What a great end of the year for D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who is entitled to celebrate a string of successes. First, she was able to announce violent crime in D.C. had gone down by 35%. That included a 30% drop in homicides, a 22% drop in sex abuse crimes, a 27% drop in assaults with a deadly weapon, and a 39% drop in robberies.
Although we can agree any crime, is one too many, this is a really positive turn-around for the District. Then in a press release the mayor reported, “The U.S. Census Bureau released new population data that shows the District of Columbia’s population grew by approximately 15,000 people from July 2023 to July 2024, bringing the city’s population to 702,250 residents. This marks the first time since 2019 that DC’s population has surpassed the 700,000 milestone, underscoring DC’s comeback, and its place as a top destination to live, work, and build a future.”
To cap all this off, on Saturday, December 21st at 1 a.m., the Senate unanimously, by voice vote, passed the bill giving the District a 99-year lease on the RFK stadium site. It opened up this 174-acre site to the District of Columbia, to determine how it would be developed. It will eventually include housing, retail, recreation potential for the community, and could even include a stadium as the new home for the Washington Commanders. There will be lots of debate on this over the next couple of years.
This has been an interesting year for the District of Columbia and the mayor has shown her ability to govern, as she and the Council work to bring the District all the way back from the pandemic. Earlier in the year the Mayor scored a huge win when she managed to keep Monumental Sports in the District. With the Council, she approved the funds, to update the Capitol Center, which in turn will revitalize the entire downtown area around it. Then we know tourism numbers are way up, having fully recovered to pre-pandemic numbers. The Washington Informer reported “Destination DC officials
lgbtq
reports
pandemic
record
show
UPS
Citi
Muriel Bowser