Around Town

Photos from the 2023 Arlington County Fair

By ARLnow.com
1/27

It’s the halfway point of the 2023 Arlington County Fair today.

The county’s annual summer gathering resumes with outdoor hours from 2-10:30 p.m. and indoor hours from 4-10 p.m. The fair — which features games, rides, food, musical performances and fun for all ages — runs through Sunday, Aug. 20 at Thomas Jefferson Community Center.

Hours for the remaining days of outdoor fair activities are as follows.

  • Saturday, Aug. 19: 10 a.m.-1 p.m. (sensory friendly hours); 10 a.m.-10:30 p.m.
  • Sunday, Aug. 20: 11 a.m.-1 p.m. (sensory friendly hours); 11 a.m.-10 p.m.

During sensory friendly hours, the fair aims to limit loud music and other noises.

Visitors can expect the traditional collection of entertainment and competitions, as well as a variety of food and drink options. Admission is free, according to the fair’s website. Ride tickets can be purchased online or on site, with each ride typically requiring 3-6 tickets.

ARLnow staff photographer Jay Westcott made a return visit to the fair earlier this week and noted a more carefree vibe than recent years.

“Biggest crowd I’ve seen since before the pandemic,” Westcott observed. “People seemed genuinely happy.”

Westcott’s photos, as well as a reader’s contributed photo, are above. A press release about the fair, noting some of the new features, is below.

Celebrating over four decades of tradition, the Arlington County Fair returns this week with entertainment and excitement for all ages. One of the East Coast’s largest free events attracting more than 125,000 visitors annually, the Fair is open from August 16-20 at the Thomas Jefferson Community Center and Park. The five-day extravaganza showcases the vibrant spirit of our community through competitive exhibits, thrilling rides, live music, local vendors, and much more.

The Fair opens with a formal ceremony and ribbon-cutting on Wednesday, August 16 at 5 p.m. at the playground in front of the TJ Community Center. The public is invited as we celebrate unity in diversity and embrace the spirit of inclusivity that “A Fair for All” represents.

Highlights of this year’s Fair include:

  • The New District Brewing Company’s family-friendly beer garden features beer and wines along with a Root Beer Float Fire Truck that both kids and adults can enjoy.
  • The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ ArtMobile exhibit, “Revealing and Obscuring Identity: Portraits from the Permanent Collection.”
  • A Night Market on Thursday, August 17, from 5:00-10:00 p.m., where local makers will showcase their exquisite creations.
  • Sensory-friendly hours will provide a calm and welcoming environment on Saturday, August 19, from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and Sunday, August 20, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. These hours are dedicated to creating a space without lights or sounds, with the addition of Arlington County’s Therapeutic Recreation Office’s sensory tent for additional comfort and calming activities.
  • The Indoor Vendor Showcase features over 75 local vendors within the Thomas Jefferson Gym.
  • Punch Bowl Social introduces an indoor pop-up park, while partner Nova Systemic sponsors a hands-on STEM area catering to kids of all ages.
  • Performances by Drew Blue Shoes and Rocknoceros and other local talent.
  • Odyssey Events’ Axe Throwing.
  • eBike rides with BikeArlington.
  • Pie-eating contest with Livin’ the Pie Life and the Arlington Jaycees

Visiting the Fair

For more details about transportation and parking, hotels, daily schedule of events, and operating hours, or to purchase ride tickets, visit the Fair website.

Background

The Arlington County Fair is a 501c(s) nonprofit volunteer-driven organization that embraces a diverse community by educating, entertaining, and showcasing the best of Arlington. The Fair would not be possible without the support of individual donors, our corporate sponsors, and our close partnership with Arlington County and the Arlington County Department of Recreation.

Around Town

Adoptable Pet of the Week: Squirtle

By ARLnow.com
1/3

Are you ready for adventure? Meet Squirtle, the newest Adoptable Pet of the Week!

This grey female turtle is up for adoption at the Animal Welfare League of Arlington.

This is what her friends had to say about her:

Are you ready to embark on a real-life Pokémon journey? Look no further, because Squirtle is here to make a splash in your world!

This dynamic female turtle is not only a seasoned explorer but also a master of the aquatic arts. Get ready to dive into a world of fun and excitement with Squirtle by your side!

Squirtle isn’t your ordinary turtle — she’s a living, breathing Pokémon legend! Just like her namesake, Squirtle is a water-type lover who thrives on aquatic adventures. She’s always eager to make a “splash” wherever she goes, and her infectious energy is sure to keep you on your toes.

This adventurous aquatic explorer needs room to roam and plenty of water to paddle through. She’s not just content with a regular aquarium; she craves excitement and activity. Providing her with ample space to explore and play will ensure she lives her best Pokémon trainer life!

If you’re a true Pokémon fan who’s ready to level up your life with a lively companion, Squirtle is the answer to your Poké-dreams. Don’t miss out on the chance to have your very own water-type companion who’s as lively as the currents themselves!

