Who Was That Council Member?

By Elissa Silverman and Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 18, 2006

Moments before the D.C. Council approved spending $7 million to hire 100 new police officers, council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) lamented that a beefed up Metropolitan Police Department came at the expense of the rent supplement program, an affordable-housing initiative that he has championed.

"We get to the end of the budget process and we pit one disadvantaged group against another disadvantaged group when all the big decisions have been made," said Graham, complaining from the dais.

The decision to put money toward police was made only the day before, after one council member harangued his 12 colleagues for not thinking about public safety at a critical time: election season. In fact, council Chairman Linda W. Cropp's new open-door policy at the council's breakfast sessions -- until a month ago, they had been closed to the public -- gave a new insight into just how that budget decision was made.

So who was the council member who pitted cops against affordable housing?

Graham.

As deliberations over the budget came to a close, Graham told his colleagues he worried that his ward's No. 1 priority -- public safety -- hadn't been adequately addressed.

Cropp issued Graham a challenge: If police was Ward 1's top issue, then he should find money from one of his lower priorities. In the end, money was shifted from rent supplement to the police department.

Graham's electioneering was not subtle: "If you're coming to Ward 1 during this next campaign season to tell the people of Ward 1 that you don't need more police -- that the answers are somewhere else -- I wish you good luck," he said. "I know what their reaction is going to be. They're going to say you've taken leave of your senses."

His comments seemed directed at one colleague in particular: Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3), who offered an amendment to put the money back toward the rent-supplement program, as well as toward the parks and recreation department.

"The voters are a lot smarter than we think they are," she said, right before her amendment failed, 12-1.

Web Site Comes Down

The creator of a Web site that criticized Sinclair Skinner , a key campaign aide to mayoral candidate Adrian M. Fenty (D-Ward 4), has pulled the site after receiving a warning from Skinner's attorney.

"It has come to our attention that statements made by you, including those on the website DUMPSKINNER.COM, have damaged the reputation and character of Mr. Skinner," stated a May 8 letter from Washington lawyer Jeffery A. Whitney . "As owner and operator of the website, we insist that you immediately cease operation of the website and remove all defamatory content regarding Mr. Skinner."

The site's creator, Taylor Chesnik , complied to avoid a lawsuit. But he said he has appealed for help to the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Chesnik, 27, a computer specialist who works for a defense contractor, created the site in hopes of persuading Fenty to fire Skinner, the campaign's director of field operations. Chesnik said Skinner, who is black, has injected race into several community issues near Chesnik's Ward 1 home and has opposed a liquor license for a new restaurant, Temperance Hall, because its owners are white.

"If you lived in my neighborhood, there's nothing there, and we've been waiting years for things to come. Finally this business comes in, pouring millions of dollars into a building abandoned for 20 years, and he's fighting it for stupid reasons," Chesnik said. "To him, it was a black-white issue. Whereas the community doesn't care what color the owners are."

Fenty campaign manager Alec Evans did not comment directly on Chesnik's allegations, but did say "there's no place in the city for divisiveness." He added that Skinner will keep his job.

Tillery's Bakeoff

So just how much is a cake baked by Deputy Mayor Herbert R. Tillery worth?

The answer is $300. That's how much mayoral candidate Marie C. Johns (D) bid during an auction last week for the nonprofit group Mentors Inc.

The bidding started at about $50, but Johns kept waving her fan until she was the top bidder.

What Johns didn't know was that Tillery has not baked a cake in 25 years.

And even then it wasn't from scratch, but from cake mix out of a box, if his memory serves him well. Tillery did not even know what it means to make a cake from scratch.

"When you get the ingredients on the box, isn't that scratch?" Tillery asked. "I can follow directions. I don't even know where to start when you say scratch."

Tillery said the whole idea of auctioning off a cake baked by him was born as he walked into the ballroom of the Mayflower Hotel with the auctioneer, Ronald Evans , to attend the banquet

Tillery wasn't exactly wearing his baker's apron or his deputy mayor's hat. He was at the dinner as the president of Mentors Inc., a program that strives to connect disadvantaged students in the city's public schools with professional business leaders. The auction proceeds are used to sponsor college scholarships and pay for the program's staff.

When Evans suggested the cake as part of the auction, Tillery said, "I'm game." But Johns is hoping for something more than a Duncan Hines delight.

"Well, I hope I get a homemade cake out of him for that money," Johns said, adding, "It's for a good cause."

Staff writer Yolanda Woodlee also contributed to this report.