Discontent over changes to the Bicycle Advisory Committee has continued, with some members now appearing in open revolt against County Manager Mark Schwartz.
At a Nov. 3 meeting, some went so far as to suggest the BAC no longer serves a clear purpose, given its reduced role.
“There’s nothing that keeps [the committee] in existence except the county manager saying he wants one, and it’s not clear that he does,” said committee member Steve Offutt at a Nov. 3 meeting.
This came on the heels of an Oct. 8 joint meeting between the BAC and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (PAC) with county staff, which got heated as staff attempted to rein in the two panels’ responsibility.
And that meeting was a follow-up to a March 12 gathering between Schwartz and the two committees, where he first laid down plans for limiting the panels’ roles on specific projects and moving them to a more policy-advisory role.
After those two meetings, feelings among BAC members appear to range from confusion to anger.
“It’s pretty clear they don’t have a role for us,” committee member Hanna said at the Nov. 3 meeting.
At the October meeting, members of Schwartz’s staff said there would no longer be staff resources available to attend committee meetings to discuss specific development projects going on throughout the community.
Instead, members of those committees were advised to utilize other public engagement opportunities to express their views on those projects.
Cynthia Palmer, who chairs BAC, believes shunting aside the two bodies is a loss for the development process and, ultimately, for county residents.
“They are missing an opportunity, a resource, that is free of charge,” she said.
Unlike many on the county staff, members of the two advisory committees “walk and ride through these places every day,” committee member Andrew Martin said. As a result, they offer a unique perspective.
Palmer leads committee meetings with a perpetually mild-mannered disposition. But the unfolding situation has left her perplexed.
“It’s really unclear to me what Arlington wants,” Palmer said, suggesting Schwartz and leadership of the county’s Department of Environmental Services has “essentially written off its road-safety committees to some extent.”
One reason they may still be in existence, the chair speculated, is that the county government needs to have them in order to secure high marks on bikeability and walkability scorecard and awards issued by some advocacy organizations.
Arlington’s advisory commissions report to the County Board. Committees, on the other hand, are a creature of the county manager. That limits any avenue of appeals by those unhappy with the recent changes.
“We essentially got our hand slapped talking to the County Board,” said Eric Goodman, who serves on the BAC and is also acting chair of the PAC. “The county manager doesn’t want us talking to the County Board.”
Randy Swart, a former committee member and longtime observer of the county’s political/civic scene, said the goal of the reduction in the committees’ scope is most likely to limit outside influences on staff decisions.
Schwartz and his staff are “desperately afraid of pushback, and they are most afraid of pushback from committees,” Swart said. “That’s part of the reason why nobody really wants to give us a role in projects.”
Elwyn Gonzalez, a transportation planner for the county government, is the designated staff liaison to the Pedestrian Advisory Committee. He acknowledged he “very rarely” speaks with Schwartz about the committee’s work, and hadn’t spoken with him on the topic since the March meeting with the two advisory panels.
Gonzalez said he believed the county manager had clearly laid out what role the committees should play in the future.
“What he said in that call was he wanted you to think more big-picture, policy-wise,” Gonzalez said.
But at least one committee member didn’t have quite the same recollection.
“When he met with us, he was very vague,” Hanna said of Schwartz, adding that the committee should propose suggestions for its future role and see what response the county manager makes.
Dana Bres, vice chair of the BAC, said if the county doesn’t want input on specific projects outside of broader community-engagement processes, there were other ways to provide it.
“The engagement is largely performative; if that’s the way the county wants it, maybe the answer is we take our comments and observations, which are generally pretty salient and pithy, to ARLnow, take them directly to the public, instead of trying to fix this in-house,” Bres said.
Later in the meeting, committee member Offutt suggested what might be called the nuclear option that is available to committee members.
“We could all just resign,” he said, acknowledging it would be a “radical” step to take.
If it did happen, Offutt said, committee members and others could band together and create an advocacy organization. The blueprint could be found nearby, where the Alexandria Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee has a working relationship with the city government but retains its independence.
“In some ways, it may turn out to be more effective than being emasculated as we are,” he said.
In some ways, the current revolt among BAC members is similar to 2024’s duel between the County Board and the Human Rights Commission over that body’s rights and responsibilities.
After several months of that dispute playing out in the headlines, County Board members abolished the existing commission in mid-2024, reconstituting it under a more limited charter and replacing all but one existing member.
The new body began meeting earlier this year but continues to work with staff on ironing out the framework of its responsibilities.
Unlike the BAC, the PAC has not met since the sometimes combative October joint forum. Its next meeting is slated for Wednesday, Nov. 19.
