As a result, the project — which started last summer and was originally slated to take 15 months — has been prolonged by an estimated three months. Planners will now have to redesign the relocation process. Work is not expected to resume until “late spring,” according to a letter from the county to local residents and organizations.
The delay will also affect the Metro and ART bus stops that were closed and relocated as a result of the project.
Voting has just begun for the county’s 2011-2012 vehicle decal design competition.
Arlington residents will be able to vote for one of four designs selected for the competition. Each design was created by an Arlington high school student.
The bill would raise the tax on cigarettes from the current $0.015 per cigarette to the national average of $0.0725 per cigarette, or $1.45 per pack. Virginia currently has the lowest cigarette tax in the U.S.
The bill would also raise the tax on snuff and other tobacco products. Cigars would be taxed at 50 percent of the wholesale price, up from 10 percent.
We’re hearing initial reports of a power outage in Shirlington. A number of businesses in the Village at Shirlington are affected.
No word on how wide-spread the outage is or when power might come back on.
The spaces, located on the ground floor of an adjacent parking garage, are often full, leading to complaints to Harris Teeter management. Even though the spaces are reserved for grocery customers and limited to one hour, an employee tells us that drivers often flout the rules by parking in the spaces and heading to other stores.
The new meters are expected to “go live” on Saturday. Much like the meters at the Harris Teeter in Pentagon City, the Shirlington meters will have a button that will give drivers an hour of free parking. Coins will not be accepted.
Controversy over the text, Our Virginia: Past and Present, erupted in October when it was revealed that the book contained a dubious passage about black soldiers fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War. Fairfax County schools announced on Friday that they would be pulling the text after dozens of additional errors were found. Yesterday, Arlington Public Schools followed suit.
“APS was notified by the [Virginia Department of Education] last Friday, January 7, of the specific errors in the Grade 4 text,” Arlington Public Schools said in a press release. “Based on that information, school officials feel it is in the best interest of students to remove the print version of the textbooks at this time.”
The upscale American-style restaurant, best known for its four-year old Dupont Circle location, has been under construction on the ground floor of the Clarendon Center development’s south building (left) since this fall.
“The wait is over,” Circa’s management wrote on the restaurant’s official blog. “The pantry is stocked and the kegs have been tapped… There is only one thing that we need to make Circa at Clarendon something special: We need you.”
McDonnell Gives State of the Commonwealth Address — Speaking to a joint session of the Virginia General Assembly last night, Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) urged state lawmakers to put aside their partisan differences to help solves the state’s challenges, particularly roads and transportation. He also spoke of job creation and the rapid rise of college tuition. The speech was so polished that one state delegate from our area tweeted that he thinks McDonnell “is running for president.” Despite the overall bipartisan tone, McDonnell took the time to lavish praise on Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s pending lawsuit against the Democrat-backed federal health care reform bill. [Richmond Times-Dispatch, Washington Post]
Arlington Cop Helps Nab Jersey Bank Robbery Suspect — While driving on westbound I-66 early Tuesday morning, an alert Arlington police officer got a hit on a vehicle belonging to a suspected bank robber out of New Jersey. The officer stayed with the car as it exited the county. Backup — in the form of Fairfax County and Virginia State Police — eventually caught up and helped arrest the suspect after he pulled off the highway in Fairfax. [Bergen Record]
A reader, Christine, wrote in to ask about a parking ticket she recently received in Courthouse. Here’s her story:
I’m writing because I’d like to find out if any of your other readers have had the same issue I ran into last week. I received a $50 parking ticket for pulling front-end first into an angled parking space in Courthouse. These are the spots right next to the big AMC lot (cannot remember what street). Apparently the parking spaces were “Back-in Only”, which I failed to notice (admittedly this is my own fault). What I don’t understand is why Arlington is charging me $50 for pulling into a spot facing the wrong direction?! It’s not as if I was parking in a zone I didn’t have a permit for, or parked over a line taking up two spaces. It also seems like a pretty easy mistake to make, considering the street is 2-way and there is only parking on one side.
It was an especially busy week for thieves in Arlington County. At least 32 cars were broken into in the past seven days, according to the latest Arlington County crime report.
LARCENY FROM AUTO (SERIES) 01/06/11, 3200 block of Wilson Boulevard. On January 6 between 8 pm an 9 pm, an unknown subject broke into at least four vehicles in the same area. Various items were stolen. There are no known suspects.
It’s called ‘gerrymandering,’ and it’s practiced in state houses across the country.
But the Virginia chapter of the League of Women Voters has seen enough. Together with the national LWV organization, they’ve been pushing for the past seven years to take redistricting responsibility away from state legislators and put it into the hands of some sort of nonpartisan commission or process.
Assessments are expected to rise this year as the real estate market improves. The Sun Gazette reports that the average home sale price rose 4.6 percent in 2010.
Property owners who want to challenge their assessments should be able to do so via an online form any time before March 1, although the form does not appear to be online at the moment. More information on real estate assessment appeals is available here.
