Has Our Mayor Gone FIGMO?

Sept. 17-19: Vienna and Berlin.

Oct. 11-14: Chongqing, China.

Nov. 10-15: London.

2006

April 28-30: London.

May 6-15: Senegal and Ghana.

June 7-11: Seoul.

And with trips planned to, at least, Paris and South Africa in the weeks ahead.

Somebody grab that man's passport.

Okay, okay, I hear you. Why be a spoilsport? Soon the chauffeured cars, bodyguards and fawning aides will be gone. The day is coming when our mayor will have to drive himself, open his mail and pay for fabulous black-tie events out of his own pocket. Give him a little break, you might say. Fair enough.

Except that the mayor expects to draw a D.C. taxpayer-funded paycheck until next January, when his successor takes over.

Residents of the District haven't placed Tony Williams on leave or granted him an early out. They expect their mayor to earn his salary. True, the mayor has not spent all of this time on the road. He has invested much of his energy in building the new baseball stadium. "My baby," he affectionately called it the other day. But residents didn't hire Williams to play D.C. baseball commissioner: They put him in office to fix problems associated with the running of a large city.

Don't get me wrong; the desire to see the world, especially on somebody else's dime, is understandable. But Tony Williams still has a lot of unfinished business, and some of it is a dreadful mess that shouldn't be left for the next mayor to handle.

For example, there's the matter of the abuse and neglect of vulnerable people left to the mercy of the city's Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Administration. People with disabilities have died on the mayor's watch. Years ago he pledged to clean up the dysfunctional system. It hasn't happened. Now advocates have asked a federal judge to place the agency in receivership, and the Justice Department has asked that the court hold the District in contempt for the harm it is causing people. His reaction? He fires the agency head, hires a new director and takes off for Seoul as fast as the plane can fly.

Then there's St. Elizabeths Hospital. The Justice Department's civil rights division sent the mayor a highly critical investigative report on May 23, charging that St. Elizabeths "too often subjects its patients to harm or risk of harm. St. Es patients are subjected to assaults and harm from [escapes] and suicides. St. Es patients are subjected to undue seclusion and restraints." The hospital, the report said, has a weak system for investigating cases of abuse and neglect. Once again, the mayor was put on notice that the Justice Department was prepared to initiate a lawsuit if the city failed to correct deficiencies of the kind identified in the report. But he's hobnobbing in South Korea, so St. Elizabeths can wait.

As will problems within the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department and the Corrections Department, which has problems keeping inmates in -- and guns out -- of the jail.

In the mayor's absence, loyal staffers left behind in Washington are trying to soldier on, saying and doing a lot in the mayor's name. But surrogates and news releases are no substitute for the hands-on involvement and leadership of a mayor. A multibillion-dollar corporation such as the District government simply cannot afford a chief executive on cruise control. The mayor needs to return to duty. Going AWOL is unacceptable. It is exactly that kind of governance that leads to a SNAFU, aka situation normal, all fouled up (the polite version).

kingc@washpost.com