Get to know Ward 6 DC Council candidate Charles Allen

I am a three-term Council member representing Ward 6 on the D.C. Council. I’ve served as Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety and currently serve as Chair of the Committee on Transportation and Environment. Some of my key legislative initiatives include Books from Birth, Safe at Home, the Private Security Camera Rebate Program, DC’s Fair Elections Program, Healthy Homes Act and the STEER Act. I’m a father of two D.C. Public School students, and my wife and I have lived on Capitol Hill for more than two decades. Prior to serving on the Council, I worked for the D.C. Primary Care Association and helped drive the effort to create the D.C. Healthcare Alliance.

My top three policy priorities are improving on our gains made in public education and public safety in the past couple of years, and seriously tackling the high cost of living and doing business in D.C. For public education, our focus should be on making sure students are reading at grade level, are actually attending school and are learning in welcoming, modern facilities. On public safety, we’ve seen a dramatic decrease in crime over the past two years, and we need to continue that progress. On the high cost of living, residents and businesses need to be able to afford to live here.

The District’s public safety interventions largely fail to operate with a basic goal: To focus on the relatively small number of people most at risk or responsible of committing serious crime and then deter them from committing that crime. That means accountability when violence occurs, but the District also needs a focused strategy on identifying this population before the crime takes place and I will continue requiring D.C.’s government to do so. Over the past decade, the D.C. government began this work, but that effort was largely abandoned by the Mayor and her public safety agencies. Additionally, I’m skeptical that targeted interventions or services to these individuals were ever faithfully provided. This cross-cluster work should be the focus of the entire public safety “ecosystem” of agencies, including the Council.

The Council does and should have a role in reducing youth-involved crime. That role can be pushing legislation to close gaps in our laws; conducting oversight of agencies tasked with enforcing those laws; and appropriating additional funds to those agencies and grants to community based organizations to make sure funding is sufficient to carry out prevention, intervention and enforcement efforts. It’s my view that prevention, intervention and accountability need to happen all at the same time. They’re all equally important and need to be prioritized with the same level of urgency. With respect to the youth curfew, I do not believe the ability to call 8 p.m. youth curfew zones in certain areas of D.C. alone is sufficient to address the problem of “teen takeovers”, but it should be a tool available to the Mayor and the Metropolitan Police Department to address the problem. If anything has been made clear from the phenomenon of “teen takeovers,” it’s that our young residents are clamoring for safe spaces to be with their friends, and D.C. should work to create these safe spaces while simultaneously ensuring that accountability measures are in place.

I would use the power of funding and oversight to make sure that students have what they need in and outside the classroom to succeed. One way to ensure kids are supported in the classroom is through a focus on individual school budgets, specifically making sure that schools are well-resourced to make sure kids are reading at grade-level and otherwise have the necessary resources to succeed academically. Outside the classroom remains a significant challenge and requires a high priority response. We specifically need to support out-of-school time programming by supporting organizations that provide kids with a safe space to play, learn and congregate. We also need to take a renewed look at how the city operates, supports and programs places such as our recreation centers, making sure that they are open on weekends and during hours when kids are not in the classroom. Kids deserve a city that is safe, supportive and helps them thrive, both in and outside the classroom. Funding and oversight are key to improving outcomes.

The District, and the region, are projected to add hundreds of thousands of new residents by the year 2050. To maintain affordability and combat rapidly rising costs that put housing out of reach for too many, the District must increase the supply of housing. I have demonstrated in my years on the Council that I will work to deliver housing that is accessible to jobs, parks, schools and transit. One needs only look at the neighborhoods within Ward 6 to see what has been accomplished during my terms in office: NoMa, Mount Vernon Triangle, Navy Yard, Buzzard Point, and The Wharf. The District needs to be a competitive marketplace for investment in new housing, with a diversity of housing types and a diversity of housing affordability. Passing legislation like the RENTAL Act was centered on reducing red tape and incentivizing new housing development. At the same time, the District must continue to leverage its investments through the Housing Preservation Trust Fund, Inclusionary Zoning, and other mechanisms that guarantee both deeply affordable and workforce housing construction and preservation.

I’ve now been a Council member for nearly three terms. My office alone handles around 2,000 constituent cases per year just in Ward 6. That means that, during my time on the Council, we’ve handled approximately 22,000 cases. Each one represents something that went wrong. The trash wasn’t picked up; the tax refund didn’t get to the resident; long replacement timelines for broken sidewalks meant a senior had to go the hospital after a fall; the occupancy permit reviewer was non-responsive to the person trying to open a small business or the fees were outrageous; the resident was a victim of crime — and, unfortunately, the list goes on. Not every one represents a failure of government, per se, but most do, and through the diligence of my team, we’re able to resolve most cases in the resident’s favor by conducting oversight and introducing legislation. Some would view this work as merely “constituent services,” but it’s through assisting constituents that I have not only been able to resolve cases in their favor but simultaneously strengthen and improve our city services. I view it as my job and responsibility.

