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Three Top Bowser Officials Are Leaving Government

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A trio of prominent officials are leaving Mayor Muriel Bowser’s government in the coming weeks, including her often controversial transportation director, as her administration continues to cope with turnover in this decidedly rocky start to her third term in office.

Everett Lott will leave his post as director of the District Department of Transportation later this month, as will Elliot Tommingo, the head of the Mayor’s Office on Veteran’s Affairs, according to an email to D.C. government employees forwarded to Loose Lips by Bowser’s spokesperson. Kristi Whitfield, the director of the Department of Small and Local Business Development, plans to leave sometime in October. All three will pursue unidentified roles outside D.C. government, City Administrator Kevin Donahue and Chief of Staff Lindsey Parker wrote in the email Thursday.

Bowser had one addition to announce alongside these departures: She’s appointing Tiffany Crowe, a veteran of the federal government and several District agencies, as the new acting director of the Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection. Crowe takes over for Interim Director Shirley Kwan-Hui, who has led the agency since it was created in October of last year and has baffled employees after disappearing on unexplained leave for the last several weeks amid questions about her leadership.

These moves will force Bowser to find replacements at two of her most politically sensitive agencies in DDOT, which has to navigate contentious neighborhood disputes over bike lanes and other transportation construction and safety issues, and DSLBD, which oversees the city’s Certified Business Enterprise program for contractors seeking to do business with the government. These officials have also been with Bowser for the past several years—Lott joined DDOT in 2018, while Whitfield and Tommingo were hired in 2017—and their departures introduce more upheaval after ex-aide John Falcicchio’s sexual harassment scandal roiled Bowser’s cabinet.

Since October 2022, Bowser has lost three deputy mayors (counting Falcicchio), a police chief, a health director, and several key agency heads, with interim directors still occupying a variety of top positions. While it’s not unusual to see a mayor replace some agency leaders at the start of a new term, the frequency of these departures (and Bowser’s slow pace of hiring to replace those leaving) has raised the eyebrows of government insiders who spoke with LL.



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