Campaign Georgetown, a grassroots student organization, is once again mobilizing in an effort to elect multiple students to the Advisory Neighborhood Commission in this fall’s elections.
ANC commissioners represent seven single-member districts in Georgetown, composed of about 2,000 residents each. Four of these districts are student populated.
Campaign Georgetown Co-Chairs Matthew Ingham (COL ’04) and Eric Lashner (COL ’05) remain optimistic that the organization will succeed in electing students this year.
“It remains too early to put any names to the potential student candidates,” Ingham said. “However, Campaign Georgetown will soon be transitioning in leadership and we have a core group of students who will ensure that student representation continues.”
Mike Glick (COL ’05), the sole student commissioner, does not plan on running for reelection.
“I’ve certainly enjoyed my time on the commission but I’m going to graduate in May 2005 and it’s just not feasible,” he said.
Campaign Georgetown was created in response to legislation in the summer of 1996 that prevented students from parking their cars in the area. Though students protested outside the City Council office, they were largely ignored because they had no voting power in the District.
That fall, Campaign Georgetown led a voter registration drive to support the election of two students, Rebecca Sinderbrand (COL ’00) and James Fogarty (COL ’98) to the ANC. Their bids were ultimately successful.
This led, however, to a backlash in the community from many residents wary of increased student representation on the commission. They repeatedly went through the court system to challenge students’ rights to vote in these elections.
Nevertheless, Campaign Georgetown achieved its largest victory in the fall of 1997 – the defeat of the zoning overlay approval. This proposal would have virtually eliminated student off-campus living by allowing that no more than three unrelated persons in one house. A group of students and residents presented their concerns to the Zoning Commission, which ultimately ruled 2-1 against the proposal.
In 1998, the organization once again helped elect a student, att Payne (COL ’01) to the ANC. And in 2000, Justin Kopa (COL ’03) and Justin Wagner (COL ’03) were both elected to serve on the Commission.
A community task force approved a redistricting plan opposed by Kopa and Wagner in the summer of 2001, creating one district with all student constituents and three other districts that had both students and residents. Though Glick easily won his “all-student” district in the 2002 elections, Lashner and Mike Griffin (COL ’05) ultimately lost their campaigns to residents in Burleith and West Georgetown, respectively.
Lashner partially attributes this loss to low student turnout in a District that was already comprised by few students.
“I did a great job of getting some support in the neighborhood, but there were just not enough students in the District to form a solid block of core supporters,” he said. “I think that the redistricting was made to minimize student participation on the ANC. [The districts were] essentially gerrymandered.”
Students unexpectedly received a chance to reclaim this seat after ANC Commissioner Jason Hurdle, the resident who defeated Lashner in 2002, resigned from his seat in February. Many expected a special spring election between a student and a resident for the position.
But Campaign Georgetown was unable to find a suitable candidate and it marked the first time the organization had failed to find a student to run for a vacant ANC seat.
“[We] feel it is important that any potential student candidate maintain the trust and respect of the ANC and the community,” Ingham said. “Unfortunately, there were a number of logistical considerations that required the potential candidate fit a very narrow set of conditions, in terms of housing, availability over the summer, and so forth.”
Georgetown resident John Lever was the only person to file papers for the position and is expected to fill the seat this month.
Glick admitted that it would be difficult to defeat incumbent resident commissioners in the districts populated by both students and residents this fall. But he said that commissioners, Lever and Bill Skelsey, who defeated Griffin, have shown themselves receptive to student concerns.
“I don’t see this as a necessarily `dark time’ for students in terms of the ANC,” Glick said. “We can effect change just as easily with one voice, as long as we rise up as a student community when the major issues come up.”
According to Lashner, Campaign Georgetown’s current decline in visibility can be attributed to the lack of a big issue for which students become “riled up.”
“[But] there are real issues of student rights and it will be up to Campaign Georgetown to publish them,” he said.
The furor over residents’ plans to videotape unruly student behavior is a perfect example of this, Glick said. He cited students’ willingness to make themselves aware of the problems and band together against such actions.
In the preliminary planning stages, Campaign Georgetown expects to run one candidate in the all-student district and one student in one of the off-campus districts. Ingham stresses that the organization’s platform remains sensitive to issues prevailing at the moment.
“In local politics, things change very quickly,” he said. “Certainly the protection of students’ rights and the bettering of our relations with the community will remain at the core of any Georgetown student’s ANC campaign.”
