A seasonably chilly — but sunny! — weekend is on tap after a busy week of Halloween, storms and winning the World Series (there’s a parade in D.C. tomorrow).
Aside from a possible freeze overnight, the weather should be pleasant and fall-like enough for some outdoor activities or ice skating during the day. Or you can check out some of the local events that are happening indoors.
For the second year in a row, Niche has ranked Arlington Public Schools (APS) as the best school division in Virginia.
The Niche rankings are based in part on standardized test scores in reading and math, averaging the test scores of all students. While Arlington can be proud of the quality of its schools, such rankings based on aggregate data hide the disparities in academic achievement among different student groups.
The following op-ed was written by Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, Democratic nominee for the top prosecutor job in Arlington and Falls Church. Voters will head to the polls this coming Tuesday, Nov. 5.
If you had told me two years ago that I would be writing as the Democratic nominee for Commonwealth’s Attorney for Arlington County and the City of Falls Church, I would not have believed you. People with my personal and professional backgrounds don’t often run for, much less win, political office.
Welcome, neighbor! My name is Matthew Hurtt, and you’ve stumbled upon Hurtt Locker, a biweekly column about fiscal responsibility and good governance in Arlington. I’m grateful to the ARLnow team for giving me some space here to have this conversation with you.
Arlington is a vibrant and thriving community with a rich history of civic engagement, where decisions are debated and discussed at the neighborhood level. From time to time, however, county leaders appear to make decisions before seeking community input; and the process looks more like a formality rather than a genuine effort to engage the wide array of interest groups that exist and organize here.
On November 16th the County Board will hold a public hearing on the “micromobility ordinance.”
In addition to providing a permanent framework for “for-hire” micromobility companies like Bird and Lime to offer e-scooters and e-bikes on Arlington streets, the ordinance tries to finally make some sense of Arlington’s vague and conflicting rules and regulations around bicycles, e-bikes, scooters, e-scooters, motorized skateboard and a whole range of other weird and unique ways to get a person around without a car.
Building community can be one of the most challenging and rewarding actions that a group of people can undertake. For the last 15 years of my life as a resident of Arlington, I have made a conscious decision to take part in that challenging process.
When I moved to Arlington in 2004, I admit that I did not deliberately choose Arlington. My real estate agent found a condo in the Arlington Mill (formerly known as Columbia Heights West) community that was in my price range. I was promised that this neighborhood would soon see changes under the Columbia Pike revitalization plan, and I assumed that I would move to a larger property in the near future.
Your neighborhood is only as diverse as its housing stock.
That is my housing mantra. It is adapted from a line in Henry Grabar’s reporting on the 2018 city council vote in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to end exclusionary zoning and allow up to three-unit buildings on every residential lot. Minneapolis’s bold decision, made in the name of racial equity and housing affordability, has echoed throughout the country and we have started to hear the reverberations here in Arlington.
A cloudy and then rainy weekend is on tap — but with any luck the rain will hold off until the Nationals win the World Series in four. (Crosses fingers.)
In case you didn’t see it, earlier today we listed some places to cheer on the Nats in Arlington, along with specials being offered during the game.
ARLnow’s mission is to connect and improve our local community — residents, workers, local businesses, nonprofits and government — via high quality, original journalism and photography.
In addition to our own reporting, we seek to fulfil our mission via contributions from community members. As part of that, we’re debuting a new slate of opinion columns, focused on specific local topics, starting Monday. These columns will alternate every other week with our existing columns: Progressive Voice, The Right Note, Peter’s Take, and What’s Next With Nicole.
Laws protecting Virginia renters finally went into effect this month. Thanks to an update of the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, the 60% of Arlingtonians who are renters will be realizing sweeping protections and seemingly basic rights in our day to day lives.
Arlington should see this as an opportunity to take a leadership role in implementing this law by creating a civil landlord-tenant specific court docket. In D.C., this type of court parallels their small claims court and does not require the burden of attorney fees that are often too great of a hurdle for renters.
On October 16, ARLnow reported on the Department of Parks and Recreation’s (DPR’s) proposed project at Bluemont Park (601 N. Manchester Street).
In the article, the county explained more about the renovations, writing that:
Not everyone loves baseball, but tonight the Nationals are playing in the franchise’s first ever World Series. Sports often transcends politics, so here’s hoping for a little break from the divisiveness filling up our airwaves and social media feeds.
Activists interested in keeping bike lanes clear made an effort to document violations last week. Some motorists took to the comment section of the story to indicate they would welcome a report on the number of times bikes run red lights, fail to stop at stop signs and otherwise ignore traffic laws.
