DC City Council races and GGW questionnaires/endorsements: Ward 4

Greater Greater Washington just published a piece on the Ward 4 election ("See what the candidates for Ward 4 DC Council have to say about these urbanist issues"), featuring challengers Marlena Edwards and Janeese Lewis George. Interestingly, sitting Ward 4 Councilmember Brandon Todd didn't respond.

Ward 4 borders Montgomery and Prince George's Counties in Maryland and is split between large tracts of single family housing and rowhouse districts with density. 

A fair number of people rely on the automobile to get around, although transit use is high.  The Ward has three Metrorail stations (Fort Totten, Georgia Avenue/Petworth, Takoma) and a number of high use bus lines, especially on 16th Street and Georgia Avenue.  (Interestingly, in the upper part of the ward, a number of people take buses to the Silver Spring Metrorail station, which is in Maryland.)

I argue that DC is dominated by a suburban agenda because the outer city, which includes Ward 4, is automobile-dominated.

When it comes to candidate endorsements, there is a need to outline ward-specific matters too.  I thought the questions were great, but given the reality that GGW is focused on more city-wide concerns--more density, more affordable housing, safer streets for pedestrians and bicyclists, expanding transit, etc.--there weren't any ward-specific questions.

When I considered running for the Ward 4 Council seat in 2015--because the incumbent, Muriel Bowser, got elected as Mayor, leading to an opening, I started talking to people who do campaigns as well as outlining what I thought of as a ward-focused platform and agenda, as opposed to the "city-wide" matters.

-- "Outline for a proposed Ward-focused (DC) Councilmember campaign platform and agenda," 2015

This kind of ward-focused campaign platform ought to be developed for each ward, separately from a focus on the matters of "city-wide" concern.

GGW could aim to do that too in terms of setting out a complementary questionnaire on Ward-specific questions.  For Ward 4 that would include:

• economic development or neighborhood plans for Georgia Avenue, Takoma, the developing Riggs Road/South Dakota district, and Petworth, and even Walter Reed; 
• pedestrian improvement programs, e.g., my idea for pedestrian priority corridors, such as for Cedar Street/Carroll Avenue in Takoma; 
• transit improvements for bus and Metrorail, even a MARC station at Fort Totten and reverse commute services on the MARC Brunswick Line;
• development at Metrorail stations (Takoma and Fort Totten);
• plans for an upgrade to the 14th Street bus barn;
• redevelopment at the Armed Forces Retirement Home and the old DC Jewish Home for the Aged, 
• improved K-12 education outcomes and strengthening of the Ward's two public high schools, which have minimal enrollments, etc.

City-wide issues beyond urbanism.  Plus, a few years earlier I had a dream-nightmare that I had been appointed to an opening for an at-large Councilmember and shared an office with then City Councilmember Vincent Orange, so I wrote a piece about what I thought a more city-wide agenda would look like.

-- "Ideal Mayoral/City Council candidate campaign agenda: Getting Our City's S*** Together," 2012

That agenda focused on (1) quality of life; (2) economic development; (3) participatory democracy; (4) necessary changes to the city's political structure; (5) schools reform; (6) health and wellness; (7) poverty reduction; and (8) public safety.

Now, eight years later I'd separate transportation out of economic development and add a housing production element too.

Poverty reduction.  Years ago, there was a candidate for Mayor, Leo Alexander, who was kind of whacked, but made at least one brilliant point--that every 10% reduction in city poverty would cut demand for social and human services by $150 million.

Wrt "poverty reduction,"  Muriel Bowser's creation of a Deputy Mayor for Greater Economic Opportunity came out of a discussion I had with one of her campaign people on poverty reduction issues in 2013, although I was more focused on Wards 7 and 8.  (I was shocked to read about this the next summer in an article in the New York Times...)

My original proposal was "Deputy Mayor for East of the River" ("Marion Barry and the missed opportunity for eradicating (or at least systematically addressing) poverty East of the River," 2014) spurred on by program initiatives in Charlotte, North Carolina, Toronto, Richmond, and Dallas, in particular the Grow South program in that city ("Six Years Into GrowSouth, Developers Are Starting To Pay Attention to Southern Dallas," KERA-FM/NPR).