Politics

Last week on Let’s Choose DC (a partnership of PoPville, Greater Greater Washington and DCist), we had responses from the candidates on how they would spend DC’s $417 million surplus. But before you rated the candidates on their responses, we asked you for your own views.

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Are bike lanes destroying DC by making it impossible for “real people” to move about? Are cars evil monsters that should be banished? If you ask the candidates for DC Council at-large on April 23, the answer is no to both.

Despite what you might assume if you listen to AAA’s Lon Anderson, Gary Imhoff’s introductions in themail, or certain Adam Tuss NBC broadcast segments, DC leaders of many ages and backgrounds just aren’t interested in more conflict concerning our roadways.

We asked the candidates,

Residents who walk and bicycle often feel our streets are not sufficiently safe for them. Others feel that projects to accommodate bicycles and pedestrians have impeded quality of life for those who must drive. Is there a way forward that can bring peace among all road users? What would you say to each of these groups?

You can vote on the candidates’ responses to this question until midnight Monday, February 18. Meanwhile, stay tuned for the results of last week’s question, on how to spend the surplus, later this week.

The District’s budget has a $417 million surplus. If you were on the DC Council, what would you do with it?

Let’s Choose DC (a partnership of PoPville, Greater Greater Washington and DCist) asked the 8 candidates for the April 23 at-large special election. All replied except for Anita Bonds, and we have their responses online at LetsChooseDC.com.

But first, we’d like to know what you think. When you start voting on Let’s Choose DC, it will first ask you about a set of budget priorities, from the rainy-day fund to social services to tax cuts, which one or more candidates mentioned in their statements. After that, you can look at, and rate, individual candidate responses.

You can vote until midnight Monday, February 11. After that, we’ll do some analysis to try to not only figure out whose responses was most popular, but how people with different sets of budget priorities felt about the candidates.

Meanwhile, stay tuned for the results of last week’s question, on DC’s growth, coming later this week.

Residents who voted at Let’s Choose DC, a project of PoPville, Greater Greater Washington and DCist, gave top marks to Matthew Frumin and Elissa Silverman for their views on the future of education in DC. Matthew Frumin slightly edged out Elissa Silverman in a close finish. John Settles placed third, followed by Patrick Mara, Perry Redd, and Paul Zukerberg much farther behind.

71% of voters gave positive reviews to Frumin’s answer, compared to 70% for Silverman’s.  Silverman had more people rating her answer “very persuasive”—38% versus 30%—but also fewer people thought her answer “fully” answered the question—46% versus Frumin’s 65%. 14% of voters said she did not answer the question at all, while only 1% had that reaction to Frumin’s response.

It’s a photo finish for the at-large DC Council candidates’ visions for how to address crime. The voting at Let’s Choose DC ended in a near-tie between Matt Frumin and John Settles, with Elissa Silverman a very close third.

DC voters rated the responses of nine candidates to this question:

Chief Lanier and Mayor Gray have made a lot of the drop in homicides, but other crimes—assaults, robberies—remain stubbornly high. How should DC police deal with those challenges, and do you have an opinion on how many officers MPD needs?

Let’s Choose DC is presented by PoPville, Greater Greater Washington, and DCist and is open to all DC residents. Nine candidates provided responses. Five are still eligible for the April 23 ballot, while four have either dropped out of the race or did not file petitions by the deadline yesterday.

Mr. Frumin, Mr. Settles, and Ms. Silverman all had over 60% of participating voters rate their responses as persuasive or very persuasive. Mr. Frumin and Mr. Settles were almost perfectly tied; 65.43% of voters gave Mr. Frumin’s response a positive rating, while 65.38% did so for Mr. Settles (62.63% did for Ms. Silverman).

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In light of the debates swirling around the District around education this week in particular, Let’s Choose DC (a partnership of PoPville, Greater Greater Washington and DCist) asked the at-large candidates about their vision for education:

DC’s education system has improved in recent years for many kids, but many schools remain inadequate to our children’s needs. If you could design a better school system for DC, what would it look like? Would we have more teacher evaluations or fewer? More charter schools, fewer, or different ones? More or fewer kids going to local schools? How else would your school system differ structurally from the one we have today?

Seven candidates responded: Diallo Brooks, Matthew Frumin, Patrick Mara, Perry Redd, Pedro Rubio, John Settles, and Elissa Silverman. Since last week, AJ Cooper has dropped out. Anita Bonds and Michael Brown did not respond for the third week in a row.

Check out the responses at Let’s Choose DC.

Click to see the full infographic of results.

The results are in for the first question on Let’s Choose DC, and with over 2,500 votes cast, DC voters rated Elissa Silverman tops for her vision for DC, followed by Matthew Frumin and Diallo Brooks.

Nine candidates provided answers to our question, while interim Councilmember Anita Bonds and former Councilmember Michael Brown did not participate. The question was:

The District has changed a lot since 1993, and will likely change much more by 2033. What are 2-3 changes you hope to see by 2033, and how will electing you to the DC Council help bring them about?

In addition to rating how persuasive you found each of the candidates’ answers, we asked you whether they seemed to answer the question or not. Silverman, Frumin, Brooks, John Settles, and Pedro Rubio all scored well here. Patrick Mara and Jon Gann got more “neutral” ratings, while Paul Zukerberg and AJ Cooper got lower marks.

Cooper also dropped out of the race yesterday and endorsed Silverman.

You can still vote on Question 2, where the candidates talk about their ideas for fighting crime. Voting on that question closes Monday, and we’ll post the results later next week. On Tuesday, we will have the candidates’ responses to question 3, about education.