Posts about Patrick Mara

Accommodating bicycling on Connecticut Avenue is a good idea, though I'm not aware of concrete plans to put a bike lane there right now or whether it would cost parking. Some bicycle infrastructure does supplant a small amount of parking, like on L and M Streets downtown, so the general thrust of the question is helpful.

Mara also did not provide any responses to the Let's Choose DC question on bicycling. Bonds did, but people who voted on the questions were generally unimpressed with her answer.

On the Post interview, all candidates agreed on relaxing the height limit in a few places outside the core. Everyone but Zukerberg thinks there should be more restaurants east of the Anacostia. Mara and Bonds appear the least supportive of legalizing marijuana.

On a possible NFL stadium on the RFK site, the Post asked if candidates would support a stadium if Dan Snyder would pay for it but wouldn't change his team's name. All but Mara opposed the idea:

Redd, Zukerberg, Bonds and Frumin all said no. Silverman would oppose it, saying the focus should be on redeveloping the area around RFK Stadium with new housing and retail. Mara hopes the Redskins change their name, but the matter would not dissuade him from supporting a new team-funded stadium.

On top of that, a stadium proposal very likely would not actually mean Snyder paid all of the cost; at the very least, DC would have to fund considerable infrastructure and site work. It'd be helpful to know if Mara (or any of them) would spend city dollars for a stadium, and how much.

These are just a few of the issues that matter to residents. Read the whole article.

Meanwhile, according to Scally, "Matthew Frumin expressed his support for ADU rentals in all residential neighborhoods," while Elissa Silverman said she wants to ensure they don't impact neighbors much (similar to what she said on Let's Choose DC).

Yet, Scally said, "The candidates' presentations gave support to DC education issues and affordable housing for residents." Mara has endorsed affordable housing spending in the past; on one of the Let's Choose questions he actually answered, he said, "I'm certain we can find the millions need to fund libraries and affordable housing initiatives." He told the DC realtors, "The cultural diversity of DC is at risk if we do not protect and build affordable housing."

Anita Bonds did not attend the forum.

Adding housing must be a part of the housing strategy

About 1,000 more people move into the District each month than the number who leave. Moreover, the demand to come into DC is even greater than this.

Absent enough new housing, many people who want to come here will rent or buy units in gentrifying neighborhoods where prices are still lower than elsewhere. That raises housing prices in those neighborhoods, hastening the problem of some longtime residents being or feeling priced out, and others deciding to take a windfall and sell their houses at a big profit.

If we want longtime residents to stay, an important element of the equation is to find somewhere else for the people to live who want to come into DC. Basement and garage apartments are one important potential source. We already have large single-family houses with one or two retirees who aren't actually using the whole house. Letting them rent the space is a win-win for everyone except for those who want to keep the neighborhood exclusive and underpopulated relative to its 1950 size.

A lot of people in Ward 3 would rather the population growth go somewhere else. A lot of people vote in Ward 3, and several candidates are clearly seeking their votes. But letting a whole section of the city opt out of growth is not the right policy. It harms poorer neighborhoods by diverting more housing pressure to other areas, hastening gentrification.

How do the candidates stack up?

Four years ago, when I endorsed Patrick Mara, I perhaps assumed too readily that because he lives in a denser neighborhood and bicycles, he also supports a growing city. He might, but he came out strongly against a new matter-of-right building in Chevy Chase, opposes accessory dwellings, and refused to answer either of the two Let's Choose questions on growth. That's disappointing and a little surprising for someone who claims to want less government regulation.

I'm also disappointed Elissa Silverman has not been stronger on smart growth. She has less reason to try to pander for votes in Ward 3, when Ward 6 has become the highest-voting ward. Many of Ward 3's supposedly-liberal residents and newspapers nonetheless seem to go for whomever will lower their own taxes. As a supporter of affordable housing and equity for all neighborhoods, she also shouldn't tolerate some residents west of Rock Creek trying to redline growth and change solely to the east.

Unfortunately, while Matthew Frumin has been willing to stand up for (reasonable) growth more vocally than others, this morning's poll seems to confirm that he is most likely to play a "spoiler" role. Our readers, contributors, and I myself have often wrestled with how to think through the game theory of a race, and decide how much to weigh various policy positions or trade off candidate strengths versus electability.

This post is not an endorsement; our policy is to decide endorsements by a poll of recent, active contributors, which came out clearly for Silverman. On balance, I'm still going to vote for her, too. Besides, zoning isn't the only issue that matters, and she has some definite strengths on workforce development, oversight of city agencies, and more.

But just because we've endorsed should not prevent us from helping inform readers about candidates' positions, whether or not they comport with our endorsement (in this case, it's mostly a neutral effect), or holding candidates responsible for staking out good positions.

