It’s prob­a­bly syn­chronic­ity that we acknowl­edge FBA’s June 30 cel­e­bra­tion of Dorothy Miller days before July 4 and the FBA’s 50th anniver­sary. Dorothy’s moti­va­tion has always been about com­mu­nity ser­vice, and always putting her­self ‘out there’ to call politi­cians and bureau­crats to task–to enforce the rules to pre­serve our sys­tem of vot­ing and civil rights here in FB and the District.

If you had a ques­tion on just about any­thing hav­ing to do with Dis­trict pol­i­tics, ten­ant pro­tec­tions, or insti­tu­tional encroach­ment and even­tual assim­i­la­tion of the his­toric FB com­mu­nity by these insti­tu­tions, Dorothy Miller would be the first to call to direct you to answers.

To fol­low the rules you have to know the rules– Dorothy’s over­ar­ch­ing life­time mantra. Elec­tion day you could count on find­ing Dorothy – no mat­ter how cold or wet, early or late you chose to vote – she was sta­tioned on a can­vas fold­ing stool out­side St. Mary’s Court, DC vot­ing Precinct 3, poised to chide any car attempt­ing to park in the voting-day-designated “hand­i­cap” park­ing spot with­out the required license plate or shoo­ing away the can­di­date sup­port­ers who were elec­tion­eer­ing too close to the poll entrance.

Her stri­dent con­cern often attracted roam­ing vot­ing proc­tors who, pre­dictably unschooled in “the rules,” thought “she” was foment­ing trou­ble and often threat­ened her with call­ing the police. Dorothy held her ground and often did her own calling-in of the author­i­ties and was invari­ably sup­ported in her concerns.

There is a huge les­son in Dorothy’s zeal­ous activism: the less regard gov­ern­ment has for its rules, the less require­ment for trans­parency and the “free” soci­ety we take for granted fades away in front of our eyes. While dis­tracted or assuaged by all the “pretty mes­sages,” and mumbo-jumbo about public-private part­ner­ships (which always include hand­ing off our pub­lic assets for a pit­tance), FB and the Dis­trict is los­ing our rich and lengthy his­tory as well as our future.

Dorothy Miller has stood vig­i­lant watch over “our” demo­c­ra­tic sys­tem to pro­tect lib­er­ties in our cor­ner of the Repub­lic. Those of us too busy or too uncom­fort­able to risk pop­u­lar­ity and to stand up for rules and pro­to­col for fear of ret­ri­bu­tion, or those lulled by the hol­low promises and shocked by the real­ity of actions will awaken one day, per­haps soon, with­out a voice.

Dorothy has never held back her views and among her mem­o­rable quotes was one from a 2007 FBN inter­view upon her ANC retire­ment, “D.C. stands for destruc­tion and cor­rup­tion. It’s unbe­liev­able and unac­cept­able.” How fit­ting that Dorothy’s good­bye trib­ute this past Sat­ur­day pre­cedes the July 4th holiday.

Thanks for your immea­sur­able ser­vice and exam­ple Dorothy!