I’m very proud to announce tonight that ARLnow.com is the first site to partner with new D.C. local news site TBD.com.
TBD is helmed by former washingtonpost.com executive editor Jim Brady and backed by Allbritton Communications, parent company of ABC7, NewsChannel 8 and Politico. We’re excited to be working with Jim and his team, including Erik Wemple, Steve Buttry, Jeff Sonderman, Lisa Rowan, Julie Westfall, Steve Chaggaris and Mandy Jenkins (who did I forget?).
This morning we ran a story on Committee for a Better Arlington chairman Mike Staples declining to participate in a planned debate over the group’s change-of-government proposal. Since there will be no “debate” tonight, we decided to ask two fresh voices from each side of the issue to make their case to Arlington residents here, in 400 words or less.
As a preface: it’s looking like this is a debate that will only get louder in the coming weeks and, possibly, months. The Committee is facing the daunting task of collecting 14,340 signatures by July 15 in order to float the proposal as a ballot initiative. Staples, however, says his group is “on track” to collect the needed signatures.
We are in the midst of the “peak” season for weddings. Something about spring — the warmer temperatures, the flowers and plants blooming, the absence of pro and college football games — seems to make it a perfect time for nuptials.
It also seems that there are quite a few engagements this time of year. All those happy couples need some place to get married, so we started to wonder if there were any wedding-worthy locations in Arlington. For the answer, we turned to Arlington-based professional photographer Jan Graves, of Jan Michele Photography.
Michael Brown, Arlington’s incoming county manager, was honored on Friday by the city of Savannah, where he’s spent the past 15 years as city manager. A who’s who of Savannah’s civic and political establishment was on hand to wish Brown well in Arlington.
Brown was presented with two parting gifts: a gift certificate to Bass Pro Shops (Brown is reportedly something of an outdoorsman) and a painting of Savannah, according to TV station WSAV.
We stopped by the hotly-anticipated European brasserie over the weekend for one of the “soft opening” events and, despite the high expectations, left thoroughly impressed.
The first thing we tried was the mussels. Lyon Hall has two distinct mussel varieties: spring garlic/English peas/fontina/mustard and Hungarian lamb sausage/celeriac-apple-beer broth. We went with the Hungarian lamb and were not disappointed. You’d be hard-pressed to find a tastier plate of mussels anywhere in the D.C. area. And the $14 “large” option was more than enough for two people.
Our regular readers may have noticed that we have a new banner across the top of the site. The photo was taken by Flickr pool contributor brianmka.
Love the new look? Hate it? Let us know in the comments section.
But this is not SimCity 2000. It’s Arlington County. And here, increasing taxes provokes a fairly balanced response between those who think taxes are high enough already and those who take an “increase my taxes, please” approach.
Of the people who spoke at Thursday night’s tax rate hearing, eight asked the board to increase taxes to the maximum advertised rate to prevent cuts to programs and services.
The following represents the views of the author, not of ARLnow.com.
We are pleased that Arlington County actively promotes cycling, and that County Board Chair Jay Fisette has made it a central part of his agenda this year. In fact, the County Manager’s proposed budget does not specifically target any bike-related funding for cuts (to the best of our knowledge). But we do worry that some may mistake such funding for simple recreational funding. This is not the case and the County Board should resist any such suggestion as it finalizes the budget, perhaps being tempted to cut already-low funding further.
The county says its snow removal crews are beginning to tackle neighborhood roads.
“Our crews are still working round-the-clock clearing massive amounts of snow from County-maintained roads,” Acting County Manager Barbara Donnellan said in a press release. “We are throwing everything we have into this effort, and have stabilized main roads and secondary roads throughout the County. Crews are beginning to work their way into the neighborhoods. We thank residents for their patience and understanding.”
