Todd Mosley: responses to GLAA questionnaire

Responses of Todd Mosley to
GLAA 1998 Questionnaire for Council Candidates

Todd Mosley, Democrat

Ward One City Council

(202) 667-3223

 

1. We must keep our financial house in order, create training and job opportunities for high-wage workers, and restore funding and reinvent many of the social-service programs that were cut during the financial crisis.

Oversight, management improvements, and investment in the computerization of DC Government agencies are fundamental to getting our house in order. We will not regain Home Rule until we have a modern and efficient government.

As part of my platform and to promote federal-job retention in the District, we must invest in the skill development of DC residents in order to make them qualified to acquire those jobs. I support the speedy redevelopment and environmental restoration of the South East Federal Center. My fundamental opposition to the Convention Center and the possibility of a Major-League stadium are that they create an army of minimum-wage jobs. I see UDC poised perfectly to become the high-tech training hub of the region by expanding the current computer and business programs dramatically through public/private partnership. I see DC residents participating in the high-tech industry that surrounds them not just popping popcorn. Tax base, tax base, tax base.

I will lobby the Congress and nurture public support for Congress to not remove federal jobs from the District.

I supported a split-rate property tax system. Some neighborhoods in Ward One have suffered tremendously from abandoned and boarded-up houses and buildings. A split-rate system would make it too expensive for them to remain abandoned. Our neighborhoods must be strong and vibrant.

2. Be engaged. Currently, I am involved in many of the issues that face Ward One; housing, job creation, economic development, public space improvement, our youth, the regulatory process. I work with many agencies in our government and documenting residents' experiences are essential in order to have a grasp of the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of DC agencies. For example, I have been instrumental in getting many Food Stamp cases resolved. These experiences show that DHS is lacking in many basic functions. As your councilmember, I will continue my advocate engagement as a legislator and an oversight manager. I notably appreciate the approach Councilmember Catania has taken on the Council. His personal attention sets the standard for DC's new generation of leadership.

3. Yes. I support full funding of the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) and applaud Councilmember Catania's recent successes on Capitol Hill. As chair of the Adams Morgan ANC, I have brought GLOV in twice to address grievances against the 3rd District Police Department from two members of the GLBT community in separate cases. CCRB would have been a powerful resource during these instances of police department insensitivity. The CCRB, until Catania, has received only lip service from the Council. Councilmember Evans' lack of decisiveness is notably disappointing.

4. No. I do not support the "Chardonnay Lady Bill." Ward One is plagued by public drinking and public drunkenness. I live, as do many Ward One residents, in close proximity to public drinking that spills from front porches and stoops to the sidewalk almost on a daily basis. Micromanaging the differences between a stoop and a porch will be difficult for police to manage with any degree of effectiveness.

5. Yes. I fully support the market to determine the percentage of revenue from sexually-oriented material. Secondly, chain video stores, like Blockbuster, do not carry adult videos. This creates a niche for local small-business owners to capture a portion of the market.

6. Yes. I support a return, in essence, to the law prior to the 1994 legislation.

7. Yes. I supported Initiative 59 and I circulated petitions to get it on the ballot. When I am your councilmember, I will propose it as legislation and bypass the cumbersome petition process.

8. Yes. Mandatory reporting is an invasion of privacy supported by the Constitution.

9. Yes. Due to the success of new medication, PLWHIV/AIDS are living longer -- thank God. This will naturally increase the number of cases. I support increasing funding to correlate with an increase in the caseload. I support an increase in funding for public education programs to dramatically increase street and classroom education, effectively taking HIV/AIDS (and TB) out of the brochures and clinics and into public environments.

10. Yes. I support continued funding of the needle exchange program and oppose congressional restrictions on private distribution of needles.

11. Yes. I support same-sex marriage.

12. Yes. I support adoptions by unmarried couples. Though the current law's wording is ambiguous and relies on a court ruling to include unmarried adoptions, I would not want to see legislation before the Council to remove the ambiguous tone of the legislation because more precise language would not pass the Congress.

13. Yes. I support an increase in OHR's budget not only to clear up the backlog of cases, but also to empower OHR to be a resource for proactive training in the workplace. I also support OHR being made an independent, cabinet-level agency.

14. Yes. And the resources to back it up. People who are fighting for their life should not have to fight discrimination.

15. Yes. I fundamentally oppose the voucher system for issues concerning religious conservatism and the strength of a public school system that must strive to educate a critical mass and not a select few.

 

Record:

AIDS education with youth

I work with young people every day. In the winter of 1996, my youth group, Thumbs UP experienced HIV/AIDS sensitivity and educational training. I facilitated it. Less than one year after the training, an event occurred involving five of the young men in my youth group (ages 14 to 16) and the police. They were instructed to empty their pockets. Three of the five had condoms in their pockets. I literally had to turn my face away from the group to hid my watery eyes because I was so moved by the effectiveness of my training sessions. By the way, nothing illegal was found on my guys.

 

Support for GLBT youth

As the mayor's Ward One Ombudsman, board member of Funds for the Community's Future, and an aggressive youth advocate, I am constantly called upon to represent the GLBT community. I have acted in an official manner when GLBT youth received mistreatment from public school staff and acted unofficially when GLBT youth have approached me as a mentor with personal problems and how to deal with a world that just doesn't seem to understand. I am a role model for GLBT youth and am proud to carry that responsibility.

 

Gay man in the community

 

Home Rule

When Faircloth successfully led the coup d'etat against DC a little over a year ago, I, along with 600 others, went to his home in NC to educate the residents of his home town as to what he was up to in DC. I continue to be an active and vocal supporter of Home Rule and Statehood for the District of Columbia.

 

David Duke

My career in New York was sailing along smoothly until David Duke emerged as a political force in my home state of Louisiana. I returned to Louisiana to organize against Mr. Duke. The people of Louisiana, proving that the sum of parts can win, never let Mr. Duke gain his national stage to promote his outrageous agenda. I am proud to have been an active and effective part of that period in time. The GLBT community would have had an evil enemy pushing everything from mandatory reporting to AIDS-quarantined communities across the country. We heard the suggestions then. We stopped him there.