Ward 2 D.C. Council member Jack Evans, a father of three, said politics is a lot like parenting – both require listening to concerns and showing one cares.
The 57-year-old, running for reelection in 2012, has consistently garnered at least 65 percent of the vote in Ward 2 – which includes Foggy Bottom, the West End, Dupont Circle and Georgetown in its boundaries – since he first joined the council in 1991.
He said politics is where he wants to spend his life.
“I think it’s something you kind of just have in your blood,” Evans said.
Evans said he is running on a track record of continually delivering city services in an “efficient fashion,” along with his ability to “keep a finger on the pulse” of the neighborhood and its development. The primary election for the council seats is slated for April 3, and the general election will be held Nov. 6.
Fiona Greig, a manager at the global consulting firm McKinsey and Company, formed an exploratory committee to look into running for the Ward 2 spot, according to her Facebook and Twitter accounts, but no candidate has formally filed with the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics to run against Evans.
His fundraising committee, Jack Evans 2012, has raised $143,030 so far.
Looking back at his council career, Evans said Ward 2 has transformed under his leadership.
“We’ve taken a city that in 1991 was in a huge decline,” he said. “And moved it in my opinion to the most attractive city in the country.”
Evans, throughout his 20-year tenure, has witnessed GW’s fluctuating relationship with the Foggy Bottom community. He said last week that the University has made remarkable strides in smoothing rough patches with the neighborhood.
The bitter relations were “not solvable,” he said in 2006, adding that “whatever packed place you have in an urban environment with a university located there, you are always going to have these tensions between the two.” Five years later, he said there has been tremendous progress in improving that relationship, likely because GW has stopped ballooning across Foggy Bottom.
“A lot of the expansion that took place in the past is now done and there’s not as much intrusion into the residential neighborhood,” Evans said.
University efforts to calm concerns – like noisy campus parties and general rowdiness – have also improved town-grown relations, Evans said.
“The University is making way more of an effort to connect with the neighborhood,” he said.
