Policy Priorities for Public Safety, Health,

the Economy and Government Operations

The following is one of a series of working policy documents crafted in a
collaborative process of Community Conversations, door-to-door canvassing,
community office hours and input from issue-area experts.
Overview
I believe that residents and business owners in the District should expect adequate public safety
services, health care options, access to jobs with a living wage and a government that is efficient
and effective. As the Districts economy changes, we need to continue to diversify our economy
and attract more businesses. We need to capitalize not just on our proximity to the Federal
government, but also on our highly educated workforce. By making a real investment in the
Business Development Office in the Mayors Office, and reform of the Department of Small and
Local Business Development and the Certified Business Enterprise program, we can create a
much stronger focus on connecting and building companies in the District.
As Councilmember, I am working with residents to identify priorities in these areas, understand
what data and evidence exists regarding models that address these challenges, build and
implement interventions tailored to those needs, continuously assess what works and what does
not and invest accordingly. I am committed to examining common themes Im hearing from
residents, business owners and non-profits and developing strategies that resolve systemic
challenges in the long term instead of only addressing each individual request.

Brianne K. Nadeau
Councilmember, Ward 1

How the District and Ward 1 can achieve these goals

The following are strategies and policy, both through oversight and legislative action,
Councilmember Nadeau will employ to address the areas of public safety, health, economic
development and jobs, and government operations to improve the quality of life and the quality
of government services delivered to residents of Ward 1 and across the District of Columbia.
Core Issue: Departments of the D.C. Government dedicated to public safety need more
resources and structure to improve operations.
Opportunity: The Office of Unified Communications (OUC) needs additional resources to be
more effective. Dispatchers are working mandatory 12 hour shifts, and have been for too long.
OUC continues to be severely understaffed, which takes a major toll on the quality of services
and its ability to effectively and safely dispatch emergency calls and non-emergency services.
The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) needs additional support to invest in community
policing models that allow officers to build long-term connections with the neighborhoods they
police instead of continually cycling new officers through, or reassigning officers when theyre
promoted. These types of community outreach and engagement programs will help rebuild trust
and improve the self-policing of areas by residents and businesses.
Oversight and Legislative Action: (1) Advocate for a review of OUC operations so that response
times and protocols are more efficient; (2) Support full and proper funding of the OUC office to
provide additional staff and professional development; (3) Call for the strengthening of OUC
hiring standards; (4) Advocate for adequate budgeting and training support for MPD to improve
deployments that support community relations development; (6) Call for a review of MPD
processes related to promotions to ensure that advancing officers are not removed from the
communities with which they have formed relationships.
Core Issue: The health of residents can be significantly improved by providing access to
affordable, fresh food.
Opportunity: Large swaths of food deserts areas in which affordable or good-quality fresh food
is difficult to access can be found throughout the District. We must increase healthy food
access and fresh food affordability.
Oversight and Legislative Action: Ensure adequate incentives exist to encourage grocery stores
and markets that provide fresh, affordable food to locate in current food deserts.
Core Issue: The health of residents can be significantly improved by ensuring access to
existing health services to immigrant communities.
Opportunity: Health services must be augmented to more fully serve immigrant communities.
Those who do not speak English as a primary language are not receiving information about the
options of DC Health Link. The Department of Human Services (DHS) struggles to adequately
provide services particularly continuing Medicaid and Alliance coverage to immigrant
families. Community members stand in line for hours at the Taylor Street and H Street service
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center locations to renew/register for new Medicaid/Alliance coverage. When they are actually
seen by the front line staff, they receive notices about Medicaid renewal that are not in their
native language. The Office of Human Rights (OHR) and related Language Access program
partners need to fully integrate across District government.
Oversight and Legislative Action: (1) Enact legislation to ensure that all DC government services
and resources are available in the languages of the primary immigrant communities throughout
the city; (2) Advocate for resources for additional staff for the OHR to serve as investigators for
language access violations by DC government agencies that prevent residents from accessing
public benefits; (3) Promote opportunities for OHR to contract with community-based
organizations that can provide technical assistance to agencies serving immigrant communities;
(4) Advocate for a review of DHS operations and promote strategies to ensure adequate staff and
resourcing.
Core Issue: The future of economic development and jobs within the District is dependent
upon the availability of workforce development opportunities and a living wage.
Opportunity: Through the Certified Business Enterprise program and the Department of
Employment Services, the District government can support internship and professional
development opportunities for local students for example, through the University of the District
of Columbia or the Community College of the District of Columbia and connect them to the
new technology and data-intensive jobs emerging in the city. While internship experiences are
often how young people break into these fields, too often low- and middle-income students are
locked out of these opportunities because unlike their wealthier counterparts, they lack the
financial security to work for free or for extremely low wages for as long as six months to a year.
Many residents are seeking opportunities to be securely employed and earn an income that
allows them to afford housing, food, transportation, healthcare, and education without running a
deficit each month. Continued increases in the minimum wage would contribute to a rise in the
ability of the families and individuals to cover their expenses and achieve their own vision of
success. Additionally, the lack of affordable quality child care in DC impacts both the ability of
working parents to make work pay and the ability of low-income children to compete with their
peers from higher income families.
Oversight and Legislative Action: (1) Advocate for the Certified Business Enterprise program to
create genuine employment training opportunities; (2) Lead the creation of a pipeline for lowincome residents to move into the professional workforce and new economy jobs; (3) Support
increases in the minimum wage; (4) Advocate to increase subsidies from the Office of the State
Superintendent for Education for low-income families and universal Pre-K and for additional
strategies that ensure affordability, accessibility and quality of day care programs.
Core Issue: Government processes (constituent requests, budgeting, procurement, etc.)
need to be improved, streamlined and easily accessible.
Opportunity: The DC government must operate in ways that promote rather than stifle
engagement, accessibility, efficiency and impact. Residents need to be encouraged both in
outreach and interactions to access city services directly from District agencies rather than
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through the individual offices of Councilmembers. While Councilmembers must be responsive to

