D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray will head to Ward 8 Monday night to answer questions from residents about his 2013 budget proposal, but the timing of Gray’s visit isn’t sitting well with the man once described as “Mayor-for-Life,” Marion Barry.
Barry is running in Tuesday’s primary for a third consecutive City Council term in Ward 8 and said Gray’s visit is interfering with the final night of campaigning.
“The burning question for me is why the mayor insist(s) on having a budget briefing meeting the night before an election that has been scheduled for months,” Barry said in a statement released Monday evening. “I don’t understand it. Absolutely nothing would be lost by rescheduling this meeting after tomorrow’s election. It is regrettable that the mayor apparently fails to understand this very fundamental political protocol.”
Barry said he’d be attending the meeting — scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at Savoy Elementary School — to “raise this question of disrespect.”
Pedro Ribeiro, a spokesman for Gray, dismissed Barry’s complaint.
“This is silly,” he said. “We invited the councilmember well over a week ago and heard no complaints then.”
Gray’s 2013 budget was already a sore spot for Barry, who has said it makes too many cuts in services that benefit his ward, the city’s poorest.
Despite his protests, Barry isn’t interrupting a day packed with campaign events to attend the budget meeting. He was at the Wilson Building earlier on Monday and attended a D.C. Council committee hearing.
