Anthony A. Williams

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Anthony A. Williams bigraphy, stories - Lawyer and politician

Anthony A. Williams : biography

July 28, 1951 –

Anthony Allen "Tony" Williams (born July 28, 1951, in Los Angeles, California) is an American politician who served as the fifth mayor of the District of Columbia for two terms, from 1999 to 2007. He had previously served as chief financial officer for the District, managing to balance the budget and achieve a surplus within two years of appointment. He held a variety of executive posts in cities and states around the country prior to his service in the D.C. government.

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. In 2002 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 made the top slot again in 2003 and 2004.)

Williams also alienated some lower-income residents. His first term in office was marked by the beginning of a period of gentrification throughout the city. Longtime residents complained of being priced out of their homes and neighborhoods and forced to move 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. The City Council voted down Williams’ proposed closure in the spring of 2001, but their decision was overturned by the Control Board soon afterwards.

Second term

In 2002, Williams ran for reelection and stumbled into a political scandal. The firm which he hired to collect signatures to put his name on the Democratic Primary ballot had irregularities with hundreds of names on the petitions. As a result of the irregular petitions, the Williams campaign was fined $277,700 by the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics and his name was removed from the Democratic Primary ballot. He was forced to run as a write-in candidate. His chief opponent, minister Willie Wilson, also ran as a write-in candidate. 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. 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 (MLB) team, to Washington, D.C. Although he faced opposition from much of the D.C. Council, Wiliams eventually prevailed. 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 had its own MLB team.

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

Williams was not without detractors. His international traveling was 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. Some of his constituents and members of the D.C. Council (including his successor, Adrian M. Fenty) criticized Williams’ deal with Major League Baseball for conceding too much and not providing a spending cap on the public financing of the new baseball park.