Opinion

Letter to the Editor: Disappointed By Mention of Gun Store

By ARLnow.com

The following letter to the editor was submitted by Jane, an Arlington resident who works in Cherrydale.

It is in response to our article on the opening of a pop-up vintage gift shop in the Cherrydale storefront that was once slated to become a gun store.

My coworkers and myself are very disappointed by your coverage of the Pop Vintage store in Cherrydale.

Was it really necessary to drag up all the gun store dirt? All that did was get your regulars stirred up and writing their usual insane comments.

I was there when Olympia, the owner of the store, was reading their responses.

If you could have seen the look on her face when she read what passes for witticisms among the commenters, it would have broken your collective hearts.

Today there is another mass shooting in California.

The world is getting scarier day by day.

Responsible journalism has a responsibility to report the news as it is happening good and bad, I realize this.

And if it hadn’t been for your breaking news on the gun store it might be our neighbor today.

But to to unnecessarily dig up the dirt on days gone by? Did you think Arlington residents wouldn’t be happy to hear of a new fun business without a splash of controversy?

Maybe in the spirit of the season and humanity you could focus on the positive things that are happening around us.

Jane

ARLnow.com occasionally publishes thoughtful letters to the editor about issues of local interest. To submit a letter to the editor, please email it to [email protected]. Letters may be edited for content and brevity.

Morning Poll: Double-Parked Delivery Trucks

By ARLnow.com

Double-parked delivery truck on N. Oak Street in Rosslyn (photo via @dnak17)

You see them on local streets, usually in commercial districts: double-parked trucks making deliveries to local stores and offices.

Sometimes the trucks completely block traffic, as can be seen in the photo above, taken yesterday in Rosslyn. Other times, just a lane of traffic. In both cases, other drivers are inconvenienced and forced into a potentially hazardous situation: switching lanes mid-street or driving into an opposing lane of traffic.

A hazard at worst and an annoyance at best, double-parked delivery and mail trucks are a fact of life in urban areas around the world. The need to deliver mail and packages to offices, food to restaurants and inventory to stores is not going away, and short of local governments eliminating street parking for non-commercial vehicles there are few good options for truck drivers making quick deliveries.

In your opinion, just how bad is the problem of doubled-parked trucks in Arlington?

(If a truck is illegally parked and truly presenting a hazard, it can be reported to Arlington County Police via the department’s non-emergency line at 703-558-2222.)

Photo via @dnak17

Morning Poll: Crowds at Malls and Shopping Centers Today?

By ARLnow.com

Crowds of shoppers at Pentagon City mall (file photo)In popular imagination, Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year.

In actuality, the Saturday before Christmas is usually the biggest shopping day of the year. And with Cyber Monday and e-commerce encouraging online shopping, and Small Business Saturday encouraging shoppers to support local businesses, Black Friday may be losing its luster.

We wanted to check with those who are actually heading out to the malls and shopping centers today: how big are the crowds?

Alternatively, if you had to head into work today instead of shopping — like us — there’s an option for you.

Morning Poll: Are You Traveling This Thanksgiving?

By ARLnow.com

A decorative Thanksgiving turkeyAn estimated 1.15 million D.C. area residents will travel 50 miles or more for the Thanksgiving holiday. Will you be among them?

According to AAA Mid-Atlantic, holiday travel will be virtually unchanged this year, down 0.2 percent compared to 2014.

That’s despite lower gas prices and better weather — it’s supposed to be mostly sunny and cool this week, compared to the snowstorm that was predicted around this time last year.

About 90.5 percent of all D.C. area travelers will travel by car, compared to 7.3 percent traveling via air and 2.2 percent via other modes of transportation.

Will you be among those traveling outside of D.C. this year?

Peter’s Take: Community Facilities Study — Where Should We Go From Here?

By Peter Rousselot

peter_rousselot_2014-12-27_for_facebookPeter’s Take is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com. 

A soon as possible after it takes office on Jan. 1, the new County Board needs to make a series of important decisions regarding recommendations in the final report submitted by the Community Facilities Study Group (CFSG). As explained below, these decisions involve both substance and process.

Background

The CFSG highlighted five pressing community challenges:

  • A scarcity of land for public facilities — Just 2.2 square miles of Arlington’s 26 square miles are public land owned by the County or APS. That public land is needed for schools, fire stations, community centers, storage and maintenance facilities and more.
  • Changing demographics — Arlington’s population is projected to grow from 216,700 today to 283,000 in 2040. School enrollment is expected to exceed 30,000 students by 2024.
  • A threatened commercial tax base — A shrinking federal presence, shifts in the way businesses use office space, and a competitive regional market have combined to push office vacancy rates to a historic high in Arlington.
  • Strategic facility planning and priority setting — The County needs a clear and open structure for setting priorities among competing needs.
  • Revamping the community dialogue — To reach all members of our community, Arlington needs to make participation easier, earlier, and more meaningful.

