A Northern Virginia native, Scott McCaffrey has four decades of reporting, editing and newsroom experience in the local area plus Florida, South Carolina and the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. He spent 26 years as editor of the Sun Gazette newspaper chain. For Local News Now, he covers government and civic issues in Arlington, Fairfax County and Falls Church.
Members of Arlington’s reconstituted Human Rights Commission are seeking to clarify what they can do when county staff’s attempts to mediate disputes fail.
It’s a rare circumstance, to be sure. Most formal complaints to the county’s human rights office are settled, dismissed or withdrawn at the staff level, and over the past year, county officials said there was just a single case where the complaint was found justified but no settlement could be reached.