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Legislative Lookback: What Arlington’s State Senators Accomplished This Year

By Airey
1/4

Arlington’s representatives in the Virginia State Senate worked on legislation addressing issues like healthcare, green energy, and teacher’s pay this year.

Three Democrats represent the county in the state Senate — Janet Howell, Barbara Favola, and Adam Ebbin. All of the senators are running for re-election this year.

Virginia’s 2019 legislative session lasted from January 9 to February 24. Here’s what each state Senator said were their biggest legislative accomplishments during that time. (We asked the same of Arlington’s House of Delegates delegation earlier this week.)

Sen. Adam Ebbin

Ebbin has served in the state senate for seven years, following eight years in the House of Delegates. He currently faces no Democratic challengers to his campaign for re-election.

The senator told ARLnow through a spokesman Wednesday he was “pleased to make progress” on legislation about “renewable energy, criminal justice reform, as well as career and technical education” during this year’s session:

SB1779 will permit localities to establish renewable energy net-metering programs. Net-metering can help counties, cities, and towns grow their local economy. Municipalities will save taxpayers’ money through developing and using green energy, generating savings that can be invested in local priorities such as schools, public safety, and infrastructure. […]

SB1612, which I have worked on for several years with Senator Bill Stanley (R-Franklin) would have ended the suspension of driver’s licenses for court costs and fees. Though this bill died in the House, Governor Northam introduced a budget amendment to reinstate 627,000 Virginians licenses during our one-day veto session on April 3rd. Unwarranted license suspension disproportionately impacts economically-disadvantaged Virginians without making our communities safer.[…]

I was also able to pass SB1575, which allows college professors to teach dual-enrollment career and technical education courses without additional licensure. This will make it easier for school divisions to offer para-professional career preparation in cybersecurity, EMT and pharmaceutical technician certification. High school students will no longer have to travel to off-campus sites to earn credit towards education in specialized fields.

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Arlington Urging Residents to Participate in Upcoming Census

By Airey

County officials are trying to drum up participation in the next U.S. Census — a year before the feds start surveying and counting.

Arlington has joined other neighboring jurisdictions in creating a group called “Complete Count Committee” tasked with convincing residents to fill out the 2020 Census form when it arrives next April.

Wanda Pierce, a Nauck resident who co-chairs of the committee, said the group is “representative of all different types of organizations, ethnicities, religions, everyone across Arlington, because to reach a lot of the hard-to-count populations, we have to have those members on the committee,” per a press release.

“The U.S. Census Bureau cannot conduct the 2020 Census alone,” the website for the committee reads.

County Board Chair Christian Dorsey also signed a proclamation calling on “the Arlington community to rise up as leaders and partners in this effort to reach 100% participation in the 2020 Census campaign.”

“It’s not enough to want to count everybody,” said County Manager Mark Schwartz at the event. “We’re going to have to go out and tell people that we want to work with them to make sure they are counted.”

Each member of the committee is tasked with recruiting at least 1,000 Arlington residents to take the annual survey, per the committee’s website.

Previously, Principal Planner and co-director of the Arlington County Census 2020 campaign Elizabeth Hardy spoke at a March meeting with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments where she noted the county began 2020 census preparations in 2018.

“This time I feel like every resident is in a hard-to-count community,” said Hardy, who worked on the awareness campaign for the 2010 census.

She said there “were a lot of lessons learned” from the 2010 campaign, and that this time around the county planned to share more resources with neighboring jurisdictions.

The census is administered once every ten years by the federal Census Bureau.

Next year’s Census has drawn controversy after Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s decision to collect information about respondents’ about the citizenship status, a largely unprecedented move that’s been criticized by civil rights advocates and defended by President Trump.

The Supreme Court is expected to make a ruling on the citizenship question on April 23.

The most recent Census estimate of Arlington’s population — made in intervening years between official Census counts — was 234,965 as of July 1, 2017. That showed Arlington’s population has continued to grow, from 230,050 in 2016, 226,908 in 2014 and 207,627 from the last Census count in 2010.

Every level of government studies the population data gleaned to make funding decisions. The number of people counted also determines how many House of Representative seats each state is awarded.

