You can't swing a
cat across the DC blogosphere these days without seeing self-written profiles of current Advisory Neighborhood Commission candidates. And while it's great that the ANC races are now getting more coverage than they have in the past, the political cynic in me* is not a big fan of platitudes and general won't-anger-anyone stands. ("I'm for development! But also for the residents! And the schools!")
So I decided to ask ANC 6D07's candidates, incumbent
Robert Siegel and challenger
David Garber, a series of questions about Near Southeast, their impressions of the role of an ANC commissioner, and what they see as some of the issues the neighborhood is currently facing. And they were generous enough to respond!
I tried to ask questions that would elicit some actual information to help voters choose between the candidates, and so hopefully their answers will be enlightening. And no, I didn't ask about CSX and the Virginia Avenue Tunnel, because I didn't see the chance that one or the other might suddenly pop out with a big pro-tunnel-construction viewpoint. But I did ask which potential new Marine Barracks site each candidate would support, although it's worth noting that most of the sites that the Marines are looking at aren't actually in 6D07, but are in 6B.
So, read both
Siegel's and
Garber's answers (all the way through, you low-attention-span blog consumers!), and then remember to actually vote on Nov. 2.
(* I am a poster child for Generation X Watergate-instilled political cynicism, aided by the fact that Nixon resigned on my eighth birthday. I also broke a finger in a playground fight the day Jimmy Carter got elected, but I don't think we were fighting about politics.)