A brief perusal of Roget’s suggests a galaxy of promising adjectives for describing one’s reaction to a troubling Supreme Court decision.

For one, there is “troubled.” “Shocked,” “outraged,” and “concerned” come to mind. Further options include “chagrined,” “mortified,” “aggrieved,” “offended,” “incensed,” “riled up,” and “scared shitless.”

In their press releases, however, District politicos have been sticking to one word with alarming regularity:

Disappointed.

First, there is Ward 5 Councilmember Harry “Tommy” Thomas, Jr., who “expressed his extreme disappointment with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the District gun ban, and indicated that the Council must now establish strict standards to regulate the sale of handguns in the District of Columbia.”

Then we have Fenty, Nickles, and Lanier, who weigh in as follows:

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, Interim Attorney General Peter Nickles, and Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier announced their disappointment in today’s ruling of the United States Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller…. “I’m disappointed in the Court’s ruling and believe introducing more handguns into the District will mean more handgun violence,” said Mayor Fenty.*

Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray includes the following in his statement:

Although I am disappointed by the court’s decision, working collectively with the Mayor, the Metropolitan Police, legal authorities, and residents, the Council will do all it can to prevent violence from escalating further as a result of today’s un-welcome weakening of our gun laws.

Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser:

I am disappointed in today’s Supreme Court action which ruled that the DC law banning private handgun possession at home violates the Second Amendment.

At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown:

My disappointment in the Supreme Courts ruling cannot be merely expressed by words. Every time I hear of another youth, another mother or child gunned down in our communities is yet another reminder of why we need these protective measures in place.

[Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton issued a statement in which the d-word was conspicuously absent, as did Adam Clampitt, Independent Candidate for DC Council At-Large.]

Come on, folks! Disappointed is when your team loses in spring training. Disappointed is when your kid doesn’t crack a B in algebra. Disappointed is when your dog relieves himself under the dining room table.

Whatever happened to “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!”

*The Post imputes “dismay” to Fenty. Over-editorialize much lately?

By now, thanks to Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher, you may have already mustered a certain amount of righteous outrage at the antics of stickler advisory neighborhood commissioner Frank Winstead. Barbara Meade and Carla Cohen, the owners of the venerable Politics and Prose bookstore, however, seem to have just gathered theirs. This came out in their weekly newsletter last night:

Every once in a while we get an abrupt reminder that we live in a jurisdiction where small business is not respected or encouraged. When we first opened across the street, there was no government agency that could advise us on what we needed to do. Then, after we made the applications we needed to, we could not get an occupancy permit, no matter how many times we called or went down to the office responsible for that. The process simply stopped somewhere in the Office of Regulatory and Consumer Affairs. We were fined and we started over again, but the certificate was never issued at our first location.

A few years ago we were infuriated when, as a D.C. business, we had to pay a surtax for the new stadium. The rationale: the stadium would help businesses in the District of Columbia. We fail to see how the baseball stadium helps Politics and Prose, but perhaps we are just missing something.

The latest irrationality occurred when an inspector visited us last week and told us we had to remove the bench in front of our store or pay for a permit. The bench, which is used by our employees eating lunch, or by people accompanied by strollers or dogs, or occasionally by the homeless, seems harmless. But the inspector told us it had to be gone the next day or….

Apparently this latest problem is occasioned by a member of the Advisory Neighborhood Council who went to war to get rid of all the outside chairs and tables on our block. As many of you know, the sidewalk is very wide in front of our buildings so there is no problem walking there even with sidewalk fixtures. And we think lots of activity on the sidewalk—sitting, eating, and playing—make our block more lively and fun. But Mr. Frank Winstead doesn’t, and he has made it his personal mission to eliminate everything. You can write to Mr. Frank Winstead and express your opinion of his mission: fwwinstead@hotmail.com.

Maybe it’s because I’m new to the D.C. area, but I can’t seem to figure out the purpose of attending ANC meetings.

I thought ANC meetings were created to form active communication between political bigwigs—they are bigwigs, right?—with everyday D.C. residents. But after attending my fifth (and maybe last) meeting last night, all I’ve noticed are older community members complaining about loud music and speeding cars.

