Tommy Wells via Facebook.

To some, Tommy Wells may simply be known as “that bike guy” on the D.C. Council.

But for those who pay attention to local politics, the Ward 6 Councilmember has been leaving his mark on the Wilson Building, and beyond, for quite some time now. Beginning his career as a social worker for D.C.’s child protective services agency in the ’80s, Wells has since been involved in several different facets of city government over the years—from the director of the D.C. Consortium for Child Welfare to being elected to the D.C. Board of Education. Since winning a seat on the Council in 2007, Wells has been on the front lines of D.C.’s recent population and economic boom.

Now, after seven years as a Councilmember, Wells says he’s ready to lead the city as its mayor, with a fresh set of ideas on how to solve the problems of a city that’s grown so much since he first took office in 2007. Recently, DCist shadowed Wells for an afternoon—from his campaign office in Capitol Hill to a speaking event at the Woman’s National Democratic Club in Dupont Circle—and talked to him about solving D.C.’s homelessness crisis, creating more affordable housing and, yes, how cars and bikes can live in harmony.

The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity and length.

DCist: The D.C. Council voted to delay an attorney general election until 2018. You’re are the only Councilmember running for mayor who voted to keep the election this year. Why do you think there should be an Attorney General election in April, and why don’t you think the other Councilmember candidates agree?

Wells: Two reasons: One is that the Council repeatedly does not want the kind of accountability that an independent attorney general brings. We’re a unicameral body. Councilmembers have a lot of power; we’re county commissioners, state legislators, municipal government all wrapped in one. And we don’t have to answer to another body or negotiate through Senate or Congress. I know that those who want to be mayor don’t want an independent Attorney General. If they’re not elected mayor, then maybe they’ll change their minds because they didn’t vote for it to be on the ballot this time. But I thought about it and decided what’s best for the city is what’s most important for me. What we see is exactly what’s happening: It looks like the attorney general is the defense attorney for the mayor, and not for the people of D.C. By saying to the U.S. Attorney “oh no, you can’t have these documents or those documents.” It really gives the appearance that the attorney general is the defense attorney for the mayor, and that’s exactly why it should be independent.

I think that’s the main thing. Also, Jack Evans has been on the Council a long time and he’s overturned at least one referendum before, if not two, on term limits. I don’t think there’s the highest regard for what the voters want by referendum. There’s the belief that the Council has the true wisdom of what’s best for everyone. That’s not where I’m at. I think that if the voters voted for something, I’m not necessarily going to substitute my judgement unless there’s been substantial circumstances—something where the voters may not have had time to consider something. And there’s been none. I think it’s just arrogant — the arrogance of a very powerful legislative body. And that’s not my style.

DCist: Unemployment in Ward 8 was 17.7 percent as of December—down almost ten points since 2011. What would you do to create more jobs east of the Anacostia River and bring more economic development, like grocery stores?

Wells: There’s two things: The people in Bethesda don’t work in Bethesda. So to assume that jobs need to be next to your home, in order to have jobs you have to look at the full context. Look at transit, the worst transit in the city is where the highest unemployment is. The number one private employer in the city is in Georgetown—it’s Georgetown University. If you’re trying to get from east of the River to Georgetown University, depending on where you live it’s two or three buses and you have to get up at four in the morning. If there’s a light snow, you’ll never get there. It doesn’t matter if you get a job somewhere if you can’t get there reliably, safely, and on time.

We have to have a reliable transit system. That’s why the Metro works—or used to work—for commuters coming in from the suburbs. It’s not that you have to get more jobs in Montgomery County, you have to be able to get to your job safely and reliably in D.C. The paradigm is more than just having to put the job in over by their house. In terms of economic development, you take the portfolio of the streets and what we have now. H Street when I was first elected was derelict and moribund. I brought a strategy to H Street and now they’ve added more than 1,000 new jobs—most of those are local jobs—and about 120 new businesses. You have to be strategic about those investments, but you have to create a predictable environment where people can invest their business. It needs to be safe, you want to have it cleaned up on a regular basis, good parking. It has everything to do with a built environment and all the other factors; not just putting a job next to somebody’s house.

