Author: Airey

County Board to Vote on Paving New W&OD Trail Connection in Barcroft

By Airey
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Arlington County Board members are scheduled to consider paving a connection between the W&OD Trail and 9th Street S. in Barcroft by the Buchanan Community Garden.

The proposal is to put an asphalt connection and a stop sign between 9th Street and the trail, crossing an area on the side of the trail currently used by Dominion subsidiary Virginia Electric Power Company.

County staff wrote in a report to the Board that they hope paving and providing signage to formalize the path will “improve mobility for pedestrians and cyclists between nearby neighborhoods and the W&OD Trail.”

The W&OD Trail was recently designated as a “primary route” for cyclists during this year’s update to the county’s Master Transportation Plan, while 9th Street S. is a key bicycle route that runs parallel to Columbia Pike.

The Board is scheduled to discuss the 9th Street S. connection during its meeting this Saturday, June 15. The proposal is currently on the meeting’s consent agenda, a place members usually reserve for items expected to pass without debate.

If members OK the proposal, County Manager Mark Schwartz will sign a letter with the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority, which owns and operates the W&OD Trail, giving the county permission to build and maintain the connection.

Arlington has recently been working on adding new connections to the W&OD Trail.

In April, the county opened a new connection between the W&OD Trail and 7th Street S., and last month the county secured a $680,000 grant to study ways to better connect the W&OD and the East Falls Church Metro station.

Images via Arlington County

Virginia Tech to Build New Campus in Alexandria Near Amazon HQ2

By Airey

Virginia Tech announced today that it will build its latest campus in Potomac Yard, just across the border from Arlington in Alexandria and within close proximity to Amazon’s HQ2.

The university will be building a 1.5 million-square-foot, graduate-level “Innovation Campus” on a 15-acre property near the Regal movie theater, across Potomac Avenue from the Potomac Yard shopping center. The property is being developed by Lionstone and JBG Smith, which recently inked its deal with Amazon.

The campus was part of the state’s pitch to woo Amazon and joins the university’s other Northern Virginia facilities in Ballston and the West Falls Church.

“The first class of Innovation Campus master’s degree students will enroll in the fall of 2020 in existing space adjacent to where its new academic buildings will eventually be built,” the university said in a press release. “When complete in about 10 years, the campus will enroll 750 master’s candidates and hundreds of doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows.”

Virginia Tech President Dr. Tim Sands said today (Monday) that he was “extremely pleased” about the location and its proximity to Amazon’s headquarters across Four Mile Run.

“It is the ideal location to support Virginia Tech’s bold plan to develop new tech talent, disciplines, programs, and human-centered research that will shape the economic future of the commonwealth and beyond,” he said.

“The campus’s strategic location, on 15 acres just south of the Four Mile Run stream that separates Alexandria and Arlington, positions Virginia Tech and its future partners near the nation’s capital, diverse industries, and leading tech companies, including Amazon and its HQ2 project,” the university noted in its press release.

“The campus will include academic classrooms, incubator space for new startups and research and development, offices for industry collaboration, and convening space for alumni events,” the press release said. “The development plans call for public open space and ground-floor retail, knitting the campus into the fabric of Alexandria.”

The campus will ultimately be part of a 65-acre mixed-use development, with the planned redevelopment of the big-box shopping center.

Amazon’s arrival renewed a funding push for Potomac Yard Metro station project as well as a proposed second entrance to the Crystal City Metro station earlier this year, though fluctuating cost estimates have made the details of the Potomac Yard project murky.

Development officials in Arlington and Alexandria previously hoped Potomac Yard and Crystal City would help attract Amazon. During an August Bisnow event, they noted that even with Four Mile Run drawing a municipal boundary between the two neighborhoods, developer JBG Smith owned large properties throughout the two regions and transportation projects made the area a prime spot for large-scale commercial development.

“If we can’t get it, we turn around and ask the next Fortune 100 company about their expansion plans,” Stephanie Landrum, president and CEO of the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership, said of the Amazon selection process at the time.

During a Sunday event in Arlington about using tax revenue from Amazon to preserve affordability and equity in the area, Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson said he was “excited” about the new campus and what it can do for the region.

Wilson added that Sands is “under extreme pressure” from Commonwealth leaders to diversify the stream of tech workers in the state.

“And we said, here are we,” Wilson said of Alexandria. “We are a school system of 62 percent free and reduced lunch and 32 percent English language learners. We can help you do that.”

