Peter’s Take

Peter’s Take is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

On July 18, the County Board set September public hearings on a “short-term North Arlington salt storage plan” to address a rusting salt storage tank (aka the “Salt Dome”) located at 26th Street N. and Old Dominion Drive.

Having acknowledged their failure to plan for the Salt Dome’s replacement — despite obvious, long-standing rust problems — county staff publicly declared an emergency last month, dumping the problem into the County Board’s lap while pleading for:

• an emergency rezoning of portions of this site from S-3A to P-S;
• construction of a temporary, new storage structure on a different portion of this site.

Not all of N. Arlington’s road salt must be stored at the Salt Dome site, making this emergency rezoning request unnecessary

County Board Chair Katie Cristol stated: “Board members agree that Arlington County must be prepared to efficiently and effectively handle snow and ice to keep our roads and residents safe this winter.”

But there is a cheaper, more efficient solution to achieve the Board’s goal. Staff’s proposed solution seemingly involves taking three weeks to empty the dome and trucking the site’s stored salt up to Baltimore. Instead:

• a portion of existing salt reserves can remain on the Salt Dome site without removing trees and paving over green space to construct a new, temporary structure there;
• the balance of N. Arlington’s salt reserves can be stored temporarily on the Buck site (which is already zoned for this use) or on another N. Arlington site; and
• once the Salt Dome is empty, its demolition and replacement can begin.

As resident Rob MacKichan recounted in his July 17 Board testimony (at 4:18:58), county staff executive George May has confirmed Arlington’s road salt inventory:

– 2,500 tons of salt now inside the Salt Dome;

– 1,500 tons of salt under a tarp next to the Salt Dome;

– 3,500 tons of salt in S. Arlington.

Thus, of the 8,000 tons the Manager’s FY19 budget says we need for the coming winter, the county already has roughly 7,500 tons of salt on hand.

The simplest solution is to transfer the salt now stored in the Salt Dome to an industrially zoned, centrally located, temporary site in N. Arlington. The Buck site is one existing alternative that meets these criteria. As the Manager has indefinitely delayed long-term planning for the Buck site, temporarily storing salt there won’t delay or alter the site’s ultimate redevelopment.

Staff claims that temporarily storing salt (in a canvas teepee) on the Buck site would “break faith with the community.” Unexplained is why a temporary use consistent with current zoning constitutes “breaking faith” with Buck site neighbors, whereas summarily rezoning public parkland and converting it into paved industrial space does not constitute “breaking faith” with Salt Dome neighbors.

County staff must be held accountable

Arlington residents deserve answers to these questions:

• Why didn’t this “conversation” take place last year, as the County Manager acknowledged it should have?
• Which specific steps will the County take to prevent staff from–in County Board member Libby Garvey’s words –“doing this to us or our community again”?

Conclusion

It’s tough to understand why such a disruptive “emergency” solution is required when a simpler, cheaper, more efficient alternative is readily available. Temporarily storing some salt on the Buck site during the new dome’s construction still allows for appropriate long-term planning.

Peter’s Take is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

As ARLnow.com reported, the County Board is scheduled to vote on July 14 on changes to a program that provides real estate tax relief to low-income seniors. This RETR program has been in effect since 1991.

According to a county staff report:

The RETR program provides an exemption and/or deferral of real estate taxes for qualified Arlington homeowners who are age 65 or older, or who are permanently and totally disabled. The current… program provides an exemption and/or deferral of real estate taxes for qualified Arlington homeowners whose annual household income is at or below $99,472, and whose household assets (excluding the value of their Arlington home) are at or below $340,000… In calendar year 2017, [the county] approved 915 households for RETR, resulting in $4,139,872 in foregone revenue.

$3,744,588 (90 percent) of that $4,139,872 of foregone tax revenue was for exemptions.

The ARLnow.com story explains that the County Board has been asked to make these changes to the program (among others):

• increase the asset limit to $400,000… and allow the County to adjust that amount annually as property values and the area’s median income level changes
• For the very top earners… — households making anywhere from $80,000 to $99,472 per year — restrict them to only applying for a deferral from the taxes, not a full exemption

County Board Chair Katie Cristol is quoted as saying:

“The goal is to tighten it and make it more effective as a program, not lower obstacles for participation. This is not a large-scale policy change.“

The county should convert this program as rapidly as possible into a 100 percent deferral program

It is inequitable and unfair to Arlington taxpayers to provide the heirs of low-income Arlington seniors with the permanent windfall those heirs now are receiving from the exemption component of the current program.

