By Amy Doolittle
The Washington Times
Copyright 2006 News World Communications, Inc.
Adrian M. Fenty says that, as D.C. mayor, he would create a Department of Emergency Medical Services and end the city’s 15-year-old troubled effort to combine EMS operations with those of the fire department.
“In this city, having a fire department and having EMS under it just has left EMS out of the priority line,” Mr. Fenty said during an interview with editors and reporters at The Washington Times.
“It’s just a nightmare - training and priorities and focus,” he said. “You should be able to focus more on EMS.”
Mr. Fenty, Ward 4’s representative on the D.C. Council, is seeking the Democratic nomination for mayor in the Sept. 12 primary.
Separating EMS from the fire department would allow the city to create “two really well-run agencies, and neither agency would have to suffer,” he said without providing details about how he would effect such a change.
If elected, he said, he would not seek to add officers to the Metropolitan Police Department but would re-examine how they are deployed in communities.
His crime-fighting plan includes putting more officers on foot patrols, requiring police officials to create written plans for “eradicating problems” in their areas and holding the officials accountable for the success of those plans.
“I do think with the 350 and 100 [new officers approved by the council], which would take us up to 4,250 [officers], I think that’s more than enough,” he said. “Now it’s all a matter about putting those officers on the street, deploying them, making them aggressive about how they’re going to their beats.”
Mr. Fenty said he has “always voted for more police officers,” and that the key issue now is making the force visible throughout the city on a daily basis. “We don’t show that energy level in community policing or visibility that we do when there’s a downtown mass demonstration.”
A Fenty administration, he said, would continue the economic progress achieved under Mayor Anthony A. Williams by focusing on neighborhood development projects and downtown retail.
“You have people assigned to help foster economic development in neighborhoods all the time,” he said. “At the same time, downtown still needs to really focus on retail. With all the development and all the revitalization, it doesn’t come to life at night the way a Chicago or the way a Boston does.”
Mr. Fenty said he has met with and studied mayors of other cities to gain perspective about solutions to the District’s problems.
“I have the responsiveness, engagement, follow-through, attention to detail and sense of urgency needed to take this city from the place where we’ve established some progress but have a long way to go,” he said.
Steering the District, he said, requires a hard look at public schools and a plan catered to the city’s needs. That plan, he said, could include mayoral control of the school system.
“I’m more and more convinced that the structure that allows the mayor to have direct control and make quick decisions is more and more appealing because I feel that the school system decision-making process is slow,” he said. “We have to tailor a plan to the District of Columbia.”
Mr. Fenty said he would hire a deputy mayor for education, a new position, but several of the current deputy mayor spots — including those for public safety and for children, youth, families and elders — are not needed.
“I think these deputy mayors are borderline superfluous,” he said, adding that his plans include creating an Office of Neighborhood Development.
Mr. Fenty said D.C. statehood would be a priority in his administration.
“There’s great energy in the city around us getting our American rights,” he said. “First thing we’ll do is not education, but connect issues to the statehood problem.”
Mr. Fenty said he would use his position as mayor to lobby politicians on Capitol Hill for D.C. voting rights and statehood.
“There’s a pure role for the mayor to be a lobbyist, to really go down to the halls of Congress, walk the halls,” he said. “I think citizens will really be energized by having someone show that accountability.”