NEWS NEWS CITY DESK In March, Austin secured an endorsement from a recently organized group of Ward 8 voters pulled together by former Ward 8 advisory neighborhood commissioner Sandra Seegers. The group of about 40 residents from across the ward scored each candidate based on their answers during in-person interviews. White refused to participate. Among the group of voters is Rev. Anthony Motley, a former confidant of the late Mayorfor-Life and Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry, who also supported White since he was elected to the school board in 2011. Now, Motley finds himself in a bit of a pickle. Publicly, Motley is sticking with the group’s choice in Austin, but he declines to say whether that support will transfer to the voting booth. When he asked White to sit for an interview, the councilmember said “he didn’t see it as beneficial to him,” Motley says. “I didn’t understand why it wasn’t,” Motley says. “Because here are 30-plus people who have different views, different political affiliations, different interests, but who all want the same thing: good representation in the ward, and who wanted to make their voice be heard. And what was wrong with that?” Ford brands herself as a quiet champion for Ward 8 residents who works as an attorney representing victims of police brutality. Before opening her Capitol Hill private practice, Ford worked on public benefits cases for the Legal Aid Society of D.C. and briefly as legislative counsel for the Council’s human services committee, then led by the late Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham. Ford and Austin point to White’s renegotiation of the massive Reunion Square project in Anacostia as a mark against his development policies. White renegotiated Mayor Muriel Bowser’s original proposal for $60 million in tax increment bond financing down to about $25 million, and replaced market rate rental units with affordable housing for seniors. He initially wanted to eliminate a planned hotel, which remains in the development. White has said he’s working to prevent displacement of longtime residents. Ford says the original $60 million TIF would have “brought much needed development to a ward that’s failing.” “Will I pay higher property taxes so I can have enough equity in my property, so I can build wealth for my family?” Ford says. “Yes, I will, because I understand black people have been deprived of opportunities to generate wealth.” Austin suggests that one way to welcome development in the ward is with tax credits for homeowners and renters. Meanwhile, Anderson talks broadly about his top priorities for Ward 8, including a new hospital, bringing more grocery stores to the area, and reducing violence. He spoke to LL on the phone last week as he was delivering meals to children and seniors, an effort he says he began on his own after public schools closed due to the coronavirus. Anderson has worked with families of incarcerated people after serving more than a decade in prison himself. He ran in the 2015 Ward 8
special election after Barry’s death and dropped out to support White’s losing bid before returning to manage White’s campaign in 2016.
Trigger Warnings
Each of White’s challengers have their own obstacles to overcome. For Austin, it’s his perceived connection to White’s predecessor, LaRuby May and Bowser’s Green Team. (Ward 8 handed Bowser her lowest vote percentage in the 2018 primary.) Austin worked as May’s legislative counsel in her Council office and as secretary and a vice president of United Medical Center’s board, which May chairs. May donated to his campaign, and Bowser has not said whether she is supporting any candidates in the Ward 8 race. Austin pushes back against his connection to the Green Team and says he has not spoken with the mayor or her team. “If I’m Green Team, lemme get the Green Team money,” he says. But while talking about education inequality in the ward, Austin has to correct himself. “Making sure we have a fair shot,” Austin says, quickly realizing he just uttered Bowser’s favorite hashtag. “Not a fair shot. Scratch that. Sounds like the mayor. But a real chance at a decent education, and that only comes with the money being in the budget.” Ford, who moved to D.C. from Washington state to attend Howard University School of Law, is facing two hurdles. Her lack of name recognition is only overshadowed by her lack of funds. According to her March campaign finance report, Ford raised a little more than $3,100 but spent almost $5,000. “I’m not a newcomer,” she says. “I lived here for 15 years. A lot of people don't know me and the reason for that is historically I don't do photo-ops at food giveaways. I’ve served women and girls in Ward 8 for the last 15 years and never did media blitz or sought that recognition.” For Anderson, an activist and organizer with deep ties in the ward, the coronavirus is his campaign’s greatest enemy. Anderson admits that his strongest campaigning tactic was inperson door knocking, and he’s still working on setting up an online apparatus. Olivia Henderson, a longtime ANC, is proof of Anderson’s loyal following and the dissatisfaction with White. For all of White’s work in the community, she says, Anderson has been providing the same service for much longer. “[White] will not work with me as an ANC commissioner,” she says. “And that’s why some things in the community isn’t working. He has his pick of what communities and what people he works with.” Although White won the Ward 8 Democrats endorsement last time around, the group is not endorsing anyone this cycle, and the chair, Troy Prestwood, declines to say which candidate he’s supporting. “The winning candidate will be someone who illuminated a vision of inclusivity where they will work hard to find areas of opportunity and cooperation throughout all four corners of our ward,” he says. “In many ways we are the heartbeat of Washington D.C. And if we’re having a heart attack, then this city’s going to die.”