Last night I attended the Petworth community’s ANC 4D meeting at MPD’s 4th District. In a rather small corner room, about 20 community members gathered for more than an hour discussing ways to improve their neighborhood dog park.

The meeting sparked up when one resident asked the commission board if her petition for new speed bumps was reviewed since the last meeting. When she realized no one had a clue what she was talking about, another 15 minutes were spent with the crowd discussing the inefficiency of the ANC and why nothing ever gets done.

I heard several soft mumbles from a few residents—“this meeting is pointless”—and from others slight snoring sounds.

At another meeting I attended last month, I noticed a mass of empty chairs as community members discussed corner store closings and trash on the sidewalks.

I asked 4D-03 Commissioner Robert Whiddon what he thought the overall problem with ANC meetings is:

“The D.C. government preys on empathy,” he says. “Nothing is going to change because the people in the community are OK with being docile citizens. The mayor comes to the meetings and gives out his personal cell phone number telling people to call with concerns, but he is not going to call these people back. There are simply too many people with small issues that matter to them.”

“But 20 people coming to a neighborhood meeting is sad. In an area of over 1,000 residents, our meetings should be packed. It’s just pathetic. We need to get people out to these meetings by buying food, giving away prizes, or awarding raffles.”

Another problem he says is the overwhelming number of ANCs in the district. There are currently 37 ANC commissions and more than 250 representatives in all eight wards. Whiddon says that with 37 geographic clusters complaining about traffic lights, reckless teenagers, or the need for speed bumps, there is no way that the D.C. government is going to take anyone seriously.
People give up, he says, when it takes almost two years to get a rotting tree taken out or stop sign put in.

But guess what? It’s still true that you can’t fix something if you don’t do anything about it. ANC elections are coming up in November; petitions to be a political bigwig can be picked up in early August.

Joe Fengler is pissed. The member of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6A, which serves Stanton Park, Lincoln Park, H Street NE, and other “East Hill” neighborhoods, is a strong proponent of the enhanced noise regulations that failed to proceed at a Tuesday D.C. Council meeting.

Perhaps the biggest reasons he’s pissed: Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander and At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown, both of whom had supported the noise bill in the past (Brown was a co-sponsor), voted to table the bill on Tuesday.

Incensed at the flip-flop, Fengler wrote in an e-mail to his ANC colleagues and councilmembers that he’s “personally prepared to debate the merits of this bill with Alexander and Brown in a public forum over the next three weeks.”

Oh snap! Full e-mail after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Since shuttering in 2004, the Benning Neighborhood Library lost its books and gained several battles between city officials and Northeast activists.

In 2006, the city introduced plans to transform the building into a mixed-use facility with the library, artists’ spaces, and apartments. Neighbors hated the idea.

Last June, when the city applied for a demolition permit, a group of activists again united in protest: They sued Mayor Adrian Fenty and several other District officials.

“If you see [the city] as misinformed motherfuckers, then you deal with them that way. But if you see them as dirty bastards who are taking something from you…and you start there, then you can get in a position where you can fight them,” one plaintiff, Rick Tingling-Clemmons, told the City Paper last July.

Interesting choice of phrasing—but ultimately not effective. A judge at first postponed the demo, but the city eventually got its way, tearing down the facility last October.

Still, activists believe they got something out of all the legal paperwork: In the ongoing clash of transparency and openness vs. the District of Columbia, the city has suffered a blow. According to an order issued by a judge in late December, the city failed to provide its plans and zoning changes within 30 days to the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission. Now, as the city considers moving the proposed library from its current location, it is required to provide a detailed explanation, says plaintiff and attorney Jane Zara.

“The big thing that needed to be enforced was the authority and the standing of the ANCs,” says Robin Diener, director of the Library Renaissance Project. “The library had never, in the history of DCPL, notified the ANCs.…It’s unfortunate we had to go to court to enforce that,” she says. “But we did.”

The trappings of office for an advisory neighborhood commissioner are few, but one nice thing is that you can get a little placard for your car announcing that you’re “ON OFFICIAL BUSINESS,” allowing you to park in certain places off limits to the hoi polloi.

