Mayor Adrian Fenty still has the strong support that swept him into office, but as the glow from his first 100 days fades, he may find that Washington’s difficulties are deeper than he first imagined. The following is the first of a two-part report on the challenges that lay ahead.
Mayor Adrian Fenty said his second 100 days in office could be called “going back to school,” but in taking on the District of Columbia’s broken education system, the new leader can’t ignore other pressing matters.
In his first 100 days, Fenty rode a stunning election mandate to win approval of his D.C. schools takeover plan. He was a critical voice in the effort to get the D.C. Voting Rights bill through the U.S. House of Representatives. And he reached a remarkable agreement with the family of slain journalist David Rosenbaum, who withdrew a $20 million lawsuit after Fenty promised to fix the city’s emergency response system.
But after 100 days, political analysts wonder if the 36-year-old is relying too much on his camera-friendly face.
Insiders complain Fenty doesn’t dig into the details, which could hinder his efforts to untangle complexities that confound key city agencies. The administration’s slow response to an ice storm last February raised questions about his ability to handle crises.
Some insiders question Fenty’s management style. One former staff member, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he fears retribution, said that Fenty demands absolute loyalty from his subordinates and is unwilling to work with others. It often leads to problems that others have to clean up, because Fenty loses interest in projects that he starts and his aides don’t dare challenge his lack of follow-through, the former staffer said.
Last year, for instance, his colleagues on the council had to take over a school modernization bill that Fenty had proposed but then abandoned early in its legislative life when his financing plan proved unworkable. The council devised a new financial plan, and the school modernization program is under way.
The energetic mayor also demands that his staff keep up with his grueling pace.
“When I joined the staff, they asked me if I had a girlfriend,” one ex-staffer said. “I said, ‘Yeah, I do.’ They go, ‘Not for long.’ ”
But if Fenty is going to make the nation’s capital world class, he will have to keep his focus and use every ounce of his vaunted energy.
He’s breezed through the first 100 days. The hard part will come in the next 1,343 days.
Metro
Fenty doesn’t havecontrol over the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. But the District spent $198 million on Metro last year and therefore has a vital stake in its operations. Metro approved $70 million in overtime in 2006 and threatened to raise the lowest fares to $2 next year to make up for a projected $116 million deficit.
Fenty, who hired the previous interim Metro chief as his city administrator, said he’s placing his faith in the new general manager and the Metro board to correct the overtime costs. But that hands-off approach has allowed the overtime payment problems to persist for decades. It contributed to hundreds of hourly employees earning six-figure salaries, and permitted the union to negotiate a contract that includes overtime hours when calculating a worker’s pension.
Taxpayers could pay for this lack of oversight for generations.
Police
The District’s one-of-a-kind police booking system requires officers to take their reports to the courthouse and meet with prosecutors. Rank-and-file officers and their new chief, Cathy Lanier, say it is costly and a morale-buster. It takes hundreds of cops off the street and costs the District nearly $5 million in overtime each year, money that could pay for at least 52 extra officers. The U.S. Attorney’s Office, which has worked with MPD to tweak the system, says it has no plans to do away with the system.
The District also continues to drag its feet on building a DNA lab and training the technicians who will ultimately work there. As a result, thousands of rapes and homicides remain unsolved while the District waits for the FBI lab to work through its monstrous backlog.
Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs
The city’s permitting and licensing agency has enormous power over the daily lives of its citizens. It’s been a hive of corruption and waste for decades. The Examiner has reported that DCRA does not conduct background checks on the city’s inspectors, even though they wield law enforcement badges and can have builders arrested who don’t obey their orders. Because of the lax hiring procedures, one building official who spent years in prison on felony gun and drug charges became head a critical department. He’s now under investigation by the FBI and entangled in a legal battle with developers that could cost the District millions.
The good news: Fenty recognizes that the DCRA is a mess, comparing the permitting and licensing agency to the D.C. schools, but without kids. The bad news: The problems run so deep that his administration is having difficulty finding someone from outside the department to take the director’s job.
Real estate
The District’s economy has remained stable in the face of slipping residential real estate market. But there are signs that the flush times of recent years are fleeting, which would force Fenty to buckle down on a local budget that has ballooned from $3.4 billion in 2000 to nearly $6 billion today. The proposed fiscal 2008 spending plan forecasts growth through 2011 “at steady, albeit more moderate rates” than the previous two years.
The budget document warns of “signs that the District’s economy could weaken and perhaps fall behind growth in the national economy.” The rate of employment growth is behind the national standard, the residential real estate market is soft, hotel stays are falling and “the rate of increase in federal spending appears to be slowing.”
Budget
Fenty’s cause hasn’t been helped by D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi, who publicly waffled on whether the new mayor’s budget was balanced. Last summer, when Fenty emerged as the favorite to win the mayor’s race, Gandhi ridiculed the mayor-to-be and warned his staff to prepare for battles because Fenty’s proposals weren’t practical. Now some council members say his first budget plan could be in the red by $30 million or more.
Fenty has already promised that he won’t ask for more money for the District’s schools next year, but he changed the school’s funding formula drastically by basing it on a projected decline in attendance.
District Council Member Tommy Wells said Fenty’s aides told him they didn’t even write the proposed schools’ budget — bureaucrats in the city finance office did.
“It gives me great concern,” Wells said. “I don’t know — and our parents don’t know — what went into this thing.”
Staff Writer Bill Myers contributed to this report.
