Tomorrow, the Arlington County Board members will renew the annual tradition of previewing their priorities for the year. Unfortunately, the speeches can often be compared to a New Year’s resolution to go to the gym.
Before the speeches begin, the Board will need to elect a new Chairman. In recent history, the Vice Chairman has moved up to the center chair. But last year, Walter Tejada served in that role before announcing his retirement.
This week, the County Board approved its package of priorities for the Virginia General Assembly to address. The report came in at 53 items in total.
Item number one of the entire proposal asked for the ability to levy taxes, including the BPOL tax. This is the tax on the privilege of owning a business based in Arlington. It taxes your gross receipts, not your gross profits. It should be phased out or abolished as soon as possible by Arlington to encourage economic development in the County.
Here we go again.
A few days ago, County Board Chair Mary Hynes wrote a letter to the Virginia Department of Transportation sounding an optimistic tone on the opportunity to work on HOT lanes inside the beltway on 395. Those lanes were part of the original HOT lanes project proposal in the region, dating back to Democrat administrations of Mark Warner and Tim Kaine in Virginia.
The week before Thanksgiving, County Board members Vihstadt and Garvey teamed up to question the closeout spending process. They asked the Board to at least delay the decisions on spending nearly $22 million in excess revenue till the new members were seated in January.
Kudos to Vihstadt for raising the issue as part of the closeout process and drawing more public attention to it. As Garvey noted, it would be “much better governance to make sure your spending goes through the budget process.”
The Board this week approved the first step in creating the third Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district in Arlington.
The TIF plans dedicate a portion of future tax revenue to a specific project or set of projects. In the most recent proposal, the funds would be used to pay off a bond taken out to pay for a portion of the redevelopment of the Ballston mall.
On the next Arlington County Board meeting agenda is the annual close-out process. Despite it being just seven days away, the recommendation from the County Manager is not even online. This process often allocates $100 million or more in spending and no one outside of County Staff — and presumably Board Members — has seen it yet.
For years, I have railed against this process. In effect, the County Board has a slush fund every fall that they can dip into and spend with almost no public input. While this process may not get the attention of a Columbia Pike trolley project, it has spent far more of our tax dollars and few county residents even know the process exists.
Across Virginia, voters made few changes to their elected representation. Every single incumbent on Tuesday’s ballot in the General Assembly won. The Senate remained 21-19 Republican, and Democrats netted a gain just one of 100 seats in the House, leaving it overwhelmingly in Republican hands.
Despite millions of dollars being spent to retake the Senate, Governor McAuliffe now must work with Republicans if he hopes to achieve any meaningful results in his final two years in office. After ignoring the General Assembly and the Virginia Constitution with his Supreme Court appointment over the summer, the governor has some ground to make up.
Earlier this year, Arlington Republicans endorsed independent Mike McMenamin for County Board. Later, Mike also received the endorsement of independent County Board Member John Vihstadt.
A coalition of Republicans, independents, Greens and dissatisfied Democrats came together last year to elect Vihstadt twice. The results have been positive for Arlington. Adding one more independent voice to the Board this year would still leave Democrats in the majority while ensuring the makeup of the Board is more closely in line with the political makeup of the county as a whole.
In a bizarre 3-2 vote last month, the County Board barely upheld the ability of a Courthouse dental practice to stay in business. By all indications, this is a thriving practice that provides a needed service for the community.
The renewal of a 22 year-old exemption allowing for a dental office in the location was being discussed as part of a site plan review. County staff pointed out that the dental office complied with the county’s new retail action plan.
The Right Note is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.
Earlier this week, ARLnow ran a piece on Barbara Donnellan’s comments on the loss of public trust in relation to big ticket projects. The entire video interview with Donnellan provides an interesting insight into how the former County Manager did her job. Donnellan had 32 years of experience in the Arlington County government, so she has a tremendous amount of institutional knowledge to share.
The Right Note is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.
Last year, the County Board election was a referendum on shiny object budgeting by the County Board. The Board chased vanity projects like the streetcar, Artisphere and aquatics center without broad community support. The result was that an otherwise qualified Democrat nominee lost two elections he would have most certainly won nearly any other year.
The Right Note is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.
Today is Constitution Day. It is a time to remember the document on which our nation was founded.
