Ward 8 Special Election Profile: Sheila Bunn

NOTE: This is the second of three (or four— depending on whether former D.C. Councilmember Trayon White accepts our invitation for an interview) candidate profiles to be released before the July 15 special election for the Ward 8 D.C. Council seat.

Earlier this year, while in the throes of a campaign for the Ward 8 D.C. Council seat, Sheila Bunn visited Congress, where she and several other District residents organized against Republicans’ decimation of D.C.’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget. 

Bunn’s subsequent traversals throughout Ward 8, and other parts of the District, have taken her, as recently as this month, in front of Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. Unbeknownst to her, that’s where her daughter and other young people would issue demands for more direct involvement in local policy and budgetary matters.     

That moment, Bunn said, evoked a sense of pride. 

“So many young people are doing the right thing, but we only hear about that minority…that are not doing the right thing,” she told The Informer. “So seeing my kid up there expressing herself and talking on behalf of her peers was awesome and amazing.” 

Bunn said, if elected as Ward 8’s next council member, she would carve out a space in the Ward 8 office for a young Ward 8 resident to represent their peers. She described the position as part of an effort to better and more directly, include youth in policy decisions. 

As it relates to her daughter, Bunn advised her and her comrades, the likes of which include D.C. Public Schools alumna Aniya Coffey and D.C. State Board of Education Representative Calique Barnes, to follow through on their 40-day youth-led campaign. 

“I charged them to come out of that session with an actual plan on paper,” Bunn said. “Don’t just say you’re going to have meetings, but hold your elected officials accountable. Come out with a plan, come out with some legislative proposals so that we can implement things on your behalf that you’re saying that you need.” 

Sheila Bunn: A Daughter of Ward 8 

On July 15, Bunn’s name will appear on a Ward 8 D.C. Council special election ballot that also includes: Salim Adofo, Mike Austin, and a beleaguered Trayon White who’s running for the seat he lost when his council colleagues expelled him earlier this year. 

If Bunn wins, she will serve out the rest of White’s council term, which ends in early 2029.

Bunn, a lifelong Ward 8 resident and public servant of 30 years, credits her father, the late James Bunn, as a guiding light as she takes aim at the vacant Ward 8 D.C. Council seat.   

The elder Bunn, a civic and business leader, died in 2013 having already cemented a legacy as a community builder. He was born in Baltimore and lived in North Carolina before joining the Air Force and setting roots in the District in 1964.  

Less than a decade later, after moving to Ward 8, Bunn opened the Bunn Building on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, located just a couple doors down from The Informer.  

The storefront served as a barbershop, beauty supply store, grocery store and carryout. It also housed businesses and was a meeting point for Bunn, who served in various capacities, including: advisory neighborhood commissioner, chairman of the Ward 8 Democrats, chairman of the Congress Heights Main Streets, and executive director of the Ward 8 Business Council. 

“That is the example that I grew up under,” Bunn told The Informer. “I believe my experience and my love for Ward 8, my knowledge of the council, how it works, how legislation works, how legislation, when implemented, can move the needle in the ward.” 

During the earlier part of June, Bunn spoke with The Informer in front of the Bunn Building. She recounted her coming of age on “The Ave” that included time spent at Georgina’s, the spot also known as The Player’s Lounge. 

Bunn also reflected on seeing her father work with Parklands Community Center founder Brenda Jones, the late advisory neighborhood commissioner Mary Cuthbert, along with several other community leaders who visited the Bunn Building.

“I grew up right here…watching my father…do for this community what I want to do,” Bunn told The Informer. “Making sure that the residents [and] small businesses had a seat at the proverbial table, making sure that their voices and their issues were heard and addressed.” 

If Bunn wins the special election, she’ll be making her way back to the John A. Wilson Building, where she most recently served as D.C. Councilmember Vincent C. Gray’s chief of staff and, before that, D.C Mayor Gray’s deputy chief of staff.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sam P.K. Collins (@sampkcollins)

As a staffer in Gray’s office, Bunn immersed herself in the District budget, early childhood education, and health equity. While she touts her involvement in the universal pre-kindergarten legislation that Gray championed, Bunn identified the St. Elizabeths East redevelopment— one of Gray’s other longtime projects— as a landmark of note that continues to benefit Ward 8 residents. 

