ANC 8C: Under-serving the Community

My friend over at Congress Heights on the Rise has already taken up this topic for years now, so I am obscenely late to the party, but I think its worth mentioning one more time:

Advisory Neighborhood Commission 8C is under-serving the community

I am a lifelong resident of SMD 8C-04 and recently got into investigating what was going on in my ANC, because in the 18 years I have been a resident and the over 45 years that my family have been residents, the quiet, African American middle class neighborhood that Congress Heights used to be has been on a steady decline.

Even though the neighborhood is reaping the benefits of new development and a new birth in retail and affordable housing in recent years, not much credit can go to the ANC. I am a big "bulletpoints and outline" kind of guy, so I want to outline some of the issues I have recognized with ANC8C.

Finances: It is no secret and a public disgrace that the DC Auditor's office did a review of the reports filed by the ANC and found that the commission was not properly or efficiently spending the yearly allotments and pledged to withhold over $20,000 from the ANC until it cleaned up its act.

In fact, the only expense that the ANC has made in nearly a decade has been to a dilapidated and shady ANC office above a barbershop on Martin Luther King Avenue, at a cost of $900 a month. For $900, it is definitely a very large and potentially useful space. However, a recent tour of the office has showed that paint is peeling, the bathrooms don't function, windows don't open and not even the phones work inside. The ANC does not even hold its monthly meetings there- it has been moved to a free space down the street for at least the past two years. To be so underused and run-down, it is not worth the $900 it is rented for.

Think about that: if that is the only expense, that means that ANC, in almost a decade, has not allotted money for grants to the community that are supposed to be used for community improvement! Not even supplies for the ANC have been purchased! But, at least we have that psychedelic shack we call an office, right?

The ANC also does not hire employees to deal with community issues, that would be helpful to residents and give some people a steady job, even though money can be set aside for that!

At a recent ANC meeting, one of the commissioners commented that money has not been spent because the ANC has never been able to reach a quorum in order to vote on expenditures. It just so happens that there was a clear quorum at the meeting she was speaking at and if there was no quorum to spend money, who authorized the monthly payments of rent at "Boo Radley's house"!

Link: ANC 8C's FY 2009 Report

Financially, ANC8C is under-serving the community.

Meetings: It is really appalling and unacceptable that ANC8C, over the past few years, have canceled and postponed meetings without proper public notice, leaving people outside waiting for canceled meetings to begin or rescheduled meetings lacking proper attendance by the public.

I am not sure what the reasons for these numerous reschedulings and cancellations are, but if it is necessary, the ANC needs to a do a much better job of notifying the public (but of course, the ANC has not set aside money to print fliers or set aside the time to make phone calls or emails).

Another issue, which was also mentioned in the Auditor's report (linked above), is that there is a major problem with chronic absenteeism by commissioners at ANC 8C monthly meetings, which is detrimental to the commission conducting proper business. If a quorum is not reached, business cannot be conducted. Commissioners need to be at meetings. That is what they were elected to do!

And let's not mention the terrible decorum that some commissioners have in meetings. There is rarely a meeting (if ever), where deliberation does not turn into a session of petty bickering or yelling matches. If commissioners cannot be civil, they should given their walking papers in November 2012.

When it comes to meetings, ANC 8C is under-serving the community.

Community Engagement: Though this pretty much covered in our previous sections, the community engagement of many of the commissioners in ANC 8C is terrible. As a personal example, I have emailed my new ANC commissioner in 8C04, Lloyd Logan, at least twice in the past month and have not gotten a response yet.

But as a unit, there is much to be desired from our ANC in 8C. The ANC office is locked, not used, has no phone and is broken down. Many commissioners do not have office hours and have not created any apparent means to keep in touch with constituency.

When it comes to community engagement, ANC 8C is under-serving the community.

In A Nutshell: ANC 8C is failing the community and it is time for a change. More soon...

Old Congress Heights School: Rich (Personal) Past and Bright Future

Tonight, my mother and I stopped by the monthly meeting of the Congress Heights Civic Association for a very special reason.

The association met today with a representative from the DC African American Heritage Trail, who is now in the process of selected about 13 new landmarks across the District of Columbia to add to the trail and make it complete. It so happens to be that one of the landmarks that will be added to the trail sometime this summer is the Old Congress Heights School, a landmark in the neighborhood since it opened in 1897. For a long time, it served an all White community, but after the desegregation of the school in the mid 1950's, the large African American community began to grow.

After many years of disrepair, the school closed in 1970 and was left virtually abandoned on Martin Luther King Avenue, with its massive African American student body moving across the street to the New Congress Heights School, now known as Martin Luther King Elementary School (my Alma Mater).

This month, the building reopened after renovation and is now home to Imagine Southeast Public Charter School. For the first time in 41 years, the Old Congress Heights School is hosting Elementary School classes within its walls.

As the school and its new occupants look toward a bright future, the members of the Congress Heights Community Association looked back at its interesting past, shedding light on the rich history it provided for African Americans- even to my family. My mother brought with her to the meeting a class photo from the Old Congress Heights School from May 1969 (with my aunt smiling brightly on the front lawn of the school). Both my mother and my eldest aunt attended the old Congress Heights School just years before it closed its doors. A Washington Post article that was also brought to the meeting, dated September 1970, shows my youngest aunt marching across the street from the old school into the new school on the first day of the 1970-1971 School year.

History flowed at the meeting tonight with the room filled with 50-60 year residents of Congress Heights not only talking about the history of the iconic school building, but reminiscing about the rich past of the neighborhood itself. For the first time in four decades, you can view the iconic clock tower aglow while driving through Congress Heights at night, a sign that the landmark is coming back to life for yet another generation to enjoy.

The heritage trail plaque is set to be dedicated at the building in August, but no official date has been set yet.