Author: Anna Merod

Here’s How You Can Still See ARLnow’s Facebook Posts After News Feed Changes

By Anna Merod
1/5

Facebook announced earlier this month that it will begin to prioritize content from friends and family over news publishers in its News Feed.

The announcement will come as a surprise to some, since 67 percent of Americans receive their news via Facebook. Pages like ours will stay in the News Feed but the you’ll likely see less of our content.

Want to make sure that doesn’t happen? Here’s how you can still follow the latest Arlington stories via your Facebook feed:

  • First go to settings.
  • Then select “News Feed Preferences.”
  • Next, select “Prioritize who to see first.”
  • Finally you can select or “star” profiles that you want to prioritize on your news feed (like ARLnow) by scrolling through or searching profiles you already follow. If you can’t find “Arlington Now,” you can press “sort” and filter by all.

Want to be even more sure you’re not missing a headline? Sign up for our email newsletter here or via the form below.

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Rosebud Film Festival Set For This Weekend

By Anna Merod

The Rosebud Film Festival, which honors the “innovative, unusual, experimental, and deeply personal” in film, will run Friday (January 26) through Sunday (January 28).

The festival, put on by Arlington Independent Media, will screen 34 films across three different showings — Friday at 7:15 p.m. and Saturday at 8:15 a.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Tickets for one film screening block cost $15, or viewers can pay $40 for the whole weekend. The screenings will be held at the Miracle Theater in Washington, D.C. (535 8th Street SE).

On Sunday, AIM will host two free panel discussions, entitled “Student Filmmaking: From the Classroom to the Real World!” at 12 p.m. and “What Critics Look For?” at 2 p.m. An awards ceremony at the Clarendon Ballroom will follow that day, with the top five films set to each receive a $1,000 cash prize.

This year was a bit different for the festival as it expanded accepted entries from the world. Before, it only accepted films from people living in D.C., Maryland and Virginia.

As a result, festival director Kevin Sampson said the submissions nearly doubled. Some of the themes in this year’s films include politics, identity, gender and sexuality.

One film titled “A Name that I Admire” follows a seventh-generation dairy farmer in Virginia as he decides who to vote for in 2016 election. An animated film also reflects on today’s politics in a project titled “Trump’s Got No Tact.”

Another film “Spectrum” is a documentary focusing on the social, political and spiritual world of 10 transgender people living in Israel.

Sampson said one of the best things about Rosebud is that it’s different from other mainstream festivals and movie viewings.

“Coming out to Rosebud you really get to hear from these artists that are speaking from their hearts,” he said. “I think if people want to be entertained as well as challenged that Rosebud is the perfect fit in terms as a festival to come out to and check out.”

Photo via Rosebud Film Festival

Cherrydale Residents Fight for Proper Spelling of Park

By Anna Merod

Cherrydale residents are seeking to reclaim the original spelling of a neighborhood park as it goes through a second phase of renovations.

In a presentation at an Arlington Parks and Recreation Commission meeting yesterday (Tuesday), neighborhood resident Harry Spector said he wanted to clarify the spelling of Oak Grove Park as two words and not one word.

There are three signs currently in the park that spell it as Oakgrove. However, the original sign in the park spells it as Oak Grove.

“With this being the oldest sign at the park, it’s clear to us that this was the county’s original intended spelling of the park,” Spector said.

Though the Oakgrove spelling is cited in the county’s Parks and Recreation master plan, Spector said there is no record the county intended to change the spelling.

“It’s a typographical error that was never corrected,” he said.

Other official documents since the 1990s that required county approval have also used the two-word spelling, Spector said.

While it seems the change could be made administratively, Spector said he was directed to the Parks and Recreation Commission by county staff, as there is a two-part process for renaming parks. The commission makes recommendations to the Arlington County Board, which has the final say on approval.

“It’s a little time consuming to correct a typo, but it’s probably the only way to do it,” said David Howell, a commission member.

Spector was hoping to fast-track the change, since the county acknowledges the park as Oak Grove while the department references it as Oakgrove. He said he wants the change to happen before the park’s renovation is complete, sometime between February and May.

The renovations include a new playground for 2-5 year-olds and 5-12 year-olds. There will also be new benches and a new gazebo with picnic tables.

