The Right Note

Outgoing Arlington County Board chair Jay Fisette says Arlington should be a city, not a county. From a practical standpoint, it would be a distinction without a difference. Having the word “county” in our name does not give us some massive inferiority complex.

The only explanation for Fisette’s musing is a political one. If Arlington became a city, the Democrats would almost certainly move all of the city council elections to November of presidential election years to give Republicans or independents the worst chance possible of winning.

After spending over $17 million for the yet-to-be-opened ART bus light maintenance facility in South Arlington, the county announced it is close to acquiring land for a third ART bus facility in Springfield.

The land cost for the heavy maintenance facility in Springfield itself is reported to be $4.65 million before up to $32 million could be added in the design and build process.

Now that the national political parties have moved past a $50 million special election for Congress in suburban Atlanta, all eyes will begin to move to the Old Dominion.

Virginians can expect a summer and fall filled with television ads, phone calls, and people knocking on your door asking you to get out and vote in the Governor’s race. Your Facebook feed will undoubtedly be filled with political opinions.

Virginia, like a few other states, still begins its school year after Labor Day. There is nothing wrong with maintaining this practice. And if you are going on a beach vacation, those last two weeks before Labor Day often bring reduced prices as competition for space subsides.

But the final day of elementary school in Arlington is tomorrow, June 23. There is no reason it could not be the second Friday in June in all but the snowiest of years.

There is rarely a shortage of issues to write about in Arlington, or Virginia more broadly. But today, none of them seemed appropriate.

I have worked on Capitol Hill for most of the past two decades where members of Congress and staff are generally able to work together in a civil manner across party lines.

On Monday, The Washington Post ran the following headline: “Metro hails SafeTrack as a success, but it has yet to translate into better services for riders.”

The article was not any better for the system than the headline. After one year and nearly $160 million spent addressing decades of deferred maintenance on its basic infrastructure, the system still has miles to go on repairs.

Two little discussed revenue raisers in the most recent Arlington budget were included by the County Board in April and formally voted on last week.

Your natural gas and electricity bills will go up in what was described as a “slight uptick” in a recent ARLnow story. The slight uptick is a rate increase of 50%.

It is no secret that Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) wants to expand Medicaid in Virginia.It is also no secret that the General Assembly will not vote to give him that authority.

It is perfectly ok for the Governor to keep taking his case to the public to try and put pressure on the General Assembly to come around to his way of thinking. He has continually done so, but with no success.

Congratulations to Erik Gutshall for winning the Democrats’ County Board caucus. Now Republicans should nominate an opponent.

I have met Erik on a couple occasions since he first decided to run against Libby Garvey last year. We have children who attend Gunston Middle School together. In this politically charged time, we have shared in civil conversations. I like Erik.

At the end of April, County Manager Mark Schwartz presented the County Board with a plan to put the construction of the Long Bridge Aquatics Center back on track. The timing of the announcement came as a surprise to many, but was met with excitement from those who have long pushed for a facility.

The facility had been shelved three years ago because the County Manager could not find a bid to build out the original plans with the $79 million available. According to some familiar with the process, none of the bids on the 116,000 square foot facility were even close. And there was little political will at the time to go back to the voters for more funding.

Last night Arlington Republicans honored longtime community activist Jim Pebley. Pebley is retiring and heading south to North Carolina.

From the Planning Commission to the Civic Federation, to leading community efforts on the U.S.S. Arlington and much more, Pebley built a stellar reputation across party lines for working to make Arlington a better place to live, work and raise a family. The only thing missing from his resume was holding elected office, something many of us tried to convince him to do over the years.

Arlington spent around $300 million building three new high schools over the past decade. The most logical solution to the need for additional classroom seats would be to add on to the existing structures.

The problem: those schools were largely planned when school officials were betting on studies showing school enrollments stable or going down, not up. As a result, little thought was given to the ability to expand those facilities at a later date.