Once a week throughout his two terms, District Mayor Anthony Williams has made himself available to the D.C. press corps for a verbal flogging known as the weekly press briefing. But the back-and-forth bickering and deposition-like atmosphere came to an end Wednesday as Williams prepares to leave office.
“Dorothy, I love you,” Williams said to Dorothy Brizill, co-founder of watchdog DC Watch and the mayor’s longtime nemesis. “I have nothing else to say. We’re going to have regular briefings, just Dorothy and I.”
For his final news conference, Williams teased the reporters who cover his officeon a daily basis. He presented a video featuring years of briefing highlights, including countless deep sighs, unusual analogies, obscure quotations and moments of dry wit.
And he reflected on his time in the chief executive’s office.
“It’s been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I believe that what we’ve done over the last eight years, above and beyond everything else, is we’ve restored a sense of hope and belief that we can be the very best city in the world,” he said.
The mayor said he is most proud of increasing resources for human services, improving customer service, upgrading the child support and adoption system and raising expectations of the nation’s capital. He will miss, he said, the “breathtaking sweep” of the job — attending a party with heads of state one day and having a car towed or a street cleaned.
“That’s a sense of power,” he said. “You can actually do something.”
He said he regrets his failed attempt to move the University of the District of Columbia, and the 2002 petition fiasco that left him off the mayoral ballot. The “Machiavellian intrigue and personal attacks,” he said, he will miss least.
Williams said he hasn’t decided what to do next, but he’s aiming for something in the nonprofit sector. He declined to pledge, once and for all, that he would leave his rented Foggy Bottom apartment for a new home.
“I’m not going to even talk about making a commitment to buy a house,” he said. “I’ve spent eight years and haven’t done it. You wouldn’t believe it if I did anyway.”
