Most mayors wouldn’t provide an opportunity for legislators to kick him in the gut, especially during a re-election campaign. Adrian M. Fenty may be the exception. This week, he unceremoniously removed Department of Parks and Recreation Director Clark E. Ray, and appointed someone without any background in managing such an agency.
Ximena Hartsock is the former deputy chief for the Office of Teaching and Learning at the D.C .Public Schools. She created the Office of Out of School Time, which has responsibility for after-school, summer school and Saturday programs. She may be a great academic administrator but her resume in parks and recreation is weaker than all four previous DPR directors, including Ray.
The D.C. Council must confirm Hartsock’s nomination. Tensions between the mayor and legislature are increasing. It could reject her. That would exacerbate the growing impression of an executive less concerned about what’s best for the city and more interested in surrounding himself with cronies and sycophants.
That narrative was exploited by the council when it voted this week not to approve Fenty’s appointees to the Public Employee Relations Board. The same tale was told when the legislature put the skids on the mayor’s effort to name six individuals to the board of trustees for the University of the District of Columbia. It’s the back story the council deployed when starting its special investigation of the executive’s donation of fire equipment to a local nonprofit organization. And, it is a key element of the behind-the-scenes fights over changes the council wants to make to the mayor’s fiscal 2010 budget; those adjustments could create a $100 million revenue problem, according to John A. Wilson Building sources.
Despite such tensions and dangers, Fenty decided to change leadership at the DPR. It was a display of capriciousness.
Over the years, I’ve written investigative reports and columns about the agency-its management and programs. When Ray took over in late 2007, the place was a mess. He made steady and noticeable improvements: enhancing partnerships with nonprofit organizations; renovating facilities, including swimming pools; and increasing the number of youths participating in agency programs — some by as much as 47 percent. Yes, there still are problems at the DPR. But there was every indication that Ray had the skills to resolve them.
I’ve never been shy about calling out incompetent managers. Ray wasn’t one of them and shouldn’t have been removed.
It appears his only sin may have been his reluctance to commit to the mayor’s privatization program. Fenty wants to cut more than 200 employees or positions from the DPR payroll. He wants to rely on nonprofit organizations to program recreation centers. And he essentially wants to turn over athletic fields to a few influential groups.
Hartsock, DPR director designee, won’t have any problem with that agenda. No doubt the private organizations running public school programs will soon take over parks and recreation.