Image via U.S. Census Bureau

County Officials Announce Plans to Tackle Health Inequalities

By Airey

(Updated 17/04/18) Arlington County officials are calling for action on health disparities among residents in two new reports released this week.

Officials outlined a plan for an “oversight entity to provide governance” on health equity policies as part of a report released yesterday (Thursday). The 27-page document includes the plan in a bid to reduce a 10-year life expectancy gap that exists based on where in Arlington you live, as first reported in 2016 by the Northern Virginia Health Foundation.

The “Destination 2027 Steering Committee” was formed last year to close that gap, stating that, “the presence of health inequities in Arlington is inconsistent with who we are and what we value as a community.” The committee is made up of 40 local organizations including the Virginia Hospital Center, police and first responders, and most county departments.

Details for how the group plans to achieve that are starting to come to light, including an open data project around health in the county.

“We are working to share a dashboard with data about health outcomes and community conditions,” Kurt Larrick, Assistant Director of the Department of Human Services, told ARLnow. “So stay tuned with that.”

“The public policies that have led to how our neighborhoods operate, how schools operate, how transportation occurs, often have some population’s benefit and others that are burdened,” said Reuben Varghese, the county’s Public Health Director, in a video yesterday. “And so that can lead to these groups having different life expectancy or other health outcomes.”

Yesterday the county also released the 2019 Arlington Partnership for Children, Youth and Families (APCYF) Community Report which noted “striking disparities” in kid’s health that were “based on factors such as income, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, and level of English proficiency.”

Some of the report’s findings include:

  • Hispanic youth were four times as likely to be obese as their white peers.
  • Ten percent of high school students reported going hungry at home.
  • Students with individual education plans (IEPs) were less likely to feel like they belonged in their school community compared to students without IEPS.
  • Forty-two percent of LGBT youth said they had been sexually harassed and were more likely to be depressed than other youth.
  • The total number of kids who said they received the necessary help for their depression “was so low for Black and Asian youth that a percentage could not be reported.”

The 56-page report compiled data from local, state, and federal sources, including the new APS “Your Voice Matters” survey and the 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

“Nothing in particular was surprising, we noticed that the data confirmed many assumptions that we have heard,” Kimberly Durand, the coordinator for the partnership, told ARLnow.

“For example, Child Care and Mental Health continue to be of concern, and the data that we have compiled confirmed that,” she said.

The Steering Committee’s action report also shared some research from previous years that indicated:

  • Black residents in Arlington are hospitalized for asthma-related medical issues eight times more often than white residents.
  • Hispanic youth are 11 times more likely to become teen parents than their white classmates.
  • Arlington residents report poor mental health when earning less than $50,000 a year.

Durand’s youth report did found some improvements often associated with better health outcomes. Last year, 75 percent of Hispanic youth and students learning English graduated on time, compared to 61 percent graduating on time in the 2012-2013 year.

Arlington may have been nominated Virginia’s second healthiest county last month, but researchers have long noted residents’ health varies greatly across geographic, economic, and racial lines.

“While we may not be responsible for creating these conditions, each of us owns solving them,” said Destination 2027 co-chair Tricia Rodgers.

Photo via YouTube

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Crystal City to Grow With Amazon — “‘Amazon, and its 25,000 employees, coming to Crystal City will change everything,’ [Vornado Realty Trust Chairman and CEO Steven] Roth wrote in the letter. ‘Crystal City will become a teeming metropolis of apartments, shops and offices.'” [Washington Business Journal]

Local Couple Talks About Deadly Accident — “An Arlington couple is making a personal plea for a recall of the Fisher-Price Rock ‘N Play sleeper after their son died while laying in the product. Arlington parents Evan and Keenan Overton’s baby son Ezra died in the Rock ‘N Play sleeper right before Christmas in 2017.” [WJLA]

FLIR Moves to Pentagon Row — Infrared camera manufacturer FLIR Systems is moving its D.C. area headquarters to Pentagon Row, in the former LA Fitness space. The company recently announced an investment in a drone company and a large new DoD contract. [FLIR, BusinessWire, BusinessWire]

