Furries Banned At Ren Faire, Bowser Opposes a Roof For Audi Field, and JLG’s Here To Listen

0:00Today in CityCast DC, we're talking about what we know so far about the very likely next mayor, Janice Lewis-George's emerging government. She has been doing a corenquit listening tour across DC's wards. She's had two of them down in Ward 8 and Ward 1. We'll see what happens next. We're also going to talk about why Mayor Bowser, who is still the mayor, is against a roof for Audi Field. It's something that's been proposed for City taxpayers to fund and she doesn't like it. And we're talking about the Renaissance Festival, where there is a ban on furries. Yes, furries. Plus, and a member is only fourth segment. There's been a lot of news this week on Trump's efforts to change DC's landscape from the trees at East Potomac Park to the giant blue statue that used to be outside the Kennedy Center. And now Lafayette Square and West Potomac Park, we will get into it. I'm joined by my CityCast colleague, Kate Corlus, as well as by Martin Austremoul, a longtime DC reporter who is now writing for notice.

1:00It's Friday September 4th. I'm Michael Schaefer. Here's what DC's talking about. Hey, Martin. Hey, Michael, how are you? Good. Welcome back. It's been a while. Thanks for having me, though. And Kate, it's been a super long while because this is the first time you've been on the pod. I know. It's my big break. Kate is our newest CityCast DC staffer, and she writes the newsletter with me, and she's really, really good at it. Thank you. You got to come here more often. I'm so excited to be here. So one of the things we've had in the newsletter a bunch is stuff about the emerging shape of the JLG administration after sort of taking kind of a break post-election. The presumptive mayor elect is sort of striding back out into the limelight that she's been doing these listening sessions.

2:03She calls it the Peoples, something or other. People in DC need to get used to a lot of things being called the Peoples, something under the new regime. Martin, you've been at some of these things. Tell me what they're like. So well, first of all, I don't want to deny credit to your colleague, Fantastic Ben, who has been at two of the meetings this week. I've been to one. And ward eight on Tuesday. And then we were both of the one in ward one on Wednesday. They are a weird mix of campaign event and kind of a governmental transition that they don't want to call a transition. Because the whole thing is this is a listening session we want to hear what you or resident has to say about what this new mayor old administration is going to do. But they also want to toe around it by saying, well, we're not really, we're still campaigning for the November election. So we're not yet the mayor. She's not yet the mayor to be. But at the end of these big event, they say, oh, yeah. By the way, we also need campaign volunteers. And if you want to give us money for the campaign, that'd be awesome. So it has this kind of like dual-sided purpose, which makes it both interesting and slightly awkward.

3:04You know, some of you are reporting like over the summer, but JLG taking meetings with people who had been skeptical of a campaign with police union with, you know, developers. This is stuff that any responsible candidate slash nominee would do to lay the groundwork for their administration. What else is going on behind the scenes that they're, I mean, they've, when we've called them, it's been the same thing. Like we're campaigning. We're not in a transition yet. But I sure hope they're acting like it's a transition because they're blessed to have an extra four months that somebody in a competitive election wouldn't have. Are they using it? And if so, like what kind of things are they using it for as they think about what the administration will be like? It's a full transition in anything but the name because I think again, in the reporting I've done, I keep hearing names of people who are involved at different levels who are helping put together policy on transportation or jobs or public safety.

4:04And then I call the campaign to say, hey, listen, I heard that so and so person is working on this issue. What's going on? Can you give me a full list of these folks on the transition committee? And they get really huffy though, like there's no transition yet. We're still in campaign mode. We still have to win an election. So I think they're playing, they're playing coy with it all. We all know what's happening. They know what's happening. They just don't want to outwardly say so. Did you kind of get a sense when you were at these meetings? What I know there were sort of these these breakout groups where, you know, community members were talking about specific issues that, you know, JLG's campaign is prioritizing. Did you get a sense of kind of what her focus seems to be as she's campaigning? What issues she seems to be reaching people on? First off, I will start by saying, and I think Ben made this point in his really great piece for you guys that she is listening more than talking. I mean, she gives a speech at the beginning. She gives a speech at the end in between at all these breakout sessions. She walks from one to the other and listens to people. Now then again, she walks with a videographer.

