But it’s not their fault.

Bike DC coordinator Sheba Farrin asked ANC 6A tonight for their approval of the East Capitol Street section of the tour route. The commissioners were angry at the short notice about a plan that would cut the city in half for several hours, effectively trapping some people in their homes for an entire Saturday morning.

But a representative of the Mayor’s Special Events Task Force had ordered Bike DC not to approach the ANCs until the route was finalized. They started working with Special Events on the route in January. It was finalized in July. The ANCs don’t meet in August.

ANC 6A voted 3-2 not to approve the route, falling all over themselves to affirm their support for biking and community events, but they just couldn’t put their stamp of approval on such bad procedure.

WABA had some supernaturally bad luck with Bike DC for a few years (with cancellations due to terrorist attacks and hurricanes) and they let it go. There was no Bike DC for a few years. But now the car-free ride is back, due to the sheer will of its committed coordinators and the money of a private investor who does the same thing for Portland, Oregon. (He’s counting on 10,000 riders and praying for good weather and no whammies September 27.)

Police on Monday arrested three juveniles in an armed-robbery scheme targeting construction contractors in Lincoln Park. Between 10 and 10:30 a.m. Monday, three men held up contractors at two work sites in the neighborhood, says David Kamperin, a D.C. police department commander. Each time, one of the men pulled a black pistol and robbed the workers of their wallets.

The three juveniles were arrested after a tip led police to a home on 19th Street NE, where a search warrant turned up a handgun.

The men were charged with armed robbery. One was also charged with a weapons violation. Kamperin says police are investigating whether they were involved in a rash of contractor hold-ups this year in the First District. Since January, there have been 34 armed robberies in the First District. Six victims were contractors.

Running for advisory neighborhood commissioner is all about getting your name out. So 24-year-old Jesse Rauch liked his chances against David Holmes for a seat on ANC 6A in Lincoln Park. During his student days at Boston University, Rauch had been elected to several student-government positions and was even president of a resident-hall association, which had more residents than the ANC district.

“I was actively knocking on doors every weekend. I was really trying to get a feel for my neighbors,” Rauch says of his campaign efforts. “I put fliers out and put out door hangers. I really tried.”

But he didn’t get much of an assist from the Voice of the Hill newspaper. The influential neighborhood rag left Rauch out of a voter guide printed just before the election. According to Rauch, the paper e-mailed a questionnaire to all candidates a few weeks before the election.

“I filled mine out,” Rauch says. “I had it in by 1 p.m. on the day it was due. I expected not to have a problem.”

But when he received a dummy copy of the election guide via e-mail, he saw he’d been left out. Rauch contacted the paper and was told that it was too late to make any changes. The paper had already been printed, bagged, and sent out for delivery.

Voice of the Hill Editor Patti Shea attributes the error to a production oversight. When the paper realized the mistake, it immediately posted a special online addendum with Rauch’s responses and an apology for the omission. “We sent it on to some very well-read neighborhood blogs,” Shea says. “They were all too happy to help.”

But the blogs couldn’t swing it Rauch’s way: Holmes ended up winning the election with 432 votes to Rauch’s 243.

“That [the omission] affected the campaign and the results I can’t be too sure,” Rauch says. “But for it to be my first public campaign, it was a little disheartening.”

Lincoln Park resident John Wilmot’s regular yard-work duties not only include keeping his own grounds tidy, but also minding an adjacent lot on the corner of 12th and Park Streets NW. A lot, as it happens, that belongs to the city.

And it can be dirty, slimy work, too. “I clean up gutters every year by hand,” says Wilmot. But this year, when he left the fruits of his annual guck harvest on the corner in plastic bags, he found out the city was hardly appreciative. The bags were not removed, and the Department of Public Works (DPW) threatened Wilmot with a fine.

City regulations require that “all debris…be placed in legal containers in a manner so as to prevent litter,” says DPW spokesperson Vera Jackson in an e-mail clarification of the incident. “Plastic bags left at a location that is not an official point of collection contribute to litter in the area, and are subject to enforcement measures.”

The letter Wilmot received from DPW informing him of his violation allowed five days to remove the bags, but the letter arrived on the fifth day of the grace period. To avoid the $75 “enforcement measure,” Wilmot took the bags to the dump in the middle of a rainstorm.

“It’s ironic that I clean the gutters by hand, put the bags down…[and] I’m the guy who ends up getting the potential fine,” Wilmot says.

Jackson had some kind words for the proactive citizen—sort of. “The resident should be commended for maintaining the public space abutting his/her private property as required of all property owners in the District of Columbia,” she writes. “A clean city is everyone’s business.”