By Eric Harold
Floods, traffic, school capacity, lack of affordable housing. What do these increasingly recurring issues in Arlington have in common? All, in some form or fashion, are exacerbated by the increased growth and development throughout Arlington County for more than 20 years. There are many positive aspects to continued growth, but growth is not an unbridled good. The question is how to better manage it.
The last full week in July is coming to a close and a warm but relatively pleasant weekend is on tap.
It has been a busy week at ARLnow — a week we announced a new readership record and three new hires. (Technically, thanks to strong readership yesterday, our trailing 30-day traffic is now up to 1.415 million pageviews, another new record.)
As Arlington residents try to cope with the increasing frequency and severity of flooding, as outlined in last week’s column, a combination of code violations by Washington Golf & Country Club (WGCC), together with County errors and budget shortfalls, has polluted Donaldson Run and wreaked havoc on Zachary Taylor Park.
A WGCC course-redesign project has caused repeated, serious flows of mud and chemicals into Donaldson Run.
Much has been made of the recent Supreme Court decision that said partisan redistricting is not a constitutional question for the federal courts. Ultimately, the justices opted not to force federal trial and appellate judges to review every map ever produced simply because the “losers” didn’t like the outcome.
Reformers were up in arms. How could the Supreme Court arrive at such a decision?
Progressive Voice is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their organizations or ARLnow.com.
By Del. Patrick Hope
Congratulations to you, dear reader, for making it to the end of this long, hot week.
On the plus side, it’s almost the weekend. On the downside, the heat is forecasted to continue, cancelling weekend events throughout the D.C. area.
Peter’s Take is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com
Arlington’s massive July 8 flash flooding — vividly captured by ARLnow.com in videos and photos — exposes yet again Arlington’s failed approach to stormwater planning. That is the emergency Arlington also should have declared last week.
Tonight the County Board is going to consider building four more bus stops on Columbia Pike at a total allocated cost of $1.65 million, or roughly $412,000 per stop. The current Capital Improvement Plan contemplates the construction of 23 new transit stops for a total of $16.9 million, though Arlington taxpayers would not be on the hook for the entire bill.
It seems like an eternity ago that the $1 million model for these stops caused a political firestorm and even garnered national attention. The coverage put into perspective the magnitude of the Columbia Pike streetcar project, helped elect Independent John Vihstadt, and eventually lead to project’s cancellation. For those who may have forgotten, the rather small stop does not really keep you dry when it is raining and the “state-of-the-art” screen that was supposed to provide riders with information is often out of commission.
By Maggie Davis
While there are many ways to define the Arlington community — subjectively and objectively — one crucial factor is the baseline data of how many people live in the County, as collected by the decennial Census.
Former Gov. Bob McDonnell’s conviction for having violated a federal bribery law spurred some small reforms to Virginia’s ethics laws, including a $100 cap on gifts to state legislators.
In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court, on somewhat narrow and technical grounds, overturned McDonnell’s conviction, ruling that his conduct didn’t violate the applicable federal bribery law.
Seeing all of the reports from the flooding throughout Arlington County yesterday reminds me of the responses Arlingtonians have made to previous natural disasters in the area.
In 2003, Hurricane Isabel wiped out power throughout much of the county and the region. However there were areas where houses on one side of a street had power and their neighbors on the other side had none. We live on one of those streets.
By Claire Noakes
Remember reading those books, with choices every few pages? Now we live in one, where we have multiple decisions to make on clean energy policy that could lead to breakthroughs and a resilient community, or to dead ends. Choose wrong, however, and we fall into a trap that lulls us into believing we have made virtuous choices when we have in fact overlooked a huge variable. Let’s start the storyline.
