while “some folks want
us to engage in a yelling match
with our colleagues at the Metro
center and other places,” MWAA’s
staff should be praised for “being
capable and calm.”
Keith Couch, CRC’s project di-
rector on the Silver Line, also
briefed the MWAA board at
Wednesday’s meeting, but board
members had few questions.
The first phase of the project,
four stations in Ty sons and one in
Reston, was built by a consor-
tium led by Bechtel and opened
July 26, 2014. Phase 2 has six
stations, including one at Dulles
International Airport, and will
for the first time extend Metro
into Loudoun County.
In response to a question from
board member Katherine K. H an-
ley, Stark said the project is not
“currently over budget.” Howev-
er, in past interviews, Stark has
conceded that officials have not
tallied the c osts for the months of
additional delays and change or-
ders that have accumulated since
construction began five years
ago. Those costs could easily eat
into the project’s approximately
$550 million contingency fund.
The newest developments
mean more uncertainty for a
project that Virginia spent dec-
ades lobbying to build. The
23-mile rail line is one of the
largest infrastructure projects of
its kind under construction in the
United States.
Even as MWAA board mem-
bers said they believed the rail
line would be ready for passen-
gers by July 2020, a presentation
by the contractor given Wednes-
day said work probably would
not be complete until June 2020.
Once the contractors complete
their work, Metro will need time
for its own testing, a process that
could take several months.
[email protected]Construction flaws lead
Metro to stop test trains
on Silver Line project
BY DAN MORSEA 27-year-old Maryland man
was charged in a fatal stabbing
this week after detectives built a
case in part on what he allegedly
told his ex-girlfriend immediately
after the killing.
“If you call the police, I’ll kill
you,” Kyle Martin Noble warned
the woman, Montgomery County
police alleged in records filed in
Montgomery County District
Court o n Wednesday.
That threat, according to po-
lice, came after the ex-girlfriend
saw Noble approach the victim
outside a hotel in Germantown o n
Sunday and chase the man into a
field before returning with blood
on his face and body.
Noble, who has lived in Rock-
ville and Frederick in recent years,
is expected to make his first court
appearance in the case Thursday.
He is being held without bond on
charges that include first-degree
murder. It is not clear from court
records whether he has retained
an attorney.
On Sunday just after 6 p.m.,
Montgomery patrol officers were
called about an injured person
near a hotel along Milestone Cen-
ter Drive in Germantown. They
found Efrain Arias, 31, who had
been stabbed and died at the
scene.
According to court records,
Arias had arrived in the hotel
parking lot in a Mercedes driven
by a woman. Arias got out and w as
approached by a man who report-
edly chased him into a nearby
field.
“The victim was found shortly
after by a witness, bleeding pro-
fusely,” d etectives wrote in the a ffi-
davit. “The suspect left the scene
prior to police arrival.”Investigators used phone rec-
ords to link Arias with the Mer-
cedes driver, whom they asked to
come to police headquarters to
answer questions. The investiga-
tors did not name the woman in
court records but identified her as
“Witness 1 ” and described her as
an ex-girlfriend of the suspect.
“Witness 1 stated on the day in
question, her and the victim ar-
rived on the parking lot” of the
hotel, “and the victim exited her
vehicle,” detectives wrote. “Wit-
ness 1 stated the suspect, her ex-
boyfriend, then approached the
vehicle and attempted to punch
the victim in the face. The victim
screamed and ran down toward
the field with the suspect giving
chase. The suspect returned s hort-
ly thereafter and Witness 1 ob-
served blood on the suspect’s face
and b ody. The suspect approached
Witness 1’s vehicle and then told
Witness 1 ‘If you c all the p olice, I’ll
kill you.’ The suspect then left the
scene and Witness 1 drove off.”
Detectives also alleged that the
woman they had contacted ar-
rived at police headquarters in a
Mercedes on which they found
blood stains on the trunk’s exteri-
or.
Noble has previous convictions
for robbery, first-degree assault
and a probation violation, accord-
ing to online court records.
In o ne of Noble’s p revious c ases,
he pleaded guilty in Frederick
County to first-degree assault in
connection to a stabbing outside a
liquor store, according to court
records and the Frederick News
Post. Another man also pleaded
guilty in the case, and Noble’s de-
fense attorney told the News Post
that the victim could not identify
who stabbed him.
[email protected]MARYLANDSuspect threatened ex
after killing, police say
THERESA VARGAS/THE WASHINGTON POST
Three young relatives of Edward Magoba, from left, Milani
Senkeeto, Zion Atkins and Joseph Magoba, watch performers
outside Washington National Cathedral following his memorial
service on Monday. The beloved custodian died Aug. 4.MARLENA SLOSS/THE WASHINGTON POST
D.C. Council member Jack
Evans (D-Ward 2) at a July
meeting. He is the subject of a
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