Intro: In this interview, Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Joe Massaua (SFS ‘25) joins us to describe his experience balancing between being an elected official and a student at Georgetown. Learn about Joe’s journey from campaigning to winning the election and advocating for real change within our community.
Rob: To begin, why did you decide to run for the Advisory Neighborhood Commission “ANC” commissioner role? Additionally, your district is 2E I believe, so how does the “districting” work with the ANC position?
Joe: So the official term is single member district “SMD” and ANC 2E is the entire ANC that represents Georgetown-there are eight of us that sit on the board. I am 2E04 and John Dipierri (SFS ‘25) is 2E08. Yeah, our district is weird. If you go across the street Vil A’s in my district, but we’re in John’s district right now (Ryan/Hawkins Hall).
Rob: Oh, wow. So it is actually split up between those. What exactly is your entire district, again?
Joe: Lau, Vil A, New South, Leo’s, Wolfington, Southwest Quad, VCW and then I think the business school too. And John has the rest of campus. It’s odd because you have to live in your district. The terms are two years. So as a senior, I will have to live in my district until then.
Rob: So what was the reason you decided to run in this district?
Joe: I don’t know if you know of Reed Howard. He was with GU Politics for a while. He’s an Residential Minister “RM” in New South. He actually mentioned the commission to me. I thought it was a cool opportunity and I actually did a little bit of digging and my grandfather back in the ’90s was on the ANC right over in Foxall. There was also a little bit of a controversy because Georgetown University actually selects candidates for the office.
Rob: I was going to ask you about that.
Joe: So they chose the two people who were outgoing, I guess they were seniors or something. They selected somebody who was a sophomore, who’s in my district, and then they tossed it to GUSA. And GUSA, I think at some point had an internal thing where they asked who wanted to run for ANC. That’s actually how they chose John and then the friend of the two other people.
Also, way back in March, I saw that one of the seats was vacant because for some reason Georgetown students have been in and out and no one’s really served the full two year term, I guess, maybe since Reed, but I don’t even know if Reed served the whole two year term, but that was back in 2016, I believe. So most of them just serve it for a year as a senior or junior or whatnot. And so I actually started gathering signatures, because if you can gather enough signatures, you can just be appointed. You need like 25 signatures from voters in the district, which is actually really hard to do because there aren’t that many students who are actually registered here in DC. I think there were like 27 total people from my district, so I would have had to go get all of them. So, I missed the deadline. Didn’t get it. And then I heard about it from John, at some point in September, or October, and I thought it sounded interesting. So I look it up a bit and see that the candidate, other than John, that had already been selected met with the university administration before they were even elected, which I think was the wrong move from the administration’s standpoint. And whenever the next election is, we’re going to make that fully transparent and make it so that students know that there’s an election.
Thinking back on election day, I had a couple of my friends at the polls. Didn’t really run that much of a campaign because I didn’t even know much about it, and you’re stressed with all your college work at the same time. I won by three votes or something. I had four votes, and the other candidate had one, which I guess was himself. I don’t know. I brought like two or three of my friends to the polls. So I won with a 75 percent margin.
Rob: For clarity, did those friends have to be registered in the district?
Joe: One of them was registered in the district. And then the other one was not registered. But you can register the same day in DC. Yeah, with like, no ID.
Rob: Oh well, that’s another problem for another time.
Joe: So, the election happens. I didn’t even know about this, but apparently, you had to go in person to the DC elections office. Because we were both write-in candidates, the process of getting on the ballot involves all the signatures and stuff like that. So we went to the board of elections and certified it. And then I think we heard back like three or four weeks later. It was totally convoluted, like DC voting took forever in general. And there was even a funny election with American [University] where two candidates ran for the same seat and they each had one vote, which was their own vote. And so they tied and I think they did a coin flip or something. So very low turnout elections. I think John had more votes than I did because his district includes 3700 O. Street, and most students who live here are registered at 3700 O. Street. I registered at like 2550 Tondorf Road or something, which isn’t even like a real address in the Georgetown mailing.
Rob: Wow, well congratulations on the election. I also wanted to ask you what the process looks like and how it is working with the Georgetown administration as an ANC Commissioner?
Joe: So, generally Chris [Murphy] is our point of contact. Pertaining to the process, for instance, one of my friends mentioned to me that there’s no way for Georgetown students to determine if they’re eligible for housing assistance, or food stamps. And I thought that was really interesting. You would think that if we’re students, we might be eligible for food or housing assistance, or even food stamps. And I asked Chris, and he just said to ask the Office of Financial Aid. You [would] think that there’d be some sort of office here at Georgetown for socio economic access, besides just financial aid, right? Anyways, it’s a really weird administrative structure. I would like for them to hire out more people.
