County Board members continue to be divided on how quickly to move forward with a new advisory panel to look at governance issues over the coming year.
As things now stand, there appears to be a 3-2 Board majority to move forward in setting up the panel and determining its responsibilities at a meeting sometime in mid-December.
“It will be challenging, but I don’t believe it will be impossible” to gather enough information to take action by then, Board Chair Takis Karantonis said after a lengthy discussion at the Tuesday (Nov. 18) Board meeting.
“If we cannot, we cannot, and we will act accordingly,” said Karantonis, who said he was “very close” to supporting moving forward — while still being “very far” from support for any specific governance changes.
The Board chair appears to be the swing vote on the plan to set up the group, which would meet next year before delivering recommendations to county leaders.
Eager to move forward are Board members Julius “JD” Spain Sr. and Matt de Ferranti. On the other side are Maureen Coffey and Susan Cunningham, who continue to raise concerns that the effort is moving too fast and without a clear purpose.
If the task force’s establishment is approved, its membership is likely to be appointed in January with meetings to start in February. The panel could be directed to consider issues including:
- Increasing the number of County Board posts from the current five
- Moving to a district-based or hybrid model — part district, part at-large
- Having the public elect a Board chair separately, rather than the current rotation among members
- Ending the practice of electing at least one Board member each year
- Making permanent a switch to ranked-choice voting for Board seats
Cunningham attempted, unsuccessfully, to push for a delay to January “so the county can digest it and ensure we’ve done our homework.”
“We have a lot of work yet to do on what problem or problems we’re trying to solve,” she said.
Coffey added similar qualms about potentially putting the cart before the horse.
“If we don’t know what we’re trying to accomplish through these proposals, I don’t see how we can evaluate any specific [future] proposal to say that it does or does not accomplish these things,” she said. “Even among supporters [of governance-change efforts], I’ve probably heard 12 different visions on what this looks like.”
But De Ferranti, Spain and Karantonis were not on board with waiting.
“We could get to December and decide to defer, but deciding now, already, to defer beyond December is not where I am,” de Ferranti said.
At the end of the discussion, shortly after 11 p.m., Board members voted 3-0 to next take up the matter next month, likely on either Dec. 13 or 16. Coffey and Cunningham abstained.
“There’s a lot of potential here,” Spain said. “I see nothing wrong with a conversation — [but] we need to do our homework, we need to do our due diligence.”
With the task force on the horizon, Spain and de Ferranti said they would not be in support of any measures to address the issue through legislation in the upcoming General Assembly session. Their opposition is similar to that voiced earlier by Sen. Barbara Favola (D-40), who wants to see how the local effort plays out before seeking General Assembly authorization.
“I would hope Del. Patrick Hope holds off on his bill and lets us do the hard work at the community level,” Spain said.
De Ferranti said, “If we pass this charge, I will not be in support of Patrick Hope’s bill in this legislation session.”
Hope (D-1) introduced governance-change legislation in the 2024 and 2025 sessions. In 2025, his measure passed the legislature but received a veto from Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R).
At the public hearing preceding the Board’s Nov. 18 discussion, speakers generally supported the idea of moving forward with a local process.
“It lays out an ambitious, thoughtful and community-minded scope of work,” said Pamela Berg, president of the League of Women Voters of Arlington and Alexandria City.
Though not supporting any specific proposals on the table, Berg said her organization hoped the panel would take “a wide and inclusive look at how Arlington’s current form of government meets the needs of a growing and evolving community.”
The county’s current government structure dates to 1932, when a five-member, at-large governing body and appointed county manager took over from the three-member, district-based Board of Supervisors structure that had been in place since the end of the Civil War.
No matter the outcome, Karantonis said having a community dialogue on the issue is likely to prove worthwhile.
“It is a good thing to kick the tires and see how we have done for the last 90-something years,” he said.
