Mayor Anthony A. Williams is in deep political trouble with his constituency. While the mayor often cites the thousands of community meetings he has attended sometimes even including a precise number as evidence of his involvement with the community, the reality is a different story. The mayor s attendance at most of those events is more akin to a campaign stump speech with the accompanying glad-handing and photo op than actual engagement in discussion and resolution of the community s concerns. While the mayor s opponents have criticized him from the start for the emphasis on ceremony over substance that appears to dominate the way he conducts himself in office, even the mayor s supporters are increasingly expressing similar concerns. Contrary to the popular racially tinged myth that the mayor has maintained or strengthened his political support in the primarily white neighborhoods that heavily voted for him, The Common Denominator recently has heard many complaints about the mayor s job performance coming from those very places.
Residents have to live with the results of government action or inaction.
One Capitol Hill resident, who has strongly supported the mayor, recently launched into a tirade about how poorly the mayor s staff is serving him especially in their role as neighborhood liaisons. That term has also been used to describe the mayor himself, especially since he flippantly told a crowd packed into Union Temple Baptist Church earlier this year that people who disagree with him can do something about it when they go to the polls in 2002. The mayor certainly appears to be disengaged from the leadership role this city demands of its mayor. Washington still seems to be in desperate need of a leader who speaks with the public, not just to them. Rather than working with the public to improve D.C. neighborhoods, Mayor Williams and his staff more than midway through his term appear more focused on changing the demographics of neighborhoods to reflect their own vision for the nation s capital.