Another ANC Meeting, Another Meltdown

I went home after the meeting too disgusted and depressed to write anything. If you weren’t there, check out the video at ANC2C02,

and MVSNA President Cary Silverman has provided an excellent recap and thoughtful comments here. About the only good thing to say about it is that the videotaping issue finally seems to be settled.

A few additional thoughts, for what they’re worth.

--Jack Evans’s intervention didn’t work—to state the obvious. The four commissioners reportedly had agreed on two things: 1) to distribute documents to be approved at the meeting (such as minutes, reports, etc.) to all the commissioners before the meeting so they would not have to be read and considered during the meeting, and 2) to elect Kevin Chapple as secretary, replacing Barbara Curtis. The first item—besides just being common courtesy—is absolutely normal routine procedure in any functioning organization; what possibly could be the objection to it? The second item would likely result in a great improvement in record-keeping since, as things stand, no one except the ANC commissioners ever sees the minutes and Kevin is already acting as the de facto public rapporteur for the ANC through his website and newsletter. When the time came, however, Doris Brooks reneged on both. The reelection of the Secretary never even came up. The ball was in the Thorpe/Brooks court, and they effectively told Jack Evans to take a flying leap.

--The poor, hapless Shaw Main Streets representative never had a chance. Personally, I couldn’t care less if they put up the banners or not (or what color they are), but for goodness sake, what harm would they do? But that’s not what this was about. SMS is Alex Padro’s baby, so Leroy Thorpe is automatically against it—whatever it is. Thorpe’s ludicrous accusations about “clandestine meetings” and the complaint that SMS doesn’t communicate with the community are nonsense. I have no connection to SMS, but I’ve attended two public meetings over the past year or so, which I learned about through flyers distributed throughout the neighborhood, not through the SMS website, which I rarely look at. Notices about events are posted in stores and other visible locations, so if you don’t know what SMS is doing, it’s your own fault. (By contrast, I have never yet seen an ANC2C or ECCA flyer left on my block.)

--I’m tired of being tagged with collective guilt for something I have nothing to do with. At every single ANC meeting (and ECCA, for that matter), several people (usually the same ones) get up and start denouncing newcomers/white people (as if they were one and the same) for attitudes that they all allegedly hold. The accusations are always so vague and non-specific that it is impossible to answer them. This happens because those running the meeting encourage it; it does not happen in meeting of other groups even when the same people are present. Here’s the thing: I take responsibility for what I say and do. If you have a problem with something I said or did, let’s talk, and if I’m wrong I’ll do my best to make it right. But don’t assume you know what someone else thinks just because they may fit some category in your mind. And don’t stand up and make vague accusations against a whole class of people and then complain about divisiveness in the community.

--Windy Rahim’s emotional departure speech was partly right: We got the ANC we elected. But she was wrong in one respect: We did not elect a Parliamentarian/Special Assistant who is still the de facto Chairperson. You gotta hand it to Leroy Thorpe—he has done what he said he was going to do after he didn’t get re-elected. But his actions indicate that he places his own ego-tripping before the welfare of the community. Denise Murray lamented last night that she’s still trying to get lights in the park at NJ and O, but let’s not forget that as ANC Chairman last summer, Mr. Thorpe opposed an initiative to do just that simply because it had been spearheaded by Mount Vernon Square without going through him first. To me, that says a lot about where his priorities lie.