Comments at December 10, 2016 Arlington County Board Meeting on lifting restrictions on S-3A zoning districts, which County Board voted unanimously to adopt.
I want to associate myself with a recommendation sent to County Board on November 1 by longtime CivFed leader Suzanne Sundburg. In asking County Board to defer action on County staff’s request to rezone S-3A zoning districts, i.e. schools and parks, Sundburg said: Continue reading
There’s a widespread misperception among elected officials in Northern Virginia that Arlington County is obstructionist, because it opposes widening of I-66 inside the Beltway. Nothing could be further from the truth. You are looking at the only Arlington resident who publicly opposed the ill fated Spot Improvement project–which has widened I-66 piecemeal–by suing VDOT in federal district court.
I lost the court battle but not the war. Rush hour bottlenecks on westbound I-66 persist at the locus of Spot 1, because most outbound traffic is forced back on the I-66 main line at the Sycamore Street exit. In fact the only drivers who benefit from Spot 1 are local motorists who use the added merge lane as an alternative to parallel arteries between Ballston and Falls Church.
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The Department of Environmental Services should be commended for strengthening the Arlington Recycling Ordinance by adding a new Section 10-32 requiring owners of apartment dwellings and commercial establishments to co-locate recycling bins wherever trash receptacles are located on the property.
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Democratic candidates for local office issued a press release the other day promising to deal with Arlington’s enrollment crisis.
Unfortunately they will not be able to meet the challenge under Arlington Public School’s (APS) recently adopted capital budget, as it projects a 2,500 seat deficit even AFTER spending $383 million to produce 4,000 additional seats.
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Dissatisfaction with the Arlington Ashlawn Elementary School expansion project resulted from approval of the Manchester Street entrance, which will pave over a bucolic hill in a sensitive watershed area to put in a parking lot and drop-off loop. Continue reading
My comments below at the January 25, 2014 County Board meeting about the County’s unauthorized removal of trees on the Ashlawn ES site and plans to remove additional trees not authorized by its use permit drew a stern rebuke of the County Manager from no less than four County Board members. The Board is unhappy that it was not consulted about the plans and the fact that the Manager did not seek to modify the use permit it had authorized for the project last May. Continue reading
I want to pay tribute to Bob Atkins, prominent GOP civic activist, who died recently. Bob grabbed headlines when at a budget hearing last spring he commented on the impact of impending federal budget cuts, saying: “The goose that laid the golden egg has reached menopause.”
This hilarious mixed metaphor should give pause to those wondering about the cost of the Ashlawn Elementary School extension, which has ballooned from $12 million to $20 million in a year’s time. Continue reading
I’ve been taking a lot of heat for boycotting the February 17 Keystone XL Pipeline Protest even though I live in the DC area, because like the Punk Patriot I didn’t see the point. The Keystone XL pipeline is a done deal precisely because the organizers of the demonstration refused to take action against it when their opposition might have meant something.
The time for Sierra Club to protest was BEFORE the election of 2012 not AFTER. The least Sierra Club could have done was to withhold support for Obama until he acknowledged the threat of climate change and pledged to do something about it in the debates. Continue reading
Environmentalists in Northern Virginia are mourning the death of prominent Green and environmental entrepreneur Paul Hughes, who passed away on Saturday, September 15. A long time resident of Fairfax County and retired government consultant, Hughes chaired the Northern Virginia local of the Green Party of Virginia. Continue reading
I recently investigated Arlington County Board’s claim that “Arlington is dedicated to advancing environmental sustainability”. I sent an FOIA request to Michael Clem, of the county’s Environmental Management Office, asking for the county’s recycling rate. Clem reported a 39.9% recycling rate for 2010. This compares with a statewide recycling rate of 38.6% for 2009. So Arlington’s recycling rate is approximately the same as the rest of the state and a far cry from Falls Church, which recycles 57.6% of its waste. This is troubling not only because it belies Arlington’s claims of sustainability, but because Virginia itself lags behind the rest of the nation in recycling and recycling infrastructure. In fact a Virginia Beach recycling specialist told me in 2008 that outside Virginia Beach there are no comprehensive recycling facilities in the state, and Northern VA trucks its recyclables to Maryland for processing. Continue reading