Mayor Anthony A. Williams is suddenly tossing out positive critiques of the yet-to-be-hatched Adrian Fenty administration.

At his weekly press conference, a reporter began a question about schools by mentioning Fenty’s trips to visit with officials in New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco.

“Good start,” Williams quipped. “Got to start traveling early.” After the laughter from the press corps and the dwindling gaggle of Williams’ hangers-on died down, the mayor added: “You know he’s not even in the general election and he’s already across the country.”

The mayor then volunteered that Fenty had indeed managed to make his way up to the sixth floor of the John A. Wilson Building to solicit Williams’ views on mayoral takeovers of public-school systems.

City Desk did some fieldwork this weekend, giving you the most complete coverage of Saturday’s Mayoral Tennis Showdown between Anthony A. Williams and his predecessor, Marion S. Barry Jr. The match was part of the 8th annual Hart to Heart Tennis Experience, a benefit for the Southeast Tennis & Learning Center in Congress Heights.

Hart to Heart is a doubles tournament matching up juniors with adults; for the mayoral exhibition, Williams played with 12-year-old Elizabeth Means, and Barry with her sister, Sarah, 13.

UPDATE, 1:50 P.M.: Resident fuzzyball expert Huan Hsu sez: “god, somebody take aw’s racquet away from him. six double faults is not acceptable at this level. i also like how it took him the entire first tiebreak to figure out that he should keep a ball in his pocket when he’s serving.”

Mayor Anthony A. Williams isn’t taking any chances in his upcoming benefit tennis match against Ward 8 Councilmember Marion S. Barry Jr.

The mayor used his weekly press conference yesterday to announce that he and Barry will play during the Recreation Wish List Committee’s Saturday fundraising event at the Southeast Tennis and Learning Center.

The image of Williams and the 70-year-old former mayor on the court was enough to illicit chuckles from the press corps. But the mayor decided the center-court showdown needed some more hype.

“We will have EMS on call for him,” the mayor said about Barry.

He quickly added that the reference to the delicate condition of the 70-year-old former mayor was “just trash talk.”

The first building bearing the name of Mayor Anthony A. Williams could be in the perfect place for a guy who set the standard for D.C. mayoral travel: Accra, Ghana.

The idea was dropped by the mayor of Ghana’s capital city, Stanley Nii Adjiri Blankson—one of the dignitaries Williams hung out with during his spring break on the African continent.

“Mayor Williams, we have thrown a big challenge to him,” Blankson told reporters at Williams’ Aug. 23 press conference. “We have acquired vacant land in the heart of the city. We want Mayor Williams to adopt that land so that we can build a secondary school which will be named after Mayor Williams.”

The mayor’s press office had no details on what adopting land in Ghana involved. The Ghanian embassy wasn’t sure about Blankson’s offer, either. Let’s just say it seems like Williams will have to cough up more than a key to the city if he wants school-naming rights.

The Anthony A. Williams Secondary School would not only be a testament to the mayor’s hefty frequent-flier account. Blankson’s offer raises the real prospect that Williams will purchase, acquire or at least adopt land overseas before ever owning property in the District.

Williams was surprised by the challenge, but appeared ready to step up. “As a private citizen, I do want to help, in a number of ways, the people of Ghana.”

On Wednesday, Adrian Fenty voted no on a piece of crime-emergency legislation that the D.C. Council took up in a special session. Among the 12 councilmembers in attendance, the Ward 4 rep and mayoral hopeful was the only dissenter from the package, which was authored by Mayor Anthony A. Williams.

Councilmember Adrian Fenty (photo by Darrow Montgomery).

Council Chairman Linda Cropp (photo by Darrow Montgomery).

For Fenty, it was a moment to stand on principle. But for political consultants in town, it presents a golden opportunity. What media-savvy campaign svengali isn’t pitching a radio spot for the rival campaign of council Chairman Linda Cropp? LL figures he’ll save them all some time and give the citizenry an idea of what we have to look forward to on the airwaves. This ready-for-drive-time ditty is offered at no charge to the Cropp faithful:

Music: Dramatic, throbbing, intense
Voiceover: During the first two weeks of July, a crime wave sweeps across the District of Columbia.
(dramatic pause) 14 killings in 12 days.
(dramatic pause) Armed robberies across the city.
City Council Chairman Linda Cropp takes action. Cropp calls an emergency session and passes legislation to keep violent criminals off the streets and make our neighborhoods safer.