Do you choose Squirtle? Read her entire profile to learn more and stop by the Animal Welfare League during adoption hours to meet her!

Want your pet to be considered for the Arlington Pet of the Week? Email [email protected] with 2-3 paragraphs about your pet and at least 3-4 horizontally-oriented photos.

Sponsored

Halls Hill native recalls making history with Civil Rights-era lawsuit over voting in Arlington

By Scott McCaffrey

As a 23-year-old voter in still-segregated 1960s Virginia, Portia Haskins was convinced she had followed all the rules in order to cast a ballot in Arlington.

Election officials disagreed, saying she had failed to pay the appropriate poll tax still required in the Old Dominion, maintained in part to disenfranchise Black voters.

Haskins took the county, and state, to court. She won, with her case ultimately being folded into the landmark 1966 Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections decision of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Haskins was an unusual legal combatant, committed to seeking unity.

“I’m the type of person who wants to bring everyone together,” the Halls Hill native said at a weekend presentation sponsored by the county library system and hosted by the Black Heritage Museum of Arlington.

After her efforts to vote were rejected at the local level, Haskins enlisted support from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to challenge the ruling. She traveled several times to the U.S. District Court in Richmond, then watched as the case and others like it moved to the Supreme Court.

Her reaction at the final outcome? “I was so happy,” she said.

The 6-3 ruling in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections effectively outlawed requiring poll taxes for state elections in those few states, like Virginia, that retained them. The poll-tax requirement for federal elections had been eliminated with ratification of the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1964.

Lessons from the struggle are still valuable today, said Haskins, now 83.

“Everybody has to come together and fight” when they see injustice, she said. “You have to get together.”

Historical photo of Portia Haskins (via Black Heritage Museum of Arlington)

Haskins is among the Arlingtonians profiled in the “From Barriers to Ballots,” an exhibition marking the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Several versions of the exhibition are on display across Northern Virginia, with one at Central Library running through Nov. 4.

The Arlington Historical Society partnered on the exhibition, and was excited about the Haskins presentation, former president David Pearson said.

“She is someone we really wanted to learn about,” he said, pointing to a renewed effort to “really get out the stories of the complete history of Arlington.”

Haskins has been a member of Mount Salvation Baptist Church near the Glebewood neighborhood since 1951, and in the community she has promoted “the spirit of community and empowerment,” said Scott Taylor, president of the Black Heritage Museum.

Haskins lamented that much of the history of the civil-rights movement is being lost in the public consciousness.

“We went through a lot, but people today don’t know,” she said. Young people in particular, she said, “don’t care because they don’t know.”

Her request to today’s youth? “Let everybody know how you feel” and use the ballot box to create change.

“Voting is important. That’s what everybody really needs to do,” Haskins said.

Schools

Nottingham parents claim plan to make the school a ‘swing space’ is based on flawed assumptions

By Jo DeVoe
1/3

Two months after Arlington Public Schools floated plans to turn Nottingham Elementary School into a “swing space,” parents returned to the School Board with a message.

The assumptions the school system relied on for this plan are flawed, they said.

Arlington Public Schools is planning how to use its buildings in the coming decade. The goal is to balance enrollment among schools with empty seats in North Arlington and over-capacity schools in South Arlington, while keeping costs down. It aims to do so by improving how it uses existing schools with a surplus of seats.

One solution could be closing Nottingham Elementary School, in the Williamsburg neighborhood at 5900 Little Falls Road, and turning it into a “swing space.” For $5 million, it could become home to any school community temporarily displaced by renovations. Reaction to this idea, proposed in June, was swift. Several parents mobilized, forming a Facebook group and circulating a petition, which had nearly 750 signatures as of publication.

After receiving a charge from the School Board in June to “poke holes” in the data, a group of Nottingham parents told ARLnow they did just that.

“We found, in a bunch of ways, the forecasts are critically flawed… The main issue is that APS used pandemic enrollment to project future enrollment,” one parent, Aaron Beytin, said. “At the beginning, I was upset about Nottingham. Now, I’m worried about the direction of the overall county. We’re looking at a probable capacity crisis.”

Enrollment had been increasing by 3% on average in the decade prior to the pandemic, statistician and parent Paul Winters said last night (Thursday) during a School Board meeting. Rather than assume this trend would continue, he says APS assumes Covid-induced falling enrollment would continue.

“Ignoring these concerns will lead to overcrowded schools and a worse educational experience for our children,” he said. “A more reasonable approach would be to discard the Covid data and use the pre-pandemic years, or even APS’s own projections from 2019.”

The school system maintains that its staff are in lockstep with county counterparts on these projections.

“APS and Arlington County demographers collaborate to ensure the longer-term projections are using the same factors,” it said.

