PoP contributor Tony Lizza has taken on the mission of interviewing some Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) reps and this is the second in a small series. You can read the first installment ‘Oliver Tunda: The mayor of Mt. Pleasant’ here. If you know of a particularly interesting ANC member please email me.
David Tumblin is an incredibly busy man. Between his full-time job as a director with the Transportation Security Administration, his duties as an ANC member (4C), and his family, David barely had time for an interview. When we finally got time to sit down last week to talk, we didn’t get a chance to talk in person. We had a dilatory afternoon phone call, a testament to just how dedicated he is to all three of his roles.
David was raised in Tennessee, and attended the University of Tennessee, where among other things, he was a drummer in a rock band. Mercifully, he says, there are no pictures of his rock band years available on the Internet. After college, David moved to Washington to attend graduate school at Georgetown. He received his masters’ degree in Foreign Service and his government job took him from DC to San Francisco, and finally brought him back to DC. A note of regret in his voice suggests he might have liked, at least at the time, to remain in San Francisco. He now works for the Transportation Security Administration as the director of workforce analysis in the Office of Human Capital.
David first became interested in running for the ANC by reading Prince of Petworth. Ed. Note: I had no idea, sweet! After a heated discussion on the website, the chair of ANC 4C directly appealed to readers to get involved and run for seats on the ANC. David took the chairperson up on that request, ran for ANC, and will now have been serving for two years at the end of the year. He cites the example of a previous ANC member, Peron Williams, who he says, “knew everyone”, although he admits that he’s better at problem solving than community outreach.
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Ed. Note: A few weeks ago a reader suggested that some Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) reps be featured since many readers are unfamiliar with them/their mission. PoP contributor Tony Lizza has taken on the mission and this will be the first in a small series. If you know of a particularly interesting ANC member please email me.
When I first set out to interview an Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) member, I’ll admit to having some preconceived notions. I mean, what kind of person takes an unpaid position that involves frequent meetings about potholes and mundane parliamentary procedures? The role seems perfect for that kid in elementary school who used to ask the teacher for homework. More specifically, I imagined a bunch of over-involved NIMBYers who fear that any new local bar is going to turn their sleepy little hamlet into the next Adams Morgan. Oliver Tunda (ANC 1-D) did a thoroughgoing job of fixing my misconceptions about what an ANC member should be. I recently got the chance to sit down with him to talk about Africa, voluntary agreements, and some of his proudest moments as an ANC member.
Seated at the venerable Sangria Cafe with beer in hand, Oliver Tunda recounts the circumstances that brought him to the US: a civil war in his native Sudan that took him on a grueling over-land journey to Liberia and another civil war in Liberia that took him to Cote d’Ivoire for three years. Oliver has a remarkably sunny disposition for a man who’s fled two countries. He received refugee status and arrived in the United States on September 21, 1995. He repeats the date for emphasis. September 21, 1995. When he first arrived in DC, he moved to Mt. Pleasant, where he lived in the Deauville, now better known as the Burned-Out Shell on Mt. Pleasant St. He finished school at George Washington University and got a job at the State Department processing refugees.
In 2008, his local ANC seat became vacant, so he decided to run for the position. “I had been active with the Sudanese community,” he says, and he wanted to expand his involvement to help more of the community. He met with ANC members and local businesses and ran for ANC in the 2008 election. He ran unopposed and boasts about having won with 97% of the vote. “You can go online and check,” he says with a laugh. Dictatorial margins of victory aside, the electioneering feat he’s most proud of is appearing on a ballot with Barack Obama. “I have the ballot framed in my apartment,” he adds.
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