Fairlington Park Forum — Next month the Arlington Dept. of Parks and Recreation will hold a public forum about proposed renovations to Fairlington Park. The forum will take place on Sept. 15 at 7 p.m. at the Fairlington Community Center. [InsideNova]
Fundraising for Italian Earthquake Victims — Shirlington’s Osteria da Nino is raising money for victims of last week’s deadly Italian earthquake. For a limited time the restaurant is donating $10 for every $17 Bucatini Amatriciana dish it sells to the Italian Red Cross. [Facebook]
Fire Station No. 10 Meeting — Where will Rosslyn’s Fire Station No. 10 relocate to on a temporary basis? That controversial question will be the subject of a public meeting next Wednesday, Sept. 7, at Key Elementary. [Arlington County]
Arlington County Police Department officers are set to meet with locals during fun community gatherings at six locations across the county tomorrow night.
The planned events are held as part of National Night Out, a “community-building campaign that promotes police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie,” according to a flyer distributed by the police department.
National Night Out celebrations are a chance for police and members of the community to come together, usually over free food and activities.
National Night Out events will be held at the following locations:
Arlington Forest (200 block of N. Galveston Street) at 7:30 p.m.
Nauck Town Square (24th Road S. and S. Shirlington Road) from 6:00-8:00 p.m.
Barcroft Community House (800 S. Buchanan Street) from 6:00-7:30 p.m.
Farlington Villages Pool 2 (3045 S. Buchanan Street) from 5:00-7:00 p.m.
Park Glen Condo Associations: (800 block of S. Arlington Mill Road) from 7:00-8:00 p.m.
Whitefield Commons: (106 N. Thomas Street) from 5:30-7:30 p.m.
More than 1,700 Dominion customers are without power in south Arlington due to a widespread power outage.
The outage was first reported around 2:30 p.m. Numerous traffic signals along Columbia Pike and Glebe Road, including the signal at the busy intersection of the Pike and Glebe, were reported to be dark, though most have since come back online.
The outage also briefly caused some issues at the county’s Water Pollution Control Plant along Glebe Road, according to scanner traffic.
The outage is currently affecting power customers in Fairlington, Shirlington and along portions of the Pike, according to a power outage map and social media reports. More than 100 customers are also said to be without power in Alexandria.
Long Bridge Project Coming — Virginia’s new Atlantic Gateway transportation plan includes the reconstruction of Long Bridge, the rail bridge that runs parallel to the 14th Street Bridge. As proposed, the new bridge would carry four rail tracks instead of two. Local elected officials expressed support for the project at a press conference with Gov. Terry McAuliffe in Alexandria last week. [Arlington Connection]
Kids Attend ‘Peace Camp’ — A group of local children attended a week-long camp that was all about promoting peace through music, art and games. The event was held at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington and organized by the group Little Friends for Peace. [WUSA 9]
Sugar Shack Debuts ‘Donut Lab’ — Sugar Shack Donuts on Columbia Pike will be debuting new flavors every Wednesday as part of a social media competition with its sister store in Alexandria. Each week customers will vote on their favorite flavor. This week’s new flavor at the Arlington store is “Cannoli,” with cannoli cream filling and chocolate glaze. [Patch]
Community Zika Meeting — The Fairlington neighborhood will be holding a community meeting on the threat of the Zika virus tonight. [Twitter]
Update at 11:15 a.m. — Power has been restored to all but 77 Dominion customers in Arlington.
The Virginia Dept. of Motor Vehicles office on Four Mile Run Drive is reported to be among those affected by a widespread power outage this morning.
On what may be the hottest day of the year so far, large portions of the Shirlington and Fairlington areas are without power.
According to Dominion, around 750 customers are without power in Arlington and another 800 are without power in Alexandria. As of 9:45 a.m., traffic lights were dark on busy King Street near I-395.
Via its Twitter account, Dominion says that the cause of the outage has not yet been determined, but crews are working to restore power by 2 p.m. A resident said she heard an “explosive sound” before the outage, suggesting a possible transformer failure.
Another Twitter user reports that customers have left the Four Mile DMV office after it lost power.
@marktegethoff I'm not sure of cause just yet, but crews are on it. We expect to restore area by 2PM. Report outage at 1-866-366-4357.
Update at 1 p.m. — Service has been restored to affected Comcast customers in Arlington, a company spokeswoman tells ARLnow.com. “We are very sorry about that, we know that our customers do rely on our products,” she said. The outage was caused by a “fiber cut during maintenance overnight.”
Residents throughout Arlington’s Fairlington neighborhood area were left without their Comcast TV and internet service this morning.
There are also reports of residents and businesses that don’t have Comcast service down the hill in Shirlington. (There was another Comcast outagereported in Shirlington yesterday.)
The company has told customers that they expect service to be restored later today, perhaps by noon.
