ANC1B Fails to Achieve Quorum for Second Time This Month

Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 1B/U Street once again failed to achieve a quorum last night (July 17).

4 Commissioners out of 12 attended

This meeting was an attempt to take care of the business originally scheduled for the ANC1B meeting of last Thursday, July 10. That meeting, too, failed to achieve a quorum -- see SALM blog post of July 11.

This is the third month in the last eight that ANC1B has failed to achieve a quorum at its regularly scheduled meetings -- see also SALM blog posts for March 10 and December 9, 2013. This is the first time ANC1B has failed twice in a month to achieve a quorum.

Of the twelve Commissioners, seven were necessary to achieve a quorum.

The Commissioners who were present at the meeting were Marc Morgan (district 01), Deborah Thomas (04), Ricardo Reinoso (05), and ANC1B Chair James Turner (1B09).

The absent Commissioners were Jeremy Leffler (02), Sedrick Muhammad (03), Dyana Forester (06), Juan Lopez (07), Mark Ranslem (08), Alyson Carpenter (10), E. Gail Anderson Holness (11), and Zahra Jilani (12).

Of the absentees, Leffler, Ranslem, Carpenter, Holness, and Jilani had said beforehand they would not attend, so ANC1B required 100% attendance by the other Commissioners to achieve a quorum.

As a result of not having a quorum, ANC1B will miss deadlines to protest the liquor license applications of M & I, LLC (637 Florida Avenue NW) and Signature Lounge (1920 9th Street). The liquor licensing affairs committee of ANC1B had recommended that both of these license be protested on the basis of peace, order, and quiet.

The ANC was also due to talk about the relocation of the Capital Bikeshare station at 13th and U Streets -- see SALM blog post of June 25. While the Commissioners waited in the vain hope that other colleagues would show up, they heard a report on the topic. The Bikeshare station will move temporarily while the property on the southwest corner of 13th and U is redeveloped. There had been a plan to relocate the Bikeshare station permanently at another location, but apparently this plan had been vetoed by the District Department of Transportation (DDOT).

After the meeting broke up, ANC1B liquor licensing affairs committee chair Nick Baumann sent out a tweet promising to post a spreadsheet of ANC1B Commissioner attendance statistics.

ANC1B's next scheduled meeting is Thursday, August 7, at 7pm, at the Greater First Baptist Church (2701 13th Street, at the corner of Fairmont Street).