Every councilmember but one followed Cropp’s lead to get tough on crime.

The councilmember who voted against it? (pause)
Adrian Fenty, who called Cropp’s crime-fighting package a political stunt.
And what did he propose as an alternative?
Fenty offered nothing.
And now he wants to be Mayor.
Is kind of leadership you need in the Mayor’s office?
Music: friendly, buoyant, triumphant
On Sept. 12 vote to keep D.C. moving forward, vote Linda Cropp.

Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans got it right when he summed up his arguments for the bill: “There are nine people on this dais running for an election in 57 days,” he said. “I want everybody who is watching this to see who voted for what.” Evans, who last year toyed with a mayoral run of his own, couldn’t resist taking a swipe at Fenty. “One of my colleagues suggested that we table this stuff and not do anything.”

Conventionally thinking pols might question Fenty’s decision to walk directly into a buzzsaw—particularly when it comes to crime. He’s operating on the hope that city voters will see him as bucking an administration that has talked big on stepping up police presence, but has never satisfied crime watchers.

Fenty wrote off the special session for what it was: a feel-good exercise designed to give one of his chief opponents some guaranteed television time during a time of heightened concern about crime.

No doubt Fenty won some converts.

Too bad his signature lack of interest in matters related to council legislation dampened any boost he might get from being the only member to shun the political no-brainer.

During the session, Fenty could have served up his own crime-bashing plan. He has an issue paper on public safety and lots of ideas about increasing police presence in the neighborhoods. But Fenty took the easy way out. He offered no amendments during a public exercise that was big on show and short on substance.

Before the vote, LL asked Fenty if he might be able to round up four of his colleagues to kill the emergency bill. “I have no idea,” he replied. When asked whether he had even spoken to any of his fellow councilmembers about their positions prior to the vote, Fenty simply said, “No.”

Cropp and her allies in Williams’ office, as well as police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, all want to fight crime. But one need only look at the mayor’s July 19 press release to grasp the subtext of this get-tough exercise.

After thanking Cropp “for moving this plan forward so quickly,” Williams’ statement dismissed any notion that his crime-fighting blitz is a practical response to events on the ground by delivering a preview of the inevitable Cropp attack ad: “I hope that Councilmember Adrian Fenty, who was the only one to vote against this package, is able to explain how he thinks voting against all of these initiatives will make the District a better place.”

At the June 15 hearing on Mayor Tony Williams’ plan to build a new central library, proponents of abandoning the existing Martin Luther King Jr. Library argued (among other things) that renovating the existing structure would be more expensive than building a new one. Specifically, D.C. Public Library Office of Capital Construction Acting Director Jeff Bonvechio testified that the cost of a new building would be $206 million, while restoring MLK would cost $246 million.

Those figures shouldn’t be taken too seriously. The $206 million price tag is for a building that hasn’t even been designed yet, and $246 million is only a guesstimate. But even Bonvechio concedes that remaking MLK is not pricier because of construction costs but due to the expense of leasing and operating an interim main library during the period—perhaps as much as four years—while MLK is being redone.

Local architect Kent Cooper, who headed a team that in 2000 did a feasibility study for revamping MLK, rejects the new-library proponents’ premise. He testified that the current library could be redone in sections, without ever closing the whole facility. He estimates that the process would take two to two-and-half years.

That may be, but there’s another approach that’s even cheaper: Just shut MLK for a full overhaul, and don’t replace it in the interim. The building has been allowed to deteriorate so badly, and its collections have dwindled so dramatically, that simply closing it wouldn’t affect that many people. As the advocates of a new library stress, there’s little left at MLK to draw people there.

Of course, closing MLK would not be cost-free. The library system would have to lease temporary office space for the staff members who now work on the building’s fourth floor. It would also need to rent storage space for some of MLK’s contents.

