E(l)ectile Dysfunction

Mayor Williams performs his final trademark cannonball "dive" to kick off the summer season at Turkey Thicket Recreation Center. Photograph by the Mayor's Official Photographer, Lateef Mangum. Source, DC Government website.

Speaking of "Challenge Bibendum" in the City of Washington, Colbert King wrote a scathing column in yesterday's Post, "The Dysfunction Williams Didn't Tackle," about the legacy of Mayor Williams.

While I do think that Mayor Williams made a fair number of bad choices of agency heads, and he stood by too many people for too long, (e.g., "The Chief is Here to Stay," in the Post article "Williams Keeping Fire Chief 'In Place'"), I think that most of us, perhaps even Mr. King, don't realize how entrenched is dysfunction within DC Government, how entrenched the attitude of "business as usual" and as the government as "gravy train" really is.

One of my big concerns is that there has been tremendous backsliding over the past couple years within DC Government towards the "whatever, it's not my job, quality doesn't matter, the best thing about DC government is getting contracts," kind of attitude.

This is my biggest fear with the upcoming election in the Mayor's race, and the City Council Chairman's race. It's also a big issue in the race for the Democratic At-Large Councilmember race.

That was a big part of my concern in what I call the "Uncivil War" (see this blog entry from last July, "Tom Sherwood, Duncan Spencer, Anwar Amal, and thinking about what I call the "Uncivil War") and I think the election of Marion Barry, Kwame Brown, and to some extent Vincent Gray in 2004, is part of that backsliding, the battle over what government is supposed to be about, and to some extent is a counter-attack against good government, even though they would deny this vociferously, and I wouldn't necessarily argue with their stated explanations. But it is the substance that concerns us here.

Vince Gray's campaign for Council Chair (and note I am not much of a fan of Kathy Patterson) and Scott Bolden's (a former President of the DC Chamber of Commerce, a leading position in the Growth Machine, pro-business agenda) attempt to beat one of the only avowed progressives on the City Council, and the kind of people lining up to support Linda Cropp (even though I have a great deal of respect for her and could still vote for her), demonstrate that the problem is a lot more than merely Mayor Williams not trying harder.
Image by Chicago Multimedia.

Government as a jobs program started out long before Marion Barry. It has been a constant tension with regard to government ever since government began, when Kings had courts (and jesters) and sycophants.

In the "modern era," it was more affordable when growth seemed perpetual and that more money would always be forthcoming.

It's not like that anymore.

If the DC government feels like it has to give "advertising space" on the city's streets in order to get $250,000 for environmental programs, in a city with a $5 billion local budget (plus another $3 billion in spending from the federal government), then clearly the money faucet is starting to close.

Books such as Black Social Capital and The Future Once Happened Here discuss these issues in the context of today's financial, political, and demographic environments. It makes for chilling reading.

Index Keywords: good-government