When Adrian M. Fenty arrived in the mayoral suite with his now-infamous assistant, Dan Tangherlini, and his bulldog legal counsel, Peter Nickles, he must have decided the first order of business would be rearranging the government landscape. He has aggressively re-established executive prerogatives, expanded his field of authority and placed handpicked sentries at every door.
His imprint hasn’t just been placed on a Columbia Heights soccer field. Fenty has marched through the government, leaving his mark on everything, including independent agencies once considered untouchable. Loyalists have been left to ensure captured territory doesn’t fall into others’ hands. The Shermanesque campaign has been breathtaking.
Fenty gained control of the D.C. Public Schools and nearly every other aspect of the city’s education apparatus. The convention center now is firmly in his hands, as is the sports and entertainment commission.
He named earlier this month a new director for the Water and Sewer Authority. That was made possible after the regional authority’s chairman — another Fenty appointee — orchestrated the resignation of Jerry Johnson, its former head.
Last week, the man the mayor chose to lead the public housing commission did what he was sent there to do: He pushed out longtime Director Michael Kelly. It appears that the person who eventually will fill that post is David Jannarone; he currently works in the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development.
Fenty said in 2007 when he began his tenure that he wanted to go farther faster. Unlike a former president, he actually can claim “mission accomplished” — although the results still are questionable.
Politicians and political operatives may marvel at Fenty’s unequivocal dominance. After all, he was cast as a neophyte sure to be overshadowed, perhaps overwhelmed, by the legislature. Oddly, just the opposite has happened.
The D.C. Council has permitted itself to become muddled in the mundane and the insignificant. All too often, it has rendered itself impotent, despite its considerable power. For example: Fenty and D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee announced last week the system was short of funds and would begin laying off teachers. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray’s response was to release a statement, which when distilled and translated, essentially said the mayor and chancellor were being dishonest, and don’t blame us for the firing of teachers. He didn’t even pledge to investigate the education reform duo and their alleged shenanigans.
Fenty repeatedly taunts the legislative branch, blatantly violating its directives and local laws. He has continued to privatize day care services previously provided by the Department of Parks and Recreation despite legislation prohibiting such action. The council’s response — aside from its perpetual whining and handwringing — was to hold a public hearing.
I like the mayor; I don’t endorse everything he does. But, even as I favor Fenty, there isn’t any question that neither the city nor democracy is well served by an unchecked executive.
Jonetta Rose Barras, hosts of WPFW’s “D.C. Politics With Jonetta,” can be reached at [email protected].
