Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Dorothy Miller lost her position as vice chair after annual elections for the group took place last week.
Miller, a longtime opponent of GW’s expansion, has served on the Foggy Bottom ANC for 13 years and was voted vice chair last January by the other commissioners. Prior to that she was chair of the commission, but this year she was not elected to an officer position. The ANC is a locally elected body that makes zoning recommendations to the city.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Miller nominated herself for the vice chair position “because I’ve been here the longest,” she said, but no other commissioner seconded her motion. Commissioner James Morris nominated another longtime commissioner, David Lehrman, and he was elected vice chair by the commission.
During the meeting, Miller addressed actions she took part in during the fall that were criticized by other commissioners. According to the local Foggy Bottom Current, in November Miller sent a resolution passed by the ANC to not support GW’s plans for Square 54 to the D.C. Zoning Commission, even though she was not authorized to do so. Only the chair is supposed to forward ANC resolutions to the Zoning Commission, according to the commission’s bylaws. Miller signed her name to the document, saying she was the acting chair of the commission.
“I made a mistake last month when I filed something as chair,” she said at the meeting.
Miller told The Hatchet she should have filed the resolution simply as a commissioner, not as acting chair. The Current reported that Miller justified filing the resolution as chair because Micone was out of town for Thanksgiving, and she was worried that it would not get to the zoning board before GW filed for permits for development of the site.
During the public announcements section of the meeting, resident Larry Mrozinski repudiated the elections and said that Miller should not be ousted as vice chair.
“Sometimes fervor is misinterpreted as unruliness,” Mrozinski said.
Last year’s ANC Chair Vince Micone retained his position on the board, while Morris was elected secretary and Commissioner Anne Savage was elected treasurer. All three commissioners were elected to the board in the November 2004 election.
Because Commissioner Richard Price moved out of the area last month, there is one vacant seat on the six-person board. Miller is the only commissioner remaining without an officer position.
Micone said that even though Miller did not obtain an officer position that does not mean that she will be taken less seriously than the other commissioners.
“The commission really is a group of equals,” he said in an interview last week. “We all equally decide issues and the officer roles are administrative.”
