Arlington County is looking to buy and eventually redevelop an office building on Columbia Pike.
The county says the vacant, three-story building at 3108 Columbia Pike would make a good home for both the Columbia Pike library branch — currently located on the ground floor of the Arlington Career Center — and affordable housing. Until that project materializes, it will serve as a parking lot.
The Animal Welfare League of Arlington is bucking the results of a study suggesting the county has a deer problem.
Arlington County hired a consultant last spring to count the local deer population using drones. The company published a report in September saying that parts of Arlington had populations of 20-39 deer per square mile in certain places, exceeding what’s considered healthy (between 5 and 15 deer per square mile).
A new K-8 private school is preparing to open this fall in a church near Crystal City.
This weekend, the County Board is scheduled to review a use permit letting Vienna-based Veritas Collegiate Academy open a satellite campus at Mount Vernon Baptist Church in the Aurora Highlands neighborhood at 935 23rd Street S.
This weekend, a new affordable housing development in the Fort Myer Heights neighborhood, near Rosslyn, could get the green light to get started.
During its regular meeting on Saturday, the County Board is slated to review plans for the Marbella Apartments, a proposal from Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing (APAH) to build two 12-story, multifamily residential buildings that will be 100% affordable units for residents earning less than the area median income (AMI).
Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups, founders, and other local technology news. Monday Properties is proudly featuring 1515 Wilson Blvd in Rosslyn.
Phone2Action, the Rosslyn-based government affairs technology company, has changed its name to Capitol Canary.
(Updated 6:15 p.m. on 02/16/22) For the next 18 months, bus fare will be free or reduced-price for thousands of income-eligible residents and students.
The fare reductions began this month as part of the Low-Income Fare Assistance and the APS Student Fare-Less pilot programs, which are intended to target residents most impacted by the pandemic.
The Arlington Planning Commission gave a proposed Columbia Pike residential redevelopment the thumbs-up.
Now, plans to replace an aging, one-story retail strip in the 2600 block of Columbia Pike will head to the County Board for approval during its recessed meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 17.
Boulevard Manor families whose kids have been or will be separated from their middle school friends for high school can apply for a placement process to try and avoid that fate, Arlington Public Schools says.
Students who live in the neighborhood, near the Arlington border with Falls Church, attend Kenmore Middle School but do not matriculate to Washington-Liberty High School like their peers. Instead, they attend Yorktown High School as a result of a 2017 boundary change when W-L was overcrowded.
Arlington School Board at a meeting (file photo)[/caption]
(Updated at 3:20 p.m.) Arlington Democrats voted loud and clear: the School Board endorsement caucus process should stay.
Members of the Arlington County Democratic Committee voted 117-22 to use the caucus process to select which School Board candidates to endorse during the general election. ACDC met last night (Wednesday) to hear both sides of the issue and the results were announced today (Thursday).
Now, ACDC has to establish rules for the 2022 process, informed by four listening sessions, last night's debate and an internal review.
"Education is a top priority for us and we support great public schools that provide children with the education and curriculum they need to succeed in life," Arlington Democrats Chair Steve Baker said today in a statement. "Arlington Democrats will always be an ally and supporter in that effort and we want our process to be as open, inclusive and equitable as possible. We know it takes hard work to achieve real results but we're ready and committed to that process."
This vote applies only to using the process this year, and future votes can reprise the issue, Baker told ARLnow. A seat will open up next year following School Board Chair Barbara Kanninen's resignation announcement.
Virginia school board races are nonpartisan, so Arlington Dems can only endorse candidates -- not nominate them. As part of ACDC's process, however, candidates agree in May not to run in the general election, making the end result similar to a primary.
This was the first time the committee voted on the use of the caucus, according to deputy chief Mike Hemminger, and it came after the Arlington Branch of the NAACP, the pro-open-schools group Arlington Parents for Education and a group of self-identified Democrats separately called on ACDC to end or significantly reform the process.
"Last night, we heard genuine concerns regarding the equity of the endorsement process," Hemminger said today in a statement. "Systemic inequities are present in any structural system. It is vital that Arlington Democrats partner with all community members to break down barriers to access and include these voices and perspectives in each of our processes."
Arguments against the caucus include that whiter, wealthier North Arlington residents are over-represented in it, that it discourages broad election participation, discourages federal employees from running due to the Hatch Act, effectively determines who wins in November, and makes nonpartisan officials beholden to a political party.
But the School Board is nonpartisan only on paper, according to some committee members. They said the caucus is the best means of ensuring Democrat values prevail in Arlington against the right-wing forces trying to influence Virginia school boards.
"Republicans have shown their hands," said School Board Chair Barbara Kanninen. "In Richmond, they're openly promoting a public school system that serves the haves better than the have nots. We Democrats cannot let them succeed."
Without the caucus, she said, the board could not move forward "a progressive, Democrat agenda," including removing School Resource Officers, supporting transgender students, removing Confederate names from buildings, adding world holidays to the school calendar, building green schools and approving equity policies, among other aims.
School Board member Cristina Diaz-Torres and former member Monique O'Grady also offered their support.
"Conservatives who lost the White House are laser-focused on using their resources to target school board elections," O'Grady said. "Virginia was a test case for this. It's happening in other districts and there's a thinly veiled attempt happening here in Arlington."
(Updated at 12:45 p.m.) Superintendent Francisco Durán says Arlington Public Schools should hit the “pause” button on its Virtual Learning Program for next school year.
He’ll deliver this evaluation to the School Board during its meeting tonight (Thursday).
(Updated at 5:30 p.m.) Arlington has officially signed a contract with a new medical provider assigned to the county jail.
The contract was finalized Wednesday morning, less than 24 hours after an inmate, Paul Thompson, died yesterday, the Arlington County Sheriff’s Office tells ARLnow.
(Updated at 3:45 p.m.) Starting today, locals can zip around the county on new e-scooters outfitted with seats.
Riders in Arlington will be some of the first to experience transportation company Superpedestrian‘s seated scooters, which look like standing scooters with adjustable bicycle seat — as opposed to the mopeds folks may see around D.C.
