Editorials and Opinions

Robert Devaney • August 10, 2011

If you had been standing at the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and R Street in April 2007, staring at the Georgetown Public Library up in flames, with its roof collapsing as firefighters rushed to connect working hydrants and librarians threw damaged documents onto the sidewalk, you had a right to feel depressed. It’s a damn shame to see a library on fire. How and when would we fix this?

Well folks, we did fix it, and we made it better, thanks to all: from the construction workers and library staffers to Mayor Adrian Fenty. This renewal shines as an example of everything and everyone coming together to get the job done. If the fire were to happen today, as Councilman Jack Evans noted, the job may not have gotten done so well.

We are indeed heartened to see the elderly with walkers determined to enter the new library and read the news blogs by college students. Tired of Georgetown University’s Lauringer Library, a student blog posted: “Those who yearn for a more civilized studying experience would be well-advised to head up…to the newly reopened Georgetown Public Library.”

The library is rightfully praised for its latest technology, historic reconstruction, open reading spaces and Peabody Room with rare Georgetown papers and artifacts. We are especially delighted by the artwork in the children’s reading room. Panels with lyrics of the first sentence of “The Star-Spangled Banner” line the wall, and Francis Scott Key is shown reading The Georgetowner Newspaper. So, support the Friends of the Georgetown Library and visit with Jerry McCoy, curator of the Peabody Room to learn about your home and history. Make sure your library card is current. It is time to borrow books—print or digital—and enjoy your beautiful neighborhood library.

Gary Tischler • July 26, 2011

Here we are, into the first spring of the Vincent Gray Administration’s rule. And where are we?

Mayor Gray just got through delivering his 2012 Budget to the City Council and, no surprise, it’s what he describes as a “tough budget”—one that seems to try to be a balancing act between trying to use spending cuts (big time in the social services arena) and tax increases (an increase for individuals earning over $200,000), along with some other strategies and proposals bound to make somebody unhappy somewhere.

The first DC Council meeting on the budget was held on Wednesday, April 6.

The mayor’s budget delivery came shortly after his State of the District speech, one that predicted trouble ahead in terms of the budget, but lauded the district for its progress on many fronts, and still pursued the mayor’s pursuit of his One City dream.

There’s also an election campaign going on: the race to fill the at large city council seat vacated by the current City Council Chairman Kwame Brown. A number of candidates are vying for that seat in a campaign that now looms as a very important race indeed, maybe more important than originally anticipated.

Oh, yes, we forgot something.

We’re still in the midst of an unresolved political/policy/government/Gray administration scandal, which hangs like a sorry cloud of bad weather in the midst of the first spring of the Gray Administration.

No need to go into much detail here except to note that the feds, the U.S Attorney’s Office, the House oversight committee and the city council are all looking at front-page Washington Post allegations made by Sulaimon Brown, who’s alleged that Brown’s campaign promised him a job and gave him money to continue his attacks on Mayor Fenty at candidate forums throughout Brown’s unsuccessful mayoral run.

Underlying these charges have been the high-profile criticisms of Gray’s hiring practices, which saw close associates and friends (his chief of staff, since fired) among them, filling jobs at over-the-cap salaries, sometimes with their relatives.

Those practices are the subjects of two council hearings headed by Ward Three’s Mary Cheh, the second of which was scheduled for Thursday.

Not much other than the hearings—Chief of Staff Gerri Mason Hall was fired right before she was scheduled to testify—has come to the surface on the scandal. That’s because nobody’s talking, especially Gray, who did not address the issue in either his State of the District speech or his Budget report.

Yet the scandal lingers, along with the troubled Chairman Brown over ordering up two bling-type vehicles for his official uses. At large candidates have not been shy about calling for a need to reform political and policy practices at the executive and legislative level without necessarily getting too specific. Not only that, but there’s been a noticeable power vacuum growing on the council and in the city’s political leadership. The major voice on the council isn’t Brown, but folks like Jack Evans, Mary Cheh, David Catania and Marion Barry—for better or worse—with Barry trying out his old race-based scare tactics, or as we called it last time out, divide and con.