But not for all of them. There’s unused space at several of the branch libraries, both for storage and for temporary library services. The West End library, for example, has an entire floor that’s empty. The collections that are unique to MLK—like Washingtoniana and musical scores—could be made available temporarily in one of the branches, while popular novels and the like could just be boxed up for a year or two.

Of course, some people would be inconvenienced. But there will be nuisances regardless of what option is chosen. And closing, readapting, and reopening MLK could be done much faster than renovating the building while it’s in operation or building a whole new library whose design currently consists entirely of buzzphrases like “world-class” and “21st-century.” The mayor’s proposal calls for a new main library by 2011; by then, a refreshed MLK could have been serving 21st-century patrons for several years.

When Mayor Anthony A. Williams kicked off the summer recreation season Wednesday with his annual cannonball into one of the city’s pools, he had lots of company. Reporters, a gaggle of city workers, and tons of news photographers were on hand to watch his final symbolic first-day-of-summer plunge at the Turkey Thicket Recreation Center.

Lots of children were looking on, too.

Dozens of kids who had come to Turkey Thicket waited for their first summer swim in the rec-center lobby. Parents were informed in advance that the pool would be closed until the mayor completed his dive for the cameras. A press conference preceding the dive was scheduled for noon.

But the mayor got hung up at a congressional hearing on funding for local homeland security. The hearing—which highlighted a shortfall in funds for D.C. and New York—certainly trumped the cannonball. Williams wasn’t about to leave his pal New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg as they made a pitch for more security cash for two of the biggest terrorist targets.

The kids carrying towels started gathering in rec center lobby around noon. By 12:30 the grumbling began. When it was clear the mayor was running very late, some parents asked the center staff if the kids could jump in the pool and get out when the mayor arrived.

The staff refused.

A police officer blew a whistle and ordered people in the lobby to make way for the mayor at around 1 p.m. As the time for the dive approached, about 20 kids who had been lined up as props for the mayor’s photo op filed in at about 1:30 to follow the mayor into the pool.

When LL left at 1:35, the children who had come just to splash in the pool with their friends and family were still patiently watching from the lobby.

Mayor Tony Williams and his business-establishment allies want to build a new main library at New York Avenue and 10th Street NW on the old Convention Center site, and abandon the Martin Luther King Jr. Library at 901 G Street NW to an uncertain fate. They may very well get their way, but not because they’ve made a case for their scheme. Yesterday, in the second public hearing on the notion—it’s not sufficiently concrete to be called a “plan”—the mayor and company once again fumbled.

The first forum, on April 26 22 at MLK itself, was technically a “town meeting.” At that presentation, Williams and his supporters presented a conceptual plan for a new library that was little more than a napkin sketch. They argued that MLK is in deplorable condition, which no one denies, and that it can’t be retrofitted with computer technology to become a “21st century library.” Supporters of renovating MLK noted that the political elite that now claims to be shocked at the library’s deterioration is directly responsible for 35 years of neglect. They also shredded the 21st-century-library argument, noting that many structures that are substantially older than MLK—including the main building of the Library of Congress—have been adapted successfully to the Internet era.

A few things have changed since April 26. Williams originally hoped to slip his new library through as part of the general budget. Given the hostile reaction to that idea, however, he moved it to a separate bill, “The Library Transformation Act of 2006.” Also, a 2000 feasibility study for revamping MLK, little discussed in recent years, has returned to the spotlight. That plan, done by a team headed by architect Kent Cooper for the American Institute for Architects’ D.C. chapter, answers many of the new-library partisans’ purported objections to MLK—which is why they spent so much of the hearing attacking it.

Read the rest of this entry »

With Mayor Anthony A. Williams’ ambitious travel schedule of late—encompassing London, Western Africa, Las Vegas, and, next week, South Korea—it was anybody’s guess where he might have chosen to spend his personal vacation time last month. Eco-tourism in Costa Rica? Backpacking in Patagonia? Distillery tours in the Scottish Highlands?

Our intrepid webmeister, Dave Nuttycombe, pitches in with an answer, with an assist from his vast network of sources. His buddy Al Hoff reveals that Tony opted to stick with the tried-and-true:

In today’s Examiner, Harry Jaffe expended a good chunk of use of “goddamn it” to fend off political gadfly Mark Plotkin’s usual statehood hectoring this past Wednesday.