Interfaith Group Asks Local Leaders to Fix Community Woes With Amazon Revenue

By Airey
1/5

(Updated at 4 p.m.) A local interfaith group is proposing Arlington and Alexandria redirect Amazon revenue to address long-standing community issues like affordable housing and school crowding.

Virginians for Organized Interfaith Community Engagement called on officials to dedicate portions of their revenue from Amazon to solve long-standing issues like Arlington’s affordable housing squeeze and ever-growing school enrollment.

The so-called “Community First Initiative” calls for Arlington County to earmark the first $10 million it receives from Amazon tax revenue to invest in affordability and equity, and dedicate 50 percent of all future revenue to the same.

“This would bring upwards of $232 million by 2035,” noted a VOICE press release on the proposed initiative, adding that leaders needed to start investing in solutions now because, “affordable housing and places are disappearing too fast. Too many residents are already being pushed out.”

Officials have estimated that Amazon will net the county $342.3 million in combined tax revenue over the next 16 years.

Arlington Board Chair Christian Dorsey and Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson both expressed general support for the plan during a planned event at Wakefield High School yesterday, though Dorsey disagreed about the specific funding mechanism proposed.

VOICE asked officials to invest in their communities by taking a loan out on the revenue the county expects to earn from Amazon’s second headquarters, making use of the county’s high bond ratings.

“The whole idea that you bond against revenues that you anticipate to come, but that you don’t have a definite stream, that’s not something that’s done affordably for a community, nor would I ever recommend that we do something like that,” said Dorsey, who added that he would look into alternative funding mechanisms like general appropriations during next year’s budget negotiations.

Arlington County Board members passed a $1.4 billion budget two months ago that increased funding for the county’s Affordable Housing Investment Fund to $16 million for the next fiscal year, up from $14.3 million currently.

The investment came after a contentious hearing in March over the county’s incentive package for Amazon, which includes up to $23 million in incentives to Amazon over the next 15 years and up to $28 million in local transportation project funding. Protesters disrupted the meeting several times to express fears that the community needed more investment in affordable housing to combat gentrification that could be caused by Amazon’s arrival.

“Will I work with VOICE to dedicate at least half of all additional revenues that come from Amazon’s investments in Arlington priorities in equity and inclusion, among which are the proposals you have generated? The answer is unequivocally yes,” Dorsey said on Sunday.

Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson, who joked it was “great to be across Four Mile Run in his second favorite Virginia jurisdiction,” told the audience that he too was committed to continuing conversations with VOICE, tech leaders, and Virginia Tech, which is planning to build a new 65-acre tech campus in Alexandria close to Amazon’s new headquarters.

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ARLnow Weekend Discussion

By Airey

It’s Friday, it’s pretty nice outside, it’s dog-walking time.

It’s also almost election time. Virginia’s primary elections are Tuesday, June 11 and Arlington has several candidates on the ballot this year. The race for commonwealth’s attorney has grown especially heated in recent weeks, raking in some serious campaign contributions and also sparking discussions about long-standing issues like how defense attorneys access criminal case documents.

If you’re a bit rusty at voting, or you’ve never voted, never fear! You can learn how to check your voter registration status here and look up the polling location where you cast your vote here.

For those looking for weekend activities, there’s a bevy of Pride-themed events, a discussion about the impacts of Amazon in local communities, and a “Rock-n-Recycle” festival where you can get a look for yourself at the composting process yours truly profiled.

And while you’re at it, feel free to check out some of our other articles you may have missed this week:

What is your plan for the weekend? And what was your favorite story from the past week? Let us know in the comments below.

Library Unveils New Archive Collection of Women Who’ve Shaped Arlington’s History

By Airey
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Arlington Public Library unveiled a trove of photographs and documents this week that spotlights the women in Arlington who’ve shaped the county’s history.

The digital exhibition is called Women’s Work: Stories of Persistence and Influence and it contains photographs, letters, bumper stickers, and voting guides taken from the Center for Local History’s (CLH) Community Archives. The exhibition organizes the records under several categories from politics to education.

Library spokesman Henrik Sundqvist said the project has been in the works for the past two-and-a-half years.

“The Center for Local History’s mission is to collect, preserve, and share the history of Arlington County,” he said.

One of the project’s stories chronicles how women created at network of neighborhood libraries before WWI, despite the work being considered “too dangerous” for women not long beforehand.

After the war, the county’s population grew enough to sustain a more formal library system, the exhibition’s page on libraries explains. Arlington resident Eleanor Leonard was appointed as the first professional librarian.

