D.C. neighborhood commissioners on Tuesday urged At-Large Council Member Robert White to consider providing them with additional resources and further training in a strategic plan funded in this year’s budget.
White, who is also running for mayor, has described the impending changes as the biggest to the Office of Advisory Neighborhood Commissions (ANC) since it was created in 1976.
Advisory neighborhood commissioners are locally elected representatives who serve two-year terms and represent a few thousand residents each. The positions are unpaid, and the commissioners work with residents on issues such as trash collection and safety challenges and also help with development projects and business openings.
The ANC Office is a “small agency legislative branch” that supports the commissioners’ work, White said.
The strategic plan will aim to modernize the way the commissioners operate, White told WTOP. During Tuesday’s hearing, White said, the council has nearly doubled the budget for ANC since 2019.
“They are called on by their constituents nonstop through many different ways, from telephone to email to social media,” White said. “They are asked to engage in incredibly complex negotiations on things like economic development projects, and they really have to be able to navigate what is a very large, complex and in many ways overly bureaucratic government.”
White, who has had oversight of the Office of Advisory Neighborhood Commissions for three years, said he has heard commissioners need translation services for residents who don’t speak English as a first language.
White said that implicit bias training, modernized websites and resources to have the ability to meet virtually and in-person are also crucial changes he is working to implement.
“They need better access to agency resources, and for agencies to be more responsive,” White said.
‘Little support’
Many of White’s concerns were echoed during Tuesday’s hearing.
Chander Jayaraman, who served as ANC 6B chair and vice chair, said there’s “untapped expertise with current and former commissioners across the city.” He recommended a series of trainings and a community panel to help current commissioners gauge successful strategies for overcoming complicated issues.
Commissioner Jeff Rueckgauer said commissioners need “a better comprehensive resource for querying the District’s legal and regulatory databases.”
And Commissioner Randy Speck, who said he’s been on the commission for nine years, said new commissioners “have been shocked at how little support is available from the [ANC Office] on fundamental tools, including templates for basic documents, guidelines for issues that arise frequently and modern technologies that would make their work simpler.”
“Most of [the commissioners] don’t have a staff,” White said. “These are unpaid positions. And the Office of ANC over the years has fallen well over a decade behind in helping them navigate things, even including creating a website.”
White said he expects the Office of ANC to have a new director in place within a month. A nominee will be introduced “very soon,” he said. A committee nomination hearing will be held before the nominee goes before the whole D.C. Council, White said.
