There should be a City Council hearing-investigation but...

Former District Lock owners Michael Horwat, left, and Steve Harrell. (Photograph by Darrow Montgomery, Washington City Paper.)

I'm not sure that I agree with the thesis of the owners of the now closed District Lock and Hardware, that DC's Office of Tax and Revenue conspired with Central Lock, which is going to be displaced as a result of the construction of a convention center hotel on 9th Street NW, to drive District Lock out of business to be replaced by Central Lock, to avoid any lawsuits over city government eminent domain actions. See the cover story in last week's Washington City Paper, "Lock, Stock, and Over a Barrel."

Still, it's odd that the Office of Tax and Revenue did not negotiate with District Lock with regard to payment of back taxes, that OTR would not want to maximize the return and likely full payment.

According to the article by refusing to negotiate and going forward with an auction they ended up getting somewhat under 4% of the total amount owed. Not to mention putting a small business out of business.

Strikes me that there should be an investigation of this, especially if the District is committed to maintaining the presence of small businesses in the city. (The CP article discusses how District Lock fell into arrears. Their bookkeeper wasn't taking care of the taxes, and they weren't aware of this. Hmm, sounds like the property tax assessment unit...)

But I can't imagine the City Council Committee on Finance taking up this issue.