Progressive Voice is a bi-weekly opinion column. The views expressed are solely the author’s.
By Maurine Shields Fanguy
Opinion
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It’s been a busy week here and, frankly, we’re all exhausted.
That being said, let’s get right to the most-read Arlington articles of the week.
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Ed Talk is a biweekly opinion column. The views expressed are solely the author’s.
Arlington Public Schools (APS) has opened for hybrid learning for students from pre-kindergarten through 12 grade whose families have chosen that option, one year after it closed its doors due to the pandemic.
The short answer is an emphatic yes. 100%. Absolutely.
The question has evolved into when to vaccinate after COVID-19 symptoms resolve (recommendation is 90 days) and if a second shot is even necessary if you are a COVID survivor.
Columbia Pike is one of Arlington’s least bike-friendly corridors — there aren’t any bike lanes, traffic is heavy, and the bike boulevards on parallel streets are disjointed and disconnected.
Almost 3 years ago now, Bike4ThePike rode to highlight this fact, along with the gaps in the County’s plans for the Pike.
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Over the past several months I have researched my ancestry online, connecting with 3rd and 4th cousins whom I have never met. In that research, through old news articles and death records, I learned and confirmed stories of domestic violence and murder in our family in the early 1900s.
These revelations have increased my interest in learning more about and preventing intimate partner violence.
The year-long (and counting) pandemic has caused a large increase in the apartment vacancy rate in Arlington.
While stories of an urban exodus are overblown, national research indicates that the pandemic has decreased the inflow of new residents. Some of Arlington’s landlords have responded to high vacancy rates by lowering rents. This is welcome news for renters who struggle to afford payment or want to upgrade their home.
It was a week for retrospectives, as we marked the one-year anniversary of the first coronavirus case in Arlington.
The virus has so far claimed 242 lives in Arlington County, but there’s hope that the quickening pace of vaccinations will help prevent the kind of mortality that we saw last spring and this past winter. There’s also hope that this spring and summer life will increasingly return to something approaching normal.
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Lyon’s Legacy is a limited-run opinion column on the history of housing in Arlington. The views expressed are solely the author’s.
“A nation may lose its liberties and be a century in finding it out.” -John Mercer Langston
TW: suicide, mania.
Arlington has begun an effort to improve mental health services in our community with dollars attached to these priorities. Taking this initial first step is significant, but we still have miles to go. Next Tuesday you can learn more about this topic at the Civic Federation monthly meeting.
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Arlington residents’ lives have been upended by COVID-19: parents have struggled to juggle virtual schooling and work responsibilities; many restaurants, hotels and small businesses have disappeared. The County budget has been battered. Yet, County government has been moving full speed ahead to help builders and developers of high-end housing fatten their bottom lines.
Arlington’s Missing Middle (MM) Housing study is a heavily subsidized County government initiative pre-ordained to reach a “solution” to a non-existent problem. The housing types on which this study focuses already are plentiful in Arlington. Many more already can be built by right.
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The Right Note is a biweekly opinion column. The views expressed are solely the author’s.
Days of breathless coverage about books written and illustrated half a century ago is what fills in the 24-hour news cycle when the current president will not take questions from the press and a former president no longer has access to Twitter. In case you missed it though, Arlington’s schools will be fully open to hybrid in-person learning by next week.