Petition officials dispute charges

Backers of the ballot initiative to put a gambling palace on New York Avenue in Northeast presented testimony yesterday to the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics from two petition circulators who said they didn’t see any misconduct in the collection of signatures.

A D.C. lawyer and a coalition of citizens’ groups have challenged the validity of a large number of the more than 50,000 signatures collected to get the plan on the Nov. 2 ballot. Among the accusations are that some petition circulators forged names on petitions or vouched for signatures they didn’t collect.

Norman Carl Neverson Sr., a former chairman of the D.C. Democratic Party who oversaw some of the collection of signatures, testified yesterday that he made sure his team of circulators followed the rules and collected legitimate signatures. He said he worked with as many as 30 petition circulators.

Mr. Neverson also said he attended an orientation session where more than 75 petition circulators were schooled on election law. “Everyone was told the importance of asking the first question, ’Are you a registered D.C. voter?’” he said. “They also were told not to give any inaccurate information about the petition.”

D.C. law stipulates 17,599 signatures from registered voters in at least five of the city’s eight wards are required to put a referendum measure on the ballot.

Dorothy Brizill, the head of the watchdog group DCWatch and one of the challengers of the petitions, questioned Mr. Neverson about the amount of money he was paid to participate in the petition drive and about his ties to the initiative’s chief lobbyist.

Mr. Neverson said he was paid $5,000 and that he was a longtime friend of lawyer John Ray, the former D.C. Council member who is spearheading the referendum, known as the Video Lottery Terminal Initiative of 2004.

Mrs. Brizill filed a challenge to the petitions along with Regina James of the group D.C. Against Slots. D.C. lawyer Ron Drake filed a separate challenge, but both challenges are being addressed in the hearings, which continue today and are expected to last through Wednesday.

During a recess, Mrs. Brizill told The Washington Times the testimony presented so far by the initiative’s backers served to divert attention from the misconduct she said was committed by people working for PCI Consultants Inc., a California-based firm hired to manage the petition drive.

Mrs. Brizill said the PCI crew worked out of a downtown Red Roof Inn, where she said names on the petitions were copied out of the phone book and some petition collectors were paid with illegal drugs.

Mr. Ray did not call anyone associated with PCI to testify over the weekend, though several people connected to the company have been subpoenaed to testify today.

“The only people he is bringing in are the people who did it right, did a good job and got paid very well for it,” Mrs. Brizill said.

Mr. Neverson said his testimony provided the board with an alternative to the challengers’ views of the petition drive. “If you read the local reports, you would think everybody did something egregiously wrong,” he told The Times. “We did things the right way.”

Also testifying yesterday was Perry Queen, a retired insurance agent who volunteered to appear before the board. Mr. Queen said he collected about 10 signatures and was unaware of anything illegal done by other petition circulators.

The ballot question would seek voter approval for establishing 3,500 slotlike devices in a $500 million gambling facility on a 14-acre lot bounded by New York and Montana avenues and Bladensburg Road in Northeast. The casino is expected to generate $765 million annually, 25 percent of which would go to the District.

The plan was proposed by a citizens committee funded by two St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands-based venture-capital firms, according to campaign-finance reports filed last week. So far, the firms have spent more than $600,000 on lobbying efforts.