wednesday, march 11 , 2020. the washington post eZ re B5
potential conflicts of interest.
The relationship between Ev-
ans and macCord was first re-
ported by Jeffrey Anderson of the
website District Dig, who report-
ed that macCord offered an in-
ternship to Evans’s son. His son
declined the offer.
macCord pleaded guilty in
2018 to wire fraud related to the
sign venture and is now in federal
prison. The charge was not relat-
ed to his dealings with Evans.
In 2018 and 2019, federal
grand juries issued subpoenas to
District officials for documents
relating to Evans’s relationship
with the sign venture. Evans has
not been charged, and he is
running for the Ward 2 council
seat he gave up before his col-
leagues could expel him for eth-
ics violations related to macCord
and other clients of Evans’s con-
sulting firm.
After macCord became mired
in legal trouble, investors in the
sign venture continued their
fight to install the signs through
Lumen Eight media.
[email protected]branch and apparently without
any recourse,” macintosh said in
a statement. “We intend to cor-
rect this not only on behalf of our
company but all businesses in
DC.”
The sign venture was started
by Donald macCord, whose com-
pany, Digi outdoor media, em-
barked in early 2016 on what the
D.C. attorney general’s office
would later call i n a court f iling “ a
blitz of illegal construction.”
That year, macCord arranged
for Evans’s one-man consulting
firm, NSE Consulting, to receive
$50,000 and 200,000 shares of
stock in macCord’s company, T he
Washington Post later reported.
Evans has said he returned both
before pushing legislation that
would have torpedoed the Dis-
trict’s lawsuit and allowed the
sign venture to continue.
Evans tried but failed to gather
enough votes to advance the leg-
islation. He has said that the
money was to be a retainer for
consulting work he had planned
to do for the sign venture, but
that he reconsidered because ofcould not be built.
In her opinion, Pan wrote that
instead of seeking approval for
its signs, the company “chose to
‘fly under the radar,’ in an at-
tempt to establish vested rights
before the District caught on” t o
its plan.
D.C. Attorney General Karl A.
racine called the decision a “ma-
jor victory for the District.”
He said in a statement: “Law-
breakers, including companies
that regularly contribute money
to D.C. politicians, are on notice
that the office of the Attorney
General will investigate and
prosecute, without fear nor favor,
companies and individuals who
violate the law.”
An executive with the sign
venture, Scott macintosh of Lu-
men Eight media Group, said the
decision should “create extreme
concern” for all D.C. businesses
and that the company will ap-
peal.
Under the ruling, “any busi-
ness could have the regulatory
carpet pulled out from under
them at a ny t ime b y the executiveBY STEVE THOMPSONThe District has won a long-
running lawsuit against an out-
door advertising company that
hoped to install dozens of digital
signs throughout the city.
The lawsuit, which the District
initiated in 2016, aimed to stop a
venture later connected to a scan-
dal that would engulf former D.C.
Council member Jack Evans and
lead to his resignation in Janu-
ary.
The District said the digital
signs violated city code. The mul-
timillion-dollar sign venture re-
lied largely on what some c alled a
loophole in the code that allowed
for digital signs “within a build-
ing.” Backers of the venture said
that “within a building” i ncluded
signs under overhangs and in
other places that faced outward
to sidewalks and streets.
During the lawsuit, D.C. Supe-
rior Court Judge florence Pan
allowed some signs deemed com-
pliant with city code to stand. But
on monday, s he ruled that dozens
more either had to come down or
the district
City wins lawsuit against digital sign venture
BY ERIN COXDemocrats who control the
maryland General Assembly are
advancing a roughly $700 mil-
lion tax package, a multipart
plan that includes an array of
new taxes on dog grooming,
certain corporations, vaping
products and streaming services
such as Netflix.
The package is on track for
approval in the House of Dele-
gates by the end of the week, and
leading Democrats have pitched
it as a way to pay for a sweeping
public education overhaul that is
also expected to be passed in the
coming days.
These tax proposals have
drawn far less public notice — or
outrage — than a now-scuttled
$2.9 billion plan to expand the
state’s sales tax to include servic-
es. Gov. Larry Hogan (r) rallied
opposition to the plan to tax
services, but the governor has
not similarly lobbied against this
package.
P roponents say the measures
target primarily wealthy resi-
dents and multistate corpora-
tions.
“It will not hit the pocket-
books of the vast majority of
marylanders, and the kids will
get better schools,” House major-
ity Leader Eric G. Luedtke (D-
montgomery) said.
Portions of the package are
aimed at modernizing the state’s
tax code to reflect the digital
economy, thereby correcting cer-
tain disparities. for instance, a
book purchased from a physical
bookstore is subject to state sales
tax, but a downloaded e-book is
not.
The most far-reaching propos-
al would change that, and apply
maryland’s sales tax to digital
goods, including streaming ser-
vices such as Hulu, mobile phone
apps, movie purchases, software
downloads and digital video
games.
