News

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Arlington Named Fittest ‘City’ in U.S. — “Arlington has been named the fittest city in America, according to the 2018 American Fitness Index ranking from the American College of Sports Medicine. The Northern Virginia jurisdiction eeked out a win over last year’s champ, Minneapolis, by just a half point, with an overall score of 77.7. Minneapolis came in second with a score of 77.2.” [Washingtonian, USA Today]

Person Rescued from High Water — Firefighters rescued someone trapped under a bridge by high water following last night’s storms. Around 9:30 p.m., firefighters responded to the 2800 block of S. Glebe Road for a possible water rescue along Four Mile Run. The victim was removed from the high water and evaluated by paramedics. [Twitter, Twitter]

Airport Noise Battle Rages On — “Residents in several Northwest Washington neighborhoods aren’t giving up their fight against airplane noise from flights at Reagan National Airport. They are asking for a rehearing of their case against the Federal Aviation Administration from a full panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.” [Washington Post]

Courtesy photo

ACFD Battles Kitchen Fire Near Ballston

By ARLnow.com
1/5

Arlington County firefighters are on scene of a kitchen fire on a residential block near Ballston.

The fire was reported shortly before 9 a.m. Tuesday on the 4800 block of Fairfax Drive, in Bluemont. The blaze has since been extinguished but firefighters are still checking for hotspots and working to ventilate the structure.

The home’s occupants were reportedly able to get out safely.

Photo via Google Maps

Arlington’s Crime Rate Falls Again, Though Alcohol-Related Incidents Increase

By Alex Koma

Arlington’s crime rate fell for the sixth straight year in 2017, even as the county recorded some big jumps in alcohol-related misdemeanors, according to new police data.

The Arlington County Police Department released its annual report for the past year on Monday (May 14), showing that the county’s overall crime rate dropped by just over 7.7 percent in 2017.

That includes drops in the number of several types of more serious crimes, like robberies and car thefts, though the county did see a roughly 4 percent increase in aggravated assaults. Arlington police also investigated four murders last year, after recording just one in 2016, but the department has managed to close all of those cases.

Police recorded some of the largest increases in crimes related to alcohol, with a nearly 73 percent jump in liquor law violations and a more than 17 percent jump in various “drunkenness” charges. In all, the county’s 129 liquor law violations included 62 underage drinking charges and 28 charges for drinking alcohol in public, according to the report. Police also recorded confiscating 703 fake IDs last year.

The department noted that some of those increases could be attributed to officers spending more time policing downtown Clarendon, in particular, as part of its “Arlington Restaurant Initiative” to step up the police presence in the area.

County police recorded a significant increase in “officer contacts” in designated “nightlife areas,” with a 56 percent jump in the number of interactions they recorded around neighborhoods with large concentrations of bars and restaurants. However, with the department’s plans to shift its resources to cope with a staffing squeeze, Police Chief M. Jay Farr recently warned that police may not be able to station as many officers in Clarendon moving forward.

Like many other communities across the country, Arlington recorded a large uptick in the number of opioid overdoses last year. In all, police responded to 74 overdoses in 2017, with 19 of those proving to be fatal. In 2016, the county saw 45 total overdoses involving drugs like heroin and fentanyl, and 12 were fatal.

Finally, county police recorded a 7 percent drop in traffic accidents last year. However, the department did register an especially large bump in accidents involving bicycles — from 32 in 2016 to 80 in 2017 — but they believe an increased focus on bike safety last spring helped contribute to the larger number there.

Similarly, Farr believes police will also have less time to devote to traffic enforcement under the department’s restructuring plan, which took effect on Sunday (May 13).

Charts via Arlington County Police Department

Red Top Cab Redevelopment in Clarendon Could Soon Move Ahead

By Alex Koma
1/10

Long-delayed plans to transform Red Top Cab’s properties in western Clarendon into three new mixed-use buildings could soon move ahead.

The Arlington County Board is set to consider a series of zoning changes this weekend to let Ballston-based developer The Shooshan Company start re-developing the lots, which sit behind Clarendon’s main strip of bars along Wilson Boulevard.

In all, the developer is hoping to build a total of 584 multifamily units across the three buildings, with 1,295 square feet of retail space included as well. The new development would replace Red Top’s headquarters (located where Washington Boulevard meets 13th Street N.), in addition to the lot the company once used for vehicle maintenance at 1200 N. Hudson Street.

The County Board first approved the project in October 2015. But work hasn’t moved ahead on the project as the developer has tweaked its construction plans, according to a staff report prepared for the Board.

Originally, The Shooshan Company planned to start work on the building along N. Ivy Street first. But that location is also home to a daycare center, NOVA KinderCare, and the developer wanted to let that business stay open, staff wrote. Accordingly, they want to move forward with work on the property at the N. Hudson Street — originally the second phase of the project — to kick things off instead.

In exchange for clearing the way for the development by vacating several properties in the area, Shooshan has agreed to donate four parcels of land along the 1100 block of N. Jackson Street, valued at about $3 million, to the county. That will help the county move ahead with its plans to do away with the reversible lanes on Washington Boulevard and create “a more conventional ‘T’ intersection” with 13th Street N., staff wrote.

