David Grosso Lives Up to His Name

On November 6, District of Columbia voters will have the opportunity to vote to fill two At-Large DC Council seats. Council Members Vincent Orange, a Democrat, and Michael A Brown, an independent will attempt to retain the seats they now hold. Ann Wilcox of the DC Statehood Green Party and Republican Mary Brooks Beatty will be challenging them. In addition, David Grosso, an independent is vying for one of the two slots. I had the opportunity to sit down with Grosso and discuss his campaign.

My first reaction upon meeting Grosso is that he was not at all what I expected. If it is possible to be both laid back and passionate at the same time, Grosso manages the feat. I was a bit bewildered by this until he reveled that after finishing high school, he had spent time working as a bartender and following the Grateful Dead. I could easily see him in both roles. But, how does one go from a tie-dyed shirt and slinging beers to running for an At-Large seat on the DC Council? That is a transformation for which Grosso credits a number of women.

Grosso is a native Washingtonian who lives in Brookland with his wife Serra Sippel, also a native of Washington. Grosso described how his mother -- who still lives in the Petworth home in which Grosso spent his teenage years -- taught him to value service to others. This led to a series of volunteer opportunities and, eventually, a year helping to build a homeless shelter for women and children in San Antonio, Texas. During that time, he met Serra and -- as a result of her encouragement -- pursued college. After graduating from Earlham College with a degree in Philosophy, Grosso earned a J.D. from Georgetown Law.

After graduating from Georgetown, Grosso went to work for Council Member Sharon Ambrose, who represented Ward 6 at the time. He then moved to the staff of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton where he served as Chief Counsel. He now works at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield helping to implement federal healthcare reform.

District law sets aside two At-Large seats for candidates who are not from the majority party. One of those seats is currently held by David Catania who originally won the seat as a Republican, but now is an independent. Catania's seat is not up for election this year. Michael A. Brown, a long-time Democrat who became an independent, now holds the other. Voters will select two candidates and conventional wisdom is that Democrat Vincent Orange will easily win one seat. Therefore, the remaining candidates are competing for Brown's seat.

Somewhat to my surprise, however, Grosso rejects conventional wisdom. He pointed out in the 2011 special election in which Orange first won the seat he now holds, Orange received less than 30% of the vote. In this year's Democratic primary, Orange received roughly 40% of the vote. As a result, Grosso is not prepared to concede a seat to Orange. "People might vote for me and Orange, or me and a Republican, or me and someone else" Grosso said. "They might even vote for both you and Brown," I asked. "They might," he replied. Until that moment, I had pictured this as a Grosso vs Brown contest. Now, I understand that Grosso has no intention of giving Orange a free ride.

When it comes to policy, Grosso has many compelling ideas. He repeatedly said that he likes to think big. When I asked him to list the three most important issues facing the District, he immediately listed ethics reform as the first. He pointed to the "Transparency Challenge" that he has posted on his website. He has challenged all candidates to meet a series of disclosure requirements that go beyond current law. "Candidates say they follow the law," Grosso said, "but the laws are too weak. My solution is to start following a better standard, get elected, and then change the law to catch up."

Before getting to the next two issues, Grosso veered off to discuss the ramifications of the unresolved ethics and campaign finance issues facing the Council. "The system is broken," he noted, and that has ramifications for everything else. He said that he didn't know if the current Council Members were scared as a result of the multiple ongoing investigations or just unable to work together, but they were definitely distracted and unable to conduct their necessary oversight role. "The Council needs to be a full partner and right now it is not able to do the job."

