Adrian Fenty and Vince Gray will be together again Friday morning, but they will be apart. They will smile at one another, but inside their hearts will be cold. The enmity they share has become a fixture of politics in the nation’s capital city. The mayor and the city council chairman are scheduled to speak back to back at the dedication of Bud Doggett Way along 10th and H streets NW, in Penn Quarter at 11:30 a.m. today.
There is both irony and sadness in their coming together to honor Leonard “Bud” Doggett. He was perhaps the only man in town who could have brought the two into a room, slapped them around and forced them to make peace. Why could Doggett have pulled it off?
To say Bud was just a parking lot magnate is like saying Darrell Green was just a football player. Both were unique, elevated their game far beyond their professions and devoted themselves to their community.
Doggett had reach and power. A native Washingtonian, he came up parking cars in his father’s lots, bought downtown corners, sold some, built on others and became a low-key tycoon. He knew every president since John F. Kennedy. After the 1968 riots, the bushy-browed land baron walked the city’s sooty streets with then-Mayor Walter Washington. He was tight with every local pol since.
Each came to kiss his ring; each answered his calls.
Doggett became a power broker in the Greater Washington Board of Trade, but he derived power from at least two other sources. In 1964 he started HEROES Inc., which helps support families of police officers and firefighters killed in the line of duty. And his reach went to Capitol Hill. That might be why Steny Hoyer, majority leader and congressman from Prince George’s County, will speak at today’s dedication.
“Bud is the only guy who could have brought Gray and Fenty together and said: ‘Stop fighting. This is not good for the city,’” said one big time player in Washington who knows both the mayor and the council chairman.
The battle between the two top city pols spans the petty and the profound. They are squabbling over tickets to baseball games; they disagree on fundamentals, as in how much cash should go to public schools and charter schools.
Last week I had a chance to ask Fenty in private why he’s at odds with Gray — and the rest of the city council. He started to give me his usual rap about what a great guy Gray is and how much he respects all the council members.
When I asked him for the third time to cut the crap and answer my question, he said: “It’s normal for the executive and legislative branches of government to have disagreements.”
But is it normal for the disagreements to become personal? And is it normal for any collaboration to be snuffed out? More importantly, is it good for the city? Doggett would have knocked their heads together and forced them to be collegial — for the good of the city.
D.C. needs another Bud — now more than ever.