This situation doesn’t bode well for budget discussions. We know Mayor Gray would like to appear to be above the tumult, investigations and scandal to better focus on the business of government, but he stood a lot better chance to provide forceful leadership on budget matters the day after his inauguration than he does now.

Brown, for one, is at best hedging on the tax raise for the $200,000 plus club, probably on principal but also because he’s going to need some help just to keep his grip on the council as a chairman. Evans has considerable clout on budgetary matters with his history and expertise and his solid standing in the business community, so he can put up a serious challenge to the proposed raise in taxes on parking garage fees. Probably nobody is going to like the dollar jump in connector bus prices, and the Human Services sectors is slated to provide over half of the cuts in agency spending.

Nevertheless, there’s no getting around the budget and its big deficit—it’s a must-do thing which the council and the mayor will have to come to an agreement on, lest the control board returns. But the Mayor’s description of a “tough budget,” in which sacrifices are to be made by everyone, gets tainted by the ongoing scandal and the furor over the hiring practices. While much has been corrected in that arena—cuts in the salaries and firings—the issue itself hasn’t been adequately addressed by the Mayor, who, while inviting investigations, has said precious little about it. This strikes many as a hunker-down attitude, as if the stress of pressing issues will make everything go away.

And there’s Barry, talking about “the spoils of victory” and conspiracies, as if Tammany Hall were alive and well at the Wilson Center.

We forgot to mention that there’s a poll. Specifically, the Clarus Poll, a research and polling center which polled 500 DC residents and came up with this: Mayor Gray’s approval rating is 31% and his disapproval rating is 41%. His lowest ratings are in the arenas of “appointing the right people to city jobs” (17%) and “living up to high standards of ethics” (23%).

Gray might well be thankful for the presence of Chairman Brown, who got an even higher disapproval rating (43%).

Mayor Gray’s response to the poll was strangely optimistic: In a press release, he said, “I view the Clarus Poll as a barometer of public opinion. The results present an opportunity for me to identify areas in which to win back the confidence of District of Columbia residents. I appreciate those who still stand with me and will continue to work hard to earn the favor of those who may have doubts.”

When it comes to the at large council race, the Clarus Poll showed former Ward 7 Councilman Vincent Orange leading with 28%. Trailing far behind are Sekou Biddle, currently filling the vacant seat on the council with 6%, Republican Patrick Mara with 6%, Ward One activist and ANC commissioner Bryan Weaver with 3%, Josh Lopez with 3%, Dorothy Douglas 2%, Tom Brown 1%, and Alan Page with 1%.

As a result, this is the first time that Vincent Orange has led in a poll in his last two tries for office. But don’t be alarmed. Forty Nine Percent of those polled are undecided on the election, which is April 26.

David Post •

Wall Street can do it. Wall Street owes us. After all, we’re in a national financial mess because of Wall Street. As SNL’s Oscar Rogers says, it’s time for Wall Street to “fix it!!”
How can Wall Street “fix it?” Merge the US and China.

If Wall Street can take a batch of loans from nannies and strawberry pickers who buy $700,000 houses on $14,000 annual incomes with no down payment and convince the world that the batch is no more risky than US Treasury securities, it can do anything.

A merger would solve our budget problems. Let’s examine the synergies – a fancy word for win-win.
The US needs China to make stuff for it. China needs US consumers to buy the stuff it makes. The US buys a lot of stuff from China. Then China sends the money right back, admittedly as a loan, but it does send it back.
The US hates taxes. China’s national tax burden is lower than the US, finally proving that President Reagan was right – lower taxes are the best way to grow an economy.

US manufacturers like low cost land, lower regulatory restrictions, and cheap labor. China has all that.
China’s economic growth rate is 9%. The United States growth rate has been anemic. Average the two, and we’re probably close to the Fed’s target of 3%.

The Chinese control exchange rates and interest rates. The Fed tries to control those in the US, but the average is probably healthy for both.

