News

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com
Performers from the Washington School of Ballet perform at the second annual Freedom Concert at the Netherlands Carillon (Flickr pool photo by Jeff Vincent)

Redevelopment Plan for Goodwill — “An all-affordable residential development has been pitched for the site of a Goodwill store in Arlington. Goodwill and AHC, Inc. have filed plans with Arlington County for a 128-unit development at the site of the Goodwill retail store and donation center at the intersection of South Glebe Road and Arlington Boulevard.” [UrbanTurf]

Gov. Visits Local Legion Post — From Gov. Glenn Youngkin: “During the opening of American Legion Post 139 in Arlington, we rolled out the Gold-Standard Digital Hub which will improve connectivity and access to resources and benefits for veterans, transitioning service members, and their families.” [Twitter]

Arlingtonian Assumes Office as U.S. Archivist — “Dr. Colleen Shogan assumed the role of Archivist of the United States today and, immediately after taking the oath of office, began her work as the head of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).” [National Archives]

Road Closures for Shirlington Event — “The Shirlington Spring Fling: A Village Block Party will take place on Saturday, May 20, 2023, from 11:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. The Arlington County Police Department will conduct the following road closures from approximately 5:30 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. in order to accommodate the event.” [Arlington County]

N. Va. Real Estate Prices Still Rising — “The median sales price of homes sold in April ($690,000) was up 0.7 percent from a year before, as the lack of inventory helped those sellers who did opt to put their homes on the market. And when held up against the last pre-COVID April (2019), the median sale price had grown 23 percent from $560,000.” [Gazette Leader]

It’s Thursday — Sunny, with a high near 69. Northeast wind 6 to 8 mph becoming southeast in the afternoon. Tonight: Partly cloudy, with a low around 52. Southeast wind 5 to 9 mph. [Weather.gov]

Flickr pool photo by Jeff Vincent

Around Town

ARLnow Daily Debrief for May 17, 2023

By ARLnow.com

Good Wednesday evening, Arlington. Today we published articles that were read a total of 7099 times… so far.

📈 Top stories

The following are the most-read articles for today — May 17, 2023.

  1. County adds all-way stops along Little Falls Road and in Ballston to increase pedestrian safety
  2. Morning Notes
  3. Just Reduced Properties in Arlington
  4. Lao restaurant Padaek and an acai bowl eatery are coming to the Arlington Ridge Shopping Center

📅 Upcoming events

Here is what’s going on Thursday in Arlington, from our event calendar.

☀️ Thursday’s forecast

Sunny, with a high near 69. Northeast wind 7 to 9 mph becoming southeast in the afternoon. Tonight: Partly cloudy, with a low around 52. Southeast wind 6 to 10 mph. See more from Weather.gov.

💡 Quote of the Day

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

🌅 Tonight’s sunset

Thanks for reading! Feel free to discuss the day’s happenings in the comments.

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.

News

Disabled resident prevails in zoning appeal over plans to build a therapeutic sunroom

By Jo DeVoe
1/2

Thomas Peters and his wife Natalie found the perfect home in Arlington — one that already had an elevator that Thomas would need to get around in his wheelchair.

It did have one downside, however. The trees on his neighbor’s property, which is at a higher elevation, block natural light from reaching his backyard.

That poses a problem for Peters, whose spinal cord injury — sustained while swimming 10 years ago — left him paralyzed and made it harder for his body to regulate his temperature and stay healthy. The need for accessible sunlight became obvious during the pandemic when he was stuck in his apartment.

“UV light is the best disinfectant and it is hard to get in the wintertime,” he said. “I knew I wanted a place where I could live in the sunlight.”

So Peters commissioned an architect to draft plans for a sunroom. Before those could be realized, however, he learned he would have to get special permission to build it because the home already exceeds the allowable size for a main building on a 10,000-square-foot lot, according to the zoning code.

The last 15 months became a winding legal process that frustrated Peters at times.

“My journey of living with a disability has been one of losing lots of agency,” he said. “I’m a very go-getter type of guy. One of the most frustrating things about living with a handicap is that there are things you just can’t overcome. It’s especially frustrating when you can’t overcome things in your own home after pursuing the dream of independent living.”

Last Wednesday, however, his vision for the property eventually prevailed. He he got the go-ahead for the sunroom when the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) unanimously greenlit a variance for the site. The citizen commission considered not just local zoning ordinances but also the Americans with Disabilities Act and ultimately acted against a recommendation by county staff to deny his request.

ARLnow reached out to some of the five BZA members but did not hear back before deadline.

Barnes Lawson, the lawyer for Peters, said last week’s decision was a rare one that resolved a cordial disagreement with the county over what constitutes a reasonable accommodation for a disability.

“Zoning Division staff does not believe that the applicants have proven an explicit connection between the requested size of the proposed improvements and their ability to remedy a hardship, as they have not shown that the benefits provided by the proposed conservatory could not also be provided elsewhere in the dwelling,” according to a county report.

In a county report, staff emphasized that the Peters home already exceeds the maximum lot coverage allowable for a main building on a lot of its size. The county offered Peters two paths forward that would not require a variance.

He could build a front porch of at least 60 square feet and earn the right to extend the footprint of his house by 3%. The zoning code encourages the construction of front porches — and, as another example, discourages garages near the front of the house — as a way to promote neighborly interactions.

(more…)

News

ACPD: Drunk woman threw bottle at passing car in Pentagon City

By ARLnow.com
File photo

A 23-year-old Minnesota woman is facing a pair of charges after police say she drunkenly threw a bottle at a passing car.

The incident happened around 5:45 p.m. yesterday (Tuesday) in Pentagon City, at the intersection of 12th Street S. and S. Hayes Street, near the Metro station entrances.

“Police were dispatched to the report of a possible intoxicated subject walking in and out of traffic,” Arlington County police said today in a crime report. “Upon arrival, it was determined the female suspect allegedly threw a bottle at the windshield of a passing vehicle.”

“Responding officers located the suspect on scene, took her into custody and she was evaluated by medics,” the crime report adds. “No injuries or property damage were reported. [The suspect], 23, of Brainerd, MN was arrested and charged with Throwing a Missile at an Occupied Vehicle and Public Intoxication. She was held without bond.”

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