The developer also plans to donate land to the county to help it build a park in the area, and will include at least six affordable housing units in the new buildings. Red Top plans to move its headquarters elsewhere in Arlington, if these plans go forward, and has already moved its maintenance operations to Falls Church.

County staff is recommending that the Board approve these changes. The Board is scheduled to take up the matter at its Saturday (May 19) meeting.

County Board Plans ‘Big Idea Roundtables’ to Gather Feedback on Arlington’s Future

By Alex Koma

The Arlington County Board wants to hear directly from you about how the county should grow in the coming years.

The Board is convening a series of “Big Idea Roundtables” next month, in order to have “big picture conversations about our county’s future,” according to a news release.

“These roundtables, framed around some critical issues, are open-ended and not limited to any one issue, policy or site proposal,” County Board Chair Katie Cristol wrote in a statement. “Our goal is to create a space for and spark a conversation among civic leaders and residents of all backgrounds about their hopes for our county’s future as we grow and change. We look forward to lively conversations about diversity, density, affordability, traffic and beyond.”

Chairs of Arlington’s citizen commissions will help facilitate the seven discussions, in conjunction with Board members. The roundtables are planned for the following days:

  • Saturday, June 2 from 2-4 p.m. —  Langston-Brown Community Center, Rooms 108 and 109 (2121 N. Culpeper Street)
  • Monday, June 4 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. — Drew Community Center, Room 118 (3500 23rd Street S.)
  • Saturday, June 9 from 9-11 a.m. — Arlington Mill Community Center, Rooms 411 and 413 (909 S. Dinwiddie Street). Translation services available for Spanish-speaking residents at this session.
  • Monday, June 11 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. — Ellen M. Bozman Government Center, Room 311 (2100 Clarendon Blvd)
  • Wednesday, June 20 from 9-11 a.m. — Lubber Run Community Center Multipurpose Room (300 N. Park Drive)

The Board is asking anyone interested in attending to register for just one roundtable each, as space will be limited. Registration is open on the county’s website.

Anyone with questions about the project can email [email protected].

Photo via Arlington County

County Board Set to Approve Full Overhaul of Powhatan Springs Skate Park

By Alex Koma
1/5

The Powhatan Springs Skate Park could soon be in line for a $2.2 million overhaul.

The Arlington County Board is expected to approve a full renovation of the 14-year-old park, located at 6020 Wilson Boulevard in the Boulevard Manor neighborhood, at its meeting this weekend.

The park is the county’s only facility designed specifically for skaterboarders, and its condition has deteriorated in recent years, according to a staff report prepared for the Board.

“Significant portions of the concrete in the skate park are failing, causing potentially hazardous conditions for users,” county staff wrote. “At the same time, the evolution of the sport of skateboarding has advanced, as have skate parks themselves to serve the sport.”

Staff are recommending that the Board give a green light to plans submitted by the D.C.-based Bennett Group to replace the existing, 15,000-square-foot park with a completely new set of bowls and half pipes for skaters.

The plans are also backed by a group of people who frequent the park, dubbed “Skaters for Arlington Skatepark.” They wrote a letter to the county hailing the design as “the best possible use of the space” and arguing that the new park “will be highly attractive to skateboarders and other users, many of whom will travel from across the nation to visit it.”

If the Board signs off on these plans, construction is set to start later this year, and the new park could open before the end of 2018 or in early 2019.

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

‘Indivisible Arlington’ Event Wracked By Division — “A town hall with local Virginia lawmakers dissolved into chaos Saturday and police were called after Latino activists confronted Del. Alfonso Lopez (D-Arlington) about his previous consulting work for a private company that operates detention facilities for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” [Washington Post, Twitter]

H-B Victorious at Ultimate Tourney — The H-B Woodlawn girls ultimate frisbee team won the prestigious Amherst Ultimate Invitational over the weekend. [Twitter, Greenfield Recorder]

No County Board Candidate for Arlington GOP — No one filed by the May 9 deadline to run as a Republican against incumbent County Board member John Vihstadt, the Arlington GOP announced over the weekend. Vihstadt, an independent, was endorsed by the local GOP when he first ran in 2014.

ACPD Sergeant Tapped as School Police Chief — Sean Bryson, a 20-year veteran of the Arlington County Police Department, has been named the chief of police for the Upper St. Clair School District, outside of Pittsburgh. It’s a homecoming for Bryson, who graduated from Upper St. Clair High School. In addition to his police work, Byson co-founded and has served as race director for the annual Arlington Police, Fire & Sheriff 9/11 Memorial 5K. [Trib Live]

Anti-Abortion Protest Covers Clarendon Metro Plaza

By Anna Merod
1/2

Anti-abortion protesters took over the Clarendon Metro Plaza for about two hours Thursday morning (May 10), greeting pedestrians with graphic images of aborted fetuses.

“We are raising awareness about the destruction of children in the womb and we are calling the community to support women to help and make a choice for life for their children,” said Jeanne Miller, one of the protesters.