Chinese students love science and technology and American students love Chinese food and art. Chinese students make good grades, so US schools would report vast improvements. Chinese students love US universities and US universities give boatloads of PhDs to Chinese students.

US kids like to have sleepovers and Chinese parents don’t let their kids sleepover, but since we’re 9,000 miles apart, that shouldn’t be a problem.

As an accounting professor, I know most people hate accounting. Though the percentage of students majoring in accounting has dropped by more than half in the past 20 years, a large percentage of US accounting students and most new accounting professors are Chinese. Even so, most people think accountants can always make the numbers come out right. Consolidation accounting is very difficult to understand, but the basic idea is that when the same company buys and sells to itself, the amount owed and the amount due cancel each other out.

So, merge the US and China. The US deficit goes POOF! Completely offset by China’s surplus. Hooray for accounting! Maybe we can even shed that image of being boring. TV glamorizes doctors and lawyers, and even bachelors and letter-pickers. Imagine a TV show about accountants. Never mind. But, our time has arrived on the biggest stage of all.

Wall Street is always looking for the next big deal and this would be the mother of big deals.
This is a win-win-win. Everyone gets what they want. Wall Street fees and bonuses will make $100 million bonuses look like chump change. The US budget gets balanced. And China doesn’t have to worry about getting repaid.

Gary Tischler •

Mayor Vincent Gray, who has presented himself as a big supporter of the arts, has nonetheless seen fit to include a six percent ticket tax on all ticketed arts events in the District of Columbia as part of his 2012 District of Columbia budget proposal he sent to the city council.

That includes, we presume, all live performances and arts events throughout the District at any venue holding ticketed arts events and performances. While it’s as yet unclear as to what this includes, it likely encompasses major venues like the Kennedy Center, all of the District’s theater groups (Arena Stage, Source Theater, etc.), its dance groups and any ticketed music. Does it include theater and performance events held in schools, museums and churches?

But in short: If you’re buying, you’re paying the 6% tax.

Washington’s arts and theater community such as the Helen Hayes Awards, Cultural Tourism DC and the Cultural Development Corporation have mounted campaigns to stop this from happening.

The proposal, which becomes part of the Fiscal Year 2012 budget unless the council disapproves or eliminates it, comes in a climate that’s been difficult for the nonprofit arts and cultural community, which has seen corporate giving decline and grants from state and federal government sources cut heavily. Especially at the federal government level, tea party mania to reduce government size and spending has hurt the arts throughout the country.

The Helen Hayes Awards has argued against the proposal, arguing it would reduce the number of theater patrons facing choices on spending, which in turn would endanger arts organizations heavily dependent on ticket income.

Fewer theater and performance patrons means fewer patrons for Washington’s large restaurant community, which has drawn heavily from those patrons. If people stop eating out, the District would actually lose money from the loss of anticipated restaurant tax income.

We could not disagree more with the proposed tax, of which the income generated to aid the District’s budget deficit would be negligible. This proposal could indeed damage the performing arts in Washington, and especially its smaller theater and dance groups—not to mention arts education in the schools.

Mayor Gray probably cares about the arts in the District, but this tough love for the arts community, which generates positive tourist income and a highly respected reputation, is not the right cut to make.

While cultural institutions have benefited mightily from the Meads, the Kogods and the Harmans of our community, this sort of thing from the local government seems to be part of a prevailing national mood: When times are tough and the economy is bad, why miss an opportunity to make the arts community take a hit?

I’m sure its not the intention of DC government to do such a thing, but the tax proposal echoes more sinister cuts and outcries from the conservative GOP stalwarts who would like nothing better than to see the government out of the grant business for the arts, and would love nothing more than to eliminate Public Broadcasting, NPR and support for art exhibitions and performance pieces they detest or don’t understand.

This kind of anti-intellectualism has always been a part of the American cultural mosaic in some way or another. What do the arts do here in DC besides bring in tons of tourists?

In hard times like these, they lift our spirits. They provoke us to think and imagine when we most need to, reminding us of the lofty flights of achievement of which we are capable. In the arts, both high and popular, we find reflections of our better angels and our inner selves. We find beauty amid economic struggle. We find created beauty and poetry.

