2022 Board Election Procedures

VOTING IS OPEN!

It’s time to vote for the ESSCA Board! We have a great group of candidates ready to serve the community and looking for your support.

Candidates for ESSCA Officer Positions:

President:

• Bruna Chernicoff

• Dan Reed

Vice-President:

• Gray Kimbrough

• John Seelke

Treasurer:

• Kate Myers

Recording Secretary:

• Kathy Napierala

• May Piekarski

Corresponding Secretary:

• Peter Tantisunthorn

Please see candidate statements below

How to vote:

All registered members may vote electronically or by paper ballot at our voting location at 743 Silver Spring Ave.

All members who registered via their email address will receive an email with a link to our electronic ballot (via SurveyMonkey). This link will only allow one ballot to be cast.

If you share a household email, or don't have an email address, please register via our Join Us page using the voicemail or text option. Once approved we'll send instructions for voting electronically or by paper ballot.

NOT A MEMBER YET?

Become a member by visiting our Join Us page and registering with your email address, by voicemail, or by text. Anyone 18 years or older living within the ESSCA boundary can become a member. All adult members of a household must register separately!

Voting tabulator:

Steve Mento has been appointed by the ESSCA Board to be the voting tabulator. Steve will be the owner of the election email address, and will tabulate both electronic and paper ballots.

Timeline:

By May 15: Neighbors become members using our new membership system to be eligible to vote.

May 2-May 16: Voting will be open during this time. Ballots must be received by 7pm EDT on May 16 (our regular meeting date/time).

May 16, 7pm: ballots received by 7pm will be counted by the voting tabulator and the results announced at our regular May Zoom meeting. Registration for the meeting is required - register here. Results will also be announced on our listserve, Facebook group, website, and newsletter.

If you have any questions about the election process, please contact the voting tabulator at esscavoting@gmail.com.

Board Candidate Statements

For President

– Bruna Chernicoff –

Hello! My name is Bruna Chernicoff and I am honored to have been nominated to run for President of the East Silver Spring Civic Association. I live on Potomac Ave with my husband William, and our 1 year old baby Bernie. Oh, can’t forget to mention our two lovely rescued Shih Tzus: Zeus and Apollo. I’m sure you’ve seen them around! I was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil and I have now been living in the US for 18 years when I was fortunate to come for college. In my professional career, I work in financial crimes fighting money laundering issues globally to promote transparency in the financial industry. I am passionate about wildlife and sustainability and support and advocate for several charities in South America and Africa. At the local level, I serve as a mentor at a nonprofit to students of color in DMV independent schools (private or parochial). There, I assist students in creating the connections and networking needed to help them find internships and jobs.

I am motivated to run because I strongly believe that our community has much to offer all of us. I understand we all have different personalities and although we may diverge on certain matters, I pledge to promote transparency and civility, and I want to work hard to strengthen our collective voice and bring our growing and evolving community closer together so that ESCCA works for all our citizens.

I would love to be the first Latina be president of ESSCA and to represent all of us with transparency, respect, and equality.

– Dan Reed –

Dan Reed is the current ESSCA Vice President and Planning Committee chair, and has lived in Silver Spring since 1991 and moved to East Silver Spring in 2019. Dan is an urban planner and freelance writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, CityLab, Washingtonian, and Shelterforce. He has been an advocate for equitable housing, transportation, and schools for 16 years. Dan has walked every block in East Silver Spring with his pitbull mix Drizzy. If you see us, say hi!

For Vice-President

– Gray Kimbrough –

Gray Kimbrough is the current ESSCA Corresponding Secretary, and has lived in East Silver Spring for a decade. Gray works as an economist and teaches courses at American University on data and housing policy. He also serves on the board of the Society of Government Economists, where he has increased outreach to students from underrepresented groups. He is a frequent traveler on the Grove Street walking lane and has sampled food from more than a dozen nearby Ethiopian restaurants. You can see him throughout the neighborhood walking with his two children, who may be zooming around on their scooters or bikes. Along with Dan, Kate, May, and Pete, Gray is running for the ESSCA board to build on ESSCA's accomplishments of the past several years, improve safety on Sligo Avenue, maintain the flow of information to neighborhood residents, and continue to make ESSCA more welcoming and inclusive.

– John Seelke –

I live on Richmond Ave with my wife Clare and our twin daughters, Anna and Madeline and our dog Blossom. I’ve spent my entire career in education, including as a math teacher, a faculty member at University of Maryland focused on teacher preparation, and working in central offices of two local districts.