In accepting the CFSG report, the current County and School Boards directed their staffs to present initial responses no later than Feb. 2016, followed by community feedback and formal staff recommendations due by Sept. 2016. Under the current schedule, both Boards then are supposed to “reconvene” with the CFSG by the end of 2016.

Discussion

One of the most important issues the new County Board needs to address ASAP is the conflict between the current schedule to review the CFSG report and the traditional schedule to adopt Arlington’s next 10-year capital improvement plan (CIP). Under past practice, the next CIP is due for adoption in summer 2016.

But, the current County Board has just approved a timetable for review of the CFSG report that strongly suggests that the new County Board will not be ready to address the last two of the five pressing community challenges identified by the CFSG — priorities and transparency — until well after the new County Board actually has adopted the next CIP.

It is incongruous that the new County Board actually would make major decisions regarding what is likely to be a $3 billion, 10-year capital improvement plan without first agreeing upon and then utilizing, the types of priorities recommended by the CFSG.

Conclusion

To enable setting priorities, the new County Board should design a transparent 2016 CIP process that mandates:

  • financial modeling of appropriate alternative development scenarios, and
  • alternative capital cost assumptions for individual major capital projects.

Progressive Voice: A Faith Community’s Vision Through Discernment

By Progressive Voice

The Reverend Sharon K. CoreBy The Reverend Sharon K. Core

Progressive Voice is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their organizations or ARLnow.com.

We live in a time when organizations constantly need to be aware of their structure, purpose and business plans. They need to innovate and tend to their reputations or risk the danger of disappearing.

Remember RCA, Eastern Airlines, Woolworth’s, and Enron? All of them are gone. By contrast, there are Apple, IBM, Netflix, and Samsung — all companies that have reinvented themselves successfully.

This reality of needing to attend to direction and purpose doesn’t just include businesses. The reality also applies to churches. The way churches engage this work is through a process called discernment.

Several years ago, the Arlington Presbyterian Church congregation began to wonder who God was calling us to be and what God was calling us to do. We spent much time in prayer, studying scripture, talking to one another, and talking to people in the community.

Whatever God wanted for our congregation, it would be discovered through deep and intentional listening.  As members engaged this time we were seeking to answer the question, “For whom are our hearts breaking?”

During the summer of 2012, the searching took on a new emphasis as a vision team was formed.  As we continued the discernment process, a threefold vision began to emerge:

  • create and nurture a community of disciples following Jesus Christ
  • be a people and place of crossroads for the diverse population along Columbia Pike
  • redevelop our property so that committed affordable housing can be built.

Not surprisingly, the third piece of our vision has garnered the most attention, as Arlington Presbyterian entered into a relationship with the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing (APAH), who will purchase our property and build a mixed-used development that will include affordable housing, amenities for the residents, street-level retail and structured parking.

However, as important and perhaps harder are the first two parts of our vision. Who we understand ourselves to be as a faith community is deeply rooted in the Christian faith and the commitment to be disciples of Jesus Christ.

The decision to sell the property is a business decision. But more than a business decision, it is also an act of faith. Likewise, the identification of APAH as our solid business partner is not just good due diligence. It is also good stewardship of the church’s resources.

For example, APAH offered our congregation the opportunity to name the development. We chose Gilliam Place, named for Ronda A. Gilliam (1906-1970). Mr. Gilliam was Arlington Presbyterian’s first African American member, an Elder and founder of a clothing assistance program, among other accomplishments in the community.

Naming Gilliam Place for this humble and dignified individual, who strived to make his neighborhood better, aptly represents our legacy. Remembering Mr. Gilliam through the name of the building will continue the story of Arlington Presbyterian — a story of visionary men and women carrying on the tradition of radical willingness to trust God — woven into the history of the development of community along Columbia Pike.

During the redevelopment process, Arlington Presbyterian will seek to strengthen its community of disciples through outreach in the community.  We have an interest in returning to the property after construction by leasing space on the ground floor of the building. Through continued prayer and discernment, we will use the next year to consider how God is calling us to new ministry and service in this community.

Every aspect of our congregation’s journey has started with prayer, been sustained by prayer, and been sealed with prayer. We continue to keep our minds and hearts open, listening for God’s continued guidance and following with trust and faith.

