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EDITORIAL
Incompetent or corrupt?
(Published October 31, 2005)

It is utter nonsense for the District's elected leaders to continually promote the notion that public servants are incapable of efficiently and effectively managing government operations, special projects and – most importantly for taxpayers – the bottom line.

If, indeed, that were true, it is nothing short of self-condemnation of the incompetent manner in which elected leaders have done their own jobs.

Voters elect their government representatives to perform, not to complain.

Enough, already, of the mantra emanating from city hall for years about a "lack of capacity" within the government.

Elected leaders have the power – and the resources at their disposal – to fix the problem.

That they have chosen not to do so smacks of corruption, not mere incompetence, within our government. Enabling the continued poor performance of public duties is surely not in the public's best interest – so whose interests are being served?

For too many years, the District's elected leaders have chosen a path that leads to lucrative payoffs in the form of large campaign contributions – a self-interested approach to governing. The payoffs generally come from business people who have directly benefited from the manufactured incompetence of government – the private contractors who are hired to do the work that highly paid government employees are supposedly incapable of doing.

Using Orwellian doublespeak, D.C.'s elected leaders talk about "transparency" in government while routinely carrying out the public's business in secret, back-door meetings with representatives of business and other special-interest groups. Apparently, having a large number of special-interest groups represented in a room has become a substitute – in at least some elected officials' minds – for engaging the public.

For the public, this approach to government is simply not acceptable – and years of experience have shown that it does not produce an acceptable level of public services.

A case in point is the often-mentioned D.C. Education Compact, a "partnership" of elected officials and self-appointed special-interest group representatives that has been working closely for more than a year, primarily behind closed doors, with D.C. Public Schools Superintendent Clifford Janey to "help" him create a master plan for improving the city's schools.

Notably, during his recent evaluation by the school board, Janey was faulted for failing to adequately communicate with parents and maintain facilities during his first year on the job. Yet, despite these glaring inadequacies, Janey was rewarded with an immediate lump-sum $25,000 bonus, 10 percent of his $250,000 annual salary.

It is predictable that the heralded plan – like so many others that were formulated using similar secretive methods but are now collecting dust – will be foisted upon the public as a fait accompli. Of course, the compact's Web site says the general public may participate – but only at a few public gripe sessions, not during the private working meetings at which real decisions are being made that will affect people's lives for decades to come.

There is growing discontent among D.C. residents, who are tired of accepting the consequences of being locked out of the public's business. And there is a message in that discontent for the District's elected leaders: If you don't want to do the hard work that's required to ensure that representative government is GOOD government, pack your bags and go home. Otherwise, the voters should – justifiably – send you packing.

Copyright 2005 The Common Denominator