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Campaign Kick-Off Speech Press release

Councilmember Patterson’s Campaign Kick-off Speech

May 31, 1998

I wanted to be here today, at the same place where we met for my kickoff four years ago, to get my bearings, see what has changed, and what has not. Janney continues to be a beacon on what a public school can be; it is still a government institution that works. It isn’t easy, but this school serves children well and shows what’s best about our community — the partnership between school staff and parents.

I spoke four years ago with the empty Sears building behind me. Today Hechingers does a brisk business. I’m glad to have been a part of the revival of this intersection.

But this intersection also reminds us that there are threats around us, in our neighborhoods and across the city. Four years ago, a child brandished a gun at this intersection and fired shots. No one was hurt but it was a scary event. Even worse, as you know, a teenager killed another teenager earlier this year outside the video store. Shortly after that another young man was beaten, in retaliation. I mention these tragedies to remind you that I share responsibility to secure the maximum possible safety in our neighborhoods, especially in that danger zone for adolescents between the end of school and nightfall. Our City may be statistically safer, but we have a long way to go.

I talked four years ago about a city on the brink of financial ruin. Since then, our city has backed away from the brink of bankruptcy. We have returned to the bond markets. We balanced the city budget last year and we will balance the budget this year. In this year’s budget debate, a handful of my Council colleagues and I demanded, and achieved, a financial plan that reduces the city’s accumulated deficit in FY99 and eliminates it outright in fiscal 2000.

We have accomplished a great deal in three and a half years — passing legislation that makes government officials more accountable to you for the services they provide. We reformed the procurement of goods and services. While still a work in progress, new leadership is bringing professionalism and accountability into a function that has sorely lacked those qualities.

This year the Council approved my legislation providing us with a modern personnel system that will help us attract, keep, and reward good employees and hold government managers accountable.

Oversight of job training by the Government Operations Committee led to a Department of Labor investigation, a corrective action plan, and the resignation of the department's director. While we are no longer wasting job training dollars, the District government is still not accomplishing much in the way of real training. Securing effective leadership in the executive branch on job training is the next step — and one long overdue. We will shortly hit the 10 month mark without a permanent Director of Employment Services.

In the budget debate this year the Council adopted my proposal to require performance reviews when agencies defend their budget requests before the Council. My committee and Sandy Allen’s committee, in particular, took this effort very seriously. We asked directors to justify their requests for new money but also asked them to defend their expenditures in FY 97 and FY 98. This is a good example of the Council acting like the legislative body it MUST be for the District to become, and remain, well-managed.

I’ve served for the last few months as co-chair of an investigation of the Metropolitan Police Department. Tomorrow we look at why police department dollars seldom seem to reach the community level to pay for bikes and radar guns and uniforms. This is a management and policy review that is important for two reasons: it has the potential to improve operations of the police department, and it sets a new standard for Council investigations.

Improving D.C. Public Schools is another work in progress. I worked closely with the control board throughout 1996 and applauded their move to turn the school administration upside down. But their actions have not borne fruit. It gives me no pleasure to say that I can summarize my work with schools in two words: damage control. Three weeks ago two of my colleagues and I sought to give enforceable direction to the school system on spending priorities - requiring stable funding for pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and counselors and librarians in elementary schools. We lost by one vote but we made a compelling case and have assured ongoing support for these critical priorities. The current environment requires vigilance by the Council because no one else is overseeing what goes on at D.C. Public Schools.

As I look ahead, I conclude that the financial threat the District faced four years ago has been supplanted by another kind of threat, and one that could bring us right back to the brink of bankruptcy. It's the threat of government paralysis.

Today we have appointed government and elected government. The government is fractured and fragmented, with few clear lines of responsibility. The control board can fire anyone in government, but is limited in its hiring power. We have a chief financial officer technically reporting to the mayor but only the control board can fire him. The police chief reports to a committee. The courts are trying to figure out the governance of the school system. As a legislator, I spend up to half of my time performing executive branch functions because there are so many vacuums — no chief real property officer, no one in charge of job training.

Like many of you, I welcomed the arrival of the chief management officer earlier this year. But given the U.S. Appeals Court ruling that the control board can assume power but cannot delegate that power, Camille Barnett’s authority is questionable. The Home Rule Charter establishes a city administrator who reports to the mayor, a position left empty after Michael Rogers left last fall. We need one senior government administrator — not two, and we need that individual reporting to the mayor we elect this fall.

