The responsibility for repairing and renovating the District’s crumbling public schools will be handed to a man with a reputation for delivering massive projects on time and on budget.
Allen Lew, chief executive officer of the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission, has won praise for guiding construction of the Washington Convention Center and the Washington Nationals’ new stadium. He will now be expected to do the same for the D.C. Public Schools as director of the new Office of Facilities Modernization.
“Every person in the District of Columbia has their own nightmare of what has gone wrong with facilities and what needs to be improved,” Mayor Adrian Fenty said Thursday during a news conference on the steps of the John A. Wilson Building.
And Lew, Fenty said, is the best person for the job. His responsibilities will include managing the renovation, repairs and maintenance of school buildings, in addition to advising Fenty on which schools to close.
“He knows how to cut through it all and get the job done,” Ward 2 D.C. Council Member Jack Evans said. “Nota man of a lot of words, but a man of action who knows how to get it done and just pushes the project.”
The ultimate direction of the city’s $2.3 billion school modernization program will “reflect the dialogue we have with the community,” Lew said. Right away, he said, he will fix the “unacceptable condition” of long waits for basic maintenance.
He will be paid $275,000 a year.
Gregory O’Dell, the chief development officer in the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Planning, is Fenty’s pick to head the sports commission. He will be asked to finish what Lew started: completing the $611 million stadium by April 2008.
Before joining the D.C. government, O’Dell worked as a consultant on the convention center and the renovation of RFK Stadium.
