The vice chair of the Foggy Bottom and West End Advisory Neighborhood Commission submitted a letter of resignation to the D.C. Board of Elections last week, just over a year after he took office.
Keaton DiCapo, 2A01 commissioner and vice-chair of ANC 2A, who joined the commission in February 2025 after winning a special election to fill a vacancy in his district, formally submitted his letter of resignation to the D.C. BOE April 3, the BOE confirmed in an email. Commissioners in emails obtained by The Hatchet expressed confusion about whether DiCapo had formally resigned after he announced at a February meeting he would be moving out of ANC 2A, which 2A08 Commissioner Jim Malec said created uncertainty about the status of the seat and whether the ANC had a vice-chair.
“This will be my final ANC meeting,” Dicapo said at the February meeting. “I am moving to Dupont Circle, so I will soon be an ANC2B resident.”
DiCapo did not return multiple requests for comment.
DiCapo’s departure leaves his single-member district — which contains Thurston and Mitchell Halls and the Empire and Statesman apartment buildings — without direct representation for the second time in two years since two-term commissioner Yannik Omictin declined to run again for the seat.
DiCapo said in January 2025 he didn’t plan to run for the seat until he saw the position was empty in November 2024 after Omictin declined to run in 2024 because of the position’s workload. He said as commissioner he wanted to increase the connectivity of Foggy Bottom’s bike lanes and create more outdoor green spaces.
The ANC passed a resolution DiCapo authored and introduced in October to create a task force to create and promote the commission’s perspective on D.C.’s next comprehensive plan, D.C. 2050, which lays out plans for development in the District.
“It’s been bittersweet, because I feel like I’ve just finally started to learn what I’m doing as I’m leaving, but I will be around in D.C. politics and community activism going forward,” Dicapo said at the February meeting.
Malec said he emailed the full commission three times throughout March asking if DiCapo had resigned, receiving no response. He said he also texted DiCapo on March 10 asking him to communicate his status to the commission or submit a resignation letter and texted him again April 1 without a response.
Malec said the lack of responses caused the commission not to know the status of its own membership, including whether it still had a vice chair or needed to hold an election to replace one
“Do we need to have an election for a vice chair? Should we start recruiting people to fill this seat? It’s so disrespectful to the ANC as an institution,” Malec said.
2A06 Commissioner John Dolan, who began his tenure in late January, emailed the BOE April 2 to ask if DiCapo was still a resident of 2A01, as Dicapo seemed to be “delaying” in announcing his resignation. Registrar of Voters Marissa Corrente responded the following day confirming DiCapo submitted his change of address March 11, and he is no longer located in 2A01, according to emails obtained by The Hatchet.
BOE Communications Director Sarah Winn Graham said in an email DiCapo officially resigned on April 3.
Graham said the BOE will certify the 2A01 vacancy in the April 17 edition of the D.C. Register, where the board publicly certifies vacancies and fillings every week. Once the BOE certifies the vacancy next Friday, 2A01 residents interested in filling the seat can collect 25 signatures from registered voters in the district to run for the seat.
Members of the ANC will elect a new vice-chair at their upcoming Wednesday meeting, according to a preliminary meeting agenda.
The ANC has struggled to maintain membership safely above the five-commissioner quorum required to conduct business. DiCapo and 2A09 Commissioner Sean Youngstone won their seats by being the only qualified candidates to submit 25 signatures in support of their candidacy in February 2025, lifting the ANC out of a three-month period during which it could not conduct any official business due to lack of quorum.
Former 2A02 Commissioner May Yang’s July 2025 resignation later brought the ANC back down to five members, and though Dolan’s arrival in late January returned the body to six members, DiCapo’s departure drops it back down to five.
D.C. law states a commissioner who resigns “shall” submit a letter of resignation, but the law also allows the BOE to unilaterally declare a seat vacant if it confirms through voter registration records that a commissioner is no longer residing in the single-member district that elected them.
D.C. law states the seat becomes vacant when a commissioner loses the qualifications to serve in the office, and DiCapo’s change of voter registration address to ANC 2B immediately disqualifies him from office.
