Cheh's Ward 3 ANC Gerrymandering

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:NP: What is this really about? What are the issues that some in CP feel like they wouldn't be able to get their way on if they were put in one ANC versus another?

It started with Cheh working through a process many considered rigged where the outcome was designed to limit representation of SF homeowners.

The people who politically benefit and their ideological comrades are now crying foul that those who would have had their representation dimished have been successfully able to restore some of it through a compromise.

This is how politics works and it people don’t understand it and it makes them upset.

I disagree with this characterization.

In the 2012 cycle, the Ward 3 Task Force was charged with more of a focus on the corridors. It did what it could at the time, but there were structural issues with census tracts preventing doing more than what was done.

In this cycle, without having self-interested ANC Commissioenrs on the Task Force, as they were in 2012, the Task Force was able to create the ANC 3A and re-focus more appropriately was had been started in 2012.

The ONLY people complaining about the map ultimately proposed by the three At-Large Councilmembers who are charged with impartially overseeing this process, are from the Cleveland Park NIMBYs and Mendelson, whose political career was spawned from that ilk, catered to them wholly.

The new map proposed by Mendelson has illegal outsized Single Member Districts, and splits neighborhoods more egregiously than any map proposed by the Task Force.

I guess it is okay to split neighborhoods as long as it isn't Cleveland Park.

“without having self-interested ANC Commissioners” just explained everything that was wrong with the process and why it was necessary for a final compromise to be brokered.

If it started with an inclusive process from the beginning it would have resulted in an outcome with legitimacy.

If you believe that the compromise is illegal then I hope that you sue. That’s what courts are for.

The ANC Commissioners were involved in 2012, not this year.

That’s exactly the point and the problem. Critics felt that selection of the people involved was not representative and therefore the outcome lacked legitimacy.

Critics are just upset they weren't making the lines. The fact is, there is representation from across the Ward on the task force. They actually analyzed the numbers and drew lines that worked within both the letter and spirit of the law. What Mendelson submitted is simply illegal according to the statute. It should be rejected on form and process.

And now you’re upset because your people didn’t get to make the lines that you thought would favor you. It seems that you may be learning for the first time in your life how political compromise works and I guess you don’t like it. You may want to get used to it or not get involved in local politics.

So you are saying that Mendelson's map is a compromise? Who did he consult? How is it legal? What is the compromise? His map is basically taking what exists today and making 3 ANCs larger with illegally Single Member Districts. How is that a good solution?

How do you know that map is “illegal”? Are you a lawyer?

It’s a good political compromise precisely because it makes no one happy. That’s how politics works.

The compromise map is the one that Silverman proposed. The one that Mendleson proposed is more like the status quo, only worse Why is it ok to have three ANCs that span the entire areas between Connectiticut and Wisconsin Avenues, and from Glover Park to Tenleytown? Why not have the areas of focus where people actually live, rather than letting one or two ANC COmmissioners have purview over huges areas that impact thousands of people they are not anything close to neighborhos with'?

So it’s “illegal” because you don’t like it?

I don’t think that’s how the law works.

It's illegal because there are single member districts that are both above and below the staturory mandates. Read the law and look at Mendelson's maps. They are prima facia illegal.

If this is “prima facie” illegal, then a judge would certainly grant injunctive relief. Why aren’t you filing a lawsuit?

The map hasn't been approved yet.

[Anonymous]

It makes total sense that Elissa Silverman doesn’t understand or care to understand that the Council President has special leadership obligations that set them apart from a normal councilmember.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP: What is this really about? What are the issues that some in CP feel like they wouldn't be able to get their way on if they were put in one ANC versus another?

It started with Cheh working through a process many considered rigged where the outcome was designed to limit representation of SF homeowners.

The people who politically benefit and their ideological comrades are now crying foul that those who would have had their representation dimished have been successfully able to restore some of it through a compromise.

This is how politics works and it people don’t understand it and it makes them upset.

I disagree with this characterization.

In the 2012 cycle, the Ward 3 Task Force was charged with more of a focus on the corridors. It did what it could at the time, but there were structural issues with census tracts preventing doing more than what was done.

In this cycle, without having self-interested ANC Commissioenrs on the Task Force, as they were in 2012, the Task Force was able to create the ANC 3A and re-focus more appropriately was had been started in 2012.