Confusing Signs Corrected on the Pike — A pair of seemingly contradictory direction signs on Columbia Pike, at the Washington Blvd interchange, have been corrected, county officials say. [Twitter]

Arlington Holds #MeToo Event — “On Wednesday, several Arlington County groups and Arlington’s ‘Project PEACE,’ held an event named ‘#MeToo: Being Men – Raising Men’ at the Arlington County Central Library. Lisa Tingle, the senior assistant commonwealth’s attorney for Fairfax County and Falls Church, said it is important to teach men about sexual harassment at an early age.” [WUSA 9]

Flickr pool photo by Brian Irwin

Crime Report: Axe-Wielding Burglar in Douglas Park

By ARLnow.com

A burglar tried to break into a home in Douglas Park early Monday morning, at one point picking up an axe and rapping it against a glass window, according to police.

A resident was inside the home on the 4200 block of 16th Street S. at the time and called police. A suspect was soon located and arrested by officers. No one was hurt.

More from this week’s Arlington County Police Department crime report:

BURGLARY, 2019-04080006, 4200 block of 16th Street S. At approximately 12:45 a.m. on April 8, police were dispatched to the report of a burglary just occurred. Upon arrival, it was determined that the male victim was inside his residence when he heard his screen door open. Upon investigating, he observed a male suspect inside the screened-in porch of his residence. The suspect allegedly attempted to open the door leading directly into the residence and then proceeded to knock on the door’s window pane with an axe located on the victim’s property. Arriving officers canvased the area and located a subject matching the description provided by the victim. Darrell Graham, 53, of No Fixed Address was arrested and charged with Burglary. He was held on no bond.

Also in this week’s crime report were a pair of reported robberies.

ROBBERY (late), 2019-04060062, 1300 block of Lee Highway. At approximately 5:50 a.m. on April 6, police were dispatched to the late report of a robbery. Upon arrival, the male victim reported that at approximately 5:00 p.m. on April 5, a known suspect approached him and asked for the beverage he was drinking. When the victim refused, the suspect struck him and stole the beverage. The victim declined medical treatment. The suspect is described as a black male in his 40’s with black hair. The investigation is ongoing.

ROBBERY (late), 2019-04030059, 4200 block of S. Four Mile Run Drive. At approximately 8:20 a.m. on April 3, police responded to the late report of a robbery. Upon arrival, it was determined that at approximately 6:40 a.m. on March 28, the victim observed the known male suspect attempt to steal his friend’s bicycle. When the victim attempted to intervene, the suspect brandished a knife and threatened him. The suspect fled the scene on the bicycle. The suspect is described as a black male, approximately 15-18 years old, with a slim build, wearing all black clothing and a black baseball hat. The investigation is ongoing.

New Connection Between 7th Street S. And Four Mile Run Trails Now Open

By Airey

A new trail connection is now open between 7th Street S. and the Washington & Old Dominion Trail.

The new access point in Barcroft was open as of Monday, per a photo submitted to ARLnow’s Flickr Pool.

The eight-foot-wide trail connection is paved and comes with new signs and striping at both ends, according a county update on the construction which began this winter.

The Barcroft School and Civic League gave its stamp of approval to the trail connection’s design in February. The design was originally drafted in 2013, per plans posted on the county’s website.

Parts of Four Mile Run and W&OD trails were also under construction in February after the county said emergency repairs were needed to stop the stream from eroding.

Photo courtesy Flickr pool contributor Dennis Dmick

Sewage Backup Floods Five Houses in Madison Manor

By Airey
1/6

(Updated at 2:45 p.m.) Sewage flooded a number of houses on N. Powhatan Street earlier this week, but officials say they’ve addressed contamination worries for a nearby public park.

Five homes in the Madison Manor neighborhood were flooded early Monday morning after a sewer main clogged, and it took crews all night to clear the line, per a statement from the Department of Environmental Services (DES). Officials said they don’t yet know what caused the blockage.

Neighbor Steve Starr told ARLnow he worried about nearby Madison Manor Park being contaminated, but those concerns were addressed by county crews.

A DES spokeswoman confirmed there was sewage discharge “adjacent to the park” from a house’s sump pump but that the sewage had “mostly infiltrated to the ground,” and that crews had applied disinfectant to the area. There was no impact to nearby trails, which connect to the W&OD Trail, the spokeswoman said.