In the 1930s, in the worst times this country had experienced, the government, far from cutting support for the arts, created programs that enlisted poets, playwrights, actors, painters, sculptors and educators to create works of art that became shared experiences for We The People. Evidence of that national spirit, presided over by President Roosevelt, can be found in memoirs, in collective memories, stories, novels, paintings, films, compositions and plays from that era that amount to a kind of golden age. Governments did not hike taxes on ticket prices to movies, to plays or to concerts. You could make a fair argument that because the arts were so accessible to even the poorest, the national psyche weathered the debilitating effects of daily life in hard times.

If you want to voice your opposition directly to the ticket sales tax, you can go to the Helen Hayes Awards website, which includes a petition, an opposition letter template and information on the tax and its effects. Visit HelenHayes.org.

The council is slated to hold final votes on the budget May 26.

Gary Tischler •

This is the time of year when Americans think about presidents—two of them, specifically—and make a holiday out of it. We call it President’s Day.

Usually, it’s about George Washington, the first president, and Abraham Lincoln, the most haunting, memorable president.

This year, it’s worthwhile to think a little broader, farther and wider. Things are happening. For instance, we’ve been thinking a lot about Ronald Reagan on the occasion of the centennial of his birth. The remnants of his family, friends and associates, their memories and stories still fresh, have been talking and writing.

It’s also been the 60th anniversary of the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, and again, memories and meaning were on the airwaves and in the newspapers. Celebrations were held at the Kennedy Center and the National Archives where Caroline Kennedy, JFK’s surviving child, presided over music and introduced the digitalization of the JFK library.

In this country, presidents are ever on our minds, including and especially the current one: President Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, and the first African American President of the United States.

It’s worth thinking about how we feel and think about our presidents—all of them— although its fair to say we hardly think of many of them at all; and that includes both ends of Tippecanoe and Tyler too and the middling to obscure presidents of the 19th century. When is the last time you’ve had a chance to use Chester Arthur in a conversation, or sung the praises of Lincoln’s predecessor, James Buchanan, who, when it came to slavery, was like Scarlett O’Hara? We’ll worry about it tomorrow (meaning, he passed it on to Lincoln).

So, who do we think about? The exultant, vocal members of the Tea Party think and talk a lot about the Founding Fathers—sometimes as if they could read their minds and were on intimate terms with them. In knowing Washington (who just had a 900-plus page biography written about him), John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe, I defer to the Tea Partyists. I know one thing about them, and that is that not a’ one of them dreamt, thought, or talked about becoming President of the United States, which is now a cherished dream and opportunity among the entire American citizenry instilled from birth. “Some day, you too, can become President.”

When our first batch of presidents was young and childlike, there were in fact no presidents. There was no United States of America. There were only kings, emperors, a few prime ministers, empresses, shoguns, Pashas and fact totems and powers behind the throne, and scattered parliaments here and there.

The president is an invention—our invention. The Head of State as a man (or woman today) of the people, representative of and obligated to the people, doing the people’s work at their sufferance.

But make no mistake about it: when someone becomes president, he becomes someone else, he becomes history, fable, legend, sun king. To regular folks, he becomes myth and savior, priest and devil all rolled into one. Listen to the talk about Kennedy and Reagan these days. They have moved beyond their own history, achievements and failures, into something much larger.

This town is full of statues, of course. Memorials, metaphors and mulch. A bust of JFK sits, wounded-like on the red carpet of the Kennedy Center, which seems appropriate. Reagan’s memorial is a multi-purpose building housing offices, think tanks and every which kind of function. We have the spear of the Washington monument, the rotunda that is the Jefferson, and the Lincoln Memorial.

It’s interesting who we remember and how. There’s a certain commonality among the men we remember most: they seem, and are often remembered as, unknowable. Reagan’s family members and associates, while extolling his chief virtue, which was communicating a boundless American optimism, also remembered a distance within him.

JFK’s chief vices were personal, but what’s remembered was an ability to inspire people with rhetoric and vision. One of his biographies was titled “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye.” And that’s probably true.

