AUDIO: March 4th ANC 8C Mtng

Click HERE for a recording of last night's ANC Mtng. Will also be posting VIDEO of last nights meeting. The Advoc8te has officially taken off the gloves. This foolishness has to stop - our community can not waste one more day entertaining the egos and ignorance of people who feel that community meetings are their own personal kingdom.

At last night's meeting several people got fed up with the meeting and just left. Several people saying they can not take it anymore and at least one person promising never to attend another ANC meeting. THE ANC 8C MEETINGS RUN TOO DAMN LONG WITHOUT ANYTHING BEING ACCOMPLISHED! There isn't even water provided for meetings!!! How dysfunctional can you get that no one can even provide water for the meeting? Instead of spending $900 a month for office rent in an office we don't use how about sprining for $3.95 for some bottled water at the meetings? I have been in many other ANC meetings and they have basic refreshments. Those ANCs are also more efficient and actually seem to care about their community and actaully are encouraging people to come to meetings. This ANC actaully discourages people from coming out. The meetings are made as uncomfortable as possible to discourage participation.

The community is past the point of no return. Last nights 2 hour and 45 minute meeting accomplished diddly other than proving that their needs to be sweeping changes - starting with the leadership of ANC 8C.

We are past the point of political correctness and patience and hoping for a better day. We need to make it a better day and this foolishness has to stop and if anyone (and that includes the current commissioners) are not ready to effect immediate change then it is time to change them!

There is no good reason other than pure selfishness and greed that ANC 8C is a design in failures and foolishness.

It must stop. It is going to stop and for any commissioner who plans on staying on through the next election they need to understand this is going to stop one way or another. The demographic of the community is changing, people are fed up and if you (as a commissioner) are causing the problems or are turning a blind eye OR taking your sweet time then you can get your walking papers right along with the main perpetrators.

Tape highlights and more reasons why Mary Jane Cuthbert (convicted felon, EMBEZZLEMENT) needs to be removed ASAP from the ANC 8C Board (and any other community organization). We are all talking about the same thing - she needs to go. It's time to effect change.


  • Inability to behave professionally. It's no secret that she would rather see The Advoc8te go away (permanently) but she can't set aside (or at least hide) her contempt for the purpose of community progress. Whenever anyone talks who she doesn't like (or whom hasn't recieved the Mary Cuthbert seal of approval) she cuts them off constantly and repeatedly (as she did with me last night). She is antagonistic just to be antagonistic. It doesn't matter if the points someone is making are valid or are even in line with her views- if she doesn't like you then she doesn't want you to participate - period. That is what makes her small minded and petty and that is one of the reasons she has earned the title Mary "Cut-throat" Cuthbert. She is a tyrant and an inefficient and outdated tyrant at that. Who but a small minded person would rebuke a neighborhood (this case Oakwood St) for taking the steps to make a busy intersection safe by installing much needed stop signs? Only a petty, vengeful person gets in the way for community progress for personal reasons. FYI - the lone person who complained about the stop signs was one of Commissioner Cuthberts long time friends who wants the stop sign removed so she can continue to park her car at the corner. What kind of stupidity is this? Last year during an ANC meeting The Advoc8te brought up the need for either speed bumps or a stop sign at that same intersection (after nearly being run over in the crosswwalk by a driver racing through the intersection) and Commissioner Cuthbert's own words were "You need to talk to your Single Member District Commissioner about that - this isn't the place [ANC mtng]besides you are never going to get it anyway". Well we got it and it's staying!


  • At the 2:15 mark Commissioner Cuthbert sees that someone in the audience is quietly and unobtrusively video taping the meeting from their seat. Commissioner Cuthbert came over and told the person they could NOT video tape the meeting without getting her permission. You can hear the discussion back and forth were Commissioner Cuthbert was informed respectfully and repeatedly that she was mistaken that under DCs Open Meeting Statue, public meetings CAN be audio and video taped recorded as long as they are not intrusive to the meeting. Commissioner Cuthbert was offered to view a video tape of Simon Gottlieb meeting with ANC 2C last year (who had similar issues) instructing them that audio and video tape could NOT be banned. Open meetings such as ANC meetings are for the community and as such can be recorded. Not only what Commissioner Cuthbert was trying to do illegal but it highlighted her continued hypocrisies. Not but 2 minutes later were pictures taken by a reporter of the entire meeting - with her blessing. The Advoc8te suspects if the reporter was not in the audience there would have been a bigger scene regarding the video recording - which by the way was done at the request of a fellow Commissioner. Commissioner Jordan who would like to provide his constituents with an additional opportunity to view the ANC meetings if they are unable to attend. The Advoc8te invites the community to draw their own conclusions as to why Commissioner Cuthbert would not want an open meeting to be recorded - not the audience, just the board procedings.


  • 5:29 mark Commissioner Jordan votes to not approve the last meetings minutes because the Feb rescheduled meeting was not held according to the ANC bylaws. There was no executive meeting and there was no approval of that agenda or that rescheduled meeting. As usual everything was run Commissioner Cuthbert's way with Commissioner William Ellis along for the ride.


  • 124.10 mark it ALL BREAKS LOOSE when the question was asked of the Commission about ANC 8C fiscal responsibility. Commissioner Cuthbert went batsh*t and did not want to answer any of those questions and was royally pissed off that the questions were being asked. She kept cutting the question taker off and speaking over them and the other commissioners. As she said "I filed 3 of the quarterly reports". Ever notice there are never any "we"s coming out of her mouth? Very rarely. It's all "I". Sounds corny but there is no "I" in "Team" which is why up until this point ANC meetings have been FAILING (which by the way does have an "I"). Once the mention of the issue of the office rent came up she really lost it. Commissioner Cuthbert did not want to discuss it and to be honest the Advoc8te was extremely disturbed by the lack of immediate concern and action by the fellow commissioners. To be fair, there was some lip service and some vague promises for changes "in the future" but there appeared to be no immediate concerns for how 30,000 from 2005 - 2007 was just wasted for shared office space that no one uses;Mary Cuthbert is the only one with the key; is not held for meetings; and according to the DC Auditor costs anywhere from $900 a month to $1400 a month depending on the financial quarter.

ANC 8C COMMISSIONERS
Mary Jane Cuthbert
Cardell Shelton
R. Calvin Lockridge
William Ellis
Dion Jordan
The Advoc8teANC 8C Minutes, ANC 8C, Commissioner William Ellis, Dion Jordan, Mary Cuthbert1 Comment