MAYOR BARRY DEPARTS
WALSH, EDMUND
MAYOR BARRY DEPARTS by Edmund Walsh THE NATION’S CAPITAL under Mayor Marion Barry is the laughingstock of urban America, notorious for crime, corruption, mismanagement, dangerous schools,...
...This feeling, though, is hardly universal...
...Her hometown fervor also fires her attacks on Williams, the Democratic nominee in a Democratic city...
...One activist praises him as “a systems man” who puts “first things first...
...This may make her a hypocrite, as independent candidate Brian Moore points out, but it’s a position that most Washingtonians share...
...Schwartz’s prescription for government renewal...
...The conservative Washington Times gave him its endorsement...
...Department of Agriculture, Williams didn’t establish residence within its borders until he was named CFO...
...politics, on which this piece drew...
...She understands that people have learned to expect little from the D.C...
...Williams’s Republican opponent is councilwoman Carol Schwartz, who gave Barry a run for his money in the election four years ago...
...pride...
...Schwartz seeks votes by cultivating District pride...
...Former intern Timothy Troha did a study of D.C...
...Williams insists the city has come “far and fast” since he was named CFO in 1995...
...Now Barry—once dubbed “Mayor for Life”—is stepping down, and Anthony Williams, the city’s former chief financial officer, is favored to succeed him...
...But Trey Hardin says the feds are not inclined to “hurry up” the process...
...A bureaucrat who came to the District in 1993 to work for the U.S...
...As D.C.-watching congressional staffer Trey Hardin says, the city’s problems run “from trash collection to tax collection...
...True enough...
...A young woman from the impoverished Anacostia district is supporting Schwartz precisely because of Schwartz’s D.C...
...But unless Washington elects a mayor who is able to overhaul the city completely, living in the nation’s capital will remain a peculiar badge of honor...
...And a young businessman believes that “quiet anger” over the Barry era could spur a revolution, led by an outsider mayor...
...At the same time, Schwartz wants more federal subsidies for the city...
...Now she’s looking for a dividend...
...MAYOR BARRY DEPARTS by Edmund Walsh THE NATION’S CAPITAL under Mayor Marion Barry is the laughingstock of urban America, notorious for crime, corruption, mismanagement, dangerous schools, crumbling streets, teen pregnancy, and poverty...
...He combats the “carpetbagger” tag by asserting that he’s “put my job on the line” by running for mayor...
...In her closing statement to a church group last week, she admonished and challenged the crowd: “Many of you passed me by [in previous campaigns], and your lives haven’t gotten any better...
...Home rule” faltered badly toward the end of Barry’s reign, and Schwartz wants to revive it, wresting authority from the temporary “control board” that Congress established and the president approved...
...Lower taxes, more pay for teachers, and streamlined services...
...Edmund Walsh is an intern at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Whatever the case, Williams’s management style has clearly impressed many District voters...
...She’s confident that a joint bid with Baltimore has a shot at bringing the 2012 Olympics to the capital area...
...Schwartz has indeed invested decades in the District...
...roots...
...This is probably a pipe dream, but Schwartz uses it to stir D.C...
...Williams betrays supply-side leanings in his support for a Washington-only flat tax and a local exemption from the federal capital-gains tax...
...Schwartz envisions a day in which Washington is “a major player in both the national and global monetary markets...
...public schools,” she proclaims—and her audiences instantly grasp the significance of that decision...
...I committed my children to D.C...
...Neither Williams nor Schwartz fully acknowledges (at least in public) the straits in which Washington finds itself...
...Williams also plays the home-rule card, claiming that his whiz-like fiscal management will restore local control two years earlier than expected...
...Maybe so...
...The woman’s husband, a lifelong Democrat, has decided not to vote at all, because Williams is “a tin soldier...
...government, so she touts her 33 years in the city...
...She speaks of a shining future, not present gloom...
...And a D.C.-government employee who used to work for Williams says that she will support Schwartz on the basis of “trust,” believing that Schwartz, having “invested her life” in the city, will be sensitive to residents’ needs...
Vol. 4 • November 1998 • No. 8
