This afternoon near the Rosslyn Metro station, Bob Marley was playing and a flag featuring a joint and the words “Come and Take It” was flying.
The event was the legalization of marijuana in Virginia and a giveaway that attracted a line of some 100 people.
It is my hope that Amazon will commit a significant portion of their $2 billion Housing Equity Fund to households that are low income or have an income that is under 50% area median income (AMI).
If a fund is being created and advertised as creating affordable housing it should do that, instead of primarily providing average market rate rental housing. Amazon’s recent commitment at Crystal House was primarily for those making 60-80% AMI. That is a housing supply that we have in abundance (see image 1). Additionally, this is middle class housing, not affordable housing.
When Eddie Kaufholz and his family moved to Arlington nearly five years ago, they were not thinking about starting a business. They wanted to live in a place that was diverse, interesting and full of opportunity, with a school system they could rely on. Arlington fit.
In the years that followed, working out of a home office off Columbia Pike, he consulted with organizations across Northern Virginia and around the country: nonprofits, advocacy groups, mid-sized companies, agencies of various sizes. The work itself was good. But somewhere across all those projects, he started to notice a pattern.
”The agency model has gotten really bloated,” Kaufholz says. ”Layers, handoffs, middle management. The senior people who pitch the work often disappear once it starts. The idea with PILLAR was to strip all of that down; keep senior people on the work, approach each client with humility and care, do world-class strategy and execution, and pass the efficiency back to the client instead of absorbing it as agency margin.”
That thinking, slowly, became PILLAR, the Arlington-headquartered creative, communications and marketing agency Kaufholz founded.
PILLAR, he says, is built on an old idea. ”An idea that has always been possible but rarely practiced: that an agency should be structured to serve the work itself.” The team that delivers the work is assembled around the specific needs of each client and only stays as long as the work calls for them.
”The senior strategist on your kick-off call is the senior strategist writing your messaging,” Kaufholz says. ”Every person on a project is there because the work specifically calls for them.”
PILLAR’s recent work has spanned human rights, executive leadership, higher education, advocacy and direct-to-consumer ecommerce. The roster has included national nonprofits, a national multimillion-dollar direct-to-consumer brand and a number of institutions navigating significant moments of strategic change. The model is built to scale up to be the agency of record for a national brand, or to scale down to design a logo for a neighborhood nonprofit. PILLAR takes equal pride and care in both.
What Kaufholz did not understand when he started, he said, was how much the County itself would matter in making any of it possible. (more…)
(Updated 4:05 p.m.) Arlington restaurants can now apply to increase the number of diners they are permitted to serve indoors and outdoors, according to Arlington Economic Development.
The county is allowing restaurants to temporarily up their maximum capacity so that the eateries can keep using — and possibly expand — their pandemic-era temporary outdoor seating areas (TOSAs), even as indoor capacity restrictions have lifted, the AED newsletter to local businesses said.
Running now through May 23rd, at Gunston Arts Center, Ghost Limb is a timely and haunting examination of authoritarianism set during Argentina’s Dirty War that draws poetic inspiration from the Persephone and Demeter myth. When Consuelo’s son is “disappeared” by the military, she discovers a psychic link between her injured arm and her tortured child-and races to find him before it’s too late.
90 minutes with no intermission
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A collaborative Summer Solstice gathering hosted by Inner Seasons and Spiritual Enhancements.
The Summer Solstice marks the peak of the sun’s power, the moment in the Wheel of the Year when light is at its fullest expression. In many traditions, this is the season of radiance, visibility, and creative fire. It is the time when nature stands unapologetically in her fullness, inviting us to do the same.
Amazon wants its employees to bike to work so much it will pay them to do it.
The e-commerce and cloud computing giant announced today it will be paying employees $350 a month to HQ2 employees to cover the costs associated with cycling, from rentals to maintenance to parking at public transit stations.
Update at 4:15 p.m. — The earlier severe thunderstorm watch and warning have both been cancelled.
Update at 3:40 p.m. — Just over 1,400 Dominion customers in Arlington are without power, according to preliminary numbers from the power company’s website.
It’s July 1, the date in which new state legislation goes into effect in Virginia.
The new laws ban balloon launches, extend for one year the ability of restaurant to offer to-go alcoholic beverages, and require drivers to maintain at least three feet of distance when passing cyclists. But perhaps the most high-profile legislation is the legalization of marijuana in the Commonwealth.
It’s July — Today is the first day in the month of July, named after Julius Caesar around the time of his assassination in 44 BC. Prior to that, the month was called Quintilis. In addition to today being the start of July, it’s also the start of the second half of the year. Expect the month to be especially hot and rainy. [Capital Weather Gang]
New Va. Bike Law Now In Effect — “A new state law requires motorists to change lanes when passing a bicyclist, if the lane of travel is not wide enough to accommodate 3 feet in distance between the motor vehicle and the bicycle. Existing law had allowed, but did not require, a motorist to move into the other lane when passing a bicyclist in order to ensure at least 3 feet of distance.” [Sun Gazette]
Throughout June, we highlighted dozens of recently sold properties in Arlington, ranging from “budget buys” to homes sold for well over asking price.
Taking a look back, 234 new listings hit the market in the past four weeks, according to Homesnap. In total, there are more than 750 homes on the market — 497 condos, 213 detached homes and 48 townhomes.
This Memorial Weekend: Argentine Festival USA Returns May 23
EVENT HIGHLIGHTS:
