A dream deferred; a black mayor betrays the faith - Philadelphia mayor - W. Wilson Goode

Washington Monthly, July-August, 1986 by Chuck Stone

The tragedy of Ivanhoe Donaldson ended in January 1986, when he pleaded guilty to stealing $200,000 from the city (although federal investigators said the total may have been as high as $1 million), obstructing justice by trying to convince four people to submit false affidavits to D.C. inspectors, and income tax evasion. He took money from a special fund that was supposed to help distribute unemployment benefits. He used city funds to have his Mercedes Benz repaired, double-billed the city for a poll, and shifted $6,500 to his unemployed aunt, ostensibly for a study of New York's unemployment system. More recently, his name has come up in connection with scandals in New York and Chicago involving payoffs to parking meter collection companies.

The pathetic epilogue to the Donaldson story was provided by Barry himself. After his principal deputy, old comrade-in arms, and close friend was convicted, Barry insisted that Donaldson was "just one of several' top aides in the city with no special connection to him.

"Where is the Mayor?'

The seemingly endless list of scandal and innuendo is embarrassing, but does it represent a betrayal of blacks? In the case of Marion Barry, yes. First, several of the Barry administration scandals ripped off his poorest constituents. When contractors for a public housing project are chosen solely for their political connections and do a lousy job renovating apartments, it cheats those in the project. Similarly, the scandals can destroy potentially worthwhile programs, as happened when corruption permeated the minority contracting program.

Furthermore, the scandals, rather than an aggressive agenda of problem solving, became the focus of the Barry administration. In the course of four years Barry's ex-wife, his lover, and his alter-ego went to jail. I was reporting from the District building during the Treadwell controversy. For a full year, speculation continued on whether Barry would be indicted. A typical day consisted of him spending hour after hour consulting with his lawyers on how to avoid being implicated in the scandal, with aides on how to handle the political fallout, with reporters answering questions about the scandal, and with constituents, responding to their questions on his involvement. It happened again with the Karen Johnson controversy and, undoubtedly, when Ivanhoe Donaldson was indicted.

The supreme distraction these problems caused, along with Barry's increasing interest in treating himself to the finer things in life and his cynically political view of who he had to help instead of who he should, combined to take a tremendous toll on the poor in Washington. A calloused realpolitik had crept into Barry's policies. In an interview with me during the city's 1980 budget crisis, Barry, in cold political terms, listed the groups he would protect in

the face of budget cuts. "I'll tell you who supported me . . . the labor unions, police, fire fighters and teachers, the gays and 30 percent of the black voters. I lost Ward 8 where all the black people live. They didn't support me.' He created a special office to address gay concerns and increased the police department budget, but scrapped a scheduled, long overdue welfare in crease and cut the education budget, the two parts of the budget most important to poor blacks.