Comments At Arlington County Board Meeting, December 17, 2025.
The County says it wants to defer consideration of a Charter for the Advisory Panel to Examine Arlington County’s Form of Government, because the issue is controversial and opinion is divided. That argument is specious, since it’s not the Board’s job to sort through a lot of mixed opinion. It’s the Panel’s job to do that. The real reason the County wants to kick the can down the road is that the change of governance that the panel might call for would likely upend the existing power structure.
Consider that County Board’s at large system of representation is as undemocratic in its operation as it was racist in its origins. According to local historian Sherman Pratt, the adoption of the current at large system in 1930 was contemporaneous with the announcement by Black leaders of their plans to run for local office in one of the County’s 3 districts. Replacing these districts with an at large board thwarted Black political ambitions for several generations. Because board members are not accountable to their neighbors, it has also served to silence any neighborhood or civic organization that opposes County Board on any matter large or small.
District representation would make it more difficult for the Board to trample on the voters in a particular district, if they were united in their response to a policy that affected their community. It would certainly be much harder to write them off as NIMBYs. Add to that the fact that the at-large County Board is as unusual in its construction as it is undemocratic in its operation. No other county in the state enjoys this form of representation.
An at large board encourages the formation of manufactured majorities which defeat neighborhoods at every turn. This amounts to petty tyranny, and those who benefit have no intention of giving it up. Understood. Just don’t weasel word your reason for deferring this important measure.