Council Expels Trayon White, Accepts Transfer of RFK Stadium Site

In a vote bolstered by video evidence and a report by outside legal counsel, but unprecedented in fifty years of Home Rule history, the Council unanimously and immediately expelled Councilmember Trayon White from his Ward 8 Council seat.

In recent decades, when other members of the Council faced accusations of malfeasance, they either received censure in the face of more minor charges, or, in cases where accusations were more weighty, chose to resign prior to potential Council action. The Council has the ability to expel members for serious malfeasance, with a five-sixths vote. The vote at the most recent meeting was the first and only case of these procedures being put into use.

While the Council’s expulsion action was based fundamentally on violations of the Council’s own Code of Conduct, the external legal process surrounding former Councilmember Trayon White will also continue to make its way through the system of justice.

After the expulsion vote, the Council took a brief recess before returning to tackle the rest of the meeting’s agenda. As is often the case early in a new two-year Council Period, the agenda was brief, due to the relative dearth of legislation in the pipeline this early in the cycle.

In an action that was many decades in the making, the Council voted to endorse the 99+ year transfer of jurisdiction over the acres of land surrounding the former Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium from the National Park Service to the District government. The legislation and accompanying documents are deliberately mum on the eventual use of the former stadium campus. But in order for the transfer to occur, and for consideration of the eventual uses of the site to commence, Council approval of the jurisdictional transfer was necessary prior to the plat and covenant being recorded by the Recorder of Deeds, thus finalizing the transfer. All decisions regarding any future use of the RFK campus will have to return to the Council for approval.

Other action at the most recent meeting hearkened back to legislation passed at a prior Council meeting roughly one year ago. In March of last year, the Secure DC omnibus public safety bill passed by the Council was signed into law. One element of that bill was the creation of a rebuttable presumption in favor of pretrial detention when violent crimes are committed by youth or adults, meaning that incarceration between arrest and trial is the rule rather than the exception, as it otherwise would be. If judges allow for pretrial release in a given case, they must explain their rationale for doing so. The Secure DC bill as passed had these provisions sunsetting after a report on the efficacy of these provisions was drafted by the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. However, that report is not complete, therefore the legislation extends the sunset date to June 26, 2025.

In a final bit of business at the most recent meeting, the Council further extended the COVID-era ability of, on one hand, government agencies, and on the other hand, condominium associations, to meet virtually and still have those meetings considered fully authorized and compliant.

Given the slower pace of the early months of a new Council Period, the Council’s next scheduled Legislative Meeting will be not in two, but rather in four, weeks, on March 4.