It would raise approximately
$150 million a year, according to
legislative analysts, and the
maryland would join 28 other
states in taxing digital down-
loads.
A new tax on “luxury services”
would make things such as pool
cleanings, fur coat storage, pet
grooming and country club
memberships subject to the
state’s 6 percent sales tax. That
would generate an estimated
$35 million a year.
House minority Whip Kathy
Szeliga (r-Baltimore County)
called the overall package “ pretty
terrible” and particularly criti-
cized the idea that the taxes
targeted only maryland’s upper
crust.
“You can’t s ay w atching TV i s a
luxury,” she said. “The ‘luxury’ of
having someone groom your
dog? I mean, really.”
Services as diverse as fortune
telling and hair removal are
included in the proposal. “Girls,
your waxing i s going to be taxed,”
Szeliga said.
She said that republicans,
vastly outnumbered by Demo-
crats who hold veto-proof major-ities in both chambers, will try to
curtail the tax proposals when
they’re fully debated on the
House floor this week.
The maryland Senate is simi-
larly working on a package of
bills that also would include a
novel tax on the targeted digital
ads that chase consumers
around the Internet.
Those proposals are still in the
committee process, but leaders
in both chambers said they ex-
pect the bills to be passed in
some form by the end of the
month.
Last week, the House ap-
proved a top-to-bottom overhaul
of public schools, believed to be
the largest restructuring of pub-
lic education since massachu-
setts revamped its schools three
decades ago.
The changes would provide
free public preschool statewide,
tougher teacher standards and
higher pay for educators, more
resources for districts with high
concentrations of poverty, and a
host of other policy prescriptions
that proponents say could make
maryland’s schools the envy of
the world.
The changes are also expected
to cost $4 billion a year when
fully implemented a decade from
now, a price tag that has prompt-
ed Hogan to criticize the plan as
“pie-in-the-sky” and too costly.
The governor has derided law-
makers’ advancement of the poli-
cy c hanges without a clear means
to pay for them.
Hogan’s spokesman, michael
ricci, did not immediately re-
spond to a request for comment
Tuesday on the latest revenue
package. But in the past, ricci
has criticized the proposals as
“years late and still billions
short” of paying for the educa-
tion overhaul.
The other, less controversial
elements of the new tax plan
include doubling the excise tax
on cigarettes to $4 per pack and
applying the excise tax to vaping
products and e-cigarettes, which
are now excluded from the excise
tax.
Another hefty proposal closes
what proponents call corporate
tax loopholes that let multistate
corporations shift their tax bur-
den outside of maryland. The
annual maryland tax liability of
those multistate corporations
would rise by roughly $150 mil-
lion.
one element of the tax pack-
age would institute “combined
reporting,” which forces corpora-
tions to pay state taxes on eco-
nomic activity within maryland’s
borders and not just shift their
entire tax burden to states where
they are headquartered. more
than half the states in the coun-
try use combined reporting for
multistate corporations.
Another element would levy
sales tax for goods sold by mary-
land companies in states that do
not have sales taxes. Such a
“throwback” provision is used in
some form by 28 states and the
District of Columbia, according
to legislative analysts.
[email protected]Maryland$700 million t ax plan
Imagine coding for empathy in to fund s chools advances
an era of separating families.
That is bold.
“our national narrative is that
illegals just want to sneak into
Te xas and we will keep them out,”
foster said. “But we are dealing
with the effects of an
international climate crisis, and
it cannot be solved with a
nationalist mind-set and a wall.”
In hopes that the efforts of
climate activists are making a
difference, foster and others will
occasionally check NASA’s Global
Climate Change “Vital Signs of
the Planet” website. of particular
interest is a graph tracking the
release of greenhouse gas — a
byproduct of human activity and
a main driver of global warming.
A line on the graph has angled
up sharply since 2005. other vital
signs show that global
temperatures are up and Arctic
ice is down. Indicators of more
drought and floods to come.
There’s still time to reverse
some of the damage. But the
deterioration can be unnerving
just the same.
“Behind the scenes, a lot of
activists are experiencing what
we call climate anxiety,” foster
said. “Not just because of climate
change but because so many
people don’t seem to realize
what’s at stake.”
outside the White House, he
stood with his protest sign on a
recent friday, a piece of
cardboard held like a warrior’s
shield.
“Sometimes, just holding it
makes me feel better,” he said.
“It’s an opportunity to shift that
anxiety into a symbol of
resistance, however small.”
[email protected] to read previous columns, go to
washingtonpost.com/milloy.wants to see more African
Americans like himself speaking
out about climate change and
much more. He recently founded
and serves as executive director
of onemillionofUs, which aims
to mobilize a million new voters
for the 2020 presidential
election.
He’s also writing code for a
virtual reality program that
models the experience of
refugees fleeing Guatemala to the
United States.
A 2018 report by the World
Bank, called “Groundswell:
Preparing for Internal Climate
migration,” e stimates that by
2050 climate change will have
displaced up to 3.9 million people
from their homes in mexico and
Central America. rising
temperatures, drought and food
shortages due to crop disease are
already forcing thousands to flee
Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua
and El Salvador.