Jaffe, also a Washingtonian national editor, went three for four on the W’s: He got the who, the what, and the when correct. But he struck out swinging on where the incident actually took place. He wrote incorrectly that Williams dropped the g-bomb on Plotkin’s WTOP radio show. Williams’ momentary lapse into human feeling actually occurred during his weekly press conference at the Wilson Building.

“Oh, darn,” Jaffe said after being notified of his error by City Desk.

We then asked Jaffe to explain on how the error happened: “I just figured, hmm. That sucks, hmm. Plotkin…I just, let’s see…hmm. Because it was…I thought somebody told me that it happened on the radio program.”

“I saw it in the Examiner,” Jaffe went on to explain. “I saw it in my newspaper.…I call it my mistake.”

When City Desk informed Jaffe that the scene, complete with audio clip, had been reported by City Desk, Jaffe replied: “I don’t read your blog.”

Jaffe also failed to credit City Desk with exposing Bishop Alfred A. Owens Jr.’s homophobic sermon, which he also included in his column.

Yesterday, Mayor Anthony A. Williams asked Bishop Alfred A. Owens Jr. to apologize for recent toxic remarks disparaging gay men. He said a mea culpa was the only way he could allow Owens to remain an honorary member of the mayor’s interfaith council.

Today, the bishop delivered. Sort of.

In a letter in today’s Washington Post, Owens employs the classic I’m-sorry-if-I-offended-anyone apology. The bishop writes that, “During my Palm Sunday sermon, I used words that the D.C. Coalition of Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Men and Women has denounced as offensive. It was not my purpose to wound anyone or discriminate against any group, and I apologize for any offense.”

After outlining efforts by his Greater Mount Calvary Holy Church to address HIV-AIDS prevention and his support for those who wanted help in pursuing a heterosexual orientation, Owens went on to write: “I will not submit my sermons through political filters for fear of recrimination by political or social groups. On any given Sunday, I preach about love, faith and holiness, and, yes, about hell and sin. For that, I offer no apology.”

The way the mayor sees things, Owens hasn’t quite delivered enough. “It was a good first step,” Williams says. “I am very heartened to see that he’s taken the step.” But the mayor stopped short of saying the Bishop is now an honorary Interfaith Council member in good standing. He characterized the letter as, “a little bit ambiguous.”

Williams says that’s why he wants to sit down for a chat with the bishop and repeated his public request for a meeting. The mayor says he has not heard from the bishop about any kind of get-together.

LISTEN
Excerpt from Williams’ May 17 press conference (MP3 format, 308 KB)
(Audio courtesy of WTOP; photo by Darrow Montgomery)

Washington Post Radio commentator Mark Plotkin finally found a way to make the normally disciplined Mayor Anthony A. Williams lose his shit.

During Williams’ weekly press conference this morning, Plotkin pressed his usual litany of leading questions about District voting rights. He asked the mayor whether he would call President George W. Bush to urge the White House to support a D.C. voting-rights bill expected to win approval by the House Government Affairs Committee Thursday.

In response to Plotkin’s question, the mayor replied that he would try to reach the President or his chief of staff. When Plotkin launched into an annoying speech-fashioned-as-question challenging the mayor’s true commitment to the voting-rights cause, Williams unleashed a rare tirade: “Look, Mark, goddamn it! Everybody tries to…reach the president. I’m just being realistic, OK? If I’m not able to reach the president, then what am I going to do? Just take my marbles and go home? I’ll talk to someone else. I’m saying it, but you’re making me say it, and that’s why I’m saying ‘Goddamn it.’”

The mayor immediately apologized to “the faith community” for his outburst. He apologized two more times before the end of his press conference and said the exclamation “Goddamn it,” was inappropriate for a public setting.

Just a few moments before his Plotkin-inspired outburst, he had called on Bishop Alfred A. Owens Jr. of Greater Mount Calvary Holy Church to apologize to the gay community for homophobic comments delivered during an April 9 sermon.

“I think it finally reached the point where he’s thinking, I just don’t give a shit,” says Plotkin. “At least he showed some emotion. I just wish he would show the same kind of passion for the issue.…[Williams] has done everything that Bush has asked him to do. Why not put a little heat on the President?”

