Washington, D.C

Wendell Felder projected to win D.C. Council Ward 7 nomination

Published

2 years ago

June 6, 2024

Wendell Felder projected to win D.C. Council Ward 7 nomination

Wendell Felder, a 33-year-old local political leader in Ward 7, has narrowly clinched the Democratic nomination in the heated Ward 7 D.C. Council race, the Associated Press projected Thursday — making him the likely successor to retiring council member Vincent C. Gray.

Felder, the former chair of the Ward 7 Democrats who leads his local Advisory Neighborhood Commission, bested nine other candidates in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, often the decisive contest in deep-blue D.C. The race for the council’s only open seat is largely seen as the most consequential on the ballot this year, as Ward 7 residents select new leadership in a potential generational shift. Over the past two decades or so, only two council members including Gray have represented the ward, which is anchored east of the Anacostia River and is one of D.C.’s most disadvantaged.

Because of the relatively thin margins, the race took longer to call, as ballot-counting proceeded slowly at the D.C. Board of Elections after initial tabulations Tuesday night. Declaring victory at his watch party before the race had been called Tuesday night, Felder acknowledged the big shoes to fill as he thanked Gray, who endorsed Felder to succeed him.

“As the next Ward 7 council member, I have a lot of hard work ahead of me, and look forward to building on his legacy,” Felder said.

The crowded Ward 7 race was the banner contest in an otherwise low-key election year for D.C., which had just a few other local lawmakers on the ballot along with nonvoting federal representatives. Yet at a time when two other council members are facing recall efforts — and as residents have voiced escalating concerns about crime or issues such as education disparities — voters broadly opted for the status quo as incumbents coasted to victory. Council members Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8), Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) and Robert C. White Jr. (D-At Large) held off challengers, while council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) was unopposed. Ankit Jain, a voting rights attorney, is likely to join the federal delegation after his projected victory in a competitive Democratic nominating race for shadow senator against Eugene Kinlow, a former Bowser administration federal lobbyist.

The Ward 7 seat was open after Gray, the former mayor and council chair who has held public office since 2005, announced in December he would not seek reelection amid ongoing health challenges. Gray had a stroke in 2021, and another in late April, and has generally been less visible in the ward as a result of mobility and speech difficulties.

For some voters, Gray’s endorsement sealed their vote — especially as they were otherwise bombarded by mailers and campaign ads and calls and texts from the candidates.

“I just felt like with Vince Gray’s endorsement, it kind of leaned it more in his direction, especially given how crowded the field was,” said Larry Evans, a 50-year-old social worker who said hearing Felder discuss initiatives to reduce crime — a top issue for Evans — “resonated with me.”

Several voters who selected Felder said they believed he had the political connections needed to be effective on the council and described a retail politics style that felt personal.

Colleen Kincaid, who has lived in Hill East since 2016, said that after a shooting on her block in February, Felder showed up on her doorstep to see how she and her husband were doing. It was one of a number of shootings in her neighborhood this year, and their cars were pocked with bullet holes, she said.

“People were scared, looking for support, looking for ideas. He was the first one to show up,” she said at Felder’s election night party, blocks from her home. “That’s not just good politics — that’s good people.”

Felder’s campaign was not without stumbles. He raised eyebrows among Democrats and home-rule advocates when he told the ACLU in a questionnaire that if the D.C. Council passed a law with which he disagreed, he’d advocate for Congress to overturn it. Felder later called the response a mistake, while insisting in “no way, shape or form do I support congressional interference” — but overall, the flap didn’t prove consequential.

In an interview at his election night party, Felder cited aggressive canvassing and relationship-building as key to his victory, with a message that blended focusing on turning around public safety problems, boosting economic development and improving neighborhood schools. He said he had “a pair of shoes with a hole in them” due to hours spent door-knocking each week in the lead-up to the election.

Felder had previously worked in the administration of Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) as a community relations representative and in project management in her economic development office. Those roles, combined with some of the flashiest endorsements, made Felder the closest thing to the establishment candidate in the race, and moments after Felder declared victory, Bowser arrived to congratulate him Tuesday night.

But Felder’s win is far from decisive. He was projected to win with significantly less than 50 percent of the vote, according to unofficial returns from the D.C. Board of Elections — indicative of a highly splintered electorate that Felder will need to get behind him. Felder said the work to unite the ward was “just beginning,” adding he would also be reaching out to each of his opponents.

Ebony Payne, the founder of a medicinal herb business and a Kingman Park advisory neighborhood commissioner, and Eboni-Rose Thompson, president of the State Board of Education, were each trailing Felder by several hundred votes, according to unofficial returns.

