WASHPO: D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty's spending priorities don't favor certain wards, data show

Excerpt:

By Nikita Stewart

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 6, 2010; A01


Mayor Adrian M. Fenty has been good to Georgetown, where the city has spent $1 million a year on the Circulator bus service, $23 million to transform the neighborhood's library after a fire and $30 million to upgrade the water-damaged Hardy Middle School.


His administration also has invested in some of the poorer communities abutting the Anacostia River, pouring $55 million into the construction of four libraries in Ward 7 that feature WiFi and laptops and $116 million into school construction in Ward 8, including the $28 million Savoy Elementary School.


In a city where the geographic lines of Rock Creek Park and the Anacostia River have historically defined racial and class divisions, some critics of Fenty (D) have long branded the mayor as favoring white neighborhoods at the expense of black communities. But a Washington Post analysis of city data on school construction, parks and recreation projects, and funding for new libraries and schools over the past three years shows that the reality is more complex.


And as the city's population becomes whiter and younger, the old geographic fault lines aren't as telling as they once were. In addition, some of the complaints about the mayor's spending point to the lack of private development -- like grocery stores and office-supply chains -- that the city can influence but not control.


Records show, for example, that predominantly black Ward 5 received more school construction funds -- $152 million -- than any other ward in fiscal 2008 and 2009.


According to the city's most recent data available, Wards 8 and 2 followed with $117 million and $103 million, respectively, crushing the idea that when it comes to school construction, wards were favored by class and race. Ward 2 is mostly white, and it includes Georgetown as well as condo-soaked downtown, while Ward 8 is nearly all African American and has the city's highest unemployment and poverty rates.

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