Journalists thrive on conflict.
So it is with a certain degree of self-sacrifice that I offer a holiday proposition: District leaders who have been gnawing at one another for the past year should meet and work out their differences. It would be bad for the news business, especially for this columnist; but it would be beneficial for the city and its residents – especially now that Washington, D.C., long thought to be immune to recession, is beginning to show signs of diminishing cash flows and tax revenues.
Here are four pairs of pols who need to lay down arms, call a truce, rise above their petty jealousies and start working together.
• Let’s begin on the money side, with Natwar Gandhi and David Catania.
Gandhi is the city’s esteemed chief financial officer; Catania, the well-regarded at-large council member. He once referred to Gandhi as the “chief fictional officer,” because Catania believes Gandhi makes up revenue estimates.
Gandhi, despite the corruption scandal that rocked his tax and revenue branch, deserves much of the credit for changing the District from a financial basket case to a government with the best fiscal health in the region. Catania is the most diligent and independent member of the council. He has done for the city’s health care services what Gandhi has done for its finances.
Both are fiscal conservatives. Both want to make sure D.C. doesn’t overspend at a time of shrinking tax revenues. Both are steeped in the history of the city’s financial crash a decade ago.
Time for these two gentlemen to quit contending and join forces. Lunch, anyone?
• Kwame Brown chairs the council’s economic development committee; Neil Albert is the city’s deputy mayor for economic development. Brown is a homegrown leader, schooled in D.C. and steeped in its neighborhoods; Albert, a New Yorker by birth, loves to make development deals across town. Brown wants to make sure the community is involved and D.C. residents share in the deals. Albert and his people have come to see this as meddling; Brown often feels he’s the last to know about the deals.
A truce could be worked out through monthly meetings where Albert unveils his latest deals, and Brown airs any concerns. Why not?
• In my crime reporting, I have come to see Police Chief Cathy Lanier and police union chief Kris Baumann as the two people most deeply concerned about keeping residents safe. Yet the fact they are essentially at war diminishes their ability to achieve their shared goal. Time for the city to negotiate a fair deal with the police union, time for the union to back the chief, time for Lanier and Baumann to find common ground for the common good.
• Above all, Mayor Adrian Fenty needs to quit seeing council Chairman Vince Gray as a threat and start seeing him as an ally.
Peace between the top pols would make any political or fiscal crisis much easier to solve.
Each truce could start with one call. Who’s first?