5:05They're missing no opportunity to kind of publicize this down the road. I think she is listening. We asked her at the end of it where like, well, what if people tell you things that you disagree with? What if people tell you things that contradict with what you campaigned on ahead of the primary? And she said, well, then we'll evolve. We'll change. We'll kind of consider other people's opinions. I was in Ward one, which I think is it's fair to say it's kind of her base or at least is the place that she did the best. It felt much more like a campaign event like the people there are sold. I mean, they're like pro genie slow short. There's no question there. And they were throwing out ideas that I think aren't completely alien for the lefty class in Ward one. It's like, well, we should abolish the police. That's not something she ran on. I don't think that's the kind of she respond to that. She just she listens again. She doesn't she isn't engaging like back and forth. She occasionally will jump in and say, hey, talk to me more about that healthcare problem you mentioned. But she's not responding like on it. She kind of tries to sit on the periphery and act like she's not there, which is kind of impossible. I mean, a mayoral candidate slash mayor to be walks into the meeting.

6:07We're going to pay attention. I asked that just because that is an idea that well popular in certain college educated realms is like on the national level, obviously like quite toxic to the democratic party and the kind of thing that like bad faith congressional Republicans will beat the city over the head with. And some politicians, but he used as an opportunity to say like, wait a minute, what like I that is not what I believe or whatever. But her style and these things has been like, just listen, don't give away your response. Yeah. And again, we asked her at the end about kind of what do you do with these ideas that your potentially you disagree with or aren't going to implement. And I think the answer is this is about transparency. It's about making people feel heard. So I think that the answer will always be we may not have abolished the police, but we let you talk about how you want to abolish the police and why you think this is a great idea. Right. And again, that's the weird thing about government is that a lot of times it's not really about what the government is doing. That's a people can say, well, listen, the government let me spout off about X, Y, Z issues.

7:07So I feel like I've been heard. I mean, one of the one big appointments she'll have is the new police chief. I mean, assuming that she doesn't abolish them, which I think is. Has there been any indication that there's conversations going on about that, either with candidates or with advocates who have like a certain vision in mind of what a candidate should look like? Well, in the public safety breakout tables kind of where people were focused on public safety, one of the questions was what are the qualities you want in a police chief? And so all the different people were kind of throwing out qualities they'd like to see. Some people are like, I want someone who's really innovative. Someone else was like, I just want a police chief who wants to basically deny themselves resources and admit that they can't do everything so they shouldn't do much at all. So they should just do with a much smaller budget. Don't think that's going to happen. But that was the sort of conversation, but we did ask her. We obviously were trying to tease out where she is on those big appointments. She's not giving away much on that. She did say yesterday that though that she is going agency through agency and she will consider keeping, she's not going to clean house essentially. She said, listen, there's people we've heard good things about.

8:09And I think I like and I would consider keeping them because I think she probably also realizes the biggest part of the transition is starting from scratch essentially. Like if you completely clean house and you're starting all the institutional memory kind of goes. So keeping some people in place is not a terrible idea. I'm curious kind of what the vibes were like because we know that the first stop of this listening tour was at her home church in word eight where her mom's at Deakin. Like did you get a sense that the crowd out in word one was sort of obviously she had a lot of support there during the primary. Did you get a sense that people were there? You know, was the environment friendly? Oh, I don't think you're even get friendlier than the word one for Denise Lewis George these days. Yeah, this was it was like a pep rally at moments more so than it was a listening session. Again, not criticizing the people there, but this is definitely like her people. I'm curious to see how the rest of them go. I think word seven is going to be an interesting one because again, it's, you know, they voted for her over McDuffee, but it's always been seen as slightly more conservative in DC politics.

