Sarah Palin may have gone rogue. District elected officials went insane. Their madness consumed the government and vexed residents, causing many to fret about the city’s future.
Ward 3 D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh accused Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s administration of being lawless. The legislature wasn’t exactly law-abiding. It’s surprising no one called back former Metropolitan Police Department Chief Charles Ramsey to throw a dragnet around the John A. Wilson Building and hogtie its occupants. No one was innocent.
Officials violated the intent and spirit of local laws. The mayor circumvented procurement and privatization regulations. Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry abused loopholes in contracting rules; Chairman Vincent C. Gray claimed ignorance of campaign finance laws.
When the two branches weren’t trashing rules, they were savaging each other. On multiple occasions the council accused Fenty of lying, contract steering, mismanagement, ageism and racism. In a take-one-to-know-one move, the executive asserted that the council’s rejection of Department of Parks and Recreation nominee Ximena Hartsock was sexist and racist.
Between the blows and bloviating, the District, like the rest of the nation, celebrated the election of the first African-American president; reports revealed D.C. Public School students’ test scores rose; the city got a community college; homosexuals were given the opportunity to marry each other; homicides decreased; and Congress removed controversial riders from the federal appropriations bill.
Between the blows and bloviating, the District, like the rest of the nation, celebrated the election of the first African-American president; reports revealed D.C. Public School students’ test scores rose; the city got a community college; homosexuals were given the opportunity to marry each other; homicides decreased; and Congress removed controversial riders from the federal appropriations bill.
Those and other achievements were buried by an avalanche of the weird, the crazy and the inept: Democrats declined to give the District, a predominantly democratic jurisdiction, voting representation in Congress; two Metro trains crashed, killing nine people; a fire destroyed Peggy Cooper Cafritz’s home on Chain Bridge Road because responders couldn’t find hydrants; and a 9-year-old boy was murdered in his home in an apartment building riddled with housing code violations.
Cheh and at-large Councilman Phil Mendelson started an investigation into the Fenty administration’s attempt to donate surplus fire equipment to a town in the Dominican Republic. That was before Mendelson demanded to know whether it was illegal for the mayor to transport his bicycle in a government-owned van. Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas and others began a never-ending probe into the administration’s arrangement with the D.C. Housing Authority to renovate recreation facilities. Fenty, seemingly impervious to the legislature’s salivating, continued to do what he wanted.
Thus far, none of those investigations found wrongdoing.
While policymakers sought to topple Fenty, the economy whipped the hell out of the nation’s capital: Unemployment rose to 12 percent. Like a stuck 78 rpm, Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi kept repeating that revenues were down. Some government employees found ways to solve their personal fiscal woes: They either stole the District blind, took bribes or both. Elected officials abetted some theft, providing earmarks to unlicensed organizations or to those that, following in Barry’s footsteps, failed to pay taxes.
I could go on. But, you get my drift. And here’s the bad news: 2009 was only half as bad as 2010 may turn out to be. Brace yourself!
