D.C. Councilman Marion Barry is holding up nearly $200 million in contracts sought by Mayor Adrian Fenty, threatening school renovations and a major Southwest development.

Barry, D-Ward 8, filed a package of disapproval resolutions last Friday, halting at least eight contracts submitted by Fenty for 45 days, or until the holds are lifted. Among them: $9 million for school facility upgrades, $10 million for athletic field modernization and $310,000 for mechanical work at Brightwood Elementary School in Fenty’s Ward 4.

“I’m going to keep these on as long as I can,” Barry told The Examiner Thursday.

Barry said he would withdraw his block of a $527,805 contract for renovations at Samuel Wheatley Elementary School at the behest of Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. He also intends to lift his hold on a $16.7 million contract to rebuild Fourth Street Southwest as part of the Waterside Mall mixed-use development.

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“It’s our understanding if this contract doesn’t move forward then the project stalls and we have a big hole in the ground,” Charles Allen, chief of staff to Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells, said of the deal with Waterfront Associates.

Most of the contracts, which were provided to the council on the eve of its summer recess, are tied up in school renovations. Such last-minute submissions demonstrate a lack of proper planning on the part of the Fenty administration, said Barry, whose relationship with the mayor’s team has steadily deteriorated.

“This is the only way I can express my displeasure with this lack of accountability,” he said.

Fenty aides present a different story.

Barry is furious, they said Thursday, over the administration pulling nearly 600 teenagers out of the Washington East of the River Academy and putting them to work cleaning housing projects. Students enrolled in the program, located at Southeast’s P.R. Harris Elementary School, were being paid to learn life skills such as HIV/AIDS prevention, but many were reportedly collecting paychecks for doing nothing.

The disapprovals, sources said, are retribution for the shutdown. Barry denied that accusation.

“These disapproval resolutions could potentially delay many important projects as well as jeopardize the completion of the summer blitz program to prepare our schools for the upcoming school year,” said Dena Iverson, Fenty’s spokeswoman.

Schools aren’t the only projects affected. Also among the blocked contracts is a $150 million deal with Optimal Solutions & Technologies Inc. “for management of Information Technology Staff Augmentation.”

“Nobody can figure out” what that means, Barry said.

mneibauer@dcexaminer.com