Posted on March 21, 2011

Adrian Fenty’s Fraternity Brother: ‘Vincent Gray Should Resign’

Sinclair Skinner, Washington Post, March 18, 2011

Vincent Gray should resign. His involvement in nepotism and financial mismanagement is inexcusable and an embarrassment to the District of Columbia. And his administration duped voters with a plan to bully Adrian Fenty from office in what I believe was a corrupt campaign that violated election law.

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Mayor Gray is not who he claimed to be on the campaign trail. He said he was a man of integrity who would end cronyism, but he has doled out $100,000 jobs to the children of high-ranking members of his administration. He has hired campaign staff members for city jobs at exorbitant wages that ignore lawful salary limits. With money from a city facing a budget crisis, he leased a car that cost almost $2,000 a month. And as the District’s shifting demographics and struggling school system cloud its future, his leadership has made Washington a laughingstock.

Now, with Congress investigating Sulaimon Brown’s claims that he was paid and promised a city job to impugn Adrian during the 2010 mayoral race, D.C. must brace for what could be the greatest political embarrassment since Mayor Barry’s arrest in a 1990 drug sting. A cadre of federal investigators will descend on Washington as the GOP-controlled House begins a campaign to disenfranchise the District under a control board. As Republicans take over our Democratic city, already slim hopes of home rule will prove even more elusive, and last year’s bitter debate over Michelle Rhee’s personality will seem like a picnic.

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