In a convincing recent letter to the Sun-Gazette, Arlington activist Kathryn Scruggs captured some of these inequities:

Many other cities and towns throughout the country offer programs that freeze real-estate taxes for qualifying elder households so that they still pay taxes, but with no annual increase. That way they continue to provide revenue for the jurisdiction… The community is desperate for more schools and will need more teachers, resources and staff. Yet the county government was forced to cut staff positions and programs for [the] upcoming fiscal year because it did not have enough money.

In his most-up-voted comment to the ARLnow.com story, Arlington activist Dave Schutz similarly was spot-on when he stated:

I am absolutely unconvinced that we should be exempting ANYONE from property taxes under this program. Deferral is just fine, and it lets granny stay in her vine covered cottage, that’s an absolutely generous and appropriate thing to do. Then the taxes come [to] the county at the end… But exempting simply bumps up the inheritance for her kids in Chillicothe after she dies — why do we have any interest in doing that?

The exemption component of the current program cannot be justified out of concern for mortgage lenders

An extensive report from an RETR working group noted (Recommendation 6) that some mortgage lenders object to a deferral program, claiming it threatens their creditors’ rights. Arlington taxpayers should not be held hostage to such objections.

Conclusion

Arlington’s RETR program needs a swift, large-scale, prospective policy change: no more exemptions.

Peter’s Take is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

In my June 21 column I recommended that the County Board cancel the aquatics center, freeing up capital for other legally permissible uses such as purchasing new park land:

the Manager’s Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) contains $0 for acquisition of new park land over the next 10 years even though Arlington’s population is expected to grow by over 30,000 during that period.

Arlington continues to fall behind other jurisdictions and Arlington’s own prior practices in providing access to park land

A comprehensive 2016 report from the Civic Federation Parks and Recreation Committee (“Civ Fed report”) documents how Arlington has continued to fall behind other jurisdictions and Arlington’s own prior practices regarding:

• ratio of park land to population
• dollars devoted to new park land acquisition

The Civ Fed report explains (PDF p.5):

As of 2015, Arlington County had 1,784 acres of park land within its borders. Of those 1,784 acres, 949 acres were owned by Arlington County, 700 acres were owned by the National Park Service (most of which is Arlington Cemetery), and 135 acres were owned by the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority.

In 1995, Arlington County had 10.8 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents. By 2014 the County’s population had grown by over 43,000 residents, and the park land to population ratio had declined to 7.9 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents.

By contrast, Washington, DC, has 13.2 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents, and Fairfax County has 28.3 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents.

The Civ Fed report also traces the history of Arlington’s declining investment in acquiring new parkland (PDF p.3):

between 1995 and 2008, funding for park land acquisition per two-year bond cycle was between $4.0 and $8.5 million, with most cycles at $8.5 million. Since then… there has been a decline… Over the six years between 2008 and 2014, land acquisition bond funding totaled only $3.0 million, but [was] supplemented by a total of $5.47 million in pay-as-you go (PAYGO) annual budget allocations. Yet, the total funds of $8.47 million available for land acquisition during the latter six-year period was still far less than the $8.5 million that was typical for each two-year cycle between 1996 and 2004 (an eight-year period).

County government lacks a financing plan to acquire new park land

The Civ Fed report recommended that Arlington adopt a financing plan to acquire three acres of new park land per year for the next 10 years. My fellow ARLnow.com columnist, Eli Tucker, has documented that the cost of land across Arlington averaged $94 per square foot, equal to over $4 million per acre. That means it could cost an average of over $12 million per year fully to implement the Civ Fed report recommendation.

But, the County Manager’s latest proposed CIP contains zero capital dollars for acquiring new park land between 2019-2028. Therefore, our county government must answer these community questions:

• How many acres of new parkland is Arlington planning to acquire over the next 10 years using other kinds of funding?
• What other kinds of funding and how much of it?

Conclusion

Arlington needs a financing plan to acquire new park land. Cancelling the aquatics center is Arlington’s best source of capital funding for this purpose in our tight budget times.

If our county government insists on moving forward with the aquatics center, it needs to engage transparently with our residents regarding its long-term financial plan for new park land acquisition.

