14 April 2009

Taking His Ball And ... Oh, Wait ... It's Not His Ball (UPDATED)

It seems that our City Council and our Mayor will never get along. Fenty is yet again playing hard ball and trying to squeeze the councilmembers out of their private suite.
For the second year in a row, D.C. Council members say Mayor Adrian M. Fenty is holding hostage the baseball tickets to their suite at Nationals Park.

The councilmembers, showing that they aren't some bush league team, are once more stepping up to the plate.
[Council Chairman Vincent C.] Gray said he will write a letter to the Nationals today demanding that they void the tickets for Suite 61 that Fenty is holding.

"We know these tickets were intended for Council members," Gray said. "This will be an opportunity for them to correct their mistake."

One councilmember decided that enough is enough and will go to bat for the residents of this fine city.
Council member Kwame Brown (D-At Large) said he's considering going even farther. Brown said he might introduce legislation to put both the Council's and the Mayor's suites at the ballpark on the auction block.

"We should sell both boxes to the highest bidder and use the money to help with budget pressures," Brown said. "It's the people's boxes. It's the people's stadium. Why does the mayor get the boxes?"

Some residents are already hoping that Brown's legislation will make the line-up; he is certainly swinging for the fences with it. If it does happen, Brown would hit one out of the park and become the populists' MVP.

Right now, this is anyone's ballgame. Someone will be the hero and someone will be the goat.

But quite frankly, I'm a bit tired of both sides making every miniscule issue a bench clearing rhubarb. I don't understand how they can't both see that they're playing on the same team ... the team of The District of Columbia.

UPDATE: Washington City Paper has the transcript from this morning's exchange between Mayor Fenty and the media. You really should listen to it ... it loses a lot in translation from audio to text.

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