APS says it used the three most recent school years — which the parents consider pandemic years — to project enrollment for grades 1-12. The school system projected kindergarten rates with actual births going back to 2018-2019, using addresses associated with births to map where new students are located.

The parents say the strongest sign that projections relied on pandemic years is how APS weighted the ratio of births to kindergarten enrollments.

The school system says it placed more weight on birth-to-kindergarten ratios for 2016-21 and 2017-22 than 2015-20 because “of the impacts of the pandemic on that cohort that year.”

The birth-to-kindergarten ratio in these years had fallen as a result of the pandemic, the parents say. They argue APS gives 2020, 2021 and 2022 outsized influence compared to the 2015-2019 school years, when the birth-to-kindergarten ratio was higher.

APS counters that birth rates are in fact declining in Arlington, like the region and nationwide.

(more…)

Announcement

On June 8 Elect Progressive Leadership

By Friends of Matt Rogers

Matt is an Arlington young husband, dad, condo renter, youth coach, precinct captain, dog-father, Chief of Staff for a Virginia state senator, the owner of a political consulting firm that prioritizes recruiting and assisting candidates in races too often left unattended by Party leadership, and a candidate for Virginia’s 47th House of Delegates’ district.

Matt is a proud Party builder who champions ambitious and progressive stances to confront the fundamental issues in our Commonwealth and our society. The primary areas of policy that Matt believes need to be part of the discussion during the 2021 election cycle, include criminal justice reform, tax reform, cannabis policy reform and workforce development. Matt is running for this office because he’s not only already an effective law-maker and team-player, but the kind of visible community leader the 47th District deserves. On June 8, you have the opportunity to elect progressive leadership for our community.

Go to On June 8 Elect Progressive Leadership Read more
News

Another segment of Columbia Pike to see construction and road closures next month

By Jo DeVoe
1/6

For years, parts of Columbia Pike have been under construction, resulting in wider sidewalks, newly-planted trees and underground utilities, among other changes.

Now, work on the penultimate phase of the years-long Columbia Pike Multimodal Street Improvements project is slated to begin in September, according to the county. Work could begin on the final phase early next year.

Starting in September, the county will upgrade the Pike’s streetscape, enhance transit infrastructure, replace aging water and sewer mains and bury utility lines between S. Garfield Street and S. Courthouse Road.

The final segment, from S. Courthouse Road to S. Quinn Street, could begin in early 2024 and wrap up in late 2025, according to Dept. of Environmental Services spokeswoman Claudia Pors.

A contract for this phase was approved earlier this summer, the Gazette Leader reported.

Streetscape improvements to the Pike have been ongoing for nearly two decades.

The first segment was completed back in 2009, Pors said. The next two segments were completed in 2015, one by the county and the other by the Virginia Dept. of Transportation.

Concurrently, the county also created “bike boulevards” parallel to the Pike, diverting cyclists from car-heavy corridor in advance of the planned, but never built, streetcar.

Last year, the county started working on improvements between S. Wakefield Street and S. Oakland Street and S. Orme Street and S. Oak Street. The federal government is handling similar upgrades east of S. Oak Street as part of its project to realign the road to accommodate the expansion of Arlington National Cemetery.

Columbia Pike Multimodal Street Improvement Project overview (via Arlington County)

Before getting started on the S. Garfield Street to S. Courthouse Road segment, county staff will hold pop-ups and open houses in the area to inform community members of the changes, Pors said.

She added that the team has not yet come up with a final work schedule, though work will likely be less intense than the currently under construction portion of the Pike between S. Quincy Street and S. Oakland Street.

Work hours will be Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., according to the county website.

“Residents should expect to see and hear dust, mud, noise, debris, and temporary traffic and parking restrictions,” the website says. “In locations where parking will be prohibited during work, no parking signs will be posted.”

“These roadway changes are essential for the contractors to construct a safer and more accessible Columbia Pike in an efficient and safe manner while maintaining access to residences and businesses along the corridor,” Arlington County says on its website.

This work has previously closed lanes on other stretches of the Pike and even resulted on the occasional rogue utility pole.

Announcement

Thinking of Downsizing? Join Our Free Online Workshop!

By Long & Foster

Cody Chance and Dick Nathan of Long & Foster are hosting an online workshop on the topic of “down-sizing” Wednesday, February 3 from 5-6:30 p.m. Every great endeavor begins with a great plan. This workshop will give you the tools to design your plan. We have created a workbook with an extensive planning guide to enable you to design a personalized written plan for your move, and more than twenty pages of resources specific to Northern Virginia to help you along the way!

These resources will help you to find the best people to assist you in your move, and help you get the belongings that won’t move with you into the hands of people who will value them. The workshop format is a “guided group discussion” of the workbook, with a chance for the participants to ask their own questions, and special guest presenter Alexandra Fry of Orchestrated Moves will be joining us to share her many years of expertise in organization and moving.

Go to Thinking of Downsizing? Join Our Free Online Workshop! Read more
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