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Articles
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| Three Ward 6 ANC seats open |
VOICE writes, "Three Ward 6 ANC seats open
BY PATTI SHEA
There are three open advisory neighborhood commission seats available in Ward 6 – two on the Southeast Capitol Hill body and one with the Near Northeast panel.
The influx of vacant seats is due to Commissioners Antonette Russell, Terry Heubert and Daniel Ostergaard moving out of their single-member districts."
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Advisory neighborhood commissions – called ANCs for short – were established shortly after the city gained home rule. The bodies serve as grassroots, advisory panels to their respective city council member. Ward 6 has four such commissions. Each commission is divided into several single-member districts of roughly 2,000 residents, who elect a commissioner every two years.
Russell and her husband moved to Southwest over the summer. However, the city Board of Elections and Ethics did not receive her letter of resignation until recently. Russell represented the Barney Circle neighborhood for more than two years on the Southeast Capitol Hill advisory commission.
Elections board spokesman Bill O’Field said Russell’s resignation will be published in the Sept. 21 D.C. Register, which makes it official. After that, residents wishing to fill the vacancy can pick up petitions at the elections office.
Heubert, a member of the Near Northeast advisory neighborhood commission, is also staying in Ward 6.
“It’s a challenging position in which a lot of good can be done,” Heubert said of his one-year tenure on the panel. “It’s rewarding to help residents resolve problems.”
One of Heubert’s main projects while on the panel was collecting data about a moratorium on single servings of alcohol along the west end of H Street. Even though he is relocating eastward near 13th and H streets, NE, Heubert said he will continue to monitor the efforts of his former commissioners, but believes the neighborhood is in good hands.
A glitch with the advisory neighborhood commission system, Heubert said, is that the boards are not given enough authority to have a substantial impact on the community. By law, the commissions are to be given “great weight” when going before city agencies, such as zoning or alcohol licensing boards.
Heubert represented single-member district 6C06, which runs from Fifth to Seventh streets and portions of F and G streets to Massachusetts Avenue. According to O’Field, the petition filing period for Heubert’s seat ends Sept. 17 with a protest period from Sept. 20 to 26.
After seven years on the Hill, Ostergaard said he was moving, with his wife and three children, to western North Carolina to be closer to family.
“Capitol Hill and ANC 6B is a great place to live,” said Ostergaard, who was elected to the commission in November. “There are a lot of local issues here that affect real people’s lives.”
The outgoing commissioner said being on the commission was a “real education.”
“I was able to work with really fantastic folks,” he said. “I feel like I’m leaving a lot of stuff undone.”
Ostergaard said he is also proud of the work he did with Police Service Area 106, where he helped diffuse crime and other incidents in the area south of Pennsylvania Avenue. “I liked working to put ‘community’ back in community policing.”
Ostergaard said he mailed his resignation letter to the city earlier this week. As with Russell’s letter, once it is published in the D.C. Register, residents will be able to submit petitions for candidacy.
Would-be candidates, who must be registered to vote in the District, need to collect 25 signatures from registered residents within their single-member district boundaries. The filing period lasts for 21 days, with a seven-day protest period.
If two or more candidates meet the requirements, there will be a special election during a regularly scheduled advisory neighborhood commission meeting. That election is only open to registered voters in the affected single-member district.
If only one candidate qualifies, then that person is automatically elected to the commission.
For more information, contact the Board of Elections and Ethics at (202) 727-2525 or visit www.dcboee.org.
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Posted on Sep 12, 2007 20:00pm.
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