The governance issue must be joined, and joined quickly in the coming weeks. How do we do that? How do we put our government back together — to create an efficient, effective, responsible, and accountable government that can deliver on promises and deliver services?

For starters, we need a mayor who accepts it as his or her responsibility to pick up the pieces of government and put them back together, re-creating an executive branch that has clear lines of responsibility. We need a mayor who can propose and broker working relationships with the control board, with the board's chief management officer for as long as that position exists, with the Council, and with the Congress. We need a mayor who accepts the responsibility for leading the debate on what our government should look like in the years that follow the control board. And we need a mayor who sets high standards in respecting the law and telling the truth.

Whom we elect as mayor this year is critical. I urge you to go to forums, learn as much as you can about the candidates. And tell THEM what you think is important.

To rebuild the government, we need a Council that is a strong partner to the executive branch — a partner as often as possible and a critic as often as necessary. We need a legislature that builds on the record of oversight begun by the Government Operations Committee in the last two years. We need a Council that exercises the power it has because power is something you use, or lose.

And we need a control board that accents its responsibility to strengthen local government. I have been a strong supporter of the control board. Its record in the financial realm is clear and positive, but the record on other issues is mixed. Serious questions remain about governance of the school system and the police department, in particular. Alice Rivlin has her work cut out for her in addressing the issues left untended by the existing control board.

The new tag line in my campaign logo says, “making government work for you.” Those are simple words, and that’s my job description.

I have learned a lot about democracy in the last three and a half years. There is something about an elected government that goes well beyond theory. I know who I work for. And I know you can throw me out of office. That keeps me honest. We need our elected government back. Not the government of the past. We need an efficient, responsible, and accountable elected government. And when we get our elected government back, fully, it is going to be our responsibility to be far better stewards than we were in the past.

The challenge of building an effective government with high standards of accountability is no small task. And we have a wonderful opportunity, now, to make that happen — we will have a new mayor in January, and a new control board in a matter of weeks.

I would like to close with a lecture on pronouns. When I cite the progress “we” have made, that’s not the royal “we.” I have the privilege of casting votes and having my name on legislation. But the office I hold is a position I hold in trust for you. When I say “we” have accomplished something, I mean all of us — all of you. Your views and your beliefs and your priorities - and your calls and your comments on the soccer field on Saturdays — are what inform and motivate me in the work that I do on your behalf. Thank you for the privilege of working for you and I officially announce, today, that I’d like to keep my job!

Paid for by the Kathy Patterson for Council Committee, David G. Shaw, Treasurer. Our report is on file with the Office of Campaign Finance


For Immediate Release For more information:
Beverley Monroe 537-5037

Patterson Launches 1998 Campaign

Washington D.C. — May 31 1998 — In a hard-hitting campaign kick-off speech today. Ward 3 Councilmember Kathy Patterson said that despite the District's significant financial progress the “threat of government paralysis. . . could bring us right back to the brink of bankruptcy.”

Speaking to more than 100 supporters at Janney Elementary School Patterson described the District government as “fractured and fragmented” with few clear lines of responsibility. To build an effective government she said. “We need a mayor who can propose and broker working relationships with the control board with the board’s chief management officer for as long as that position exists with the Council and with the Congress.”

She said the Council must “build on the record of oversight set by. the Government Operations Committee” in the last year and a half and the new control board must “accept its responsibility to strengthen local government.”

Other speakers at Patterson’s campaign rally included:

  • Lisa Tate, a Ward 6 resident who worked with Patterson in the national Coalition for America’s Children and thanked the Ward 3 legislator for her advocacy last year that resulted in Peabody Elementary School and its award-winning early childhood program remaining open;
  • Roscoe Ridley. long-time AFGE leader now on the management team at D.C. General Hospital, who praised Patterson’s leadership in creating the D.C. Labor-Management Partnership Council and
  • Jim Ford. veteran staff director of the Council’s Education Committee who praised Patterson’s efforts to reform the Council as an institution including stronger budget operations. oversight. and increased professionalism among staff.
  • Penny Pagano, Patterson’s campaign chair and president of the Palisades Citizens Association. emceed the rally Patterson was introduced to the audience by her 11-year-old daughter, Gillian Leibach, a 5th grader at Murch Elementary School.

Paid for by the Kathy Patterson for Council Committee, David G. Shaw, Treasurer. Our report is on file with the Office of Campaign Finance


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