Civically, I serve on the Silver Spring Citizens Advisory Board, am a board member of Docs in Progress, and have supported numerous projects at St. Camillus Catholic Church, including starting a school supply drive and a clothing drive for participants at the church food pantry.

I moved to this area because of its diverse population, and I’ve greatly enjoyed meeting neighbors from different countries, races, and religions. As a Hispanic whose mother came from Cuba, I’m sensitive to the needs of immigrants who move to the Silver Spring area seeking similar opportunities that my mother pursued.

I believe in the power of dialogue and in listening to those who may disagree with me, in hopes that we may find some common ground. Although we may not always see things in the same way, we can at least try to learn from each other and value our different perspectives.

For Treasurer

– Kate Myers –

I am a nonprofit executive working in journalism and have lived on Silver Spring Avenue for more than 12 years with my husband Eric and 11 year old Isaac. I enjoy sitting on my porch and talking to the neighbors ( come shout hi!), long walks around the neighborhood, Indian food, and grilling. This coming year, I'd like to focus on growing ESSCA membership to be more inclusive of our neighbors who may rent or own the small condos, and to make the ESSCA budget 100% transparent. With the elimination of membership dues, I believe this transparency will help encourage donations to support ESSCA's programming.

For Corresponding Secretary

– Peter Tantisunthorn –

I currently support ESSCA email communications. I was born and raised in DC across the border from Parkway Deli. I have lived in Silver Spring since 2008 and lived in East Silver Spring since 2016. I created and organized the Silver Spring Easter Egg Hunt, coordinated Taste the World in Fenton Village’s 5th anniversary, coordinated the Silver Spring Zombie walk for two years, co-created Pechakucha Silver Spring with Dan Reed and organized 20 volumes, and hosted seven Silver Spring TweetUps.

As an ESSCA officer, I have several priorities:

• Build a directory of management and condo owner association contacts in East Silver Spring

• Build a directory of contacts for local businesses in East Silver Spring

• Host two ice cream giveaways at the apartments and condos in East Silver Spring

• Establish a formal process for providing the ESSCA newsletter in Spanish and Amharic

• Develop fundraising communications throughout the year to support ESSCA and expanded programming

This is a lot of work. I will be recruiting reliable, high performing, non-officer neighbors who can help get these goals accomplished. They are challenging but worthy goals, and I am excited at the prospect of expanding ESSCA.

If you see me, say hi, but I might be daydreaming or listening to music

For Recording Secretary

– Kathy Napierala –

Hi, I'm Kathy Napierala, and I'm running for Recording Secretary.

In 1985, my husband and I bought an empty two- bedroom, one bath extreme fixer-upper on Grove Street. We were looking for a diverse neighborhood without new cars in every driveway. We raised our son here, from an in-home daycare through Blair High School. Around 2000 we realized the house had become too small for us and visiting family, so we added on to our house. We loved the neighborhood too much to move.

Now the front part of my house (my son grew up and my husband passed away) is 101 years old and the back is 21. The larger house enabled us to host an AFI exchange student for a year, and I have rented space to several housemates over the last few years.

I love walking and playing with my grandson in our parks, patronizing our local businesses, trying new dishes in our amazing restaurants, finding books at the library and Loyalty Books, and taking advantage of our huge number of movie options. Seeing these options grow and change over the years had been a major joy over the years.

When my son was young, I formed groups to help parents of children with learning disabilities navigate the Montgomery County school system. These days I work as an instructional designer for the Peace Corps. I volunteer with Silver Spring Progressive Action and am active with Buy Nothing and the Silver Spring Time Bank. Another project I'm involved with is healing walks for survivors/descendants of Indian boarding schools (Haudenosaunee - Iroquois - Confederacy, Seneca Nation, Turtle Clan).

My motivation to run for the ESSCA Board is to offer experiences with the many changes in East Silver Spring over the years, to get to know those of you I've never met yet, and to listen to and consider every point of view.

– May Piekarski (incumbent) –

Most of May’s family has lived in Silver Spring since before she was born. She grew up dreaming of owning her own home here, and in 2019 that dream came true!

May manages one branch of a small, locally & employee-owned business that has a location right in Downtown Silver Spring. She served as a Board Member of Woodley Park Main Street from 2021 – 2022, and currently serves as ESSCA’s Recording Secretary.

May’s goal in all her volunteer positions as with her profession is to support the communities where she lives and works. She practices the gratitude she has for being part of East Silver Spring by making sure that all of our neighbors have a voice, that renters feel welcome in ESSCA, and that more people have the opportunity to live here.

If you see her out on her porch or anywhere else please feel free to say hello :-)