At 16, I found my voice at a public hearing – Greater Washington

This summer, GGWash was fortunate to host four interns from high school and college, all of whom worked closely with our policy team. Working with them was a full-circle moment for me, as today, Monday, July 22, marks exactly twenty years since I first testified at a public hearing. (Another entry in the ongoing series about what a jerk I was.)

I was 16 and about to graduate from Blake High School in Montgomery County, and the soundtrack of that summer was almost entirely emo bands: Something Corporate, Dashboard Confessional, The Format, and so on. Like many other kids who discovered this music, I didn’t have many friends or much confidence. My mom was constantly nagging me to stand up straight because I was so hunched over and trying to take up as little space as possible. But for the first time, I had a connection to something, and these bands weren’t just everywhere but after reading the book Nothing feels goodI learned that this scene had local roots. I felt inspired to get out of my house and find my people.

The catch: I didn’t have a driver’s license or any money. So I was stuck at home in White Oak unless my friend who lived a few miles away was riding his scooter down that six-lane highway to visit me, or I was alone in my room, chiming in on BeyondDC, Dan Malouff’s message board that was basically GGWash before there was GGWash. This is where I started to find this community of people who saw the world the same way I did. I’d read about Kentlands and wanted to create more places like it where someone my age could get around without a car. That same summer, the big D Downtown Silver Spring opened, and even though I lived in a place that was literally designed to be boring, my friends and I suddenly had a place to hang out and walk around as long as we could get a ride.

Meanwhile, I heard the adults around me organizing against a proposed housing project on a piece of vacant land I passed on the way to the school bus. It was a grassy field surrounded by an old chain-link fence and some big, gnarled walnut trees. I thought that if more people lived here, maybe we could get to things more easily on foot, like a coffee shop or a place to hear bands, or at least more frequent bus service. My family had also moved a lot during my childhood—five times by the time I was eleven, when my parents, after years of saving and searching, bought the house we lived in and were finally able to move out of our old, unsafe apartment block. It felt wrong that other people should dictate who could and couldn’t live in our neighborhood.

That’s how I found my voice and, I hoped, my people: I talked to my neighbors on their couches, at street fairs, and in the park about why they shouldn’t oppose the construction of new homes in our neighborhood. Unlike BeyondDC, these people didn’t agree with me, but every time I started a conversation with one of them, I got a little easier.

On the evening of July 22, 2004, the Montgomery County Planning Board meeting room in Silver Spring was packed. The commissioners had spent a long day dealing with problems from the housing boom: a report on increasing traffic congestion, large 800-unit developments on the edge of the county, new regulations preventing more large developments on the edge of the county. But these people were here to speak out against a proposal for just 14 units on Musgrove Road. And I was a witness testifying in favor of it.

A few days later, I wrote about it in my journal. “The neighborhood was against the project because it would inundate them with traffic, destroy their quality of life, and ruin their street by introducing sidewalks,” I said. “They came to scream… I was there to support the project.”

“So I went and I was nervous. I was sixteen and here I am, speaking to the county planning committee, against overwhelming opposition from the community… I had typed my little speech and was wearing a collared shirt to look older.”

They called us up three at a time and as I walked up to the podium, people were patting me on the shoulder and cheering me on. I explained how my parents had been saving and looking for a house for years and that if we didn’t build these houses here, they would just go somewhere else, so they should build more Houses here and make it easier to leave too. When I stood up and turned around, they all had daggers in their eyes. I was looking for my people, but instead I had just made a lot of people angry with me.

And… it wasn’t that bad. What could they do to me? I thought.

I went back to school that fall, a little more confident in myself. I started performing at open mic events—my signature song was “Hands Down” by Dashboard—and got used to being in front of an audience that didn’t hate me. In a convoluted way, that was my coming out. Soon after, I started making friends who liked the same music as me, and going to house concerts and gigs. Two years later, in the summer of 2006, I started the blog that would launch my career. Eventually, I found friends who liked the same music as me. And wanted to build more houses.

Three years after I gave evidence before the Planning Committee, my little brother took a photo of me pointing to a big hole in the wasteland I was always walking past. The development was supposed to have 12 houses instead of 14, a concession to the neighbors, but it was built. I had proof that I could make my part of the world a little better.

It’s amazing to think that it’s been two decades, but now I feel more compelled than ever to give back. There are a lot of kids who wanted to feel like they were part of something bigger than me that summer. This community has given me that, and hopefully I can pass that on to the next generation.

I’ve also put together a playlist of my hits from the summer of 2004. I swear it will change your life.