Arlington Democrats

David Priddy won’t seek re-election, as new School Board candidate emerges

By Jo DeVoe
Arlington School Board Vice Chair David Priddy during the Jan. 3, 2024 meeting (via Arlington Democrats)

Arlington School Board Vice Chair David Priddy says he will not be seeking another term.

He was elected in 2020 along with Cristina Diaz-Torres, who currently serves as the School Board Chair and last month announced that she too would step down after one term. Both of their terms expire at the end of this year, meaning two seats are up for election this year.

“Although I’m making this announcement tonight, there is still one year left on my term,” Priddy told Arlington Democrats during the party’s reorganization meeting last night (Wednesday). “So I will continue to stand on the pillars that you put me in office to enact. Thank you for allowing me to serve the Arlington community.”

Priddy said he would not repeat the “litany of accomplishments and the progress that we have made on the School Board” that Diaz-Torres mentioned in her farewell speech. Instead, he rallied Democrats around the presidential election year ahead.

“The Arlington Democrats are truly a force to be reckoned with,” he said, pointing to the work local Democrats have done, in Arlington and beyond, to promote the values of the Democratic Party. “I bring this up because this year is a presidential election year, which means it’s time to mobilize and elect the right people for office.”

Priddy noted School Board hopefuls have until Feb. 16 to file with Arlington Democrats. The party cannot officially nominate a candidate but it can opt to endorse candidates who pledge to be a Democrat.

The party decided to hold an in-person caucus if at least three candidates emerge, according to the 2024 caucus rules discussed last night. The caucus would be canceled if only two emerge and the party would decide whether to endorse those candidates in March.

Nabbing the party endorsement carries significant weight in Arlington and, though some have criticized this process for tipping the scales in favor of well-connected establishment candidates, it remains popular among party members.

After Priddy’s announcement, Chen Ling announced his candidacy for School Board. He introduced himself as the parent of a third grader at Ashlawn Elementary School and the director of engineering at a Fortune 500 company.

He said the School Board needs a “culture of transparency, respect and trust.”

“Some of the actions taken by the School Board in the last few years instead caused confusion and discontentment between parents and teachers,” he said, noting “seemingly suboptimal proposals” that created an “antagonistic relationship between the community and School Board.”

New School Board candidate Chen Ling during the Jan. 3, 2024 Arlington Democrats meeting (via Arlington Democrats)

“That is a real shame because I’ve watched the School Board work and these are some really caring, thoughtful people and they are trying their best,” he said. “What I think they lack is tools to make the best decisions, they lack the tools to provide transparency and build trust.”

The School Board should share with parents all the proposals they consider, as well as their trade-offs and reasoning behind a decision, Ling said.

“It’s okay if the final proposal is somehow detrimental to my child if I know that it serves for the community and the school system at large. That’s something that I haven’t seen at that level,” he said. “It’s not enough to provide an answer, even if it’s the correct answer. We need to show our work.”

Ling said he would like to see fewer curriculum changes, as well as more automation of mandated state and federal reporting, so teachers can focus on students. Lastly, he would like to see class size reductions, too.

During the meeting, Arlington County Board candidate Natalie Roy made her pitch to Arlington Democrats. She, and opponent Julie Farnam, both seek the party’s nomination this June in the County Board race to fill the seat occupied by Chair Libby Garvey. Garvey has not yet announced if she will seek reelection.

“I believe the County Board needs a voice like mine, advocating for transparency and responsiveness, I am committed to common sense leadership that brings us all together,” Roy said.

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Deep blue Arlington played a supporting role for Dems in competitive state races

By Jo DeVoe
1/6

(Updated at 4:10 p.m.) Tight races for the state legislature and proposed restrictions on abortion motivated Virginians to the polls on Election Day.

This was despite the lack of statewide and federal elections, which typically drive turnout. The races for local office and the Virginia General Assembly played out against the backdrop of Republicans vying for a trifecta — control of the governor’s office as well as the lower and upper legislature chambers — and Democrats trying to stop them.

At stake were abortion rights, as Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) floated trying to pass a 15-week ban if Republicans took the Senate and kept the House.

