Washington Blade - August 19, 2005
Lou Chibbaro Jr.

"I get paid to make tough decisions and I just felt that, at this juncture, where we stand, new leadership was indicated," Pane said Wednesday at Mayor Anthony Williams' weekly news conference.

"I support Dr. Pane ... in his decision to put some new leadership in there," Williams said during the news conference.

Pane would not provide any information on a likely successor, except to say that the candidate was being vetted and could be named by the end of this week. DOH spokesperson Leila Abarar said the person under consideration lives in the metropolitan D.C. area.

Watts' dismissal came one week after two local organizations that monitor public health issues raised concern that HAA missed several deadlines for releasing reliable, updated data on HIV/AIDS rates in the District.

Officials with the D.C. Appleseed Center for Law & Justice and the HIV Prevention Planning Group said the data is needed to enable the city to update its HIV prevention programs. The two groups said the data is also required as a condition for the city to receive federal HIV prevention funds.

HAA's inability to meet the deadlines for releasing HIV surveillance data was one of a series of problems that surfaced at the agency since Watts began work there in September 2004.

Experts familiar with the city's AIDS epidemic noted that problems at HAA have been widespread long before Watts' arrival. But the experts, including many of the city's gay and AIDS activists, said Watts' personality and demeanor appeared to put her at odds with many who had hoped to help her succeed in reforming HAA.

"Things were bad with HAA under [former HAA director] Ron Lewis," said Sharon Baskerville, executive director of the D.C. Primary Care Association, which promotes health care services for low-income people. "No one imagined it could get worse, but it did."

Lewis served as HAA's director more than two years before Watts' arrival. He was transferred to the post of deputy health director, where he continued to oversee HAA. AIDS activists said Lewis ran the agency with an iron hand, threatening to cut off funds to service providers that spoke out about HAA's internal problems, including its longstanding inability to pay providers for services to clients on a timely basis.

D.C. City Administrator Robert Bobb fired Lewis and several of HAA's top managers, with approval from Williams, following a study he helped conduct of HAA's operations.

At the time of Watts' appointment, AIDS activists generally expressed hope and confidence that she would help solve HAA's problems and work closely with the city's diverse array of AIDS organizations, including those that assist gay men at risk for HIV.

Controversy at the start

But Watts, 45, became embroiled in controversy as soon as she came to D.C. from Chicago, where she worked on AIDS-related issues for that city's health department and for an AIDS program operated by civil rights leader Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/Push Coalition.

Shortly after Williams announced in August 2004 that he had chosen Watts as the new HAA director, news surfaced that she opposed clean needle exchange programs to curtail the spread of HIV among injection drug abusers. Watts said such programs appeared to abandon low-income African Americans to the misery of drug addiction.

She said she disputed studies showing that needle exchange programs do not lead to greater drug use among targeted populations and can help prompt addicts to seek treatment.

Earlier this year, Watts came under fire for spending $438,000 on a World AIDS Day ceremony. She hired a video production company to videotape the event, saying the tape would be used as an HIV prevention tool. But critics called the tape and ceremony a waste of money that could have better been used to directly reach out to populations at risk for HIV.

Gay D.C. Councilmember David Catania (I-At-Large), who chairs the Council's Committee on Health, revealed in a hearing that the World AIDS Day event came at a time when Watts cut funding for at least two AIDS prevention programs targeting gay men. It also came at a time when HAA had failed to spend as much as $1 million in its budget, Catania disclosed.

In a statement released Thursday afternoon, Catania noted HAA's long-standing problems paying HIV/AIDS providers on a timely basis.

"Unfortunately, these and other challenges to the planning and delivery of vital services failed to turn around under Ms. Watts' watch," said Catania, a frequent critic of HAA and Watts.

"I'm sorry to see her go, but with her attitude, she had to," said Ron Simmons, executive director of Us Helping Us, an AIDS service group that assists African-American gay men.

Simmons noted that Watts proposed sweeping funding cuts for HIV prevention programs targeting gay men, especially gay men of color. He said that when advocates for these programs objected to the cuts, Watts appeared unsympathetic to proposals to restore the funds.

The D.C. Council overruled the proposed cuts for some of the programs targeted by Watts, including some of the cuts slated for Us Helping Us.

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