Ward 8 residents who attended the first forum of the special election season asked several questions about economic development, education, public safety, public health and other topics of relevance.
However, it was an inquiry from forum moderator and Ward 8 resident Stephanie Foo that sparked cheers and hand claps from audience members moved by her demands that the next Ward 8 council member not only support constituents mired in criminality.
“It’s like the only way to get seen in Ward 8 is if you get in trouble,” Foo told three Ward 8 special election candidates on May 12 during a forum that The Capital News, Congress Heights Partnership, and Congress Heights Community Association hosted at Sycamore & Oak in Southeast.
“You’ve got to get locked up so that you can get some services, but what about parents, who are doing everything right with their children?” asked Foo, a Ward 8 parent who teaches in Congress Heights. “Their children are making the grades, and they’re unsafe to go to school, and they can’t get funded to go to college, because all the money that goes to at-risk youth.
Foo’s question came at the culmination of a two-hour forum that often centered on issues specific to Ward 8’s most impoverished and marginalized, and those in contact with the justice system. After all was said and done, she wrapped up the audience Q&A portion with a question made on behalf of parents doing their best to raise their children in the nation’s capital.
“I just want to make sure that this next council member…is a council member for all people, not just at-risk youth, the incarcerated and returning citizens,” Foo said. “There’s a huge group of people in their 20s and 40s doing everything right. We can’t get help because we’re making too much of a difference and we can’t get help from our council member because we don’t have a criminal record.”
White Absent Amid Talk About Proper Governance
In the weeks and months leading to the May 12 candidate forum at Sycamore & Oak, dozens of civic leaders, politicos, activists, residents — and even Trayon White, Ward 8’s former representative — declared their candidacy for the Ward 8 Council seat. The special election was triggered by White’s expulsion from the D.C. Council in February in the aftermath of his federal bribery indictment.
On the night of the forum, residents heard from Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Salim Adofo, Ward 8 attorney and former United Medical Center (UMC) executive Mike Austin and Sheila Bunn, a civic leader with experience as D.C. Councilmember Vincent C. Gray’s chief of staff.
This trio counted among the last six candidates standing during a ballot petition challenge period that started during the latter part of April. They, along with White, Ward 8 social worker Khadjiah Clark and Republican candidate Doc Adams, will appear on the June 15 ballot.
Neither Adams, Clark nor White attended the May 12 forum. Adams and Clark didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
White, in an Instagram direct message, said he had better use of his time.
“It was the same 50-60 people that’s at most of the meetings,” White’s message read. “Candidates should spend their time and energy in the community touching the people. My campaign strategy is a little different. I think it was a decent exchange though.”
While candidates didn’t speak directly about White, who faces a 15-year prison for allegedly agreeing and accepting thousands of dollars in cash to steer violence interrupter contracts to a city contractor, Austin demanded better stewardship of violence interruption resources.
“I wish it wasn’t used as a slush fund. I wish we treated it the right way, as we’ve seen it work in other major cities,” Austin said in response to a question by Latarsha Kelly, a Community College Preparatory Academy Public Charter School student and co-moderator, who shared the stage with Foo. “I want to see it used as a tool to make sure that the residents and the people who are most qualified to go in certain communities that have those relationships are able to make sure that we’re curbing violence.”
Austin, a former D.C. Council legislative staffer, went on to extol D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto’s efforts to consolidate violence interruption programming under the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement.
“It is a great model,” Austin said. “When it was introduced years ago, it had a lot of promise. We just have not done it effectively.”
Each Candidate Reveals Vision for Housing, and Economic and Workforce Development
For two hours, Adofo, Austin and Bunn touted their political, professional and legislative experience — and at times, even their part in the development of Sycamore & Oak — while articulating their vision for Ward 8.
Those in the sparse audience scattered throughout the spacious pavilion included: forever D.C. first lady Cora Masters Barry; D.C. Democrats Chair Charles Wilson; State Board of Education (SBOE) Representatives Jacque Patterson and LaJoy Johnson-Law; SBOE Student Representative Minister Calique Barnes; former D.C. Councilmember LaRuby May; and Denise Rolark Barnes, publisher of The Washington Informer.
