ENCOURAGEMENT FOR THE MAYOR

In my view, there has not been a great deal of press coverage concerning Washington Mayor, Brenda Davis during the past year.  This would, no doubt, be considered good news for the Mayor because the public is most interested in missteps and gaffes and not the day to day administration of city government.  On the other hand, Ms. Davis deserves hardy congratulations for her body of work and public encouragement for the difficult decisions yet to come during her tenure as Mayor.

          Recently I had the opportunity to attend a meeting with the Mayor, in my role as a representative for Wash Arts.  We were seeking help and advice as we worked to get back on our feet.  Mayor Davis struck me as living and breathing her position as Mayor.  She has grown from “a lady in the room” to a presence, sure of herself and her role in the community.  Her knowledge of municipal law and suggestions on how to improve the relationship between Wash Arts and the City were impressive.

          Of the four stages that a new public official must pass through: getting elected; learning the bureaucracy; performing her daily functions; and planning for the future, Mayor Davis has clearly accomplished the first three.  How she handles the fourth will determine whether she will be remembered as a good Mayor or a great one.

City-County cooperation on cost sharing (municipal services) and cost saving (procurement of supplies) must be pushed by the City.  Municipal contracts must be negotiated that are reasonable and respect the new realities of pensions and health insurance.  The unique features of the City of Washington in terms of location, history, and opportunity must be marketed.  Last of all Washington County is undergoing rapid and significant change.  The City must demand its fair share of the economic expansion and not be left behind.

All of us living in or near the City can help the Mayor achieve these goals.  We must understand the issues and offer our support. Mayor Davis is the right official for the job and will succeed if we have her back.

THE CHALLENGE OF INEQUALITY

 

The presenter at the Peters Town Hall Speaker Series, Ms. Zanny Minton Beddoes, gave an over the moon talk on Tuesday, December 3.  As an editor for the Economist, she took her audience around the world, in explaining the state and interconnectivity of the international economy.  Being British and working for a British publication, she could step back from the myopic view of the American press and place world economic events in context.  If a transcript of her talk is available I would urge anyone interested in world events to read it.

Ms. Minton Beddoes ended her lecture by explaining the social forces she believes will shape the future and gave us her acronym: “dead drunk under the influence”.  She uses this ominous phrase to help remember her four horseman of social change: debt, demographics, unemployment and inequality.

She believes that debt is not an immediate problem for the large western nations, including the United States, but remains the scourge of Southern Europe.  On demographics and aging populations, she reminded the audience that more elderly Asians are in diapers than are infants.  On unemployment, she believes the number of young unemployed in Southern Europe and the Mid East could easily lead to political instability.

It was Ms. Minton Beddoes comments on inequality that most interested me.  She believes this may be the greatest problem facing our country.  She presented statistical evidence that the United States has regressed back to the gilded age of the robber barons when it comes to income inequality.  She is concerned that America’s urban areas will be divide between the “haves” in walled off splendor and the “have nots” with substandard housing, education and social programs.

Ironically, the day after the above lecture was given President Obama made inequality a major focal point for the remainder of his term in office.  He gave a speech, agreeing with Ms. Minton Beddoes, that the rapidly growing deficit of opportunity is a bigger threat than the fiscal deficit.  The President stated: “The basic bargain at the heart of our economy has frayed” and that Americans should be offended that a child born into poverty has such a hard time escaping it. 

Hopefully the Republican Party will not seize on this policy initiative to call the President a socialist (or worse). His words echo the recent views of Pope Francis and other world leaders and could form the basis for political resolve on both sides of the political aisle.  In this holiday season, how could anyone disagree that each child who goes to bed hungry or is denied a good education or the elderly homeless person who dies from exposure is a more important story than the stock market results?  But the daily news cycle shows the opposite to be the case. 

The President has placed inequality at the front of the news cycle.  Now is the time to press ahead and to propose positive policy initiatives.  People’s frustrations with the “do nothing Congress” could quickly be reversed by attacking head on the frustrations that many citizens encounter in not being able to make ends meet, no matter how hard they work.  He can begin by vetoing any reduction in food stamp allotment and working to replace reductions in important social programs cut by the automatic sequester last year.