Election Update for 6A01-- Meet Paul Spires!

Good luck to us all on Election Day!

Hi Friends!

I’m writing to you today from Allentown, PA where I’ve been canvassing for a local elected official running for state house (Anna Thomas) as well as for Kamala Harris for President. I got to meet Gov. Shapiro yesterday, which was fun. Vibes are good here in PA— I hope it lasts! If you are wondering where you can go to process after the election, this call is where I will be heading on Thursday night: https://www.mobilize.us/electionresponsecenter/event/734596/

As you know, I had to step down from representing ANC6A01 when we moved to be closer to our son’s high school, Duke Ellington School for the Arts. It was just too far of a commute! We miss you so much and have been coming back to the neighborhood regularly, of course.

I won’t deny you a bit of schadenfreude in the face of my abandonment, and will share that after 11 days of straight rain earlier this fall (which seems like a lifetime ago) our roof leaked and our ceiling caved in— boo! Our roof is fixed but our ceiling is paper and tape, or else we’d have you over to our little 700 sq ft bit of coziness!

Also, just because I moved does not mean that I can sit back and not engage, so I testified at the Council Roundtable on DC’s 911 system, which is woefully unresponsive. There’s a heroic but understaffed team there that is not served by the opacity and obstruction. The Mayor’s team is so disingenuous about the problems that the media even boycotted their briefings! I’m deeply disappointed that despite many voices (including mine!) at the roundtable calling for independent oversight and hearings on other proposed bills, my new Councilmember (Pinto) has decided that only she can fix OUC (which, if true, is amazing). She is refusing to hold hearings on CM Nadeau and CM Robert White’s bills :(. She is the committee chair and is only holding a hearing on her own bill which is ostensibly about transparency but doesn’t bring transparency. She also didn’t answer my request for a meeting, which has never happened when I testified on an important issue in Ward 6 (Thank you Charles Allen!). So, it’s not just my ceiling caving in, there are some downsides to my new “representation”. I made a petition because I can’t stop myself from doing such things in the face of a dysfunctional 911: https://forms.gle/FKo3c3ZXTHNLadrv9

Most importantly, and as I shared in the headline, I’m so excited that Paul Spires is running to be your new ANC representative and I urge you to head over to Solid State Books and meet him on Monday night from 5-8 pm. Also, please let me know if you DO NOT want me to share your email with Paul. I hope you appreciate that it will be much easier for him to share news if he has your contact info! Go meet Paul!

Speaking of meeting Paul at Solid State Books— I can’t tell you how much I miss being near that bookstore and I can’t overstate the risk of the bookstore not being able to stick around without more support. If you can, please consider making a plan to meet a neighbor at Solid State weekly or monthly to get more people through the door. Don’t let the 14th Street shop beat out the H Street shop for sales! Also, support all the great H Street small businesses— they are so good for the community!

As for this substack, I’ll be transitioning to a monthly newsletter with calls to action on achieving Dignity for DC, democracy, fiction writing and the arts, and the climate crisis. I’ll still stan for some H Street businesses periodically, but it won’t be as much of my focus. I realize that might not be of interest to folks who were here looking for the links to ANC meeting minutes but those were actually never here and can be found at the ANC6A website and by joining the ANC6A google group: https://anc6a.org/join-listserv/

Thanks, everyone! Good luck to us all on Tuesday!