For Ward 7 voters eager for change, some weren’t yet sure what to think about Felder but were willing to hear him out.

“For Wendell, I wondered if are there ways in which he’s an extension of Gray,” said Erin O. Crosby, a newer Ward 7 resident. “I think about my community and the changes that I would love to see, and I wonder if the community that I have is the result of past representation. Would Wendell be a changemaker, or an extension of that?”

Jasmine Hilton and Omari Daniels contributed to this report.

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Washington, D.C

Army Corps: Reservoir expansion ‘doesn’t fix, but improves’ DC’s drinking water supply for future Potomac River emergency – WTOP News

Published

5 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

Army Corps: Reservoir expansion ‘doesn’t fix, but improves’ DC’s drinking water supply for future Potomac River emergency – WTOP News

Developing a regional solution to enable all local water companies to share drinking water in the event of a future Potomac River emergency remains a long-term challenge facing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. But the Corps is leaning-in to near term solutions, for now, because current issues “are quite, quite dire.”

In an interview with WTOP, Trevor Cyran, Chief of the Civil Works project management office of the Baltimore District Corps of Engineers, elaborated on the Corps’ ongoing three-year feasibility study funded by Congress and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.

Last week, during a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing, lawmakers pressed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to explain what’s being done to secure solid backup options for the D.C. region’s drinking water.

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton challenged the Corps after learning that the study that Congress authorized to identify a secondary water source for the region was being narrowed to only expanding the current Dalecarlia Reservoir, adjacent to the Washington Aqueduct, which remains the only source of drinking water for D.C., Arlington, and parts of Fairfax County, Virginia.

“Expansion of the reservoir is not a secondary water source,” Norton said. “With only a one day of backup water supply, human-made or natural events that make the river unusable would put residents, the District government and the regional economy at risk.”

Cyran said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers doesn’t disagree.

“We’re trying to find a quick win that addresses some of the near-term issues, because they are quite, quite dire,” Cyran said. “The Dalecarlia expansion would add approximately 12 hours of water storage into the system,” he said. “So, while we know that doesn’t fix the problem, it improves the situation.”

Recently, drinking water in D.C., Northern Virginia and Maryland has remained safe because the January collapse of a portion of the aging Potomac Interceptor regional sewer line happened downstream of the main Potomac River water intake serving the Washington Aqueduct.

“We’ve moved forward with the Dalecarlia expansion, as our most probable recommendation,” said Cyran. “The Corps is laser focused on delivering something right here, right now that can actually help with the issue, while still exploring some of those long term solutions.”

Cyran said the dangers to public health and the economy are substantial, with the Potomac as the sole drinking water source. “It’s not a great situation — we’ve seen a very real risk come to fruition recently, with the spill.”

While drinking water has been unaffected by the spill, the advisory for the public to avoid contact with the Potomac River remains in effect in the District and Montgomery County, where the Potomac Interceptor spill happened, along the Clara Barton Parkway.

The advisory is expected to be lifted Monday, by the D.C. Department of Health, as E. coli levels have recently returned to the typical range for D.C.’s rivers. The District’s Department of Energy and Environment is now doing daily testing of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers.

How would increased storage at Dalecarlia Reservoir look?

According to the Army Corps, expanding the Reservoir over 54 available acres would provide approximately 70 million gallons per day, doubling the capacity at Dalecarlia. Since the land is already owned by the Washington Aqueduct, it would not require acquiring any land.

Cyran said it’s not yet certain whether the expansion would provide an extra 12 hours of storage of raw water from the Potomac, or finished water, after it had gone through the Washington Aqueduct’s water purification process.

Regardless, either option would result in the Aqueduct having more water on hand, if drawing water from the Potomac was suddenly unsafe.

Another near-term option that wouldn’t require land acquisition would be advanced treatment, Cyran said.

“We could implement something that allows us to treat for a wider array of contaminants, if you had a spill,” said Cyran, although noting the recent spill from the Potomac Interceptor, which poured approximately 240 millions of raw sewage into the Potomac, “might not be a good example” of how the technology would work.

The Army Corps list of possible solutions includes reusing water. In November 2025, DC Water outlined its own plans to recycle water from the utility’s Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant, the largest of its kind in the world.

Quarry storage cannot happen quickly

During its ongoing study, the Army Corps has identified possible long term regional solutions, including the potential use of the Travilah Quarry in Montgomery County, Maryland, and two quarries in Loudoun County, Virginia, owned by Luck Stone.

