B2 eZ m2 THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAy, MARCH 18 , 2020
BY OVETTA WIGGINS
AND ERIN COXmaryland lawmakers gave final
approval Tuesday night to a
sweeping public education r eform
bill that Democrats say could
change the trajectory of thou-
sands o f maryland students’ lives.
The House voted 96 to 38, along
partisan lines, on the overhaul
which is set to expand prekinder-
garten, increase teacher pay and
standards and add more pro-
grams to ensure that students are
prepared for college a nd careers.
republicans who opposed the
measure argued that it was not
fiscally responsible to pass a bill
that could cost the state as much
as $4 billion a year in 2030, given
the u ncertainty i n the state’s econ-
omy over the coronavirus out-
break.
Democrats, who have worked
on the legislation for three years,
gave each other congratulatory
high-fives after t he vote.
A spokesman for G ov. Larry Ho-
gan (r) said the governor will re-
view the bill when it reaches his
desk.
The action on the Democratic-
controlled legislature’s top priori-
ty came as the General Assembly
rushes swiftly toward an early ad-
journment Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, the House
approved a $47.9 billion budget
for fiscal 2021 that includes $100
million for Hogan to respond to
the coronavirus outbreak.In the past three days, the Gen-
eral Assembly, which will leave
Annapolis on Wednesday, has
worked at a rapid pace to pass
more than 200 pieces of legisla-
tion, including a measure that
makes it a hate crime to place a
noose or other hate symbol on a
person’s property to a bill that
expands access t o telehealth.
Senate President Bill ferguson
(D-Baltimore City) and House
Speaker Adrienne A. J ones (D-Bal-
timore) announced on Sunday
that the General Assembly would
adjourn early — the first time that
has h appened since t he Civil War.
Lawmakers are expected to
only pass a small fraction of the
more than 2,700 bills that were
introduced since January.The General Assembly’s main
constitutional responsibility is to
pass a b udget. With final action o n
the budget undone earlier this
week, presiding officers said, the
legislature had to remain in ses-
sion to complete its work on the
state’s spending p lan.
The 188-member legislature,
which has met despite a ban on
gatherings of 50 or more, w ill ad-
journ on Wednesday, 19 days be-
fore Sine Die, its scheduled e nd on
April 6.
“ Each session we are faced w ith
a different set of circumstances
dictating how we achieve the goal
of providing a balanced budget
that meets the needs of our state,”
said Del. maggie m cIntosh (D-Bal-
timore City). “It is safe to say thatthe challenges we currently face
are unlike any we have experi-
enced b efore.”
In the budget, the General As-
sembly gave Hogan (r) access to
$100 million in the state’s rainy
day fund to respond to the c orona-
virus outbreak, twice as much as
Hogan initially requested march- At the time, the state had no
confirmed cases of the virus. on
Tuesday, the state reported 57 cas-
es, a 54 percent jump o vernight.
The budget, which is expected
to be given final approval in the
Senate on Wednesday, includes
$230 million in education aid,
funding that is needed for the
top-to-bottom overhaul of the
state’s public education.
The Senate this week dramati-
cally amended the education bill,
changes that the House accepted
Tuesday night.
Worried about e conomic uncer-
tainty, t he Senate included a n eco-
nomic trigger that would slow
funding for the program if state
revenue drops.
Under the c hange, t he per-pupil
increases would be limited to the
rate of inflation if the state’s reve-
nue estimates in December fall
7.5 percent or more b elow the esti-
mate made in march. T he funding
decision would be m ade a nnually.
The Senate also included an
amendment that would halt the
reforms if students do not meet
academic thresholds.
[email protected]
[email protected]MARYLAND
Ahead of early end to session, lawmakers approve a reform initiative for schools
BY FENIT NIRAPPILEd Lazere, the leader of a
left-leaning D.C. think tank, an-
nounced Tuesday that he would
run for an at-large seat on the
D.C. Council in November, two
years after he unsuccessfully
challenged Chairman Phil men-
delson (D).
Lazere will drop his Democrat-
ic Party affiliation and run as an
independent for one of two seats
on the council that are reserved
for members who do not belong
to the party in power.