Fairlington is one of the last Arlington neighborhoods without Verizon FiOS service, which competes with Comcast elsewhere in the county. Meanwhile, Arlington County has been granting Comcast temporary extensions on its cable franchise agreement since 2013 while the two sides negotiate a new long-term agreement.
Car slams into the front of the Capital One Bank in the Bradlee Shopping Center (photo via @AlexFD_SOC)
Car slams into the front of the Capital One Bank in the Bradlee Shopping Center (photo via @AlexFD_SOC)
A Mini Cooper slammed into the front of the Capital One Bank on King Street near Fairlington this morning.
The incident happened around 10 a.m. It was the second time the driver of a vehicle lost control and crashed into a retailer at the Bradlee Shopping Center in the past two weeks. An SUV drove through the front of the shopping plaza’s Hallmark store on Friday, May 20.
Some damage to the bank’s row of ATMs was visible. No injuries were reported.
Arlington County firefighters assisted Alexandria units at the scene.
Arlington County Board Member Christian Dorsey delivers a speech
Graduates of the culinary program
Gary Rowe walks into the graduation ceremony
Napoleon Boakye, graduate of the Arlington Class 5, delivers a speech
Program graduates listen to speakers
Seven Arlington students graduated Friday from a culinary program that trains individuals who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless in the skills necessary to get a job in a commercial kitchen.
This was the sixth incarnation of the D.C. Central Kitchen’s Culinary Training Program, which meets locally at the Fairlington Community Center. The graduation ceremony was held in Rosslyn Friday afternoon and the Arlington students were joined by eight other students from the Central Union Mission, a homeless shelter in D.C.
One of the speakers at the ceremony was Napolean Boakye, a graduate of the fifth Arlington class. He first found out about the program while living in the Carpenter’s Shelter in Old Town Alexandria. As a result of the program, he was offered two jobs in the culinary field and he now works with the National Youth Escape Arena in Maryland.
“This job training sponsored by Arlington County positively influenced me and prepared me to change my way of thinking and my life,” said Boakye. “I said to myself, never again. I’m tired of failure. I’ve been there, done that, I’m moving on to success.”
Two students won the program’s Ron Swanson Life Skills Award: Bryce Churchman from the Arlington program and Gary Lucas from the D.C program.
Along with culinary classes, the students also receive self-empowerment classes and get to train outside of the classroom, with each student receiving a month-long internship. Some of the internship sites included the Key Bridge Marriott, Mess Hall in D.C. and Nando’s Peri-Peri.
The graduation rate for Arlington students ranges between 85 to 90 percent and graduates have an 90 percent job placement rate.
(Updated at 12:50 p.m.) An SUV smashed through the front of the Hallmark store at the Bradlee Shopping Center near Fairlington around noon today.
Firefighters from Arlington County were dispatched to assist Alexandria units on scene, but no injuries and no serious structural damage was reported. The area was closed off to shoppers while crews worked to remove the SUV from its final resting spot, most of the way into the store.
The store is located at 3670 King Street in Alexandria, near the center of the strip mall shopping center.
A man robbed the Wells Fargo Bank at the corner of N. Quaker Street and Fern Street, just across from Arlington’s Fairlington neighborhood, this morning.
The man passed a note to a teller shortly before noon, Alexandria Police said in a press release (below). He was wearing a gray coat, dark pants and a “Brooklyn Nets” hat.
Other bank customers can be seen lined up behind the man in one of the surveillance photos released by police.
The Alexandria Police Department is investigating the robbery of a Wells Fargo Bank located at 1711 Fern Street. On Thursday, April 28, at 11:40 a.m., a man entered the bank and passed the teller a note. He demanded money, the teller complied and the suspect fled with an undisclosed amount of cash. There were no injuries.
The suspect is described as a male with a medium complexion, approximately 5’6″ tall with a thin build. He was wearing a baseball cap, glasses and a gray coat. Investigators believe this is the same suspect from the bank robbery on April 18, 2016.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information that leads to the identification, arrest and conviction of this bank robbery.
Police ask that anyone with information about this incident call Detective Christine Deibes at 703.746.6819.
Update at 5:50 p.m. — The same bank robber struck in Alexandria 10 days ago, says the FBI.
An open field next to Abingdon Elementary School in Fairlington is now being used by the school’s relocatable classroom trailers, ahead of an expansion and renovation of the school.
The trailers were recently relocated to the field, next to a playground and on top of a paved loop that’s often used by those learning to ride a bike. About a dozen trees around the field have also been cut down.
The changes are connected to the expansion and renovation of Abingdon, which was approved last year and is expected to wrap up in 2017.
“The relocatable classrooms have been moved onto the site in preparation for the upcoming construction project,” said Arlington Public Schools spokesman Frank Bellavia. “The existing field will be used for relocatable classrooms and temporary classrooms and then restored at the end of the construction project.”
“In accordance with the approved Use Permit and as agreed upon by the County, some trees were removed prior to the start of construction, prior to April 1 and before birds and animals start nesting in them,” Bellavia added.