Ms. Silverman embraces transit, mixed-use zoning, and the need especially to safeguard pedestrians now that the city is more walkable every year. She emphasizes the need to encourage more housing units for families as many of the young people who have moved to the District begin families and want to remain in the District's walkable, bikeable and transit-oriented neighborhoods.

Thanks to her journalism background, Ms. Silverman has demonstrated that she can ask very penetrating questions on policy details. When talking with editors about issues such as the zoning update, for instance, she probed much more deeply into the effects and tradeoffs than other candidates or even many advocates.

She has said that she wants to turn this skill toward oversight of District agencies such as DCRA; this would be an invaluable asset to residents who find agencies often papering over inefficiency. She has advocated reforming DCRA to make it easier for District residents to open businesses as well.

Matthew Frumin scored very well on Let's Choose DC, most often slightly ahead of Ms. Silverman and sometimes slightly behind. Mr. Frumin has made very valuable contributions to the District through his civic efforts, such as building coalitions on the Tenleytown ANC. However, we feel he still faces significant challenges to connecting with voters outside of upper Northwest. This will not only be a prerequisite to win but a necessary component to being an at-large councilmember.

Mr. Frumin also has less detailed knowledge of the District government's operations and major policies outside of a few areas of strength such as education. While being an expert is not mandatory for a new council candidate, with Ms. Silverman in the race, her greater expertise is a strong asset. The winner of this race will have to instantly start participating in budget negotiations and then continue to operate on the council while almost immediately running for re-election in the April 2014 primary.

We hope Mr. Frumin will continue participating on the citywide stage in other ways following the campaign, and has strong potential to be a top-tier candidate in a future at-large race once he has built more connections and experience working with neighborhood leaders citywide.

Patrick Mara has garnered some significant support in DC based on his recent races and repeated endorsements from the Washington Post. David Alpert also endorsed Mr. Mara in his previous race (against Michael Brown, who is running again this year). However, he has not shown the depth that one would expect from a repeated candidate, and did not answer several Let's Choose DC questions.

The Washington Post's endorsement last week largely centered around his views on cutting taxes and school reform. We don't disagree with charter schools or school reform by any means, but feel that education in the District needs more analysis into what actually works instead of blind ideology. Mr. Mara has made education a centerpiece of his campaign, but when pressed, hasn't been able to actually put forth compelling insights on the matter.

Michael Brown has a strong commitment to helping the less fortunate, such as his stalwart defense of affordable housing which was very welcome on the council. However, Mr. Brown has repeatedly made clear that he is skeptical of a growing city and is very quick to side with the residents most afraid of change, such as with his response on the DC zoning update at Let's Choose DC or his letter of "concern" almost a year ago.

Mr. Brown was the only candidate to oppose several avenues of ethics reform on that question on Let's Choose. Financial mismanagement problems such as unpaid rent continue to dog Mr. Brown, as did malfeasance by his previous campaign treasurer, even though there has not been any evidence that he himself violated campaign finance laws.

Anita Bonds has not chosen to engage with our community by only responding to one Let's Choose DC question. While we didn't want to prejudge her longtime ties to much of DC's machine power structure, she has not availed herself of opportunities to demonstrate her independence from that machine or policy reasons to support her. She also initially promised to serve as a full-time councilmember, but has since backed off that commitment.

Perry Redd and Paul Zukerberg have valuable perspectives to contribute, and we also agree with Mr. Zukerberg's core message that excessive prosecution of minor drug offenses creates a dangerous environment with too many young people having criminal records at huge expense to taxpayers. We hope both will continue to participate in civic discourse and that the DC Council will take up marijuana decriminalization soon.

Voters considering themselves "urbanists," "progressives," or just "reformers" have seen their votes split in several recent elections, including the last two for at-large council. A number of civic and business leaders have lined up behind Ms. Silverman, including respected top Fenty administration officials like Neil Albert and Victor Reinoso, and we hope that all residents will do the same and elect her to the DC Council on April 23.

This is the official endorsement of Greater Greater Washington, written by one or more contributors. Active regular contributors and editors voted on endorsements, and any endorsement reflects a strong majority or greater in favor of endorsing the candidate.

Disclosures: Elissa Silverman also submitted 4 guest articles to Greater Greater Washington in 2011 and 2012. We had also specifically invited Patrick Mara (after previous campaigns) and Matthew Frumin (before the current campaign) to submit guest posts, in keeping with our general policy of encouraging guest posts from many people active in local affairs. Also, Ken Archer, who serves as Silverman's treasurer, is a Greater Greater Washington editor. He did not vote in the internal poll or write any of this endorsement.

DC voters rated the responses of nine candidates to this question:

Chief Lanier and Mayor Gray have made a lot of the drop in homicides, but other crimes—assaults, robberies—remain stubbornly high. How should DC police deal with those challenges, and do you have an opinion on how many officers MPD needs?

