Morning Notes

by Katie Pyzyk | March 22, 2013 at 8:45 am | 660 views | 12 Comments

Election Officials Seek Funding for Scanners — County election officials hope the County Board approves funding for bar code scanners that could speed up voter check-in at the polls. The scanners would read the codes on voters’ drivers’ licenses and voting cards, which would more quickly bring up residents’ information. A final County Board decision might not happen until the end of the fiscal year. [Sun Gazette]

Local Woman to Appear on Jeopardy! — Arlington resident Mary Jo Shoop will compete tonight on America’s popular quiz show, Jeopardy! During her time taping the show, Shoop was able to meet and get photos with host Alex Trebek. The episode will air tonight (Friday) at 7:30 p.m. on ABC 7 (WJLA).

APS Requests $0.005 Tax Rate Increase — (Updated at 10:00 a.m.) — Thursday night’s School Board meeting began with the announcement that the schools have asked the county for a one-half of one cent increase in the tax rate, which adds up to about $3 million. The funds would cover shortfalls in the proposed Fiscal Year 2014 budget of $520 million. APS Board Chair Emma Violand-Sanchez said the spring 2013 enrollment figures were higher than expected, prompting the need for more county money. [Arlington Mercury]

School Board Appoints Assistant Superintendent of Facilities and Operations — John Chadwick was named the new Assistant Superintendent of Facilities and Operations at last night’s (March 21) School Board meeting. He has served as the interim assistant superintendent since Feb. 1, and has served as the APS Director of Design and Construction since 2011. “John is a calm and reassuring leader as he has worked to collaborate with staff and the community on initiatives such as our recently-adopted ten-year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). He has also been an adept manager for all of our recent capital improvement projects, including the construction at Yorktown and Wakefield and the planning of a new elementary school to be built on the Williamsburg site and the addition at Ashlawn,” said APS Superintendent Dr. Patrick Murphy. “John’s leadership over the past two years for our ‘More Seats for More Students’ deliberations, as well as his support for the work of our new Multimodal Transportation Committee and our many other collaborative efforts with the Arlington County Government have been a tremendous asset to APS.”

Flickr pool photo by Wolfkann

Betty Everett

I hope Mary Jo did well.
vc

Having served as an election monitor, our biggest problem was that voters who had registered at the DMV had not had their registration forwarded to the County Elections office. We need to bring the DMV up to speed.
- Suburban Not Urban
  
  Does anyone think the critical path item at their precinct is checkin? ours is always the voting machines. Seems like a waste of money to me.
Hugh Jass

“I’ll take Arlington flip-overs for 500, Alex”.
Sandra

I was on Jeopardy back in 2002 and won twice. Congrats, Mary Jo — I know exactly what you went through. It *is* so much easier to play from your couch.
- SomeGuy
  
  11/6/2002: “In September 1941 this author christened the warship Atlanta, also known as ‘The Mighty A.’”
  - Arlingtoon
    
    Who was Margaret Mitchell, author of “Gone With the Wind.”
Just Wondering

If we got rid of an “Assistant Superintendent of Facilities and Operations” and maybe one or two other school system bureaucrats, could we avoid the $0.005 tax rate increase?
- Sam
  
  And your work title is what?
- ARL
  
  Because getting rid of managers always makes an organization more efficient and therefore wastes less money than it saves.
Wayne Kubicki

APS formally asking for more $$$ than proposed by the County Manager is a first since the concept of “revenue sharing” was introduced, is it not?
- Suburban Not Urban
  
  I say let them, and then take them off the automatic #, so they will need to justify what they spend, not just spend out of the pile.

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