Rob Gifford joined the Foggy Bottom and West End Advisory Neighborhood Commission last week, filling a seat former Commissioner May Yang vacated in July 2025.

Gifford, who spent nearly two decades leading the Michigan Restaurant Association before serving as president of the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation for five years, was sworn in by Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto on Monday and will represent the northwest corner of the ANC — covering a bulk of the West End — which has gone nearly a year without representation. Filling one of four vacant seats across the nine-member commission, Gifford said he hopes to bring stability to a body that has struggled with infighting and vacancies and to build consensus among commissioners with divergent interests.

“First and foremost, it was to give the West End a voice on the ANC that it hadn’t had,” Gifford said, describing why he ran.

His district runs from Rock Creek on the west to 23rd Street on the east, and from P Street on the north to L Street on the south, including Francis Field, the School Without Walls at Francis Stevens, the Park Hyatt and Trader Joe’s, as well as the Westbridge Condominiums — where Gifford lives.

Gifford lived in the District in the early 1980s through the early 1990s while working on former Wisconsin Senator Robert W. Kasten’s staff before moving back to Michigan to lead the state’s restaurant association for 18 years. Following his tenure with the Michigan Restaurant & Lodging Association, he said he returned to D.C. permanently in 2018, settling in the West End Westbridge Condominiums.

Gifford said he discovered the vacancy while reading about a Georgetown ANC district and decided to start collecting signatures to give his community a say in local governance. He said after deciding to run, he easily collected the requisite 25 signatures from building residents in under a week to automatically win the seat without an election, using his connections as president of the Westbridge Homeowners Association.

Gifford’s membership drops the number of vacant seats to three out of nine single-member districts, offsetting a former commissioner’s resignation early this month, which brought the commission to five members, the lowest number of members the ANC can have without losing a quorum. Commissioners and civic leaders have said for years the body’s infighting deters recruits from filling its nine seats, leaving large swaths of the neighborhood without direct representation.

He said the commission’s mix of constituents, including students, unhoused residents at the Aston, renters and residents of high-end condominiums, complicates identifying and working towards shared goals.

“We have incredible diversity in this ANC,” Gifford said. “And sometimes with that type of diversity, it’s harder to find commonality.”

Gifford drew from his experience leading the HOA, which includes condominium owners, during a discussion with Council Chairman Phil Mendelson about constituent complaints over the D.C. housing code’s requirement to provide heat through May 1. He said co-op buildings, where residents collectively own the building and can agree to switch off heat early, might warrant more flexibility than rental buildings under the law.

“A lot of the best ideas we’re going to have on the ANC aren’t going to come from the brilliant minds of ANC commissioners,” Gifford said. “It’s going to come from people saying, ‘what about this?'”

Gifford said his roughly 15 years leading the National Restaurant Association’s charitable arm and his leadership of the 158-unit Westbridge Homeowners Association will guide him as he seeks to build consensus on the commission. He said many of the HOA’s activities and concerns, like public safety, trash collection and transportation, overlap with those of the ANC.

“It’s kind of a microcosm of a lot of what the ANC is and what it does,” Gifford said.

A history of the Michigan Restaurant & Lodging Association says Gifford led a fight against local smoking bans that vary across municipalities, including a lawsuit to block their implementation in 1998. Gifford said he promoted a statewide approach so local restrictions would not unevenly hurt restaurants across markets. Supporters of the bans said the laws protected workers and patrons by allowing them to avoid secondhand smoke.

Lawmakers in 28 states and D.C. have 100 percent smoke-free laws covering workplaces, restaurants and bars, according to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation. D.C. leaders enacted multiple laws banning smoking in workplaces and then restaurants between 2006 and 2007 before banning smoking near bus stops and city parks in 2013. 

Gifford’s district contains restaurants, like Bar Angie, Nobu and Chef Geoff’s. The ANC has historically taken positions in opposition to the D.C. restaurant industry’s stances on legislation, including supporting Initiative 82 as the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan D.C. waged a campaign against the measure to raise the tipped minimum wage.

Gifford said his decades in the restaurant industry give him a ground-level understanding of how policy affects businesses operating on thin margins. He said he can evaluate where those businesses have legitimate concerns and where regulations serve workers and the broader public.

“How do we properly balance the needs of business owners with the rights of workers and the interest of the dining public?” Gifford said. “It’s a delicate dance, and I can help that in any way.”

Gifford said improving Francis Field — a recreational facility on 25th Street NW that he said is a “big part” of his single-member district — is one of his priorities. A yearslong dispute between the National Park Service and the District over who controls the land stalled a planned $3 million renovation of the site’s dog park, pool and courts.

“Sometime soon we can all look back and say, ‘Wow, we took that space from where it was to where it is now,’” Gifford said.

He said he wants to focus on improving the dog park, pool, basketball and tennis courts once the transfer is complete to create an improved space for residents to relax and play.

Former National Capital Planning Commission Chair Teri Hawks Goodman approved a partial transfer of the Field’s dog park, pool and tennis courts last June, but left the athletic field under NPS control. Legislation to approve the transfer is now before the D.C. Council’s Committee of the Whole, meaning the entire Council will vote on whether to pass the bill, though the final vote is not scheduled.

Gifford said he wants to ensure office-to-residential conversions happening in the commission’s boundaries — like at the Watergate — do not erode the Foggy Bottom and the West End’s mix of housing price points and building types. He said he does not want the area to become so expensive that GW students, professors or lower-income residents are priced out.

“I would not want to see this area become so pricey or so developed in such a way that the cost of living is just unapproachable,” Gifford said.