Starr noted that crews were dispatched quickly to start the cleanup process inside the homes.

“Residents of N. Powhatan woke up to men in moon suits entering their houses to clean sewage,” he said.

The full statement from DES is below.

There was a sewage backup that was reported last night, impacting approximately five homes in the 1200 block of North Powhatan Street. Crews worked overnight to flush the line and were able to break through the blockage around 1 a.m. The flow in the main quickly returned to normal and houses started to see relief around the same time as well. The line has been cleaned and inspected and is now back in service. We will continue to monitor it and investigate the potential issue for the blockage.

If customers continue to experience issues, please contact the Water Control Center at 703-228-6555.

Photo via Steve Starr

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Caps Player Abandons Car on Glebe Road — “Monday was media day for the Capitals, their first practice of the postseason. [Lars] Eller was on his way to MedStar Capitals Iceplex when suddenly, his car broke down… in the middle of Glebe Road.” [NBC Sports Washington]

Task Force Ices Snow Proposal — “Thirteen of the 14 voting members of the task force ‘do not believe the county has made the case that snow operations on [the large government parcel at Old Dominion Drive and 26th Street North] must be expanded, especially given the small number of annual major storms.'” [InsideNova]

ACPD Marks Alcohol Awareness Month — “Alcohol Awareness Month, recognized each April, is a public health program designed to increase outreach and education on the dangers of alcoholism and issues related to alcohol. More than 300 establishments in Arlington County hold Virginia ABC licenses permitting the serving and sale of alcohol.” [Arlington County]

Amazon May Pay for Public Transit — “Amazon has actively promoted the use of public transit, such as by paying the full cost of its employees’ fare cards for light rail, buses and ferries — a perk that it is considering extending to new employees in Arlington. The company boasts that only a quarter of its Seattle employees commute to work by driving solo. Nearly 1 in 3 use transit, and more than 1 in 5 walk.” [Washington Post]

Arlington Touts Bike Benefits — “The County continues to build on the bicycle’s unique ability to provide clean short- and medium-range transportation that requires far less infrastructure and resources compared to automobile traffic.” [Arlington County]

Water Main Repairs Complete — Updated at 8:35 a.m. — Repairs to a burst 12-inch water main in Crystal City have been completed, but several roads in the area remain closed. The water main break cut water service to several buildings in the area, including a hotel. [Twitter]

Flickr pool photo by Kevin Wolf

Minivan Crashes into Columbia Pike Condo Building

By ARLnow.com
1/2

The driver of a minivan plowed into the front of the Trafalgar Flats condo building along Columbia Pike Monday night.

Photos show the minivan on the sidewalk in front of the recently-built residential building with visible front-end damage.

Officials inspected the building, at 989 S. Buchanan Street, for structural issues today but initial reports suggest it only suffered superficial damage.

Job Listing: ARLnow Publisher Seeks Digital Editor

By ARLnow.com

Local News Now, the publisher of four local news publications in Northern Virginia including ARLnow.com, is seeking our first Digital Editor to help take our local journalism and audience engagement to the next level.

We’re looking for a Digital Editor who will help our editorial team break stories and reach readers while maintaining a high bar for quality. A typical week on the job will include copy editing, story planning, and audience engagement work.

The successful candidate will be joining a growing team of journalists at our office, three blocks from the Ballston Metro station.

Job responsibilities include:

  • Copy editing about 15-20 articles per day prior to online publication
  • Providing coaching and assistance to reporters covering enterprise stories
  • Monitoring multiple news sources, including email inboxes, Facebook messages, Twitter feeds and scanner radios, in order to help our team break stories and coordinate breaking news coverage
  • Helping to cover for reporter vacations and sick days
  • Running our main Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts to help promote stories and engage with readers

Here’s what we’re looking for:

  • 5-10 years of relevant local news experience
  • Strong copy editing skills and meticulous attention to detail
  • Experience working in a fast-paced, occasionally high-stress environment
  • A passion for training and coaching early-career journalists, helping them to achieve their full potential
  • Ability to multitask and monitor multiple news sources, including Twitter, email and scanner radios
  • Experience running branded social media accounts and an innate ability to understand and connect with an audience via social channels

Compensation for the position is competitive and based on experience. Provided benefits include health, dental and vision insurance.

