BaancBlog

Mari posted her Fenty endorsement here. Here’s the editor’s.

Until the last couple of years, the editor was president of the Blagden Alley and Naylor court Association, so he had to pay attention to things like development and liquor licences in the area, among other things, and get guest speakers in to the Association’s monthly meetings. He had Mayor Fenty in twice, about a year apart. Once in the (now defunct) The Space, where the Mayor spoke and answered questions from about 80 people in the round. The second time was when he appeared at the Whitman meeting room with about 100 people. He handled both well, comfortably, and was well briefed beforehand on our concerns. The editor has seen Jack Evans perform that well many times, but not many others. It’s of note that after the Whitman meeting, the Mayor was walked out to a vacant piece of land on Tenth Street and told that the community wanted a park there for the kids we were now seeing more of. He told his people to make it happen, and it is.

The most impressive thing to the editor is the quality of people he picks. Starting at the lower level, with the “constituent services” group, three names come to mind: Joe Martin, Abby Peterson, and Mark Bjorge. The fact that 1218 Ninth Street is still standing and is in fact stabilized is due to Mark and Abby. The pressure on 916 N Street from the US Attorney’s office is Abby. The first round of grafitti removal is Joe. So many walks with inspection teams from DCRA and elsewhere in the DC government to force the cleanup of trash, or unsafe conditions is Joe’s enthusiasm for the neighborhood. Joe likes alleys, trashless alleys. The cross walk markings at Ninth and M are Mark’s doing. There are so many “little” things that got done, and are still being done. In all of the time that Fenty has been in office, there was only once that the editor thought one of the constituent service people wasn’t all that good. He disappeared quickly.

At the higher level, you’ve got Cathy Lanier and Michelle Rhee. The editor remembers when Fullwood was Chief of Police. Those were not good times for MPD, and thus for the neighborhood. Ramsey did good work, as did Tony Williams. They stabilized a bad situation. Lanier has taken several good steps, mostly from the quality of people we see around here in uniform. The change in quality of MPD is striking.

Not having kids, the editor is a bit distant from the schools problem. He also understands that Rhee is taking real risks, and thus so is the Mayor. He obviously has the courage to chance his office on changing the schools for the better. The DC teachers are still a strong voting bloc (even though very many have moved to PG and can’t vote here legally) which has worked hard for the status quo we have had.

The editor has no feel for Vincent Gray. He doesn’t recall any outreach to this community from him in the last four years. (Linda Cropp was here often enough, and knew us well.) The editor’s wife worked in the DC government back when, several levels down from Gray in DHS. She recalls him as smart, sure of himself, and not at all personalble.

Please be polite on the comments.