In response to Greater Greater Washington’s questionnaire, candidates for Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner (ANC) seats across the District indicated where they stand on housing, transportation, and land use, and elaborated on those topics in their own words. As of this writing, GGWash’s Endorsements Committee has reviewed all the ANC questionnaires submitted by September 5, 2022, for the 2022 election, and has made its endorsement decisions for ANC races. These are the endorsements for Ward 6.

Are you a Ward 6 resident, but unsure of what commission or single member district you live in? Search your address in our interactive tool.

Looking for more information about GGWash’s endorsements? Our 2022 Elections Hub is your one-stop shop for questionnaires, candidate forum recordings, endorsements process details, and our endorsements themselves. Access the hub anytime from the “2022 Elections” link in the upper right corner of our homepage.

A few notes on process

Our ANC endorsement process is based on the same values and guidelines as our other endorsements this year, which you can read here. But ANC races are different in a few important ways.

ANCs serve, as the name suggests, in an advisory capacity, with almost no legal power over policy. Candidates for these roles can be newer to local politics and policy matters. At the same time, once in office, motivated, good-faith commissioners will learn a great deal about how change happens, and can quickly become effective advocates for the neighborhoods in which they live.

The role is also unpaid and can be demanding. This year, as in years past, there are a very high number of uncontested races or races with no candidate at all, particularly after the redistricting process this year added more single member districts. For most candidates, if you’d like to be an ANC, getting yourself on the ballot is enough to make it happen.

In light of these patterns, our Endorsements Committee took the following approach to endorsements decision-making:

• As in our previous endorsement processes, only candidates who submitted questionnaires were eligible for endorsement.
• As housing, transportation, and land use issues can vary from neighborhood to neighborhood, we took into mind the particulars and patterns of the parts of the District each candidate would represent, and the commissions on which they would serve, to help evaluate what we would consider indicative of constructive progress there. There’s no strict GGWash-endorsement formula or litmus test.
• Even candidates who are not perfectly aligned with all of GGWash’s issue areas can still be great commissioners with whom we look forward to working in good faith. The fact that such candidates responded to our questionnaire in pursuit of our endorsement is itself, in our view, an indication of openness to partnership. As such, in uncontested races in particular, we looked for opportunities for alignment and growth.
• We prioritized endorsing in contested ANC races—reflecting our commitment to endorsing in other contested races this cycle—in order to help voters with the real choices they have to make among the candidates available to them. In some instances, unfortunately, only one candidate in a contested race responded to our questionnaire. If we did not endorse the sole candidate in a contested race who responded to our questionnaire, it was because the candidate proclaimed significantly distinct views from those of GGWash.

With that framing in mind, let’s get to the endorsements!

Ward 6 ANC Endorsements

Key: ✅ = endorsement; ❌ = no endorsement

ANC 6A

✅ 6A01: Keya Chatterjee

Questionnaire, Twitter, donate
Contested? Yes, 🥊(Christina Goodlander)

Chatterjee, who we endorsed in 2020, has been a steadfast champion for safe streets and transit priority, including the H St NE transit priority project, while observing the need to prioritize access for disabled residents. Chatterjee demonstrates sharp, empathetic, and proactive perspectives in her questionnaire, noting that though her car-free lifestyle leaves few trips to shift away from cars, she could encourage friends to make a switch. Contribute to Chatterjee’s campaign here.

✅ 6A03: Nicole “Nikki” Del Casale

Questionnaire, Twitter, no known contribution link
Contested? Yes, 🥊(Roberta Shapiro)

Del Casale would encourage developers to maximize the height and density of planned unit developments to enable more inclusionary zoning units, and presents a willingness to make hard decisions to improve traffic safety, which she cites as her top priority.

