LOS ANGELES TIMES INTERVIEW : Sharon Pratt Kelly : New Mayor Regains Credibility for the D.C. City Government

Her voice quiet, her gaze direct, Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly of Washington radiates seriousness, determination and purpose. She speaks concisely, without notes, wasting neither words nor time. She doesn’t circle around questions. She doesn’t repeat herself. She uses the word “conviction” a lot. She has it--and as the mayor of a city with a bloated bureaucracy and an appalling homicide rate, she needs it.

Kelly’s election in 1990 was one of the first signs of the influx of independent women into politics that is now a certified national trend. She was something of an outsider on the political scene. Though married for a time to the City Council president, she had never held public office and was not identified with any of the city’s traditional political blocs. A lawyer by training, Kelly had served since the mid-1970s as vice president of the Potomac Electric and Power Co., where she created and ran community outreach programs. When Mayor Marion Barry was arrested on drug charges in 1990, Kelly entered the race as the candidate for change, campaigning with a shovel in hand to symbolize her determination to clean up government. Kelly won an upset victory, becoming the first black woman to serve as mayor of a major American city.

Kelly restored the city government’s credibility, destroyed by Barry’s arrest, and won $100 million in emergency funding from the Congress, which controls the D.C. municipal budget. She has been less successful in her campaign to eliminate middle-management jobs from city agencies. To address the violent- crime problem, Kelly is focusing on young people, creating a mentor program and establishing storefront community help centers.

Kelly, 48, was born and raised in Washington, where she went to public school and then to Howard University, both as an undergraduate and as a law student. She has two daughters and a stepdaughter. Last December, she married businessman John R. Kelly III.

Talking in her huge office in downtown Washington, Kelly seemed slightly lonely. Only after the interview was over, did she flash her winning smile and then only briefly. She was already asking aides about her next appointment.

Question: What was your reaction to the Rodney King verdict?

Answer: A sense of disbelief. There was some anger that this could happen in 1992--such a complete disrespect for a black person. And indeed, that somebody could witness that tape and reach that kind of conclusion. It’s incomprehensible.

Q: What was your reaction to the rioting that followed?

A: That (it was) not unlike the experience we had here in 1968; that, though I understand the anger and frustration, is only madness, also. That it’s directed at innocent people. It’s directed at your own community. And it buys you nothing.

Q: Do you think there’s a potential for similar incidents in Washington?

A: I think there’s a potential for similar incidents all across America. I think we have a growing (division) in this country among the races but, more particularly, among economic classes. It doesn’t just exist in the cities any longer; it spreads out across the landscape of this country. Until we begin to address it responsibly, and begin to try to bridge these differences, then I think we’ve got a tinderbox across this country.

Q: What can elected officials like you do to bring people together across class lines, where the divisions are so deep now?

A: We’re trying in our own way here in Washington. We do it around some initiatives to young people. One, to get back a lot of what I call the basics, heavy emphasis on health care--which is a major factor now. An example is a substance-abusing mother. That’s where the problem begins.

So we put a lot of emphasis on trying to get those folks into clinics and to try to rehabilitate. A heavy emphasis on health care for young people. Again, the mind is pretty well established by the age of 5. Beginning to establish early childhood development programs. All sorts of after-school programs for junior high school students. But, above all, trying to challenge the middle-class segment of our city to personally invest in young people. For example, to do as I’m doing, to become a mentor to a young person who conceivably is at risk.

Q: What do you think of the leadership at the national level? Specifically from President Bush and his response to the verdict and the riots in Los Angeles?

A: I think President Bush basically is a decent man. I really don’t doubt that. I think he and his wife are very decent people. But he did the political thing. He didn’t provide any moral leadership. He tried to figure out which way the wind was blowing before he spoke up and stood up. I think, whatever position he might have taken, had it been one to reflect first the outrage that maybe there was a miscarriage of justice. But then, about whatever remedy he might have offered them, I think people would have been inclined to follow. I think the country hungers for that kind of moral leadership.

Q: What do you think of HUD Secretary Jack Kemp’s proposals for things like enterprise zones and ownership of public housing? Are these worth trying now?

A: . . . We are trying to explore them here in the city. But the truth is, federal dollars have been missing from these kinds of initiatives. We used to have a lot of urban-development action grants that were available. You used to have a great many more dollars available for training. You used to have many more dollars available for education. All those dollars are not there now. Particularly in this knowledge-based economy, where you have to be well trained, you have to have federal dollars to do massive retraining, and also assistance to educate people to bring them into the mainstream . . . .