He i s running for the seat being
vacated by council member David
Grosso (I-At Large), who declined
to seek a third term and is one of
the most liberal members of the
body.
Grosso’s decision not to seek
reelection created the first vacan-
cy on a council that had no open
seats in the past two election
cycles. A dozen non-Democrats
have already entered the race.
In an interview, Lazere said hewas the best candidate because of
his policy expertise as the leader
of the DC fiscal Policy Institute, a
budget advocacy organization.
He resigned to run for office.
“I have spent two decades
highlighting D.C.’s greatest chal-
lenges and mastering the budget
process like nobody else, and I
connected with people and orga-
nizations across the city to work
on solutions,” said Lazere, 55. “I
don’t think anybody else in the
race can say that.”
Prominent competitors for
the seat i nclude marcus Good-
win, a business-friendly real es-
tate professional who ran for an
at-large seat as a Democrat in
2018; markus Batchelor, the vice
chair of the local school board;
Christina Henderson, a former
Grosso staffer endorsed by the
departing lawmaker; franklin
Garcia, the city’s elected shadow
representative; Will merrifield,
a housing lawyer; Chander Ja-
yaraman, a Capitol Hill-area
neighborhood commissioner;and m onica Palacio, former di-
rector of the D.C. office of Hu-
man rights.
Voters in November can
choose two candidates for at-
large council seats, and the top
two finishers win seats. Council
member robert C. White Jr. (D-At
Large) is expected to win one of
the seats in a deep-blue city. That
leaves independents and other
party candidates to compete for
the second seat.
The other at-large indepen-
dent c ouncil member — Elissa
Silverman — is also a former
analyst at the DC fiscal Policy
Institute.
Lazere is counting on the Dis-
trict’s furthest-left and grass-
roots groups to coalesce behind
him, as they did for his primary
challenge to mendelson in 2018.
He said mendelson did not treat
issues of displacement and in-
come inequality with the urgency
they deserve.
mendelson handily beat Laz-
ere by 27 percentage points twoyears ago.
Lazere said he will run on the
same platform, but he is more
confident he can win by running
in an open race instead of chal-
lenging an incumbent. He plans
to use the city’s new public cam-
paign financing program.
“The thing that frustrated me
and led me to run last time is still
there,” he said. “We are this
prosperous city. There’s some-
thing wrong when one of the
most prosperous cities in this
country is also worst in the na-
tion for displacing black resi-
dents.”
Lazere said he considered de-
laying his campaign launch be-
cause of the coronavirus public
health emergency.
But with health experts telling
Americans to brace for a threat
that could stretch for months,
Lazere said he decided to go
ahead because it is unclear if
there would be a good time to
enter the race.
[email protected]THE DISTRICTLeft-leaning think tank chief joins council race
BY SPENCER S. HSUA Clinton m an charged in an
fBI and D.C. police crackdown on
prostitution in some of the Dis-
trict’s trendiest neighborhoods
was convicted on one count of sex
trafficking by a federal jury.
Te rrell “Supreme” Armstead,
29, faces a mandatory minimum
15-year prison sentence after a
jury in U.S. District Court in
Washington convicted him mon-
day after a seven-day trial.
The panel deadlocked on seven
other counts, and U.S. District
Judge Amit P. mehta declared a
mistrial over charges of child sextrafficking, conspiracy and ob-
struction, including involving a
second alleged victim, according
to court records.
“The defendant exploited his
young victims as if they were
commodities to be controlled and
sold,” T imothy Shea, U.S. attorney
for the District, said in a state-
ment. “The prosecution of hu-
man trafficking is a priority for
the U.S. Attorney’s office. We will
fight to protect these vulnerable
victims.”
Armstead’s attorney, Jonathan
Zucker, said t he mistrial on seven
counts spoke to the prosecution’s
case.“The fact that the jury did not
convict on seven of the eight
charges reflects that the prosecu-
tion did not have the evidence to
prove the charges,” Zucker said.
“A rguably the verdict indicates
that the case may have been
overcharged.”
