October 19 Special Election for ANC 1B District 2 Seat
Single Member District 02 in ANC 1B is in the heart of the U Street area. (DC Citizen Atlas)
From Tom Hay. You can follow him on Twitter @Tomonswann.
Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 1B announced an October 19 special election to fill the vacant seat in Single Member District (SMD) 1B02. The seat has been vacant since Commissioner Aaron Spencer resigned because he was moving out of the SMD. The western boundary of the district is 14th Street NW from S to V Streets.
The special election will be held on Wednesday, October 19, from 6:30 to 8:30 pm, at the Thurgood Marshall Center at 1816 12th Street NW. Voters must either present their voter ID card indicating that they live within 1B02 boundaries and/or be listed on the DC Board of Elections and Ethics voter registration list.
Two candidates filed the required nominating petitions with the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics (BOEE): Alexandra Lewin-Zwerdling and Stanley Mayes. Both are residents of Wallach Place NW, which is a block of single-family row houses just south of U Street. It is Lewin-Zwerdling’s first run for public office. Mayes participated in some of the candidate forums for the April 26 special election for the vacant At-Large seat on the DC Council, but withdrew before election day.
Spencer won the 1B02 seat in November 2010, defeating incumbent Peter Raia and another challenger, Tucker Gallagher. The winner of the special election will serve until January 2013. However, the district boundaries for the 2012 election will be much different.
SMD 02 has grown at a rapid rate due to additional residents in new buildings and will have to be split up to meet the population guidelines for SMDs (2,000 with an acceptable range of 1,900 to 2,100). The Ward 1 ANC Redistricting Task Force earlier this week sent a recommended map to the City Council. Under the proposed boundaries, a sizable chunk of SMD 02 would be split off to form a new 12th district. The proposed map is available online.