The coronavirus disease and gun violence are killing D.C. residents. Advocates fear one might exacerbate the other.
4 april 24, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com
By Amanda Michelle Gomez @amanduhgomez D.C. has not gone a week without a homicide since Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a public health emergency over the coronavirus pandemic on March 11. There have been 17 murders in D.C. since the city saw its first confirmed case of COVID-19 on March 7, and 46 murders since the start of 2020, according to data from the Metropolitan Police Department. Despite a pandemic and orders from the mayor to stay inside, D.C. is on track to match its homicide rate from last year, when the city saw the highest murder count in a decade, at 166. And like last year, the overwhelming majority of homicides involved a gun. There are now two co-occurring public health crises killing residents: COVID-19 and gun violence. The fear among some is that one could exacerbate the other. With t he pa ndem ic forcing businesses to close and creating joblessness, advocates worry that mounting anxiety can aggravate violent crime. While MPD has yet to see a change in behavior that can be credited to the pandemic and its rippling effects, those that work closely with offenders and victims believe it’s inevitable. Domestic homicides, for example, could ver y well increase. MPD Chief Peter Newsham says most murders continue to involve individuals who are known to one another and where violence is used to settle disputes. A minor difference in recent shootings is that some of the victims were either selling or purchasing drugs. “Our violent offenders, particularly the ones who are inclined to use firearms, are not particularly moved by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Newsham tells City Paper. “They will pick up an illegal firearm and use it whenever it suits their purposes and I think for them it’s business as normal.” Clayton Aristotle Rosenberg, chief of staff of the nonprofit Alliance of Concerned Men, which works to save lives in high-crime areas, is worried that violence will increase as
people lose their jobs and resort to desperate acts. While working as a violence interrupter in neighborhoods within Ward 7 and Ward 8, as part of the Office of the Attorney General’s Cure the Streets program, Rosenberg has seen more people at risk of being involved in violence. He hasn’t seen an increase in crime, but rather in the temptation to commit them. He sees more people out now that work or school is not occupying their time. “These are individuals who weren’t on our radar at first and now they are because of all of the new stresses they are dealing with. They are trying to eat and they are in survival mode,” Rosenberg says. That’s not to say that every person who loses a job due to the pandemic will turn to crime. But as Rosenberg points out, hope counts for a lot, and a lack of economic opportunity often leads people to commit violence. R es ea rch s u g gest s there is a correlation between both violent and property crime and t he u nemployment rate, along with other social and community conditions. Cu re t he St reets identifies individuals for its program based on a number of variables, like if someone was recently shot or released from custody as a result of a gun crime. Rosenberg already works with many individuals who don’t have a job, and says that the pandemic has only complicated the organization’s efforts to connect people with employment opportunities, since so many businesses are laying off workers and implementing hiring freezes. “Because staff is not out there as much as they were before this crisis hit, it’s almost like the community—the participants they work with—they are a little bit more lax and think they can get away with a little bit more, to be honest,” adds Lashonia Thompson-El, who co-leads Cure The Streets. In some cases, Thompson-El says, violence interrupters have heard more from their participants than before over the phone and have even mediated conflict between individuals over Zoom. The police chief, however, views things differently from the violence interrupters.
“Our violent offenders, particularly the ones who are inclined to use firearms, are not particularly moved by the COVID-19 pandemic. They will pick up an illegal firearm and use it whenever it suits their purposes and I think for them it’s business as normal.”