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Mayor Adrian Fenty has been in office for a little over 20 months now. Almost all of the criticism leveled against him since he became mayor have been about his style of governing. He doesn't consult enough people when selecting key members of his administration (Michelle Rhee). He moves too quickly to fire city employees when something goes wrong (the Banita Jacks case). He allows his closest advisers to run roughshod over certain agencies (the Peter Nickles/Linda Singer switcheroo). Despite those criticisms, Fenty has been able to hang on to his image as an effective reformer who is focused on improving the city's most troubled areas, like the school system. If anything, concerns about Fenty's leadership style have only lent themselves to bolstering that image. But yesterday's D.C. Council hearing on what went wrong with this year's summer youth jobs program showed for the first time how Fenty's style can lead to substantive problems.
As the Washington Post wrote, D.C. Inspector General Charles Willoughby called planning for the expanded program "haphazard and ad hoc" and said a "chaotic environment" led the administration to overspend its budget by $30 million. And the City Paper caught some interesting late night testimony from surprise guest Summer Spencer, the former head of the Department of Employment Services who was fired when the scandal over the program first broke. Spencer apparently described Fenty's decision not to a set cap on the number of participants in the program as one of the main reasons why everything fell apart.
And check out this quote from the Post story:
Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8), who had expanded the summer program while he was mayor, issued a statement calling on Fenty to "apologize directly to the citizens . . . for allowing such gross negligence to take place.When Marion Barry can credibly take you to task for a huge failure, you know you've really messed up.
Photo by noahdevereaux
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The SYEP program is terrible. I can't believe no one has figured it out until now. It needs to be rethought and reworked.
DC Gov't makes money from the program (b/c it's federally funded, they get $ for each kid that signs up) and then dumps kids into jobs that they don't care about. Of course, there are a few exceptions. But, esp. with regard to recreation centers, they would have 20-25+ SYEPs as "counselors" in certain recreation centers doing nothing but causing trouble for other kids, cursing, starting fights. SYEP has been mismanaged for many, many years.
The Feds pay for this program? Do they cover all the cost?
I've always thought this program is basically a political ploy to find jobs for kids in return for votes from their parents.
So many stories from so many people of the fraud, waste, and stupidity of this program....
marion barry can take anyone to task over anything as much as he wants. all i hear is, "blah, blah, blah"
Did anyone at the 11-hour Council circlejerk discuss how the program is basically a welfare program for a younger generation?
ehh, all that said and Fenty would still be the best DC mayor so far.
Last time I checked allowing a bunch of real estate developers to use public money to finance their buildings (ie: the charter school system) was Fenty's first failure.
And in a city where we're paying middle school students not to fail why is "welfare for the younger generation" a surprise?
I would like Marion Barry to apologize for his existence.
Fenty should apologize to the woman he made take the fall for his poor planning.
I just have to post this:
http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=2335
This is an article which details how badly the SYEP programs were being run in the 60's, 70's, and 80's! I am all for cutting excessive gov't spending on programs that go nowhere...