Jonetta Rose Barras, The Examiner
2008-07-03 07:00:00.0
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WASHINGTON -

He’s consistent. You have to give that to Ward 8 D.C. Councilman Marion Barry. He created the operational premise of the District government as employer of first, second and last resort. That was his song, and he’s sticking to it.

Cotton anyone?

Barry sang his familiar refrain this week, introducing legislation to “establish an Office for Ombudsman for Jobs for D.C. Residents” that requires the mayor to “appoint an Ombudsman, with the advice and consent of the Council. …”

The ombudsman would “develop a four-year plan to create 50,000 job opportunities for District residents and submit the plan to the Council within 160 days of the effective date of this act.” It also would “develop a comprehensive plan to greatly increase adult literacy.” Quarterly reports from the mayor to the council would be required.

A jobs proposal in the hands of Barry is an optical illusion. It’s a three-card Monte.

During his terms as mayor, he hired anyone who could crawl or walk through the door, regardless of expertise and competence. As a result, nepotism and cronyism were the hallmarks of his administrations. Now-deceased City Auditor Otis Troupe made a career of reporting on Barry’s shenanigans at taxpayers’ expense.

The jewel in Barry’s so-called jobs legacy was the youth summer employment program. It remains as flawed today as it was then. Too many young people receive paychecks for being engaged in meaningless work, often sending the message that employment doesn’t involve real work with responsibilities and consequences for not meeting those responsibilities.

That history doesn’t move Barry. And don’t think he cares that his proposed legislation duplicates the work of the Department of Employment Services, the State Superintendent of Education, the D.C. Chamber of Commerce and other organizations.

Barry cares about being re-elected. He has reached for some version of the ombudsman legislation each time he has run for office since 1982. The only break came during those months he was in prison.

He announced recently his re-election campaign. Now, once again, he dangles jobs in front of Ward 8 voters. True to form, soon he will amplify his rhetoric about the system ignoring the plight of the disenfranchised and the dispossessed. He will blast the city government, especially Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, for not doing enough to bring resources to the land east of the Anacostia River. He will ignore the historical reality that he has been a leader of that government since the late 1970s and that arguably former Mayor Anthony A. Williams did more for his constituents than Barry ever did.

Interestingly, the jobs ombudsman bill comes as the council prepares for summer recess. Members don’t return until after Labor Day. That means there isn’t any possibility that Barry’s bill will be approved before the September primary -- if ever.

Come, sing with him: “Don’t you love a farce … send in the clowns.”