Peter’s Take is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

On June 19, the Arlington County Board unanimously approved County Auditor Chris Horton’s Audit Work Plan.

Serving the independent audit function, Horton prepares performance audits, and reports directly to the County Board (not the County Manager) with guidance from the Audit Committee. The Audit Committee — comprising two County Board members, the County Manager, the Deptartment of Management and Finance Director plus three citizen-volunteers –oversees Horton’s work.

County Board member John Vihstadt played a leadership role in establishing the County Auditor position. He and Erik Gutshall serve as the current Board liaisons to the Audit Committee.

Off to a strong start

Horton’s latest report analyzes overtime payments at Arlington’s Emergency Communications Center (ECC). This audit makes important recommendations to improve efficiencies, and underscores the value and usefulness of performance audits.

Differences between the County Auditor and other auditors

The County Manager’s internal auditors look only for technical problems in the County’s financial and control systems:

• Are things being accounted for and entered into financial systems correctly?
• Are internal control systems operating to catch errors and irregularities?

Even the county’s external auditor issues only periodic, boilerplate opinion letters that reinforce the limited scope of its review.

Reporting responsibility outside of the normal management lines of authority provides an important check on our financial systems. See: “How should the audit committee be structured?”

County Auditor needs more resources

Horton’s Work Plan contains a series of hierarchical audit tiers, totaling approximately 18 potential audits. Based upon Horton’s own comments before the Board and logic, Horton, operating alone, probably will be able to prepare and publish only three, comprehensive audit reports between July 1, 2018 and June 30, 2019.

Thus, it would take Horton — operating alone — about 6 years to complete all 18 of the potential audits. Obviously, there are more than just these 18 audits that could yield significant dollar savings and efficiencies.

Nonpublic information I obtained from an Association of Local Government Auditors (ALGA) member confirms that an organization similar to Arlington County, with a $1.3 billion annual operating budget, should be devoting more than one, full-time, qualified auditor to the independent audit function.

Auditor/inspector general staffs that report directly to elected officials — if adequately funded — can identify savings that would more than cover their operating costs. Fairfax’s Office of Auditor of the Board has three auditors (including the Auditor of the Board). With three full-time auditors, you can see how much work it is possible to accomplish.

Conclusion

With Horton’s current constraints (e.g., no staff, a very limited budget, etc.), the county is underutilizing this important resource at the very moment it is needed most.

This is a concern. See “Why Government Watchdogs Are Worried”:

ALGA deals with these concerns all the time. When performance auditors rile mayors and department heads with negative audits, retaliation can come in the form of budget cuts, slow action on personnel requests or even suggestions that auditor functions be eliminated. David Jones, Seattle city auditor and chair of ALGA’s advocacy committee, says, “We frequently find that local government auditors are under attack.”

To get the best bang from our finite bucks, Arlington must add at least one (and eventually two) full-time, qualified assistant auditors to support the County Auditor and increase the annual performance audit output.

Peter’s Take is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

In presenting his proposed new Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) to the County Board last month, County Manager Mark Schwartz appropriately stressed fiscal prudence and making tough choices among competing priorities.

The Manager also correctly noted the incremental needs in capital spending that have arisen since Arlington’s last CIP was adopted two years ago, including for:

• APS
• Metro
• Other transportation and core community infrastructure

But, as ARLnow.com reported, the Manager tried to defend moving forward with the construction of a $60 million aquatics center at Long Bridge Park. He argued that it would be a “breach of faith” to cancel it. He also claimed:

“If we back out… nobody in the contracting community is going to bid on any of our contracts for the next five years… We’d probably… be involved in protracted litigation with [the construction company]… and our future projects would go up in price. People would build that in as a risk premium.”

The benefits of cancelling the aquatics center substantially outweigh the costs

The Manager’s conclusions about the contracting community and protracted litigation are alarmist. Contractors will continue vigorously bidding against each other for our business. We can reach a fair settlement with the construction company. At a minimum, county government should produce a redacted version of the construction contract so that it can be evaluated by disinterested, independent experts.

As for the “breach of faith,” we must weigh the great disappointment of aquatics center advocates if this project is cancelled against the lasting opportunity costs to the entire Arlington community of proceeding forward.

