Promises, promises.
I know from bitter personal experience that setting expectations too high is the path to ruined relationships.
I am habitually late, occasionally promise to show but don’t, and estimate how much time it will take to write an article, come up short and disappoint editors.
Quit promising, my wife advises. Wish I could.
And so it was quite predictable that D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee was going to infuriate some parents when she announced this week that three schools she and Mayor Adrian Fenty had promised to build by date certain would be, well, postponed.
Grand plans to replace Bruce-Monroe Elementary will have to be put off for years. Ditto promises to put students back into Brookland and Turner Elementary.
Much is at stake here for our young mayor. He has staked his reputation on his ability to deliver on promises to rebuild schools and fields. He rolls out of bed every morning with the expectation of shoveling dirt as he announces a new project or cutting a ribbon at one just completed.
His detractors — council members and mayoral wannabes — might sense weakness or the closing of the money spigot. I hate to disappoint, but this ain’t no gotcha moment. In trying to sort out the broken promises, I found a complicated story and some shenanigans, but no clear villains — unfortunately.
First the shenanigans. When it came to redoing Bruce-Monroe, a building on valuable property on upper Georgia Avenue, Fenty wanted to do a public-private deal with a developer. First he wanted to tear down the old building. He tried to pay for the demo by switching funds from the Child and Family Services Agency budget. Lawyers with the chief financial officer said that would be illegal. He argued; they won. That little glitch slowed the project, and the city is still looking for a developer.
Parents and students at Turner Elementary in Ward 8 might get their school built on time. Stay tuned to school building czar Allen Lew, who is scheduled to testify on the work schedule Wednesday before the city council. Even the Brookland project in Ward 5 might get funded.
So was Rhee talking out of turn and unnecessarily inflaming parental passions?
Facts are Lew’s operation has been stellar. Bruce-Monroe was never in his realm. Even if he’s off schedule with Turner and Brookland, he’s made so many families ecstatic in all the schools and fields his people have completed that a couple of glitches don’t really register. Count them: Lew’s office has fixed bathrooms in every school, renovated about 20 and built three. It has cost millions and will continue to need funds. But the funds come from the capital budget — the same that pays for bridges and streets — and it is fully funded this year and next.
Fenty would be in trouble if Rhee and Lew were at war.
“I’m good with Allen,” Rhee tells me.
“We support each other,” Lew says of Rhee and Fenty. “Our relationship is excellent.”
The building — and the promises — will continue.
E-mail Harry Jaffe at [email protected].