This afternoon, official parking was scarce outside the Wilson Building, so one commissioner decided to put her placard to use. A blue Mercury Capri, belonging to former 5B10 Commissioner Kathy Henderson (mother of current 5B10 Commissioner India Henderson, who was along for the trip), was parked in the median of Pennsylvania Avenue NW in front of the building. Seeing as today was the judiciary committee’s oversight hearing on the Metropolitan Police Department, there were also a few police vehicles parked in the middle of the street, too.

The authorities apparently have no respect for the Hendersons’ “OFFICIAL BUSINESS”—which was to attend the police hearing:

“It’s ridiculous,” says Kathy Henderson, who says the ticket was issued by the D.C. Protective Services Department. She called the department up and explained that ANC members with a placard are allowed to park in official spaces. “They said, ‘We don’t know anything about that.’”

Via the Dupont Current, perhaps the city’s most web-unfriendly paper, comes a nice tidbit on the popular P Street Whole Foods Market. For the past eight months, reports the community paper, this grocery has sold brewski singles “without major conflict.” And so the Logan Circle advisory neighborhood commission has voted to allow this often-scandalous practice to continue. Even though the Barrel House, right around the corner, isn’t allow to do the same thing–this 14th Street institution can’t sell singles of beer or ale up to 40 ounces, says the Current.

Never before have I seen such yuppie favoritism. Barrel House, you guys should flood the next ANC meeting, as well as the next ABC meeting, and hit up the D.C. Council while you’re at it. Get on the phone with Jack. If that doesn’t work, block Fenty’s SUV with a bunch of kegs. Preferably Heineken kegs.

As local reporters are apt to do, I attended an ANC meeting Wednesday night. This particular meeting was in Foggy Bottom (ANC 2A). There was a bit of squawking about congestion issues and the appointment of a new commissioner. Blah, blah, blah.

The most startling aspect of the entire experience was the ANC chair himself: The guy looked like he couldn’t have been much older than 22. Sitting beyond a sea of gray-headed people, I thought he may have just appeared young by comparison. But a bit of googling and a phone call to ANC chair Asher Corson himself confirmed my prior hunch. Corson actually just graduated from George Washington University a few months ago is currently a part-time student at George Washington University, finishing up his classes while working full-time for Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh. He expects to graduate in 2008.

Corson says he was elected commissioner last November and became chair early this summer.

“I’ve been really welcomed by the community with open arms, which has really been incredibly flattering since I’m so young. And as a GW student, I think it’s really amazing and special that people in the community supported me.”

Measured. Positive. Innocuous. Sounds like he’s getting the hang of things.

CORRECTION: Due to an error by Ruth Samuelson, an earlier version of this post incorrectly reported Corson’s status at George Washington University.

What’s the District’s chief exec really up to today?

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2007

Event: attend, Cardozo Shaw Neighborhood Association meeting

Time: 7 p.m.

Location: True Reformer Building, 1st floor conference room, 1200 U St. NW

The Lowdown: If you had any balls, Adrian, you’d try a Shaw ANC meeting.

Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans might be returning to his roots as an advisory neighborhood commissioner.

For the past two months, the rancor that’s come to characterize the Shaw ANC since the beginning of the year has paralyzed the group’s operations. Scheduled public meetings in March and April were cancelled by Chair Doris Brooks—the first for no stated reason, the second because a community member started taping the proceedings—leaving ANC business, such as event permits and liquor-license applications, to Evans’ office.

On April 30, Evans finally had enough, calling an emergency meeting to broker peace between the four commissioners. At the meeting, according to Commissioner Kevin Chapple (pictured), Evans promised to run the ANC meetings himself if things didn’t improve. Chapple says his main complaint was Brooks’ refusal to make important documents—agendas and quarterly reports, for instance—available for review before meetings. With Evans present, he says Brooks agreed to make the reports available and to even hold a special officers’ election to make Chapple secretary at the May ANC meeting.

But at the meeting a few days later, Brooks declined to hold the election, saying there wasn’t enough time on the agenda. Says Brooks: “That’s gone and past, and I don’t want to deal with it, really.”

Evans says he’s not concerned with how the ANC members treat each other, just that they take care of business. “The commissioners are working better together,” he wrote in an e-mail. “The fact that they don’t agree is not my issue. My concern was that they weren’t meeting at all.”