I share most of the sentiments expressed in the most up-voted comment to the ARLnow.com news story:

“The aquatics center is a boondoggle that should be stopped immediately. Just because it has been worked on for a few months does not mean we should continue to throw good money after bad… Arlington taxpayers will be on the hook for the deficit forever.”

I don’t agree this project is a boondoggle, but I do agree with the rest of this comment.

While school enrollment is growing at the equivalent of one new elementary school per year, and our vital Metro system still needs more funding, we should take pressure off our CIP’s 10 percent debt service limits by cancelling the aquatics center project. The costs to service our bonded indebtedness are already rising too close to those limits.

The Manager estimates net taxpayer support for aquatics center operations at something north of $1.1 million annually. This estimate is highly speculative because County government has never operated such a facility. The actual annual operating deficit could be much higher.

The net savings from cancelling the aquatics center should be re-directed toward other legally permissible uses

The Manager has confirmed that the County Board legally could reprogram the approved bond monies for the aquatics center to other park and recreation priorities. These include:

• land acquisition for new parkland (the Manager’s CIP contains $0 for acquisition of new parkland over the next 10 years even though Arlington’s population is expected to grow by over 30,000 during that period)
• park infrastructure (including a smaller community pool) at Long Bridge or elsewhere

Conclusion

County government has cancelled the 4^thof July celebration at Long Bridge Park due to “budget constraints” while insisting that the aquatics center be built despite budget constraints. Each of those decisions should be reversed.

Peter’s Take is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

As ARLnow.com reported last week, severe flooding struck Arlington’s Waverly Hills neighborhood again on May 22.

Garages and basements flooded, and automobiles were inundated or swept away. Many thousands of dollars in damages were suffered.

Two videos capture the severity of this Waverly Hills flooding:

• 18th Street
• 19th Road & Upton

The Manager’s proposed Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) reflects a continuing lack of sufficient investment in stormwater management.

Six years ago, in the FY2013-FY2022 CIP, the county included at least three projects designed to mitigate flooding risks in Waverly Hills:

• Spout Run – 18th Street between Utah & Upton scheduled from FY 2013 – FY 2014
• Spout Run – 16th Street & Taylor to 19th Road scheduled from FY 2013 – FY 2016
• Spout Run – 19th Street & Upton to 20th Street scheduled from FY 2016 – FY 2017

The Spout Run – 18th Street project would have constructed approximately 2900 linear feet of 72-inch storm sewer with associated manholes and catch basins between the intersection of 15th Street and Stafford Street and the intersection of 19th Street and Upton Street.

The Spout Run – 16th Street project would have constructed approximately 1700 linear feet of large diameter storm sewer along Taylor Street between 16th Street and 19th Street.

The Spout Run – 19th Street project would have constructed approximately 2000 linear feet of large diameter storm sewer between the intersection of 19th Street and Upton Street and the intersection of 20th Street and 21st Street.

As ARLnow reported, none of these projects has ever been built. When contacted about this by ARLnow.com, a county spokeswoman stated that the county is “still pursuing” those projects, yet noted that “technical challenges and funding remain an issue.”

Arlington County government lacks a comprehensive strategy for effective investment in stormwater management.

An excellent 2017 report, prepared by activist Suzanne Sundburg for the Arlington County Civic Federation (see pp. 4-6), provides important background information regarding Arlington County’s rising flood risks in this era of climate change:

“According to the 2010 Northern Virginia Hazard Mitigation Plan … Update (adopted in 2012), flooding is the single most costly hazard for Arlington County, with FEMA’s HAZUSMH estimating the loss due to flooding alone as more than $3.5 million on an annualized basis.”

A 2015 analysis using Beyond Floods (a flood-risk app) concluded: “Roughly one out of every four U.S. properties subject to flood determination for a loan origination are at risk for flooding even though they lie outside established FEMA floodplains.”

Conclusion

Mark Schwartz was not County Manager when these Waverly Hills stormwater mitigation projects were dropped from the CIP. (Were any from your neighborhood also dropped?)

But since Schwartz became Manager, county government has failed to:

• develop a comprehensive stormwater mitigation strategy
• allocate needed investments to mitigate stormwater flooding

Arlington’s stormwater management webpage contains some high-minded goals, but Arlington sorely lacks an effective comprehensive plan to back them up.

