Hundreds of residents filled the pews of a Ward 7 church yesterday.

Though last night’s Ward 7 town hall was a homecoming of sorts for Vince Gray, the audience packed into the Pennsylvania Avenue Baptist Church peppered the presumptive mayor-elect with the type of questions he could have expected when he represented the ward on the D.C. Council. Few were the questions on broad policy matters, replaced instead with personal appeals and retail politics.

One audience member asked Gray what he planned to do about an intersection where her son was hit by a car. Another recounted her son’s assault at the Hillcrest Recreation Center. One inquired about a police substation that might have to move after not having had its lease renewed. And four kids in football uniforms asked for more computers for their school and a place to play basketball.

But unlike what he may have said when he represented Ward 7 on the Council, Gray stuck to process more than promises. To the question about the problematic intersection, he asked that Council member Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7) and the D.C. Department of Transportation study it and propose solutions. In response to the mother whose son was assaulted, Gray asked her questions before suggesting that she talk with Council member Harry Thomas, Jr. (D-Ward 5), who oversees the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation. On the police substation, he allowed Alexander to field the response (a letter of intent for a two-year extension has been submitted, it seems), while the kids were treated to a brief treatise on the capital budget. (They were not amused.)

This was Gray the Mayor-to-be, not Gray the Councilmember that many in the audience once knew.