10 years ago, in December 2016, WTOP first reported that the Travilah Quarry, located on Piney Meetinghouse Road in Rockville, was quietly being considered by DC Water, WSSC Water, and Fairfax Water, as an alternative source of water, if the Potomac River were unavailable.

“The three utilities, and the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin, along with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments have been working over the last several years to look at alternatives to get better interdependencies, to have more resilience in our system,” said Tom Jacobus in 2016, while he was general manager of the Aqueduct.

Now, a decade later, the logistical, real estate, and financial challenges of obtaining a quarry which could be interconnected between DC Water, WSSC Water, and Fairfax Water remain.

“We’re not saying they can never happen, we’re just saying they cannot, in any way, shape, or form, happen quickly,” said Cyran. “Travilah is still an active quarry, so that can’t even be considered for storage until they’re done mining, which might be 30 years from now.”

The Dalecarlia Reservoir expansion would not be regional solution, Cyran said.

“That would only benefit folks who are tied directly to the Aqueduct at this time,” he said. “However, while we’re going to be looking at other alternatives that we could potentially spin off and continue to look at, that would address some of those more regional issues.”

‘We can’t hand half-baked ideas to Congress’

While an interconnected, resilient system, that could provide additional water sources and storage to DC Water, WSSC Water, and Fairfax Water would be optimal, Cyran said the Corps is limited by a Congressional paradigm that limits its feasibility study to four years and five million dollars.

“We can’t hand half-baked ideas to Congress,” Cyran said.

With the Corps’ current focus of implementing near-term improvements, quickly, the agency will continue to use its expertise to envision a more resilient, long term solution.

“We are committed to looking at this issue and try to explore some regional solutions, within the paradigms of the legislation that we have to operate within,” said Cyran. “If Congress wants to consider something else to expand our authority, we could maybe look at a bigger solution, with more time and money.”

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Washington, D.C

New AAPI-led Jaemi Theatre Company launches in DC

Published

17 hours ago

March 1, 2026

Press Room

New AAPI-led Jaemi Theatre Company launches in DC

Jaemi Theatre Company, a new AAPI-led theater company based in Washington, DC, officially launches this spring with its inaugural project, BAAL, a staged reading at the 2026 Atlas INTERSECTIONS Festival on Friday, March 6, at 7:30 PM at the Atlas Performing Arts Center.

Jaemi Theatre Company co-founder and playwright Youri Kim

Founded by Artistic Director Youri Kim and Artistic Associate Juyoung Koh, Jaemi Theatre was born out of a recognition that DC, one of the largest theater markets in the United States, had no company dedicated to centering Asian stories or led by Asian artists. The name “Jaemi” comes from a Korean word meaning “fun,” and in its Sino-Korean form, 在美, means both “to live in America” and “to live in beauty.”

“I kept hearing from companies that it was hard to find Asian actors, and I heard it so often that I started to believe it myself,” said Youri Kim. “But through building community with other AAPI theater artists in the area, I realized the talent was always here. What was missing was the infrastructure to connect us. Jaemi is that infrastructure.”

BAAL, an original work written by Youri Kim (not to be confused with Bertolt Brecht’s 1918 play of the same name), is a body horror drama set in a dystopian city where the air is toxic and birth is outlawed. In the city of Baal, citizens are forced into an impossible choice: terminate or sacrifice a family member. The play uses the language of biological mutation and bodily control to examine how systems of power decide who gets to exist and on what terms, questions that resonate deeply within AAPI and immigrant communities navigating structures that seek to define, contain, and assimilate them. The staged reading features a cast of seven and an original sound design.

BAAL plays as a staged reading Friday, March 6, 2026, at 7:30 PM in Lab Theatre II at the Atlas Performing Arts Center (1333 H St NE, Washington, DC). Tickets ($29.75) are available online.

Looking ahead, Jaemi Theatre plans to host a founding party and fundraiser this fall, and will launch an Asian Writer Play Submission program in the second half of 2026. The program will pair playwrights from selected Asian countries with Asian playwrights based in DC for a workshop development process, building a pipeline that connects diasporic voices across borders.

For more information, visit yourikimdirector.com or follow @jaemitheatre on Instagram.

About Jaemi Theatre Company
Jaemi Theatre is a newly formed AAPI-led performance initiative based in Washington, DC, co-founded by Artistic Director Youri Kim and Artistic Associate Juyoung Koh. “Jaemi” is Korean for “fun” and, in its Sino-Korean form, means “to live in America” and “to live in beauty.” The company creates interdisciplinary performance rooted in diasporic imagination and radical storytelling. Jaemi is a home for the unfinished and the unassimilated, where performance holds contradiction without needing to resolve it.

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