Arlington had two state Senate and several House of Delegates seats on the ballot. Only three races had challengers, however, and among them Democratic incumbents Sen. Adam Ebbin, Sen. Barbara Favola and Del. Alfonso Lopez all won last night. While their road to victory was easier, the competition was stiff elsewhere in Virginia, commanding their attention and that of other politically minded Arlingtonians.

“It’s a little strange in Arlington because we’re in this blue bubble in what’s essentially a purple state leaning slightly toward Democrats,” says Sam Shirazi, an East Falls Church resident and Virginia elections analyst. “Virginia is just one of those states where, especially in these state elections, as opposed to federal elections, it’s almost always going to be close. ”

Shirazi had predicted Democrats would secure slim majorities in the Senate and House of Delegates, which he says is coming to pass. Democrats flipped the House and retained the Senate, not in a sweep but by securing key seats in suburban counties such as Loudoun and Henrico.

Arlington played a supporting role in these races, says Arlington County Democratic Chair Steve Baker. Volunteers spent 40 days canvassing, making thousands of phone calls and sending out 18,000 postcards and targeted seven districts of which Democrats won in six.

“Grassroots organizing works,” said Kip Malinosky, chair of the initiative dubbed Beyond Arlington. “Democrats win when we’re talking about issues that matter: abortion rights, voting rights, and gun safety. I’m proud that we played a role in helping Democrats win across the state.”

State Sen. Adam Ebbin, who was re-elected in the 39th District, said Virginians sent their governor a strong message last night.

That message would be that you can work with people across the aisle to get things done for the betterment of the Commonwealth rather than dividing them in a cynical and twisted manner. And I believe that Virginians don’t want, and will express by the end of tonight, that we don’t want the government banning books. We don’t want people interfering with our personal freedoms, whether it’s reproductive rights, your right to breathe clean air, or the safety of our communities from gun violence.

Shirazi says the state races were closer due to Virginia’s 2021 redistricting effort, in which he participated.

“Previously the maps were drawn by the legislatures themselves and obviously they had an incentive to try and protect themselves, to maybe protect their party,” he said. “This time… a lot of the incumbents, either in the primary or the general election, lost, so we had a lot of turnover in the General Assembly, and then, both chambers were competitive because they weren’t drawn to favor either party.”

“That’s why there was a lot of suspense going into the election,” he continued.

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DEVELOPING: Arlington Democrats celebrate another local election sweep

By ARLnow.com
1/2

(Updated at 11:15 p.m.) It is another good election night for Arlington Democrats.

While some might have hoped for a Missing Middle-inspired upset in the two-seat Arlington County Board race, Democrats Maureen Coffey and Susan Cunningham have commanding leads over Republican Juan Carlos Fierro and independent Audrey Clement.

All but one Arlington precinct have reported results as of 10 p.m.

There is some evidence of a relatively minor Missing Middle backlash at the ballot box on Election Day: Cunningham — who advocates for “closely monitoring and revising” the policy, also known as “Expanded Housing Options” — is running just shy of three points ahead of Coffey, who generally supports it.

Clement, the most outspoken Missing Middle critic among the four candidates, has nearly 13% of the vote, about the same as Fierro. That compares to about 35% and 38% for Coffey and Cunningham, respectively.

Elsewhere down the ballot, it’s a sea of blue votes.

Among competitive races, GOP state Senate candidate Sophia Moshasha kept it closest, with about 24% of the vote to 75% for incumbent Sen. Adam Ebbin. Republican David Henshaw has 21% of the vote to 79% for incumbent Sen. Barbara Favola. And incumbent Del. Alfonso Lopez is defeating independent Major Mike Webb 81% to 18%.

The remaining races have no active second candidates, resulting in the election of incumbent Del. Patrick Hope in the 1st House District, Adele McClure in the 2nd House District, incumbent Clerk of the Circuit Court Paul Ferguson, incumbent Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, Sheriff Jose Quiroz, Commissioner of Revenue Kim Klingler, incumbent Treasurer Carla de la Pava, and School Board member Miranda Turner.