The other part, obviously, is that we have to prepare the youth for jobs. We have a dropout rate that’s about 40 percent. But the cruelty of that statistic is that it doesn’t tell you how bad it is in Wards 7 and 8. 40 percent of the kids don’t drop out of high school in Ward 3. It’s a huge dropout rate in Wards 7 and 8. That’s why there has to be a whole different paradigm of investment in youth, to keep them engaged, active, and keep them in school. We have to change the paradigm.

DCist: Would you keep Kaya Henderson on as Chancellor of D.C. Public Schools? What’s your education plan for the first 100 days?

Wells: I would keep Kaya Henderson because I would be in charge of education, I would not be delegating that out. What I was able to do in Ward 6—I’ve brought back the renaissance of all the elementary schools. They have a waiting list at every elementary school in Ward 6. Any city would kill for what I’ve been able to do here. We’re adding DCPS elementary school in Ward 6 while they’re closing down elsewhere in the city. You really have to be entrepreneurial with your schools. I’ve done this under Dr. Clifford Janey, Michelle Rhee, and Kaya Henderson. As long as they make the trains run on time, keep bringing in new principals that are entrepreneurial with parents and communities, we can do this.

As head of the school system, in that first 100 days, I would begin right away to assure that we have an elementary school within walking distance to every family. Let’s say River Terrace, where they closed the school and started putting kids on buses, I would look at giving Kaya Henderson charting authority, so that she has a fuller range of options. I would look at recruiting some of the national charters that are not coming to D.C., that can turn around an elementary school to partner with DCPS under Kaya, because only under Kaya can a school give you in boundary rights to attend. The current charter school board won’t let you do that.

Then what I’d do is I’d knit together the middle schools. Start working on that right away to where both public and charter can feed into a variety of public and charter middle schools, that’s part of a comprehensive middle school strategy. Really that’s where the public and charter schools need to blend and be knit together. We’ve shown that we can build high schools that kids can do well in and so we’re going to have to rethink how we use those schools.

The difference is it would be my school strategy. As long as the chancellor agrees to the speed at which I want to go, Kaya Henderson could be fine. What I’d do involves a lot of parental input. For the early grades, the parents are the customers, so we’d need to find out what they want.

DCist: Do you still plan to abolish the D.C. Taxicab Commission?

Wells: I would eliminate the Taxicab Commission. It is antiquated. It’s a bureaucracy that charges us extra to fund its own ineptitude. A quarter per person goes straight to them. They prescribed equipment rather than just standards. The equipment they prescribed is already not working or obsolete. All they should’ve said was “take credit cards,” and “have a GPS-enabled manifest.” That’s all they needed to do. Instead, they screwed up the contracting—like a bureaucracy does—they charge extra. I would eliminate the commission and I would put one person—or whatever—in charge of the Taxis in public transportation, where it belongs.

DCist: You aren’t accepting corporate donations, unlike your opponents. Has this has put you at a fundraising disadvantage?

Wells: Absolutely.

DCist: How do you make up for the gap in money?

Wells: I already have. I’m tied with the other two that have raised both about a million dollars each. I’ve already made up for that gap. How did I do it? I did it because I think I have a compelling message and I’m a good candidate. I have the lowest negatives, or unfavorables. That’s part of who I am as a candidate. I think that the message about cleaning up our government, especially about what’s going on, is as important as ever. Historically, who ever has the most money loses in D.C. We had Adrian Fenty with $5 million and did not get reelected. You had John Ray, years ago—not to bring up a sore subject—who was in the same situation.

We’re not a place where the TV market means a lot. We’re not a place where if you hire strangers to work in people’s neighborhoods it means a lot. In D.C., you have a greater opportunity to get to know people, and I think I’ve got a good brand and good message, and I represent the largest Ward in the city. It doesn’t mean that some of the work wouldn’t be easier if I had more money. I’ll give you an example: In the Ward 8 forum, Muriel Bowser spent the money on two robocalls right before the straw poll. So she purchased two robocalls and then she purchased organizers for buses and rented buses. I’m going to put my money into voter contact for the election. I won’t be blowing a lot of money on straw polls.