The Manager continues to insist that we can “maintain” our infrastructure in “good repair” with the CIP he has proposed, even as he concurrently acknowledges that our stormwater infrastructure is failing and underfunded.

Arlington should adopt a plan similar to the one in Westchester County’s (NY) Flooding and Land Use 552-page manual, which covers the following topics (among many others):

• flooding causes and their relationship to development
• comprehensive and watershed planning
• successful floodplain management tools

Peter’s Take is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

In the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) he unveiled last week, County Manager Mark Schwartz proposed cutting the funding of the Neighborhood Conservation Program (NC) from $60 million in the last CIP to $36 million in the new CIP.

The NC program should be ended because it cannot be reformed.

Why the NC program should be ended

The safety of pedestrians and need for safe, walkable streets continues to grow more acute in our neighborhoods, but the NC program cannot meet these critical needs. The NC program has insoluble problems in at least two key areas: equity and timeliness.

Equity

NC’s principal inequities arise because tens of thousands of Arlington residents are denied critical neighborhood infrastructure improvements because they are:

• Living in areas lacking a properly functioning civic association
• Required to have a County Board-approved NC Plan documenting all potential projects
• Lacking consistent NC volunteer representatives to complete projects

But, Arlington cannot mandate that any — let alone every — civic association function properly.

Timeliness

The NC program’s labor-intensive volunteer requirements, including monthly meeting attendance — often for years — to gain “funding points,” and outreach and notification efforts, mean a complete NC project “process” can take anywhere from five to 10 years. If an association’s volunteer NC rep fails to attend meetings, a project can lose its place in the funding line.

A former member described her NC experience to me this way:

“[I]t is a crazy incentive system where the only way you can even get your project considered — even if you have an organized civic association (CA) — is to attend and get points for attending every meeting… Then the arguments were literally a well-organized CA with a plan that took a couple of years to do with dedicated resources from the county… vs. a couple of neighbors who don’t want a sidewalk… or a sign or a light or a something. There is no framework… to guide the conversations prior to it getting to the Neighborhood Conservation Advisory Committee (NCAC), so the NCAC becomes the breeding ground for chaos.”

But, Arlington cannot mandate that residents volunteer for any activity, including the NC process.

What should replace the NC program

In 2007-2008, county staff began assembling Neighborhood Infrastructure Plans (NIPs) to identify missing critical infrastructure: curb, gutter and sidewalk, storm drains, etc. Revised and updated NIPs can provide the tools needed to prioritize critical infrastructure projects, and rotate among neighborhoods to allow greater and fairer access to funding.

A revised and updated Complete Streets Program is one alternative funding recipient for street-related infrastructure. An alternative to the current NC process could include:

For sidewalks:

• High priority areas, schools and urban Metro corridors could be addressed by engineers and county staff first
• For missing links, neighborhoods could propose sidewalks directly to staff for analysis and priority

For park beautification:

A reformed Department of Parks and Recreation could allocate small sums annually and equitably so that neighborhoods could spend on their parks as they decide. Neighborhoods could request to withdraw funds for small improvements like flowers or trees or benches.

Conclusion

Arlington County should take complete control from the NC over the new construction or restoration of neighborhood infrastructure.

The county then should proceed to use its new extensive public engagement process to deal directly and fairly with neighborhood residents regarding neighborhood conservation projects.

Peter’s Take is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

In a column last month, I recommended that everyone ought to keep an open mind regarding the instructional focus of an APS high school at the Career Center.

The premise of that column was that fiscal and physical constraints might combine to make it infeasible to locate a high school at the Career Center with all the onsite amenities that Wakefield, W-L and Yorktown have.

Developments over the past month make it clear what the costs and tradeoffs would be to replicate at the Career Center site all the onsite amenities available at the other three existing comprehensive high schools. In a May 7 APS CIP Work Session, it was shown that a “Full Build Out” for a high school at the Career Center site would cost $247.60 million in 2019 dollars.

This high cost, more than double what APS has ever spent on a school, would also mean that there would be far too little room available in our bonding capacity for other APS seat needs and other County priorities. A full Career Center build out could result in over 1,000 fewer seats for elementary and middle schools. Those students would need to be accommodated indefinitely in relocatable classrooms.

Montgomery County offers an attractive alternative

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) offers high school choice within the Northeast and Downcounty Consortia, two clusters of roughly five high schools each, that offer unique programs. Each cluster also has provided students with specialized and attractive programs typically not found in traditional neighborhood high schools.