their constituents, every Councilmembers office would not need their own constituent service
request process if the Mayors 311 Call Center worked consistently and included all service
request options with better collaboration between agencies. Additionally, the role of city
agencies and the Council itself should be clear and appropriate. For example, the Council
currently reviews any District government procurement contract over $1 million or
approximately .01% of the Districts budget in the name of oversight. However, the Council
already holds full oversight responsibility for the Office of Contracting and Procurement and
review and oversight should be completed through that process. It is also inappropriate for
serving Councilmembers to solicit outside donations for a Constituent Service Fund that is then
spent on office needs or given as donations to outside community groups, non-profits, political
groups, or their own campaigns. If a Councilmember wants to make these expenditures or
donations, they should do so from their personal funds or office budgets.
Oversight and Legislative Action: (1) Ensure regular briefings by key agency heads and office
directors that fall under the Councilmembers committee assignments Committee on Health
and Human Services; Committee on Business, Consumer and Regulatory Affairs; and
Committee on Housing and Community Development as well as key district agencies and
offices that maintain significant presences in Ward 1; (2) Identify areas of District Code and
Legislation that need to be improved or eliminated, and understand why portions of laws and
regulations are not being implemented or are not being implemented as intended; (3) Change
Council contract review procedures to eliminate individual review of contracts and instead focus
on standard oversight of the Office of Contracting and Procurement; (4) Develop and follow a
standard intake process for handling constituent requests that aligns with District agencies; (5)
Ensure that all staff receive constituent services training including guidelines on educating
constituents about how to request District services directly; (6) Advocate for the elimination of
Constituent Service Funds; (7) Explore a new role for the Office of Partnerships and Grant
Services, which has access to access District-wide public and private resources; (8) Advocate for
the development of clear guidelines for Council expenses that should (or should not) be included
in the Council budget (review items such as office supplies, computer expenses, printing,
catering, refreshments, local travel, water services, season tickets to DC professional sports
teams, etc.)
Core Issue: The important role of Advisory Neighborhood Commissions needs to clarified
and standardized across the city.
Opportunity: Today, 41 Advisory Neighborhood Commissions operate across the District at
widely different levels of services and capabilities, with the net effect of 41 differently operating
legislative bodies serving residents. With limited support from the Office of ANCs, they serve as
a primary interface with city residents and consider a wide range of policies and programs
affecting their neighborhoods, including traffic, parking, recreation, street improvements, liquor
licenses, zoning, economic development, police protection, sanitation and trash collection and
the District's annual budget. By standardizing and strengthening management practices, ANCs
can become more effective.

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Oversight and Legislative Action: (1) Institute and enforce a standard Code of Conduct including
transparency, accountability and training for ANCs; (2) Review and advocate for the
redistribution of funding so ANCs in each ward have adequate and relative funding; (3) Identify
and promote efficiencies such as shared office space or staff for ANCs in a single ward; (4)
Examine the role of ANCs in grantmaking; (5) Ensure the participation of ANCs in legislative
and regulatory development and review.

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