13 jan 1968 & city council, mayor

#OTD Saturday 13 January 1968, the City Council and the Mayor haggled over the implementation of new taxes. According to the Washington Post, the City Council wanted to implement a commuter tax, higher city income tax rates, and higher taxes on food and beverages consumed in restaurants, among others. The Mayor wanted higher city sales taxes and increased real estate and property taxes. No decisions were made that night. And even if they had been made, they would not have been enacted since President Lyndon B. Johnson and members of the House Committee on the District of Columbia reviewed and could veto budget and legislative decisions made by the Council and Mayor. 

Both Mayor Washington (technically Mayor-Commissioner) and the City Council had been appointed by President Johnson and began serving in November 1967. The nine members of the City Council pictured above:

Seated from left to right: Margaret A. Haywood, Chair John W. Hechinger (white), Vice-Chair Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy and Polly Shackleton (white). Top row in alpha order: Stanley J. Anderson, John A. Nevius (white), William S. Thompson, J.C. Turner (white),  and Joseph P. Yeldell.

Photo source: Courtesy of DC Public Library Special Collections, November 1967.
Robert G. Kaiser, "Mayor to Yield on New Taxes, Washington Post 14 Jan 1968.
Chris Myers Asch & G. Derek Musgrove, Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation's Capital 2017.
See legislation passed by the Appointed City Council here.
I thank Josh Gibson, Public Information Officer for the Council, for sharing resources with me.