Bill Clinton is well remembered today because of his unquenchable thirst for experience and love of the people, a quality that persists as he remains among us. It’s interesting that George W. Bush, whose presence at the recent Super Bowl was hardly noted, has written an autobiography, perhaps prematurely.

We don’t know them. They become changed people. We see their hair change color, and we watch them in crisis, publicly, every day, at press conferences, waving to crowds, collapsing into the presidential bubble that even a visit from Bill O’Reilly can’t dent. I don’t think any of us have ever seen a man endure such a public embarrassment as Bill Clinton did during his impeachment trial, and yet he overcame that bit of history almost in triumph. Richard Nixon, the only man to ever resign the presidency, somehow came back to achieve a distant stature as a member in good standing of the Wall Street legal establishment, and a painful puzzle in history.

The presidency, you have to think, is a kind of trial by fire for an individual, and a good part of it is beyond the President’s control. Think about Obama for a moment: in the wake of his State of the Union message, he appeared buoyant, on the rise in the eyes of the people. Then Tunisia and Cairo happened and has engulfed his attention with results that remain to be seen.

Many of us will have actual memories of several presidents, living and not. It was, for me startling to see a video clip during the JFK library press event showing JFK and Eisenhower talking in the most casual way during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which seemed only like a possible nuclear Armageddon for most people who were alive then, including me.

Ike was my first president, and all the rest followed. But I find myself thinking often, not of them or the Founding Fathers, but of Lincoln. I suspect that’s true for many folks. We gather in his presence often, the place where we try to find succor, inspiration, hope. The place where we can be safely defiant and insurgent in our discontents.

I think Lincoln—also unknowable, but not unaffecting—lived the most intense presidential life in the space of four years that any one person could reasonably fold unto himself. I do not think there has been a man who has experienced more pain, more suffering, and, perversely, historic glory, than Lincoln. He seems a personal man who kept his own pains and memories secret, but took on other people’s sufferings because the moment—that great shattering civil war—demanded it. And it showed in his face, his choice of reading (Bible and Bard), his own words and writing, which were clean like an arrow to the heart.

He was, as Whitman wrote, our captain and remains so. He is the ghost in our history, it’s still restless soul. I think we see that on the Mall, at certain times in our history, in the coil of history’s movement.

He is not a Republican or Democrat, not a Methodist or a Jew, not a frontiersman or an urban legend. He is, for want of a better word, the President as hero. And you know what they say about nations and heroes…

Gary Tischler •

In this age of wall-to-wall news, the results of a special April 26 election to fill a vacated at-large city council seat in Washington, DC is a small matter, probably not worthy of national attention, and barely noted even by city media.

Yet, in Washington, the election on Tuesday, won by the ever-present, two-term city council member (1998-2006) Vincent Orange, is all of a piece. There is a serendipitous, recurring quality to the campaign, which could be said to have begun in early January when Sekou Biddle, a board of education member, was appointed to the seat vacated by Kwame Brown, who had handily beaten Orange in a race for the city council chairmanship back in November.

Our city is the poster child for the notion that all politics is local. People who live here live in distinct neighborhoods, in areas with distinct qualities, atmospheres, residents and histories. However, the elephants in the Washington neighborhoods are the White House next to Lafayette Park, the Capitol Building, and the people who work in it. Those two places, the members of Congress, the government and the President all make us the center of the world, and entangle our daily lives and local politics in larger national and international issues.

The at-large council race didn’t concern too many people in the beginning, nor did that state of mind change—in the final tally of votes, it showed that 9% of eligible voters took part. It did not concern Mayor Vincent Gray or Chairman Kwame Brown much, except that they supported Biddle for the interim appointment, which in the end did not help Biddle.

Folks did come out to throw their hat into the ring: Sekou Biddle, of course; Bryan Weaver from Ward 1, a liberal community activist with smarts to spare; the youthful Republican Patrick Mara, who had once run for an at-large seat before, in which he managed to beat veteran Carol Schwartz in the GOP primary only to lose to well-know independent Michael Brown; Josh Logan, the young, Hispanic Fenty operative; and inevitably, there was Vincent Orange, not in the least deterred by his previous electoral setbacks.

