For His First 100 Days, Fenty Outlines 200 Goals

D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's 27-page plan, "100 Days and Beyond," includes objectives falling into such categories as health and economic development. (By Michael Robinson Chavez -- The Washington Post)

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty has assembled a list of 200 goals for his first 100 days in office, including plans to add four ambulances to provide emergency medical services, find space downtown for new homeless shelters, begin work on the expansion of a Metro station near the new baseball stadium and plant 3,000 trees.

Fenty (D) has scheduled a news conference this morning to lay out those and other priorities for the start of his administration and beyond in a 27-page plan titled "100 Days and Beyond." Since winning the election in November, Fenty has been moving at warp speed and in many ways has trumped his own announcement.

Even before taking office, Fenty named dozens of Cabinet members and, after being sworn in last week, unveiled his first two major initiatives. He introduced legislation to the D.C. Council that would reduce the power of the Board of Education and give him direct authority over the city's public school system. And Cathy L. Lanier, his nominee for police chief, laid out plans for developing detailed community policing policies in each district.

Those measures are listed in the comprehensive 100-day plan, which includes a range of objectives from small and concrete to large and abstract. But none matches the dramatic impact of Fenty's plan to take over the school system, which the council will vote on this spring.

"This is not a story about individual items and individual issues," City Administrator Dan Tangherlini said yesterday when asked about the highlights of the plan. "We don't want to give people the impression we've already figured out all the exact things to do. We're erecting the superstructure of the administration and over time will fill it out."

According to a draft of the plan obtained by The Washington Post yesterday, Fenty's list of actions falls into six categories: education, public safety, health, human services, economic development and environment/infrastructure.

The document includes narrowly targeted actions, such as funding two new recreation centers, and more sweeping initiatives, such as streamlining the city's building permits office. Many of the actions would initiate policies that would presumably lead to larger changes down the road, such as working with a nonprofit organization to develop a more comprehensive housing program for the homeless.

The more challenging goals would take longer than 100 days. For example, Fenty's plan gives him six months to appoint a fire chief and directors for several other agencies, including human services and employment services. In the first year, Fenty aims to increase the city's reimbursements from the federal government for locally provided Medicaid services by $10 million. The city's inability to obtain such compensation has been cited by Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi as a major impediment to funding other government programs.

In the executive summary, the plan is described as being meant to "chart a course for an active D.C. government for the next four years. . . . The government of the District of Columbia must -- and will -- manage essential services in a continually more efficient and responsive manner."

Council members were receiving briefings on the plan yesterday, and many had not seen the entire document. Member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), chairman of the Committee on the Public Safety and Judiciary, said he had seen only the public safety portion.

Asked about the goal of adding four ambulances to cut down on emergency response times, Mendelson described the action as a first step. He said much more must be done to improve the performance of the Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department.

"We need to reduce demand and control demand," Mendelson said of 911 calls. "A lot of calls are not emergencies. Just adding transport units in itself will not fix that."

Fenty's proposal includes several items that were underway before he succeeded Anthony A. Williams (D), such as the plan to expand the Navy Yard Metro station to handle crowds expected for Washington Nationals games at the stadium opening in 2008.

Meantime, Fenty has been beaten to the punch on some of his goals. On Tuesday, council members introduced legislation aimed at eliminating two independent city planning organizations, the Anacostia Waterfront Corp. and the National Capital Revitalization Corp. Fenty's plan calls for a task force to examine that.

And the council introduced a bill to elevate the long-troubled Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Administration to a Cabinet-level agency, which Fenty's plan also calls for.

One council member described much of Fenty's plan as "not new."

"It's good public relations," said the council member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plan has not been formally released by the Fenty administration. "Some of the ideas were already in the pipeline, and Fenty is taking credit for them. I don't want to rain on his parade. If they have great follow-through, then great. But if they only come out with a fancy press release, then that's not really going to advance the ball."