Thinking Ahead: the Confident Mayor Muriel Bowser

“When you’re the mayor, you know, that’s where the buck stops. There are a lot of big decisions I have to make every day. The thing about making decisions is that some people are going to be happy and some people aren’t. I feel very comfortable. I tell people, even in the most difficult, challenging times we’ve had, that I’m glad that I am the one sitting here making the decisions.”

That was Muriel Bowser, talking with The Georgetowner in her offices in the Wilson Building near the end of her first year as mayor of the District of Columbia. In a Dec. 21 interview with senior writer Gary Tischler and editor-in-chief Robert Devaney, part of a blitz of end-of-the-year interviews she did with various news outlets in the city, she spoke with a solid self-confidence. The singular impression was that there was no question in her tone or her answers to questions that she owned the office and the job.
The attitude and the confidence seem part of an evolutionary public process for Bowser, as well as Washington, D.C. She, and especially the city, have changed greatly since she first came into the political radar as a public figure.

Bowser’s time in the public eye in the District of Columbia has been relatively brief as political careers go. On paper — despite her climb from a serene Ward 4 upbringing, to a successful educational and professional life, to an advisory neighborhood commission seat, election and re-election, to the ward’s city council seat, to a successful run for mayor of the city — she is still at something of a getting to know you stage, a work in progress.

That impression may still exist for some District residents, but after a little over a year as D.C.’s mayor, you get the idea she knows exactly who she is and that she belongs where she is.

The confidence that you see and hear during the interview is the same that we’ve seen in her forays all over the city — because it’s an aspect of the job she loves and has grown into with enthusiasm.

If you check out her recent schedule, you get a good sense of her energy and visibility: on Dec. 29 she signs her body-worn camera legislation; on New Year’s Day she hosts the Second annual Fresh Start 5K Run/Walk; Jan. 4 she kicks off her Safer, Stronger DC Tour and pushes the District Council to act immediately; on Jan. 6 she launches a robbery intervention task force after a noticeable rise in robberies in the city; on Jan. 7 she announces the appointment of the Director of the Office of Unified Communications; Jan. 8 she makes a traditional wager with her counterpart in Green Bay, ahead of Sunday’s Redskins-Packers playoff game (Green Bay won, in case you missed it); and also on Jan. 8 she talks about the District’s anti-human trafficking efforts.

It’s a mix of motion, all over the city, a visible effort to show that things are getting done, that she’s responding to public safety needs, to crime and is initiating new policies — that she’s on the move. But it’s also something she clearly enjoys and handles deftly, as we’ve seen from her appearances in Georgetown Citizens and Business Association meetings and elsewhere. But it’s also something she’s grown at ease and comfortable with because she enjoys doing it.

“I do love that,” she told us. “I love community meetings, that’s where the rubber meets the road.”

She has, it’s been generally acknowledged, built a solid administration and team, and made allies out of one-time opponents. Both former Ward 6 Council Member Tommy Wells and prominent district restaurateur Andy Shallal are members of her administration, and Ward 2 councilman Jack Evans, who ran against her for mayor, are now key allies on the council.

“I’m a very hands-on person,” she said. “I have a great team, they’re very responsible for their areas of expertise.”

Her confidence has evolved from her first election to the Ward 4 Council seat, which she won with the strong support of then Mayor Adrian Fenty, who was a mentor to her. On the council, she was initially much less vocal. But she grew into that job also, and felt strong enough to take on incumbent Vincent Gray, who operated under a cloud after a lengthy investigation into his campaign that ran straight through the Democratic Primary. Even after winning the critical Democratic primary that had its share of controversy, and sweeping aside David Catania in the general election, there were still plenty of questions of the kind that surround a new mayor.

Since the U.S. Attorney for D.C. declined to indict Gray, it’s become apparent that Gray, who is seemingly not a big fan of Bowser’s, may run for office again — most likely for his old Ward 7, or possibly an at-large, seat. Asked about the possibility of Gray’s presence on the Council, Bowser said, “We’re all trying to work together here, with the council. I think if anyone is going to come in with an agenda to create gridlock at city hall, they are going to lose.”

She had a big year in many ways, as she tackled ongoing issues in sometimes surprising ways — working on the seemingly intractable issue of homelessness, which is linked to the issue of affordable housing; tackling the city’s undeniably dramatic and hopefully unsustainable homicide total for 2015 (162); and negotiating for a Pepco-Exelon merger after an initial deal was rejected by the Public Utilities Commission.

Energy

That deal, because of the way it happened, had its opponents — including some D.C. Council members — who said she had changed her mind about a deal. “I opposed the initial deal. I would say the deal first on the table was not good for the residents of the District of Columbia,” she said.

But she was emphatic that “I negotiated an excellent deal and that is the deal I support. … It secures the energy future for the city. … We now have a deal with that large company [Exelon] and if this doesn’t go through, I don’t think we’ll be in that position in the future.”

Housing and Homelessness

Washington is obviously a city in a state of flux and change and that’s affected the existing population. “Our focus on affordable housing has been robust — we have a $100 million program,” she said. “And we are definitely focused on ending homelessness — and it connects to affordable housing, to transition to affordable houses throughout the city. We’re closing D.C. General as a homeless shelter, and we have an eight-ward strategy to replace it.”

Development

Change has brought both prosperity and, well, change.

“On the business side, we are more attractive. We have a reserve that is the envy of the nation. Our bond status is good.” But with change, there’s a price. “We lost a chunk of our middle class and lost some diversity in our neighborhoods,” she said.
“I feel strongly that Washington is not just the monumental core … but nothing stays the same. That doesn’t mean you throw out the old for the new.”

She’s upbeat about the bigger changes — in Southwest, where “the biggest project on the East coast is the Wharf … The soccer stadium will deliver in 2016, and we’re connecting a missing link at St. Elizabeth’s in Southeast. We’ve got a jewel there with the Mystics (basketball team) practice court.”

Crime

The homicide rate is troubling the whole city — although the deaths have been mostly in Wards 7 and 8. “There’s no single issue and cause for this. We approach it as a comprehensive package, called ‘Safer, Stronger’. We have to deploy more police, have tougher sentences.”

New mayors always have agendas, exude confidence and enthusiasm at inauguration. “We had a lot of things we wanted to do,” she said. “But look what happened. We didn’t even have time to catch our breaths. It started snowing, and then there was the death and the fire at the Metro Station, and we had to deal with that right away.

“You learn,” she said. “I learned a lesson — that in big cities things are always going to happened. You need to be strong, communicate with the public and get back on your agenda.”

In the wake of the death of a black man in the custody of police in Baltimore and the resulting riots, the mayor doesn’t think something like that could happen here. “We need to do a lot of things, certainly, but our police department has a lot better relationship with the community than what existed in Baltimore,” she said. “The police force has earned a certain amount of calm, knowing we will be forthcoming with information to the public.”

Education

She touts the steady-as-you-go approach to school reform and a need to work closer with, and integrate with, charter schools, which are a hefty part of the public school system.

Progress comes in slow doses, over time, and rarely explodes all at once. The streetcar project, still not ready for prime time, is one example. The fight against homelessness remains a work in progress. Sometimes, it’s the little things that count.

Bowser said she was touched when she met a man who had gotten a job after 20 years of homelessness, who told her, “You don’t have to worry about me anymore.”