The campaign did not really get rolling until the last two months, with forum after forum popping up all over the city. In such a race, barring some shocking revelations, forums are the medium and the message rolled into one.

Elsewhere things were not so quiet. Mayor Vincent Gray’s inauguration had been a big success, a one-city dream launched in spite of a looming budget crisis. However, things unraveled after that. Unsuccessful mayoral candidate Sulaimon Brown unleashed a stink bomb of a scandal with charges of payoffs and job promises by the Gray Administration, all the while the council investigating Gray’s hiring practices. Kwame Brown, meantime, had his own troubles over ordering up a fully loaded SUV for himself amid questions about missing money from a 2008 campaign.

Investigations, as they say, are ongoing.

The scandals, as they are now lumped, had an effect on the campaign, which eventually had the candidates attacking the ethics of the city council, the administrations, and calling for ethics reform. The once-red-hot education reform issue was still talked about, but at the national level.

Bigger news tends to flatten council races and local governance: the crisis in Japan sucked the air out of local matters for weeks, while the Middle East spring of revolutions and upheaval in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Syria and other places took up everything else for a while. Today there is a daily standing headline in the Washington Post: “Turmoil in the Middle East.”

Besides causing all kinds of havoc in the White House, there is this: the Exxon Station at the end of Lanier Place in Adams Morgan is now selling regular gasoline at $4.45 a gallon. No one knows exactly why, except Glenn Beck, who says it’s the Federal Reserve that’s at the bottom of all financial plagues.

During the courses of the campaign, we have lived through Ann Hathaway’s Oscar gown changes, Lady Ga Ga, Justin Bieber (one of Time Magazine’ s l00 most influential people), and yes, Charlie Sheen and one more yes, Donald Trump.

Lest you think this is of no importance and without connection to politics or daily lives: Sheen, full of tiger blood and whatnot, had a tour date at the DAR, was an hour late, and got a full-scale police escort which he tweeted about. Not only that, but he agreed with Donald Trump that he had problems with the president’s birth certificate.

We will survive Donald Trump, of course. The president has now seen fit to present his long-form birth certificate, berating Trump and the birthers for “the silliness.” Trump is not satisfied, but he wants to run for president anyway. This in spite of the fact that he appeared to have no clue what the constitution said about privacy.

You can suspect that the only time Trump is being genuine is when he stands in front of the mirror in the morning and says “I love you.”

Trump has had low points, but as one GOP said, “you can’t fall off the floor.” Actually, Charlie Sheen proved that you can. He was dumped by one of his porn star consorts.

Then there was the budget crisis—not ours, which is coming up in a hearing soon—but the nation’s. There was a big scare covered to within an inch of its reality by the local press: What will happen if the government shuts down?

Well, for one thing, your trash doesn’t get picked up, which surprised many people who did not know how closely we were sleeping with the enemy.

A breathless near-midnight watch produced a tentative agreement signed on by the President and both parties (with major grumbling by the Tea Party house members). For the District, the result was a kick in the butt: the loss of abortion funding, the inclusion of a Boehner private school funding project, the loss of funding for needle exchange programs. The mayor and a number of council members were so incensed that they got themselves arrested in protest, and were forced to stay incarcerated until 3 a.m.

Mistrust was running so strong however, that many locals saw this as a political ploy, especially for Gray who needed a good showing somewhere. Biddle also took the jail route. Ward 8 councilman Marion Barry abstained this time.

You can see how the shadow of the budget debate might darken the thoughts of local politicians. What will the city be forced to give up next? Baseball tickets? Home Rule?

With the election looming fast, interest did not materialize in any strong way.

If campaign signs are a measure of community interest, this is what it looked like on Lanier Place: Several signs for Weaver (he is, after all a local boy), one for Biddle, a number of those ubiquitous “Don’t’ Tread on DC” signs (which now reek of irony, given the voter turnout), and a goodly number of “Scoop your Dog Poop” signs.