9:09I mean, that's take that for what it is. And I think we'll all want to go to the one in word three because it's the one place that did not vote for Denise George. And they may have a very different approach or very different response to her showing up. Hey, last question. You know, it seems to me that the sort of narrative of like the news narrative of DC has changed a bit since June. It may just be my like subjective reading or whatever, but you know, during the campaign it was, you know, who's going to build more housing and, you know, what their targets are and stuff. And there has been a lot of concern the last few months about like people who are in the business of building stuff don't want to do their business in DC because they think they can't make money. They think they won't, they rent won't get paid or they think that their targets and, you know, market rate apartments are losing their jobs and won't be wanting to buy in. That is a very different conversation. Like how do we, you know, protecting what we got? That's a very different conversation from like let's build 72,000 housing units. Do you get the sense that when the Democratic nominee speaks, she is in a different place

10:17or she is sort of like adjusted to this changed conversation? So at the word one event, Ben actually did ask her that question at the end. We kind of had a little bit of a gaggle and he asked her specifically, listen, you've got all these people telling you they want to do all, they want you to do all these big things and you know the financial realities. And her response was, I don't have the exact quote in front of me, it was effectively, yeah, we'll get to that. Like we want to get all the ideas in, we want to put together this plan where this vision and then we'll deal with the financial realities after that and decide not necessarily what to cut but how to handle it, how to, what compromises and tradeoffs have to be made. But yeah, I can't imagine that her and her staff and everybody who's volunteering, everybody who's on this transition, that's not called the transition, doesn't realize that you know, if you're at these listening sessions and people are saying, well, we want every single school in DC to have three nurses and four counselors and six librarians and we want them all to have, we want everybody to have childcare that's affordable for everybody at every income level. Like they know in the back of their heads, not all those things can happen at once.

11:22Another piece of news this week, I guess is also politics adjacent to politics central, whatever, the current mayor, who was reminded us that we have a current mayor announced that she is against this proposal in the DC council to spend city money upgrading out of the field with DC United play. They want to put a roof over it. Mayor Bowser said, well, she didn't want to steal thunder from the capital one arena where the city has also been spending a lot of money doing upgrades. The upgrades were, in that case, she was the author of those upgrades, which was part of the part of what she did to woo back, totally owns this, the owner of the hockey and basketball teams when he was threatening to move. So on one level, it looks like kind of a politics fight, right? Phil Mendelssohn, the DC council chairman is the one who proposed the soccer field upgrade and, you know, this is my upgrade, that's your upgrade. And Bowser claims it's about not wanting to trample a city resource of capital one.

12:27But to me, it sure looks a lot like a couple of very rich people, the owner of the monumental sports, the capitals and the wizards, and the owner of DC United are at odds over something that could be very lucrative, which is to say if you put a roof over out of field, that makes it a appealing place to do concerts that might otherwise go to the capital one arena. And that actually is a couple of titans fighting over money and all this stuff about principle and city resources is just window dressing. What's going to happen now, aren't you watching this stuff? I mean, first of all, I thought this was the sports capital. I was like, caught off guard. I mean, I thought the mayor was, you know, this is like the upside down world of DC politics. You have Chairman Phil Mendelssohn who initially was very against or very concerned about the commander's stadium deal. He said, I don't want public money going to this. He eventually turned around and said, I'm fine with some public money going to it. And Mayor Bowser was the flip side. She was all about public money going to both capital one arena. She wanted public money to go to the commander's stadium deal.

13:27And now she suddenly doesn't want it for out of field. So it's kind of like they've switched roles a little bit. I was against surprise at Chairman Mendelssohn introduced a bill when he did because he dropped it in without telling anybody in July. We'll hold a hearing this fall on it. I don't get a sense that anybody is excited about this. Maybe not even him. I mean, who won the council, Janice Lewis George, the potential mayor to be doesn't love the idea. Mayor Bowser doesn't love the idea. When are they on the same page about anything? I mean, that's incredible. And then the one thing you can say about Ted Leonses and and monumental and the wizards and the caps is that he's an established known likable quantity in DC. Whereas the owners of DC United are not. It's not that they're not likable. Is that no one really knows who they are? They don't engage very often in local politics. They don't have big fundraising events or do like philanthropy. That sort of stuff that you think they would do that other local owners have. So I just don't think they've done the sort of politics that needs to be done to get what they want. I mean, all these people who have this idea, I don't agree with, but this idea that these

