Volunteers serve Arlington Kabob’s packaged meals at Children’s Inn (courtesy Susan Clementi)
Earlier this month, Arlington Kabob cooked up hot dinners for a cause.
About two weeks ago, the restaurant donated 75 individually packaged meals to the Children’s Inn at the National Institutes of Health. The nonprofit provides housing and programming to young people with rare diseases being researched and treated at the NIH campus in Bethesda.
Arlington Kabob owner Susan Clementi says she was approached about a meal donation by longtime customer Gindy Feeser, who regularly serves dinners at the Children’s Inn with her coworkers.
Clementi said she worked with Feeser and her team at General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) in Falls Church to offer a “moment of kindness” to kids living at the hospital, who lack normalcy in their day-to-day lives.
“One of my personal spiritual values is to stay involved and have awareness for my community,” Clementi said. “We at Arlington Kabob are always eager to support any great cause… and partner with [the restaurant’s dedicated customers] to make a small difference.”
Together, for the GDIT team’s June dinner contribution, Clementi provided the kabobs and Feeser provided the service.
“I think most of us know by now how lucky we are to have a gem like Arlington Kabob in our neighborhood,” Feeser said in a recent post that received considerable attention on the social media platform Nextdoor.
She said delivering a car full of kabobs to Bethesda was “a mouth-watering experience.”
“Once delivered, they were gone in minutes,” Feeser said in her post, which garnered nearly 530 reactions. “Bellies and hearts, full.”
Arlington Kabob is located at 5046 Langston Blvd in the Halls Hill/High View Park neighborhood and is open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. The restaurant was founded by Clementi a decade ago and, as reported earlier this year, is noted for its partnerships with local schools on various fundraising initiatives.
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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.
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.
Walgreens on Langston Blvd in Arlington (via Google Maps)
Arlingtonians have one more week to enjoy guaranteed same-day delivery services from Walgreens.
Through next Friday, customers of the pharmacy giant can order some 27,000 items online — from sunscreen to plastic cups — to have delivered to their door in under one hour. It’s part of a pilot program focused on our region.
“The offer, which is running exclusively across the Greater Washington region, guarantees customers will have items delivered to their door within the hour,” per a press release, which noted alcohol and prescriptions are excluded from this offer.
There are five participating locations in Arlington:
3130 Langston Blvd
1301 S. Joyce Street
5841 Washington Blvd
4720-B Langston Blvd
2820 Columbia Pike
People who request one-hour delivery will be charged a fee that is calculated by the products ordered and the distance between the delivery location and the store from which they ordered. The delivery time is guaranteed, in a way that’s not dissimilar from those of that offered by pizza chains in the past.
“Walgreens is so confident in its delivery capabilities that it’s willing to guarantee it’ll be there in an hour — and if not, the company will give you your order and additional credit,” the release said.
Those who get late orders can receive $10 in Walgreens cash rewards, but only if they have an account with the company’s free rewards program.
As for what happens after the pilot ends on Friday, the release said Walgreens “has not announced plans to extend or expand the test.”
The company does offer pickup service in as little as 30 minutes after ordering.
A man inserts a ballot into a voting machine at Walter Reed Community Center on Tuesday, June 20, 2023 (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Democratic primary watch party at William Jeffrey’s Tavern (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
An election official measures the distance that campaigners can stand near the Central Library polling place (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Voting on Tuesday, June 20, 2023 in Arlington at Walter Reed Community Center (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
County Board candidate JD Spain at the election watch party in Courthouse (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
When polls closed at Thomas Jefferson Community Center (courtesy Susan Cunningham)
Susan Cunningham on primary day (courtesy Susan Cunningham)
Candidate signs outside of the Madison Community Center (staff photo)
Arlingtonians could have an update on the results of the Arlington County Board Democratic primary as soon as this afternoon, according to the local elections office.
“We will be accepting about 500 mail and provisional ballots today and results will be uploaded throughout the afternoon,” says spokeswoman Tania Griffin. “We’ll also have an update regarding the [ranked-choice voting] tabulation later this afternoon as well.”
For the first time, Arlington voters used a ranked-choice system to pick their top candidates for the County Board, which has two open seats this year. The outcome will come down to who voters ranked second and third place.
It is a squeaker so far for Susan Cunningham, Natalie Roy, Maureen Coffey and Julius “J.D.” Spain, whose tally of first-choice votes are within a range of only 5 percentage points from most to least.
“This race is still wide open,” said Liz White, the executive director of UpVote Virginia, which has been educating residents about ranked-choice voting ahead of the primary.
“Four out of the six candidates could very well secure a win once subsequent rounds are tabulated,” she said in an email. “Round-by-round tabulation will occur as soon as all provisional and mail ballots are processed. Once all votes are processed, the tabulation is instantaneous.”
How Arlington County Board candidates ended Tuesday night with Round 1 votes in (via Virginia Dept. of Elections)
No candidate crossed the threshold for early victory: 33.3% of the first-choice votes, plus one vote. The next step will be eliminating the lowest vote getters, in order. Who people picked after first ranking Jonathan Dromgoole and Tony Weaver could get any of the four other candidates past the finish line.
Cunningham, who took the lead in the first round of votes, tells ARLnow she has made peace with whatever happens next. Coffey, who currently sits in third place, says she is “on pins and needles” waiting for the results.
Political consultant Ben Tribbett is placing his bets that those who ranked Dromgoole first likely ranked Coffey or Spain next.
“When you get to the actual ranking of candidates, I think the third and fourth-place candidates are going to go on to win the election,” Tribbett said. “I would expect in that first round, that Maureen is going to win. There’s a chance Susan Cunningham could hold off J.D. in the second round.”
On Tuesday, County Board member Takis Karantonis — who endorsed Coffey and Spain — said Coffey performed well on a per campaign dollar spent basis. Meanwhile Spain, who had racked up several endorsements and raised substantial funds, underperformed, which he called a “sobering result.”
Looking precinct by precinct, it is clear that each of the candidates had a base. The more urban places with younger voters went for Coffey, while single-family home enclaves went for Cunningham and Roy, who were most critical of the zoning changes known as Missing Middle.
Arlington County Board Democratic Primary Round 1 votes by precinct (by Jo DeVoe)
Spain told ARLnow on Tuesday night that he enjoyed strong support in his neighborhood, Penrose, while noting more confrontations with upset voters above Langston Blvd.
“We won the most diverse precincts in Arlington,” he said. “[I’m] proud of that.”
Tribbett was more blunt about what he saw as the electoral dynamic, citing the geographic distribution of votes in the Commonwealth’s Attorney race in particular.
“It’s the Karens versus the non-Karens,” he said. “Clearly, there’s a divide in the community that jumps out at you.”