My overarching philosophy is that when budgets are tight, the Council has an obligation to District residents to look at where the government can become more efficient while at the same time looking for ways to expand our tax base and ensure that key programs can continue. Looking for efficiencies can include stronger agency management on significant cost drivers like overtime costs, more comprehensive tax abatement analysis prior to legislative action before long-term spending is locked into 4-year financial plans, or reviewing efficiencies available in duplicative agency actions, such as multiple agencies targeting truancy grant funding to providers when a more targeted and coordinated approach could deliver better results with less redundancy. It should also be the goal of D.C.’s elected leaders to look for ways to expand our tax base and attempt to capture those who don’t pay for D.C.’s public services, but directly benefit from and receive them. However, I don’t support raising taxes solely to raise additional money for the city. Any tax increase needs to be clearly communicated to residents impacted with an explanation of what services and programs are being created or saved.

I believe the Council’s role in addressing congressional involvement in local governance should be clear and unequivocal: To defend the laws passed and the decisions made by the Council, even if an individual Council member disagrees with the underlying policy. The fact that Congress maintains authority to review and overturn D.C. laws just goes to show the importance of statehood and the fundamental unfairness of D.C.’s political stature, as representatives and senators — not elected by D.C. residents — have the ultimate say about how Washingtonians get to live their lives. I have been a consistent and fierce advocate for D.C. statehood over the years, and believe all Council members should speak up in support. I’ve met directly with numerous members of Congress and Democratic House leadership, I’ve walked side-by-side with D.C. residents advocating and educating members of Congress, and I’ve joined public rallies to declare clearly and loudly why D.C. statehood is needed now more than ever.

I’m a strong believer in prioritizing how people—not just vehicles—move throughout the District. Solutions for better transportation need to go beyond adding more vehicle travel lanes to our already congested roadways. With that in mind, sidewalk and pedestrian infrastructure are foundational to a functioning transportation network. The reality is that, at some point, everyone is a pedestrian—whether it’s to get to our personal vehicle or the nearest Metro station. During the snowstorm this past winter, we saw just how fragile sidewalk access was for parents with strollers, residents with limited mobility or those who use wheelchairs. We need greater sidewalk connectivity, more rapid sidewalk repair and improved maintenance during severe weather events. From there, we need to focus on creating an accessible and reliable public transit network. Metrobus and Metrorail provide low-cost, low-emissions travel options for residents and move millions of people each month. That being said, we need to do more to reduce the inconvenience District residents face when using the Metrobus system. We can do that by improving our bus shelter coverage so that residents aren’t exposed to the elements while waiting to catch a bus and improving headways through bus priority lanes and improved signal timings.

For cases and projects in Ward 6 that I have been a party to, there is no single answer or way that I approach development decisions. I work with the development or owner teams to understand their vision, listen to community and ANC Commissioners about their hopes or concerns and add my perspective about what the neighborhood or area can support based on my years of experience and leadership.

I always find ways to work with the Mayor on shared priorities and even on issues where we disagree. It’s the Council’s job and responsibility to conduct healthy oversight over Mayoral agencies and decisions, just like it’s the Mayor’s role to push back on the Council’s policy decisions and how those decisions can affect enforcement and implementation of those policies. When both branches of government are ambitious and challenging each other, while simultaneously advancing shared causes, that’s when government works best for D.C. residents.

D.C.’s 911 system has struggled with hiring and retaining employees, leadership changes, and cultural problems that have led to a myriad of issues affecting D.C. residents, and quite frankly, a lack of confidence that the 911 center is there to get someone the help they need. The Council does and should have a role in making sure that the agency is on a path to correcting these longstanding issues and has the necessary funds to do so. In my previous role as Chair of the Council’s Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, I held oversight hearings and gave the agency additional resources to assist with hiring and retention. The only way that we’re going to restore trust and confidence in our 911 system is by continuing dogged oversight and pressuring the agency to get it right.

I’ll start off by saying that the Council has come a long way from the ethical scandals at the start of the last decade and has made significant improvements in our internal rules and procedures that calls for increased ethics training and accountability measures for Council members. That being said, whenever a Council member engages in unethical or criminal activity, it reflects on the body and every Council member. Public trust is important to our role in government and to restore it, accountability needs to be set. While accountability decisions depend on the individual actions of a Council member, I do believe it needs to happen regardless.

New development has to be part of a comprehensive plan to increase both housing and affordability, rather than displace existing residents and businesses. I believe this can be achieved utilizing the Build First philosophy for public housing redevelopment. While not during my tenure on the Council, I recall the damage done when public housing redevelopment meant the demolition of existing homes with a promise of future redevelopment and an opportunity to move back later. Arthur Capper is a prime example. The decisions by the D.C. Housing Authority and the city at the time displaced families, broke apart a community and put many people in conflict with one another. Two decades later, many of the new homes still have not been built. The right approach to take is a Build First model, one that builds higher density and new mixed-income homes on or adjacent to the existing housing so that residents remain in their community and connected to neighbors during a process that is phased to take place over many years, but avoids dismantling and displacing.

The tradition of the block party is a D.C. neighborhood at its best. I love joining neighbors as the street is blocked off to allow kids to run around safely, the grills for cooking a great shared meal, the music and bounce house and best of all, neighbors gathering as community and friends.

I’m a huge baseball fan. Whether it’s helping coach my kid’s little league team or relaxing with a friend to watch the Nats play, I love the rhythm, sounds and fun of a ball game.