Rob: Is there anything you can do concerning a solution to the issues of that administrative structure?
Joe: It’s a really weird dance I have to play because basically, the university supports me and I support them on those things. There are a couple of policy issues we actually disagree on pretty heavily. For instance, I’m working on saving this bridge on the back side of campus. But [Murphy] gave me a phone call back in December and said that the university’s position is against it because it’s going to bring more crime into the neighborhood, it’s going to be an ugly bridge, it’s going to be too expensive, DC has never thought this out, and it’s an infringement on Georgetown University sovereignty. But I see it as just a bike trail and Georgetown students want to have that very resource. There’d be the ability for there to be capital city bikes all the way at the other side of campus. It’d be something you’d be able to show off in the university’s promotional materials. And that side of campus feels really neglected. I have actually evolved on the issue too, because when he talked to me back in December, I was at home and I thought it just seemed like a minor issue. We have had committee advocates working on this for 10 to 12 years, actually, without much progress because the university has always been shutting them down. The bridge would allow for the trail from the bridge, which is like three miles to end at 37th and Prospect on this old trolley line. There used to be a trolley, from the 1890s, which ran from Car Barn all the way out to Glen Echo in Maryland. It was one of the first electric trolley lines and the Palisades actually was a streetcar suburb. So the way it developed was people just hop on the streetcar and go down into the city. And that was before cars and everything. And the right of way still exists, although they shut it down in the 1960s. Really interesting story about how the trolley line shutdown was because of segregation. There was an amusement park at the end that was providing electricity for the streetcar line. And my grandparents actually went to that amusement park in the era of segregation. So there were all of these riots and everything. And eventually the amusement park just closed down instead of integrating. Additionally, the streetcar line was obviously falling in popularity to the car too. But anyway, the park closes and nobody touches the line. Things kind of deteriorate. At some point in the ’70s, or ’80s, there was a bridge over Canal Road in addition to the bridge that I am trying to save. That is why the university is mad because they don’t want to build another bridge over Canal Road with it being their service entrance/delivery. And you can do it without it infringing upon service or delivery. Anyway, that bridge was there historically. It falls down/gets taken out. WMATA, the Metro agency, comes to own the whole right of way. So the Metro actually owns this 2000 foot strip of five foot wide property in terms of zoning from 37th Prospect almost all the way out to Foxhall. The zoning maps for this area are really crazy. But anyway, there was this push to have the trail developed. I think it started in the early 2010s, in addition to all the other bike networks, and people asked, why do you want this trail when you have the Capital Crescent trail or the CNO, Canal bike path, or you have Wisconsin Avenue and stuff like that? And although they look really close together, if you actually look at it, there’s a huge difference in elevation. And the Capital Crescent Trail, which is like a superhighway basically for bikes. You see people on it all the time, people are always exercising. And there’s no way to access it. If you’re in the Palisades, you have to go out to Maryland, and then come back onto the trail. I went on the walk at some point, early February, no, late January. And I came into it, not really knowing much so I sort of decomposed what I heard from Chris. Then I came out and found that this is totally feasible. It would only cost maybe $6 million over 10 years or something like that. You build bridges and the right of way still exists. If you see the actual trail, people still use it and they walk on it, but it’s just not paved. It’s actually kind of maintained because community advocates maintain it. But if DC actually makes it a trail, it would not be that expensive and it’d be such a cool community resource. The estimates depend on which sides of the trail but I think the whole thing could be around $10 million. Georgetown’s a huge impediment to it ending at 37th and Prospect because of safety issues there already in terms of crashes with motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians. They don’t want to end it there because you’d have to build some sort of viaduct up at that front side of campus in addition to refurbishing the bridge that already exists there in the woods. Publicly I can’t really be in support of the trail because of the administration. Well actually, I think I can be in support of the trail. But the administration has expressed opposition to the trail. So I’ve been trying to get the process kickstarted a little bit just by saving the bridge. And WMATA, which is the Metro agency, owns the bridge, because of a lawsuit, like I mentioned, so they own the bridge, but they want to destroy it. They don’t even want to give it to somebody else. But it’s the only bridge of its kind left back in the district. And the thing about it is if it is restored, you’d be able to walk from McDonough bus circle to Foxhall to that neighborhood. So it would enable a bunch of pedestrian or multi use transit on its own. And it would allow grad students and students already living in Foxhall to get easier access to campus. If you look at the numbers, there are around 700 students grad and undergrad that live in Foxhall, which I think is mostly grad. Yeah, so it’s, it’s an interesting project that I’m working on.
