For a graduating senior, the occasion often presents itself when gratuitous reflection on the last four years seems somehow warranted. This seems especially true of those who count themselves amongst the ranks of the print media, and so I will try my hardest to ignore the temptation to indulge myself in the basest form of commentary, the war story. Instead, I will use this opportunity to take a more circumspect look at the state of affairs in Washington, D.C., the city we all call home. For those in the class of 2001, we can truly say that we have seen an unprecedented turnaround in the condition of the city, on nearly all fronts.
Seniors and a few juniors will remember the reign of Marion Barry, prior to current Mayor Anthony Williams. Barry gained national prominence in the early 1990s, when, as Mayor, he was arrested during an undercover sting operation for cavorting with prostitutes and using cocaine. After serving time for his crime, he was re-elected to office for an unprecedented fourth term in 1994. During that time D.C. sunk to its lowest point. Washington was named the nation’s murder capital. The debt ballooned out of control. In 1996, Congress imposed a Financial Control Board on the city, effectively stripping the mayoralty of much of its power.
During this cauldron, Anthony Williams decided to run for Mayor in 1998. He was a former Chief Financial Officer of the city, brought in to balance the District’s books. During the Williams years, the District began to slowly climb out of the hole it had dug itself during the late 1980s and early 1990s. The influx of Internet money from the Dulles corridor of Northern Virginia and the biotechnology firms of Montgomery County in Maryland helped the financial statements considerably. The fiscal discipline mandated by the Financial Control Board did ensure that the city would stay on track, although no one in the Mayor’s office will grant such a compliment to their archenemies.
At the very least, Williams deserves credit for being the figurehead of the renaissance. His image demonstrated the District was no longer run by corrupt cronies of an alcoholic mayor. This new brand of bow-tie diplomacy took the District a long way. Earlier this year, it was announced that Washington had posted a fifth consecutive year of running a budget surplus, triggering the end of the Control Board and returning control of the city to the Mayor and the City Council.
If Williams is to take the credit for the financial turnaround of D.C., he should also take the blame for the continued failure of the D.C. Public Schools. Washington provides its children with a poor education, and even the institution of a federally-appointed “schools czar” did not turn the school system around. Now that the budget is on sound financial ground again, Williams must turn his full attention to the most important government service of all, education.
At the back end of four years, I can say our city is a better place to live today than it was when I moved here. While that observation should serve as congratulations to all branches of the District government for a job well done over that period, it should not be taken as a call to complacency. As long as the District continues to fail to provide a quality education for its children, its government can be thought of as little more than a failure itself. And with that decisive proclamation on government ? la Patrick Henry, I sign off. Thanks for reading.
