Dear Neighbors,

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Thank you again for your well wishes and continued prayers as I continue to recover at home. Aside from daily, physical therapy sessions, I am attending to Council business and continuing to work on behalf of the residents of Ward 7 every day.  I was thrilled to return to Council meetings by attending last week’s legislative sessions.  ‍‍

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Now that we have set the new ward boundaries, we have begun to work on    adjusting the Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) and Single Member    District (SMD) boundaries as a part of the on-going redistricting process. Each ward councilmember was responsible for establishing a ward task force to provide ANC/SMD boundary recommendations.

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Language from the DC Code on establishment of ward task forces on    Advisory Neighborhood Commissions redistricting process: 
   
   (a) Each member of the Council of the District of Columbia (“Council”)    elected from a ward shall appoint a broadly-based ward task force on    Advisory Neighborhood Commissions (“ward task force”) for his or her ward.
   
   (b) In appointing the members of a ward task force, each Councilmember    shall give full consideration to assuring fair representation for all    racial and ethnic minorities, women, and geographical areas in his or her    ward.
   
   (c) Each member of a ward task force shall be a registered voter and    resident of the ward for which his or her ward task force is appointed.
   
   (d) Each member of the Council elected at-large and the Chairman of the    Council may appoint a person to each ward task force.
   
   (e) Ward task force members shall serve until the ward task force files its    final report with the Council unless the Council, by resolution, extends    the term of the ward task force.
   
   (f) Each ward task force member shall serve without compensation.
   

In addition to the DC Code requirements, we wanted to ensure that every    Ward 7 ANC was represented on the task force, as well as    participation from our civic and citizens associations.    

Through our social media platforms, newsletter and community listservs, we asked Ward 7 residents who    are registered voters and interested in serving on the task force to    complete a brief survey to be considered. We had 52 respondents to the    survey.
   
From those respondents and appointments from Councilmembers Anita    Bonds and Christina Henderson, we finalized our 19-member Ward 7 ANC Redistricting Task Force. Thank you for choosing to    serve! Many thanks to Tamara Blair and Joel Castón for agreeing to co-chair this task force:
   
   Brian Alcorn - ANC 6A
   Tamara Blair - ANC 7D
   Tomeika Bowden - ANC 7F
   Francis M. Campbell - ANC 6B
   Caprice Casson - ANC 7E
   Joel Castón - ANC 7F
   Dr. Marla Dean - ANC 7B
   Mandla Deskins - ANC 7C
   Wendell Felder - ANC 7D
   Malissa Freese - ANC 7D
   Keith Hasan-Towery - ANC 7E
   Justin Lini - ANC 7D
   Nisha Patruni - ANC 7D
   Max Richman - ANC 7C
   Eric Rogers - ANC 7B
   Ashley Ruff - ANC 7F
   Travis R. Swanson - ANC 7B
   Patricia Stamper - ANC 7C
   Lee Wilson - ANC 7E
   
The task force held its first meeting on January 20th, which was open to the public, to establish guidelines and time-frames for making recommendations on redrawing ANC and SMD boundaries. The task force    plans to conduct several public listening sessions to assist them in making  the recommendations. More details soon to come on the dates of the public  listening sessions.

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Redistricting in the District: What You Need to Know:
 

The Council of the District of Columbia continues its once-in-a-decade redistricting process. Normally, decennial redistricting begins in April, but a five-month delay in the release of 2020 Census data delayed the process. 

Below, you will find up-to-date information on where we are in the Council's redistricting process:

• January 2022: Ward Task Forces (which provide recommendations on ANC redistricting) started meeting
• April 2022: Ward Task Forces report out  recommendations
• May 2022: Subcommittee mark-up of the ANC     redistricting bill
• June 2022: Council votes on the ANC redistricting     bill

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Redistricting Resources

• See an interactive map of the 2011 ward boundaries here.
• See an interactive map of the 2002 boundaries (the     boundaries before the 2011 redistricting) here.
• See the Subcommittee’s approved final map here.
• Office of Planning website with initial summary     data from the 2020 Census, available here.
• The Council's legislative page for the     bill to change the ward boundaries is here. 
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See the legislative histories for the2011and2001redistrictingcommittees, including hearing videos, committee reports, proposed amendments, and vote results.