“We’re really excited,” Arlington Democrats Chair Steve Baker told ARLnow. “It seems like the voter turnout was really high all day long… We had a lot of local issues this year that brought people out in the primary. I think that helped Democrats.”

“With respect to the General Assembly, it was every bit about protecting the progress Democrats made after the 2019 election on voting rights, on education, on common sense gun safety, on protecting reproductive rights,” Baker continued. “Arlington voters were motivated to go to the polls.”

On the County Board race, Baker said he expects “difficult conversations” to continue while Board members “find the right approach and combination of policy to solve the issue of housing.”

Local Democrats potentially have another reason to celebrate tonight: election watchers project the party has won control of both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly.

While the Arlington GOP came up well short in the vote tally, it did notch a national news story today.

A voter’s expletive-filled rant against local party chair Matthew Hurtt, who was handing out sample ballots — as previously noted by ARLnow — ended up on the homepage of Fox News, Townhall and other media outlets.

James Jarvis contributed to this report

An update in the ‘wide open’ Arlington County Board race could come this afternoon

By Jo DeVoe
1/8

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.”

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Acting Sheriff Jose Quiroz wins Democratic primary on commitment to improve inmate well-being

By Jo DeVoe
Arlington Sheriff candidate Jose Quiroz, Jr. greets Arlington County Board member Takis Karantonis at the Walter Reed Community Center on Tuesday (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

After taking the helm for longtime Arlington County Sheriff Beth Arthur, who retired at the end of 2022, Acting Sheriff Jose Quiroz is one step closer to taking charge permanently.

Quiroz — backed by four of five County Board members and several elected officials — won the Democratic primary Tuesday night. Following his victory, over former sheriff deputy Wanda Younger and Arlington County police corporal James Herring, Quiroz advances to the November general election.

No one has emerged as an outside challenger, according to the Arlington Dept. of Elections website. If elected as expected, Quiroz will be the county’s first Latino sheriff.

As of last night, the acting sheriff had nearly 40% of the vote, or 10,733 ballots. Younger was close behind him, with 1,600 fewer votes (~34%). Herring came in third, picking up nearly 7,200 votes.

Arlington County Sheriff results (via Virginia Dept. of Elections)

Looking forward, the acting sheriff says he will focus on mental health, substance use and programming for jail inmates. Running the local jail is the primary responsibility of the Arlington County Sheriff’s Office, along with providing court security and some law enforcement and civil process duties beyond the justice complex in Courthouse.

“I think the biggest thing is mental health. We all have that and all go through it, but some people need a little more care, attention, resources and services,” Quiroz told ARLnow. “I think the county has some work to do in that area.”

He stressed that he can only control treatment of inmates, not change the waves of people with mental illnesses and addictions coming to the jail. To that end, he says new biometric sensors — which inmates will wear so issues like withdrawal symptoms can be spotted before more inmates die — are close to go-time.

Meanwhile, he intends to maintain existing programs, including a series that teaches men how to connect with and be fathers to their kids.

“That’s how you break the cycle of the next generation,” he said. “It’s important to me as a father.”

He says he is thinking “outside the box” about support, stepping up pet therapy and possibly adding a pickleball court for staff and inmates.

In their concessions, Herring and Younger both said they campaigned on bringing to light problems in the jail.

“My campaign was about highlighting the issues and showing people the number of solutions we have available to us if we stop relying on the trope of ‘that’s the way it has always been done,’ or ‘it costs too much,'” Herring said. “Other Sheriff’s Offices in Virginia have implemented much of what I was talking about, often with smaller budgets. The problems facing our Sheriff’s Office are not financially driven, but an issue of priority.”

Next week, Herring will once more be patrolling the streets. He said he would run again if the problems he stressed in his campaign remain four years from now.

On social media, Younger said she is “proud to have raised the bar of the Sheriff’s Office with our ideas & solution-sets and to have brought light to the prevalent issues of the Arlington Sheriff’s Office which inhibit [its] growth and greatness.”

She also thanked voters for their confidence in her ability to carry out her platform.

“The Wanda for Sheriff team will continue to advance the rights and voice of the detainees, Sheriff’s Office staff and our Arlington community in the future as community advocates and caretakers, and we are honored to have earned your trust,” she said.

