Advisory neighborhood commissions represent District government at its most local, granular level. Two D.C. Council bills up for consideration next month have prompted citywide discussion about the role of ANCs and the challenges they face with limited resources.

At-large Councilmember Robert White on Wednesday hosted the first in a series of roundtable discussions with ANC leaders that will culminate in a hearing Oct. 16 for two bills. One proposes to require that ANCs get opportunities to weigh in on Comprehensive Plan drafts before the D.C. Council examines them, while the other would establish a government unit to assist commissioners in scrutinizing complex housing proposals.

But attendees at this week’s two-hour roundtable, which covered ANCs in Wards 3 and 4, steered the discussion to consider how commissioners can better serve their residents and what the government can do to help. One ANC member said her commission started the year with a negative funds balance. Others called for the city to provide more technical infrastructure for members to communicate with residents and more recourse for dealing with uncooperative city agencies.

“It was reassuring in some sense to see that a lot of the commissioners were saying they had the same needs and challenges,” said Erin Palmer, a member of ANC 4B who attended the roundtable.

Each of D.C.’s eight wards since 1976 has been divided into commission districts, which are further sub-divided into single-member districts representing roughly 2,000 residents. ANC members, D.C.’s lowest-ranked elected officials, advise on zoning matters, restaurant and business licenses, and neighborhood grievances.

Though they can’t enact policy, ANC efforts often inform government actions and give voice to neighborhood concerns, as when two dozen commissioners this summer urged an investigation into Ward 2 D.C. Councilmember Jack Evans’ potential ethics code violations. A group of 20 ANC commissioners from across the city banded together to reject the one free perk for their volunteer job: the free parking pass.

White has said his goal for meeting with ANCs this month is to “deepen the collaborative relationship between the Council & our Commissions.”

The proposal to give ANCs a larger role in contributing to the city’s Comprehensive Plan for long-term development and growth came after some ANC members said they weren’t given adequate notice to weigh in on behalf of constituents during the most recent Comprehensive Plan cycle.

D.C. law requires that the city give “great weight” to ANC recommendations and comments while weighing action, but D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine told ANC members last year that the same standard doesn’t apply when the government is merely “recommending” actions that will be decided by the council.

ANC members have also raised broader concerns over their ability to reach constituents. Ann Mladinov, a member of ANC 3B in Glover Park, tells DCist that ANC members are constantly trying to overcome barriers to notifying every resident in their district about upcoming meetings and neighborhood happenings.

“Not everybody has email. Not everybody uses social media,” Mladinov says. “Some people put up signs on telephone poles in hopes that people will be walking by, but nothing is 100 percent effective.”

D.C. has substantially increased its budget allocation for ANCs in recent years, from $609,000 in fiscal year 2017 to more than $800,000 in fiscal year 2020. The current city budget also includes $160,000 to establish a mobile app that ANCs can use for outreach and engagement.

But some commissioners said that those allotments from the city don’t always arrive on schedule, and that some commissions are burdened by previous debts or other administrative hurdles in spending their funds on grants to community organizations.

As evidenced by the turnover on Palmer’s commission and elsewhere, ANC members also struggle with burnout, especially when painstaking efforts to reach city officials about ongoing issues prove futile, several said during the roundtable. Chuck Elkins, chair of ANC 3D in Spring Valley, suggested a training center within the city’s Office of the ANC, according to a Northwest Courier recap of the roundtable.

Palmer said seven of the nine current ANC 4B members started in January and had to deal with a backlog of issues and debt left behind by previous commissioners. “We were confused as to how that situation got to the place where it was,” she says. She says she hopes White will follow up on his stated support for more mechanisms that ensure agencies collaborate promptly with ANCs.

White will meet next Thursday with ANC members from wards 5 and 6, and additional meetings with members from other wards will follow.