There was no pomp and no spectacle, but just after 8 a.m. Tuesday, leadership of the District government was transferred from its two-term boss to a 36-year-old political phenomenon holding a voter-driven mandate for change.
Joined by his wife, Michelle, his parents and his mother-in-law, Adrian Fenty was sworn in as mayor during a private ceremony administered by Chief Judge Eric T. Washington of the D.C. Court of Appeals.
He then was whisked off to the Washington National Cathedral for the funeral of President Gerald Ford.
The national day of mourning closed the city government on Fenty’s first day and pushed back the public swearing-in and inaugural address until 10 a.m. today at the Washington Convention Center. But the executive’s transformation was immediate nonetheless.
The photo on the District’s Web site of former Mayor Anthony A. Williams was replaced with a shot of Fenty, grinning wide. The mayor’s press room teemed with Fenty news releases. And the biographies of new agency directors supplanted those of the old.
Fenty, whose official duties started at noon, has already named 43 members of his Cabinet. His first official act was to sign seven executive orders formalizing his appointees, including Police Chief Cathy Lanier, City Administrator Dan Tangherlini and Fire Chief Brian Lee.
Fenty’s “bullpen” headquarters, which will allow him to sit among his deputies, will open today on the third floor of the John A. Wilson Building. A similar layout in New York City has been praised by some, who see it as an end to back-room governance, and criticized by others, who find it difficult to work with Mayor Michael Bloomberg constantly looming.
The District’s new mayor, who declined to answer questions Tuesday, is expected to unveil his long-awaited education and community policing plans within days, with other reform efforts soon to follow. The education proposal, which must be approved by the D.C. Council and Congress, would place direct oversight of D.C. Public Schools in the mayor’s hands. The Board of Education would become an advisory body, and the superintendent would report directly to the executive.
A “striking mayor” with strong local ties, Fenty has a “glamor that suggests a strong political future,” said Lorenzo Morris, chair of Howard University’s political science department. Having won all 142 precincts in both the primary and general elections, Morris said, Fenty comes into power with an unprecedented popular mandate.
“It allows for a kind of unity of action that suggests that an otherwise financially solvent agenda … would receive fairly unanimous or strong council support,” he said. “There is no electoral basis for opposition to him because he won in every electoral district.”