Armstead was one of three
men the fBI targeted last April in
a fight against organized prosti-
tution around the District’s Lo-
gan and Thomas circles.
According to charging docu-
ments, Armstead used an Insta-
gram hashtag “#TeamSupreme”
to advertise a commercial prosti-
tution business. Prosecutors saidhe posted videos, images of cash
and asked “Who wants to join
Te amSupreme?”
Armstead advertised during
what authorities called “the
choosing season,” when pimps
seek recruits or try to persuade
women already working for other
traffickers to change allegiances.
His pitch was “choose up if you
want to move up,” a ccording to an
arrest affidavit.
A police affidavit alleged Arm-
stead’s t eam worked strip clubs in
the District, Baltimore and New
York to solicit men to meet a
$1,000-a-day quota.
[email protected]THE DISTRICTMan convicted of sex tra∞cking i n Logan Circle area
A report in January issued by
the Environmental Working
Group, a D.C.-based
environmental activist
organization specializing in
chemical research, concluded
that drinking water in the
District and Prince George’s
County contained levels of PfAS
that the EWG considered unsafe.
T he report acknowledged that
the amounts were within the
legal limits. But given the
toxicity of the PfAS and the
Trump administration’s efforts to
block a Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention study of
the chemical, “legal does not
mean safe,” the report said.
Tutman imagined that the
tests showing PfAS in the river
and then in the drinking water
was a message from the Patuxent
river.
“It’s saying, ‘I’m resilient, I’ve
been here a long time and I can
keep coming back and getting
better if you stop putting feces
and other crap in me — or else,
I’ll come back and get you,’ ”
Tutman said. “I think that’s
what’s happening now.”
[email protected] to read previous columns, go to
washingtonpost.com/milloy.being found in the waters near
the facility. (The station is
located where the Patuxent river
empties into the Chesapeake
Bay.) A water sample taken from
St. Inigoes Creek and tested by
an independent lab in michigan
had unsafe amounts of
polyfluoroalkyl, also known as
PfAS, which can cause cancer,
liver damage and thyroid
disease.
Patrick Gordon, the public
affairs officer for NAS Patuxent
river, issued a news release that
said the Navy planned to
conduct PfAS sampling at 18
sites at the installation.
David Steckler, who runs the
installation’s environmental
restoration program, told the
gathering that the Navy is
“extremely early in the process”
of testing the sites.
“It’s a lengthy process,” he
said. “If we come to the end, and
we find a site that needs to be
cleaned up to protect human
health and the environment, we
will do so.”
Tutman noted that the
Defense Department is already
facing $2 billion in PfAS cleanup
liabilities and that residents
should be prepared to push for
answers.discharge from the power plant
can be thick along the shores.
Step in it, and you could end up
stuck in the water, one told me.
Tutman had hoped the Chalk
Point plant would not be able to
find another place to ship the
coal waste and would have to
move.
Last week, however, the
maryland Court of Special
Appeals reversed the decision to
shut the Brandywine site on a
technicality.
The court found that the
Prince George’s County Council,
which had voted for the closure,
had exceeded the days allowed
for public testimony in the case.
The merits of the case had not
been in dispute.
Nevertheless, the coal waste
site had been approved to
reopen.
“That’s how it goes with these
kinds of fights,” Tutman said.
“You win some, you lose some.
Then you go back and win some
more. We are not giving up.”
for Tutman, there is always
more cleaning up to do.
Two weeks ago, he was among
300 residents gathered at the
Naval Air Station Patuxent river,
concerned about reports of a
potentially deadly chemicalenvironmental justice, which
Tutman believes is a more
effective rallying cry than
appeals that do not include
helping people.
“When you hear calls to save
the Chesapeake, it usually means
saving oysters or some animal or
plant and not everybody is going
to respond to that,” he said. “But
if you make an appeal for justice
— say, let’s help people who are
being harmed by pollution on
these rivers, let’s make it so that
pregnant women can drink tap
water without harming their
unborn children, or making sure
kids can wade into a river and
not get sick from flesh-eating
bacteria — then one day you just
might find the oysters are back
and bigger than ever.
