Candidates Warned Against Empty Talk

By Lori Montgomery and Nikita Stewart
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, June 1, 2006

The five Democratic mayoral candidates who vowed to spend an extra $1 billion on affordable housing and youth services without raising taxes had better start digging for change in the sofas at the John A. Wilson Building. The Washington Interfaith Network is prepared to "punish" the next mayor if he or she fails to make good on that promise, perhaps by pushing for a recall election, said lead organizer Martin Trimble .

At an unusual forum last week, council Chairman Linda W. Cropp , council members Adrian M. Fenty (D-Ward 4) and Vincent B. Orange Sr. (D-Ward 5), former Verizon executive Marie C. Johns and lobbyist Michael A. Brown stood before a crowd of more than 800 WIN faithful and agreed to push the group's agenda if elected.

As a nonprofit organization, WIN cannot endorse any candidate. But it can put more than 400 volunteers on the streets in an effort to boost turnout in 45 targeted precincts in the Sept. 12 Democratic primary, a tactic designed to produce a show of political force that would put the next mayor on notice, Trimble said.

If the victor fails to follow through on the promises made last week, the nonprofit group will strike back, Trimble warned, much as it did in 2003, when it lobbied to block a pre-financing package for the city's proposed baseball stadium unless officials agreed to add a sizable neighborhood investment fund.

That incident should be "politics lesson No. 1 for the next mayor," Trimble said.

Although WIN is a coalition built largely of churches, its tactics are hardly pastoral. Part of the Industrial Areas Foundation, an international group founded by the late Chicago community organizer Saul Alinsky , it is devoted to the principles of power and social justice.

Trimble, who is trying to put together a similar group in Northern Virginia, tells potential acolytes to go to Union Station and study the quote inscribed on the statue of A. Philip Randolph , the late labor leader who helped organize the 1963 March on Washington.

"At the banquet table of life, there are no reserved seats. You get what you can take and keep what you can hold," it says. "If you can't take anything, you won't get anything. And if you can't hold anything, you won't keep anything. And you can't take anything without organization."

Trimble said the nonprofit group is "not Pollyannaish about the promises made Monday night. What all those candidates were thinking is: 'I don't want anyone talking negatively about me on their doorstep.' But I don't care what the promises are. You have to hold them accountable. And you have to have the power to do that."

A Polling Enigma

Employment lawyer Jonathan Puth was enjoying the Memorial Day weekend when a pollster called not once, but twice, to gauge his support for an initiative that would outlaw same-sex marriage if approved by D.C. voters in November.

The problem? There is no such initiative on the ballot in November.

That fact didn't seem to faze the caller, who identified himself as a representative of "Mountain Research," a firm that is not listed by the American Association for Public Opinion Research. In addition to questions about banning marriage and civil unions for gay and lesbian couples, Puth said, the caller asked "what issues would sway me to vote for or against such an initiative, including whether this were a ruse by Republicans in the Bush administration to divert attention from more critical issues . . . or if increasing numbers of black men were becoming gay, thereby reducing the strength of the black family."

Community activist Gary Imhoff said he, too, was surveyed, although he thought the caller was asking about an initiative to legalize gay marriage. Numerous confused others called D.C. election officials to ask about a gay marriage initiative, said Bill O'Field , a spokesman for the Board of Elections and Ethics.

The bottom line: A proposal to ban same-sex marriage in the District was filed in 2004 by Ward 4 resident Lisa L. Greene , O'Field said, but Greene never filed campaign finance papers, raised any money or sought certification from the elections board. That process generally takes several months and requires the collection of thousands of signatures.

For the November election, the deadline for submitting signatures is July 10. That means there's unlikely to be anything about gay marriage on the D.C. ballot. So who is spending money to conduct a poll about something that doesn't exist?

Barbs From Bobb

At a Ward 8 town hall meeting last week hosted by council member Marion Barry (D), City Administrator Robert C. Bobb praised his host and took a swipe at his boss.

"Although I work for Mayor Williams , I feel like every day I work more for [Barry] because he's in my office more than any other council member. And the mayor has yet to come to my office after three years," said Bobb, who was highly vexed when Williams this spring backed away from a plan to build a hospital on the banks of the Anacostia River.

Bobb's appearance was unscheduled at the event, billed as a seminar on "wealth building" featuring representatives of developer Herb Miller 's Western Development Corp., which has been tapped to build an entertainment district around the city's new baseball stadium.

Miller didn't show. But employee Moddie Turay did, and he related the tale of his hiring. When Miller asked why he wanted to work in development, Turay responded: "Well, I want to make a lot of money."

But the town hall meeting was not about building Turay's wealth. It was about building other people's wealth, in part through an entrepreneurial training program Western Development plans to offer D.C. residents who are interested in operating concessions and working as vendors at the new ballpark.

Remember, you can get wealth only three ways, Barry told the crowd: Earn it, inherit it or steal it.

"Let's focus on how we can get money legitimately," Barry said. "Legitimately."