It’s been another week of weather ups and downs — and plenty of local news of note.
Here are the most-read stories of the past five days:
Opinion
It’s Presidents Day weekend — or George Washington Day weekend, if you’re fancy and in Virginia — which means a three day weekend for many.
Well, not for the staff of ARLnow. Vern and the crew will be working all day Monday. Don’t expect much in terms of news articles, though — we’ll be working on some future stories and new initiatives.
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As we head into Crossover (learn what that means here) in the General Assembly, I have a sense of pride about the great legislation that will likely become law during this session. I also maintain a massive fire of anger about a continued ambivalence towards ethics reform.
No substantive ethics reform will take place in the general assembly this year. At least one of our own Arlington legislators voted against every campaign finance reform measure presented to the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections, leading to its death in committee, including campaign contribution limits of $20,000 (SB 488), and prohibiting contributions from a public service corporations such as Dominion Energy or Washington Gas (SB 25). In the House, all four campaign finance bills (HB 111, HB 851, HB 895, HB 848) died by not being voted on in Committee.
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Arlington County recently conducted a study asking residents to select and rate a series of values that should be the foundation for setting the County’s water utility rate structure.
The values: Simplicity, Affordability, Conservation, Economic Development, Cost Equity, and Financial Sustainability.
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This winter in Arlington has been an anomaly.
It’s the only winter since 1932 in which the temperature has failed to drop below 22 degrees. And it’s generally been cloudy, rainy and — well — pretty gloomy.
Thumbs down…
To Delegate Hope’s bill proposing instant run-off voting. This is an attempt to prevent third party candidates from having any real influence on an election. In Arlington that would often mean a Green Party candidate siphoning off votes from Democrats. If a Democrat in Arlington is incapable of achieving a plurality of the vote, maybe it should be accepted as a way that the public is telling you they want a change in leadership.
By Madaline Langston
While various panels and programs have explored racism in Arlington, dozens of students recently took a different tack, using site visits, interviews with community members, and creative drama to “Flip the Script.”
After a soggy week, a dry (weather-wise, at least) weekend is upon us.
Without further ado, here are the most-read articles of the past five days:
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Accountability in education means having clear goals for student achievement and data that is readily available to decision-makers and the public to assess progress toward those goals.
Strategic Planning – Setting Goals
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At this point, the bike lane blocking problems on Crystal Drive are well understood. The combination of popular retail establishments, standard painted bike lanes and entitled drivers leads to non-functional bike lanes.
The parkingdirty.com data-gathering effort I led back in 2016 found that they are blocked between 50% and 64% of waking hours.
In 2020 we commemorate the centennial of women gaining the right to vote, and last month Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.
It is natural to analyze how far we have come in the years between 1920 and 2020, and what should be done in the next 100 years to reach full equality.
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There’s little doubt that a retail apocalypse is underway, though there is some debate about how to assign blame.
Store closures and imminent closures in Arlington since last summer include Abercrombie & Fitch, Swatch and Papyrus at the Pentagon City mall; World Market in Pentagon City; Rite Aid in Crystal City; and Pier 1 in Rosslyn. Malls in Tysons have also seen a spate of recent closures.