Anthony A. Williams

Infobox_Governor
name= Anthony Allen Williams


caption= Mayor Anthony Williams speaking at the 2006 Cherry Blossom Festival Opening Ceremonies.
order=5th
office= Mayor of Washington, D.C.
term_start= January 2, 1999
term_end= January 2, 2007
predecessor= Marion S. Barry, Jr.
successor= Adrian M. Fenty
birth_date= Birth date and age|1951|7|28|mf=y
birth_place= Los Angeles, CA
death_date=
death_place=
spouse= Diane Simmons Williams
children= Asantewa Foster
profession= Attorney and Financial officer
party= Democrat
religion=
footnotes=
website =

Anthony Allen "Tony" Williams (born July 28 1951, in Los Angeles, California) is an American politician who served as the fourth man elected mayor of the District of Columbia from 1999 to 2007. He also served as Chief Financial Officer for the District of Columbia and held a variety of executive posts in cities and states around the country prior to his service in the D.C. government.

Background

Williams is the adopted son of Virginia and Lewis Williams, and is one of eight children. Williams graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Yale College, where he was a member of the literary society St. Anthony Hall. He earned a juris doctorate from Harvard Law and a master's degree in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He also served in the US Air Force.

Career beginnings

Prior to serving as Mayor, Mr. Williams was appointed by President Clinton and confirmed by the Senate to serve as the first CFO for the US Department of Agriculture as well as a founder and Vice Chairman of the U.S. CFO Council. He served as the Deputy State Comptroller of Connecticut, where he was responsible for the management of 250 separate funds and the state's budget and accounting services. Mr. Williams has also served as Executive Director of the Community Development Agency in St. Louis, Missouri; Assistant Director of the Boston (MA) Redevelopment Authority; and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University (NY). He was elected to the New Haven (CT) Board of Aldermen, where he served as President Pro-Tempore. In 1997, Governing Magazine named him Public Official of the Year.

Politics

Williams first rose to prominence as the District of Columbia's Chief Financial Officer (CFO) during the final term of Mayor Marion Barry from October 1995 through June 1998. By this time, the District had experienced three successive annual operating budget deficits, and half a dozen city agencies languished under court-appointed receiverships. Congress established a financial control board in the spring of 1995 charged with oversight and management of the District's finances. It was the control board that appointed Williams. As CFO, Williams began steering D.C.'s finances toward financial recovery, balancing the budget in fiscal year 1996 and posting a $185 surplus the following year.

Williams' financial successes in the District made him a popular figure; when Barry declined to seek a fifth term as mayor in the spring of 1998, Williams was considered his likely successor; initially reluctant, Williams was convinced to run by a groundswell of popular support, including Barry's endorsement. In September he won the D.C. Democratic primary by a landslide, and was just as easily elected mayor in November despite not having held any elected office since sitting on the New Haven, Connecticut, Board of Aldermen when a student at Yale University.

Mayor

During his first term he restored the city to the financial black, running budget surpluses every year and allowing the control board to terminate itself two years ahead of schedule. He brought some $40 billion dollars of investment to the city. Unprecedented capital investments and service improvements also came to some disadvantaged neighborhoods under Williams' administration.

By 2001, real property values were climbing steadily and Washington D.C. was experiencing a real estate investment boom in the residential, commercial and retail markets. Congress dissolved the Financial Control Board in September 2001, and the following year The Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate (AFIRE) named Washington, D.C. the top global and U.S. city for real estate investment. (It would do so again in 2003 and 2004.)

However, Williams also alienated lower-income residents. His first term in office was also marked by the beginning of an unchecked period of gentrification throughout the city, with many longtime residents being priced out of their homes and neighborhoods and subsequently migrating to neighboring Prince George's County, Maryland. In addition, one of Williams' budget-trimming measures was the closure of inpatient services at D.C. General Hospital, the only public hospital in the District; in fact, the City Council voted down Williams' proposed closure in the spring of 2001, but their decision was overturned by the Control Board soon afterwards.

econd term

In 2002, Williams ran for reelection and thus stumbled into a political scandal. The firm that he hired to collect signatures to put his name on the Democratic Primary ballot had irregularities with hundreds of names on the petitions. Examples of faulty signatures on his petitions included Tony Blair, Billy Joel, and Robin Hood. As a result of the irregular petitions, Williams was fined $277,700 by the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics [cite web |title=D.C. Election Fraud Case Advances |publisher=The Washington Post |date=2005-09-15 |author= Woodlee, Yolanda |coauthors= Cauvin, Henri E. |url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/14/AR2005091402414.html |accessdate=2007-05-19 ] and his name was removed from the Democratic Primary ballot, forcing him to run as a write-in candidate. His chief opponent, minister Willie Wilson, also ran as a write-in. Despite this handicap, Williams won both the Democratic and Republican primaries as a write-in candidate and went on to be reelected in the general election.

