Last night's DC Mayoral Forum on land use issues (updated)

Judge Parker comic strip, panel 1, 7/12/2006.

Last night's Mayoral Forum sponsored by the Foggy Bottom Citizens Association, focused on land use issues, was interesting. Because the questions were focused for the most part, scripted responses weren't possible.

Michael Brown was better than I thought. But I didn't expect much.

Vincent Orange was decent. He ran on his record and his experience in both the public and private sector before becoming a Councilmember. His experience is more extensive than I realized. He's also sponsored summits every year for Ward 5 residents on both Economic Development and Constituency Services. He's justifiably proud of this, and the development he's helped garner for the Ward, in particular the Brentwood Shopping Center. Yet his outlook is so fundamentally suburban--maybe that makes sense because in comparison to some of the other areas of the city closer in, Ward 5 is suburban and car-dependent--that I just can't support him, despite his record of doing a bunch of good things.

But the Brentwood Shopping Center wastes land, is car-centric, wastes the air above the buildings, and wastes its access to the subway system. And the city didn't write provisions in their sales contract that would ensure urban-centric development there.

Speaking of bad things, Councilmember Orange announced last night that he has introduced legislation to build his "New Town" proposal, which proposes tearing down the Florida Market. I've written about this project before, including this entry, "Where am I going to get Korean food?," which discusses the proposal and the article in the current issue of both the Hill Rag and DC North. (Frozen Tropics discusses this proposal also in "The Last Breakfast" and "Hill Rag: New Town (the Capital City/Florida Market).")

He said he has 10 cosponsors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for the legislation (I wonder who the two councilmembers are who didn't sign on?) although I can't find the legislation online yet at the DC Council website.

Speaking of the urban agenda, someone proud of this shouldn't be the mayor of a center city.



Adrian Fenty was fine last night. I caught him in only one error. He suggested that DC have a crime analysis and accountability program like New York City's Compstat program. We do already. None of the candidates really acknowledged that the difficulty of having zero-tolerance policing in more a problem of politics that are beyond the purview of the police department, see for example, this blog entry, "Some more thoughts about trying to institute problem-oriented policing in DC." Still, though he is young, and less experienced, I feel comfortable voting for him. He's probably the most progressive candidate in the race, but his association with Sinclair Skinner is worrisome.

Of course, Linda Cropp got the DC Chamber of Commerce endorsement, which was expected, and that will shift the money and the Washington Post editorial page her way. She was not able to attend the forum, which some in the audience said was a good thing, since her husband works for George Washington University, the 1000 pound gorilla in Foggy Bottom matters, and it is a sore point that she doesn't recuse herself when GWU issues come before the Council.

Marie Johns is probably the smartest candidate in the Mayor's Race. She's the best speaker of the four people at last night's forum. I was not inclined to support her when she first announced given her membership in the "Growth Machine," and her utility executive credentials (after all think of the past two utility executives in DC government, Sharon Pratt Dixon Kelly and Harold Brazil), but I am coming around. But the jump from no public political involvement to Mayor is probably too big a jump. I do wish she would have run for City Council Chair, where she would be awesome!

Because of that 1000 pound gorilla, like the people in Friendship Heights and Tenleytown, the Foggy Bottom residents are quick to blame the DC Office of Planning for following and seemingly leading the developers agenda, but Marie Johns was the one person on the dais who was direct, saying that the DCOP works for the Mayor and Council and that they are only doing what they are told to do. I led the applause for that statement.
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UPDATED: I forget to mention that in response to the question about slowing down the approval process for the DC Comprehensive Plan revision, which I and many others have argued, in testimony and blog entries and elsewhere, isn't ready--there's a lot of good stuff in there, but the process has been rushed, and many sections are under-done--everyone on the dais agreed. Now Chairman Cropp wasn't in attendance, but I know she favors going ahead with the Council approval process now.

2. Another question that was asked was "if mayor, who would you keep and who would you fire?" Some candidates named names. Marie Johns wouldn't. She said that isn't the way she operates, that she would lay out what she's looking for and proceed accordingly. I was surprised that Vincent Orange said that Patrick Canavan, director of DCRA, should go--I think he's decent but came to the job way too far (after 6 years) into the tenure of Mayor Williams to begin to be able to make a difference. It's a multi-year job!

While the candidates were responding to this question, I was reminded of a scene in a book by Harold Robbins, about the early days of the television industry, The Inheritors, and how on his first day of work as the new young whiz kid director of a television network, Steve Gaunt asked every manager to submit his resignation. There was pandemonium after he left the meeting...

The chairman came down to Gaunt's office and screamed at him. Something like "You fired everybody! Even a hotshot like you can't run the entire network by yourself!" Gaunt responded by saying he didn't say he would act on every resignation submitted. But he wanted to build his own team, test people, and determine what they were made of and what they believed in.
Judge Parker comic strip, panel 2, 7/12/2006.

Is Raju right?

Index Keywords: Washington-DC-Election-2006