Those hoping to be Arlington’s next County Board member each want to see the body updated to meet the needs of the 21st century.
And that could include expanding the number of Board members, carving the county into election districts or adding an elected chief executive with strong powers.
“Things need to be changed — I would support it 110%,” Republican Juan Carlos Fierro said of the five-member, at-large County Board, which has been in place in Arlington since 1932.
He was speaking at a Monday (Oct. 21) online candidate forum sponsored by the Arlington NAACP. Fierro, Democrat JD Spain, Sr., Forward Party candidate Madison Granger and independent Audrey Clement are vying to succeed Democrat Libby Garvey, who has served on the body since 2012.
Each of the contenders took a slightly different route in supporting County Board structural changes:
- Fierro said he was eager for the body to increase to seven members, and perhaps have an elected board chair or mayor.
- Spain said that the fact that only four persons of color have served on the County Board during its 92-year history “is unsatisfactory,” and wants a county-government task force to get into the community and get feedback from the public, then move forward.
- Granger said Arlington needs to have “real conversations” about how the governing body should be constituted, including a focus on carving the county into districts “to better represent Arlington.”
- Clement said the existing governance structure “is unacceptable” and “has served to silence” opposition, whether coming from individual neighborhoods or from those outside the ranks of the local Democratic establishment.
From the Reconstruction era after the Civil War until 1932, Arlington (until 1920 known as Alexandria County) was governed by a three-member, district-based Board of Supervisors. Its members had executive, legislative and quasi-judicial powers in what until World War I remained a largely rural community.
According to media coverage at the time, supporters of changing the government structure in the 1930s presented it as a modernization effort that brought in an professional appointed county manager and limited County Board members to a policy-setting role.
But others have suggested that the change was motivated at least partially by fears that, under the then-existing district-based system, Black residents would be able to mobilize and elect one of their own to the Board of Supervisors.
It would not be until 1987 that a person of color — William Newman Jr. — was elected to the County Board. Charles Monroe, J. Walter Tejada and Christian Dorsey would follow.
Dorsey left the County Board last year after serving two four-year terms, leaving it all-white for the first time since 1999.
The Arlington County Civic Federation has been the prime mover in proposing changes to the county’s governance structure. But General Assembly legislation introduced earlier this year to empower Arlington officials to implement some of the proposed changes was opposed by some county leaders, saying the broader community had not vetted it.
During the 30-minute County Board forum, candidates also addressed issues ranging from housing and economic development to jail conditions and the County Board’s move earlier this year to fire the entire membership of its Human Rights Commission while limiting the body’s scope.
Janmarie Pena, who chairs the local NAACP’s political-action committee, said candidate forums were “vital to our civic engagement” and the NAACP forum would help the public become “engaged, informed and better prepared to vote.”
