Arlington County firefighters are sounding the alarm on a possible exodus from the department over stagnating wages.
IAFF Local 2800, which represents the county’s professional firefighters and paramedics, warned in a press release Monday that without an increase in pay or a hazard pay program, there could be “high turnover rates over the next year” in the department.
Following the lead of the state and the federal government, Arlington County is considering a mandate for its employees and contractors to be vaccinated.
Last week President Biden announced that federal employees must either sign forms attesting to be vaccinated or submit to mandatory masking, weekly testing and distancing. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced a similar policy for more than 100,000 state employees yesterday.
(Updated at 3:55 p.m.) A national search for Arlington’s new police chief has ended with a familiar choice.
Andy Penn, a 29-year veteran of the Arlington County Police Department and its current acting chief, has been named as the county’s new permanent chief by County Manager Mark Schwartz.
A boathouse, a library in Crystal City and a new Metro entrance in Ballston are some of the projects Arlington County is looking to fund over the next three years.
These projects are part of County Manager Mark Schwartz’s proposed $1.25 billion, three-year Capital Improvement Plan, slated for adoption this summer, which includes a long list of investments, from renovating and building community amenities to upgrading county technology.
Arlington County Manager Mark Schwartz aims to have a new police chief in place within the next month or two.
And this police chief, he said during a meeting last week, must appreciate Arlington’s diversity and understand how different communities react to police presence.
Jail to Reopen to Visitors — “Sheriff Beth Arthur has announced a modified reopening of in-person visitation for those remanded to the Arlington County Detention Center. Relatives and friends will regain the ability to visit loved ones in person beginning May 1. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in-person visitation at the Arlington County Detention Center has been suspended for more than a year.” [Arlington County]
HQ2 to Feature Small Local Businesses — “Amazon.com Inc. plans to prioritize leasing retail space at its D.C.-area offices to businesses owned by people from historically underrepresented groups, an official with the e-commerce and cloud computing giant said recently. ‘We’re still in the process of curating and finding those retailers, but our goal is small, local, minority- and women- owned,’ Joe Chapman, Amazon’s director of global real estate and facilities, said of the company’s retail leasing strategy during a meeting of Arlington’s long range planning committee April 19.” [Washington Business Journal]
The County Board is slated to vote on its fiscal year 2022 budget tomorrow (Tuesday) and affordable housing is top of mind for many Arlingtonians and Board members.
In February, County Manager Mark Schwartz proposed a budget with $71.1 million earmarked for housing — about 8.5% of the overall $834 million county budget, excluding schools.
Last year started out as “a good budget year” for County Manager Mark Schwartz. But nearly a year after the pandemic hit Arlington, Schwartz’s new budget proposal is more austere.
Schwartz calls the upcoming Fiscal Year 2022 budget, which is being presented to the County Board Thursday afternoon, a “transition budget.” While modestly increasing spending, his proposal reflects big pandemic-era declines in some key revenue sources.
Arlington doesn’t have it as bad as other communities, but the pandemic is causing a drop in tax revenue that is likely to result in some budget cuts.
That’s the message from County Manager Mark Schwartz, who presented an update on the county’s finances at last night’s County Board meeting.
Three days after members of the Arlington County Board expressed support for changing the county’s logo, officials outlined a process for changing it, the county seal and, potentially, names of some local roads and places.
The logo change comes after a push from the Arlington branch of the NAACP, which earlier this summer called the illustration of Arlington House a “racist plantation symbol” that “divides, rather than unites us.”
Arlington County’s new police practices review board answered questions from the public about its goals and methods in a virtual meeting Monday.
The board, announced in July by County Manager Mark Schwartz, used the meeting to elaborate on how it would “ensure that the Arlington County Police Department is current with policing best practices and continue to build trust between our police and the community” through its review.
(Updated at 10:30 a.m.) Arlington County is creating a new group of residents, officials and police officers to review law enforcement practices in Arlington.
The 15-member Police Practices Group will conduct a review to “ensure that the Arlington County Police Department is current with policing best practices and continue to build trust between our police and the community.”