All the members of the committee agreed with Cherrydale residents that the name should be changed, and will be holding another meeting on the protocol of name changing and will include another motion to move forward the spelling of the park.

“It’s kind of absurd to have go through such a process for a simple, obvious grammatical error,” Spector said.

Photos via Google Maps

County Board to Vote on Taking Control of Fairfax Drive from VDOT

By Anna Merod

Arlington County is one final step away from controlling sections of Fairfax Drive and 10th Street N. along the Orange Line corridor.

The Arlington County Board will vote on Saturday (January 27) to approve a deal that would give the county control of the road between its intersections with N. Glebe Road and N. Barton Street, from roughly the Ballston to Courthouse neighborhoods. The roadway is currently controlled by the Virginia Department of Transportation.

The vote follows after the Commonwealth Transportation Board approved the transfer of control of the road, also known as Route 237, in December. The county requested that transfer in July 2017.

Making the portion of the roadway a part of Arlington’s local road system would streamline reviews for development and other changes, and give the county more flexibility to implement multimodal improvements.

In a report, county staff said Route 237’s current ownership under the state makes the county go through an “extensive review process with the Virginia Department of Transportation for all site plan development reviews and county transportation infrastructure projects.”

Staff said there is also a “cumbersome design-exception process” that costs the county more time and money for each project under VDOT supervision. The transfer could also cost the county between $60,000 and $70,000 a year for added road maintenance responsibilities, the cost of which are only partially reimbursed by the state, according to a fiscal impact statement.

Image via Arlington County

Arlington Democrats Join Thousands in Women’s March on Washington

By Anna Merod
1/7

About 250 people gathered at the entrance of the Arlington Memorial Bridge on Saturday to join the second Women’s March in Washington, D.C.

The Arlington County Democratic Committee organized with grassroots organizations for the second year to gather locals to march across Memorial Bridge to a rally at the Lincoln Memorial. There, speakers talked of the importance of the rights of women, people with disabilities, immigrants and people of color.

Jill Caiazzo, the new Arlington Democrats chair after succeeding Kip Malinosky, said the point of this year’s march was to not only highlight women’s position in society, but to also encourage people to vote. The march’s theme this year was “Power to the Polls.”

“I think it’s important just as a general matter all year long that we remind people of the very critical midterm election and the fact that we all need to do our part so that everyone knows about it, everybody’s registered to vote and everybody is able to vote and does vote on election day who is eligible,” Caiazzo said.

Some of the speakers at the three-hour rally included Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.),  Virginia Del. Kelly Fowler (D-21), U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.).

The speakers called for the need to elect more women and criticized the Republicans in Congress over the government shutdown that same weekend.

This year Arlington Democrats will be doing its part to march to the polls through its three new voter outreach coordinators, who will be setting up activities with marginalized groups in the community who do not necessarily interact with politicians on a regular basis.

“I think you will be seeing more events focused on just being in the community and voter education as opposed to just focusing on knocking on doors and get the vote out,” Caiazzo said. “That’s going to be very important but we also want to emphasize too that we are in the community as a positive force.”

Wendy Reed, a resident of the Madison Manor neighborhood, came to protest because of her concerns over immigration, environmental protection and the treatment of women.

“I feel like we’re upside down,” Reed said. “I feel like all the things I care about are being hacked away.”

Another protester, Lynn Borton of Courthouse, said she returned to the Women’s March because it felt good to be a part of something that’s unifying in a time when society has felt more divisive. Borton also said she is thinking of her great, great grandmother, who never had the right to vote.

Several parents brought their daughters to march with them as well, including Eric Sword, who brought his two daughters, Lyra and Cat. They also went to the march last year.

Lyra Sword said she came back to the march “because it was fun last year and it felt good to be surrounded by people who believe the same thing.”

Eric Sword added that President Donald Trump’s administration hits home because his family is close with someone that is transgender. It was reported recently that the Trump administration plans to protect health workers who deny treating transgender people or handling abortions on religious grounds.

Kay Bailey also brought her two daughters Elisa and Amanda Boiani to make sure they see that women don’t have to endure the treatment of Trump’s policies against them and minorities.

“I want to teach my daughters that everyone is equal and everyone is worthy of human rights and we can’t behave like this and expect the rest of the world to uphold human rights,” Bailey said.

