change-of-government

Projection: Change-of-Government Effort Has Failed

By ARLnow.com

Start writing the eulogies now. The effort to change Arlington’s form of government has failed to attract enough petition signatures to get on the November ballot, ARLnow.com projects.

As of 2:30 this afternoon, election officials had counted 12,621 signatures, out of the 14,350 required by law to get a referendum on the ballot. Election staff are nearly finished with their “second pass” through the 761 petition sheets submitted by the Committee for a Better Arlington. A third pass is unlikely to yield a significant number of additional signatures.

Arlington County General Registrar Linda Lindberg says her staff has completed their second pass over about 700 petition pages. Since about 10,200 signatures were validated during the first pass, that means the second pass is, on average, validating 3.5 additional signatures per page. But with only 61 pages to go, it’s likely that the petition will only have about 12,900 valid signatures going into the third pass, which is expected to start Monday.

“I’d be surprised if we pick up another 100” signatures during the third pass, Lindberg said. With those 100 additional signatures, the petition will be more than 1,350 votes short. This spreadsheet shows just how improbable it would be for the petition to reach the magic 14,350 number from this point out.

It’s not clear what the next step will be for the Committee. In an phone interview last week, a CBA representative did not rule out the possibility of some sort of legal action.

“We’re going to wait for the Registrar to do their count,” the representative said. “Once they make that announcement we will proceed accordingly.”

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Prospects For Change-of-Government Referendum Dimming

By ARLnow.com

It’s looking increasingly unlikely that the Committee for a Better Arlington will reach the mark needed to get a proposed change to Arlington’s form of government on the November ballot.

With approximately 250 pages to go during their “first pass” through the 761 petition sheets submitted, county election personnel say they’ve have counted 8,123 valid signatures. A total of 14,350 valid signatures are needed.

A “second pass” will be conducted to count signatures that could not be readily verified during the first go-round. However, if current trends hold, that process will most likely not yield enough signatures for the petition to pass.

The “rejection rate” for batches that have been fully processed is around 19 percent, according to a county source. At that rate, the petition will fall more than 1,000 signatures short.

Change-of-Government Margin of Error: 2,082 Signatures

By ARLnow.com

Change-of-government supporters collected 2,082 more signatures than necessary to get the measure on the November ballot, according to a rough count by Arlington elections personnel.

Officials counted a total of 16,432 signatures on the 761 petition sheets submitted before yesterday’s 4:00 p.m. deadline. The 57 sheets submitted yesterday contained 950 names, officials said.

Specially-trained staffers have begun the process of matching up the names and addresses on petition sheets to individuals on the county’s voter registration rolls. So far, about 3,100 names have been validated, according to county registrar Linda Lindberg.

Lindberg said she did not have a count of how many names have been rejected so far, but she did say that there have been a number of instances of people signing the petition more than once (an electronic system helps keep track of each recorded name and address).

It’s not clear how many extra signatures will be necessary to clear the 14,350 mark needed to get the change-of-government referendum on the November ballot. The 2,082 extra names give supporters a 12.7 percent buffer. There’s no comparable data from 1993, when Arlington had its last referendum effort.

UPDATED: County Counting Petition Signatures

By ARLnow.com

Update at 10:05 a.m. — An additional 54 petition sheets have just been submitted to the county clerk’s office, and another batch may be on the way, we’re told.

Update at 12:05 p.m. — Unofficial signature count from the first batch: 15,482.

Update at 4:00 p.m. — The county clerk has received a final batch of three petition sheets. Applying the average number of signatures per sheet from the initial batch, the 57 sheets submitted today should yield about 1,254 signatures, for a rough total of 16,736 signatures submitted. That’s 2,385 more than the 14,350 signatures required by law. The big question going forward: will it be enough to make up for the inevitable number of invalid signatures?

Update at 4:15 p.m. — Committee for a Better Arlington representative: “We’re very happy with the number [of signatures] we turned in today and we’re looking forward to being on the ballot in November.”

Update at 5:00 p.m. — Statement from the Coalition for Arlington Good Government, which opposes the change-of-government proposal: “CAGG has confidence in the Registrar’s ability to complete this step in a thorough, accurate manner. If the proposed referendum gets on the ballot, CAGG remains committed to ongoing voter education efforts. CAGG looks forward to continuing a community dialogue about how to promote good government in Arlington.”

Update at 11:00 p.m. — Election officials say they have verified 1,548 names so far.