LISTEN
Excerpt from Owens’ April 9 sermon (MP3 format, 3 MB)
(Photo by Darrow Montgomery)

Bishop Alfred A. Owens Jr.—pastor of the Greater Mount Calvary Holy Church, one of the city’s largest congregations—had a clever theme for his April 9 service. His sermon was titled “Fan or Follower!” Owens, who is an honorary member of Mayor Anthony A. Williams’ Interfaith Council, delivered a message urging congregants to be move beyond being fans of the church to becoming followers of the righteous path.

He also made clear that one segment of his congregation is not welcome on that path: gay men.

During a dramatic presentation on how strong men follow the teachings of the church, he pointed out that “real men” for the Lord are straight. “It takes a real man to confess Jesus as Lord and Savior. I’m not talking about no faggot or no sissy,” said Owens on a church tape recording. “Wait a minute! Let all the real men come on down here and take a bow,” he said, inviting them to the front of the church. “All the real men—I’m talking about the straight men,” he preached. “You ain’t funny and you ain’t cranky, but you’re straight. Come on down here and walk around and praise God that you are straight. Thank him that you’re straight. All the straight men that’s proud to be a Christian, that’s proud to be a man of God.”

Owens did not return calls seeking comment.

One attendee of the service, who describes himself as a gay, says the house was packed for the Palm Sunday service. He and “about 20” other closeted gay men in the crowd, he says, felt they had no choice but to join Owens’ spontaneous celebration of straightness.

He calls the bishop’s message “offensive” because it suggests “it is impossible to be gay and serve God.” He also objects to Owens’ use of “faggot” and “sissy” to describe gay men. “If I wasn’t delivered,” he says, “I wouldn’t have been delivered on that day.”

The Bishop’s anti-gay rhetoric is no surprise coming from the No. 2 man in the conservative Mount Calvary Holy Church of America Inc. Gay activists say Owens has a history of homophobic sermons, but add that his congregation include numerous gay members.

Sermons less than welcoming to the gay community are nothing new in D.C. The Rev. Willie Wilson of Anacostia’s Union Temple Baptist Church delivered a strident anti-gay sermon last summer, warning that lesbianism was about to “take over our community.” His comments stoked a outrage in the gay community and prompted many city leaders to denounce the politically powerful minister.

Owens doesn’t share Wilson’s loaded political history, but his sermon celebrating straight men adds fuel to the simmering battle between the city’s conservative churches and the politically powerful gay community.

Owens’ 7,000-member Northeast congregation has long been a regular election-season campaign stop for city politicians, even though most members of the church live in Prince George’s County, Md. Last month, Owens offered up his church as the venue for Ward 5 Councilmember and mayoral candidate Vincent Orange’s “State of Ward 5” address. The D.C. Council also passed the “Bishop Alfred A. Owens Jr. Recognition Resolution” in 2004, for his church’s work in the community on drug treatment and HIV/AIDS prevention.

Ward 8 activist Philip Pannell says the bishop “has a longstanding record of homophobia. I literally will not step in his church,” says Pannell, who is gay.

The mayor’s religious advisor, Dr. Susan Newman, says Owens is a non-voting “honorary member” of the council, based on his leadership post in the national Mount Calvary church. Owens, she says, has not attended a meeting of the council for more than a year. “He’s not one of the high-profile, politically active pastors that you might see on the news,” she says. Newman says the sermons of any Interfaith Council member do not reflect the views of the mayor’s council.

A damp and chilly Emancipation Day meant the big parade down Pennsylvania Avenue NW didn’t turn out to be the crowded meet-and-greet event candidates and visibility-seeking politicos had hoped for. Parade participants outnumbered spectators, and most of the pols choose the cozy comfort of waving from an automobile over mixing with the nearly nonexistent crowds in a cold rain.

The at-large D.C. Council race was the only contest that prompted serious crowd-working commitment. Incumbent Phil Mendelson stalked the parade route with an umbrella and campaign T-shirt. He followed closely on the heels of challenger A. Scott Bolden, who also opted for the close-to-the-people approach.

