Update on ANC6B and National Guard Beautification

Update on ANC6B and National Guard Beautification

by Larry Janezich

Posted October 17, 2025

Marcus Hunt, Office of the Deputy Mayor’s Director of DC Government Operations for the DC National Guard, makes a presentation to ANC6B.  Hunt has been billed in local media as “Director of the National Guard.” 

Wednesday night, at its hybrid October meeting, ANC6B re-affirmed its decision not to place a discussion of the National Guard on the meeting’s agenda.  The genesis of the proposed discussion was an offer from the Guard – via Marcus Hunt, DC’s liaison to the Guard – to help with beautification projects in ANC commissioners’ single member districts.  The offer was sent to individual ANC commissioners across the city.  Some commissioners suggested that since Hunt’s offer was sent to individual commissioners, the decision should be left to them, and as such, there was no role for the ANC in this matter. 

Commissioner David Sobelsohn continued to push to hear from two individuals on the subject. First, from Marcus Hunt, who was billed as the Director of the National Guard, but who is actually an employee of the Office of the Deputy Director of Public Safety.  He is the city’s liaison with the National Guard on the issue of beautification efforts.  And while he is also a Lt. Col. in the National Guard he did not appear in uniform and is currently not acting “under orders.”  Second, from ANC2G01 Commissioner Howard Garrett who authored a letter opposing Commissioners accepting the offer for the Guard to assist in beautification projects because that would “normalize” the Guard for tasks that belong to civilian agencies. 

It is routine for the commission to provide a period for “Community Announcements” and it was the consensus of the commission that Hunt and Garrett could use this time to discuss the National Guard.  Comments are usually limited to three minutes, but the Commission agreed to a motion to allow discussion at the beginning of the period and then subsequently set a time limit of 20 minutes. 

As it turned out, the discussion lasted some 40 minutes, but produced little clarification on beautification possibilities as Hunt discussed his background, history of the Guards and its relation to DC, his job with the Deputy Mayor’s Office and some of the beautification activities the Guard has undertaken.  He referred questions regarding the safety activities of the Guard to Master Sergeant Arthur Wright (who was not present), saying he could only speak at tonight’s meeting to talk about beautification.

During the Q&A, the meeting turned confrontational as some of the dozen community members attending in-person challenged the legitimacy of the deployment of the National Guard on DC streets – a subject on which Hunt could not comment.  One member of the audience expressed his appreciation for the Guard’s presence in the community.  Afterward, Commissioner Howard Garrett, appearing on-line, read a prepared statement reiterating the points of his letter (which many ANC Commissioners have signed) opposing requesting assistance for beautification efforts. 

Following the discussion, Sobelsohn proposed two more motions.  The first asked the ANC’s Public Safety Committee to make a recommendation about what commissioners should do regarding the Guard’s offer to help with beautification projects.  When that motion failed for lack of a second, the second motion asked for a recommendation from the ANC’s Parks and Public Spaces Task Force.  That motion also failed for a lack of second.