Chancellors email on Marion Barry

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do have a problem with DCPS celebrating someone whose many public failures can only euphemistically be described as "complex." I wonder if how many teachers who are encouraged to speak about Marion Barry to their classes are encouraged as well to note his cocaine and crack usage as DC's chief elected official (at a time when many, including children, were dying directly or indirectly through violence during DC's crack epidemic. How many hear about how he misused his security detail to pick up women off the street or mis-managed the city, such that it couldn't even plow the streets or pick up garbage? How many hear about how dysfunctional DC agencies, especially those that served the poor and vulnerable directly, were taken away from Barry's stewardship by a series of judges and how the federal control board was finally put in to usurp Barry's remaining authority and save DC from financial and operational implosion? How many are told about his repeated tax evasion? Or his racist rants against Asians, whites and others? It's especially ironic that Henderson celebrates him when the indifference of Barry and his political cronies led to DCPS reaching its nadir, really an absolute crisis stage, during his mayoral years.

Which agencies specifically is the bolded true of? Which agencies were taken from under his leadership, and which agencies had a Federal control board put in to run them? Please be specific.

Not PP, but the best example is child welfare which is STILL under federal court control in 2014. IIUC the court remains of the view that more milestones must be met before the DC govt can be trusted with the handling of its most vulnerable children. Is that enough for you?

As someone who works for CFSA (yes, that is DC's child welfare agency), CFSA is still under the consent decree for "LaShawn A.", but 1) that is NOT the same as being "under federal control" (newsflash: the Mayor of DC has appointed at least the last 4 Directors of CFSA, if not more); and 2) while CFSA is still under the consent decree, we are all but almost out of it. The agency has been well-managed for years, the current Director was 95% likely to stay in place no matter who won the election, and you are WRONG that somehow the agency is currently under federal control. The feds are NOT calling the shots; the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and the City Council are making budget and Director appointment decisions.

You are free to have your opinions about Barry, but you are NOT allowed to spread misinformation about the status of DC agencies and since you're wrong about this one, to answer your question: No, that example is NOT enough because it's no longer true and I'm wondering if it was ever true because you got it so wrong.

You may be entitled to your own opinion about the mayor-for-life (has a Mugabe-esque ring to it, no?), but not to your own facts.

The Washington Post reported in 1998 that D.C. government, under Barry, had hired more municipal employees than any other U.S. city.

Despite this (or perhaps because of it), according to Business Week, as part of the Barry record were guilty pleas or convictions of more than a dozen people in his administration for misconduct in office. Courts appointed receivers to oversee city agencies that provided public housing and cared for the mentally ill. In 1995, the U.S. Congress took away much of his remaining power by creating the District of Columbia Financial Control Board, which oversaw city finances through 2001.

According to Washingtonian magazine, by the time Barry left office as mayor the final time, five city agencies were in court receivership or under court management.

As Business Week noted: “He was very bright, with wonderful leadership and oratorical skills,” said former U.S. Representative James Walsh, a New York Republican who chaired the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversaw spending for the District of Columbia. “But he didn’t have a clue how to run a city.”

Nothing you quote mentions CFSA by name. Speaking of making up facts, you seem to be making up content in the PP's quote about CFSA that isn't there. He or she doesn't say CFSA never was under court management, and the poster discusses that CFSA is still currently under court management (i.e. consent decree). And by the way, they are right, there is a difference between "court management" and "federal control" because control means who is running the agency on a day to day basis. That hair that's being split has real significance, because there have been times that an agency is in such awful shape, the state or feds take over daily management. If that ever was the case for CFSA, it absolutely is not the case now. That is a fair distinction to make.

On what basis are you saying the CFSA poster is making up facts? What facts did they make up?

[Anonymous]

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/38334/getting-the-courts-to-stop-governing-dc

[Anonymous]

I don't think that DCPS should be honoring a convicted criminal, period.

[Anonymous]

AGREED!

[Anonymous]

Wasn't Martin Luther King, Jr. convicted by an Alabama convicted for violating anti-boycott laws?

[Anonymous]

It is entirely appropriate for city government and city agencies to make positive comments about a long-term political figure who has recently passed away. There is plenty of media criticism of Marion Barry out there if you are looking for a balanced overview of his life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is entirely appropriate for city government and city agencies to make positive comments about a long-term political figure who has recently passed away. There is plenty of media criticism of Marion Barry out there if you are looking for a balanced overview of his life.

Fair point but the original thrust of this thread was whether or not it was appropriate for for DCPS to send an unsolicited blast email to its entire constitutiency about a person with tangential current relevance to DCPS AND one with an unarguably mixed record of achievement and misbehavior

I say it was inappropriate

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wasn't Martin Luther King, Jr. convicted by an Alabama convicted for violating anti-boycott laws?

So you think that Barry was abusing illegal drugs (and failing to file taxes) to vindicate some kind of civil rights principle?

[Anonymous]

No. I was simply responding to a ridiculous post in which someone asserted that DCPS shouldn't be honoring a convicted criminal, period, a proposition that apparently was seconded by another poster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is entirely appropriate for city government and city agencies to make positive comments about a long-term political figure who has recently passed away. There is plenty of media criticism of Marion Barry out there if you are looking for a balanced overview of his life.

Fair point but the original thrust of this thread was whether or not it was appropriate for for DCPS to send an unsolicited blast email to its entire constitutiency about a person with tangential current relevance to DCPS AND one with an unarguably mixed record of achievement and misbehavior

I say it was inappropriate

You don't get it. Marion Barry was a big, big deal to many people in this city. He was also a sitting councilmember. It would be tone deaf for DCPS to ignore the large swath of the city who is actively grieving for him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is entirely appropriate for city government and city agencies to make positive comments about a long-term political figure who has recently passed away. There is plenty of media criticism of Marion Barry out there if you are looking for a balanced overview of his life.

Fair point but the original thrust of this thread was whether or not it was appropriate for for DCPS to send an unsolicited blast email to its entire constitutiency about a person with tangential current relevance to DCPS AND one with an unarguably mixed record of achievement and misbehavior

I say it was inappropriate

You don't get it. Marion Barry was a big, big deal to many people in this city. He was also a sitting councilmember. It would be tone deaf for DCPS to ignore the large swath of the city who is actively grieving for him.

Some politicians court the farm bloc.

Others woo the tech bloc.

Barry courted the cell block.

[Anonymous]

Large swath? I have to disagree. Barry would not have been able to win a seat as an at-large Councilmember. Hitrek to irrelevancy was nearly complete.

[Anonymous]

His trek . . .

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:Large swath? I have to disagree. Barry would not have been able to win a seat as an at-large Councilmember. Hitrek to irrelevancy was nearly complete.

Vincent Orange won two recent At Large elections. I'm pretty sure that Barry could have beaten him either time (a split electorate means you don't have to have a majority to win).