Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Do citizens’ and civic associations represent the broad interests of residents, or very narrow factions within a neighborhood? Recently, growing numbers of residents have started to question the long-standing role of these groups as the voices of residents in the civic discourse. The Dupont Circle Citizens’ Association (DCCA) faces a contested election next month, where a slate of candidates nominated by the current Board seeks to bring the neighborhood together and represent the broader resident interest, while competing candidates, nominated from the floor, would keep the organization on one specific, partisan side of major issues.

Citizens’ and civic associations have existed in DC for a long time. When DC lacked home rule, they played an especially important role to amplify resident needs to a frequently uninterested Congress. They then had to fight for a better city during decades of a completely dysfunctional District government. Today, our government is much better, but residents still need a voice.

However, many residents have started asking whether these organizations, often tightly controlled by small groups of individuals, really represent the broader consensus. The major issues before our government have evolved, from fights for provision of basic services which unite all residents, to debates about housing and business growth whose answers are less clear. The many residents of Cleveland Park who support the Giant project on Wisconsin Avenue, for example, felt shut out when the Cleveland Park Citizens’ Association met to oppose the project and provided little notice to members or the community.

Many Councilmembers, elected ANC Commissioners, and leaders of neighborhood organizations have worked hard to bridge those disagreements and build consensus on the difficult issues of the day. Moreover, many of them have also attempted to bring more residents into the conversation, to better represent all residents, whether they have lived here for thirty years or three months. Others, on the other hand, have resisted efforts to grow these organizations’ membership, preferring to limit the decisionmaking to the existing activists and maintain the status quo in leadership.

This dichotomy recently bubbled to the surface in Dupont Circle, where DCCA President Joel Lawson recently resigned over disagreements with certain members of the DCCA Board. Lawson had brought a new vitality to DCCA, bringing in many new members, including myself. However, some members of the Board, though only a small minority, weren’t so pleased by this evolution away from the control of those who had controlled the group and the agenda in the past.

Matters came to a head during the debate over renewing the 17th Street liquor license moratorium, which prohibits new liquor licenses and prevents alcohol-serving bars and restaurants from expanding into neighboring spaces. That moratorium has helped preserve neighborhood retail on 17th by preventing rising rents from pricing out stores that don’t make high profits from alcohol, but has also comes at a cost to businesses on the corridor.

Five years ago, when the moratorium last came up for renewal, DCCA was a highly partisan force pushing for a hard-line position. Arguments between businesses and residents created deep rifts in the neighborhood. This year, Lawson and several ANC Commissioners were determined to avoid similar acrimony.

An ANC Committee chaired by Commissioner Jack Jacobson, who represents part of 17th, convened several neighborhood “listening sessions”. Many residents lined up on both sides of the issue, and those opposed to the moratorium prepared to criticize DCCA’s partisanship. One speaker at the first listening session blasted DCCA for representing only the interests of a small subset of residents.

However, these opponents soon found themselves surprised, as DCCA voted to support a compromise the committee hammered out. The compromise extends the moratorium, but reexamines it in three years instead of five. It allows two businesses to expand laterally, so that some establishments, perhaps Hank’s Oyster Bar or the Komi restaurant, can grow beyond their narrow townhouses. And it encourages “summer gardens,” but only in the rear of buildings facing Stead Park and away from residents on 17th. Fundamentally, though, the agreement preserves the moratorium. People on both sides wished for more, but ultimately I believe this is an excellent agreement that will maintain the special qualities of 17th while also allowing for some positive growth.

At the same time, the long-simmering conflict within DCCA also reached a boil, especially between Lawson and Second Vice President Phyllis Klein. I will not go into specifics, but I, too, have had disagreements with Klein over neighborhood issues. When the DCCA Board could not resolve the situation, Lawson chose to resign. In the aftermath, however, the Board decided not to renominate Klein for a seat on the Board.