The second issue Grosso cited was education. He strongly supports high-quality neighborhood schools and believes that more support needs to be offered to underperforming schools. We talked about the Ward 5 middle school proposal recently offered by Chancellor Kaya Henderson and how her efforts contrasted with those of previous Chancellor Michelle Rhee. Grasso agreed that Henderson's approach was much more positive, but credited the efforts of the community. "The government was brought to the table kicking and screaming," Grosso said. He pointed to Court mandates such as that dealing with special education transportation as a specific issue that needed attention, saying that a resolution could save millions of dollars. Grosso is supportive of the District's charter schools, but concerned about their impact on neighborhood DCPS schools. He outlined a number of ways that charters and DCPS could cooperate to strengthen local schools. He rejected Rhee's notion that charters and DCPS should compete, suggesting that cooperation was a better strategy. Grosso repeatedly stressed the role of the UDC Community College and how important it could be in several respects.

The third issue highlighted by Grosso was economic development. While serving on the staff of Sharon Ambrose, Grosso ran the Economic Development Committee. As a result, he has considerable experience with the issue. I specifically asked how he would address the high unemployment rates in Wards 7 and 8. His vision for economic development starts with affordable housing. "We need to reinvest in housing," he said. He went on to discuss the New Communities Initiative which is a public-private partnership to promote mixed-income communities. He also pointed to the importance of education and training. He noted that the City had laws requiring that District residents receive hiring preferences, but employers could not find job candidates with the proper skills. He suggested that the community college could have a role in training and retraining individuals to help them develop necessary skills.

In response to my asking about Wards 7 and 8, Grosso stressed the importance of improving the schools and changing attitudes so that residents didn't immediately rule out attending neighborhood schools. Another suggestion he had was to expand access to broadband Internet connectivity. "You know as well as I do that you have to have an Internet connection to get a job these days," he said. He also talked about "attracting back" residents who have previously been pushed out by high housing costs. Specifically in the case of Ward 8, Grosso minced no words saying that "Marion Barry is a real problem." Grosso feels that residents of Ward 8 have legitimate grievances, but that Barry exploits those grievances to pit the residents against others. That benefits Barry, but makes finding solutions much more difficult.

I eventually realized that Grosso didn't have proposals for silver bullets or "sound bite" solutions for economic development. Rather, his vision is almost all-encompassing, involving housing, education, workforce development, and healthcare -- all with a strong government role. He acknowledged the grandiose nature of his ideas saying, "I don't think small."

While I had asked Grosso to list three issues, he wouldn't let me go before he talked about healthcare. Here his interest is based on neighborhood health centers in which residents can receive free primary health services. He linked this with his overall vision for nearly self-contained neighborhoods, suggesting that improved neighborhood schools, recreation centers, and health centers -- all within a walkable distance -- would greatly enhance neighborhoods. He stressed that delivering quality healthcare through neighborhood health centers would reduce costs for emergency services and decrease the longterm expense of preventable diseases.

By this point in our discussion, I had come to view Grosso as a big picture type of guy with broad ideas, but maybe not too much of a handle on the details. However, he quickly proved me wrong about the details. We switched from policy to politics, specifically where did he expect to find votes. Immediately, he started listing precinct numbers, numbers of votes, and margins of victory by candidates in recent elections. As a politically-active resident of Ward 4, I know my ward pretty well. Grosso, a Ward 5 resident, had my head spinning as he went precinct by precinct through Ward 4 explaining how Sekou Biddle had done against Orange in the recent Democratic primary. To borrow one of Michelle Rhee's favorite phrases, Grosso is clearly running a data-driven campaign. He discussed fundraising progress and volunteer recruitment and made a convincing case that the lack of political party support will not be an obstacle. He understands the hurdles he faces and is accounting for them. For instance, running as an independent meant that he avoided the compressed campaign timeline caused by this year's early primary. As a result, he can run a longer campaign which will allow him more time to gain name recognition and support.

I finished our conversation very impressed by David Grosso. He would definitely bring a needed vitality to the Council. He has the ideas, knowledge, and an understanding of the nuts and bolts to present a legitimate challenge to the two incumbents. He ended our conversation by saying that "people want change." That was not apparent in April's primary in which every Council incumbent won. But, maybe the November general election will be a different story.