As you fill out your ballot, you may want to know more about our most important yet most underrated local races: the Single Member District ANC commissionership! These brave and generous souls volunteer their time to make sure we can have good governance at the most local level. Meet your ANC candidates and let us know if you have any questions! The candidates’ answers have been lightly edited for clarity. Don’t know YOUR Single Member District? Click here and find it! ––María Helena Carey
Your name
David Sobelsohn
Your ANC single member district
6B03
What is a landmark people may know your SMD from?
My SMD has the Eastern Market Metrorail Station, the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, the Southeast Library (currently under renovation), Marion Park, & the west side of Barracks Row, including the Miracle Theatre.
Why are you running for ANC?
In my first term on ANC 6B, I have,
- Engineered the revival of the ANC’s long-dormant Public Safety Committee, which has already influenced legislation to fix DC’s Office of Unified Communications, the office that receives (but sometimes mishandles) 311 & 911 calls.
- Established & chaired the ANC’s Southeast Library Task Force, which secured funds for an interim public library during the years our Southeast library remains closed for renovations, & which also has helped protect residents & pedestrians around the library construction site.
- Lobbied successfully for a public toilet on the Eastern Market Metro Plaza, & to maintain the police department’s 5th Street substation, & continued to lobby for neighborhood electric-vehicle charging stations.
- Secured substantial community benefits in exchange for the closing of an unused dead-end strip of land, designated an “alley,” in a courtyard across from the Library of Congress’s Madison Building–an agreement that provides ongoing public access to the entire courtyard, not just the alley, as well as interior meeting space, protections for nearby neighbors, & $100,000 to the Capitol Hill Community Foundation.
I am running for reelection to make sure the interim public library expands its hours & gets adequate support from the library system; to protect my community against an excess of fast-food restaurants & cannabis shops, & the unpleasant side-effects of library renovation; to address the serious problem of scooters & electric bicycles left blocking our sidewalks; to ensure the enforcement of the agreement I negotiated regarding the alley closing; & to increase residents’ involvement in our DC government, especially our local ANC.
Why do you believe ANC is an important office?
My record as a commissioner shows why the ANC is an important office. Without our ANC, we would have no nearby library facilities during the 2-4 years our local library will stay closed for renovations. As an ANC commissioner in Southwest (ANC 6D) from 2005-11, I negotiated a community-benefits agreement that led to free admission, to a new museum (the Rubell Museum at 65 I St., SW), for all DC residents (outsiders must pay $15).
Why should your neighbors should vote for you?
My neighbors should vote for me because, as one neighbor said, I’m “the best ANC commissioner [she’s] ever had [in her] 30 years of living in DC.” I have never had to campaign for reelection to the ANC. My constituents have always done whatever campaigning I needed, even to the extent of gathering the necessary petition signatures.
Why should we all keep an eye on Advisory Neighborhood Commissions as a whole?
We should all keep an eye on Advisory Neighborhood Commissions as a whole because of what an active ANC can do for its community.