DCist: The Height Act is one of the more touchy topics in this election. I know you’ve said in the past you’re against raising the height limit, but do you think there could be a way to do it that would make more affordable housing and not turn D.C. into a skyscraper city?

Wells: What disappoints me is that people don’t seem to understand that it’s not a two-dimensional, linear discussion. That we’re reinventing the built space in cities at such a rapid rate, if you believe it’s linear, then you need more height, you need more space. But apartments are half the size of what they were being built at just 10 to 15 years ago. We’re increasing density within apartment buildings because it’s more affordable, the smaller unit, where you use the collective group to have a business office space, dog walking space, party space, lounge space, so that also you’re on top of coffee shops and restaurants. So when you have people over, you’re often meeting at the coffee shop instead of in your dining room. We are reimagining what the built space is. We’re putting a lot more people in more efficiently and it cost them less because they have a 500 square foot apartment instead of an 1,100 square foot apartment.

The other thing is, we’ve got some buildings downtown because businesses are saving a lot of money by changing the workspace. You wouldn’t believe this but there’s a very credible online newspaper that doesn’t even have an office. It’s called DCist. Businesses are rethinking what office space is. You see that with LivingSocial. It’s not everybody gets an office with a door. You have communal spaces and then you have different offices for if you want to talk on the phone or have a meeting. It’s all shared. Even the federal government is changing its office’s specs. We know that we’ve got some buildings coming online downtown that are going to be empty and they should be changed into living spaces.

The Height Act has helped push development out to NoMa, Mount Vernon Triangle, The Waterfront. It’s going to push it across the river. The main reason you raise the Height Act is to create more value so that people will develop land that’s not getting developed. We’ve got about a third or more of all commercial development in America already going on. There’s no reason to push the gas pedal down further. For anybody to say that it’s the heights that’ll bring more affordable housing, they’re in a 1950s to 1990s paradigm. We’re changing how we’re using the built-in environment rapidly.

DCist: What about the Height Act as a Home Rule issue?

Wells: Budget autonomy is a Home Rule issue, our Delegate being able to vote on the House floor is a Home Rule issue. We’ve got a lot of Home Rule issues, but I don’t believe it’s the solution to affordable housing.

DCist: Your marijuana decriminalization bill has been quite popular and has support from most of your Council colleagues and, with some changes, Mayor Vince Gray. However, while many are praising your bill, some marijuana advocates say it’s not enough and want full legalization. David Grosso recently introduced a legalization bill. What do you think of Grosso’s bill? Do you support legalization of marijuana in D.C.?

Wells: I could support legalization. But the deal is is that legalization would slow down decriminalization. Decriminalization is a social justice issue, legalization is a common sense issue. With decriminalization, we’re quickly dealing with the fact that predominantly African Americans are getting busted and it goes on their permanent record. Let’s get that done, let’s not wait. If we do legalization, I’m not positive Congress wouldn’t step in, I don’t know how long it would take to put together a tax and regulatory scheme, we already know that banks won’t keep the money of medical marijuana. If you viewed it as “the perfect situation,” and why not go for “the perfect,” we would have lost the good, we would have had a lot more young men and women getting criminal charges while we figure this out. This had to get done, and it’s still not fully done and we need to get it done.

Legalization would have slowed this down dramatically. Legalization may make good sense, but it should not get in the way of righting a social justice issue right away.

DCist: The issue of parking in D.C. is pretty heated right now. What do you think is the best solution to create more parking spaces for D.C. residents?

Wells: I am the number one friend of all car owners in D.C. The more I can get people who are moving here to not bring their cars with them, the greater opportunity to preserve parking and reduce impact on traffic. I’m the only one running that has an aggressive track record on transportation innovation. Vince Gray, when he was chair of the Council, defunded the streetcars. I was able to get the funding back. I moved the Circulator over East of the River. I doubled Capital Bikeshare while I was head of the transportation committee. I paved the way for Car2Go to come into D.C. I’m the best hope for those that choose or need to rely on a car, that people have to not have a city that’s choked off. We’re growing so fast in population, if we can not grow in the same rate as people to cars, that’ll be good. I’m proposing that the city have its own public transit system that compliments Metro. A mixture of streetcar, bus, shuttlebus, and Bikeshare. Even though people say the smart-growth folks are anti-car, I am the car owners best hope.

