The remote work revolution means you can join a meeting from just about anywhere. But even the most dedicated remote employee will tell you that their level of engagement in those meetings tends to drop when joining from, say, a tropical destination.
So Loose Lips has to wonder whether it was really the wisest decision for Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White to skip town for last week’s highly consequential second, and final, vote on the 2025 budget. Three different sources around the ward and the Wilson Building say White jetted off on vacation shortly after his win in the Democratic primary on June 4, which is why he appeared at last Wednesday’s Council meeting by Zoom. No one who spoke with LL is quite sure where White went, though a staffer in his office told a different City Paper reporter seeking to interview him that he’s traveling internationally and won’t be available until later this week at the earliest.
But White’s constituents can take some comfort. At least he actually showed up to vote for the budget this time around. The Ward 8 councilmember has a habit of leaving town on vacation for his birthday each year, and he memorably missed the Council’s first budget vote five years ago in favor of a trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. White also raised eyebrows when he posted photos of himself in front of the pyramids in Egypt back in March 2021, as the District was still grappling with some of the hairiest days of the pandemic.
This latest trip has further exasperated some of his critics in the ward, not to mention his Council colleagues. It’s true that lawmakers can do their jobs remotely these days, if need be, but it’s hard to imagine that White can be as effective in lobbying for the ward’s priorities or negotiating over various pieces of the $21 billion budget when he’s not in the room with other councilmembers. (A staffer in White’s office told another City Paper reporter that she has to wait for him to reach a landline each day in order to actually communicate with him.)
As another Wilson Building source observes to LL, White was the sole dissenting vote on the budget during its first reading. He later told the Washington Informer that the spending plan “didn’t go far enough to fund education for our children,” and he promised to spend the following two weeks working to craft a budget that supports the needs of Ward 8 residents.
White then joined his colleagues in voting “yes” at the second and final vote on June 12. What changes did he make, exactly, to warrant that change of heart? And how did he manage them while he wasn’t even in this country? It looks to LL like pretty much all of the big issues White singled out for criticism—such as a lack of funding for a Congress Heights recreation center and cuts to the city’s rapid rehousing program—didn’t change much since the first budget vote.
This episode is not particularly surprising to people in the ward who have been frustrated with White’s approach to the job. Many see it as more evidence that he doesn’t take the nuts-and-bolts minutiae of being a legislator seriously even after eight years in office. His commanding win over two challengers, who raised many of these same issues during the campaign, is evidence that White’s dedicated base of support doesn’t especially care about what White does over at the Wilson Building when he remains so visible in the community. These antics have nonetheless depressed those hoping for a more effective advocate for the ward’s needs.
White’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this article.
LL does not share the view of people like Mayor Muriel Bowser, who is pushing for workers to get back to the office or else be coded as lazy, so he is willing to see the other side of this argument. White was not the only councilmember to attend the second budget vote virtually, his defenders might argue, and he was still able to participate in the debate around crucial issues like sports betting while he appeared via Zoom.
One of the other lawmakers to vote virtually was Ward 7 Councilmember Vince Gray, who has faced similar grumbles about just how engaged he’s been in the past few years as his health has worsened. (Gray wrote on X that physical therapy sessions kept him away from the Council’s Tuesday meeting, and he’s appeared virtually at meetings for years now.) The other lawmaker who appeared on Zoom for the vote is a much more regular presence around the Wilson Building: Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George. Kelly Hunt, her chief of staff, tells LL that her boss wanted to be at the vote but a “personal matter” kept her at home; Lewis George is expecting her first child later this year.
It’s a bit harder for White to justify his absence without a doctor’s note. And he might have explain to his constituents why his Zoom background gives the appearance that he’s sitting in an office of some kind, even though the halo effect visible around his head strongly suggests he’s covering up his actual surroundings.
White has yet to post any photos on his very active Instagram, but one eagle-eyed activist in the ward recently spotted photos of an ocean and a beach in one of his stories. One source in the ward tells LL that even some of White’s own staff wasn’t sure where he headed off to after he left town.
Wherever he was, White was plainly distracted in the Council’s Tuesday morning breakfast meeting, some Wilson Building whisperers have noted to LL. He was forced to remove one of the measures he added to the agenda that would have allowed the Anacostia Business Improvement District to expand its boundaries after his colleagues raised a series of questions.
The bill seemed simple enough. White said the BID was asking him for the chance to grow and add emerging parts of the ward, such as the redeveloping Barry Farm public housing complex and the future home of the 11th Street Bridge Park. But his fellow lawmakers peppered him with questions: Could the backers of the tortured Barry Farm project afford to pay the extra taxes that come with BID membership? How would the BID tax the bridge park, a project that is backed by a nonprofit and seeded with some District funding? Why was the bill being moved on an emergency basis when many of the developments in question are years away from being finished? And why was this advancing despite concerns raised by the neighboring Capitol Riverfront BID and the D.C. Department of Small and Local Business Development?
White, who was also participating in the breakfast meeting virtually, conceded that he needed more time to provide sufficient answers to these concerns. The word around the Wilson Building is that White was so upset with his legislative team that he told them they could all consider themselves fired as of Aug. 5 and would essentially need to reapply for their jobs over the coming weeks.
Why White couldn’t simply wait to take this trip during the Council’s two-month recess, which starts July 15, seems beyond comprehension. LL is certainly looking forward to a little time away after the grind of a primary election and a messy budget process, yet he chose to wait until the votes were counted and the bills were passed. Conversely, with an all-but-sewn-up third term, White rewarded his supporters with a personal vacation for himself in the midst of arguably the most important vote of the year.
Some sources in the ward have noted to LL that White described being a bit shaken by this primary campaign, stemming from his fundraising troubles and his lackluster margin of victory compared to four years ago. (He finished more than 2,600 votes ahead of his closest competitor in 2020; he placed a little more than 1,700 ahead of Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Salim Adofo this time around.) But the result still indicates that White has the base to keep this seat for pretty much as long as he likes, especially if his opposition keeps splitting the field.
White’s political mentor, Mayor-for-Life Marion Barry, was never shy about jetting off to the Bahamas or Asia or even the Super Bowl, no matter what he missed in the city. Barry never experienced any meaningful political consequences for doing so, and that was before the days of easy teleworking. So what does White really have to worry about?