A car carrying a sign bearing the name of At-Large Councilmember David Catania was so fogged up it was impossible to see who was inside. Catania was indeed in the car, according to Mendelson, who says his 5-year-old daughter Adelaide accepted Catania’s offer to keep her out of the rain. She did snag a ride on daddy’s shoulders for part of the route.

The parade’s unofficial sponsor, Ward 5 Councilmember Vincent Orange caught an unlucky break that turned out to be pretty lucky in the end. He was supposed to ride solo in a horse-drawn carriage near the front of the parade route, complete with a sign identifying him taped to the side—an appropriate gesture for the sponsor of the bill that established Emancipation Day. But as Orange tells it: “My horse got scared, and they had to take the carriage out” of the parade lineup.

Instead, Orange rode out front with Mayor Anthony A. Williams in a fancy white carriage decorated with flowers. Williams has taken to giving Orange a freebie now and then. Three times in recent months he’s allowed Orange to present what amounted to campaign speeches at his weekly press conference.

Even though he lost his sign because of a skittish horse, Orange seemed to enjoy the lift from Williams. Why not? It’s likely to be the only time he rides in a parade float that includes a sign identifying him as mayor.

Council Chairman Linda Cropp, who is running for mayor, smiled and waved from heated comfort for most of the parade and then bailed out around 10th Street to walk the final four blocks. She’s figured out that a strong finish is what really matters when it comes to campaigns.

You can’t blame Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans and At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown for driving themselves on the route. Neither is running for re-election in the fall. Give them credit for just showing up at D.C.’s unique holiday celebration.

The parade also featured a couple of phantom candidates. Mayoral hopeful and Ward 4 Councilmember Adrian Fenty ran a truck with a sign in the parade, but the candidate himself was nowhere to be found. The same goes for Ward 7 Councilmember Vincent Gray. His red, white, and blue sign calling on voters to choose him to be the next D.C. Council chair graced the side of a van packed with campaign volunteers but no candidate.

The other major candidate for chair, Ward 3 Councilmember Kathy Patterson, waved from the comfort of a black Saab.

The Gray boosters did nail one time-honored technique for cementing a solid reputation among parade-watchers: They made sure to hand out lots of candy.

Mayor Anthony A. Williams doesn’t schedule too many joint appearances with Ward 4 Councilmember Adrian Fenty. The mayor’s recent references to Fenty during his weekly press conferences usually involve a lecture on how Fenty hasn’t accomplished enough to suceed him as mayor.

But at today’s weekly tilt with the press, held at the Petworth Neighborhood Library in Fenty’s ward, mayor and mayoral wannabe stood together. They unveiled a panel that will help decide the future of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which is slated to be shuttered in 2011 as part of a government base-closing plan.

Given the mayor’s previous comments about Fenty, some people in the room figured the councilmember crashed the mayor’s party. When asked whether he was supposed to be part of the program, Fenty responded, “Yes. I was invited.”

Good thing his schedule was clear: Sources say an official invite for Fenty to appear at the event was delivered about one hour before the scheduled starting time. And Fenty wasn’t contacted until after it was clear the councilmember planned to show up whether invited or not.

The mayor seemed to be unaware why Fenty was there. During a Williams presentation on library renovations, he asked the host councilmember if he had anything to add. Fenty replied that he was there “to support your efforts on Walter Reed.”

In an e-mail, the mayor’s spokesperson, Vince Morris, refers to questions about the timing of Fenty’s invite as “petty.”

“For the record, my office usually finalizes the agenda for the mayor’s briefing on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning,” Morris wrote. “Once it’s done, we often invite Council members who have an interest in the issue. They are usually gracious and appreciate the call, even if they don’t attend. We were glad that Councilmember Fenty made time to visit his Ward and participate in the mayor’s announcement about Walter Reed.”

ADDENDUM, 3/31: Mayoral spokesperson Vince Morris says he is responsible for inviting councilmembers to press events and was not told personally that Fenty was interested in attending the press conference. Other government sources say Fenty’s staff had made inquiries about the event the previous day.

ADDENDUM ADDENDUM, 4/2: Comments have been locked. A little guidance here: The topic is Mayor Williams’ relationship with Adrian Fenty. It would have been nice to have stuck to it. Try to do so in the future.