Let's Choose DC is presented by Greater Greater Washington, DCist, and PoPville and is open to all DC residents. Nine candidates provided responses. Five are still eligible for the April 23 ballot, while four have either dropped out of the race or did not file petitions by the deadline yesterday.

Mr. Frumin, Mr. Settles, and Ms. Silverman all had over 60% of participating voters rate their responses as persuasive or very persuasive. Mr. Frumin and Mr. Settles were almost perfectly tied; 65.43% of voters gave Mr. Frumin's response a positive rating, while 65.38% did so for Mr. Settles (62.63% did for Ms. Silverman).

Mr. Frumin also barely edged out Mr. Settles in percentage of voters rating his response "very persuasive," 20.2% to 19.9%. Ms. Silverman, meanwhile, got the highest proportion of votes for "very persuasive," 22.1%.

Three other candidates—Anita Bonds, Michael Brown, and Perry Redd—did file petitions to appear on the ballot, but did not give us answers to the crime question.

Mr. Redd has, however, joined in starting with question 3, on education, and you can read his response and those of the other 5 participating candidates still in the race. That includes the answer from Paul Zukerberg, which we did not have when the answers went live on Tuesday because, frankly, I messed up; I accidentally mis-copied and pasted the candidates' email addresses, and never sent Mr. Zukerberg the question.

He kindly rushed an answer to us, so even if you have already voted, please consider reading and rating his answer so we can fairly weigh his answer in the results for that question, which will come out next week.

If you haven't yet voted on the education question, please start voting today! You can vote until midnight Monday, at which point we'll have responses to question 4, on the District's growth.

Biddle (chat transcript) has a great grasp of policy and it's probably unfair that he's been tarnished by his association with Kwame Brown. He got pigeonholed as the insider candidate, but if elected to the Council he would have his own ideas. He understands urbanism and often rides the bus or his bicycle, and knows better than most how to fix education and would make an ideal chair for an education committee.

Mara (chat transcript) has been absolutely clear on his beliefs from the start, which is commendable. I strongly agree with some of them, like transit and bicycling, and disagree with others, like taxes. He would absolutely push against corruption in the Council and the DC government, as David Catania does. As for being a Republican, if he simply pretended to be an independent or Democrat, as so many do, he wouldn't seem out of place at all; since both oppose a tax increase, there aren't really many policy differences between Mara and Biddle, for instance.

Weaver (chat transcript) gets relatively little attention because most of the press thinks he's probably not going to win, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. That's too bad. He had by far the most insightful answers to questions on our chat and masterfully analyzes and describes issues around youth, crime, gentrification and much more. He also has the best video ads. If he doesn't win I hope he'll write lots more articles for Greater Greater Washington and other outlets conveying his wisdom. And he's for the tax increase, which the Post hates but I think it the right policy.

Orange (chat transcript) doesn't seem to stand for much. He's aggressively pushed big box development but insists he's a big supporter of local retail corridors. He said he's for increasing the height limit but has given strong support to groups neighbors fighting any growth at campuses. He was against marriage equality before he was for it. He won't support a tax increase in the budget, but he hasn't endorsed any cuts.

Basically, Orange has avoided explaining how he would make any tradeoffs at all, which has made it hard for anyone to concretely explain why they oppose him but isn't a good sign that he'd be a principled councilmember. Many of his colleagues have slipped out of some of the same policy tradeoffs; several oppose taxes but haven't detailed cuts to compensate, and most were somewhat equivocal on campus plans. Orange, though, has tried to play both sides of virtually every issue much more than any of the others.

Lopez (chat transcript) has a lot of promise, which is what everyone says. He needs more experience with the issues before being on the Council, but this race is only the beginning for Lopez.

Alan Page, Dorothy Douglas, Tom Brown and Arkan Haile don't deserve to be totally ignored, but that's what's happening nonetheless.

Whom to vote for? A recent poll showed Orange with strong leads among registered voters, though in a special election most registered voters don't vote. Whoever can turn out the biggest base will win, and it's not clear who that could be. Orange is already busing seniors to early voting, so he's a strong contender.

For those of us who would put any of the top-tier candidates above Orange, it's a quandary. Basically, if Orange really is going to probably be one of the top two vote-getters, I want to vote for whomever is the other one of the top two. But it's not clear whom that is.

Either Instant Runoff Voting, where people rank choices, or Approval Voting, where people simply can vote for more than one, would work well in this case. If we had Approval Voting, I'd vote for Biddle, Mara and Weaver; if IRV, I'd probably rank Weaver first, then the other two, followed by Lopez and maybe some of the other ignored candidates.

Unfortunately, that's not the system we have. Ironically, the current Council has been uninterested in voting reform largely because of fears it might weaken the Democratic Party's dominance; in this case, the current system could well mean that the one man they least want to work with could end up becoming their colleague.

Who do you want to see elected? Take the IRV-based poll below by ranking one or more of your choices, from your favorite candidate 1st down to as many as you want. Here's more about how it works.