14:27major, major, major investments in sports facilities are a great use of taxpayer money. Suddenly saying like, oh no, why are they saying that? What's really going on there? Is it just that like the person who wants the money in the case of outy field is someone who hasn't spent enough time like kissing butt in the politics world? I mean, that could be part of it. I talked to someone who said that if the Washington spirit were the owners of outy field and they had made this pitch, they would probably get a better reception because people kind of love the Washington spirit and the Washington spirit are still very good. DC United isn't particularly great right now. They've had a couple of years where folks, fans, you know, friends of mine who are fans of DC United say it's not a particularly inspiring product these days. And again, the ownership being a bit distant from DC politics and the husband for a long time probably hurts their cause. Again, credit to the mayor, she might be right that if you build this roofed, expanded facility at outy field, you might be cannibalizing capital one, which the city is also already putting $500 million into.

15:28But you're picking favorites at this point. It's like, well, we got all these great sports that I really like. I'll give them public money. But this other weird sport that they play in other countries, I don't really think is that great. So why should we give them public money? It's interesting too. And maybe my sense of this is completely off. But the average person here who I run into at a party or on the street is a regular spirit game attendee and really, really values having a strong soccer field for that team. And I don't think I've ever met anyone who's ever been to a wizard's game in their lives. So I'm kind of met me. I didn't know that about you. You're the first. And I think if the wizard's got good, it would be a huge thing for the city. But they have not gotten good in many, many, many years. I don't know, man. I have a hard time even thinking it's about like the sport involved because most people in politics, they can do the math and be like, you know, look at it. I mean, particularly like the kind of what we saw on this most recent election of this like block of relatively new, relatively well educated, progressive voters.

16:36I would say that's probably a disproportionately soccer and not very pro football kind of crowd. I think it's all about who's going to pocket the money when Taylor Swift plays. She'll play at the football stadium. So that's a stupid example. But you know what I mean. The one thing that's fascinating is that Audi field has kind of become like not the dumping ground, but the sort of place where all the other sports end up. You've got DC United. That's what it was built for. Then they finally added the Washington spirit that sell that place out very consistently. They've had XFL games there or whatever the new kind of like version of arena football is. There was even rumors that the city's new professional volleyball team that was just named this week. As the same owner as DC United. Right. And that they in theory would also at some point play at Audi field. I don't know how that would work. Given the size of a volleyball court and or sand pit, whatever they play on. I don't know. And size of all. I feel like I'm on Martin. It's not beach. I thought it was beach volleyball. Either way. It shows how little I know about volleyball. But it's become like in the de facto place for lots of things.

17:37And if this is a sports capital, there's an argument to be made. Well, listen, we've got all these other random sports. I mean, you could probably put ultimate frisbee in there. You could probably play cricket. I don't know. Like, I mean, just maybe DC United and maybe the ownership has to pitch it as like, look, we've got all these other leagues who want space to play. There was a cricket team that wanted its own facility. Maybe Audi field is the place they should go. I mean, I think that the sports capital thing that Ted Bowser has been leaning on, which I sort of roll my eyes at, you know, their sort of case study was not like, let's have another arena for a local team. It's let's do these like big events that get all fans of some sport nationally to come as tourists to watch. So that's the IndyCar race was an example of that. It was, you know, there's a large population of people out there who love car racing and they were going to travel for that. And the NFL draft is their other example. There's this sort of football obsessives who are going to travel to watch their team pick in the NFL draft. That's different than like we built an arena for like our local bucks lacrosse team.

18:42And we're going to make some marginal uptacks gains on that. Yeah. Like you could get those same big events probably in an expanded Audi field. I mean, they keep saying that the new commander stadium is going to be the place where they do these big international friendly. So like Argentina with Messi show up and they decide to play Mexico or something. And that'll fill a place as big as the commander's stadium will be. But there's probably a lot of other international soccer friendly's you could pull off at a bigger Audi field. I think they're still value to having Audi field and I can understand expanding it. I also understand people being frustrated by the idea that this stadium is what a decade 12 years old or something. And we're already talking about roofing it. That being said, the Natz ownership tried that one too. So I guess like roofs of the new thing. Well for sure. And also like having shelled out for the commander stadium, having shelled out for the wizards, capitals stadium. It's like very people are going to stand on principle anymore that like this is it that sports is a poor use of public money. I'm not proud of that.

