Advisory Neighborhood Commissions: Article Summary

David F. Garrison’s article on District of Columbia’s Elected Advisory Neighborhood Commissions main purpose is to give the strengths and weakness of the Advisory Neighborhood Commission or ANC, however the article does a better job at explaining how the ANC is being used by DC’s City Council and other industries and that it is not needed. First, Garrison starts off talking about the structure of the ANC and how it was formed. DC is only ten square miles, however; there are over thirty-seven ANCs. There is no need for all of these separate ANCs in such a small area. It is true that every community is different however, they are not that different were each community needs their own personal ANC. The number of ANC should be cut in half so

This really makes the ANC nothing more than almost an interest group. The ANC like an interest group tires to influence government or city agencies to vote in the way the ANC feels is best. Like interest group the ANC is not always to into consideration and sometimes as Garrison stated they are not even heard in a city meeting. Garrison state that the ANC is buried down on the list to testify and the letters they write are simply thrown into the same filed as other letters. The Garrison's article leaves the reader wondering why is the ANC thought of as a government entity, but the ANC voice is not always heard. Garrison does talk about how city agencies and boards are hesitant to give the ANC such power, but why? Are the city agencies and boards afraid of the ANC gaining to much power or maybe they are afraid of the fact that if they give the ANC power the city agencies and broads would lose some of their own power? Garrison does not address these questions fully in the article. The ANC can also be thought of as the District of Columbia itself when it comes to voting power in the U.S Congress; however the delegate for D.C has more power than the Commissioners. D.C does not have proper representation in the U.S Senate or House of Representatives. D.C constituents do not have any representation the U.S Senate and only has a delegate that is not allowed to vote on the House floor,

There is a small voters turn out for the ANC elections, not because the D.C constituent are not going out to vote during election time, but it due to the fact that ANC candidates do not have a lot media coverage. This is not negative thing for a few reasons, one being a small group is making decisions for the group. Next, due to the lack of media coverage constituent do not know who their Commissioners are. It is true that the constituent should find out who their Commissioner is on their own and there is a website that the constituents can go on and see who their Commissioner is; however more should be done so that constituents know who their Commissioner is. Also the constituents do not know who to blame when things are successful and things fail; this allows horrible Commissioners to keep getting elected. Again this goes into why the ANC is not truly needed in