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Councilmember Patterson’s Remarks
Swearing-In Ceremony, January 2, 2003
Many of you know Judge Ferren, as a lawyer, a jurist, and for far too
SHORT a time, as the District’s Corporation Counsel. I am grateful to
have John as a colleague, and honored to count him as a friend. He
exemplifies what is best in public service – and John, your keen sense
of justice, and the importance of using our positions to seek justice –
is an inspiration.
Thank you, also, to my family – Dale, Patrick and Gillian, and from
California, my mother, brother Don, and his girls, Anisa and Mikaela.
Thank you for your support and for being here today. Let me acknowledge,
also, my second family – my Council family – staff and advisers here
today – thank you for all that you do for all of us. And a thank you to
the voters in Ward 3 for your confidence and support in permitting me to
serve a third term on the D.C. Council.
[I would like to ask for a moment of silence in honor and memory of
Phyllis Campbell Newsome, a shining light of our community, who passed
away the day after Christmas, and to whose memory I would like to dedicate
my next four years of service]
As my colleagues have indicated, the District of Columbia has many
serious challenges over the next four years. As we have had over the last
eight. It is imperative that we secure the financial gains we have made,
in working our way back from the brink of bankruptcy just eight years ago.
We have to continue to be vigilant stewards of the public’s funds, and
the public’s trust.
We have an obligation in the world we live in today to assure the
safety of our communities – the safety of residents, families, visitors.
The nation’s capital, and our home, must be as prepared as we can make
it for every imaginable disaster.
There is a third challenge, though, that I would like to focus on in my
few minutes here today. It is one we don’t talk about; we don’t admit
to ourselves, but one that has been hovering during this holiday season.
It is time – it is well past time – for the District government itself
to take the Hippocratic oath – to say that first, we will do no harm.
Before we balance the books, before we seek to attract new residents, we
will do no harm to those we have.
We are losing far too many young men to gunshot violence in this city.
But the danger apparently does not end on city streets. Lives are in
danger while in government custody. A teenage girl, a runaway from New
York, was harmed not once but twice after being taken off the streets and
placed in District custody. These are headlines and they are real human
beings – sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. They are our
responsibility. These are not acceptable circumstances in the District of
Columbia in 2003 and on our watch.
Mikal Gaither was 23, bright and appealing – and like too many
others, on the wrong side of the law. He was arrested on drug charges and
detained at the D.C. Jail. He was also a key witness in an ongoing
homicide case, set for trial in the spring. On Saturday December 14 he was
stabbed in the neck at the jail. He died the next day. He was the second
death in December at the jail.
There are program and service and policy challenges before us – with
program and service and policy solutions. But to get to those solutions,
to have a government that finally stops doing harm, requires that
individuals accept personal responsibility for their actions and the
outcomes – starting at the top of the government. Murders at the DC Jail
are not an acceptable part of government doing business. Period. Placing a
runaway in juvenile detention is not acceptable. Period. And if any one of
us, elected to public office, fails to do everything in our considerable
power to at least assure safety to those whose lives we hold in our hands,
then we violate the trust of the voters who sent us here.
There is a great deal of work to be done – starting here, and now.
Thank you. |
