The streets of Manhattan were impassable for most of this week, which was fine by me. My wife and I trained up during Sunday’s blizzard, bought boots on sale across from Grand Central Station and spent Monday walking 60 blocks up the middle of Madison Avenue, past marooned buses and fishtailing taxis. Fun! But not so great for sidelined New Yorkers who blamed Mayor Michael Bloomberg for botching the basic task of clearing the streets.
My prediction is that the next D.C. snowstorm gets gone in a flash from our streets. Why? William Howland, our snow removal boss. Mayor Tony Williams appointed him to run his public works department in 2004; Adrian Fenty convinced him to stay; incoming Mayor Vince Gray wants him to remain.
I’m hoping Howland stays and betting his crews can remove snow — better and faster than our neighbors in Maryland and Virginia. Howland is one of the reasons I am predicting that the District — once the raw sore in the center of the metropolitan region — continues to grow into the essential core in 2011.
Here are a few more reasons:
» Politics: whether the new GOP bosses in Congress try to shrink the government, remove regulations or kill entire departments, the lawyers and lobbyists who flock to D.C. will feast on the changes.
» Money: Virginia and Maryland continue to suffer from the recession. They are cutting jobs and programs to balance their budgets. True, the District is $188 million in the red, but that’s small change compared to our neighbors’ shortfalls.
The District is recovering quickly. Natwar Gandhi, our notoriously conservative chief financial officer, hinted in his latest revenue report that D.C. is regaining its fiscal strength.
“The report shows that year-to-date revenue is growing once more,” Gandhi wrote this week to the mayor and the council. Federal government employment has grown, unemployment has fallen and the commercial building vacancy rate has declined.
Gandhi is not saying happy days are here again, but the commercial real estate market — our true revenue engine — is revving up again.
» Fenty’s legacy: People are still ragging on the outgoing mayor, but we do have him to thank for fantastic new playing fields and recreation centers across the city. For new schools and school reform. For better public transportation. I would argue that many of D.C.’s more than 30,000 new residents reported by the 2010 Census were attracted to Fenty’s vision for the nation’s capital.
» Vince Gray’s honeymoon: Some new mayors get a few months before critics pounce; Gray will get a full year, because he’s not Fenty, and he knows how to tell people what they want to hear, whether they are black or white, rich or poor. Plus, Gray has made some brilliant moves in building his staff. Allen Lew should make a tough but fair city administrator. Keeping Cathy Lanier as police chief didn’t please the union, but continuity can be good. Letting Kaya Henderson run the schools shows patience and smarts. And Bill Howland knows how to plow — so let it snow in 2011.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
