While voters across the country voted for change Tuesday, Georgetown got some change of its own in the form of new student Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner, Aaron Golds (COL `11), who was elected to a two-year term. Golds has taken on a thankless job characterized by late nights discussing zoning, and he should be commended for sacrificing his time for the student body. Still, he must make sure that, unlike past student commissioners, he always remembers to represent students and not the wishes of other ANC commissioners.
The ANC controls many neighborhood issues, ranging from liquor licenses, parking, and new building construction. On its surface, the ANC is free of the rancor that afflicts the bigger forums of D.C. government. Almost all resolutions pass unanimously, and serious disagreement is confined to private executive meetings. This is as it should be—a pothole has no party affiliation, after all. But in the past, this collegiality has so dazzled our representatives that they have forgotten to represent students.
Take Golds’ predecessor, Jenna Lowenstein (COL `09). Lowenstein faced few votes on issues important to students, but on one such vote she let down her constituents. When the ANC proposed a resolution extending the keg limit off-campus, she didn’t just vote for it—she co-sponsored it with Commissioner Ron Lewis, arguably the most anti-student commissioner. Lowenstein later changed her vote, but she had already revealed herself as a student representative in name only.
Alcohol and party issues like the keg limit are often the most important issue in student-neighborhood relations. Listen to the Community Comment section of any ANC meeting, and you’ll soon realize that the neighbors think that something needs to be done about those loud kids. Golds must be vigilant in protecting student rights. Given the preponderance of anti-student votes on the commission, Golds would lose almost any vote defending student rights, but denying their efforts the imprimatur of Georgetown students would be more than Lowenstein ever gave us.
Golds will also face opposition from neighborhood activists on the University’s 10 Year Plan. While the plan is still in its earliest stages, it is likely to include an expansion of Lauinger Library, a contentious issue in the neighborhood. Golds should not let Not-In-My-Backyard sentiments at the ANC kill an innocuous project that’s necessary for Georgetown’s intellectual development.
For all the fights Golds has ahead of him, he seems strangely uninterested in the ANC. He didn’t show up at Tuesday’s meeting to promote his candidacy, for example. Hopefully Lowenstein, who became a fine commissioner despite the keg fiasco, will teach him how to handle the commission before he takes office. He might not want to learn, but we need him to.