During his second term, Williams continued his record of stabilizing the finances of the District of Columbia. The city was able to balance its budget for ten consecutive years between FY ’97 and FY ’06; the cumulative fund balance swung from a deficit of $518 million in FY ‘96 to a surplus of nearly $1.6 billion in FY ’05. During this same period, the District’s bond ratings went from “junk bond” status to “A” category by all three major rating agencies.

Williams was instrumental in arranging a deal to move the financially ailing Montréal Expos, a Major League Baseball team, to Washington, D.C. Although he faced opposition from much of the D.C. Council, Wiliams eventually prevailed—and in late December 2004, the Council approved by one vote a financing plan for a new stadium. The new team, the Washington Nationals, began playing in April 2005, the first time since 1971 that the nation's capital has had its own MLB team.

While in office, Williams was elected president of the Washington, DC-based National League of Cities in December 2004. Also he was elected Vice Chair of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) in January, 2005.

Williams was still not without his detractors, however. His propensity for frequent and lengthy international travels was much criticized, as was his failure to purchase a home in D.C. despite his aggressive publicity campaign to convince residents to buy homes in the city. The deal he negotiated with Major League Baseball was loudly decried by both his constituents and members of the D.C. Council (including Adrian M. Fenty, Williams' eventual successor as mayor) for conceding too much to Baseball and not providing a spending cap on the public financing of a new baseball park.

On September 28 2005, Williams announced he would not be seeking re-election in 2006. [cite web |title=Mayor Williams Will Not Seek Re-Election |publisher=NBC 4, Washington, D.C. |date=2005-09-28 |url=http://www.nbc4.com/politics/5032169/detail.html |accessdate=2007-05-19 ] Williams endorsed Council Chair Linda W. Cropp as a successor; however Cropp lost to Ward 4 Councilmember Adrian Fenty in the Democratic primary and Fenty went on to win the general election.

Legacy

In the D.C. political spectrum, Williams is generally seen as a moderate; he had good relations with Congress, the business community, and the city at large. Unlike many Democrats, he said he was "open" to Sam Brownback's proposal to implement a flat tax in D.C,. and he supports school vouchers. His public persona is that of an uncharismatic bureaucrat, especially when compared to the colorful Barry. He is known for his signature bow tie.

Driven by a growth in local revenues, income and sales taxes, the District had the resources to improve services, lower tax rates, improve the performance of city agencies and invest in its infrastructure and human services. This dramatic turnaround required transformational improvements in cash management, budget execution, and revenue collections. And, after many years of declining population, the District of Columbia is now seeing a steady growth in population. Opportunities for District residents in housing, jobs, healthcare and economic development led Black Enterprise magazine to select Washington, D.C. as the second best city in the country to live and work in for African Americans in its July 2004 issue. The District’s crime rate saw a dramatic decrease under Williams, while by the end of his tenure hotels reported 2% vacancy rates and real estate values in the District continued to remain high despite regional and national trends in the opposite direction.

On the eve of Williams’ last day in office in 2006, Washington Post columnist Colbert I. King wrote, "Williams leaves in his wake a city with a good bond rating, sizable cash reserves, a more accessible health-care system for the underserved, several promising neighborhood projects, a major league baseball team, a new stadium under construction and a home town that is no longer the laughingstock of the nation... On his watch, the District underwent its most profound transformation in generations. Williams promoted an investment climate that led to the sprucing up of a city that had gone to seed." [cite news |first=Colbert I |last=King |authorlink=Colbert I. King |title=A Success Story in His Comfort Zone |url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/29/AR2006122901067.html |work=The Washington Post |date=2006-12-30 |accessdate=2008-04-15 ]

Private citizen

In January 2007 Williams entered into a partnership with the Washington area investment bank Friedman Billings Ramsey Group, Inc. to form Primum Public Realty Trust, a real estate investment trust (REIT) focused on buying and leasing back government and not-for-profit real estate. [cite news |title=What's former Mayor Williams been up to? |url=http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2007/11/26/focus11.html |work=Washington Business Journal |publisher=American City Business Journals |date=2007-11-23 |accessdate=2008-04-15 ] He has also been actively involved in local education initiatives, including serving on the boards of the nonprofit organizations D.C. Children First and the national nonprofit Alliance for School Choice. [cite web |url=http://www.allianceforschoolchoice.org/New/SchoolChoice.html |title=School Choice |accessdate=2008-05-02 |publisher=Alliance for School Choice ]

In March 2008, Williams made headlines by finally purchasing a home in D.C., a condominium on the city's revitalizing H Street NE corridor. [cite news |first=Daniela |last=Deane |title=Former Mayor's New Title: Homeowner; Williams Buys Loft Condo in Northeast After a Lifetime of Renting |url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/12/AR2008031204059.html |work=The Washington Post |page=B06 |date=2008-03-13 |accessdate=2008-04-15 ]

References

External links

* [http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/gama/mayorbio.htm Williams biography]
* [http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0829/p02s01-uspo.html Mayor seeks reelection, but isn't on the ballot]
* [http://www.allianceforschoolchoice.org/ Alliance for School Choice]