Rob: So, what would be the process of restoration and dealing with WMATA?
Joe: So one of the resolutions we introduced in February was sent to WMATA and to DDOT (DC Department of Transportation), as well as to the mayor. Basically we requested to sell it to DDOT for a dollar. They will take it and then fund restoration, which I think preservation is 450 thousand. And then restoration is like $2.5 or $2.4 million. Okay, so it’s definitely a little bit pricey. But basically, the number one goal is just get it out of the hands of WMATA. They’ve filed raise orders, like three or four within the past two years. So it’s all on litigation and it’s on National Park Service land too. But it’s not owned by the National Park Service. Basically, we want to get it out of WMATA’s hands, and get it into DDOT hands. And then we’ve been fighting for it in the budget. There’s a great advocate Matt Frumen, he’s Ward 3’s council member. So Ward 2 is here, all the way to the White House all the way to Shaw. Ward 3 is basically Foxhall up to American University and back there, and he is the Ward 3 council member. So he’s been supportive of the trail and everything.
Rob: Can you explain the role of DDOT, or the DC Department of Transportation, in building this bridge?
Joe: Yeah, so here in DC, most transportation/transit projects get done by DC and the Department of Transportation, like highways and roads and bridges, as well as the bike trail/pedestrian trails.
Rob: So would they be willing to buy it (the WMATA-owned bridge)?
Joe: Oh, yeah, they want it. But they also want strings attached for money to restore it, because they don’t want to have to take it and then immediately have to deal with funding issues. For context, the budget cycle is after the mayor submits her budget, then the council marks it up three or four times, and then it gets passed. So we were trying to get it into the mayor’s budget. We sent a bunch of letters and stuff like. We sent through a couple of official channels and a couple unofficial channels. Anyways, at some point in the next couple of weeks a few of the council members are actually going to go and walk the trail. So it’ll be exciting to see.
Rob: I wanted to ask how greater national political ideologies affect the commission in any way, or even perhaps with Mayor Bowser? I figure that with more local issues, there would be less political opinions playing a role, but I would like to hear your response in regards to this?
Joe: I think most people on the Commission are supportive of Mayor Bowser and I think are supportive of the council. Most of the people here in DC are, and especially in the Georgetown neighborhood, I’d say are pretty liberal. But their status quo in the sense of, you know, things have been great in Georgetown for a while. There’s not much we need to change. We just seem to be a safe neighborhood. Most of the commission is in their ’50s or ’60s. So they’ve all had careers and everything. They’ve all been pretty effective. I think they generally support the mayor. In our group chat, like, every single day, there’s some new thing about pickleball. They’re obsessed with pickleball. And the mayor is obsessed with pickleball too. Like there was a whole event recently where the mayor came out and played pickleball/announced the creation of four new tennis courts. It’s obviously great to get people outside, but there’s a lot of other things to focus on, especially crime in Georgetown. I think that this is the truth of nimbyism, like not in my backyard. And just in general. They’ve lived here and they’ve had their kids here and they have great schools. And that’s a weird dichotomy found in the idea of the historic district. For instance, Burleith isn’t a historic district, so you’ll see all the crazy buildings and the gentrified nature of Burleith, but the rest of Georgetown is a historical district. So that is another nature of our commission in addition to doing liquor licenses and parking and stuff like that. If you wanted to remodel the window on your house, and add, I don’t know, a tiny little gable or something, it’s going to cost you thousands of dollars in lawyer fees. Plus, generally you’ll have an architect to do a tiny window restoration. And then you have to go through this historic board process. They call it the Old Georgetown Board (OGB). If historically, there was a patio veranda they’ll allow it, but if there wasn’t historically a patio veranda and you can’t prove that there was one, you don’t get one. So if your window is broken, you can obviously fix it, but if you want to change the style or the aesthetics or anything that’s possibly visible, then you have to go through OGB. Even if you have something in an alley and you could kind of see it if you peek around the corner, it will be under OGB review, which is crazy. I think backyard swimming pools aren’t, but that’s like the only thing that isn’t under review constantly.
Rob: So, how does the relationship between OGB and the ANC commission look?
