Arlington County staff and an advisory panel are seeking ways to become more active in Pride Month celebrations next June.
And the clock is ticking, one leader in that effort said.
“It’s time to start making some calls … get a huddle going with a slightly wider team and get an action plan,” said Samantha Perez, who chairs the county’s LGBTQIA+ Advisory Committee.
The panel held its quarterly meeting and last for 2025 on Oct. 27. It was the second in a row in which there was a discussion of what role the county and advocacy organizations should plan in 2026 Pride celebrations.
Cynthia Liccese-Torres, the race and equity programs manager in the office of County Manager Mark Schwartz, told committee members the county government would be supportive but did not seek to take the lead.
“We’d be happy to help work on some planning, but we don’t want to do that ourselves,” Liccese-Torres said. “It would be ideal if we could partner with the advisory committee to come up with some ideas.”
Time is not running short but planning should gear up, Liccese-Torres said. Some nearby localities already have announced their 2026 plans or schedules, she said.
In 2025, county leaders initially had planned little in the way of Pride activities, given the major WorldPride DC festivities slated for the District of Columbia.
But when some of that programming was scaled back, and when a privately run Pride effort in Arlington also faced challenges, county leaders stepped in to host a block party and provide support for other activities.
Between now and the LGBTQIA+ Committee’s next meeting in January, Perez aims to build up membership on the culture and community subcommittee, which would take the lead in Pride planning.
At the meeting, committee member James Fisher said another way to have a broader community impact would be to participate in activities surrounding the nation’s 250th birthday in 2026. Locally, the County Board tasked the Arlington Historical Society with overseeing programming related to the commemoration.
The Oct. 27 meeting of the LGBTQIA+ Committee marked the one-year anniversary of the body, which reports to county staff who advise Schwartz.
“Your role here and your activity is valued,” said Elizabeth Matlock, who serves in the county manager’s office and is liaison to the panel.
“It really is a priority for him, and he wants it to be active and proactive,” Matlock said of the committee’s activities.
Perez said the panel’s first year of existence came with a learning curve, and she anticipated more expansive activity in the coming 12 months.
“I think we set a good foundation this year,” the chair said. “Once we get a planning process going … we’ll have some good marching orders. We’ve got some good things next year to sink our teeth into.”
At the Oct. 27 gathering, held online, a number of committee members pressed for more in-person meetings of the body.
“Part of the reason I joined was to be in community with other people who have an interest in promoting the needs of LGBTQ folks,” said committee member Laura Tinter, who brought up the issue.
“It’s very hard to feel in community when I’m looking at little tiny boxes on a screen,” Tinter said.