“I don’t know what he means by that,” says Chapple, who describes the May ANC meeting as anything but civil. “If he means that we had a meeting and it wasn’t cancelled then that’s one assessment. But I can’t imagine that he…would think the ANC is working well. It was melee; it was a meltdown….I thought people might come to blows at one point. This is not a functional ANC.”

Photo by Charles Steck

Earlier this month, the Shaw advisory neighborhood commission was about to start its usual monthly meeting (having moved from the Africare House, its usual location, to the United House of Prayer) when a constituent was singled out for videotaping the proceedings. ANC Chair Doris Brooks asked Brian Smith, proprietor of the OffSeventh neighborhood blog, to stop taping the April 4 meeting, but he refused. He insisted that he needed to tape it for neighbors who weren’t able make it. Smith explained to Brooks that ANC meetings are public and that recording the proceedings is completely allowed. Brooks shouted, “This is not a public meeting!” and then adjourned.

Before Brooks was able to cancel the meeting, some neighbors voiced their concern that the meeting had been moved from the Africare House to the United House of Prayer church, where Brooks is a member. The characteristically boisterous Mary Sutherland, who ran unsuccessfully against Commissioner Alex Padro for the 2C01 seat in November, stood up and told meeting goers that if they didn’t like the new rules and change of venue, they could leave. A church official even stepped in before the meeting was adjourned to ask that everyone honor “Sister Brooks’” request to turn off their recording devices. This set off neighbor concerns about the separation of church and state.

Since longstanding ANC Chair Leroy Thorpe lost his bid for re-election to political newcomer Kevin Chapple, the meetings have become increasingly contentious. Neighbors began videotaping the proceedings and posting footage on youtube.com in January. In each of the videos, Brooks protests.

“[Since that meeting] now I think everyone has calmed down and maybe it’s time to start a real dialog about how to make things better in Shaw,” Smith said today.

Complaints about blight in Ward 8 are nothing new. But one advisory neighborhood commissioner is placing some blame on Mayor Adrian Fenty—and not just in a general sense. Anthony Muhammad, who represents a district in Anacostia, says that Fenty’s old campaign banners, still hanging, are eyesores.

Particularly egregious, Muhammad says, is an enormous green-and-white Fenty for Mayor banner that cloaks a storefront on Good Hope Road SE, at the entrance of the Historic Anacostia commercial district. Muhammad claims the outdated banners once displayed all over the more affluent parts of town have all been taken down. And that’s what irks him most.

“It’s blight,” he says. “For it to still be up four months after the election, it’s pitiful.”

According to the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics, political campaign materials are to be removed no later than 30 days following the general election. Muhammad says the sign first appeared last September. According to Fenty spokesperson Mafara Hobson, the Fenty campaign says there’s no particular reason that the sign wasn’t removed. “It was just an oversight,” she says.

After making a call to campaign workers in the field, Hobson promised to get the banner down. “We can get someone over there to take it down this week,” she says.

But Muhammad says that when he spoke earlier with one of “the mayor’s associates,” it was suggested that he take the matter into his own hands: “He said I could take it down myself.”

The Shaw advisory neighborhood commission’s outgoing chair, Al Hajj Mahdi Leroy Joseph Thorpe Jr. has had a busy December. He was officially voted out of his elected position on the ANC, only to be appointed to a new role—parliamentarian and executive assistant to the chair—by new chair Barbara Curtis. He took over a Shaw neighborhood association and two days later allocated his new organization $3,000 in ANC money for new computers.

Yesterday, in a surprise move, Shaw residents filed a complaint with the city auditor “alleging questionable allocation of thousands of DC taxpayer dollars.”

“The era of cronyism, mistreatment and disrespect of residents, and misallocation of funds is over,” says Cary Silverman, president of the Mount Vernon Square Neighborhood Association, in a news release. “Shaw residents will no longer stand for this type of blatant abuse of power.”

