News

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com
A Virginia Railway Express train heads south through Crystal City (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

Rappelling Down Hotel for Good Cause — “More than 70 brave individuals will cruise down the exterior facade of the 14-story Hilton Arlington National Landing on May 5 at the ’14 Stories of New Hope’ fundraiser for New Hope Housing. The Alexandria-based nonprofit aims to wipe out homelessness in Northern Virginia by providing shelter, housing and an array of support services.” [Arlington Magazine]

Forum on Governance Change Proposal — “Proponents of changing aspects of Arlington’s 90-year-old governance structure may get an inkling of what’s politically and logistically feasible, and what is not, at an upcoming forum. The Arlington County Civic Federation’s Task Force in Governance and Election Reform – acronym ‘TiGER’ – will host the gathering on Thursday, May 18 at 6:30 p.m. at Central Library.” [Gazette Leader]

Mechanical Bull Coming to Ballston Bar — “Break out your sun hats and seersuckers, it’s time to GIDDY UP for a good cause at Quincy Hall. Join us this Saturday, May 6th for a day of Kentucky Derby celebrations: MECHANICAL BULL RIDES starting right after Kentucky Derby (around 7pm).” [Instagram]

Clement Lauds Fairfax County — “‘Why can’t Arlington be more like Fairfax County?’ is not a phrase one hears too often in the corridors of power across Arlington.But in at least one case, a County Board candidate believes Arlington officials should have followed their Fairfax counterparts this year. Audrey Clement, making her latest bid for County Board as an independent, on May 1 criticized the incumbent Arlington County Board for gouging taxpayers by not reducing the real-estate-tax rate” as Fairfax did, by 1.5 cents per $100. [Gazette Leader]

Cristol Staying Here Miffs Some in Tysons — “Saddened to hear that our new chief cheerleader for #Tysons VA @kcristol
says: ‘And even after the transition, I’ll keep the title I’ve always valued most: Arlingtonian.’ Yikes! Don’t Tysonians deserve better?” [Twitter]

Green Valley Takes the Stage — “If the names Friendly Cab, Funshine Preschool, Veterans Memorial YMCA, Richard Walker Shoes, Naomi’s TV, Chinn’s Funeral Home, Mamie Brown’s Friendly Beauty School and Majestic Barber Shop don’t ring a bell, they will after you’ve attended a performance of ‘From Nauck to Green Valley: Transforming a Community.’ Encore Stage & Studio’s new student-devised original play looks at the history of one of Arlington’s historically African-American communities.” [Gazette Leader]

Warner Intros Social Media Bill — “U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) joined 27 colleagues in introducing the Kids Online Safety Act, comprehensive bipartisan legislation to protect children online. The Kids Online Safety Act provides young people and parents with the tools, safeguards, and transparency they need to protect against online harms.” [Press Release]

It’s Thursday — Mostly cloudy and cool. High of 62 and low of 43. Sunrise at 6:07 am and sunset at 8:03 pm. [Weather.gov]

Around Town

ARLnow Daily Debrief for May 3, 2023

By ARLnow.com

Good Wednesday evening, Arlington. Today we published articles that were read a total of 8213 times… so far.

📈 Top stories

The following are the most-read articles for today — May 3, 2023.

  1. Morning Notes
  2. New report details Courthouse brandishing incident, wild chase and exchange of gunfire
  3. Virtual indoor golf complex Par Citi is aiming to tee off soon on Columbia Pike
  4. Public input drives developer to nix drive-thru ATM from Clarendon Wells Fargo redevelopment plans

📅 Upcoming events

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

⛅ Thursday’s forecast

Afternoon clouds. Cool. High of 62 and low of 43. Sunrise at 6:07 am and sunset at 8:03 pm. See more from Weather.gov.

💡 Haiku of the Day

Peaks rising above
Snowcapped kings enduring time
Mountains standing proud

🌅 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

Public input drives developer to nix drive-thru ATM from Clarendon Wells Fargo redevelopment plans

By Jo DeVoe
1/9

In response to criticism from residents, citizen commissioners and county staff, a developer has removed a drive-thru ATM from its plans to redevelop the Wells Fargo in Clarendon.

One year ago, McLean-based developer Jefferson Apartment Group filed plans to replace the bank — the one someone recently attempted to rob — with a mixed-use building. It is set to consist of 238 apartments, 60,000 square feet of office space and 30,000 square feet of retail, including a new Wells Fargo branch.

The current two-story bank building at 3140 Washington Blvd has a drive-thru in addition to a surface parking lot. Critics of keeping the drive-thru say it would detract from walkability in the area, which is seeing significant redevelopment that will result in more people living, shopping and using public amenities in Clarendon.

“This is the most walkable place in the county and drive-up for anything doesn’t make sense to me,” said Planning Commission member Jim Lantelme back in February. “You would have to have a second ATM that people could walk up to.”

One commenter said drive-thrus are “horrible for the environment and they aren’t faster than parking and going into the building,” while another called it “a relic of the 70s [that] doesn’t belong here.”

A third said it “seems like a very bad idea that will take away space from pedestrians and increase the chance of crashes and congestion in an area that is meant to be dense and walkable.”

Jefferson had originally doubled down on the drive-thru ATM, saying in a county document this was “for the convenience of existing customers and as requested by Wells Fargo based on customer feedback during and after the pandemic.”

Ultimately, it agreed to changes that resemble a suggestion from the Clarendon Courthouse Civic Association: walk-up ATMs and free, short-term parking on a new local street that Jefferson will construct as part of the project.

The walk-up ATMs will be located at the northern and southern edges of the bank, which looks out over N. Irving Street. This street, which dead-ends in a green space, is set to become a plaza through a separate, Dept. of Parks and Recreation-led planning process.

People using the ATMs will be able to park in short-term parking on the north side of a planned public road. As part of the project, Jefferson will build a new 10th Road N., which will run parallel to Washington Blvd and separate the new construction from the existing Verizon building to the south.

The proposed changes to the Clarendon Wells Fargo redevelopment (via Arlington County)

Even with the walk-up ATMs, staff have concerns that a bank, generally, is not the kind of lively retail that encourages people to use the planned Irving Street Plaza. Those who commented were not as concerned with this but suggested sculptures or water features could help “activate” the plaza.

(more…)

Around Town

It’s a busy spring for events and announcements on ARLnow

By ARLnow.com
Events from ARLnow’s event calendar

If you’re not already checking out events and announcements on ARLnow, you’re missing out.

Community submissions to both the event calendar and the announcement section have ramped up significantly this spring. It’s now an even better way to discover happenings and offerings around Arlington.

Some current examples:

In addition to going to the dedicated events and announcement pages, you can also see them under articles, in the middle of the homepage and at the bottom of our email newsletter.

Happy browsing!

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