The ONLY people complaining about the map ultimately proposed by the three At-Large Councilmembers who are charged with impartially overseeing this process, are from the Cleveland Park NIMBYs and Mendelson, whose political career was spawned from that ilk, catered to them wholly.

The new map proposed by Mendelson has illegal outsized Single Member Districts, and splits neighborhoods more egregiously than any map proposed by the Task Force.

I guess it is okay to split neighborhoods as long as it isn't Cleveland Park.

“without having self-interested ANC Commissioners” just explained everything that was wrong with the process and why it was necessary for a final compromise to be brokered.

If it started with an inclusive process from the beginning it would have resulted in an outcome with legitimacy.

If you believe that the compromise is illegal then I hope that you sue. That’s what courts are for.

The ANC Commissioners were involved in 2012, not this year.

That’s exactly the point and the problem. Critics felt that selection of the people involved was not representative and therefore the outcome lacked legitimacy.

Critics are just upset they weren't making the lines. The fact is, there is representation from across the Ward on the task force. They actually analyzed the numbers and drew lines that worked within both the letter and spirit of the law. What Mendelson submitted is simply illegal according to the statute. It should be rejected on form and process.

And now you’re upset because your people didn’t get to make the lines that you thought would favor you. It seems that you may be learning for the first time in your life how political compromise works and I guess you don’t like it. You may want to get used to it or not get involved in local politics.

So you are saying that Mendelson's map is a compromise? Who did he consult? How is it legal? What is the compromise? His map is basically taking what exists today and making 3 ANCs larger with illegally Single Member Districts. How is that a good solution?

How do you know that map is “illegal”? Are you a lawyer?

It’s a good political compromise precisely because it makes no one happy. That’s how politics works.

The compromise map is the one that Silverman proposed. The one that Mendleson proposed is more like the status quo, only worse Why is it ok to have three ANCs that span the entire areas between Connectiticut and Wisconsin Avenues, and from Glover Park to Tenleytown? Why not have the areas of focus where people actually live, rather than letting one or two ANC COmmissioners have purview over huges areas that impact thousands of people they are not anything close to neighborhos with'?

So it’s “illegal” because you don’t like it?

I don’t think that’s how the law works.

It's illegal because there are single member districts that are both above and below the staturory mandates. Read the law and look at Mendelson's maps. They are prima facia illegal.

If this is “prima facie” illegal, then a judge would certainly grant injunctive relief. Why aren’t you filing a lawsuit?

The map hasn't been approved yet.

If you feel this strongly about it then I hope you sue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It makes total sense that Elissa Silverman doesn’t understand or care to understand that the Council President has special leadership obligations that set them apart from a normal councilmember.

Sure, but that doesn't mean the Chair should overtly cater to the Cleveland Park NIMBYs and put forward a crappy map with no meaningful public input. That is both bad optics and bad politics.

[Anonymous]

Any CM that votes in favor of the Chair’s half-assed last-minute scribbling is not only sending a big FU to the dozens of volunteers who spent countless hours balancing competing concerns to arrive at fair solutions but is also telling everyone else in the city to never bother volunteering their time to help the Council out.

[Anonymous]

This situation has turned into a real mess

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any CM that votes in favor of the Chair’s half-assed last-minute scribbling is not only sending a big FU to the dozens of volunteers who spent countless hours balancing competing concerns to arrive at fair solutions but is also telling everyone else in the city to never bother volunteering their time to help the Council out.

I haven't followed all this closely but my understanding is the map committee volunteers weren't just altruistic grandmas.... Don't they all have skin in the game too

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any CM that votes in favor of the Chair’s half-assed last-minute scribbling is not only sending a big FU to the dozens of volunteers who spent countless hours balancing competing concerns to arrive at fair solutions but is also telling everyone else in the city to never bother volunteering their time to help the Council out.

I haven't followed all this closely but my understanding is the map committee volunteers weren't just altruistic grandmas.... Don't they all have skin in the game too

Yes they do. The altruistic volunteers were not just selected for the role at random.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any CM that votes in favor of the Chair’s half-assed last-minute scribbling is not only sending a big FU to the dozens of volunteers who spent countless hours balancing competing concerns to arrive at fair solutions but is also telling everyone else in the city to never bother volunteering their time to help the Council out.