19:42There we are. I mean, if this is where we are, I'm still going to make the pitch that they're going to use public funds to build a cycling dollar drone because I like cycling. I like valid drones. Let's get it done. That would bring in what tens of dollars. Tens of dollars and dozens of cyclists. I mean, come on. Kate, we had you this week in city cast on a very important story about the Maryland Renaissance festival. We're a shocking, shocking development is underway. Nothing will ever be the same. This kind of development actually took place back in May, but now that the festival has actually kicked off, it started last weekend. It's getting a little bit more attention. People are becoming a little more aware of it. The festival has updated its dress code this year to ban fur suits, which if for the uninitiated are the very elaborate, often a little bit frightening, costumes worn by

20:47the furry community, kind of the subculture that likes to dress up and create sort of these animal personas for themselves. Shockingly decently sized furry community in the DC area will actually be hosting our first furry convention next year. So the very capital is it out outy field? I mean, because outy field can fit furries. And you should you should bring that up at the next meeting at the next council hearing. But yeah, obviously it's sort of this interesting fight between the geeks of the area because I have been to one Renaissance festival in my life. I went last year, the Virginia Renaissance Fair. I wanted a turkey leg and I wore jeans. Nobody said anything to me. I feel like that's honestly kind of worse than showing up in an elaborate costume, even if that costume is a fur suit.

21:47But the general manager of the Maryland Fair, Julius Smith, gave me sort of a few reasons for why this policy decision was made. I guess first and foremost, they've been receiving customer complaints of sort of two varieties. The first being that people feel uncomfortable looking at furries and that furries have been behaving in ways that make festival goers uncomfortable. What are they doing? Well, I asked for some specifics on that and I've been next deep in online forums where people are talking about this issue and some people speculate that furries were, you know, there's this perception that the furry community, that it's basically a kink. It's a sexual fetish and sort of everywhere they go, there's that undercurrent of sexual deviants. But from what I gather talking to, you know, I spoke to a local furry for this story who's all up in the Renaissance Fair circuit.

22:48He said that's, you know, the community can get sexual. There is that sort of theme, but they're not sexual everywhere they go. The festival did tell me that they've had some issues with furries posing as paid festival cast members. You know, the festival does pay these actors to sort of perform. And, you know, if a furry walks into a Renaissance Fair, they're going to get some looks. So they do seem to be drawing crowds that maybe are taken away from the festival's bottom line. But look, in your report, I thought was interesting, was there, there's this sort of like philosophical question about the Renaissance Fair, which is, is it supposed to be like a historically accurate thing where because in the actual Renaissance people didn't dress up in anthropomorphic animal outfits, the furries are therefore like not a great look for the Renaissance Festival. In which case, as you're, as the furry you quoted pointed out, like why are people allowed

23:49to wear like Spider-Man outfits and other non-Renosan things? And for that matter, why is there jousting and stuff? Because like that was more like middle ages, right? Or is the Renaissance Festival just like an all-purpose thing for like oddballs and geeks and like people to sort of be themselves and have fun and be weird and enjoy it? This is really the debate that's sort of oozing out of the core of this. I think, like you mentioned, the furry I spoke to said that, you know, every time he goes to the festival, he sees people dressed as stormtroopers and Spider-Man. And you know, those costumes in the updated dress code are not prohibited. And the explanation I got from Smith, the general manager of the festival, is that, you know, he sort of communicated to me that the Maryland Renfair is a little more buttoned up than some of its competitors. You know, they really focus on crafting a curated story, which includes people wearing,

24:54people sort of dressing on theme, if you will. It reminds me a lot of the Met Gala philosophy that if you're not going to follow the assignment provided to you by Anna Win-Tor, then all the people watching at home, me are going to say you shouldn't be invited back next year. There is a pretty visible tension anytime you look at any Renfair. I mean, you can get into the weeds about people wear peasant blouses and they wear corsets over their clothes and they dress as wenches and barbarians and these sort of, you know, archetypal costumes that we see so much are not necessarily historically accurate. They're just sort of in line with the vibe of most Renfairs. So that's, I think, why some furries are feeling a bit discriminated against. And I kind of understand it. I mean, to be honest, like, I think, you know, all of these people were probably, you know, dorky theater kids once and they all sat at the same lunch table in high school. That's no shade. Those people were my friends back then.

