front page - search - community

Ward 8 Democrats vote to support recall of mayor
(Published May 3, 2004)

Ward 8’s official Democratic Party organization has voted to support the current effort to recall Mayor Anthony A. Williams.

The vote, taken at the organization’s monthly meeting on April 17, came about a month after a similar resolution put before the Ward 7 Democrats was defeated by only a three-vote margin.

Williams is a Democrat.

The D.C. Democratic State Committee – the citywide organization that leads the local Democratic Party – earlier this year voted to oppose the effort by a group called Save Our City to remove Williams from office before the end of his second term. The recall movement is being led by Barbara Lett Simmons, who is one of the District’s elected representatives to the Democratic National Committee.

The Ward 8 vote was taken during a meeting at which D.C. Democratic Party Chairman A. Scott Bolden, who does not live in Ward 8, was in attendance and was permitted to speak in opposition to the recall resolution.

Sandra Seegars, second vice president of the Ward 8 Democrats who made the motion to support the recall effort, said she did not put her plan to bring up the recall on the meeting’s agenda because she did not want the mayor’s supporters to "pack" the meeting.

"I wanted the vote to represent the real Ward 8 Democrats who attend meetings regularly, not a bunch of people bused in who will never show up for another meeting," Seegars said.

Seegars’ motion was seconded by O.V. Johnson, a Ward 8 advisory neighborhood commissioner, and was approved on a 17-8 vote, with six abstentions. The discussion and vote were presided over by First Vice President Mary Cuthbert, who also supported the motion, in the absence of Ward 8 Democrats President Eugene Dewitt Kinlow.

Kinlow, who left the meeting early due to another community-related commitment, told The Common Denominator he believes proper parliamentary procedure was followed in bringing Seegars’ motion to the floor for a vote, despite its absence from the agenda. Had he been present, he said he "would have moderated but not taken a position."

"It was my hope that if we were going to do something like this [vote] that we would have a forum with representatives on both sides of the issue," Kinlow said.

He said that attendance was lighter than usual at this month’s meeting due to the scheduling of several community events in direct conflict, including the re-scheduling of Councilwoman Sandra Allen’s annual Easter egg roll.

Mayoral spokesman Tony Bullock dismissed the Ward 8 Democrats’ vote as "not reflective of Ward 8 Democrats at large." He noted that Williams won most voting precincts in Ward 8 in the 2002 election.

"We’re not happy about it, but I think there are people with other agendas at work," Bullock said.

Save Our City began its effort to recall the mayor in January. The recall petition criticizes the mayor’s performance in five areas, including public safety, health care, housing, education and home rule. Organizers of the effort need to collect at least 38,000 signatures, including 10 percent of registered voters in five wards, by the end of July to force a recall election in November.