For Guidance, Fenty Turns to a Neighbor
Candidate Seizes on O'Malley Program

By Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 3, 2006

BALTIMORE -- In a darkened room tucked under the eaves of Baltimore's Baroque City Hall, Mayor Martin O'Malley preached the gospel of service delivery to an attentive student yesterday: D.C. mayoral candidate Adrian M. Fenty.

"You can't fake being mayor," the veteran mayor and Maryland gubernatorial candidate counseled the sophomore council member. The city is "either getting better or it isn't. Either it's getting safer, or it's not."

In Baltimore, it is not hard to take those measurements. When he took office six years ago, O'Malley (D) pioneered an award-winning strategy for evaluating the performance of each agency and forcing bureaucrats to run them more efficiently. Now Fenty (D-Ward 4) is making that strategy the centerpiece of his campaign for mayor and promising to bring the same impressive results to Washington.

"I believe all the key issues remaining in the D.C. government can be solved with aggressive follow-through," Fenty said. "I see this program as being the spine of D.C. government."

The program, called CitiStat, is simple enough. It logs every call for service -- graffiti, dirty alleys, potholes, burned-out streetlights -- all in a database to be mapped, tracked and analyzed. And every two weeks, the agency heads responsible for handling those calls report to this darkened room, where maps, numbers and digital photographs are splashed on two giant screens for presentation to O'Malley or his chief deputy.

If the numbers are bad, there is trouble. If they look good, there is praise.

"It's like a council hearing, except there's way more accountability because the guy holding the hearing is the boss," Fenty said.

Baltimore is not an ideal model: The city's homicide rate remains stubbornly high and its public school test scores disappointingly low. But CitiStat has saved an estimated $350 million and helped generate the city's first budget surplus in years, O'Malley said.

Last year, D.C. City Administrator Robert C. Bobb ordered up a version of the much-copied program that collects a wealth of data about D.C. government. But Bobb started holding what he calls "accountability sessions" only a few weeks ago, said his chief of staff, Dana Bryson. And the mayor, Anthony A. Williams (D), is not involved.

Fenty said he plans to change that if he wins the Nov. 7 general election. "The government can't run to its optimal point without the mayor being involved, hands-on," he said.

Yesterday's two-hour visit was the latest in a series of calls Fenty has paid on big-city mayors in a quest for tips about city governance. Over the past six months, working from a Time magazine story about successful city leaders, Fenty has visited or chatted by phone with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R), San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom (D), Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper (D) and aides to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley (D).

A meeting with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) also is in the works. And in May, Fenty met in Miami with schools chief Rudy Crew, who rebuffed offers to take over the District's troubled public schools two years ago.

Over an Italian dinner, Crews sketched out a plan for reforming D.C. schools on the back of a restaurant menu. Fenty campaign aide Neil Richardson remembers that "Adrian came back and handed me this menu. I said, 'What the hell is this?' And on the back are all these pie charts and graphs." The menu now hangs in Fenty's campaign office.

Fenty's rivals in the race for mayor criticized his travels, calling them a gimmick aimed at lending gravitas to a political resume largely devoid of major accomplishments.

Fenty's gallivanting makes him look "like a kid about to take an exam," said council member Vincent B. Orange Sr. (D-Ward 5). "It's hilarious when he says we're going to run this government like a business. Well, what experience does he have? What business has he run?"

Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp (D) said she doesn't need to waste time running around the country. "I'm here meeting with D.C. citizens and voters," she said during a campaign stop yesterday at a senior citizens center in Foggy Bottom. "Once elected, I've always said I'll look at best practices."

In remarks to the seniors, Cropp, who was running eight points behind Fenty in a recent Washington Post poll, pressed her criticism of Fenty's vote against an emergency crime bill that authorizes a 10 p.m. youth curfew and surveillance cameras in residential neighborhoods. Fenty was the only council member to vote against the legislation two weeks ago, calling it a "knee jerk" reaction to rising crime rates. Campaign aides said Cropp plans to launch a direct-mail campaign as early as tomorrow comparing her record on public safety with Fenty's.

Fenty said he is prepared to respond if attacked. And he defended his travels, saying they have played a major role in shaping his vision for District government.

"One of the best ways to figure out how to be a big-city mayor is by talking to other big-city mayors," he said.

Staff writer David Nakamura contributed to this report.