School Board members are giving themselves extra time before making final decisions on rearranging the locations of some non-traditional secondary programs.
Rather than being taken up the first week of February, as would be the typical cycle following its Jan. 22 presentation as an information item, final discussion and vote will be taken two weeks later.
If Arlington residents see immigration enforcement operating in the county, some local elected officials are advising them to call 911.
County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti and Board member Takis Karantonis encouraged calling the emergency number. De Ferranti noted at a meeting on Saturday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents “have no legal requirement to tell us when they come into our community.”
Before Arlington moves to change its form of government, it needs to educate more residents on what the current structure is and why reforms might be needed, one County Board member believes.
“Walk down a street in Ballston, Columbia Pike, anywhere — most folks will look at you like a deer in the headlights” when governance is brought up, Julius “J.D.” Spain, Sr., said at the Jan. 13 Arlington County Civic Federation meeting.
Representatives of both the business community and organized labor voiced skepticism at a recent forum that an end to Virginia’s right-to-work law is on the horizon for 2026.
“Right to work is not a big thing to us right now,” said Don Slaiman, political coordinator for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 26.
Concerns about monitoring and managing chemicals at Arlington County’s Water Pollution Control Plant have prompted a public hearing this week.
The hearing is a follow-up to a public comment period last September and October, where advocates sought amendments to the draft permit related to limitations and best management practices for PFAS (Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances), also known as “forever chemicals.”
Controversy over the removal of an iconic tree in Lyon Park is prompting an in-person conversation between neighborhood civic leaders and county leadership.
An aide for County Board Chair Takis Karantonis acknowledged some community members’ frustration in a Dec. 29 follow-up with Natalie Roy, who leads the Lyon Park Citizens Association. Karantonis “would like to offer a meeting to discuss this matter,” Sandra Calixto-Mendoza said in the letter to Roy.
The School Board’s policy subcommittee will open 2026 with consideration of new policies to combat waste, fraud and abuse while protecting those on staff who report it.
At its Wednesday, Jan. 7 meeting, subcommittee members will consider two separate but interconnected draft policy documents:
The county government’s arborist is pushing back on accusations that an iconic tree was removed needlessly from a Lyon Park median.
But local residents aghast at the removal aren’t letting the county government off the hook for its actions.
The Arlington County Board has tapped the brakes on discussing any changes to the county’s governance structure, agreeing to return to the issue after some preliminary steps.
The 5-0 decision on Wednesday night, which deferred a vote on setting up a governance task force for at least seven months for further public outreach, represented a compromise between a deeply divided Board.
County Board members are promising a detailed written response after Lyon Park residents accused the local government of cutting down and carting off a “gateway” tree without cause.
The removal came despite efforts of the Lyon Park Citizens Association to preserve the tree, which had been located for the past 40 years on an island in the middle of N. Fillmore Street near 3rd Street N.
Planned program changes at the new home for the Arlington Career Center are prompting anger at a parent group supporting Arlington Tech.
Concerns are being raised that a shift in proposed programming at the forthcoming Grace Hopper Center, detailed by Superintendent Francisco Durán and staff to School Board members during a Nov. 18 work session, could dilute the specialty program and the opportunities it provides to students.
A hearing on whether to study changes to the form of Arlington’s local government is scheduled to take place next week.
County Board members have set aside an entire evening — Wednesday, Dec. 17 beginning at 6 p.m. — to hear from the public and then decide whether to set up a task force looking at the hotly debated issue. Registration is open now.
