Voters Wonder, 'Whose City Is It Going to Be?'

At Washington Interfaith Network Forum, Candidates Listen to Residents' List of Concerns

By the time the all-male gospel group has cooled down and the big-screen projectors have fired up, more than 800 souls brought together by the Washington Interfaith Network have taken their seats in the historic sanctuary of Asbury United Methodist Church.

They look toward the pulpit and see three men and two women who want to be Washington's next mayor.

And what do the candidates see?

A stained-glass portrait of Jesus as the shepherd. A lighted cross. An enormous scorecard with their names written on it, awaiting their commitments to affordable housing and better neighborhoods. And there, in the fourth row from the back, is Hilda Venson of Ward 1, who thinks the city's not working right. "There's crime, disrespect for everybody."

That young woman sitting on the right is 22-year-old Christine Wilson of Brightwood; she worries that she'll never be able to afford a house in the city she loves. "Even if I'm making six figures, the house will be seven figures. . . . I'm never going to catch up."

And the couple in the front row? That's Kim Adler, 38, and her husband, Aaron Knight, who moved from Virginia 10 years ago and have lived the last six in a house they bought in Adams Morgan. She's like a lot of people who think that Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) has brought the city a long way but that not everyone has been lifted up.

"The city needs to be more inclusive," she says. "Williams improved a lot of things. A lot of places that were scary to live in the past are safer. But people can't afford to live where they want to live. I wish someone would tell me how to strike the right balance."

She gestures toward the candidates. "If someone could tell me, they'd have my vote right now."

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D.C. Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp, council members Adrian M. Fenty (Ward 4) and Vincent B. Orange Sr. (Ward 5), lobbyist Michael A. Brown and retired Verizon executive Marie Johns might as well be a singing group for all the time they have spent together attending mayoral candidate forums. There have been at least 10 such events for the major Democratic mayoral candidates just this month.

But the extravaganza put together by the Washington Interfaith Network earlier this week, drawing parishioners even from Virginia and Maryland, is a different creature altogether. Candidates don't bring an agenda; they come to endorse an agenda. The candidates are there to impress, yes, but more than that they are there to be impressed.

A roll call of churches lists how many "leaders" each congregation has in the house and how many precinct workers it will supply in the fall. When it's over, organizers update the banner at the front of the church that touts their political muscle: That's 400 -- not 300 -- precinct workers who'll hit the streets.