D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray will for a second consecutive year focus much of his State of the District address on the city’s fiscal health, its school system, crime rate and economic development, a top aide told The Washington Examiner. “The mayor has a general overarching group of themes that he’s talked about before,” mayoral spokesman Pedro Ribiero said. “[The speech] will pull from all of those areas.”
Ribiero said D.C. has made progress in each of Gray’s four major policy areas — successes Gray will tout in his address ?– but acknowledged the city has more work to do.
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| > D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray will deliver his 2012 State of the District address at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Northwest. |
“There’s a lot of work still going on, but we have most certainly made progress,” Ribiero said.
Ribiero pointed to lower unemployment and homicide rates and an increased fund balance — the District’s version of a savings account — as evidence that the city has moved forward under Gray.
Still, other, longer-term ambitions Gray spoke about in 2011 — including having top-tier schools and equal quality of life on both sides of the Anacostia — remain elusive.
Gray will give his assessment of the District on Tuesday — four days ahead of the One City Summit, which he has billed as “a frank and open conversation.” That meeting may attract as many as 2,000 residents for a daylong discussion about the city’s future.
Although Gray ran for office on a “One City” platform, Democratic political consultant Chuck Thies cautioned Friday that the theme has grown stale.
“I don’t think is going to impress that many people a year later,” Thies said of Gray’s philosophy. “A successful speech, I think, will be about the people in the city who most depend on city services.”
Although the substance of Gray’s address will be similar to past speeches, the 69-year-old mayor, a former speechwriter, plans a major stylistic shift from his 2011 appearance: This year’s rendition will be far shorter.
Last year, the prepared text of Gray’s speech ran 8,116 words — more than 1,300 words longer than President Obama’s State of the Union address — and lasted more than an hour.
Gray’s speech on Tuesday will also come about seven weeks earlier than his 2011 address, which he delivered in late March after about three months on the job.
