An Advisory Neighborhood Commission taskforce is discussing plans to create an ANC district comprised entirely of AU students.
The plan would group all of AU except for Letts, Clark and Roper Halls into ANC 3D 07, the district seat currently held by student Deon Jones.
Letts, Clark and Roper Halls would fall with Spring Valley neighborhood under ANC 3D 02, currently headed by ANC 3D Chairman Tom Smith.
Taskforce Chair Dr. Jeffrey Kraskin said all of AU would ideally fall into one district, but AU’s resident hall population is over the 2,000-person cap per district.
“It has to be done; we have to break it apart,” Kraskin said.
All D.C. wards redistricting
The changes come as all D.C. wards are redistricting, a process that occurs every 10 years.
Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh organized the Ward 3 redistricting taskforce, made of about 40 representatives, including community members and ANC commissioners.
Each district in Ward 3 (3B, 3C, 3D, 3E and 3G) created their redistricting map. Tonight, all districts will come together and will likely vote on a new Ward 3 map, Kraskin said. A final map and written statement must be submitted to the councilmembers and the D.C. Subcommittee on Redistricting by Oct. 11. The D.C. Council makes the final decision on redistricting, which will go into effect for the 2012 elections next year.
Although it is still early in terms of executing such a plan, Smith said he supports the idea of redistricting.
“American University is an important part of the community and the students are an important part of the community,” he said. “They have as much right to be represented on the ANC as anybody else.”
Smith added that there are about 2,800 students who count toward the census, and the maximum a district can have is 2,000 people.
Students approve of AU-only district
“We’re trying to unite the campus community with the community at large, and the best way to do this is to have a guaranteed student seat,” said Joe Wisniewski, a sophomore in SPA that has attended the past three redistricting meetings for Jones.
Jonathan Sherman, a sophomore in SIS who last year worked on A Voice for U, an AU campaign working to give students more representation in the local community, said putting 90 percent of AU in Jones’ district is the best way to get a student on the ANC for the next few years. However, Sherman adds that for the future, it is better to keep the districts essentially as they are now.
“Tom Smith will move on to something bigger and better in D.C. politics or retire at some point, which may be our chance to move in and have two student representatives,” Sherman said. “If this campaign is looking towards the future, we’re going to hope that the districts stay the same. If we’re looking at today, we’ll advocate for the one-district plan.”
In the future, Smith and Kraskin said AU might have two student-only districts as a result of plans by the University to increase housing, increasing the number of students to be counted.
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