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DEVELOPING: Katcher concedes to Dehghani-Tafti as eyes shift to Sheriff and County Board races

By ARLnow.com
1/9

(Updated at 9:25 p.m.) Commonwealth’s Attorney incumbent Parisa Dehghani-Tafti has defeated challenger Josh Katcher in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.

Dehghani-Tafti has 56% of the vote to 44% for Katcher, her former deputy, in the heated race for the top prosecutor of Arlington and Falls Church. That’s as of 8:40 p.m., with all but a few hundred provisional and late-arriving mailed ballots counted in Arlington. Polls closed at 7 p.m.

Katcher, standing outside of his watch party at Lost Dog Cafe in Westover, called Dehghani-Tafti shortly before 8:50 p.m. to concede the race.

The contentious — and expensive — contest has been seen as something of a referendum on the incumbent’s brand of vocal justice reform advocacy. Katcher, while billing himself as also in favor of justice reform, put a spotlight on Dehghani-Tafti’s leadership, which he linked to departures of deputy prosecutors amid a reported rise in crime.

“Right now we’re going to celebrate what we were able to accomplish with this campaign and thank the volunteers,” Katcher told ARLnow before heading back into his event.

“Over the course of the last six months, we’ve had an important debate in our community over the future of criminal justice reform,” he said in a subsequent written statement. “Our team left it all on the field, as we sought to have a debate about what real reform and real justice could mean for our community… I stand ready to continue my commitment to this community, to its safety and to the goal of ensuring that we are balancing the need for both justice and compassion.”

Dehghani-Tafti also thanked her supporters. Gesturing to the crowd gathered at her event at Fire Works Pizza in Courthouse (held with County Board candidate JD Spain) she said those present reflect a tiny fraction of the people who donated, volunteered, “held my hand,” and knocked on doors.

“A campaign based on love, dignity and respect prevailed,” she said. “I’m grateful for the trust everybody has placed in me.”

In the other two closely watched local races, for County Board and Sheriff, leads were slim.

The three-way county sheriff race has Jose Quiroz with a widening lead compared to earlier in the night, with 40% to 34% for former deputy sheriff Wanda Younger and 27% for Arlington police corporal James Herring.

Quiroz was appointed Acting Sheriff after the departure of long-time Sheriff Beth Arthur earlier this year. The position is primarily responsible for running the county jail in Courthouse, with the Sheriff’s Office also handling court security, civil process serving, and some law and traffic enforcement responsibilities.

The Arlington County Board primary, meanwhile, is being conducted for the first time using ranked choice voting, which means final tabulation will not take place until Friday at the earliest. Results of “first choice” votes are being posted, however, showing Susan Cunningham with 25%, Natalie Roy with 24%, Maureen Coffey with 22%, and JD Spain with 20%.

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Light turnout so far for Democratic primary in Arlington

By ARLnow.com
1/3

Just under 10% of voters have cast ballots in today’s Democratic primary as of 9 a.m.

That includes 7% who voted early or by mail and 2% voting at the polls Tuesday morning, according to Arlington County election officials.

Today’s primary, for the first time in Arlington, features the use of ranked choice voting, for the six-way race for the two open Arlington County Board seats. Voters are asked to fill in the bubble for up to three candidates, in order of priority — one each for first, second and third choice.

The County Board race has seen a wide range of endorsements and one particularly divisive issue dividing candidate factions: the recently-passed Missing Middle housing ordinance allowing smaller-scale multifamily homes in neighborhoods previously zoned only for single-family detached houses.

The other closely watched race today is that for Arlington and Falls Church’s top prosecutor, between incumbent Parisa Dehghani-Tafti and her former deputy, Josh Katcher.

The incumbent Commonwealth’s Attorney has continued to campaign — and raise significant campaign funding — on her national profile as a justice reformer. Katcher says he supports a more practical and effective implementation of justice reform, and has picked up an endorsement from the local police union amid a rise in crime, according to recent police statistics.

The race has also seen Katcher face some criticism for taking campaign contributions from Republicans.