The protest was a part of a day-long event to honor the late George Yourishin, described by the Baltimore-based organization Defend Life as a “pro-life hero.” Miller said there was no real reason for choosing Clarendon to protest besides the fact that demonstrators were planning to visit Yourishin’s grave in Arlington National Cemetery later that day, after mass at nearby St. Charles Catholic Church.

She added that most of the signs were provided by Defend Life to show what an abortion looks like. The practice of protesters displaying gruesome photos of fetuses in public places has been hotly debated in several court cases nationwide; some courts have ruled that the images are too disturbing to be shown in public, while others have defended the practice as one protected by the First Amendment.

Miller said she had a lot of positive interactions with passersby, but had one man who became very upset and shouted epithets at her.

Anti-abortion protesters have demonstrated in Arlington before, gathering outside the H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program in 2016 and Washington-Lee High School in 2012.

Photos by Anna Merod

JUST IN: Mall Without Power After Outage Hits Pentagon City

By ARLnow.com

Update at 4:20 p.m. — Power has been restored to the mall and most other places in Pentagon City.

Earlier: A large power outage has left much of Pentagon City in the dark this afternoon.

Large crowds are reported to be leaving the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City after the mall lost power. At least two people were reported to be stuck, and later freed by firefighters, on elevators overlooking the food court.

Traffic signals are dark along Army Navy Drive, including at the especially busy intersection of Army Navy Drive and S. Hayes Street, according to scanner traffic. Several Arlington County Police units are being dispatched to the area for traffic control.

Nearly 450 Dominion customers in the area are without power, according to the power company’s outage map. The cause of the outage is listed as “pending investigation,” though there was a report of a blown transformer in the area.

The estimated time of power restoration is listed as between 4-7 p.m.

More via social media:

https://twitter.com/DaCarter__/status/995003240088514567

Police, County Leaders Pause to Remember Arlington’s Seven Fallen Officers

By Alex Koma
1/14

Seven Arlington County police officers have died in the line of duty over the last 83 years, and county law enforcement and civic leaders took a few moments to remember their sacrifice Friday (May 11).

The county held its annual observance of Peace Officers Memorial Day at the Arlington County Justice Center Plaza (1425 N. Courthouse Road), inviting dozens of law enforcement officers and Arlington leaders to pay tribute to fallen officers across the country.

Participants in the ceremony offered wreaths and roses at the county’s monument to its officers who have died on the job, with a special observance for Corporal Harvey Snook, who died of cancer he contracted while working in recovery efforts at the Pentagon in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The son of Officer George Pomraning, who was shot to death while bringing a prisoner to jail on Sept. 2, 1973, also attended the ceremony.

County Police Chief M. Jay Farr urged attendees to consider what more they can do to prevent the killing of police, putting a particular focus on one of the leading causes of line of duty deaths: gun violence.

“Many officers who are shot are dealing with people who are not of sound mind,” Farr said. “We all need to think about what we can do to address this growing national mental health crisis.”

Yet Craig Floyd, CEO of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, suggested that the country as a whole was making some progress in that area. He pointed out that the 129 officers to died on the job in 2017 represented the second-smallest figure since 1959.

“We’ve done a lot, but we have a long way to go,” Floyd said.

The county ceremony coincides with the start of National Police Week, a series of events around D.C. from May 13-19 to honor fallen officers. A full schedule of events is available online.

ART Sees Big Drop in Bus Ridership Over the Last Year

By Alex Koma

Arlington County’s bus service has recorded a hefty drop in ridership over the course of the last year, according to figures released to regional transportation planners.

In all, Arlington Transit recorded about 696,500 passenger trips in the first three months of 2018. That’s a 17 percent drop from the same time period last year when the service registered more than 836,000 trips, according to a new report from the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission on May 3.

The numbers show riders increasingly turning away from the bus service over the past few months, as the latest ridership figures also represent a 6.2 percent decrease from ART’s numbers in the last three months of 2017.

For context, ART recorded just under 783,200 passenger trips in the first three months of 2016, according to the NVTC’s figures. That means the bus service saw an 11 percent decrease in ridership in the same time period from 2016 to 2018.

Eric Balliet, a spokesman for Arlington’s Department of Environmental Services, which manages ART, wrote in an email that ART officials believe this drop is a result of several factors. Commuters are returning to Metro “now that rail service has stabilized in Northern Virginia,” he said, and increasingly choosing ride-sharing services instead or simply telecommuting more frequently.

“We don’t have a way at this time to quantify each of the above changes,” Balliet wrote.

The Arlington County Board recently voted to cut a pair of bus routes when it passed a new budget, citing a lack of demand from riders. The county is also preparing to shutter several lightly used bus stops along Washington Boulevard, and renovate dozens more.

ART is certainly not the only bus service in the area to see a dip in passengers.

Metrobus service in Northern Virginia has also seen a decline in riders over the last year — NVTC figures show that the service recorded about 4 million passenger trips in the first quarter of 2018, compared to about 4.5 million in the same time period last year. That works out to a decline of roughly 11 percent.

The numbers track closely with a nationwide decline in bus ridership. An analysis by the New York-based TransitCenter advocacy group found that bus ridership fell by 5 percent last year across 35 major metropolitan areas.

File photo

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