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Outwardly, Veda Rasheed might look like she’s in a good spot in the Ward 7 Council primary. She’s broadly seen as a top contender among ward activists, she’s raising plenty of money, and she just scored an endorsement from the notoriously deep-pocketed Democrats for Education Reform.
Behind the scenes, however, her campaign has been roiled by a dispute with a contractor hired last fall to build her website. Nick Beauregard is suing Rasheed over claims that she failed to pay him $3,600. The incident was so divisive within Rasheed’s camp that several consultants advising her chose to resign in protest earlier this year, according to emails Beauregard filed as exhibits with his suit.
“I’m a homeowner in the ward, so this race really matters to me,” Beauregard, who has worked for years on local and national campaigns, tells LL. “I’m not going to be pushed over by someone who is running to represent me. Absolutely not.”
The dispute has proven to be indicative of broader problems within Rasheed’s bid to replace Ward 7 Councilmember Vince Gray, two people familiar with the campaign’s inner workings tell LL. These sources, who requested anonymity to discuss the campaign candidly, believe that Rasheed squandered some key advantages in the race by allowing infighting and disorganization to hobble her bid for office. Rasheed announced her run several months before many of the other top contenders jumped into the race, looking to build off of her second-place finish in the 2020 primary. But LL’s sources feel she’s lost ground to other candidates due to this dysfunction.
“She had such a great head start, she could have done so much more,” one campaign insider tells LL. “And I feel like she just lost that momentum that allowed some room for Eboni-Rose Thompson, Wendell [Felder], even Ebony Payne.”
Rasheed has repeatedly insisted to LL that she has offered to pay Beauregard “the full amount” he’s owed, but declined to identify the size of her offer. “We continue to offer to pay him for his services, but he won’t accept it,” says Rasheed, an attorney who previously served as an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Benning Ridge and worked for former Attorney General Karl Racine. “There is no story here.”
To learn more about how this dispute got so ugly, and what it means for Rasheed’s bid in Ward 7, check out our full story online.
—Alex Koma (tips? [email protected])
![](https://the3rd-place.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/1714665688_56_Ward-Wide-Web.png)
- The most prolific speed camera in D.C. of late is located along the Potomac Freeway by 25th Street NW. Between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31 of last year, the camera issued 33,682 tickets. [WTOP]
- Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith says she isn’t worried about the upcoming summer season, when crime typically spikes. But she says MPD plans to increase police presence near schools as the academic year comes to a close. [WUSA9]
- A man was “shot just like a dog” on the 1300 block of Pennsylvania Avenue SE Wednesday in broad daylight. A bystander says the man was shot at least five times; he died at the scene, and police are still looking for the suspect. [Hill Rag]
- Students at Howard University are preserving and digitizing thousands of Black newspapers dating back to the 19th century. So far, the team of five full-time employees, with the help of students, have scanned and digitized more than 300 microfilm reels from 96 publishers and more than 1,000 print newspapers. [Washingtonian]
By City Paper Staff (tips? [email protected])
![](https://the3rd-place.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/1714665688_8_Ward-Wide-Web.jpg)
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- Mayor Muriel Bowser’s new budget contains plenty of investments to support downtown even as it makes steep cuts elsewhere. She argues this a necessary step to protect the city’s economic engine, but is it merely more “trickle-down” thinking that disadvantages other parts of the city? “I would love to be proven wrong, but saying you have a great downtown you can go to—that’s still inaccessible for the rest of us over here,” says Ward 8 ANC Jamila White. [Post]
- Officials from all across the DMV met Wednesday to start discussing a region-wide solution to Metro’s persistent funding crises. This is the first time Metro’s board has ever held joint discussions with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, but can these efforts succeed where others have failed? [WUSA9, WJLA]
- The 2024 primary marks the first election where noncitizens will be able to vote in local D.C. races. Here’s how it will work, and how the District is preparing. [Informer]
By Alex Koma (tips? [email protected])
![](https://the3rd-place.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/1714665688_647_Ward-Wide-Web.png)
- After 25 years, the West End establishment Marcel’s has announced that its last day of service will be May 12. Chef and owner Robert Wiedmaier had hoped to negotiate a new 10-year lease, but says the building’s new owners were not interested in providing better terms to suit the current state of the restaurant industry. [Post]
- Chefs Kevin Tien and Susan Bae of Moon Rabbit are working to change the perception of Vietnamese food while pushing the cuisine to evolve. [WTOP]
- A Maryland law renaming the snakehead is aimed at controlling the invasive fish by getting more people to eat it. Does Chesapeake channa sound more appetizing? [Washingtonian]
By City Paper staff (tips? [email protected])
![](https://the3rd-place.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/1714665688_254_Ward-Wide-Web.png)
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Action and Romance Make a Winning Combination in The Fall Guy
The Fall Guy is the kind of four-quadrant movie that’s all too rare nowadays. On […]
![](https://the3rd-place.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/1714665689_97_Ward-Wide-Web.jpg)
Distillation Takes Audiences on a Theatrical Journey That Continues After the Curtain Drops
Like many young adults working in the arts, Luke Casserly spent time at his childhood […]
![](https://the3rd-place.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/1714665690_281_Ward-Wide-Web.jpg)
La Perla, Jazz Greats, and More: City Lights for May 2–8
Where to go and what to see this week.
- Pour another one out because AMP, Strathmore’s Pike & Rose venue, is about to close. The performance space’s lease ends June 30 and they will not be able to renew—the landlord is handing over the space to a commercial tenant. AMP is the current home of both Strathmore’s Artist in Residence program and its AMPlify initiative. The two programs will now reside at new locations throughout Montgomery County. [Strathmore]
- Saturday is Star Wars Day and there’s tons of ways to celebrate the sci-fi series around the DMV. [Washingtonian]
- Deja vu: In 2012, the Georgetown Barnes and Noble shuttered as Amazon dominated book sales. But 4,550 days later, Barnes and Noble announced it’s reopening in the same space along M Street NW on June 19. [Urban Turf, Georgetown Metropolitan]
By Sarah Marloff (tips? [email protected])
![](https://the3rd-place.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/1714665690_171_Ward-Wide-Web.jpg)
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