✅ 6A04: Amber Gove

Questionnaire, Twitter, donate
Contested? Yes, 🥊(Alexandra Kelly)

Over several years of exemplary public service, Gove, who we endorsed in 2020, has proven her effectiveness at finding solutions to complex challenges, and shown a dogged grace in navigating contentious transportation and traffic safety issues, such as the North Carolina Ave NE bike lanes. Her questionnaire reflects no less a commitment to building housing the District needs in 6A: “The AutoZone property at 1207 H Street NE will be the next big project in our ANC and will require careful management and negotiation with developers and neighbors to include as much affordable housing as possible. Our Commission unanimously supported a zoning map amendment that would allow for increased height in exchange for an increased number of affordable units at this location…I am supportive of growing our housing stock, particularly along transit-rich corridors, as a way to reduce the cost of housing, increase access to housing for teachers, police officers, and other essential workers, and reduce traffic and single-occupancy commuting.” Contribute to Gove’s campaign here.

✅ 6A05: Laura Gentile

Questionnaire, Twitter, no known contribution link
Contested? No, ⛵

Gentile, who we endorsed in 2020, takes thoughtful and forward-looking stances on transportation, particularly traffic safety. Of the current condition of H Street Northeast, she writes, “Unsafe design has resulted in harm to our residents, businesses, and visitors…As such, traffic safety measures are urgently needed in this corridor sooner than later to improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists.”

✅ 6A06: Robb Dooling

Questionnaire, Twitter, no known contribution link
Contested? No, ⛵

Dooling, who we endorsed in 2020, has a sterling track record of supporting new housing, transit, and traffic safety across 6A, and has shown excellent diplomatic instincts and skills in navigating complex conversations around new development and transportation issues. While noting that he’s helped lead the charge for H St NE’s transit priority lane along with fellow ANCs, local residents and businesses, Dooling says that “the 24/7 transit-only lane has room for improvement in that the current streetcar track placement forces us to implement right-side-running bus lanes instead of center-running bus lanes. Political realities would prevent us from shifting these tracks to the center of the roadway. However, other bus priority projects in DC should not follow H Street NE in this regard and pursue center-running bus lanes to reduce conflicts with the curbside.” We’re, obviously, on board.

ANC 6B

✅ 6B01: Frank Avery

Questionnaire, Twitter, website, no known contribution link
Contested? No, ⛵

Avery’s responses to our questionnaire demonstrate support for more housing and bus priority projects, though we would like to see less on “preserving parking” and more amenability to protected bike lanes. Importantly, though, he’s “supportive of the Pennsylvania Ave SE bus line expansion” and believes “it will be hugely beneficial for neighbors and those working in the restaurants and commuting through 6B.”

❌ 6B03: Write-ins encouraged

Contested? No, ⛵(David C. Sobelsohn)

Presented with the requirement to select a single response to a multiple-choice question, Sobelsohn, in response to our questionnaire, tells us, “Since you have devised a form that requires a “yes” or “no” answer to whether I would encourage residential developers to maximize or to limit height and density, I have flipped a coin and checked “limit,” even though that does NOT represent my actual views. For some projects I would encourage the developer to maximize height and density.” While a creative way to contend with a voluntary questionnaire of hypotheticals, this gives us little information on which to make an endorsement decision. Granted, some of his answers seemed promising.

✅ 6B04: Francis “Frank” D’Andrea

Questionnaire, website, no known contribution link
Contested? No, ⛵

D’Andrea’s questionnaire suggests strong support for housing density and transit, and a sincere interest in closing gaps in the District’s network of protected bike lanes: “We need to have a complete and legible grid to allow bikers an easier time navigating the city. The 12th Street route is one that I bike often and the lack of continuous bike lanes makes biking north harder than it should be.” We hope to see him say the same to the District Department of Transportation as a commissioner.

✅ 6B07: Vince Mareino

Questionnaire, Twitter, no known contribution link
Contested? No, ⛵

Mareino has a good deal of knowledge of and interest in housing density in 6B. His schooled response to the question of what parts of 6B should have more density is “Almost all of it! A surprisingly small portion of Capitol Hill is covered by the Capitol Hill Mixed-Use Zone MU-25, which permits 50-foot heights and 70% lot occupancy. Most of the Hill is actually RF-1, which allows only 35-foot heights and 60% lot occupancy. Upgrading the entirety of ANC 6B to MU-25 would do a world of good.” His support for public transit, traffic safety, and biking will be more than welcome there, too.

