Mr. Collins:

Thank you for the information you provided under my Freedom of Information Act request. The information confirms that Councilmember Jack Evans has failed to provide Chairman Vincent Gray with a written statement detailing the reasons for his recusal on the convention center hotel financing legislation in June 2009.

As I noted in my original FOIA request (at the end of this chain of emails), D.C. law and regulations require that when a council member recuses himself because of the appearance of, or actual, conflict of interest, he must file a written statement explaining the recusal with your office, the Office of Campaign Finance and the Board of Elections and Ethics. I cited applicable portions of the law which clearly spell this out. (Please see the Addendum following this letter for some of the citations from my original FOIA application.) Continue reading →