Republican mayoral candidate Carol Schwartz addressed the Foggy Bottom Association Monday, speaking on taxes, budgets and GW expansion. Mayor Anthony Williams was invited to the FBA meeting held at the Melrose Hotel but was unable to attend.

Schwartz is a D.C. Councilmember running for mayor in her fourth election.

“I wouldn’t have run four times if I didn’t want this job,” Schwartz said. “I’m tired of cleaning up everyone else’s messes.”

This year’s mayoral race, one of the strangest in recent memory, has been mired in scandal. Current mayor Anthony Williams is favored to win a second term. Williams won the Democratic nomination as a write-in candidate after his original nominating forms were found to be fraudulent.

The D.C. Office of Campaign Finance also accused Williams of violating personnel rules by raising $1.5 million for political events using government resources and time last week. The mayor’s office has taken full responsibility, according to a Washington Post article.

Williams won not only the Democratic ticket but the Republican nomination as well due to write-in votes. District law prohibits a candidate from running as a nominee for both parties, so when Williams accepted the Democratic slate, Schwartz accepted the Republican nomination less than six weeks before the election.

“It is hard for me to pass up people that say, ‘I need you,'” Schwartz said. She said the “petition debacle opened up the door a little bit” and made it possible for her to run.

Schwartz voted against GW in the recent case to issue a city bond to authorize the University’s expansion.

“I thought GW was being an octopus and slogging up everything in town,” she said.

As mayor, Schwartz said she would be “in everyone’s face who wants to take our taxable land and turn it into non-taxable land.”

“Steve Trachtenberg doesn’t even want to see me,” she said.

Undergraduate students expressed little concern for the upcoming elections.

“The mayor of D.C. doesn’t do anything anyway,” junior Meghan Rud said.

“I just don’t have an interest in D.C. politics,” sophomore Tano Akiya said. “I’m more interested in politics back home. They affect me more.”

Senior Marc Staniford said he only paid attention to the fraud in the campaign. He said he is interested in the upcoming election “for entertainment value only.”

Some Law School students seemed more invested in local politics.

Mandy Bartoshesky, a second-year law student, believed that voting is “totally important.”

“I had a professor that told me if I didn’t vote, then I would fail,” she said. “I’ve adopted that attitude.”

“D.C. is the only city that is managed by the federal government. We need leadership that can handle that additional responsibility,” second-year law student Adam Nyhan said.