The Nominating Committee chose John Hockensmith and Susan Dunn as Vice Presidents. Hockensmith was a Vice President during the past year, and Dunn the year before. They also renominated Judith Neibrief and Nancy Hartsock as Secretary and Treasurer, respectively. When I have interacted with these individuals, I have found them to all be thoughtful, responsible, and very interested in building a better and inclusive neighborhood.

These individuals aren’t extreme partisans when it comes to major neighborhood issues, and they are certainly not necessarily on “my side.” In fact, some of these candidates are close friends with frequent Greater Greater Washington commenter and fellow neighborhood activist Lance. As anyone who reads the comments knows, Lance disagrees with me on many issues. However, he has always dealt with the Greater Greater Washington community and with myself honestly, forthrightly, and with a genuine desire to improve the neighborhood. I believe that, whether I agree with them or not on specific policy issues, Hockensmith, Dunn, Neibrief and Hartsock will do the same.

The Board also nominated several new individuals who hadn’t previously served on the DCCA Board: Ron Clayton, Marisa Uchin, James Dudney, Haru Shimura, and Maureen McLellan. Uchin ran last year for an ANC seat, and while I supported the ultimate winner, Jack Jacobson, I was also impressed by Uchin. I don’t know the rest of these individuals, but believe they will bring more residents into DCCA and reach out to constituencies who currently feel alienated by past factionalism. Dudney is a board member of Historic Dupont Circle Main Streets, while Shimura and McClellan have actively helped organize recent DCCA events. The Chair of the Nominating Committee, Ellen Mercer, explained the Board’s selection of these individuals by saying, “For years, I have heard many active DCCA members talk about how much we (DCCA) need new members, new blood, and new focuses to complement the ongoing work.”

The Nominating Committee originally planned to nominate Robin Diener as President, but the day before the slate was announced, she suddenly pulled her name from contention. Therefore, they chose Clayton as the nominee for President. Clayton’s professional background is in marketing, and his resume includes a long list of civic activism work, including as a career counselor at gay and lesbian centers, a volunteer for the Whitman-Walker Clinic, at the Kennedy Center, and in DCCA.

After the Board nominated its slate at the official nominating meeting, a group of members nominated alternatives from the floor. They nominated Diener for President, Klein for Second Vice-President, Carol Mitten for Secretary, and Dave Mallof and Lex Reiffel for Board seats. Mallof and Reiffel have been staunch advocates for extending the moratorium indefinitely and without any change. They were active in DCCA during the previous moratorium fight, when DCCA took a fiercely partisan position. According to Mercer, the Nominating Committee had also considered Mitten, but was told she lived outside the neighborhood and was thus officially ineligible.

DCCA members will meet on Monday, May 4th to choose their officers. I plan to vote for the Board slate, and hope other residents of the neighborhood will do the same. Whatever your position on issues, it’s important that the neighborhood associations try hard to include as many residents as possible, and to represent a broad resident point of view. The position of individual candidates on the moratorium is now moot; ABRA has already held its hearing on the issue. DCCA could potentially try to bring legal action, but that would create even more division and push it quickly on a path to irrelevance and extinction.

The question for DCCA members next month is whether they want the leadership to comprise individuals who’ve divided the organization, driven off an inclusive President, and pushed the group toward hardline positions that are not shared by large numbers of neighbors. Or, they could choose leaders who will reach out to wider groups of residents, building bridges and forging constructive solutions that might not please everybody, but might be the best consensus we can reach together.

Whatever happens at DCCA, more neighborhood organizations will face similar questions if they aren’t already. Neighborhood consensus on some issues will shift over time, and many residents won’t want to keep re-fighting the same battles of the past. These community groups can try to broaden their appeal and continue to fill an important role as the voices of residents, or they can marginalize themselves as the bullhorns of a dwindling group stuck in the past while new methods of organizing, like blogs, speak to and activate residents. There’s plenty of room for traditional organizations and new media to work together constructively, and as one who prefers a vibrant civic sphere, I hope the organizations will choose the inclusive route.