Additional races include a three-way race for county Sheriff, a two-way race for State Senate (40th District), and a race for House of Delegates (2nd District) featuring one active candidate, Adele McClure, and Kevin Saucedo-Broach, who withdrew but remains on ballots.

Though turnout today is light compared to years in which federal races are on the primary ballot, it is in line with the last four-year cycle, in 2019, when Dehghani-Tafti defeated incumbent Theo Stamos for Commonwealth’s Attorney. Total voter turnout in that race was just under 17%.

Polls opened today at 6 a.m. and will close at 7 p.m.

While the results of most races should be known within a few hours, the final tally for County Board will take a few days — potentially extending into the weekend — due to how ranked choice votes are tabulated, including the need to wait until all legal mailed-in ballots are received

ARLnow previously asked candidates to write essays describing why Arlington voters should support them. Links to those posts are below.

Commonwealth’s Attorney: Josh Katcher and Parisa Dehghani-Tafti. County Board: Tony Weaver, Jonathan Dromgoole, JD Spain, Maureen Coffey, Susan Cunningham, and Natalie Roy. Sheriff: Jose Quiroz, James Herring, and Wanda Younger. State Senate: Barbara Favola.

Update at 1:50 p.m. — Primary day turnout is up to about 5%, bringing total turnout to 12%, according to the county elections office.

Here is what you need to know ranking your Arlington County Board picks

By Jo DeVoe
Voting in Courthouse (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

Just a few days remain to vote in the Arlington County Democratic primary.

Voters can cast their ballots early and in-person today (Friday) and tomorrow — or they can hit the polls on Tuesday.

This year, for the first time, residents are using ranked-choice voting to determine which Arlington County Board candidates will run with a (D) next to their names in the November general election. The format for every other primary contest is unchanged.

This article explains how to vote, how your vote is counted and why full results may come next weekend. At the minimum, this is what you should know:

  1. Anyone registered to vote, regardless of party, can participate in the primary.
  2. You can rank up to three of the six County Board candidates. You can only rank one or two if you want.
  3. Only two candidates will get the nomination.
  4. Only mark one oval per column and ask for assistance if you need help.

Filling out your ballot

Need a visual? This Arlington County flier provides step-by-step instructions:

Ranked-choice voting flier (via Arlington County) 

The scanner will reject ballots that look as follows.

Ranked-choice voting ballot errors (via Arlington County)

“Voters have the option to mark a new ballot or cast their ballot with the errors,” Arlington Dept. of Elections Director Gretchen Reinemeyer says. “A vast majority choose to spoil their original ballot and mark a new ballot.”

If you mailed in a ballot with errors, it will be reviewed.

“Their ballots are scanned after they are separated from the voter’s name to preserve voter privacy,” Reinemeyer says. “These ballots are held until election day and will be adjudicated by teams of election officers to determine voter intent.”

The rate of spoiled ballots so far this primary season is a little higher than normal, but still small, she noted. Final stats on spoiled ballots will be published after the election.

How are the winners picked? 

Liz White, the executive director of UpVote Virginia, tells ARLnow she used this analogy to explain tabulation when her organization educated Arlingtonians on ranked-choice voting.

You have $1 to spend to elect someone. Everyone pays their first pick $1 and whoever gets the least amount of money is eliminated.

A candidate who wins by a large margin does not need the full $1 — just, for instance, 70 cents. Your second pick gets 30 cents.

If your first-place candidate is eliminated, your second-place pick gets your full $1. Everyone has a whole vote: for some, it is split among two and for others, it supports the second-place pick.

Armed with this knowledge, White says do not get too strategic.

“One of the nice things is that voters don’t have to be pundits,” she said. “They can truly say, ‘If I don’t have this one candidate, I want to have this one.'”

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Chronic staffing shortages top of mind for Arlington County Sheriff candidates — with a side of pickleball

By Jo DeVoe
Jail entrance at the Arlington County Detention Facility (file photo)

The pickleball craze could be headed to the local jail next.

Acting Sheriff Jose Quiroz, who is one of three vying for the support of local Democrats in the primary this coming Tuesday, said that one amenity he would like to add to the jail is a pickleball court.

