Mayor’s Budget, Candidate Concerns at the top of the hour. Black Coalition Against Covid at the 29-minute mark. Audio here. Video below.

Mayor’s Budget, Candidate Concerns

Candidates for DC Council At-Large discuss the mayor’s recently released FY21 budget and how it reflects, or doesn’t, their visions of the city in this Covid-19 crisis and beyond.

Mayor Bowser introduced the proposed FY21 budget on May 18.

In this segment, we hear from Marcus Goodwin, whose roots are in Wards 1 and 8, and Markus Batchelor, “Kid from Congress Heights.” Visit their websites for more on their backgrounds and candidacies.

Among topics discussed: the “Cancel Rent” movement, Universal Basic Income; gentrification, education, housing, violence interruption, support for local businesses, response to Covid-19, and what to do (or not) with the city’s reserves.

Black Coalition Against Covid

Dr. Reed Tuckson, a medical doctor with a multigenerational history in DC and connections to many health endeavors here, discusses the Black Coalition Against Covid: how it began, what it aims to accomplish, and the challenges today. Topics include networking with local leaders, neighborhood-based approaches, contact tracing, the SLAM COVID-19 poets against pandemic event, comparisons with the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and more.

Dr. Tuckson, a graduate of Howard University and Georgetown Medicine, was DC’s commissioner of public health in the late 1980s. He has worked with a number of different populations on a variety of health issues and is active in various medical and civic boards in town and beyond, including: the American Telemedicine Association, Howard University, and the National Institutes of Health. He is a driving force behind the Black Coalition Against Covid.

Additional References

See also “Police in Pandemic,” exchange with MPD referenced in this segment, as well as this neighborhood-by-neighborhood map.