Fenty, Champing at the Bit, Set to Take Up City's Reins

Adrian M. Fenty will cap his two-year quest to become Washington's fifth elected mayor under home rule when he is sworn in at D.C. Superior Court this morning and within days plans to unveil his first major legislative proposal: a bid to take direct control of the city's failing school system.

Fenty, 36, a Democrat, is scheduled to assume power from outgoing Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) shortly after 8 a.m. in a small ceremony during which Chief Judge Eric T. Washington will administer the oath of office to Fenty and incoming D.C. Council members. Because today is a national day of mourning for former president Gerald R. Ford, Fenty has rescheduled his public ceremony for tomorrow and his inaugural ball for Saturday, both at the Washington Convention Center.

Once in office, Fenty plans to issue a rapid-fire series of announcements, starting Thursday with details of his proposal to restructure the governance of the 58,000-student school system. Under Fenty's plan, the school superintendent would report directly to him, and the council would assume line-item authority over the school system's operating budget, according to several sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan has not been formally introduced.

The nine-member Board of Education would retain some decision-making authority in areas such as standardized testing and teacher certification, the sources said. But the board would have no authority over management, budget or programmatic decisions.

Fenty declined to discuss specifics of his plan.

Within his first week as mayor, Fenty also will move into a newly designed "bullpen" office at the John A. Wilson Building, in which he will sit alongside 30 top deputies; introduce plans with his nominee for police chief, Cathy L. Lanier, to increase police presence in neighborhoods; and kick off his CapStat program, a computer-assisted analysis of city agencies that is designed to improve government efficiency and eliminate waste.

Fenty moved quickly after the Nov. 7 election to prepare to take office, traveling the country to talk with other big-city mayors, naming dozens of Cabinet members and holding town hall-style meetings in all eight wards. On the eve of taking office, Fenty, a District native who will become the city's youngest mayor, said he's ready to lead Washington's 570,000 residents.

"We've had a city for a number of years that has gone through ups and downs, and we're trying to bring a lot of energy and strength and willpower and fortitude together to make this a great nation's capital and inspire people," Fenty said over a breakfast of granola with berries at Tryst coffee shop in Adams Morgan.

A council member for six years, Fenty explained that he plans to move fast because he wants as much time as possible to fix long-standing education, health-care and workforce development problems that continue to haunt the city and might have been accentuated by recent development in some corridors.

"Our learning curve is a lot less steep coming in, and I don't think it should be surprising we came in and made a lot of quick decisions and have a lot of ideas because I've been formulating those ideas over the past six to seven years," he said.

Along with Fenty, Vincent C. Gray (D) will be sworn in today as the new chairman of the D.C. Council, taking over from Linda W. Cropp, who also ran for mayor. Three new council members, Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5) and Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), also will take office.

The turnover within the city's leadership will be the most dramatic in eight years, including the open council seats in Wards 4 and 7 that Fenty and Gray held and that will be filled in a special election in the spring. Fenty and Gray said they hope to present a unified front to residents by holding joint inaugural events.

The school governance issue, however, could pose an early test of that unity.

Fenty plans to ask several council members to appear with him Thursday as he presents his restructuring proposal, which would require approval from the council and Congress.

Gray, who said he has talked with Fenty's staff about general principles of the legislation, said he is not ready to endorse the takeover plan.

"We would be ill-advised not to let the public weigh in," said Gray, who has promised to discard the council's traditional education committee and assign the issue to the Committee of the Whole, which he will oversee as chairman. "If it appeared that the mayor has made up his mind and the council has made up its mind, the public would wonder what its role is."

In the community, reaction has been mixed. Some residents have said that the time is right for sweeping reform of the school system, saddled for years with decrepit facilities, poorly trained teachers and low test scores. But others have called on Fenty to retain an elected school board that is accountable to residents, saying a governance change could set back recent initiatives from Superintendent Clifford B. Janey.

Emily Y. Washington, a D.C. public schools teacher and Ward 7 resident, said she is not convinced that a change is needed but would support Fenty if he believes a takeover would speed up school reform.

"I'm optimistic about this mayor's optimism and his desire to uplift and bring the people along," she said. "To that end, I'm open to new ideas."

Fenty has said repeatedly that he is inheriting a city that is in far better shape than it was when Williams replaced Marion Barry in 1999, when the city was on the verge of bankruptcy and overseen by the congressionally mandated Financial Control Board.

Now, Fenty said, the District has regained strong financial footing, aided by significant economic development overseen by Williams, as well as a measure of self-respect.

"Williams has raised expectations, and we've got to fulfill those expectations and do our own raising of the bar," said Fenty, who retained a number of Williams's deputies.

Recently, Fenty has been reading books about how other politicians, including presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, prepared for office. And he's been working on the brief speech he will deliver tomorrow at the public inauguration, where he said he plans to talk about such themes as "bringing energy and optimism" to all eight wards.

"It's all about running the city like a business," Fenty said. "Gone with patronage, in with productivity. In a way, this is a new way of inspiring people -- people who are new to the city and also seniors and low-income residents who have been in the city a long time and never see any results."