Jack Evans understands what ended the political careers of past D.C. Council incumbents like Harold Brazil and Charlene Drew Jarvis, both of whom were knocked off in primaries: They got lazy.
“I’m taking this campaign very seriously,” said Evans, a 17-year Ward 2 councilman and resident of Georgetown. “It’s very easy when you’ve been around as long as I have to be complacent.”
Evans faces Cary Silverman, a resident of Mount Vernon Square, in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.
“I don’t think we’ve had someone who’s been a real hands-on, neighborhood-focused council member for the last couple years and that’s what drove me to run,” said Silverman, 32, a lawyer with the firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon.
Both men agree that the ward faces myriad challenges. But Silverman has attempted to frame Evans, who maintains a job as a lobbyist at Patton Boggs, as a comfortable “part-time” council member too focused on big business and big projects — public financing for Nationals Park, for example — while residents and small businesses suffer.
Running on his experience but still knocking on doors, the 54-year-old Evans holds a 12-fold advantage in fundraising and has the big name backing of Mayor Adrian Fenty, council colleagues, most unions and the business community.
Silverman is the grassroots foot soldier — he rides a bike, actually — who has taken his “message of change” to the streets. His list of endorsements includes community activists Rob Halligan and Peter Rosenstein.
A few key issues:
» Crime is down in Shaw, Evans said, thanks to the introduction of ShotSpotter, street cameras, truces among street crews and a larger police presence that he championed. “Tell it to my neighbor who has a small kid and just got a bullet through her window,” responded Silverman, who lists “safer neighborhoods” as a top campaign issue.
» Silverman argued that Evans, as chairman of the finance and revenue committee, should have detected the $50 million tax office theft through his oversight. Evans answered that no one would have caught the city’s largest-ever scam “without someone coming forward.”
» Evans “gave away the store” on the $611 million stadium financing deal and is responsible for “running up the debt on the District’s credit card,” Silverman charged. But Silverman, Evans said, is demagoguing the issue. The District’s finances have drastically improved in recent years and are in no way hurt by the ballpark, the incumbent said.