25:55But, you know, I'm a little surprised there's not more solidarity within the geek community, but I guess the furries must have really done something to put a sour taste in people's mouths. Martin, you ever been to a Renaissance festival? Oh my God. Probably you're going to get a lot of crap for this. I have not. I got crap from some of my neighbors recently who go every single year and they were shocked that I've never been 25 years in DC. I've never been to Renfest. I'm not going to lie. Now that I hear that the furries have taken over, I'm kind of curious just because they haven't they've been ejected or they've been ejected. I mean, so how big I'm curious. How big was a furry kind of invasion or retocking here? I mean, was this like a couple dozen people were talking hundreds? Like, I feel like this is again, the sort of problem that they've renfests by kicking them out has just brought attention to the problem and it's just going to make more people want to go there and kind of stand on principle and be like, I'm with the furries let us in. My understanding and I am admittedly not a regular Renfaire attendee is that, you know, there are sort of these geek coded events around the area every year.

26:57The Renaissance fairs are a big one and there's this sort of circuit that a lot of these subcultures will go on and they'll, you know, the furry I spoke with told me that he, there are meetups planned in the regional area, not just the DMV but people from New Jersey and Pennsylvania are coordinating with furries in this area to attend the Maryland festival every year. So it's definitely sort of a hot spot if you are kind of in that cosplay, larping world in whatever form that that takes for you. You know what would have been a really cool would have been if the furries had decided to go to the great American state fair they would have had the run of the place. And I bet they would have had more fun than a lot of the people who actually went. I mean, they could really see the horses for what they were. Look, I'm no expert on this at all but I think the Renfest people, I think, they're people of missing an obvious opportunity here. They should, they should go deeper into the realities of you go to Renfest and you're

28:00dressed in your Renaissance era garb and then you see a bunch of furries treat the furries as people back in the Renaissance would have treated rodents or other animals that they seen. That's like, that's food. That's a source of food. So like, have like, instead of jousting, have people like, you know, square off against the guy who's dressed as a squirrel and have the squirrel like run away and see if the Renfest people can catch them. Hunt them. I think there's an opportunity. It's an opportunity not with like death at the end but like, have some sort of fun hunt. This can work. And that would really help. I think the complaining customers get their tension out. All right. I want to give a big thank you to our newest citycast DC neighbors, Judith F. Nicole N. Brian L. Aaron J. and Steve M. Thank you all for your support. Today paid subscribers get a bonus fourth roundup chat. We're going to talk about Trump's stamp on the DC landscape. There is new stamping that's going on. If you want to be sure you always get the full episode, please become a member. We're going to head to membership.citycast.fm and sign up. It is only $10 a month. Members get ad free listening, exclusive members events and an extra events newsletter each and every week.

29:01Again, that's membership.citycast.fm. Good times, you guys. We should just talk about furries a lot more. I feel like that was a wonderful part of this conversation. I have been thinking about furries more than I've ever thought about furries in my life. And I'm afraid I'm not going to stop. Okay. Come back and tell us more when there's more furry news. Oh, I will be your furry correspondent. Don't worry about me. And Martin, it was always awesome to see you, man. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. And that's all for today here on CityCast DC. Our production team this week was Alexander Turk and Matthew Rogers. You can check out all of our excellent newsletters and reporting at dc.citycast.fm. Our host, Abrigid Todd and me, Michael Schaefer. Music is by Alex Roaldand with additional music from Philip Ayers and Blue Lou from Triple Scoop Music via Getty Images. If you enjoyed the show, text your friend who just can't wait for Outy Field to finally have a roof. Your friend may be waiting a while. He'll have time to read CityCast. We'll be back Monday morning with more news from Around the City.

30:02Bye.