As often as you hear politicians speak about wanting to clean up their neighborhoods, how often do you actually see them rolling up their sleeves and doing the work themselves?
On the second Saturday of every month, a group of Ward 1 residents in DC meet for community clean ups of their neighborhood. On Saturday, May 9th, they were joined by the five candidates who hope to represent that neighborhood in the city council.
Tenant organizer Aparna Raj shoveled mulch into the community garden. Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners (ANC) Rashida Brown and Miguel Trindade Deramo, along with ex Mayor’s office official Jackie Reyes-Yanes, picked up trash along Perry Place. And even activist Terry Lynch, recovering from an injury and walking with a pair of crutches, made it in time to share with neighbors during the potluck.
Those five candidates for city council are competing to represent the neighborhood that they spent that Saturday morning cleaning up. Residents of that neighborhood are calling on them to put their community and safety first.
“This is a great neighborhood with a lot of great people, and that’s what we need to focus on,” said ANC Gary Decker. “This is what a partnership between the community and government is supposed to be.”
Decker helps to organize these cleanings every month, describing himself as the “chief advocate” of the community he represents. His district, 1D07, lines the northernmost area of Ward 1 along 14th street, with some of the highest concentration of Latinos and Spanish-speakers in the city.
Locals expressed frustration that this diverse DC neighborhood has struggled with safety concerns for years, feeling as though the local government focuses its attention on other areas. Now, they are looking to the next council member to help change that reality.
“We are the very last part of Ward 1, and sometimes we get treated that way,” Decker said before the monthly cleaning. “I’m hoping someone that is hear today will be a council member who takes our neighborhood seriously.”
Conoce a los candidatos
Candidates: Tenant organizer Aparna Raj. Former mayoral official Jackie Reyes-Yanes. ANC commissioner Miguel Trindade Deramo. ANC commissioner Rashida Brown. Veteran civic activist Terry Lynch. PHOTOS: Fabianna Rincón - ETL
Between conversations with constituents and cleaning up their communities, each candidate spoke to El Tiempo Latino on how they plan to respond to the neighborhood’s concerns if they make it to the DC Council.
With the support of over 20 unions and progressive organizations, Aparna Raj focuses on a central mission to make Ward 1 more affordable for all members of the community. She highlighted that, although the community effort was incredible, she believes it should be the government’s obligation to keep neighborhood green spaces in good condition.
Before starting her interview, Raj also revealed that she is learning to speak Spanish. “I want to be the council member so I can represent all of Ward 1, and a huge part of our population are predominantly Spanish-speaking,” she said. “It’s really important to me to get my Spanish and have my communications be fully translated in Spanish so I can personally communicate directly with constituents”.
Latino and Hispanic residents of Ward 1 have never had a member of their own community representing them in the city council. Jackie-Reyes Yanes, former leader of the Mayor’s Office of Community Affairs, has centered her campaign on changing that
Reyes-Yanes assures that being part of the Latino community lets her build closer and more effective relationships with residents of the Ward. “We’re now nearly 120,000 Latinos in DC. We should already have a Latino councilmember, but we’re going to change that on June 16th,” she said.
Two Latino candidates are competing with the hopes of representing this historically Hispanic community in the Wilson Building. Miguel Trindade Deramo, another Ward 1 ANC, is betting on a “hyper-local” vision to better transportation, affordability, and basic services on a neighborhood level.
These cleaning mornings are nothing new for Trindade Deramo, who regularly participates in similar cleanings of Malcolm X Park, in the Meridian Hill neighborhood that he represents. “There’s no other way to be a candidate”, he said as he picked up trash. “You only learn about so many hyper-local issues by doing this”.
Rashida Brown is another Ward 1 ANC, as well as the candidate with the endorsement of retiree councilwoman Brianne Nadeau. Brown highlighted her experience supporting small businesses, affordability projects, and security efforts led and created by residents.
Working with community leaders, revitalizing public spaces, and even participating in cleanings like this one “is what a community does,” said Brown. “They stand up, fight back, and take control of things that are happening in our city.”
And if anyone is aware of what’s happening in the city, it’s community activist and “King of 311s” Terry Lynch. The Washington Post crowned him “the most annoying man in DC”, a title he accepts with pride as he files over 20,000 311 requests a year. To Lynch, solving city problems is “in [his] DNA.”
“I’ve lived in the ward 45 years, and this has been the key to success time and again for making neighborhoods safer, cleaner, and better for our children to be raised in, for having a future by neighbors connecting with neighbors”, Lynch said of the cleaning. “This is community building. We’re better as a neighborhood, and that’s our greatest resource here in Ward 1, it’s our neighbors, our residents”.
Efforts that “root you, literally and figuratively, to the community”
A bullet hole pierces the fence of the home of Siddhartha Chowdri, just steps from where his neighbors meet to clean their area. Chowdri shared stories of having bricks launched through his window, hearing music blasting from the street late at night, and MPD officials who he says seem unfocused on “actual safety concerns”.
“The police and the feds are spending a lot of energy following up on [other issues] versus things that actually worry me for my family’s safety,” said Chowdri.
Decker, who represents Chowdri’s neighborhood as an ANC, empathized with the concerns of his neighbors. “Unortunately, it seems that MPD and other city services that deal with public safety are extremely reactive.”
Motivated by their frustration with the reactive practices of their representatives, Decker and his neighbors have taken proactive initiatives to take the security and cleanliness of their area into their own hands. Their monthly efforts go beyond the plants in their community garden, creating a space that nurtures the roots and relationships that really keep them in Columbia Heights.
Anna Rozzo, a resident in the neighborhood, helped design and foster the garden using resources she acquired in the Master Gardener program at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC). While she instructed volunteers during the cleaning and watered the plants in the community garden, she shared how these efforts are “good for the environment, but also good for the community.”
“It kind of roots you, literally and figuratively, to the community,” said Rozzo.
