An excruciatingly slow city response to back-to-back crippling snowstorms will prove another test of Mayor Adrian Fenty’s political dexterity as he runs for re-election with polls showing his popularity in free fall.
Traffic was a mess Tuesday — again — and some side streets remained treacherous. That the main roads were generally clear was of little solace to the D.C. residents still snowed in.
“He has seven months to convince them, but I think people will keep this in the backs of their minds,” Zina Williams, a resident of S Street Southeast just south of Pennsylvania Avenue, said of Fenty. “They’re frustrated.”
Fenty competition in November?
» Council Chairman Vincent Gray
» Businessman Don Peebles
» At-large Councilman Kwame Brown
» At-large Councilman Michael Brown
But the snow has not changed the campaign season story line. The mayor has lost the support of nearly 75 percent of D.C.’s black residents, according to recent polls, yet he still has majority support west of Rock Creek Park, a $3.1 million war chest, a well-oiled campaign machine and no blue-chip opponent for the Sept. 14 primary. Fenty has asked for patience. D.C. is not like Buffalo, N.Y., the mayor said during a recent news conference, “where everyone has a driveway, and everything’s flat.” Snow fell so fast, the mayor said, that plows simply weren’t able to get to the side streets before they froze.
Those are the same talking points offered by the District government following the Blizzard of 1996, a storm from which former Mayor Marion Barry struggled to recover. Linda Grant, spokeswoman for the Department of Public Works then and today, explained D.C.’s struggles to the Los Angeles Times on Jan. 11, 1996: “Because we’re Washington, D.C., and not Buffalo.”
“Unfortunately, our expectations in this city have become so low that we’re actually relieved by incompetence because it’s not gross incompetence,” said Kris Baumann, chairman of the D.C. police union.
Fenty’s daily snow news conferences, most east of the Anacostia River where he is in most trouble politically, have not satisfied residents whose side streets remain treacherous.
“It was a blizzard, but the response from the mayor has been slow,” said David Brewer, a Randle Heights advisory neighborhood commissioner. “He’s putting on a dog and pony show. He’s acting.”
West of Rock Creek Park, where Fenty is strongest politically, grumblings were lower-key.
Cleveland Park has been “incredibly tolerant” of the snow response, and the government has been generally responsive to complaints of untouched side streets and snow-clogged crosswalks and bus stops, said Nancy MacWood, longtime advisory neighborhood commissioner. But patience is limited, she said, and residents expect better for future storms.
