New day may dawn at city hall

0 Comments | Insight on the News, July 6, 1998 | by Michael Rust

But the district is changing. Catania's election -- with 43 percent of the vote -- brought the number of white members of the 13-member council up to five, the largest number in the nearly quarter-century that the body has been in existence. Hispanics are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the district; today, blacks make up about 64 percent of a total population of 530,000, a smaller number than at any time in recent history, according to the Census Bureau. What's more, most observers agree that disgust with local government has trumped even the racial polarization that has dominated district politics for three decades.

Indeed, in 1994, Republican Carol Schwartz garnered 42 percent of the vote in her losing bid against Barry. Gill suggests that the GOP label is losing its stigma. Urban Republicans increasingly are respected "because there's a natural feeling that they are business oriented; they are better at handling practical affairs; they can make tough decisions" he says. "Democrats seem to want to make everybody happy: `Let's have a commission, let's have a talk, let's have a conference.' At the end of the day, you've spent your budget, you've had the committee meet, you've had the conference and you did not make any decisions."

The few Republicans in the district probably would guarantee that any GOP program would be a stealth operation; but many reformers would welcome a GOP-oriented agenda.

Take education. The district's public schools have the lowest test scores and highest per-capita spending in the country. The district's experiment with "charter schools" -- tax-funded, privately run institutions -- is "an educational revolution unfolding before our very eyes," says Catania. Further reforms, such as vouchers for parents, have been shot down by the Clinton White House, but support for privatization may increase in the wake of a new effort to provide scholarships for private education to inner-city students. Headed by investor Ted Forstman and Anthony Williams, the control board's chief financial officer, the Washington Scholarship Fund has announced plans to provide large sums.

Catania also has pushed the idea of an elected attorney general for the district. Ironically, during his campaign, the conservative Washington Times endorsed his Democratic opponent, citing opposition to this proposal which the paper described as creation of a new bureaucracy. "It's precisely the opposite," says Catania. "What it would do is create another check within our government that would ferret out corruption and waste and theft and abuse within our government."

Now, federal courts, with high turnover and under the authority of outsiders, control district law enforcement. An attorney general would "keep the system honest," says Catania. "While we would wind up with another elected person, the way the office is structured, it would serve as a good-government tool and, ultimately, the money that I believe the city would save by ferreting out the waste and abuse and corruption within the government would more than offset the minimal costs associated with this office."