It is rare that voters anywhere get such a clear-cut choice between the old and new, but that is precisely the choice facing District of Columbia voters with the two leading candidates in next Tuesday’s Democratic primary for mayor. Council Member Adrian Fenty represents energy, vision, the new. Outgoing Council Chairman Linda Cropp represents the past, the Barry legacy and the old. With all due respect to Cropp and the other candidates in the race, Fenty is an easy choice.
It is rarer still for voters hungering for a hopeful vision of the future and a candidate with Fenty’s outlook, experience and dynamism to come together just when a long-troubled city seems to be on the cusp of an unprecedented era of economic progress. As Steve Moore, president and CEO of the nonpartisan Washington, D.C., Economic Partnership, recently put it in a conversation with The Examiner, there are so many bright new projects springing up all across the city that “this seems to be D.C.’s time.”
This economic expansion is outgoing Mayor Anthony Williams’ likely chief legacy, and it is no coincidence that new housing on Georgia Avenue and new businesses and restaurants in Brightwood, Petworth and Takoma bear the stamp of Fenty’s energetic support. This economic surge is the first of what can become the three key legs of progress toward a genuine renaissance of the District. With his insistence upon a new politics of accountability, Fenty is the best candidate to build the other two legs — ending forever the District’s reputation as a crime haven and rescuing the District’s school children from the disaster that is the District of Columbia Public Schools.
That accountability means putting police officers on the streets and actually doing community policing. Fenty wants officers on the beat getting to know the people and businesses in their neighborhoods. We don’t expect to see during a Fenty mayoralty public relations crusades that bring officers in from the street to catch up on paperwork. We do expect a Mayor Fenty to hold the current police chief accountable and to replace Chief Ramsey with somebody who can get the job done if he fails.
It is on the schools front that we expect the most dramatic actions from a Mayor Fenty. Two decades of countless DCPS graduates without even minimal reading and math competency levels must end. Fenty has pledged to appoint a new deputy mayor who will be responsible for overseeing the school system, and he has made it clear that he expects positive results, not excuses, evasions or rationalizations for failure from everybody concerned.
Finally, we note that during presentations at The Examiner by all of thecandidates for mayor, we were most struck by the fact that Fenty alone made clear his belief that “the District is the nation’s capital, we have to be the best.” He has thus raised the bar of acceptable performance for everybody in city government. With his abundant intelligence, undoubted energy and obvious clear-eyed determination to succeed, Fenty has what it takes to reach the higher standard.
Think of it — a District of Columbia that offers its residents a vibrant, expanding economy to enjoy in a city whose streets are safe to enjoy day and night and whose schools once again provide parents and students with meaningful choices and diplomas that command respect. We believe Adrian Fenty is the exactly the right man at the right time to lead the city that ought to showcase the best of America to a new day.