Joe: We don’t coordinate much. Homeowners will submit their stuff to OGB. And we have oversight of OGB. OGB has their monthly meetings, which are like hours long. Because I mean, I’ve been talking to people about this and they said it’s the worst process in the world. And I understand that it’s a historic district, but there’s definitely reform needed there. But I don’t know if it will get reformed. But we basically will choose to discuss it at our meeting or not discuss it. We mark most items as “not under review.” And then the items that we do review, then we will bring the architect and will bring the homeowner and they’ll chat about their projects and be able voice their concerns, because, you know, neighbors will voice their concerns and show up, as well. Well, our next meeting is this coming Monday and it’s going to be about three and a half hours, four hours on Zoom. So the first part of the meeting, we have updates where sometimes we bring the mayor and sometimes we bring our Ward 2 council member. We’ll bring in local business owners, and John and I can give a brief update. I think we’ll talk about our new basketball coach. I was trying to get him to come to the meeting, actually, because I wanted him to meet the staff members, but we might get a video message instead.
Rob: So the mayor will actually attend some of the meetings?
Joe: Like one or two a year.
Rob: So who gets invited to the commission meetings, besides the 8 council members?
Joe: Well, a bunch of the general public’s all invited. So everything’s open to the public.
Rob: How much of the public actually attends?
Joe: It’s like 70 people and it’s a panel session. So you don’t see anybody watching. Yeah, it’s weird knowing that the Georgetowner is always there. So they always do an ANC round. They’re all older reporters. But yeah, it’s really interesting. If you want to talk about the liquor licenses we can. That’s really interesting. I’ve enjoyed it. We had Curry & Pie come to us for a liquor license and that was one of the first things that we did, but it’s just gonna be in store and it’s a Class C license. But the ANC oversight role is basically you have the right to protest it or not protest it. And historically, we in Georgetown have always protested it. And I think like five years ago, that was still the goal because we don’t want any more businesses with liquor licenses here. And then the pandemic happened and everything closed, including a lot of business. We lost so many businesses here in Georgetown. And there’s so many empty storefronts. I think the vacancy rate for “appears vacant” is like 14.9 percent right now, but actual vacancy is like 9 percent. For a healthy central business district, they need like a 3 percent vacancy rate and an “appear vacant” rate at like 5 percent. When you’re on Wisconsin Avenue, you’ll just see blocks of empty storefronts. The good news is that there’s a lot of businesses coming back, at least a lot of new stores filling those spaces. We’ve had like three or four New York chains migrate down to DC within the past semester.
Rob: How does the Commission work to incentivize businesses to come to Georgetown, especially post-pandemic?
Joe: So that’s not under our commission purview. But there’s an organization called the BID (Georgetown Business Improvement District). It’s the most powerful organization in Georgetown and more powerful than the ANC. They have like $50 million a year budget, and they get that from each business pays like a .004 percent property tax. And that goes to the BID, which is a public private partnership. So, for instance, they manage the official Georgetown DC like social media.
Rob: Oh, yeah.
Joe: Or like, you see all those people like collecting the trash throughout the neighborhood. Yeah, there’s like 257 trash cans in Georgetown and they change them every single day. And sometimes, like on the weekends, they will change them two to three times a day. So they have 40 full time employees and I think maybe 15 of them are just like “ops in business.” And then the rest of them are out on the street helping businesses and doing trash and sweeping and stuff. It’s really interesting how it gets staffed up in the summer. So yeah, the BID controls a lot of the business incentives. They negotiate and they do consumer services. They also do the canal boat, and they do all of those social media promos. The BID is where you go if you need something to get done in Georgetown. They’re also doing the “Gondola Project,” too. Have you heard of that?
Rob: I have, but I just couldn’t believe it.
Joe: It’s a really cool idea. I mean, it’s the equivalent of putting a metro stop in Georgetown.
Rob: Yeah. But I assume the university is opposed to it?
Joe: No, they’re actually quietly supportive of it. The thing is it would land right next to the Car Barn. A developer owns that property right now. He’s never going to be able to build on it. It’s an out of state developer from Richmond or something. And he believes that he is going to come to DC and build his first property in Georgetown. That will never happen if you don’t have all the credentials because you have to go through the historic review process. So he has to sell it now. He’s been holding it for a while. And DC was like, “Okay, we’ll sell it for 13 million.” He was like, “No, I want 18 million.” They were like, “No, we’re just going to eminent domain it from you.” And then he was like, “actually, no, like, I’ll sell it for 16 million.” And they were like, “No, we’ll do 14 million.” And then he’s like, “No, I’ll do 15.” And now they’re like, “We’re gonna do 14 and a half.” So we’ll see if that happens. It’s still in a lot of litigation. But the administration said that they would take all the money they spent on the GUTS bus to Rosslyn and put it towards the “Gondola Project.”
