In Ward 8, Barry Strives to Reshape Legacy

Flowers rearranged her schedule and left. "I'm not going to tell the councilman no," she said.

As a result, some recreation centers in his ward were added to a list for renovation and cleanup under the administration of Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D).

Washingtonians who lived through the Barry years -- including the city's chronic inability to pick up garbage and plow city streets -- might be skeptical of Barry's new focus on community streets and facilities. But those who have seen him in action this year said he is committed to his ward.

"It's a real opportunity to leave his fingerprints on the ward in his last term in public office," said James Bunn, a longtime political activist and Ward 8 business owner who has watched Barry for 35 years, not always as a supporter.

In fact, Barry has a history of relying on Ward 8, the poorest in the city, for political salvation. In 1992, just out of prison after serving six months for a misdemeanor drug conviction, Barry moved to the ward and campaigned for its council seat, the first step in his political resurrection. In campaign events, he played on the economic and social frustrations of the ward, calling it the District's "Last Colony." He promised that if elected, "We're going to make Ward 8 a political powerhouse."

The strategy won him a four-year term. Two years later, he was gone. He ran for mayor and won a fourth term.

In last year's council race, Don Carthens, 34, voted for Allen, but he is hopeful that Barry will follow through this time around.

Helping his neighbor on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE with some landscaping, Carthens said, "I need to see more improvement for the young folks."

Barry said he is effective and has found out how to get his way without the powers of the mayor's office.

"He tries to make you feel guilty," City Administrator Robert C. Bobb said. "He'll say, 'You know this should have been done.' And if you come back with, 'Well, where were you?' it doesn't work."

"In the end, though, he's right," Bobb said. "These things should be done not just because he says they are to be done but because they should be done."

In recent months, Barry held an environmental summit in Ward 8 to preach the gospel of clean water and clean streets and won a commitment from city agencies to clean up alleys in the ward. And he has been named chairman of a special council committee to look at jobs and vocation training, things Barry said are vital to the young people in the ward.