It appears D.C. Mayor Vince Gray had few plans in place when he announced earlier this month that there would be a day just for D.C. residents to visit the soon-to-open Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall.
“We’re trying to do three months in three weeks,” Gray’s director of community affairs Stephen Glaude told The Washington Examiner on Thursday.
Gray announced “D.C. Day” on Aug. 10 with plans to give out thousands of tickets to ensure the early preview of the memorial set for Aug. 23 would be open only to D.C. residents. On Tuesday, though, he rolled the plan back, saying there was too much interest to give out tickets. He also noted limiting access only to D.C. residents to a national monument would be illegal. The event is still called D.C. Day, but it’s now open to everyone.
| D.C. Day details |
| > 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., Tuesday |
| > 2,000 people an hour can move through the line at the Memoral. |
| > City officials suggest arriving no later than 9 p.m. Anyone in line at 10 p.m. when the event ends will be sent away. |
The original plan for Aug. 23 was for it to be a continuation of the low-key opening for Aug. 22, Glaude said. That changed earlier this month when the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Foundation suggested to the mayor’s office that District residents have a day for themselves so they wouldn’t feel left out of the Aug. 28 dedication if they couldn’t get tickets, he said. The foundation is organizing the events leading up to the dedication, which will include a speech from President Obama. The foundation did not respond to a request for comment.
“Everything is sort of last-minute,” a high-ranking Gray administration official said. “[D.C. Day] is a good idea, but you need more planning for something like this.”
D.C. Council staff members in several offices said they never received notice of where to direct constituents interested in obtaining D.C. Day tickets. The mayor’s spokeswoman Linda Wharton-Boyd said the plan was for the tickets to be distributed via the Internet and printed at home.
Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans said he learned about D.C. Day from the newspaper.
“When they have events of this type they typically notify us,” Evans said Thursday. “At this point, I have not been notified of anything.”
Glaude said after the ticket plan fell through, “the mechanics sort of unraveled.”
D.C. Day will now be marked by Gray and Cabinet members making appearances at the memorial, he said.
