ANCs just got better

PoliticsBy David Alpert (Founder) November 3, 2010

Photo by ImaginaryGirl on Flickr.

While DC’s ANC races garnered relatively little press coverage compared to Congress and local governors or councilmembers, voters in DC make important decisions when they cast their ballots yesterday in these local races. Overall, our ANCs are going to get better, thanks to involvement by the voters of DC.

For example, we’re very excited that David Garber decisively won his race to represent Near Southeast. Tom Quinn struck a blow for smart growth on Wisconsin Avenue. Lisa White beat Kingman Park community garden critic Veronica Ranglin.

A lot of good challengers didn’t win, but a lot did. A lot of good incumbents kept their seats, and few seats are going to get worse as a result.

Along with coverage of ANC races has come the periodic introspection of whether ANCs are doing good or ill.

Matt Yglesias suggested giving them more of a stake in the economic success of their neighborhood, and Lydia DePillis followed with a bunch of great ideas, including requiring ANCs to reach out to the public in the ways the better ANCs already do.

Good ideas aside, as DePillis points out, the best way to fix ANCs is to get involved:

But the most critical way in which ANCs can be made more useful—and I’m sorry if this sounds trite—is simply to find ways to increase participation. It’s not like structure is the only reason ANCs tend to be anti-stuff, after all. There are plenty of anti people in every community, and when they’re the loudest voices, even the most perfectly designed institution will bend to their will. You really have no right to complain about an ANC’s activities if you’re not involved in the first place.

We illuminated a number of problems with current ANCs, most notably the conduct of ANC 6D in Southwest and Near Southeast toward potential retailers. That’s naturally generated a lot of calls to simply abolish ANCs entirely, but hopefully it also stirred some energy to go vote or tell your friends to vote.

Now, that problem with ANC 6D is largely fixed. The commissioner representing the area with all these new buildings and retail (at least until redistricting makes the district smaller) is now supportive of lively streets.

Likewise, ANC 5C got copious bad press for its shameful treatment of Big Bear, but now, the commission has at least two more Big Bear supporters than they did before. Barrie Daneker, the Bloomingdale commissioner who opposed Big Bear and a member of the DC Democratic State Committee with support from many entrenched pols, lost to challenger James Fournier, and J. Jioni Palmer is replacing Marshall Phillips. Once again, reform accomplished, at least on this issue.

Capital Bikeshare cheerleader Brian Pate unseated longtime incumbent Kenan “Ken” Jarboe on Capitol Hill, who opposed the Capital Bikeshare station on the southeast corner of Lincoln Park. Rachelle Nigro took out Theresa Sule in Shaw, and assuming Nigro won’t pull the same strange betrayal of her supporters that Sule did, this heralds a long-sought end to the deadlock on ANC 2C.

ANC 5C will also be less hostile to businesses, 6B more friendly toward bike sharing, 7D less suspicious of community gardens, 3E more favorable to smart growth, and so forth.

We could have reformed the ANCs structurally, and perhaps some changes are still appropriate, but we’ve also quickly reformed that particular one in the simplest possible way: with an election.

Of course, even the best commissioners need constant feedback from us residents to make good choices outside election season. So few people show up to most ANC meetings or lobby most ANC commissioners that even one engaged resident can persuade an ANC on many issues. It’s just important for supporters of retail and smart growth to be some of those engaged residents.

How did Greater Greater Washington fare overall?

In 13 of 38 races where we endorsed a challenger over an incumbent, the challenger won:

In one race, a different challenger won:

In 22 races, the incumbent won:

In 17 of 21 races where we endorsed an incumbent, they won:

In 3 races, the challenger won instead:

In 9 of 10 open seats where we endorsed, our choice won:

In the other one, another candidate won:

A few are so close that absentees could swing the balance: