Lewis Perry, please stand up

In early February, Capitol Hill resident Lewis Perry received a letter from a government office in Manassas, Va. 

“Oh great,” Perry thought. “Somebody wants me to testify about something.” He hoped he could avoid having to make that drive into the suburbs.

But after opening the envelope and turning the document over, Perry realized he was holding an “administrative summons” from the Virginia Division of Child Support Enforcement, commanding him to show up at an office in Manassas. He had been named as the father of Xavier Williams-Baye.

“Nothing wrecks your day like having to drive out there,” says Perry. He had undergone a vasectomy operation several years before and thought the chances slim-to-none that he had recently impregnated somebody in Virginia. But he figured he might as well make the trek and settle the matter.

First, he called the office and was told that “‘basically you come down here and we take a DNA sample.’”

He then asked for the advice of attorneys and professors at the University of the District of Columbia law school, where he works as a network administrator. Adjunct professor Steve Mercer, who happens to be one of the nation’s foremost critics of the ever-expanding use of DNA databases, told him to keep his genes to himself.

Mercer fired off a scathing letter to the Manassas office indicating that Perry would not comply with the summons, which Mercer wrote “has no force or effect beyond the territory of Virginia.” And he had harsh words for the Virginia government’s strategy:

“I can only surmise that your office is seeking to compel the extraction of his DNA because it is administratively convenient for you to undertake a DNA dragnet of every ‘Lewis Perry’ in the region.”

Ron Harris, assistant director of the Virginia Division of Child Support, takes issue with Mercer’s characterization of his office’s tactics.

“‘Dragnet’ is a highly inappropriate term for what we do,” says Harris, who refused to discuss Perry’s case in particular. The way these cases generally work, he says, is that they find a single person who fits the bill, send a summons, and then that person comes to the office. If he denies being the father, then he can refuse to play along, and the Virginia government can only extract a DNA sample after obtaining a court order.

“In no way do we try to force anybody to sign the dotted line [for a DNA extraction] if there is some question in their mind of being the father,” says Harris. But Mercer suspects that people don’t get that impression.

“I would expect that most people, when they’re confronted with this sort of administrative apparatus, will acquiesce to it simply because they don’t want to have to battle some bureaucracy,” says Mercer. And the bureaucracy’s attitude is the same: If it’s just inconvenient, what do you care about giving a cheek swab to settle a paternity matter?

“But that’s sort of like saying people shouldn’t be upset if the government listens to their phone conversations or looks through their bank records if they’re not committing a crime,” Mercer says. He considers the whole idea a violation of fundamental privacy for mere convenience. As for the dragnet, he thinks it’s probably happening.

Reached by telephone, two other Lewis Perrys in Northwest and Northeast Washington denied that they received summonses. Various Lewis Perrys in Virginia could not be reached.

If there was no dragnet, Perry speculates that his name could have come up because he has lived across from the Kentucky Courts housing project for 18 years. Maybe somebody who used to hang around there wound up pregnant in Virginia and said Perry’s name just to have a name to say.

Perry hasn’t heard from the office since Mercer’s letter. He considers himself lucky that he happens to work in a place filled with uppity lawyers. Otherwise, “I would have had to show up in Virginia,” he says.

‘We don’t want you to go’

At a May 1 press conference outside the Eastern Market building, Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. Councilmember Tommy Wells pledged various forms of governmental support to vendors displaced by a three-alarm fire in the building during the early hours of April 30. “We don’t want you to go anywhere,” Fenty said. A sign next to the North Hall entrance proclaimed: “Eastern Market – We Will Rebuild.”

A firefighter douses part of the still-smoldering roof 12 hours after the fire destroyed Eastern Market’s South Hall. Gray smoke could be seen coming off the roof until the sun went down. Fire chief Dennis Rubin announced with “95 percent certainty” yesterday that the fire was an accident caused by an electrical problem, not a burning dumpster as initially thought.

This is a game the city usually loses

The District government hasn’t even finished putting up a stadium at the behest of Major League Baseball and already there have been calls for more stadiums. Ward 2 D.C. Council member Jack Evans wants a new stadium for the Washington Redskins, and Ward 8 Council member Marion Barry wants a new stadium for the D.C. United soccer team.

D.C. United owner Victor MacFarlane saw the hundreds of millions of tax dollars plopped down for baseball and knew he had to get in on the action. How can he lose?

The 10th anniversary of former Washington Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke’s death came around a few weeks ago, and the local press gave him adulation worthy of a popular dead president, just like it did while he lived. Never mind that this is the man who took the Skins away from the city and pulled off the biggest rip-off for fans of any franchise in any league.

Time for a reminder from longtime Hill resident and former Secretary of the Army Clifford Alexander about the meaning of a sports franchise:

“Most of the issues related to these teams have to do with one or two people making tens of millions of dollars.”

Alexander served as liaison between the District and Cooke during Cooke’s second round of stadium negotiations with the city. Those talks covered the usual problems of who pays for what, along with the added difficulties of contaminated land at the RFK site, which is still filled with toxins. Another complication is that it was federal property, which allowed for congressional meddling. On top of that, Cooke and then-Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly (now just Sharon Pratt) couldn’t get along.

According to legend, he either patted or pinched her rear end at a Redskins game. That was the deal-breaker. She called him a “billionaire bully” and he squirmed out of what Alexander says was a binding contract to construct a stadium next to RFK.

On a municipal level, the city didn’t lose much when it lost the Skins. But from the D.C. fan’s perspective, going to a game has got to be among the most wretched experiences any hometown spectator could ask for.

Drive beyond the Beltway. Pay 20 bucks to park in mud. Stumble down a hill, wade through a ditch, climb over a guardrail, and then walk another 10 minutes to reach the stadium. And once you’re in the stadium — oh man. Terrible.

Sports bigwigs tend to get their way. They can fleece you directly, like current Redskins owner Dan Snyder, or they can get your money from the people you elect.

Abe Pollin, owner of the Washington Wizards, used his own cash to build an arena downtown that is widely credited for de-blighting the area. He changed the team’s name from “Bullets” out of respect for children dying in an epidemic of gun violence. But for every conscientious team owner like Pollin, there’s a guy like Cooke who keeps a slur for a team name but re-christens an entire town “Raljon” after his sons Ralph and John.

“It takes the sport out of it all,” says Alexander.