In their complaint, residents have dug up and detailed years of ANC impropriety and questionable spending. It requests special attention be paid to the 18 computers and other equipment given to neighborhood organizations that have close ties to Thorpe, Curtis, and current commissioner Doris Brooks. Those organizations are Thorpe’s East Central Civic Association, Rhode Island Avenue through P Street Neighborhood Association (which the complaint alleges to be a fictional organization), COPE (which does “red-hat” patrols), and the Gibson Plaza Tenant Association (where Curtis resides).

The complaint alleges that on paper, there are over a dozen computers floating somewhere around Shaw, but no one knows where they are or what they’re being used for. According to residents, the organizations that received the equipment fail to post meeting agendas, minutes, or newsletters. Furthermore, the organizations do not use a Web site, e-mail, or anything else that would demand the use of a computer.

“Given the number or computers supposedly purchased for public use, the residents and students of our neighborhoods should legitimately expect to have a public access computer lab readily available for their use,” the release states. “Of course they do not.”

Shaw advisory neighborhood commissioner Al Hajj Mahdi Leroy Joseph Thorpe Jr. may have lost the Nov. 7 election, but he’s not gone yet. At his last meeting as the official leader of ANC 2C, Thorpe and his allies made sure he will remain a force on the commission well after his departure.

Well over an hour into the meeting, Thorpe recognized a grant request from East Central Civic Association, a neighborhood group active within Thorpe’s single-member district. Not mentioned was that the ECCA is now run by Thorpe, who was named the organization’s president on Monday night.

Eloise Wahab, secretary of the ECCA, walked the grant proposal up to Thorpe, who read over the proposal briefly before informing all present that the requested $3,000 was for two laptop computers, accessories, and a digital camera to do a documentary.

Charles Walker, a Shaw resident, asked for the floor. “There’s been an election,” Walker started, “and looking at how the recount result is probably going to go, I think this commission doesn’t have any democratic mandate to be giving out money like this. I think it should be left to the new commission.”

“Thank you,” Thorpe responded, dismissing Walker.

Thorpe won’t be retiring his gavel anytime soon, either. After he resigned as chairperson, the new chair, Barbara Curtis, appointed Thorpe to be parliamentarian, as well as her unpaid executive assistant—marking the first time the ANC has had an executive assistant or a parliamentarian.

As parliamentarian, Thorpe will be responsible for conducting the meetings and maintaining order. In his new post as “executive assistant,” Thorpe’s phone number will remain the official phone number for the ANC.

One resident was confused. “I think you are my representative,” she said to Curtis. “So does that make him my representative?” pointing to Thorpe.

Thorpe, who routinely answers questions for the oft-confused Commissioners Brooks and Curtis, clarified.

“If you want to do any ANC business,” he said, “you’ll be calling [me].”

In a stunning turn in the race for a seat on the Crestwood advisory neighborhood commission, incumbent James H. Jones has reclaimed his commissioner job over upstart Jeff Hildebrand. On Election Night, it appeared that Hildebrand had scored an upset for the ages when he bested the veteran politico, 289–288, on Nov. 7.

But the uncertified tally was just that—it hadn’t included absentee and provisional ballots which were counted on Nov. 17.

Those ballots were enough to return Hildebrand to the political backwoods. Today, with the election results certified, Jones captured the win over Hildebrand by eight votes, 313–305.

Jones marked the occasion by faxing a written statement to Washington City Paper. In his typed missive, he admits that the last few weeks—with narrow defeat looming over his head—had been tough. “In the last few weeks, I received many telephone calls from well wishers lending their support, hopes and prayers,” the statement reads. “One call that I will always treasure is from a cagey octogenarian lady in my community who cited the City Paper’s article that prematurely and falsely reported my defeat. She said, ‘Mr. Jones, don’t worry, keep your chin up. In the end, it will be their defeat, not yours. God will cast the deciding vote.’ He did.”

Twenty-four other Crestwood residents cast absentee and provisional votes for Jones as well. In a subsequent interview, Jones is less humble about his close call. “I thought I was going to win,” he says. “I never figured that it would be this close. We live and learn.”

Jones has not yet received a concession from his opponent. “Protocol says he should reach out to me, and I don’t have any intention of breaking that,” he says. “That sounds so trite. Just say, I just expect a call from him.”

Hildebrand says he’s just happy that he almost won: “It shows I have a base, and it means I can be back out there in 2008.” He will not ask for a recount.