Other stories introduce readers to famed figures like suffragette Gertrude Crocker, who was jailed multiple times while fighting for women’s right to vote, and Margarite Syphax, who created her own real estate company to serve all families after learning other companies refused to sell or buy from African-Americans.

The digital exhibition is a permanent one funded by the library’s fiscal year 2018 budget, and staff hopes the project will continue to grow.

“Our goal is to highlight some of the untold stories of the many women pioneers who helped shape Arlington,” Sundqvist said. “Our hope is to uncover more stories as our collections grow.”

Although the files shared online were already a part of Arlington archives, the exhibition’s organizers wanted to shine a light on women’s history in the county.

“We always knew that women played an important part in building this County, but the extent of their contributions was amazing,” said Judith Knudsen, who works as a manager at the Center for Local History. “We learned, for example, that one of the many initiatives of The Church Women United was to help migrant workers in the early ’60s.”

Currently, none of the women featured in the digital collection are Vietnamese and few are African American. Both groups have helped build historical Arlington landmarks like Little Saigon and the newly re-named Green Valley neighborhood.

Sundqvist said the library hopes to expand the collection to include additional diversity.

“Yes, of course,” he said in response to a question from ARLnow. “The library welcomes donations of materials that help tell the stories of Arlington in a more comprehensive way.”

Those interested in donating materials to the Community Archives can learn how here.

Photos via Arlington Public Library

‘How’s My Driving?’ Service Tracking Car Violations May Roll into Arlington

By Airey

(Updated at 4:05 p.m.) The co-creator of the popular car violation tracking app “How’s My Driving?” is eyeing an expansion across the Potomac.

Mark Sussman is the data scientist behind the app, along with his partner and co-creator Daniel Schep, a software engineer. Sussman told ARLnow today that he’s considering expanding the service from D.C. to Arlington because of the demand he’s seen over the past few months.

“It’s almost been an aggressive demand from some Arlington folks,” he said, laughing. “We obviously have folks who live in Arlington and work in D.C. and have been wanting to use it.”

https://twitter.com/hmdappio/status/1136690997252038657?s=20

Sussman and Schep built a Twitter bot last July that lets Twitter users tweet problems like vehicles parked in bike lanes or blocking sidewalks. If a user tweets a moving or parking violation at the bot with the vehicle’s license plate number, the bot fetches data from the D.C. DMV on how many outstanding citations or violations the driver has racked up on that vehicle.

The developers later announced they’d be beta-testing a smartphone app version of the service. Since then Sussman says about 1,200 people have volunteered to test it. The app automatically tweets the citation information that results from people’s reports to D.C. parking enforcement authorities in an effort to encourage enforcement.

Several Arlingtonians have joined the beta-testing group, despite the fact that “How’s My Driving?” isn’t yet connected to any Arlington database that could show the number of violations.

This summer, Sussman said he and Schep are planning to start talking to authorities in Arlington about whether the app can help with traffic enforcement in the county, and whether they can integrate it with the current record-keeping systems for citations. Parking citations are publicly available with license plate numbers in Arlington. But unlike D.C., Arlington app users need a citation number in order to look up moving violations, such as speeding.

The record amount for the most outstanding fines accrued by a single vehicle in D.C. flagged by the bot so far is $36,594. The majority of the fines for the Virginia-registered vehicle were from speeding violations.

“If that information was provided to officers on the front end instead of having them have to look it up, then they’d be much more likely to do the right thing,” said Sussman. “While it may seem like a benign to some [to report] standing in a bike lane, it’s a proxy for more dangerous behavior.”

So far, users have reported 74 parking and moving violations in Arlington, with the majority clustered in Clarendon and around Reagan National Airport.

The locations made sense to Sussman. “A third of these violations are for bike lane violations,” he said. “These are notoriously abused bike lanes.”

Due to a dedicated community of pedestrians and cyclists who report violations spotted around town, the bot has exploded in popularity since starting last year. “Currently, we’ve had a little over 7,000 submissions that represent over $2 million in the District of Columbia,” Sussman said, of the total fines reported.

In the future, Sussman said he and Schep are considering doing away with the Twitter bot altogether to avoid gaining a reputation as “vigilante social media shamers” and focus more on integration with government systems, to help with their main goal of improving enforcement.

Twitter users would, of course, still be able to tweet about what they find out from the app on their own.

“We just don’t want it to be the main vehicle that people use for enforcement,” he said.