Throughout the forum, Adofo, Austin and Bunn outlined their policy positions with topics running the gamut. All three candidates said they stood in favor of a budgeting process that involves residents, increased funding for adult education, increasing returning citizen access to city contracts, a stronger police presence in crime hotspots, and rent stabilization.
On other topics, some candidates set themselves apart from the pack. Austin expressed his opposition to expanding rent control while Adofo said he wouldn’t support the creation of safe injection sites for substance users. Adofo, an advisory neighborhood commissioner, also stood alone, not for pausing luxury development projects during the development of a Ward 8 homeowner strategy, but his support of term limits.
In speaking about affordable housing, Bunn said that, as council member, she plans to focus on securing funding for the Housing Production Trust Fund. She also mentioned upcoming public discussions about the District’s comprehensive plan, and how Ward 8 residents can participate in shaping the composition of housing, commerce, parks and other community amenities.
As it relates to economic development, Bunn said she wants to attract sit-down restaurants to Ward 8 by working with the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development to ensure funding for the Neighborhood Prosperity Fund. She later evoked the memory of her late father, barber and civic leader James Bunn, as she spoke about collaborating with labor unions and supporting the Office of the State Superintendent of Education in its creation of college and career-based graduation pathways.
“A lot of our young people learn by [hands-on] experience, or they just don’t want to do college,” Bunn said on May 12. “If that is the choice, we need to make sure that when they graduate, they can go to college or step into a career. I want to build strong relationships with our unions so that our kids can go into those apprenticeship programs and come out making money and be self-employed and self-resilient at the age of college graduation.”
Austin said his top priority as a council member centers on preventing displacement— through legislation that maintains affordability and the support of institutions that provide employment workforce readiness training.
During the May 12 forum, he touted his council experience, telling voters that he would hold the Department of Small & Local Business Development accountable to Ward 8 businesses in need of financial support.
He also mentioned displacement prevention legislation that he and then-D.C. Councilmember LaRuby May shaped, all while reflecting on experiences as a board member at Community College Preparatory Academy Public Charter School and Hope Adult Charter School that highlighted the need to fund literacy programs.
“Too many of our Ward 8 residents are reading well below grade level, and it starts as early as 3, 4, and 5 [years old],” Austin said. “Those are challenges we have to address in legislation. So expanding our early childhood education options and making sure that we’re setting aside workforce programs for our people to have those opportunities [to] close that gap and ensure that those folks who cannot read at literacy levels are prepared for the right opportunities.”
Adofo, an alumnus of University of District of Columbia who worked in the university’s workforce development and lifelong learning campus, emphasized his experience in tackling the skills gap among Ward 8 residents. During the forum, he recounted his walks along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE, promoting UDC’s officers to passersby.
If elected, Adofo’s workforce development plan centers on fostering connections between UDC and D.C. Department of Corrections, all while ensuring that D.C. public and public charter schools could work with United People’s Organization, Community College Preparatory Academy, and other community organizations focused on skills building.
The ANC commissioner also expressed a desire to challenge a negative, but dominant, perception of education that children adopt in their early years.
“We’ve got to start working with our middle schools as well, where our young people are at and get them to understand that it’s cool, that it’s great, that it’s okay if you want to be a learner,” Adofo said during the forum. “We have many children in our communities that are doing great things. We need to start to reward them for academic excellence. We don’t need to wait until children are justice involved in order to say [that] we’ve got to address these issues. It’s important that we do this from day one and make those resources available at our rec centers.”
Candidates Talk Public Safety, Health and Infrastructure Issues
With a youth-led special election candidate forum on the horizon, Bunn spoke about the need for adults and community institutions to engage youth and support the existing programming that maintains their attention, enriches them, and keeps them safe.
“We have a plethora of those [programs] on the east side of the city where our young people can have meaningful things to do and connect with the community,” Bunn said. “When we fix education, when we are focusing and making sure that our scholars are excited about school, that they are safe going to school, that they have safe passage going to school, they will not offend in our communities.”
She outlined a vision of a community like the one that raised her.
“As a community,” Bunn said, “we need to wrap our arms around our young people.”