Local News Now is bootstrapped, profitable and proudly independent. We are an equal opportunity employer that believes in objective reporting, holding local leaders accountable and the important role that local journalism plays in our democracy.

To apply, email a resume and links to writing samples to [email protected]

Legislative Lookback: What Arlington’s State Delegates Accomplished This Year

By Airey
1/5

Arlington’s representatives in the Virginia House of Delegates say they tackled a host of important issues, from criminal justice reform to LGBT parental rights to public health, during this year’s legislative session.

The county is represented in the state House by four elected officials — Democrats Mark Levine, Patrick Hope, Richard “Rip” Sullivan, and Alfonso H. Lopez — all of whom are up for re-election this year.

This year’s session began on January 9 and ended February 23. Here are what the delegates told ARLnow were their biggest legislative accomplishments in that time.

Del. Patrick Hope

Hope has represented Arlington in the House since 2010 and currently faces no Democratic challengers in his campaign for reelection. He says he introduced 12 bills during this year’s session, nine of which passed.

He told ARLnow that it’s difficult to choose his favorite because “I treat all my bills like my children,” but narrowed down his three biggest accomplishments in an email:

1) HB 2384 — making all Virginia schools 100 percent tobacco/nicotine free. This is significant because Big Tobacco has opposed such efforts in the past. It also is a sign that the tide is turning to recognize the dangers of cigarettes and vaping on children.

2) HB 1642 — requiring the Dept. of Corrections (DOC) to collect/report data on inmates in solitary confinement. I’ve been working with DOC for years to get the number of inmates in solitary down. We’ve decreased the number by more than 70 percent. This data collection effort will help us figure out who remains, why they are there, and if we can provide additional mental health resources to get them out.

3) HB 1933 — allow jails to treat people with serious mental illness who are unable to give consent. Current law requires that these individuals be sent to an inpatient hospital setting (mental health institution). This is part of a series of laws I’ve passed to allow treatment to occur in an outpatient or other appropriate setting in order to free up more inpatient psychiatric beds.

Del. Alfonso Lopez

Lopez is Democratic co-whip in the House of Delegates. He has served as a delegate since 2012, but now faces a challenger in J.D. Spain for his campaign for re-election this year.

Spain is a Marine Corps veteran who leads the local NAACP chapter and has said he wanted to “sharply draw a contrast” between his and Lopez’s stances on housing affordability and the achievement gap.

Lopez told ARLnow about his biggest wins this year in Richmond in an email:

  1. Successfully Increased Funding for Affordable Housing. In 2013, my legislation created the Virginia Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Over the years the Trust Fund has become one of the major vehicles for addressing housing instability and homelessness prevention in the Commonwealth […] This year, working with the Governor’s office, we were able to secure an additional $7 million in total revenue for the Trust Fund — increasing the biennial budget amount to $18 million (far above typical appropriations)! This is a great step forward in our efforts to help Virginia families. That being said, I believe that we must do a great deal more to address affordable housing in every corner of the Commonwealth […]
  2. Driver’s License Suspensions. After working on this issue for several years, I was very proud that the General Assembly finally ended drivers license suspensions for individuals who have served their time, but are unable to pay court fines and/or fees (over 600,000 Virginians are hurt by this outdated policy). […] When a person’s driver’s license is suspended, they may face a difficult dilemma: obey the suspension and potentially lose their ability to provide for their families, or drive anyway and face further punishment — or even imprisonment — for driving under a suspended license. I am very happy that this misguided policy has finally been overturned with bipartisan support. This ends what I’ve often referred to as a modern day debtor’s prison […]
  3. Military ID & Passport Security. Before this session, there was no provision in state law that mandated immediate notification to people whose passport or military ID numbers were stolen in an online security breach. This left the information of many Virginians (especially in our area) at significant risk. I’m proud to have introduced and passed a bill, HB 2396, that fixes this glaring hole in the law. Virginia will now require that Passport and military ID information have the same protections as bank information and social security numbers.

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