Nearly 3,000 District residents turned out at the WashingtonConvention Center on Saturday in response to a call by Mayor AnthonyA. Williams (D) to help him set priorities for D.C. government. Theforum, in which residents from across the District sat in groups of10 and occasionally expressed opinions through a computerized votingsystem, was the first major event in a series of meetings Williamsplans to hold to give residents a say in how the city should spendits money and direct its programs. What follows are some scenes fromSaturday's summit, compiled by staff writers Michael H. Cottman,Stephen C. Fehr, David Montgomery, Vanessa Williams and YolandaWoodlee.
Tracking the Themes
Typing madly into their Apple laptops, summiteers might havewondered what happened to their recommendations after they pushed the"send" button.
Off to the side of the hall at the Washington Convention Centersat a group whom Williams dubbed the "theme team"--an enthusiasticbunch of about a half-dozen volunteers and members of the mayor'sstaff. They had laptops, too. As comments were filed from the 241tables in the hall, the words would pop up on the screens of thetheme team.
Their mission: Identify the themes that mattered most to thecitizenry, and sort them out in the coming days. Eventually, thecomments will be posted on the Internet, Williams said.
Theme team member Yoshi Uchimura, a municipal management expertvolunteering from George Washington University, read the demandstransmitted from one table: "Clean and well-maintained streets.""Rehab abandoned buildings." "More community centers forneighborhoods."
From time to time, Williams would stop by for a quick briefingfrom theme team member Mikki Seligman on what people were saying, sohe could go up on the stage and give a reaction to the crowd. Therewere few surprises in what Seligman had to tell him. People wantedsafe streets and opportunities for youths. They were proud of theculture and neighborliness of their city. Seligman also noted thatresidents weren't parochial in their concerns: They spoke of pullingtogether to address problems citywide.
Of the several goals suggested in preparation for the summit, thelargest number of participants, or 29 percent, named building andsustaining healthy neighborhoods as their top priority, followedclosely by investing in children and youth.
The only surprise, Williams said in an interview after the summit,was that the goal of making government work received the fewest votes--as though, perhaps, people view the government as already beginningto work again after near-bankruptcy. "I could take that as acompliment," Williams said.
Taking Attendance
The nifty keypads everyone had at the summit allowed for a quickiedemographic survey of the crowd--including which wards wererepresented most heavily. We're not sure what this means, but here'sthe percentage of people who attended from each ward.
Ward 4--16 percent; Ward 1--15 percent; Ward 2--15 percent; Ward 5--14 percent; Ward 6--10 percent; Ward 7--9 percent; Ward 3--9percent; Ward 8--8 percent; outside the city--4 percent.
Getting Everyone on Same Page
Borrowing a technique from the United Nations, the summit offeredsimultaneous translations of the proceedings in Spanish, Chinese,Vietnamese and Korean, in addition to sign language for people withhearing impairments.
Foreign language translators sat in glass cubicles, offeringtranslations that could be heard in headphones provided by summitorganizers.
"I came because I have different issues that I would like toaddress," said Elizabeth Phan, a teacher, who sat at a table ofpeople who emigrated from Vietnam. Phan did not need a translation,but several at her table who were using headphones reported thesystem worked well.
The members of Phan's table all wore stickers of the yellow-and-red flag of the former Republic of Vietnam, defeated by the communistregime of Hanoi. Phan whispered to a reporter that there was anothertable of Vietnamese communist sympathizers present at the summit. Theanti-communists typed into their laptop that on occasions when theDistrict shows the flags of various cultures represented in the city,it should include the flag of the defeated republic. A recent publicschools program displayed only the communist flag, Phan said.
Hispanics Underrepresented
Alexander Padro was surprised to see so few fellow Latinos in thecrowd, given the growth in the number of Hispanics in the city duringthe past decade. A census of the audience counted 3 percent of theparticipants to be Hispanic.
Padro, who has lived in the Shaw neighborhood for three years,wondered whether the city did a good enough job reaching out toSpanish-speaking residents. He said he did not notice signs andfliers in Spanish in the city's heavily populated Latinoneighborhoods.
Max Brown, a top aide to Williams, said literature advertising thesummit was distributed in Spanish, as well as in several Asianlanguages. He agreed that the administration would have to workharder to recruit Asian and Latino participation in futurediscussions.
Padro said Latino residents in the district face serious barriersin the areas of housing, employment and education. But they have noadvocates in city government, he said, noting there are no electedofficials in the District who are Latino. He said Latinos will haveto take a more active role in city politics to ensure their successin the city.
