The Foggy Bottom and West End Advisory Neighborhood Commission will be unable to conduct official business in 2025 because more than half its seats will be vacant at the start of the term, the commission’s chair announced at a special meeting last week.
ANC Chair Trupti Patel said the commission will lose its ability to conduct official business when the next term begins at noon on Jan. 2 because D.C. law requires that the ANC fill at least five of its nine seats, and only four commissioners are slated to serve. Patel said the commission’s four elected members — comprised of two incumbents, one returning member and one new member — will hold monthly community meetings to hear presentations and community concerns, but will be unable to provide advice carrying the “great weight” authority granted by the ANC Act of 1975.
According to a 2023 white paper from the Office of the Attorney General for D.C., the “great weight” requirements specifically mandate District agencies to acknowledge in writing the commission’s advice. Though agencies are not required to follow the commission’s recommendations, they must explain “why the commission does or does not offer persuasive advice,” the letter from Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s office states.
Patel said the commission will hold its first community meeting on Jan. 15. She said the meeting will not count towards D.C. law’s minimum requirement of nine official ANC meetings per year, as the body will lack quorum and as such will be unable to elect a chair.
“We just will not be able to take any official action with our great weight, but the four of us are committed to making sure that the representation is still there,” Patel said.
To fill the vacant seats, the D.C. Board of Elections will file a notice of the vacancies in the District of Columbia Register and make petitions available for candidates to collect signatures from qualified voters for a special election. According to the Code of the District of Columbia, Section 1-309.06, candidates must submit a petition with at least 25 signatures to be eligible. If only one candidate files a petition with enough signatures, the candidate automatically becomes the commissioner and the vacancy is considered filled, the code states.
If more than one candidate submits valid petitions, District code does not make clear how the commission will fill the seat. Every step in the process of resolving a vacancy — from arranging the election to certifying the results — requires the majority of single-member districts to be represented at the outset, according to the Code of the District of Columbia, Section 1-309.11.
Two controversial write-in candidates were presumed to have won seats in two vacant single-member districts, 2A06 and 2A09, because they filled out write-in paperwork and received two votes each. But the D.C. Board of Elections said earlier this month that the two candidates didn’t win, as unregistered candidates received more votes in both single-member districts.
Two commissioners deliver farewells, encourage community members to fill vacant seats
Outgoing 2A01 Commissioner Yannik Omictin, whose single-member-district contains the York, Statesman and Empire apartment buildings along with Mitchell and Thurston halls, said he is encouraging GW students to fill his seat.
“I’m going to be working hard to find folks to run for my single-member district here and also in the adjacent district,” Omictin said. “I would have to say I want student representation on the ANC.”
Omictin first ran for the 2A08 seat in 2020 when he said he noticed a vacancy and saw an opportunity to increase student representation and engagement in the body.
Omictin said his time on the ANC has been “tough” and “deeply rewarding,” and he is “relieved” not to be serving another term. Omictin said last month that he is proud of what the body accomplished during his tenure but that the ANC is an unpaid role with a high workload, leaving him “exhausted.”
“I’m proud of the work that I’ve been able to achieve here over the last four years, and I’m really hoping that we set the foundation for a successful term in the future, and successful times for this neighborhood, to come,” Omictin said at the meeting.
Outgoing 2A05 Commissioner Luke Chadwick, whose single-member district contains Columbia Plaza and Shenkman Hall, said he offered to meet with individuals interested in running for the commission.
“I would encourage anyone who is a resident of Columbia Plaza, the Remington, Shenkman Hall, with the other buildings in this SMD, to come forward and take the challenge to represent our part of the city and the ANC,” Chadwick said.
Chadwick joined the commission on Jan. 13, 2024, filling an empty seat after former 2A05 Commissioner Kim Courtney resigned from her position in July 2023.
A D.C. Board of Elections filing shows that Chadwick was the only person to submit a petition for candidacy to fill the vacant 2A05 seat. The petition to fill the vacancy was circulated four times before Chadwick stepped up — first in July, then in August and September, and finally in November.
“We have accomplished a lot in organizing our residents this year,” Chadwick said. “The ANC is a challenge and also a profoundly rewarding experience.”
ANC approves community benefits agreement
The commission unanimously voted to approve a community benefits agreement with provisions for the Post Brothers, a property developer that will convert the 2100 M Street office building into residential properties. The agreement requires the Post Brothers to disburse funds to organizations in the Foggy Bottom and West End neighborhoods.
The Post Brothers will implement an apprenticeship program during construction, and will prioritize selecting beneficiaries of charitable organizations in Foggy Bottom. The developers will contact Miriam’s Kitchen and The Aston unhoused shelter to “solicit candidates” for opportunities in construction-related trades, according to the agreement.
Community benefits agreements are legally binding contracts that mitigate local impacts of large development projects.
The agreement allocates $215,000 to Miriam’s Kitchen, $150,000 to the Foggy Bottom Association to construct a statue of Duke Ellington in Duke Ellington Park and $22,000 to the West End Library Friends to design and construct a blackout shade to “facilitate daytime-use” of its meeting room. The agreement also allocates $25,000 each to the Home and School Association of the John Francis Education Campus and the Thaddeus Stevens Early Learning Center. The Post Brothers are expected to make donations within the first six months of 2025, according to the agreement.
The agreement did not address funds for constructing tree boxes, which are maintained by the District Department of Transportation to protect street trees. Omictin said the Office of the Advisory Neighborhood Commission advised against including a provision to transfer funds to a third party for the boxes’ construction.
Public Space Committee approves 26th and I Street park renovation permits
2A04 Commissioner Ed Comer said the Public Space Committee approved permits to renovate the park, playground and plaza at 26th and I Street.
The commission voted unanimously in April to support the original design, which switched the locations of the dog park and playground and improved accessibility. Comer said in July that contractors had located roots within work zones they suspected belonged to heritage trees, or trees with special protection by the Urban Forestry Division of the District Department of Transportation because of their trunk size, which delayed the project.
At last week’s meeting, the D.C. Department of General Services presented their most recent plans, which they scaled back to remove the construction of a retaining wall and improve instead of swapping the dog park and playground. The plans, which avoided the roots whose discovery upended plans in September, earned unanimous support from the commission.
