Adrian Fenty’s tour of America continues this week with visits to Los Angeles and San Francisco, as the Democratic nominee for mayor accumulates a mounting list of good-government ideas he might implement in his administration.
“From the very beginning of this campaign, we made it a priority to know what are the best practices throughout this country in running big cities,” Fenty said last week during a news conference in Manhattan with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The District’s Democratic mayoral nominee, who still must win the Nov. 7 general election, has made stops in Chicago, Baltimore and New York in the last month.
Fenty’s staff also is fanning out with trips to Atlanta and Boston.
The brief jaunts are mostly business, chock full of meetings with mayors, school managers, public-safety leaders and their underlings — anyone who can offer a notion on effective government operation. Discussion topics range from mayoral control of the public schools to homeland security and community policing.
“I think it’s refreshing that he’s taking a look at things,” said James Kee, professor of public policy and public administration at George Washington University.
“He’ll have to find his own style as mayor, but getting a feel from others around the country is probably not such a bad idea.”
There are closer places for Fenty to turn as he looks for support.
The D.C.-based U.S. Conference of Mayors, for example, provides training and research for big-city mayors on such topics as community policing, HIV/AIDS, energy and the environment, the homeless and domestic violence.
The conference Web site offers a comprehensive “best practices database.”
But Fenty appears to enjoy his treks, picking the brains of future colleagues on their home turf. And, perhaps, they can learn something from the 34-year-old District native as well.
“We all have to learn from each other and work together,” Bloomberg said.
“For all I know, some of the ideas that if he gets elected he and his staff come up with will be useful here.”
For Fenty, money not an object; candidate has strong war chest
Adrian Fenty, the Democratic nominee for mayor, is financing his big-city tour with campaign cash, dollars he continues to pile up despite an overall slowdown on the stump.
Though he faces Republican and Statehood Green opposition on the Nov. 7 ballot, Fenty won’t need to campaign nearly as extensively as he did for the primary election.
A mailing here, a handful of Robocalls there and he should have himself a landslide victory.
That said, the presumptive mayor-elect — or as Mayor Anthony Williams calls him, “tantamount mayor” — is still picking up checks both at home and on the road.
Businesses who didn’t support his primary effort are forking over thousands of dollars, and his on-the-road fundraisers, like the Oct. 16 event at the New York Athletic Club, are a popular draw.
On Oct. 10, Fenty reported $460,000 in cash-on-hand, most coming in after the Sept. 12 primary.
Fenty also could afford to take some time off from work, if he wants to relax a little before running headlong into the craziness of transition. His $92,520 council salary, plus his wife Michelle’s pay as a lawyer with firm Perkins Coie, should tide him over well.
– Michael Neibauer
