WASHINGTON -- Since leaving office, former District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) hasn't said much about the tenure of the man who beat him in 2010, Vincent Gray, whose mayoral campaign has been under federal investigation and remains under a cloud of lingering scandal.
"Clearly there have been some missteps, there have been some mistakes, there have been some things that shouldn't have happened in the past," told WTTG-TV/Fox5 in a sidewalk interview Wednesday outside the Tenleytown studios of WAMU-FM. "My hope is that those things remain in the past and everything gets back to normal and the city continues to improve."
Fenty, who has said numerous times he doesn't harbor any intentions to run for D.C. public office again, didn't say much more about the embattled current mayor.
But if Fenty's been relatively mum on the current state of local affairs, he hasn't been tongue-tied on his favorite public policy issue: education reform.
During Wednesday's "Diane Rehm Show" on WAMU-FM, Fenty voiced his support of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D), who is currently embroiled in the high-profile teachers strike in the nation's third-largest city.
"I don't understand why people aren't rallying around him ... Kudos to Rahm Emanuel, keep it up, maybe do more," Fenty said, according to the Examiner.
Fenty, whose tough-minded D.C. Public Schools chancellor, Michelle Rhee, made waves in the nation's capital and beyond during his term as mayor, has been a tough critic of teachers unions and organized labor. Fenty voiced support for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) during his big battle with the Badger State's public employee unions last year.
During his "Diane Rehm Show" appearance, Fenty said he supported one of the sticking points in the Chicago contract negotiations: stronger teacher evaluations.
"If you start to put objective criteria in teacher evaluations and then it results in a mass layoff of teachers, then, to me, that's accountability," Fenty said.
The former mayor currently works at a Dupont Circle law firm, Klores Perry Mitchell, P.C., as special counsel.
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