On Tuesday, the Arlington County Board bypassed the longest serving member of the Board not to serve as its chair, independent John Vihstadt, in order to elect Democrat Katie Cristol. Congratulations are in order for the first millennial to take the center seat.
But hopefully voters will return Vihstadt to the Board this fall, and then the Board will give him the opportunity to serve as its chair in his next term.
The Arlington School Board supports imposing new requirements on families with deeply held religious beliefs this holiday season.
On December 14, the Board voted unanimously to ask the legislature to require families who seek a religious exemption from compulsory school attendance to reapply every year to maintain it.
Those of us with kids in school are just one week away from the start of our break, but there is still a lot going on in the world of politics.
Congress continues its work to finalize tax reform and spending bills. The County Board will meet two more times before saying goodbye to Jay Fisette.
Tolls are reported to have reached as high as $40 on I-66 this week. A Republican bill to block those tolls failed last year after Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) expressed his strong opposition. The Governor dismissed concerns the tolls would ever reach close to $20.
Maybe you are happy with the Governor’s decision because people who drive through Arlington to get to DC should be taken to the cleaners by the tolls. Maybe you have had to pay one yourself.
It was a busy week for the County Board. They made the final allocations of the $25.5 million of revenue that came in over the original budget projections for the 2017 fiscal year, as well as the $5.2 million of unspent funds in the closeout process.
The Board also approved borrowing for an additional $60 million for the new aquatics center.
This week ARLnow posted a letter to the editor on the ongoing school boundary discussions:
For full disclosure, our children have always attended South Arlington schools, and we currently have at least one child in elementary, middle, and high school. They ride a bus to elementary school and high school and are in the walk zone for middle school.
The 2017 election is in the books. Well, it’s almost in the books. One race in the Virginia House of Delegates is separated by just 13 votes.
If that lead holds, Republicans would have a 51 to 49 majority in the House of Delegates. If not, it will be a 50 to 50 split. This falls into, “if you don’t think your vote counts in an election, think again,” category.
Arlington County started its annual ramp up to raise your taxes by saying there could be a $10 to 13 million “funding gap.”
This could be called a “lie.” Lie is certainly a strong word. After years of using nicer words to describe a process with a singular goal of making you feel OK about sending Arlington more of your money, you have to wonder whether this three letter word would give anyone even a moment’s pause.
It has not been a good week for Ralph Northam.
First, The Washington Post editorial board excoriated Northam for his failure to articulate a plan for K-12 education. The Post said, “Mr. Northam claimed to believe in accountability but was utterly unable to explain what he means by the word.”
Arlington is hosting community discussions around the county through the end of the month where up to 25 county residents can offer input into the budget process each time.
If you cannot make a forum, the county is seeking input online. (As of the time I submitted this piece, there had been no ideas submitted on the website, so you could be one of the first.)
In Progressive Voice last week, Delegate Alfonso Lopez expressed the opinion that redistricting reform is the only way Democrats can push their agenda through the Virginia General Assembly. Redistricting reform, he argues, would result in Medicaid expansion, a minimum wage increase and more education funding.
Surely Delegate Lopez knows Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in a majority of the House of Delegates districts in November of 2016. Despite the existence of a majority of Clinton districts, Republicans currently hold a 66-34 majority in the House. And, I have noted before, Virginia Senate Democrats drew their own district lines in an attempt to maintain a majority, but voters gave Republicans the majority instead.
A few weeks ago, Peter Rousselot revisited the issues surrounding launching or expanding a business in Arlington. If you missed it, you should definitely read the story about the business owner who had to install a front door system three times before getting it approved because two inspectors gave them different interpretations of the code.
The conclusion we can draw from the piece is that for years of promoting itself as a world class community, Arlington is still woefully short of offering world class service to businesses who wish to call Arlington home. This is unless you are a big name company who promises two hundred new jobs, in which case, Arlington will probably pay you to locate your business here.
