Distinguished Service Award for Councilmember Sharon Ambrose

Presented by former GLAA President Craig Howell

GLAA 30th Anniversary Reception
Jurys Washington Hotel
Thursday, April 19, 2001

GLAA first began working with Sharon Ambrose some years back, when she served as Legislative Assistant, first for Councilmember Betty Ann Kane, and later for Councilmember John Ray. We worked together on a number of legislative issues, most notably perhaps on Mr. Ray’s ABC Reform bill of 1986. She quickly established herself as a woman of integrity and principle, as a woman of loyalty, and as a woman who was not afraid to get her hands dirty by meticulous attention to detail on whatever issue she found herself involved with. Any differences we had with her during those days as a staff member were those we had with her bosses. We had no cause to complain about her own performance and commitment to the cause of equal rights for lesbians and gay men.

Since coming into her own a few years ago as Ward 6’s elected Council representative, Sharon Ambrose has emerged as an invaluable ally of our community on issue after issue. She has employed her awesome knowledge of the minutiae of legislative procedures repeatedly on our community’s behalf. She has demonstrated her leadership skills on a broad range of matters, including public safety, human rights, and health.

Some years ago, for example, she played a key role in working for constructive remedies with the leadership at the Marine Corps Barracks when some Marines stationed there attacked a nearby gay business. More recently, as another example, when complaints proliferated about traffic and parking problems around the O Street SE businesses, she got the police, the Department of Public Works, and the business owners to negotiate successfully to resolve the underlying traffic issues.

Most recently, she demonstrated the depth of her commitment by standing up on our behalf against a firestorm of obnoxious and ill-informed criticism directed against her own ABC Reform Bill because of its repeal of the ban against the issuance of new licenses for bars offering nude dancing as entertainment. From the time when this legislation was first being considered, Sharon Ambrose ensured that our community’s representatives would be extensively consulted on this issue. She displayed the marks of a champion, as she successfully maneuvered this complex bill through the Council and the Mayor’s Office. Her ABC Reform Bill now peacefully slumbers atop Capitol Hill, awaiting the First of May (or thereabouts) when it will finally become law, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, and Terry Lynch notwithstanding.

Accepting the 2001 GLAA Distinguished Service Award on behalf of Councilmember Sharon Ambrose is her Legislative Assistant, and former GLAA President, Jeff Coudriet.