The Reverend Sharon K. Core is pastor at Arlington Presbyterian Church. She has had the great joy of being with this congregation since December 1998.

The Right Note: Another TIF Heading Our Way

By Mark Kelly

Mark KellyThe Right Note is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

The Board this week approved the first step in creating the third Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district in Arlington.

The TIF plans dedicate a portion of future tax revenue to a specific project or set of projects. In the most recent proposal, the funds would be used to pay off a bond taken out to pay for a portion of the redevelopment of the Ballston mall.

The money taken out of future budgets for a TIF is not eligible to be used for anything else. Not on schools or infrastructure or public safety. In this case, the number is proposed at 40 percent of future revenue in this TIF district to pay for a $45.5 million bond.

The argument for TIFs is that the development being paid for by the TIFs will increase revenue to the County above what we would have otherwise received. Therefore, despite setting aside a portion of that revenue to subsidize development, it is still a net benefit to the taxpayer.

However, if a private developer cannot secure financing for a project in one of the most attractive real estate markets in the country, why should taxpayers agree to make up the difference?

The County Board has not really seen any pressure on budgets from these revenue set-asides yet because they are a relatively new idea here. But, we can look to a prolific TIF user, Chicago, which has been using them since 1986.

At one point, Chicago had over 150 TIFs. Chicago is roughly 12 times the size of Arlington, so that would be like a dozen or so TIFs here. In 2013, Chicago TIFs held $1.7 billion in unspent funds in their accounts after taking in $412 million in revenue.

The TIFs began to squeeze Chicago’s revenues to the point that Mayor Emanuel had to campaign on the promise of rolling them back and opening them up for more transparency. Many opponents argued they had become a slush fund to benefit favored developers and projects at the expense of other core budget priorities.

In July, the Mayor announced he would phase out seven of the TIFs and put $250 million back into the city’s budget over the next five years, half to go directly to the schools. And, the Mayor is putting in place a requirement that TIFs return at least 25 percent of their surpluses to the city, which will net an anticipated $150 million.

Granted, Arlington is not Chicago, which according to one review had more public corruption convictions than anywhere in the country. However, the idea that future revenues will be diverted to pay for private development should at least raise some concerns for Arlingtonians. Ballston is almost certainly not the last TIF the Board has in mind.

Morning Poll: Syrian Refugees in Arlington?

By ARLnow.com

Civil war in Syria (photo via Wikipedia)

The reaction to the news that Arlington County is ready and willing to help resettle Syrian refugees was largely positive on social media.

Despite a mixed bag of comments, our post on Facebook garnered more than 600 likes, making this one of our most-liked stories of all time.

What do you think of the idea of bringing Syrian refugees to Arlington?

Update at 2:15 p.m. — Arlington County released the following statement about Syrian refugees today:

Our collective conscience has been shaken by both the refugee crisis resulting from the ongoing conflict in Syria and the terrorist attacks across the world that threaten the security of the United States and our allies. The ongoing debate regarding our country’s response to these issues at the federal, state and local level is an opportunity to demonstrate the true character of our nation. While local governments have no role in the refugee admissions process or relocation decisions, we feel compelled to lend our voice to this important discussion.

The County is no newcomer to refugee resettlement activity. Over the past four decades we have welcomed those fleeing the Vietnam war, civil wars in Central America, the Ethiopian/Eritrean conflicts and the Bosnian war. We have confidence that the federal process of application, screening, placement and resettlement coupled with partnership with our regional resettlement agency, Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington, can once again lead to the successful integration of refugees into our community.

We firmly believe that responding to today’s urgent humanitarian crisis by serving as a new home for those seeking refuge is in keeping with both our nation’s tradition and with the Arlington County Board Resolution Supporting Arlington’s Newcomers, passed on September 18, 2007.

We support the need for strong security and screening reinforced by recent events, yet we are confident that America can continue to serve as a land of hope and opportunity that welcomes those seeking a better life for themselves and their loved ones while also ensuring our own security. In fact, the ideals and values upon which our nation was founded require it.

Photo via Wikipedia

ARLnow Weekend Discussion

By ARLnow.com

10/19/14 leaves (Flickr pool photo by Wolfkann)It’s looking like a fine fall weekend, with crisp cool air, leaves falling from the trees and plenty of sunshine.

With Thanksgiving less than two weeks away, it might be time to get some work done around the house before the in-laws arrive or you head out of town for the holiday.

Feel free to discuss anything of local interest in the comments. Have a nice weekend!

Flickr pool photo by Wolfkann

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