In case you missed it from Friday (we did), County Board Chairman Chris Zimmerman was a guest on TBD’s NewsTalk with Bruce DePuyt program.
The topic of conversation was the failed plan to build HOT lanes on I-395, and Arlington’s lawsuit against the plan. Joining Zimmerman were two big critics of Arlington’s lawsuit: Bob Chase of the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance and Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity.
Chase and Herrity took turns bashing Arlington’s HOT lanes lawsuit. At one point, Herrity mocked what he described as “claims of racism from probably one of the whitest and richest counties in the area.”
(Zimmerman disputed that the lawsuit claimed racism — instead, he said the case focused on “environmental justice” provisions in the law.)
Things got a bit heated about six minutes into the video above, when Zimmerman and Chase started arguing about details of the suit.
“Bob, Bob, you’re just not telling the truth now… now you’re just making stuff up,” an exasperated Zimmerman said to address one of Chase’s allegations.
“You didn’t see anybody rushing to trial with this thing,” Zimmerman concluded. “We think we had a pretty strong case, I suspect the other side thinks we had a pretty strong case.”
TBD has more about the discussion here.