Q: How can black business be strengthened? And the black community as well?

A: I think a number of things. One, we were so late getting into the game, but we’ve been here now since the 1600s. It was prohibited for us to participate, and sometimes people have to be reminded of that. Having participated in the agricultural revolution, but not in being able to get anything out of it; manufacturing revolution, not being able to get anything out of it. If we’re to be a part of this economy, we need to get some window of opportunity. That’s why I do support, for example, the minority set-aside programs. They at least give you a foot in the door.

It’s not like, for example, if you’ve got the dollars, your government supports you, as they do in Japan, to undercut, to low-ball the price. The government basically subsidizes that industry’s ability to low-ball the price so that they can get that market share.

We need to create such a window of opportunity for minority businesses here, in this country, so that people can get enough of a slice of it so they can eventually become real participants and contributors in the mainstream. . . .

Q: One local talk-show host said he thought every law firm, office, corporation, hospital, police precinct, school, should be organizing discussions of racism now. What do you think? Is racism the problem?

A: I think America has always suffered on this issue. I think we’ve always been conflicted on this issue. Again, we are such a part of the history and ethic of this country. How are you not, if you’re here before the Pilgrims arrive? How are you not, when you helped define the culture of the country? How are you not, if you gave America her first music? How are you not a part of the ethic of America? Yet America remains so conflicted on it.

I think it expresses itself more now along economic class divisions. Part of that, though, clearly is a strong component of racism. Case in point: An African-American in this country is defined by the person who is most troubled. If you are educated, if you are successful, if you own your own business, if you listen to the majority of the media, you cease to be a reflection of the African-American community. Yet, if you look back over what happened over the last 15 years, once there was any window of opportunity, more African-Americans became a part of that middle class than any other segment of America.

. . . But when you have a majority media defining African-Americans as the most troublesome element, then there’s no way to describe it other than racism.

Q: Your campaign symbol was a shovel. You’ve been in office for more than a year now. What have you been shoveling?

A: A lot of neglect, really. Not only at the local level but at the national level. We have streamlined government by 1,500 employees. We try to streamline many things--including just how the government functions on a daily basis.

But America herself, quite apart from this city, got away from our basic values in the last decade. We became a self-serving, hedonistic country. We basically lost any commitment to saving, which was part of the American ethic when I was growing up. We’re a mortgaged country now. Corporations are mortgaged, the federal government’s mortgaged, the local government’s mortgaged.

We used to be a country that really took pride in, for example, research and development. (Now) everything is what will the next quarterly report look like.

We used to be a country that took pride in its public educational system. We talk it. We aren’t willing to invest in it.

We used to be a country that took pride in our work product. Work ethic. That’s a missing ingredient in any aspect of America now. We see the neglect reflected in the infrastructure of our communities, be it roads, bridges, buildings.

We, above all, see it in the next generation. The very neglected generation. The ones nurtured with the absence of values, the American values. I think that’s the most troubling dynamic any of us are up against as we try to turn the corner for the next century.

Q: One area of concern is young black men. You had the recent study that found more than 40% were under judicial supervision. One proposed solution is alternatives to incarceration. What do you think about giving non-violent drug offenders non-incarceration type of punishment? Would that be helpful?

A: I think it can be, but I think the most important thing is, during the period that they are committed to the government, that we do more for them, rather than just return them in worse shape than what we found them. I have asked for major reform of the whole juvenile-justice system, part of which is to guarantee that we keep them long enough to do something, rehabilitate them, before we return them to the community. But we’re dramatically trying to improve upon our training program, with more emphasis . . . on social workers--so they’re actually paid and in the system to help them. A lot of emphasis on substance-abuse programs. A lot of emphasis on job training. Again, at least for the ones we have control over, to see if we can’t begin to make a qualitative difference in their lives.

Q: In Illinois, Carol Moseley Braun won the Democratic senatorial nomination; in Pennsylvania, Lynn Yeakel won. People connected you with that group of people. Is there new leadership coming?

A: I think there’s enormous frustration with the status quo. I think there’s gut-level feeling amongst the American people that things aren’t working right, that the last thing we need is a traditional politician--somebody who tries to figure out which way the winds are blowing. People who will speak up based upon conviction, whether you agree with them or not. Very often women, particularly, are perceived as a part of that new order, because we’ve not been invited into the corridors of power in the past.

But you’ll see it at many levels. Independent candidates all across this country will hold a new attraction for the American people, because people know that we are a morally unanchored nation now, and that we need people to speak, driven on the basis of conviction, rather than what’s politically smart.