“From that work, we now have Care First Arena. We have Sycamore and Oak incubating 10 Black businesses. We have housing. We also now have the new Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center,” Bunn said. “That was a project very near and dear to my heart that I was able to work on in the mayor’s office. For the first time in eight years, women on the east side of the city can deliver their babies right here in Ward 8 and not travel across town for gynecological services.”

Bunn’s Campaign Manager Weighs In on Statehood Fight

Before local government, Bunn spent 16 years on the Hill as a high-level staffer in D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton’s office, where she helped develop legislation related to DCTAG and District budget and legislative autonomy. 

Other political and professional experiences include a stint as director of the Consumer Services Division of the Office of the People’s Counsel, and ongoing involvement in local and national Democratic politics. 

Stuart Anderson, Bunn’s campaign manager and fellow D.C. Democratic leader told The Informer that, out of all the special election candidates, Bunn stands the greatest chance of helping the District achieve statehood. 

He said that she’ll leverage her national influence to move the dial during a critical time that’s fast approaching. 

“From the moment she’s sworn in, she is encouraging people to support congressional races across this country to try to take back the Senate and maintain as much of the House as we have,” Anderson told The Informer. 

This mission, Anderson said, sets the District up for a legislative victory within the next couple of years. 

“Even though we’re not a majority in the House, we’re in a good space…when it comes to statehood,” Anderson said. “The problem is in the Senate and Sheila understands that…better than any of the other candidates because she spent all those years working with Eleanor Holmes Norton.” 

Last year, as news broke of former Ward 8 D.C. Councilmember Trayon White’s arrest, Anderson, a D.C. Democrats Ward 8 committeeman, and Bunn, an add-on committee member, represented the District at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. 

That’s where, as Anderson recounted, he was reminded about how little people from other states know about the generations of residents who call D.C. home.  

“There are a lot of people—and not just their representatives—who come here and vote and administer the affairs of government for the country,” Anderson told The Informer. “It’s a lot of people who really don’t know that real people…actually live and raise families and work in this city, so that’s a huge hurdle for us.”  

For the first time in recent memory, the D.C. Democrats educated delegates and convention attendees at a D.C. statehood booth. While he couldn’t confirm that Bunn manned the booth at the 2024 convention, Anderson said she engaged in conversations about how it could accurately represent native Washingtonian history and culture. 

“Some of the stuff that is really important to the push for statehood,” Anderson said. “These other candidates…weren’t in Chicago. They weren’t in the conversations to come up with the idea of how do we tell people in other parts of this country [the importance of] having equal rights.” 

Bunn Speaks on Public Safety

Bunn’s legislative priorities include: increasing access to healthy and affordable foods; tackling chronic absenteeism and truancy; supporting Ward 8 small businesses; and creating safe communities. On the last point, Bunn, via her website, said she plans to fight for increased funding for Safe Passage and out-of-school time programming. 

If elected, Bunn said she wants to bridge some of the more recent divides to affect Ward 8. “As you know, Navy Yard is now part of Ward 8,” Bunn told The Informr. “And I’ve heard that they don’t feel included on this side.” 

After an untold amount of time spent on residents’ front steps, Bunn also has her sights set on further supporting the Metropolitan Police Department.  

“I want to make sure that our community not just feels safe, but is safe,” Bunn said. “Part of that is making sure that our Metropolitan Police Department is shored up in terms of staffing, so that they have the right number of officers, whatever that number is, so that we can for sure see officers walking the beat.” 

At a time when Ward 8 communities are suffering from gun violence, Bunn went on to say that residents want to see officers go above and beyond in their duties. 

“They want to see presence in our neighborhoods,” Bunn told The Informer. “Not just sitting in cars, but making sure that officers are making connections with business owners and residents.”