Fenty lies low in fights over contracts, teacher firings
By: Michael Neibauer
Examiner Staff Writer
November 1, 2009
The District's chief executive has not taken an active public role in the two major issues facing his administration: the firing of almost 400 public school teachers and staff, and the funneling of $82 million in Department of Parks and Recreation contracts through the quasi-independent D.C. Housing Authority.
Fenty did not attend the D.C. Council's marathon session Thursday on the school layoffs. D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee was in the line of fire instead.
He did not appear, either, at the council's hearing Friday on more than a dozen DPR contracts directed through the D.C. Housing Authority, a maneuver the council says was done to avoid its review. Those contracts, many in excess of $1 million, went to firms with close ties to the mayor.
City Administrator Neil Albert spoke on behalf of the administration at the hearing.
"In general, subject matter experts attend and testify at hearings related to his or her office or agency, and the mayor is following this tradition," Fenty spokeswoman Mafara Hobson said in an e-mail.
Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas Jr., chairman of the Parks and Recreation Committee, has indicated he will ask his colleagues for subpoena power on the contracts issue during Tuesday's legislative meeting. But Fenty's aides, and rarely the mayor himself, are the targets of subpoenas.
The mayor, while continuing to hold regular news conferences, has said virtually nothing on both issues, except that he steadfastly supports Rhee, that he deems everything his administration has done legal and aboveboard, and that the current council is "the best we've ever had."
But the relationship between the branches continues to worsen and perhaps has hit a new low.