In an interview by Arlington Independent Media (AIM), he said the court is “something different” — in addition to the existing basketball court and weight-lifting area in the jail — that deputies and inmates could use. He sees the additional court as a way to improve deputy wellness.

He also intends to add a relaxation room in the jail for deputies and to have wellness conversations with staff, facilitated by local nonprofit Center for Youth and Family Advocacy.

Those two measures are intended to stop the office from bleeding burned-out staff, a pattern in Arlington reflected nationally that sources say appears to be worsening within the Sheriff’s Office, with some deputies actively planning their departures. Already, the vacancy rate stands around 7%, up from a little greater than 3% in 2019, according to the 2024 approved budget.

“Our staffing all around is low,” Quiroz said in the interview. “We have a lot of vacancies.”

He is running against Arlington County police officer James Herring and retired sheriff deputy Wanda Younger. Early voting ends tomorrow (Saturday), while polls open for the Democratic primary on Tuesday. Quiroz’s opponents say they also have ideas for addressing what they say are morale and retention issues in the Arlington County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO).

Herring says the issue stems from deputies being forced to work overtime. They will leave Arlington for jurisdictions with better schedules.

If elected, he intends to advocate for better pay and benefits and, with input from deputies, create more balanced schedules that provide career growth opportunities and mentorship.

“If you can’t hire people faster than people leave your agency, it doesn’t matter how good your recruiting is,” Herring told ARLnow. “Losing a veteran deputy means more than just losing a filled position. It means that you’re losing their years of experience, their ability to mentor younger deputies, and their established connections with those in custody and in the community.”

(Herring’s AIM interview was just posted online this morning.)

He recently picked up endorsements from Abby Raphael, a former Arlington School Board member who also served as an assistant prosecutor, and former independent County Board member John Vihstadt. Both praised his plans for also improving inmate wellbeing.

Younger suggests ending the Sheriff’s unilateral ability to hire and fire deputies without cause. She also suggests relying more on auxiliary deputies — trained civilian volunteers, certified by the state, who sometimes have military or law enforcement experience.

“Hiring is definitely an issue. Retention is a main problem as well,” Younger said in her conversation with AIM. “In order to ensure they remain, we have to increase morale. That’s one area I would focus on.”

Quiroz has the endorsement of several other current and former local and state elected officials, as well as his predecessor, Beth Arthur, who stepped down in January and appointed Quiroz as acting sheriff.

ACSO has tried to tackle the staffing crunch by appointing a sergeant to assist with recruiting — which resulted in more applications processed and a slightly faster hiring window — and budgeting $20,000 in the 2024 budget for recruiting.

The sheriff’s office serves warrants, runs the county jail and provides security at the courthouse, in addition to some other local law and traffic enforcement responsibilities. One impact of the shortages has been fewer deputies providing security in courtrooms and more civilian court security supervisors filling in.

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Commonwealth’s Attorney race is getting expensive as ads litigate who is a ‘real’ Democrat

By Jo DeVoe
Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti and her challenger, Josh Katcher (photo illustration by ARLnow)

In the race to pick the next Democratic candidate for Arlington and Falls Church’s top prosecutor, incumbent Parisa Dehghani-Tafti has topped her opponent, Josh Katcher, in fundraising.

A campaign financing report released yesterday (Monday) says she netted $356,220 in cash donations for her re-election bid from April 1-June 8. She raced ahead after falling behind Katcher in the last filing period. The Democratic primary is on June 20 and early voting started last month.

Most of the cash Dehghani-Tafti received — $295,000 — came from one progressive political action committee (PAC) founded by billionaire philanthropist George Soros. She also received nearly $75,000 in in-kind donations from a handful of other liberal groups, including $45,992 from New Virginia Majority and $23,435 from Justice and Public Safety PAC.

Katcher’s largest donation this round, $15,000, comes from the Arlington Coalition of Police. He still bests his opponent when it comes to number of donors above and below $100. He also has loaned himself $30,000, whereas Dehghani-Tafti reported no loans during this period.

Fundraising has yet to reach the nearly $1 million seen ahead of the June 2019 primary, when Dehghani-Tafti bested incumbent Theo Stamos and in one filing period received $515,492 in cash and in-kind donations from a Soros-funded group.