In his remarks, Adofo, who has a community organizing background, spoke about his experience “in the trenches” taking young people on college campuses, helping them open bank accounts, and exposing them to unique careers. He went on to acknowledge Masters Barry as he pledged to secure funds for her brainchild, and longtime community fixture, the Southeast Tennis Learning Center.
“My grandmother used to tell me, ‘an idle mind is the devil’s playground’ so when we can get our children involved in activities that they relate to, that they connect to, then we can make sure that they’re going to be productive,” Adofo said. “I want to make sure the Southeast Tennis & Learning Center is funded and it gets the resources that it needs so we can teach our children science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, because that’s the foundation of building a community.”
During discussions about infrastructure, Bunn mentioned, to the relief and amazement of audience members, her pledge to ensure that the main roads in Ward 8, and particularly a portion of Martin Luther King, Jr Avenue SE between Alabama Avenue SE and South Capitol Street SE, are paved. She went on to tell voters that she will weather a budget crisis projected to reduce District revenue projections throughout the remainder of the new council member’s term.
“It’s going to be a fight because we are facing some hard times in the District of Columbia… but I am going to work my hardest to make sure that our infrastructure projects are protected, that our school modernizations are protected,” Bunn said. “Because our kids deserve the best schools, our residents deserve the best roads to bike and to drive on, and also making sure that when we have bike lanes and other projects like that, that those types of infrastructure projects are protected as well.”
Austin, who reflected on the challenges at UMC, spoke about a kind of support where Ward 8 residents can tap into a bevy of easily accessible, neighborhood-based preventative care options that can reduce reliance on the emergency room at the newly opened Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center.
“Our folks didn’t realize the health care challenges they had until they came to the emergency room,” Austin said in his recounting of past experiences. “They would come to the ER as a primary care doctor. That is an issue.”
The solution, Austin said, lies in making Ward 8 a more attractive environment for primary care physicians.
“I found out it’s too burdensome for them to open up practices here in the District of Columbia,” Austin said. “That’s not just a healthcare issue. That’s a business issue…so when we win this council race, we’re going to make it easier for our physicians to open their practices here.”
As it relates to public safety, and as he called it, the opportunity gap that exacerbates crime, Austin touted his Wilson Building experience, and what he described as his ability to negotiate. He said that, as council member, he could go up against the likes of Pinto and D.C. Councilmembers Kenyan McDuffie (I-At large) and Matt Frumin (D-Ward 3) to ensure Ward 8 receives a greater piece of the pie during budget season.
“It’s probably the most critical race that we’ve had in a very long time, and I say that because right now we’re at an impasse … with too many projects,” Austin said. “We’re at an impasse in making sure our students close that gap. We’re at an impasse in making sure we keep our seniors in their homes. We need somebody downtown who can fight. I’m the only person in this race who has experienced writing policy. The only person in this race who is squarely focused on delivering on day one.”
Two Ward 8 Residents Give Their Takes
A lifelong Ward 8 resident who requested anonymity said she appreciated the dialogue about Ward 8’s socioeconomic diversity, telling The Informer that the next Ward 8 council member has to be inclusive of all Ward 8 residents.
“What are you going to do for everybody else that doesn’t fit in the narrative that people from Ward 8 are really at the bottom and we need to be pulled up,” the Ward 8 resident questioned. “What are you going to do to address our needs?”
Kelly, a Ward 8 resident and Community College Preparatory Academy Public Charter School student, said that moderating the forum alongside Foo deepened her interest in local electoral politics. As Ward 8 residents look forward to what could become a new chapter, Kelly too is embracing a burgeoning career in the IT field and what she called her respect for one of the special election candidates.
“To be honest, I don’t even deal with politicians, because I feel like sometimes they just lie in our face just to get our vote,” said Kelly, 48. “Mr. Mike [Austin] didn’t make false promises or say what he can and can’t do. He said what he wanted to do, and hopefully, you know, with policy and something else. He was talking about procurements and all that other stuff.”
Even with her guard down a bit, Kelly said that time will be the ultimate judge.
“Hopefully that works,” she said. “I don’t need nobody to sell me dreams.”
