Jack Evans Will Not Run for Ward 2 Seat
By • January 16, 2024 0 1671
One of the big 2024 election-year questions — at least for Georgetown and Ward 2 — has just been answered.
Jack Evans, a decades-long resident of P Street NW just a block from Wisconsin Avenue and the longest-serving elected Council member ever (from 1991 to 2020) will not run for public office in the coming election.
“I am working on other things — mainly arts and sports. Now is just not my time to run for office again,” Evans told the Georgetowner on Jan. 15.
A few days earlier, Tom Sherwood had written on the social platform X: “#BREAKINGNews — former DC Council member Jack Evans tells the Politics Hour he will not – will not – run for his old Ward 2 seat against incumbent Brooke Pinto. At this point, she now appears to be running unopposed.”
The statements clear up many undenied rumors that “Jack is planning to run for office again.”
The 70-year-old Evans remains an energetic, friendly, highly sociable person, expected at just about any public event in Georgetown. His presence seems ubiquitous. He openly responds to questions and willingly shares opinions. There is no question he misses being an elected official and was watching carefully how Council member Brooke Pinto was doing in “his” Ward 2 seat.
“In 1991, when I was first elected as city councilman, D.C. was a financial, infrastructure and crime-ridden wreck,” Evans told Carol Joynt, interviewer and neighbor on her TV talk show, “Q&A Café” on April 4. “But by the time I left office, D.C. had been given a triple-A bond rating. The District became a successful city with a well-working city government, repaired infrastructure, full reserves, growing population and prosperity and a low crime rate.”
Evans clearly was very popular among the diverse populations of Ward 2. Until he wasn’t. Suddenly, in 2019, Evans became the most popular bad guy in D.C., accused of wrong-doing, dumped from city committees and forced to resign from others — and required to pay a $20,000 fine.
“So, what happened, Jack?” Joynt asked him in her direct news reporter manner.
“I made a mistake, Carol,” he replied during the show. “No question about it. I apologize for it and acknowledge it. My mistake was forming my own consultant company while I was still in office that gave the perception of a conflict of interest.”
A D.C. probe and a federal investigation were carried out in 2019 (a computer was taken from Evans’s Georgetown home by government agents in a widely photographed raid). On April 14, 2022, the Washington Post reported that the investigations were concluded and no action was taken against him. “That’s it,” Evans said.
Today, in 2024, Evans says he fears things have gotten worse in Washington, D.C.
Crime is rising again, and city revenue is decreasing. The Metropolitan Police Department needs almost 1,000 more officers, he says. “Everyone now agrees we need more. But restrictive policing rules make it very difficult to attract new recruits,” Evans told The Georgetowner.
“The big mistake made by D.C. government the past two years is going on a spending spree with $1.2 billion (that’s with a ‘B’) in federal pandemic grant money. “They spent it all on recurring costs and new programs,” Evans said in April. “You can only do that if you have continuing revenue to keep them going.”
Evans is not going away and is still on P Street where he continued to raise his triplets after his wife Noel died of cancer in 2003. “I will help the city in any way I can from the outside,” he said.
The former legislator will look at how the election possibilities open up on the Council in the years to come. Evans has many friends and supporters, and most voters can be forgiving. It is clear Jack Evans intends to continue to have a voice in his city’s affairs.