Arlington County election personnel are conducting an initial count of signatures on change-of-government petitions. A total of 704 double-sided petition sheets were submitted to the county yesterday morning.

The initial count should be completed within an hour. Change-of-government supporters have told the county to expect another batch of petitions to be submitted by the end-of-the-day deadline.

After the deadline, county workers will begin the monumental task of verifying each name by hand. That is expected to take until August 9 or 10, said county registrar Linda Lindberg.

Despite earlier talk of bringing in elections personnel from other jurisdictions to help out, Lindberg said she expects to be able to complete the verification with existing staff members.

The last time a petition made its way through Arlington was 1993.

Actually, there were two petitions. One was to change the school board from an appointed body to an elected body. That measure would ultimately be approved by voters in a referendum. Another proposal, which received enough petition signatures but ultimately not enough referendum votes, was to allow off-track betting parlors in the county.

Change-of-Government Petitions Submitted

By ARLnow.com

Supporters of a proposed change in the county’s form of government submitted their petitions to the Clerk of the Arlington County Circuit Court this morning, the Sun Gazette first reported.

A formal hand-off of the petitions from the clerk to Arlington County General Registrar Linda Lindberg, whose department will verify the signatures, will take place at 9:00 tomorrow morning, the county said in a statement. Supporters need 14,350 valid signatures to get the proposal on the November ballot.

Tejada: No Reason For “Disgruntled Persons” to Change County

By ARLnow.com

County board member Walter Tejada says Arlington is doing just fine under its current form of government, thank you very much.

Tejada was a guest on Friday’s Politics Hour with Kojo Nnamdi on WAMU radio. Asked about the change-of-government petition circulating around the county, Tejada had this to say:

I think it’s important to understand where Arlington is today. We have the lowest unemployment in the region … we have the lowest crime index since 1960 … and our schools are rated in the top 1% in the nation. We have to take a hard look at where we are today. Should we change an entire county government only because there are a few disgruntled persons?

The “disgruntled persons” Tejada is referring to are Arlington’s public safety unions, along with their Republican and Green Party partners, who are collectively sponsoring the petition drive.

Tejada said that he was recently approached by a signature collector who tried to sell him on a claim that all current Arlington County board members live in North Arlington. The only problem, as Tejada points out in the video below, is that board member Chris Zimmerman lives in South Arlington.

Signature-Gathering Enters Homestretch for Change-of-Government Proponents

By ARLnow.com

Thursday is the deadline for change-of-government supporters to submit 14,350 signatures to the county registrar in order to get a referendum on the November ballot. According one of the contract signature collectors hired by the Committee for a Better Arlington, which wants to change Arlington’s form of county government, they have already exceeded that number.

Speaking to ARLnow.com at the Columbia Pike Farmers Market Sunday afternoon, signature collector Robert Farrell said they’ve collected about 15,000 signatures already and are trying to collect about 2,000 more by the deadline as a “cushion” to make up for signatures that might be disqualified by the registrar (due to duplicate signatures or an out-of-county address).

Officially, the Committee has declined to discuss the exact progress of its signature-gathering effort, except to express confidence that it will be successful.

Signature collectors have had to put in “a lot of legwork” and overcome a number of challenges, Ferrell said. He cited demonstrators who show up at events with “decline to sign” signs from the anti-referendum Coalition for Arlington Good Government. The sign holders are generally respectful, Ferrell said, although he has encountered “hostility” from about one in every 1,000 people he approaches.

Meanwhile, the number of places where Committee contractors and volunteers are allowed to gather signatures has become a bit more limited. The Committee used to rely heavily on collecting signatures outside Giant and Safeway stores. Ferrell said he was told a week ago that they were no longer welcome outside the stores due to unspecified complaints.

Ferrell, a self-described native Arlingtonian who returned from living elsewhere to help the petition effort, said that means he will just have to “keep on trucking” at another high-traffic location.

Supreme Court Decision May Affect Change-of-Government Petition

By ARLnow.com

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that people who sign referendum petitions generally can’t claim a First Amendment privilege for keeping their names secret. The ruling may affect the change-of-government petition currently circulating around Arlington.

Change-of-government critics have suggested that the names of petition signers should be made public.

In a statement, the Coalition for Arlington Good Government, which opposes the petition, lauded the Supreme Court decision.

“The Supreme Court’s decision reaffirms the importance of transparency and open government by ensuring public disclosure of petitions,” CAGG said in a statement. “We wish that the referendum proponents were half as committed to transparency.”