Image via Marc Sussman/Twitter

SoulCycle To Open First Virginia Studio Next Week in Clarendon

By Airey
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(Updated at 11 a.m.) SoulCycle is opening a new studio in Clarendon next week, the first Virginia location for the company.

The fitness studio will hold a pre-launch event next Thursday, June 13, at its new location in a 3,248-square-foot space at Market Common Clarendon at 2700 Clarendon Blvd.

The studio’s official opening date is Friday, June 14.

The new Clarendon location will feature 55 bikes and will also sell the company’s workout apparel, in addition to athleisure from brands PE Nation and The Upside, per a company spokeswoman.

The company confirmed it was coming to the shopping center in January after speculation a “luxury” gym was moving in and initial permits suggested the company was eyeing the space between Origin cosmetics store and the Apple store. Equinox, which owns a majority stake in SoulCycle, is also reported to be planning to open at gym at Market Common.

Amid all the new openings, the nearby Washington Sports Club announced plans to close at the end of the month.

The cost of cycling classes at the new Clarendon SoulCycle studio will start at $20 per lesson for first-timers, and go up to $32 afterwards, per the spokeswoman.

SoulCycle operates four studios in D.C. and 61 others across the U.S., according to its website.

Interfaith Organization Holding Discussion About Amazon

By Airey

A local interfaith organization is holding a meeting this weekend about how to ensure Amazon’s second headquarters benefits the local community.

Virginians for Organized Interfaith Community Engagement is holding the public meeting at Wakefield High School (1325 S. Dinwiddie Street) this Sunday, June 9 from 4:30-6:15 p.m. and is encouraging residents from Arlington and Alexandria to attend.

Arlington County Board Chair Christian Dorsey and Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson are expected to attend the event, per a VOICE press release. Other attendees slated to be there include local clergy of various religions, teachers, students, and business owners.

The topics of discussion include affordable housing and equal opportunities in education.

“Arlington and Alexandria officials have talked about the need to work together to mitigate negative impacts and maximize public benefits,” VOICE spokeswoman Marjorie Green told ARLnow. “This VOICE gathering will mark the first public joint event addressing potential actions in any detail.”

The event is free but attendees are asked to RSVP to voice@voice‐iaf.org.

Inside the Fight Over Access to Criminal Case Documents in Arlington

By Airey
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An Arlington County policy on how defense attorneys access the materials they need to prepare their cases has become a hot topic in the already heated commonwealth’s attorney race.

Since Parisa Dehghani-Tafti launched her campaign to unseat Theo Stamos in the June 11 Democratic primary, discussions over the county’s discovery policy have featured in a candidate debate, a public endorsement, and a public letter opposing Stamos.

A discovery policy dictates which case files a prosecutor is required to share with defense attorneys. Some attorneys say Arlington’s policy of asking attorneys to hand copy this information at the courthouse is so cumbersome that it makes it difficult for them to represent their clients.

Stamos argued during an April debate with Tafti that the hand-copying policy protects witnesses’ privacy by preventing information like addresses, Social Security numbers, and dates of birth from leaving her office. She said her office would need additional resources to make the redactions necessary to share copies with defense attorneys.

In the meantime, defense attorneys have to sign agreements not to share their notes or dictations from misdemeanor or felony discovery files.

This contrasts to neighboring jurisdictions like Fairfax County and Alexandria, which regularly email copies of similar files to defense attorneys or provide take-home hard copies.

When asked if she had evidence showing increased incidents of witness intimidation in neighboring jurisdictions as a result of the more permissive discovery policy, Stamos told ARLnow the other jurisdictions might not have to “worry about the witness intimidation piece because they have an efficient redaction process.” She hopes to implement the same process in Arlington.

Four defense attorneys who spoke with ARLnow disagreed that the current policy was necessary, calling Arlington’s unique process for accessing case files “onerous,” “cumbersome,” and “horribly inefficient.”

Resisting Reform or Protecting Privacy?

“I’m looking at the police report in a paper format. And whether I’m typing it on my laptop or handwriting notes, I am literally just copying word for word what it says,” said defense attorney Elizabeth Tuomey, who has worked in the county for the past 15 years. She called the discovery policy “a complete waste of time.”

Tuomey, who is one of the signatories of the letter opposing Stamos, told ARLnow that the prosecutor’s office also does not allow defense attorneys to make copies of photos in discovery files. As a result, Tuomey says she has to describe the images in her notes and write down the file name if she wants to ask prosecutors to show an image during trial.

