First, I want to thank you for your support for my recent campaign for Arlington County Board. I got 17,415 votes–23.6 percent of the total. This is good, considering that I’m an independent, and the Democrat at the top of the ticket, Ralph Northam, got 80 percent of the Arlington County vote in what turned out to be a lopsided referendum against Donald Trump.

My campaign would have gotten little traction without your support, and I’m glad you provided me with the opportunity to get my message to the public.

While my opponents cast themselves as progressives, they offered few specifics on the campaign trail on how to address the key issues facing this county, among them:

• An 18 percent office vacancy rate, with government tenants searching for lower rents elsewhere in northern Virginia;
• Continued gentrification of the county with at least 13,500 affordable units lost since 2000 and most of the remaining soon to be recycled into luxury condos and townhouses;
• Continued erosion of parkland in the face of massive redevelopment of the Rosslyn, Ballston and Crystal City corridors.
• No plan for how to address proposed Trump budget cuts that may cost Northern Virginia 10,000 jobs.

Rest assured that I will continue to raise these issues in public forums, and I will lobby for the solutions I advocated during the campaign.

Thanks again for your support for democratic action, which is the Arlington Way.