I haven't followed all this closely but my understanding is the map committee volunteers weren't just altruistic grandmas.... Don't they all have skin in the game too

No, they were all volunteers with no political domains to protect.

[Anonymous]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any CM that votes in favor of the Chair’s half-assed last-minute scribbling is not only sending a big FU to the dozens of volunteers who spent countless hours balancing competing concerns to arrive at fair solutions but is also telling everyone else in the city to never bother volunteering their time to help the Council out.

I haven't followed all this closely but my understanding is the map committee volunteers weren't just altruistic grandmas.... Don't they all have skin in the game too

No, they were all volunteers with no political domains to protect.

But with an ideological purpose to fulfill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any CM that votes in favor of the Chair’s half-assed last-minute scribbling is not only sending a big FU to the dozens of volunteers who spent countless hours balancing competing concerns to arrive at fair solutions but is also telling everyone else in the city to never bother volunteering their time to help the Council out.

I haven't followed all this closely but my understanding is the map committee volunteers weren't just altruistic grandmas.... Don't they all have skin in the game too

No, they were all volunteers with no political domains to protect.

But with an ideological purpose to fulfill.

Really?! Three of the task force members were all connected to the same (unincorporated) advocacy group that supports ANC candidates that espouse the group’s “Smart Growth” priorities. The task force map created more favorable electoral districts for its favored candidates. The main author of the neighborhood split plan, with extensive ties to Trump campaign and Manafort, himself was an unsuccessful ANC candidate. His map dispatched his successful rival not only from his SMD but from the ANC entirely. The task force’s “Jerry-mandering” stinks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any CM that votes in favor of the Chair’s half-assed last-minute scribbling is not only sending a big FU to the dozens of volunteers who spent countless hours balancing competing concerns to arrive at fair solutions but is also telling everyone else in the city to never bother volunteering their time to help the Council out.

The task force didn’t balance anything. Most went along with the “Smart Growth Split Squad” to bust up certain neighborhoods to create corridor commissions. They simply chose to join ignore the overwhelming number of comments in the public record, more than 85% against the neighborhoods split.

Chairman Mendelson’s map undoes the task force’s damage while equalizing SMD size, which is the whole point of ANC redistricting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any CM that votes in favor of the Chair’s half-assed last-minute scribbling is not only sending a big FU to the dozens of volunteers who spent countless hours balancing competing concerns to arrive at fair solutions but is also telling everyone else in the city to never bother volunteering their time to help the Council out.

The task force didn’t balance anything. Most went along with the “Smart Growth Split Squad” to bust up certain neighborhoods to create corridor commissions. They simply chose to join ignore the overwhelming number of comments in the public record, more than 85% against the neighborhoods split.

Chairman Mendelson’s map undoes the task force’s damage while equalizing SMD size, which is the whole point of ANC redistricting.

They chose to empower the people who live in apartments and condos on the corridors over the single family homeowners who have controlled these commissions for decades. You are just upset about being relegated to the status of a regular, rather than entitled, property owner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any CM that votes in favor of the Chair’s half-assed last-minute scribbling is not only sending a big FU to the dozens of volunteers who spent countless hours balancing competing concerns to arrive at fair solutions but is also telling everyone else in the city to never bother volunteering their time to help the Council out.

The task force didn’t balance anything. Most went along with the “Smart Growth Split Squad” to bust up certain neighborhoods to create corridor commissions. They simply chose to join ignore the overwhelming number of comments in the public record, more than 85% against the neighborhoods split.

Chairman Mendelson’s map undoes the task force’s damage while equalizing SMD size, which is the whole point of ANC redistricting.

They chose to empower the people who live in apartments and condos on the corridors over the single family homeowners who have controlled these commissions for decades. You are just upset about being relegated to the status of a regular, rather than entitled, property owner.

Seven of the nine ANC 3C commissioners rent apartments or live in multi-family buildings. Another rents an ADU. Only one commissioner lives in a single family house in ANC 3C (not including the ANC chair who lives much of the time in the SFH that he owns in Maryland). So to say that single family homeowners someone “control” the ANC is simply Russian-style “disinformatsiya” (perhaps not so surprising considering the task force’s Trumpy associations).