“I believe if you focus on
helping people, you get more
people helping and a better
environment becomes a
byproduct.”
Some coal waste at the
Brandywine site came from the
Chalk Point power plant, which
is next to another predominantly
black town — Eagle Harbor, at
the southern tip of Prince
George’s County. Both are on the
shores of the Patuxent river, and
residents say that a sludge-likeSo far, he has filed 19 lawsuits
against alleged polluters — 12 of
which went to trial and eight of
which his side won. Victories
included the 2017 closing of the
NrG coal-waste disposal site in
Brandywine.
Coal waste, which contains
arsenic, a known carcinogen,
and other harmful chemicals
were seeping into groundwater
within the Patuxent watershed.
Brandywine is a
predominantly black
community. residents had been
fighting to have the site closed
for years, all the while being
plagued by a polluter that should
never have been allowed to
operate near them in the first
place.
The victory was also a win forHe recalled swimming in the
river as a boy and later becoming
a volunteer guide, leading
children and adults on river
walks and canoe and kayak trips.
As he noticed the river becoming
dirtier, he began organizing river
cleanups.
But conditions continued to
worsen. As more housing
developments and industries
encroached upon the river, more
chemicals began showing up in
water tests, he said. The river
began developing what
environmentalists call “dead
zones,” oxygen-deprived areas
where all life has died.
In 2004, Tutman gave up a
career as an independent
television producer and joined
the Waterkeeper Alliance, a
global nonprofit that advocates
for clean water. There are more
than 300 “waterkeepers” and
“riverkeepers” in 40 countries,
each one an advocate for a
polluted waterway or, as Tutman
put it, the “voice of the river.”
He founded the Patuxent
riverkeeper and took up the
mantle as a public voice of the
river — the river with which he
had so often communed.
MIlloy from B1
COURTLAND MILLOY
The Patuxent Riverkeeper warns we must act now or pay the price later
coUrtlAnd mIlloy/tHe W ASHIngton PoSt
F red Tutman is the founder of
the Patuxent Riverkeeper.BY DAN MORSEA 21-year-old maryland man
fatally shot during a police raid
at his home last week had booby-
trapped a door to his bedroom
and had “possession of a rifle”
during the incident, montgom-
ery County police officials said
Tuesday.
The booby-trap device was
designed to “detonate a shotgun
shell at the direction of anyone
entering” the bedroom, police
said as they released new details
about the encounter.
The officers did not go
through that door during the
raid, police said.
officials also offered more de-
tails of why they said the aggres-
sive SWAT u nit raid w as warrant-
ed — specifically that the target
of their search, Duncan Socrates
Lemp, was believed to be in
possession of an assault weapon
and other weapons despite a
criminal h istory i n juvenile c ourt
that prohibited him from legally
possessing firearms.
Two attorneys for Lemp’s fami-
ly, rene Sandler and Jon fellner,
said the new details released by
police were “inconsistent with
the physical evidence and eyewit-
ness accounts.” The attorneys
said SWAT o fficers “initiated gun-
fire and flash bangs through
Duncan Lemp’s bedroom win-
dow in the front of the house,”
and did so before officers forced
their way into the house and
made their way to his bedroom.
“The Lemp family requests
that the montgomery County Po-
lice immediately release all body
camera footage and audio from
this horrific event,” the attorneys
said.
Early this year, police said,
they received an anonymous tip
that Lemp had guns. They also
learned he was prohibited from
possessing guns until he turned- Investigators eventually ob-
tained “a no-knock search war-
rant for the crimes of possession
of an assault weapon and posses-
sion of a firearm by a prohibited
person,” police said.
About 4:30 a.m. Thursday, the
tactical unit arrived at Lemp’s
home along St. James road in
Potomac.
Police officials did not say
exactly when one of the SWAT
officers fired a deadly round. Nor
did they say whether Lemp was
pointing a gun at the time.
[email protected]
MARYLAND
Officials: Man killed by police
had booby-trapped his door
mercedeS lemP/ASSocIAted PreSSDuncan Socrates lemp, 2 1, was prohibited from possessing guns.
Police said t hey received a tip earlier this year that he had some.
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