✅ 6B08: Edward Ryder

Questionnaire, Twitter, no known contribution link
Contested? No, ⛵

Ryder submitted a strong questionnaire overall, professing considerable enthusiasm for the upcoming Pennsylvania Ave SE bus and bike lanes: “The plans for both bus priority and bike lanes on Pennsylvania SE are a major improvement for the area and will have wide-reaching benefits. The corridor is already a major bus route (32 and 36 buses being the ones I take most frequently) and having bus priority lanes and traffic signal priority plans will greatly improve service along Penn Ave.”

✅ 6B09: Matt LaFortune

Questionnaire, Twitter, donate
Contested? No, ⛵

LaFortune is solid across the board on our issues, and we particularly like his framing of how “ANC 6B has the opportunity to welcome new neighbors”: “Through greater density along Pennsylvania Avenue and with redevelopment of Southeast Blvd. to include housing on currently-unused land. I also support the development of duplexes, triplexes, and townhomes in current row houses to combat the shortage of housing in DC for all income levels.” Contribute to LaFortune’s campaign here.

ANC 6C

✅ 6C01: Christy Kwan

Questionnaire, Twitter, website, no known contribution link
Contested? No, ⛵

Kwan’s commendable advocacy with DC Families for Safe Streets, to support and honor victims of traffic violence, is an unconditional gift to the District. We know that she’ll bring to ANC 6C one of the best visions for how transit should work; as she writes in response to our questionnaire, “The plans and projects along the entire [H St NE] corridor must be coordinated and integrated so that improvements are holistic and prioritize riders and their lived experiences while traveling, especially across the Anacostia River.”

✅ 6C06: Patricia Eguino

Questionnaire, Twitter, no known contribution link
Contested? No, ⛵

Eguino has a vocal, justice-oriented, and no-holds-barred commitment to more housing (“The Height Act needs to be thrown out, since I believe it is one of the main causes of the District’s lack of housing availability, and exploding rent. So, all those popular apartment complexes in my ANC like Ava on H, 360 H St, Coda on H, etc., should absolutely have more than 6 floors of apartment units built”), more affordable housing, frequent and reliable transportation, and better bike infrastructure. We are in favor of endorsing someone who can describe the status quo in stark terms—“The bikes lanes in my SMD are in pitiful shape: they are barely delineated and painted, there are no bollards or other safety measures to protect the bike lanes, and, to top it all off, public parking is allowed on both sides of the street, so a cyclist can have the lovely surprise of a parked car’s door slamming right into their face”—and has the energy needed to change it.

✅ 6C07: Tony T. Goodman

Questionnaire, Twitter, no known contribution link
Contested? No, ⛵

We’re thrilled by the prospect of Goodman, who has a lengthy record of not just supporting, but literally enabling, new housing and protected bike lanes, returning to an ANC seat. His intimate knowledge of the mechanics of local policymaking will be an invaluable asset to ANC 6C.

ANC 6D

✅ 6D01: Bob Link

Questionnaire, no known contribution link
Contested? No, ⛵

Link is not at all with us on housing—perhaps because, as a boat-dweller, he’s unmoored from the challenging realities of land use per se—but we’d welcome his willingness to remove parking and travel lanes for bus priority lanes, which he says have the “potential benefit to reduce the vehicular traffic for residents coming from within the District,” in ANC 6D.

✅ 6D05: Ashton Rohmer

Questionnaire, Twitter, no known contribution link
Contested? No, ⛵

Rohmer sincerely cares about how to make housing more affordable, and would bring a comprehensive approach to doing so in ANC 6D: “The best place for density and new housing is near public transit. There are currently two lots next to Waterfront Station that have been proposed for development (including efforts from SW Action to create a land trust); they should be developed with as much density - and affordable housing - as possible.”

ANC 6E

✅ 6E01: Chris Hart

Questionnaire, Twitter, no known contribution link
Contested? No, ⛵

In response to our questionnaire, Hart writes, “I support building to the maximum allowable density throughout the ANC, given its central location and proximity to major transportation routes, including Metro, major bus routes, and train service at Union Station.” This thoughtful, open mindset will be especially important as nearby development projects gather steam.

Paid for by Greater Greater Washington, 80 M St SE, Ste 100, Washington, DC 20003. A copy of our report is filed with the Director of Campaign Finance.