Candidates Address Business Concerns

Questions About $1 Billion Spending Pledge Surface at Board of Trade Forum

D.C. resident Ralph Telfort, center, attends the mayoral forum, which was photographed by Maurice, right, and James, far right, students in a photography program for people with mental retardation and developmental disabilities. (By Lois Raimondo -- The Washington Post)

The five major candidates for D.C. mayor were asked yesterday to explain how they planned to pay for pricey promises made on the campaign trail, including a pledge to commit $1 billion in public money to affordable housing and youth programs.

Seated before captains of industry at a Greater Washington Board of Trade forum held at George Washington University, the five candidates, all Democrats, positioned themselves as pro-business, lean-and-mean budgeters who would resist raising taxes. But they also were asked several times whether the $1 billion commitment they made weeks earlier to the Washington Interfaith Network was feasible without a tax increase.

"As business owners, our members are concerned where all the money for the billion-dollar promises will come from," said Mary L. Lynch, who is an officer of the Apartment and Office Building Association of Greater Washington.

Council member Adrian M. Fenty (Ward 4) has pledged not to raise taxes.

D.C. Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp was asked for the price tag of the broad policy platform she released earlier yesterday. She offered goals for education, affordable housing and public safety.

Cropp, who resisted efforts by Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) to take total control of the public schools and put them under the authority of the executive branch, said she would push the council and Congress to allow her as mayor to take over "failing schools."

She also pledged to seek pre-kindergarten education for all 3- and 4-year-olds, to give principals more training and to help teachers buy homes with down-payment and mortgage assistance.

Cropp said most of her proposals could be done "cost-effectively," but she did not give specific numbers. She said existing staff could be redeployed to help the mayor take over failing schools, but Cropp did not explain what criteria she would use to implement her plan.

A question about pending legislation that would require big-box stores in the District to pay a living wage and allow unions to organize workers drew passionate responses from the candidates.

Fenty is a co-sponsor of the legislation and said the bill was important to protect the city's workers, especially immigrant residents, from exploitation. Cropp said she has talked with Wal-Mart officials -- who have considered opening a store in the city -- and said she needs to examine the legislation before the making a decision.

The other three major contenders, lobbyist Michael A. Brown, council member Vincent B. Orange Sr. (Ward 5) and former Verizon executive Marie C. Johns, each took a position on the issue.

Brown expressed support for the legislation, while Orange, who trumpets delivering a Home Depot to his ward, said all existing businesses as well as those in the pipeline "should be exempt" from the legislation. He said concern over the bill has delayed Costco from opening a store in his ward. Johns said she would examine the living wage issue but was emphatic that union organizing on the retail floor was "anti-business" and that "we shouldn't have that in the District of Columbia."