Vince Gray has shown with his picks for top positions in his administration that as mayor he won’t likely bow to the wishes of the unions that helped get him elected. The mayor-elect has been unafraid to rehire members of Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration, the incumbent Gray just defeated. The mayor-elect, however, never said Fenty and his team didn’t get the job done. Instead, Gray’s platform attacked Fenty for moving forward without listening to the community’s — and its stakeholders’ — concerns. That has given Gray the political cover to keep around key Fenty picks like Police Chief Cathy Lanier, but it has also alienated him from the very groups that felt shut out by the mayor. And it was those groups, such as the police and fire unions, that helped put Gray in office.
The outspoken head of the city’s police union, Kris Baumann, and fire union chief Ray Sneed are now using Gray’s projection of himself as the District’s choice for an inclusive mayor to attack Gray for picking leaders for their departments that they don’t want.
