It’s now mid February. It’s been a whole 7 weeks into DC Mayor Adrian Fenty’s first 4 year term and we are already off to a bad start with a School takeover plan that was virtually D.O.A. and completely botched the response to the first major winter storm of 2007.
The rough stuff for Fenty started when his Inauguration was delayed as a result of Former President Gerald Ford’s State Funeral in the first week of January. The Big kickoff event for this “constituent Mayor” was to be the Inaugural Ball held at the Downtown DC Convention Center, free to anyone who could make the hike to the Reeves Center at the corner of 14th and U Streets, NW to pick up tickets in person. I was able to gather a reasonable size group to come with me to the Inaugural Ball and was excited as anyone else to celebrate the start of a new and prosperous time for our great city. I never realized what a challenge simply getting INTO the party would be.
Our group spent roughly 30 minutes being crushed by a crowd of a few hundred people attempting to enter the main hall of the convention center because of the failure of multiple metal detectors at the entrance points. After 30 minutes of stagnation, the entry personnel opted to simply let people walk right in, straight through the beeping metal detectors, without having to stop or even so much as have their bag or ID checked. I understand that the logistics of moving a large group of people through a building can be daunting, but I have less sympathy when I think that this whole debacle was orchestrated by the person, or team of people, that we have just recently ordained to handle the operations and logistics of our bustling metropolis.
After my experience during the Inaugural ball, I probably should not have been surprised at the District’s poor response to the winter storm last week. Amongst friends, I’ve always joked that the Mayor’s snow removal plan was code named S.P.R.I.N.G. Over the past few years, though, I’ve been decently satisfied with DC’s ability to get the streets and sidewalks cleared enough to make it out to pick up the staples (milk, bread, bad movies you’ve been putting off watching for 2 years because you were embarrassed to be going to the store to rent it but you figure no one else will be there to witness. What,that’s just me?) or to head to the office without skidding off the road or through an intersection. Maybe I’ve come to expect too much from the snow removal strategies of DC after the anomaly that was the Williams years, and seeing the efficiency of clearing the major thoroughfares in my native NJ, but the District’s response to last week’s winter storm hearkened back to the Marion Barry days of city management. (I have to be fair here, because Marion Barry often gets a bad wrap. In his defense, Barry actually thought that the white stuff outside his window was crack and didn’t understand why people were asking him to get rid of it.) I found it appalling that 2 days after the storm, on a bright and sunny Thursday morning, our best tactic for keeping Roja’s rear wheel drive sports car on the road and through the streets was to follow in the tracks of some giant SUV that had decided to blaze a trail down 14th Street. Throughout my entire commute, I couldn’t help but wonder why the streets hadn’t been plowed. It seemed simple enough, it wasn’t like this storm took us by surprise – the weather folks on every news channel were calling for 3 feet of snow and saying that the sky was going to fall in on us, for about 5 days prior to the actual storm.
The answer is really quite simple. This past year, the District purchased some magic salt that was intended to melt the 3 inches of snow that fell, and so opted to NOT plow any of the streets until well after the snow stopped. “The idea, said DC City Administrator Dan Tangherlini to the Washington Post, was to give the salt a chance to do its work. If plowing began immediately, the city risked removing the salt with the first layer of snow and allowing subsequent snow and rain to freeze, making streets slick and dangerous. ‘You only get one shot at this stuff,’ according to Tangherlini.” I think the answer to this problem lies, rather, in the design of the DDOT snow plow. Every “snow removal vehicle” that I’ve ever seen is set up very logically with the plow on the front (presumably to remove the snow, salted or unsalted) and the magic salt spreader on the back. This might provide a logical solution to our choice of “salt or shovel” by granting DDOT the ability to do both. I suggest that if DDOT doesn’t currently have this capability, that the budget for next winter look into that option.
Hopefully these are just the few initial rough patches of a new term. The snow is now melted and feeding the evil Cherry Blossoms (more on that in April) and the greens of my beloved East Potomac Golf Course and spring is in the air. I’m just hoping that March brings a new beginning to ALL parts of the city, including City Hall.