“I wanted to create a way for us
to empathize with people who
are being impacted by climate
change,” foster said.helping us fix it?’ ”
At the Audubon conference, he
put it more diplomatically: “We
can do a lot before the damage is
irreversible, but we must act fast
and act boldly.”
By bold, he means adopting
the Green New Deal, a massive
attack on climate change
proposed by progressive
congressional Democrats. The
plan includes initiatives to
sharply reduce greenhouse gas
emissions, along with an energy-
efficient upgrade of the nation’s
infrastructure.
foster’s climate activism also
includes social justice advocacy.
He’s keenly aware that poor
people, and black and brown
people, are being
disproportionately harmed by
climate change. They are more
likely to live in flood-prone areas
and near fossil fuel facilities and
other toxic sites, condemned to
drink dirty water and breathe
polluted air because of their race
and class.
But they aren’t always the
most visible in the fight. Hemechanical engineer. His mother,
rene foster, is a nurse.
“Jerome has always been
passionate about environmental
issues,” s he told me, recalling the
reaction her son, then 5 years old,
had to the documentary on
climate change. “A nd he’s always
been concerned that adults
weren’t taking the climate crisis
seriously enough.”
foster attends a D.C. public
charter school funded through
Laurene Powell Jobs’s XQ Super
School initiative. He takes
courses in advanced technology
and credits the XQ program with
encouraging his interest in
climate science.
He’ll graduate in June and so
far has received acceptance
letters from Harvard, Stanford
and mIT. His future looks bright
— except for the looming
existential threat.
By the year 2050, foster will be
48 — six years younger than his
parents are now. By then, what
had been called historic 100-year-
floods will be annual events,
according to a report last year
from the United Nations.
Climate refugees will almost
certainly include Americans
fleeing flooded coastal cities such
as Los Angeles, miami, New
orleans and Key West, the report
noted.
To day’s teenagers will be the
adults then, stuck dealing with
climate-related disasters that, in
many cases, could have been
prevented.
“People from the old-time
generation [meaning baby
boomers like this columnist] are
always coming up to me saying, ‘I
hope the young people will be
able to fix this,’ ” foster said. “I
want to say, ‘ Why aren’t you
milloy from B1
courtland Milloy
Teen activist in race against time, older generations
ari eisenstadt
Every Friday for 5 8 weeks, Jerome Foster ii, 17 , has stood outside
the White House to protest the lacking response to climate change.ginia and six in maryland.
muhammad was sentenced to
death in the killings and was
executed in 2009.
Albarus has watched malvo
grow since 2003, and she recalled
her “overwhelming sadness that
this boy was taken down this
path” when she first visited him
in red onion after his trial. “But
when I left there after the wed-
ding, I left with overwhelming
joy that two people could find joy
the way they have. Lee has en-
riched her life as much as she has
enriched his, and she has the
support of her family. It was a
beautiful occasion.”
[email protected]16, malvo shot and killed a wom-
an in Ta coma, Wash., at muham-
mad’s direction, the first of at
least six slayings the pair commit-
ted as they traveled toward the
D.C. area, where muhammad’s
ex-wife lived with their children.
Then, in a three-week period in
october 2002, malvo and mu-
hammad shot 13 people, 10 of
them fatally.
Cooley, a rguing that malvo was
fully dominated by muhammad,
convinced persuaded a Virginia
jury not to give malvo the death
penalty for one of the slayings,
that of Linda franklin in falls
Church. malvo then entered
pleas to another murder in Vir-his appeals, said he had met the
bride and found her to be “a very
impressive young lady. Educated.
Her eyes are wide open.”
Cooley said the woman is close
in age to malvo, but he would not
give her profession or where she
lived. He said she started writing
to malvo about two years ago and
began visiting him some time
after that.
“I believe they are soul mates,”
Cooley said. “She sees the good
and sees Lee as I’ve always seen
him, and I think the world would
have seen him had muhammad
not taken over his life.”
malvo was born and raised in
Jamaica, then moved with his
mother to Antigua at age 14.
According to testimony at his
trial, malvo’s mother abandoned
him for work on another island,
and at 15 he met and moved in
with muhammad, who had ab-
sconded to Antigua with his three
children.
In 2001, malvo entered the
United States with muhammad,
reunited with his mother in flori-
da and then rejoined muhammad
in Bellingham, Wash. muham-
mad began training malvo in how
to use firearms and indoctrinat-
ing him politically, according to
trial testimony. malvo began re-
ferring to himself as John Lee
malvo and speaking with an
American accent, which Albarus
would eventually remind him
was not his heritage.
In february 2002, when he was
malvo from B1
Bride began writing Malvo 2 years ago
davis turner/pool/reuters
lee Boyd malvo, then 18, makes a court appearance in virginia in- Now 35, he was married in prison last Friday.
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