The election was held with another horrible and deadly weather story in progress in the South. The turnout was low. Vincent Orange was back on the council.

So it goes. All the news that wraps around itself.

Gary Tischler •

Mayor Vincent Gray took time to visit with the Kalorama Citizens Association this week. His arrival still seemed curious, even to himself, as it often is with newly minted and elected officials. And it’s already almost March.

“I remember this was one of the first places I came after I made my announcement to run for mayor,” he said. “Wasn’t even a year ago.”

He laughed to himself a little. “Seems more like 10 years ago, to tell you the truth.”

Since the triumphant elections, (the Democratic primary upset of incumbent Mayor Adrian Fenty) and the celebratory inauguration, reality has set in to some degree, much like the kind that’s setting in all over the country.

“I wish I came bearing good news,” he said. “But we’re in the same boat as everyone else. We have a major budget deficit to deal with and everyone is gong to suffer some. It’s about sharing the suffering.”

“It’s happening to everyone—look at our surrounding jurisdiction, look at Maryland, look at New York State and New York City where I just talked with Mayor Bloomberg who’s facing a huge deficit. We all commiserate. In Illinois, they balanced the budget—by raising the state income tax to over 60 percent. So these days it’s tough being a legislator, it’s tough being mayor, it’s tough making the hard decisions. But we’re going to do it, and we’re going to get through this.”

He said the city is facing a 2012 deficit of $500 to 600 million. “That means we’re facing severe cuts while trying to find ways to raise additional revenues.”

Gray said that he does not anticipate a control board takeover of the city. “It’s very simple,” he said. “I know people worry about it. That’s one of the constraints on our government that others don’t have. If we don’t balance the budget, we lose control. The reason that won’t happen is that I will never, never allow that to happen.”

“This is going to be about shared sacrifices and shared decisions,” he said. “One of the biggest problems we have is that we’ve spent down our fund balance account, basically our savings account. That’s how we managed to balance the budget the last few years. Now we’re looking at for 2012 a possible deficit in the neighborhood of $600 million. I always see this thing when I go around talking about cuts and sacrifices—and people nod their heads, they say yeah. But then [they say] not in my neighborhood, not my program, not this place.”

He continued: “There will be severe consequences, but we have no choice.”

“The good news is that our bond rating is not down. But we have an unhappy prospect and duty in front of us. It’s going to be difficult, but we will get through it and come out ahead at the end of it all. But for now and the next few years, no question things will be difficult.”

Gray appears to be turning into a passionate advocate for statehood. “Look at what’s happening,” he said. “They (the House) want us to eliminate anything to do with abortion; they’re telling us we can’t fund our needle exchange program, which is so effective in combating AIDS here. Mind you, they’re talking about what we can do with OUR money.”

“How much longer are we going to put up with this?” he asked.

He’s often said he’ll be an advocate and a strong one, but he wants people behind him. “I don’t understand the apathy about this,” he said. “We have the right—the duty—to make decisions about how we spend our money, and yet nobody seems to care. There’s always the same people who speak passionately about this. Look what’ s happening in the world, in Egypt, in Tunisia, all over the Middle East. People demonstrating for liberty and freedoms, including some freedoms that we ourselves don’t have here. Where’s our outrage? There’s no self-government, Lincoln said, unless everyone participates.”

His talk, with some question and answer time, came at a meeting that resembles other such meetings across the city—the body civic taking on such issues as noisy bars, which is a big topic in Adams Morgan where bars and night life are a large part of the commercial economy, but also a major quality of life nuisance for residents. It’s an eternal battle that reflects itself in other areas of the city, including Georgetown. There’s concern about shuttered storefronts—an increasing number here—and who here is going to be asked to share in the sacrifice.

“I’m not contemplating across-the-board cuts,” Gray said. “I think this is going to be a strategic approach. There are some cuts it just doesn’t make sense to do—we can’t eliminate job training and expect to deal with the several unemployment issues in our poorer wards, for instance.”