A key political fundraiser lobbied the Fenty administration to pick a schools chancellor who wouldn’t overshadow the mayor and would help isolate Board of Education President Robert Bobb, e-mails obtained by The Examiner show.
“I would make absolutely sure that anyone who is brought here is Mayor Fenty’s and your person,” Marie Drissel wrote to Deputy Mayor Victor Reinoso on May 23, “and not indirectly Robert Bobb’s person.”
She warned against picking as chancellor Miami-Dade Superintendent Rudy Crew, a nationally known educator, suggesting someone more compliant should be tapped. Crew “will end up being another Robert Bobb for you to handle,” an e-mail from Drissel said. Bobb had tried to thwart Fenty’s takeover of D.C.’s schools.
Drissel, a Kalorama activist who was a top adviser to former Mayor Anthony Williams, became one of Fenty’s earliest supporters. She hosted a top-dollar fundraiser for Fenty in February 2005 but later backed his rival, Linda Cropp.
Fenty has resisted calls to make public details of the process by which he selected as chancellor Michelle Rhee, 37, a former teacher who has never run a bureaucracy as big as the D.C. schools.
Drissel, who described herself in an e-mail to Reinoso as “Ms DC Voter Getting Signature Queen,” was the first person to testify on Rhee’s behalf at a confirmation hearing Monday.
“I am so impressed with some of Fenty’s appointments, but this one he really knocked out of the ballpark,” Drissel told The Examiner. She said in a phone interview that her advice to Reinoso was unsolicited.
Drissel’s e-mail messages were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. They offer a rare glimpse into the mayor’s deliberations into the schools takeover.
Fenty has said he didn’t have time to include parents and politicians in his selection of Rhee, in part because of a court challenge to the schools takeover by a parents group.
But the e-mails show that Fenty’s team was being lobbied about the selection by insiders as early as late May — several weeks before Rhee’s surprise nomination.
Reinoso said Drissel’s advice “played no role” in the mayor’s deliberations.
“It’s just an e-mail she sent me,” Reinoso told The Examiner. “I don’t even think I read the whole e-mail.”
The e-mails also show that Drissel told the Fenty team that Bobb was trying to torpedo the schools takeover legislation.
“We, who are working on D.C. voting rights, cannot tolerate this kind of activity,” she wrote. “[Bobb] definitely wants to be mayor.”
In a phone interview, Bobb said that Drissel’s accusation was “a damned lie.”
“They’re just fabricating. Period,” he said.
Anyone with information on the Fenty administration may call Bill Myers at 202-459-4956 or e-mail [email protected]