"That's why so many immigrants come here," he said, "to guaranteea better future for future generations. Hispanics just want to sharein the growth and improvements of the city that we're all working tomake our own. We're prepared to play as large a role as we can."
Connecting With the Mayor
The summit was the first chance for many people to see the first-year mayor in a personal, relaxed setting. Williams left hiscustomary bow tie at home, wore a sports shirt and walked among thecrowd as he spoke. Throughout the convention center, the mayor, whooften has been criticized for not consulting many people beforemaking key decisions, seemed to have won many fans for his efforts tosolicit residents' opinions.
"He started out as a perfect stranger," Wade H. Jefferson, 70, ofNortheast, said of the mayor, who took office in January. "I'm verytouched by his administration so far."
"I like the way he's decided to involve the public in the planningof our city," said Brenda Floyd, 47, of Southeast. "I don't feel likeI'm just a citizen being told what to do."
Betsy Kim, a discussion leader at one table, said she admired theway Williams was reaching out.
"Unfortunately the Asian American community in D.C. doesn't have avoice because of language barriers," said Kim, 36, of Northwest. "SoI came because I thought it was really important to haverepresentation."
Many people said they appreciated Williams's position that thecity should be evaluated on its job performance just as its residentsare in their jobs.
The challenge now for Williams, many agreed, is to deliver on thehigh expectations he set at the conference. He promised that many ofthe recommendations suggested by participants would be found in theannual city budget he will propose early next year.
I. Toni Thomas, 60, a Prince George's County consultant withcontracts in the District, said the mayor's goals for the Districtwon't be achieved until he brings more jobs to the city.
"If people have jobs and training then you can have everythingelse--good schools, housing, neighborhoods," she said. "Because ifyou have a job, you worry less about survival. The city then canspend more time on issues of quality of life."
Empowering Neighborhoods
Abena Disroe, a Ward 2 resident, teaches workshops to residents onhow to empower their neighborhoods through a program sponsored byJohns Hopkins University. She said she was excited to see Williamsbring D.C. residents together for the same purpose.
But she questioned why Williams didn't have copies of the draft ofhis citywide strategic plan stuffed in the materials that were passedout to participants. She picked up one of the few copies sitting on atable.
"Why isn't the plan in the folder? Half of these people will leavewithout it," Disroe said. "The mayor has a vision and he's written itdown.
"Once he receives the community's input, I want to know if he'sgoing to include their vision into his plan. He invited them here tocome up with ideas. Whether these people believe this is going tohappen or not, this is important to them."
Recognizing Common Goals
Marge Maceda, a day-care center operator who lives in SouthwestWashington, said one of the things she learned at her table was thatpeople of all the neighborhoods have common goals.
"We'd like to see retail and restaurants developed inneighborhoods as well as downtown," she said. "Trees and flowers keptin the city."
Maceda attended a reception held by the mayor Nov. 18 and pickedup a draft copy of his strategic plan and was "amazed at how detailedthis is," she said. "I don't think we'll have real knowledge for awhile of how this connects to the draft."
Youthful Point of View Several teenagers from Ward 7 attended thesummit.
Marcus Harley, 15, who attends Eastern High School, said he wantedto participate because "I want to help improve the community . . .and I get school credits." Harley said there are several importantissues facing young people in the District, namely "recreation andteen violence."
Harley was working the room with buddies, Raven Maynard, 15, TimJohnson, 14, and Chris Smith, 14.
Each of the boys said it was important for young people toparticipate in the summit so officials could get a sense of what'simportant for the District's youth.
A Voice From the Past
Besides several D.C. Council members, former mayor Marion Barrydropped by the summit and pronounced it a good idea for improvingresidents' involvement in city government. Barry chatted with severalresidents and was viewed by others as something of a curiosity. Theformer mayor's named popped back into the news last week with reportsthat the FBI had planned to conduct a second sting operation aimed athim.
Barry--who was arrested in an FBI sting nearly 10 years ago inwhich agents videotaped him smoking crack cocaine, and then returnedto the mayor's office nearly three years after his release fromprison on a misdemeanor drug charge--was the target of an abortedbribery sting last year. As part of an investigation of D.C. policecorruption, the FBI and D.C. police hoped to videotape Barryaccepting money in exchange for giving someone a city job.
Barry said the aborted sting was evidence of continued federalharassment of him, and some of those at the summit seemed to agree.
Williams, who succeeded Barry as mayor last January, wouldn'tcriticize the FBI but did say that the city was growing weary of theFeds vs. Barry story line.
"We're proud to have the FBI has a partner in our crime fightingand they're a great organization," Williams said. "But theseofficials need to get a life. Leave the man [Barry] alone. . . . Idon't know how I can elaborate. Leave him alone."
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