Defense attorney Terry Adams said he dictates descriptions of photos and sometimes has to draw sketches of important ones. He was an Arlington deputy sheriff in 1987 before becoming a private attorney, and he has donated to Tafti’s campaign and signed the letter opposing Stamos.

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A Hope for a Better Future at Lee Highway’s New UPS Store

By Airey
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Nestled in Lee Heights Shops, between a jewelry store and a bistro, sits an unassuming UPS Store with a big story.

Store owner Sahar Al-Furaiji opened the packing, shipping and printing shop, at 4532 Lee Highway, in March after months of trying to find the right location in Virginia, and years of trying to find a safe home for her family fleeing terrorists in her home country of Iraq.

“In our first year here my dad saw a UPS Store and said, ‘Wow I want to own one of those,’ and I thought he was joking,” said Al-Furaiji’s 15-year-old daughter Zuha, who works at the store after school.

Al-Furaiji, not her husband, ended up opening one of the franchises after painstakingly comparing locations across Virginia for the right population density and job opportunities to support a shipping business.

She credits her experience with logistics and business management running a non-profit in Iraq with making the transition to owning a small business here an easier one.

The non-profit connected services funded by the American embassy like career training for Iraqi widows. But the Al-Furaiji family’s cooperation with Americans made them unpopular, and they had to flee their home in Baghdad because of threats in 2006.

Her family then moved to Kurdistan in northern Iraq for awhile, but the safety didn’t last long.

In 2014, the Islamic State terrorist group began approaching northern Iraq and attacking American sympathizers.

Al-Furaiij said her husband received a call from an ISIS member one night. The voice on the phone said, “You have leave in 24 hours or you have to be ready for what will happen to you and your family.”

Three years and a visa process later, the family of five touched down in Virginia and stayed in Chantilly before finding what Al-Furaiji hopes is her forever home in McLean.

“When we came here, one of the neighbors invited us over and it touched my heart, you know, that she had her pictures of her babies from day one through high school,” said Al-Furaiji. “All the steps into high school, in the same place, in the same wall, in the same house, and in the same room.

“I put all my history in one package in storage in my house,” she said.

Now Al-Furaiij wants her children to go to college and take advantage of opportunities she and her husband, who now teaches part-time at the University of Virginia, never had.

But for now, business at Al-Furaiij’s store on Lee Highway — UPS Store No. 7086, per its email address — has doubled each month and it’s no longer “horrible” to handle the fast-paced English of hurried customers.

“After three months I feel really good,” she said. “I don’t have any problems.”

“She never lost her balance of being a great mom and a hard worker,” said Zuha, adding that her mother regularly works 16-hour days. “My mom is a hell of a mom.”

Arlington Pet of the Week: Sierra

By Airey
1/3

Arlington’s newest pet of the week is chatty cat Sierra.

Here’s what her owner, Manu, said Sierra had to say:

My name is Sierra. My mom, Manu, was a foster mom for a local rescue for 3+ years and I am proud to say I am the first kitty she couldn’t give back! Some people say we look alike. I am an orange tabby and my mom has orange hair too (though she claims it’s red).

I am a little over 1 year and now that I’m settled in my forever home in Arlington, I love to snuggle with mom and play. I love when her boyfriend (I call him cat daddy Sean) comes to visit, because he will get out this little laser thingy… one day I’ll catch this darn dot!

I have toys all over our little studio. When mom cleans them up, I find them and scatter them tastefully across the room. I am just making sure people know this is MY home!  My favorite thing to do is to hide all my little toy mice everywhere! Mom finds them in bed, the hamper, under the stove — great fun!

I talk a lot and make sure everyone knows how my day has been. I am very good about not leaving the apartment when the front door is open. Usually that’s when my mom talks German to me (she told me that’s where she is from) and I know I better turn around or I won’t get treats filled in my small treat ball — not going to jeopardize getting treats!!

Want your pet to be considered for the Arlington Pet of the Week? Email [email protected] with a 2-3 paragraph bio and at least 3-4 horizontally-oriented photos of your pet. Please don’t send vertical photos, they don’t fit in our photo galleries!

Each week’s winner receives a sample of dog or cat treats from our sponsor, Becky’s Pet Care, along with $100 in Becky’s Bucks. Becky’s Pet Care is the winner of six consecutive Angie’s List Super Service Awards, the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters’ 2013 Business of the Year and a proud supporter of the Arlington County Pawsitively Prepared Campaign.

Becky’s Pet Care provides professional dog walking and pet sitting in Arlington and all of Northern Virginia, as well as PetPrep training courses for Pet Care, CPR and emergency preparedness.

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