Mayoral candidate Vincent C. Gray promised to release prior to the September 14 Primary his fiscal and public safety plans for the city. Last week he distributed the latter. As with previous blueprints, there wasn’t anything fresh or innovative.
He claimed the quality of public safety services is unequal and that “too many children and families are being victimized by violent crimes for no other reason than they live in a dangerous neighborhood.” He won’t talk about who is making those neighborhoods dangerous. Sometimes it’s the very people who live in those communities.
But Gray won’t go there. He’s too busy patronizing and instigating, albeit subtly, racial and class divisions to have a real discussion about the root cause of violence in neighborhoods where many of his supporters live.
Gray has proposed more police officers on the street. He also wants to recreate the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety post. Neither is a new concept. But they do cost money. He continues to toss around ideas without financial consideration–as if the country and the city aren’t reeling from a four-year recession.
Interestingly, he told the folks at the Northwest Current newspaper that he intends to cut spending.
There must be two different Vincent Grays on the campaign trail. One is an unabashed spendthrift, proposing to expand the size and cost of government. That’s the same Gray who, during fiscal 2011 budget deliberations, diverted funds slated for streetcars to social service programs. After all hell broke loose and residents started ringing his phone like there was no tomorrow, he persuaded his council colleagues to approve borrowing money for the streetcars.
The fiscally responsible thing would have been to reverse his initial decision: pull the money from social service programs and return it to the streetcars. Since he didn’t do that, the District is closer to its mandated cap on borrowing. Consequently, there may be fewer new buildings and infrastructure improvements.
The other Gray, who surfaced at the Current, said he would look for spending cuts in public safety, health and human services and education.
“With 80-plus percent of our expenditures in those areas there’s really nowhere else to look,” he said, according to the Current.
I’m getting whiplash.
Does Kris Baumann, with the Fraternal Order of Police, know that the candidate his union endorsed may come gunning for the Metropolitan Police Department’s budget?
Do charter schools know the money Gray lavished on them this year may be snatched back, if he lands in the mayoral suite? Do homeless advocates know that in a Gray administration there may be no room in the shelter?
It appears Gray is talking out of both sides of his mouth: He tells special interest supporters not to worry, he’ll take care of everything. In another community, where being a spendthrift doesn’t play well, he finds fiscal religion.
No need to shout hallelujah. Gray’s conversion to fiscal conservative isn’t permanent. It’s a campaign strategy.
Jonetta Rose Barras’s column appears on Monday and Wednesday. She can be reached at [email protected].
