Appointments Spark Hearings
Some Charge Mayoral Meddling in Personnel Changes

By Nikita Stewart and Elissa Silverman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, July 8, 2008

D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty has been exercising his right to replace members of various boards and commissions, but in the process has found himself under fire: Critics have accused him of meddling in the affairs of affected independent groups.

Frustrations over changes in the University of the District of Columbia board of trustees and the D.C. Children and Youth Investment Trust have sparked D.C. Council hearings.

The terms of those replaced had expired, but the proximity of Fenty's decisions to other actions has raised some questions and some hackles.

Last week, the mayor nominated replacements for six trustees at UDC. The changes, which must be approved by the council, were proposed after Fenty (D) halted the search for a university president. Fenty also recently installed top members of his administration in leadership positions of the powerful but little-publicized D.C. Children and Youth Investment Trust, replacing two prominent advocates from its board who disagreed with him over the selection process of an executive director.

The two are John W. Hill, chief executive of the Federal City Council, who had served as board chairman since the trust's founding in 1999, and vice chairman Diane Bernstein, head of a family foundation and co-founder of the nonprofit D.C. Action for Children.

"It's the responsibility of the administration to fill executive branch board and commission vacancies as terms of past members expire," said Leslie Kershaw, a Fenty spokeswoman. "We have been diligently fulfilling that obligation and will continue to do so to make sure that these important boards are able to function effectively."

At UDC, Victor Reinoso, deputy mayor for education, told a search committee to stop the process so that Fenty could provide a nominee list, search committee members and trustees said. The committee, of which Reinoso is a member, had evaluated 54 candidates and recommended four be interviewed by the board of trustees.

Donald N. Langenberg, a former chancellor of the University System of Maryland who headed the search, testified at a council hearing led by Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) that he has been involved in 25 searches and had never seen a search stopped like the one at UDC.

"These are independent agencies," said Gray, who has been critical of Fenty's governing style. "We're not empowered, either the executive or the council, to run these organizations."

Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) is set to hold a hearing on the trust today.

Although the trust is part of the city budget and slated to receive $18.5 million in fiscal 2009, it is incorporated and designed to operate as an independent nonprofit organization. Fenty has four appointees to the seven-member board, and the council has three.

Sources close to the recent events who asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak publicly on the issue gave the following account:

After Greg Roberts, who had been executive director of the trust since 2001, announced his resignation, some board members expected to conduct a search for a replacement.

But Fenty had selected Millicent Williams, head of a D.C. government volunteer program, to succeed Roberts.

At a board meeting last month, Hill and Bernstein said they wanted a national search. The next day, the two were told that their services were no longer needed, and Fenty named replacements. The day after that, the reconfigured board approved Williams.

Clark E. Ray, director of the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation, and Lisa Simpson, who works for AARP, replaced Hill and Bernstein. In the spring, Fenty had named Reinoso and James Carter, a mayoral budget analyst, to the board.

Board member Peter Gallagher, founding chief executive of a nonprofit started by Gen. Colin L. Powell, resigned after the changes, saying he had joined the board to work with Hill and Bernstein. He had recently joined the board as a council appointee.

"It was just an entirely different situation from what I had signed up for," Gallagher said in an interview. "I was particularly attracted to the opportunity to work with them."

Sources on the board and within the administration said the tumult partially grew out of Fenty's concern that the board was not spending wisely and had failed to attract many private dollars.

Hill, who said his and Bernstein's official terms expired several years ago, said, "I think the mayor has the right to have who he wants to serve on the board." Bernstein did not return calls seeking comment.

Williams works for the mayor as head of Serve DC, an AmeriCorps-style volunteer effort. She said that she did not seek the trust job and that Reinoso told her of the opening. "I don't know if there was a search or names submitted to the board," she said.

Reinoso said he thought a national search was unnecessary.

"It was in the strategic interest of the organization to have a candidate the mayor could get behind," he said, adding that the administration hoped to increase transparency in the trust's operations as well as boost private contributions.