Visajump Seeks to Rid the Stress of Traveling Abroad

By Anna Merod

Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow.com, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups and their founders, plus other local technology happenings. The Ground Floor, Monday’s office space for young companies in Rosslyn, is now open. The Metro-accessible space features a 5,000-square-foot common area that includes a kitchen, lounge area, collaborative meeting spaces, and a stage for formal presentations.

A new app hopes to create a seamless way for users to plan a travel itinerary and keep track of all their travel documents, including visa information, in one place.

Local company Visajump hopes to take away the stress and worry travelers have when trying to keep up with documentation and the bureaucratic processes of traveling.

While the app is still in development, its co-founders, Craig Chavis and Wendy Truong, have been in touch with more than 20 embassies.

Many have agreed to keep a continuing relationship with Visajump so users will be able to receive live updates regarding travel alerts and visa information, Chavis said. In turn, he added, users can also provide live updates from the ground.

“Every passport has a unique, different situation, so changes occur all the time, and so having those relationships with the embassies we’re able to stay ahead of the game,” Chavis said.

Currently, Chavis and Truong are testing out the visa database feature in the first version, Chavis said. This includes going beyond the questions — do users care about immunizations? How long does it take to get a visa? How much will it cost?

“You know basically we’re figuring out how the travelers think, how they do their planning process from the beginning to the end,” Chavis said. “And so we’re gauging those different responses, because you know every traveler is different.”

The vision behind Visajump came out of Chavis and Truong’s passion for travel. Chavis had recently travelled abroad for three years and Truong had travelled for 19 years.

When Chavis was abroad he met other travelers who had issues obtaining their visas, keeping track of travel plans and staying organized. So once he returned to the U.S. and met Truong at Startup Week D.C. the two wanted to solve this solution on a global scale.

Truong added that once the U.S. passports are established in the app, the two want to start working on other passport user cases.

As a Vietnamese woman, Truong said she always needed a visa during her 19 years abroad. In fact, Truong believes the market for the app lies within developing countries.

“In turn, yes there’s a lot of U.S. travelers going abroad but not a lot of them require visas,” she said. “Whereas people from developing countries, they actually are traveling more cause there is a middle class rising from those markets and you know for them to go anywhere they require visas.”

Overall, it is the two founders’ avid passion for travel that has driven the app forward since its inception four months ago. The company has several investors and it meets with them weekly.

Next up, Chavis and Truong plan to enter into the Airport Innovation Challenge, a program that it said will “activate the startup community and identify innovations that will transform the passenger journey.”

Here’s Where You Can Recycle Rechargeable Batteries in Arlington

By Anna Merod
1/2

While regular batteries made of zinc carbon and alkaline can be thrown away, rechargeable batteries must be recycled, otherwise they might burn in the trash or cause ecological issues.

To prevent a possible a fire at home, rechargeable batteries along with lithium, silver oxide and mercury batteries can be dropped off at the following locations in Arlington:

  • Best Buy (Pentagon City) – 1201 S. Hayes St., Suite B
  • Fire Station 1 (Glebe Road) – 500 S. Glebe Road
  • Fire Station 2 (Ballston) – 4805 Wilson Blvd.
  • Fire Station 4 (Clarendon) – 3121 10th St. N.
  • Fire Station 5 (Jefferson District/Aurora Highlands) – 1750 S. Hayes St.
  • Fire Station 7 (Fairlington) – 3116 S. Abingdon St.
  • Fire Station 8 (Lee Highway) – 4845 Lee Highway
  • Fire Station 9 (Walter Reed) – 1900 S. Walter Reed Drive
  • Fire Station 10 (Rosslyn) – 1559 Wilson Blvd.
  • Households Hazardous Material Facility – 530 31st St. S.

At the fire station, residents can just hand over their batteries to fire personnel at the building’s entrance or, where available, place the batteries in an orange collection bin outside the station.

In order to drop off the batteries at the Household Hazardous Material Facility, an appointment must be scheduled between Monday and Friday, according to the county website. Residents can drop off materials without an appointment on Saturday from 9 a.m.-3 p.m.

Other nearby battery recycling locations, according to Call2Recycle, include Home Depot and Lowe’s stores, along with Falls Church city government headquarters at 300 Park Avenue.