The Committee for a Better Arlington, which supports the change-of-government referendum, declined to comment.

League of Women Voters in Dust-Up with Committee for a Better Arlington

By ARLnow.com

The League of Women Voters of Arlington is bristling at a snub by the Committee for a Better Arlington (CBA).

The Committee did not respond to the League’s repeated requests for information about the effects of CBA’s proposed change to Arlington’s form of government, prompting the League to issue a press release today saying it’s “concerned” about “the depth of the public dialogue” regarding the change.

The League, which has no official position on the change-of-government initiative, says it wants “an open discussion focusing on the practical implications of the proposed… changes that could greatly affect County residents.”

“Arlington voters have the right to be informed on issues of such important to our community,” League preisdent Nancy Tate said. “Any proposed changes to our government should be discussed in a concrete and practical manner.”

The Committee for a Better Arlington, meanwhile, responded today with a statement of their own.

Since this past winter, the Committee has met with numerous organizations and civic associations to speak with their membership about this referendum. The League of Women Voters was the only community organization to decline our request – on more than one occasion. Our focus continues to be educating voters and collecting signatures so Arlingtonians will have a choice at the ballot box this November.

The Committee’s request to speak to the League’s membership, referenced in the statement, may be granted after all.

“Should [the League] sponsor a public forum, which we may do, we will of course invite representatives from both sides of the issue, as we have indicated to the CBA,” Tate told ARLnow.com in a subsequent email.

The full statements from both groups, after the jump.

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Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Hey Look, There’s Nightlife in Pentagon City — When the shoppers go home for the day, the mice come out to play. At least that’s what one graveyard shift employee at the Pentagon City mall told WJLA (ABC 7). She reported seeing as many as ten mice scurrying around the food court at night. She even captured some cell phone video of the rodents inside the new Yogen Fruz frozen yogurt stand. WJLA says their story prompted a visit from an Arlington County health inspector. We’re sorry to hear that the inspector had to take a break from tackling the county’s rampant lack of bread packaging in order to address a trivial rodent problem.

WUSA9 Attends Change-of-Government Debate — If you’ve been following the back-and-forth over the proposed change to Arlington’s form of government, you won’t learn anything new from this story. WUSA9’s Brittany Morehouse went to last night’s change-of-government debate at the Cherrydale Volunteer Fire Department and found a passionate but polite crowd. Morehouse summarized the arguments made by both sides, then described the genesis of the ballot initiative. “The issue stems from a beef between fire and police unions and the County Manager,” she said.

More Revelations in Wake Of Arlington Cemetery Scandal — Arlington National Cemetery spent more than $5 million on computerizing its antiquated records system with little to show for it, according to Salon.com. The site reports that criminal investigators have looked into questionable contracts authorized by Arlington National Cemetery Deputy Superintendent Thurman Higginbotham. Also this morning, the Washington Post is reporting that it has found several gravestones of unknown origin lining the banks of a small creek on the cemetery grounds. The cemetery says it’s investigating the finding.

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Ribbon Cutting Today for New Field at TJ — Renovation of the lower athletic field at the Thomas Jefferson Community Center (3501 2nd St. S.) was recently completed, and today county officials will celebrate with a ribbon cutting ceremony. The field, which is used primarily for soccer, now has synthetic turf and state-of-the-art “dark sky” lighting. Because rain is predicted, the ribbon cutting will be held inside the community center. It will take place from 3:30 to 4:00 p.m.

Ballot Initiative Debate in Cherrydale Tonight — The Cherrydale Civic Association is hosting a debate tonight on the proposed change to Arlington’s form of government. Change-of-government supporters and Committee for a Better Arlington co-chairs Mike Staples and Ken Dennis will debate Alan Howze and Judy Connally of the opposition Coalition for Arlington Good Government. After the debate the public will be able to ask questions of both sides. The event is being held at the Cherrydale Volunteer Fire Department (3900 Lee Highway) starting at 7:30 p.m.

Shirlington Getting Jazzed Up — Shirlington Village will be sponsoring an outdoor summer jazz series this year. The concerts will start on Thursday, July 1 and will run through August 19. Each concert will be held in the plaza in front of the Shirlington Library from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Boozing It Up on July 4 — Good news: you’ll be able to buy liquor in Virginia on the 4th of July. Because it’s just not Independence Day without that bottle of Jim Beam. More from WTOP.

Pool photo by philliefan99.

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