The lottery system used for admissions helps the district ensure that school enrollment among the high schools remains balanced, and that no school is over or undersubscribed. Rising ninth grade students rank the high schools in the consortia based on interest, and are guaranteed a spot at the school geographically closest to their place of residence only if they choose that school.

Academy and application-only programs include communication arts, the science, math and computer science magnet, International Baccalaureate and visual and performing arts, to name a few.

One high school campus in the Consortia houses both a comprehensive high school with various specialized programs (Wheaton) and a career/technology school (Edison). Wheaton partners with academic institutions like the University of Maryland, utilizes the latest design software technology and includes professional internships.

Edison, not unlike the current instructional focus at our Career Center, offers career and technology education programs and is open to upperclassmen at all MCPS schools.

For Arlington’s Career Center site, the current instructional focus could be enhanced to create a STEAM high school that fully integrates with the Career Center. As other districts have demonstrated, the demand for such a technologically enhanced career and college prep program would quickly grow.

Arlington, with its denser housing patterns, smaller geography, better public transportation and the participation of all its high schools, is in a better position to implement this or a similar model at a lower transportation cost than Montgomery County.

As in Montgomery, Arlington should consider participation in the Free and Reduced Meals (FARM) program as one of many factors that guide the student assignment process. This will enable Arlington to provide greater possibilities for socio-economic integration at the high school level than exist today.

Conclusion

Arlington should adopt the Montgomery County model.

Peter’s Take is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

Arlington’s Jennie Dean Park is named after Jennie Serepta Dean:

“A former slave, Dean … was a skilled fund-raiser, securing money from African American and white donors in Virginia and in northern cities to support her plan to open a school that would teach skilled trades to young African Americans.”

As part of the Four Mile Run Valley planning process, the County Board has been asked to choose this month between two alternative concept design options for Jennie Dean Park.

Options 1 (PDF pp. 13-14) and 2 (PDF pp. 15-16) are portrayed in a County staff report.

If the Board must decide between these two options this month, the Board should choose Option 2.

Principles for decision

The most reliable evidence of Arlington residents’ county-wide preferences for parks and recreation improvements is captured in the cross-tabs of the statistically-valid ETC survey. Every age group, as well as every geographic group, even households with children, had the same top two choices for improving our park and recreation system:

1. 1. Preserve trees and natural areas
   2. Acquire new parkland for passive — as opposed to active — uses

Option 2 more accurately reflects Arlington residents’ preferences

As explained in a recent letter to the editor, the Nauck Civic Association, via its President Portia Clark, unanimously supports Option 2 because:

“[T]he front of Jennie Dean Park, the portion fronting the neighborhood at Four Mile Run Drive [FMRD], will be left open for casual use. We want this area to be a gateway for the community to enter the Park. We want it to be green. We want it to be landscaped. We want it to have flowers and trees and open space.”

Option 2 would ensure that both sports fields are more distant and face away from homes in Nauck. Jennie Dean Park is entirely (100 percent) located within the boundaries of the Nauck Civic Association.

Option 1 less accurately reflects Arlington residents’ preferences

The Shirlington & Douglas Park Civic Associations support Option 1. In an online petition these two civic associations argue that choosing Option 1 “will say a lot about whether [Arlington] is a progressive community interested in planning for the future of families in Arlington.” But, neither Option 1 nor Option 2 is more “progressive” or “family-friendly” than the other option.

Some organized sports groups also believe that Option 1 is preferable because Arlington ultimately may not be able to acquire the current WETA site to incorporate into Jennie Dean Park. But, interestingly, the only option that removes playing space is Option 1. Option 2 retains all of the amenities currently there with notable upgrades in Phase 1.

Finally, the impact of new high Kelvin LED lights on the Nauck neighborhood has been glossed over. The proposed smaller lighted youth softball field 75 feet from 4MRD would become the dominant feature of the park facing Nauck after sundown under Option 1. This option would still result in unacceptable light pollution affecting park users, including Nauck residents.

Conclusion

Although no data about the costs of either option have been presented to the County Board, there appears to be a belief that if Arlington doesn’t spend or commit the money by the end of this fiscal year it will be gone forever. That seems an odd assumption, but if it is correct, then the Board should choose Option 2.