In a statement this morning, the campaign to elect Dehghani-Tafti celebrated these donations and went after Katcher for trying to discredit them.

There are those, like our opponent, who will seek to sow distrust in these upstanding organizations, who have already aimed to diminish their right to bring together the voices of those who are normally disenfranchised, and support both democracy and Democratic values; those who utilize Republican scare tactics, demonizing the hard work of members of these American institutions.

We do not agree with our opponent. We embrace not only the right these groups have to support our campaign, but we celebrate this support, accepting these contributions of time, money, and labor by hard-working Americans who are invested that ALL people in Arlington be treated equally under the law, that ALL people can expect justice under the law, and that ALL people here can expect a safe community for their families to grow, love, and prosper.

Katcher’s campaign lambasted his opponent today for omitting the $295,000 in what it says is “dark PAC money.” His campaign manager, Ben Jones, said the following:

Over the past month, our campaign has pointed to a clear pattern of behavior by Parisa Dehghani-Tafti where she refuses to tell the truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth to our community, even on the most elementary matters. Whether it is relating to information on crime statistics, how many vacancies are open in her office, how her office operates or even just an hour ago when talking about her campaign contributions, she has shown over and over again that she is incapable of transparency or even fidelity to the truth.

Jones argued that Katcher has more broad support from Democrats than his opponent, with 1,151 individual contributions in the past six months compared to the 822 contributions to Dehghani-Tafti over the last two years.

Echoes of the fundraising rhetoric can be heard in the ads for the two candidates. Some highlight their experience and high-profile endorsements while others demonstrate their Democrat bona fides and undermine those of their opponent.

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Arlington County Board candidates call for more regulations, incentives and public education to mitigate flooding

By Jo DeVoe
1/3

This spring, Arlington County began buying up properties in the Waverly Hills area to combat flooding.

Already, despite some concerns about how the program would work, three residents have agreed to sell their homes. The county will tear them down and replant the land so water has a place to flow during large rain storms.

All seven Arlington County Board candidates — six of whom are vying for the support of the local Democratic party this primary — say the county needs to change its land-use policies and get more people on board with adding stormwater infrastructure in their backyards, in order to make neighborhoods more resilient to a predicted increase in flooding.

“The July 2018 and 2019 floods in particular really drove this home for us — we had some real life-safety issues pertaining to flooding,” Susan Cunningham said in a forum hosted by nonprofit advocacy group EcoAction Arlington last week.

“[It] highlighted that, not only because of climate change but really because of lack of long-range planning, we have very outdated stormwater management systems that we don’t have a budget to improve,” she continued. “We do have a lot of catch up to do.”

Since the floods, Arlington County has taken steps to manage stormwater beyond buying homes for flood relief.

Starting next year, Arlington will fund its stormwater management plan with a stormwater utility fee. The county will charge property owners a rate based on how much of their property is covered in hard surfaces, like roofs and driveways. (Currently, it is funded by a tax based on property assessments.)

Other changes include new regulations requiring single-family home construction projects to retain more water and some $90 million in bond referenda from 2020 and 2022 for stormwater projects.

Developers of single-family homes report higher construction costs due to retention regulations. Bonds and the new stormwater utility fee, meanwhile, could spell higher taxes for residents.

So, in this race, some candidates say the county should examine how its own policies encourage flooding before requiring more of residents.

Cunningham and Natalie Roy, both of whom have opposed the recently adopted Missing Middle zoning changes, that starts with reducing the allowable buildable area that homes can occupy on a lot.

“This is something that we should’ve done 10 years ago and definitely something we should have done before approving the misguided [Missing Middle] plan,” Roy said.

Perennial independent candidate Audrey Clement said she would call for the repeal of Missing Middle, linking the new policy to tree loss and thus, increased flooding.

She said she would also end a practice among developers to subdivide lots to circumvent state environmental ordinances preventing construction near protected land along Arlington streams called “resource protection areas,” or RPAs.

“It was by this sleight of hand that the county permitted a tear-down McMansion in a North Arlington RPA in 2018 but also the destruction of a 100-foot state champion redwood on the same lot,” she said.

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