Another failure to lead: DC's Advisory Neighborhood Commissions

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With the creation of local government in DC 30 years ago, a form of neighborhood councils was created, called Advisory Neighborhood Commissions. They are advisory, charged with commenting on matters before DC Government Agencies and Commissions. People often confuse the provision on "great weight" in the law with "must", that the DC Government must do what an ANC says. Nope, all the agency or board or commission must do is consider the recommendation, and they must do this in the context of the laws and regulations that exist.

I have written about these bodies quite a bit over the years. I believe in an engaged populace and a more participatory form of representative government. But like any democracy or political body (see Robert Michels and his classic tome first published in 1911, Political Parties, which postulates the "iron law of oligarchy", that organizations becoming oligarchical and autocratic regardless of the intent of their formation), abuse and failure is part of the process. The issue becomes whether abuse and failure is the defining element, or merely an occasional byproduct.

Plus, ANCs were crippled from the start, because a training infrastructure was never developed, and the bodies were forbidden from meeting all together, because the legislative branch feared the creation of other centers of influence, and potential competition for elected office. (Still, ANCs are a training bed for higher office, and jobs with DC government.)

For some of my writings about ANCs and civic engagement include:

- System transformation or people vs. systems and structures
- Contempt of the citizenry
- Stultified vs. flat organizations, democracy vs. autocracy
- ANCs and civic engagement
- "Incentivizing" ANC Commissioners
- An aha! moment about why DC Government is "problematic"
- The Agony of Defeat
- YIMBYs from Brooklyn to DC -- Thinking about Community Participation in Shaping Development"
- ANCs build up political muscle, and yet....

Now, you could probably argue that I am a fool because, in the argot of the old Scripps Newspaper slogan "Give light and the people will find their own way" I have to believe that if we focus on building our capacity for participating knowledgeably and deliberatively in government and civil society, then we will get better outcomes (in short, this is another example of having flawed and incompletely developed systems and structures).

For example, along the lines of what I discuss in "Chile and civic engagement."

So I see the Goodspeed Update's suggestions for improving ANCs, in "Proposals for Reforming D.C.’s Advisory Neighborhood Commissions,":

1. Modify the structure of Single Member Districts.
2. City government should enforce greater transparency and consistency in operations.
3. Reduce the number of ANCs or enlarge SMD sizes.
4. Term Limits for ANC Commissioners.

as pretty limited, focused on formula and procedure and not on substantively addressing the problem and improving the sorry lot. But then "reform" means change. It doesn't necessarily mean improvement.

Here was my response in email:

One of my early thoughts about ANCs is that in one respect they are great, in that they provide for a regularized system of input. OTOH, they contribute to a dimunition of civil society by "governmentalizing" (think of the concept of infantilization and apply it here) how people think of responding to local problems and issues. Everything becomes a matter for government to solve, rather than considering the option of self-help. cf. all the people who have been writing about "communicative planning," extending Friedmann's work.

Anyway, the biggest problem, which you do not address at all except a little piece in 2, is the need for a training and support infrastructure. Also see the incredible resources provided to the community by the Dallas Public Library's Urban Information Center and you can combine with this the idea of community-based land use planning assistance programs (the Orton Family Foundation software CommunityViz, work of the DOE unit in Denver as explained in this presentation, Planning Tools for the Next Century).

Before making recommendations about ANCs in DC, it would do you well to study other forms of neighborhood representation in other cities such as Los Angeles (elected, large neighborhood councils, in response to the San Fernando Valley succession movement), Seattle (corporatist in form), Minneapolis' Neighborhood Revitalization Program, and the Neighborhood Planning Units, in Atlanta. As well as the various controversies over Community Boards in NYC. You can also consider the neighborhood based community benefits districts in Baltimore (Charles Village, Midtown)--quite controversial in some quarters, and even special service funding districts, and other forms of focused and structured citizen involvement.

Many of these bodies have similar problems to DC's ANCs, for similar reasons, while some function quite well by comparison. A key difference, such as with the Minneapolis program, is the substantive focus on a training infrastructure and providing technical assistance. (Also, money, which organizations can use to work with local parks and schools to foment specific changes.)

You should also read the book by Jim Diers, although I think he made mistakes, as you can see from this blog entry: Thinking about constituency building at the start of a new administration and my opining about constituency building. Seattle has a "department of neighborhoods," that at least under the leadership of Diers was more than just doing programs to ensure the re-election of the mayor.


See, if I ever manage to get into a PhD program, my dissertation would be on rearticulating the planning profession around enabling civic engagement, because land use issues are those most likely to engage the average citizen in local civic affairs.

Another thing to think about is the _fact_, that with each iteration of engagement in planning exercises and processes, with rare exception (me being one of them), people don't "get better" and know more and achieve better results, with the greater experience and expertise that they develop through participation in multiple planning processes....

Anyway, 1 (Modify the structure of Single Member Districts) and 4 (Term Limits for ANC Commissioners) are good ideas. 3 (Reduce the number of ANCs or enlarge SMD sizes) is problematic.

You need to think about this as it relates to the spatial organization of neighborhoods. In less dense neighborhoods like Brookland, it would make for even bigger SMDs, and allow for a worsening of the kind of dictatorship that can happen. See, in Ward 5, they need more ANCs, covering smaller areas, because each is very large, and brings together people with vastly different interests that often can't be reconciled. Each of the ANCs covers a major distance, i.e., C covers from Ft. Totten to New York Avenue, for the most part west of the railroad. B from Fort Lincoln to Bloomingdale. A is the most geographically concentrated but still covers too large an area. And Brookland is split amongst each of the ANCs...

I also don't know if there needs to be incentives for serving, and some focus on funding but in a structured way (a la 6A) so that civil society at the grassroots can be better supported.

And speaking of support, in your point 2, which focuses on providing documents on the part of ANCs, you don't even mention the fact that city govt. makes no effort to provide ANCs with office space and other structured support. The neighborhood councils in Seattle are each assigned one permanent staff member. And they get the opportunity for grants for specific kinds of projects. (See the websites on the Seattle City Neighborhood Council and the "about" page from the Ballard District Council. And this press release from today, "City Council Receives Neighborhood District Council AuditReport calls for improvement.")

Of course, there are other thoughtful approaches to engaging citizenry, such as that espoused by the Asset-Based Community Development Institute generally, and this publication specifically, Leading by Stepping Back: A Guide for City Officials on Building Neighborhood Capacity, and by Wright and Fung (Deepening Democracy: Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance and Empowered Participation: Reinventing Urban Democracy).