DCist: You recently criticized Mayor Gray for how he’s housed homeless families in Maryland hotels because D.C.’s shelters are overcrowded. In 2010, you were criticized quite heavily for a plan to to reserve publicly-funded homeless services for District residents. What’s the best way to help D.C.’s homeless population now?

Wells: If you take a step before that, I championed and help put through Housing First, under Fenty, We housed nearly a thousand chronically homeless folks. Gray has not expanded that. Gray talks only about the money he puts to things, but there’s almost very little new initiatives, new urgency, new ideas. This never happened when I was at Human Services. When I was over there, we generally had D.C. General empty by March and then later on we sometimes had families staying there. It’s been packed all year round. You just don’t get a sense that they have a way to solve that. There’s very little new thinking and I do believe that problems yield to effort, and I don’t see the effort. They’re trying to restrict, in their own way, who can stay in the shelter. They’re trying those kinds of things.

I have to admit that during the deepest part of the recession I was concerned that we were becoming the housing last resort for Maryland and Virginia—especially for families. I came to my office one day and there was a family of seven there from Montgomery County. They had been sent by their Social Services saying that “we don’t have anything this large to house you, can you go to D.C. We know Tommy Wells is head of Human Services, go to his office.” So I came to my office full of kids, and we fed them, I paid to keep them in a hotel overnight out of my own pocket, and then we figured it out. The intake center got a call from Washington state saying “we understand that you’re providing free housing to families. Before we get in our car and drive there, is that true?” I wanted to at least get the message out there that we’re not going to house the Eastern Seaboard. These families have been sitting in D.C. General a long time and I know they don’t want the route to housing to be through the shelter, but they clearly have not done enough to prevent people from losing their housing, or we would not be full with 1,400 people at hotels in addition to D.C. General. They knew it was coming. They’d been there for three years. You can’t tell me they inherited it from Fenty. No families should be at D.C. General. There’s no ingenuity there. A full D.C. General year round is a failure.

DCist: How would you improve WMATA? Do you think there needs to be more accountability and oversight?

Wells: We need new leadership. I think Metro is a mess. I think it has lost the confidence of many of its riders. They come to customer service priorities late. The bus remains the step-child of Metro. I stayed almost completely bus dependent for seven days and it was unpredictable—buses were late, drive by when they’re full. It’s not just the subway, but both the subway and the bus. I already showed that when I was heading transportation I would bring innovation, fast. Metro needs new leadership and this board has done nothing to bring in new leadership. And for the record, I was on the Metro board when we selected the current leadership. Those discussions should be confidential, but I will say that I was not in sync with the rest of the board.

DCist: So, you think there should be more public oversight?

Wells: I would put a customer representative on the Metro board. There should be a rider’s representative on the Metro board. The decisions that are made are by people who, not only don’t ride the Metro very often, but they’re not as dependent on Metro and they’re representing their jurisdictions, not necessarily the customers.

DCist: Recently, the D.C. Council passed a resolution asking Washington football team owner Dan Snyder to change the team’s name. Do you think the city should do more to persuade Snyder to change the name? If so, what measures could be done?

Wells: I’m sure Dan Snyder would want the government to pay for his team to move and I can’t imagine any government paying for a legacy of racism. It’s just not going to happen.

DCist: I want to ask a question that was originally posed in your Reddit “Ask Me Anything” that you didn’t answer. Who would you rather fight: 50 duck-sized Vincent Oranges, or one Vincent Orange-sized duck? No, seriously.

Wells: Well the problem is that I had a committee with me and you got so many different answers out of a committee. The problem with Vincent Orange is that he has gotten in much better shape. He used to be overweight and slow. I think he would be a formidable guy to take on. I would rather he be duck-sized. So 50 duck-sized Vincent Oranges.