Rob: It is interesting that the university would be supportive of that, but then be concerned about a bridge on the back of campus. Why do you think this is?
Joe: Yeah, but that isn’t technically Georgetown’s campus. They don’t really feel it as part of their purview because they have a very specific and laid out campus plan that has to get passed every like 10 years, but they gamed the process and now they have to change it only every like 25 years. They even created an organization that I serve on and it’s called the Georgetown Community Partnership. They created this organization that dictates university policy with input from the neighborhood kind of. Anyways, they consider the bridge and the trail and all of that as being part of their campus property. But the Car Barn area is not really as vital. But I think it would solve this challenge that Georgetown has, because they don’t run the GUTS buses for students. They’re not run to connect students with Rosslyn. They’re run to connect faculty and staff members to the job because Georgetown has historically been a transit desert. I guess I wish more students here knew how to actually take the metro and stuff like that. I mean, all my friends see the default option as just taking an Uber. And I grew up in Philadelphia, like, you know, it’s $2.50 for the subway, just figure it out. Learn how to do it.
Rob: That’s why when I was first running for GUSA, I wanted a similar deal like USC has, where there are free Ubers within a three mile radius. As opposed to trying to get the GUTS buses on the weekends, I wanted to strike a deal with Uber.
Joe: That’s interesting.
Rob: Yeah, with GUTS buses running on weekends now, the initiative has lost its necessity, but it would have been good for the Georgetown community, especially small businesses. I know that you have done a lot for small businesses in your position.
Joe: Yes, I do a bunch of small business development. I work closely with Georgetown Main Street, which is kind of like the BID. But they only have one staff member, Rachel, who’s awesome. Just does everything herself. I think there are six or seven Main Streets in the city. And then it’s a whole nationwide thing. So the Georgetown Main Street is Wisconsin Avenue, because M Street is mostly big retail businesses. But Wisconsin Avenue is where all the small businesses really are. I actually chose to work specifically closer with Main Street than I did with BID. Rachel and I have a great working relationship. And we developed this ambassador program too when I met with her back in December. Initially, Elizabeth Miller, who is the Chair of the ANC commission, said that John and I needed to meet Rachel. So we sat down with Rachel. And she’s said that she wanted to connect these small businesses with the students. I thought about it and thought it was a cool idea. And then in January I told Rachel that we needed to think about how we were going to do this. She said that she had been wanting to do this ambassador program for a while and I just said let’s get it started and let’s figure things out so we can launch in the fall. But eventually, I decided to just launch the spring with a pilot program. And we had some delays in getting there. But we launched it, like right after spring break. And it’s been going all right. It’s hard to deal with accountability, especially when it’s just me and Rachel running the show. I mean, we have four really great ambassadors from all over the campus. And they do a lot of stuff to connect students with the businesses they want to connect to. But I wish there would be more buy in. It’s hard to learn how to manage people. You’re putting me in charge of these people when I’m really used to sending these emails, and doing this, and doing that. And now I have to manage these people who are sending it. So it’s hard to get people who are as invested in the neighborhood as you are. So we’re just trying to figure that out.
Rob: That sounds super, I’d actually be interested.
Joe: Yeah. I mean, we’re gonna hire again for the fall, if you’re interested. It basically is just a way to bring smart students to businesses. I mean, we haven’t even mapped out the program at all. Rachel and I are the ones who are still doing all the liaison work. But I can’t be doing all those connections, because I have a lot of other things to do. So we need more people on the team who are sending the emails and doing the database stuff so that the ambassadors are able to connect the businesses with the students. And I think it’s also a really cool opportunity to get mentorship to meet with small business owners in Georgetown and learn from it. So we’re really hopeful that this first crop of people that we have will get something out of it, and then tell their friends, which will lead to an institutionalized program where you have a really strict application process. At this point, we’ll take what we can get, because we just want people to care about the neighborhood.
Rob: Absolutely, Joe. Well thank you for agreeing to meet with me today. We are thankful for your commitment to the Georgetown community, on and off campus. I wish you the best of luck with those projects, and congratulations again on your election.
Update: In a recent conversation with Joe, it appears as though major progress has been made in regards to the Trestle Bridge. Despite the hard fought battle, Joe’s advocacy appears to have made a major impact throughout the committees of the DC Council for the Mayor’s proposed budget. Most notably, Councilmember Matt Frumin (Ward 3) offers strong support, as well as Chairman Charles Allen of the Transportation and Environment Committee, who has alloted $500k to preserve the Trestle Bridge in the initial budget. Although far from final, Joe remains optimistic that appropriations for preservation will remain in the budget.
