Peter’s Take

Peter’s Take: Aquatic Center, Dog Park Costs are Extravagant

By Peter Rousselot

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

In last week’s column, I explained why Arlington needs to develop a core services approach to deal with its budget. Several commenters offered helpful suggestions as to how Arlington ought to define a core services approach.

For example:

  • “Another way to look at the role of government revolves around the phrase ‘Basic Human Needs.’ Things like the Artisphere, other arts and cultural projects, fancy swimming pools, and dog parks need to take a back seat to education, public safety, assistance to the needy.” -Willy
  • “Focus on the core and spend in other [areas] only as funds permit. But equally as important, spend wisely on everything.” -John Fontain
  • “It’s stuff that you would think is almost too self-evident to need mentioning. But when you see the cuts proposed, you have to wonder. Sure, there is some room for debate about what is core, and the published example from California is just one example.” -Flux

Of course, there are refinements, adjustments and other details that Arlington needs to address in order to adopt a core services approach to its budget.

For example:

  • Core services such as police, fire, and schools should not be immune from cuts. As “John Fontain” says, Arlington should “spend wisely on everything”. But, programs and services in core areas such as these should be given greater protection from cuts than programs in more peripheral areas.
  • Contrary to the views of another commenter last week, I certainly do not believe that Arlington should stop funding parks or libraries. These are critical functions of our local government and justify very substantial continuing investment.

Where Arlington has missed the mark is by spending, or proposing to spend, extravagant amounts of money in areas relating to, for example, public recreation. Don’t get me wrong. I believe it is important for Arlington to provide facilities like swimming pools and dog parks. But, I also believe it is extravagant to construct an $82 million Aquatics Center or a $1.7 million dog park.

In the end, Arlington needs to adopt a core services approach to budgeting because such an approach will provide a publicly articulated and understood set of values by which budget proposals can be measured.

A core services approach to budgeting should only be adopted by the County Board after an appropriate process of community engagement.

Peter Rousselot is a member of the Central Committee of the Democratic Party of Virginia and former chair of the Arlington County Democratic Committee.

Peter’s Take: Prioritize Core Services, Stop Funding Artisphere

By Peter Rousselot

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

Peter Rousselot

In last week’s column, I explained why a new normal has arrived for Arlington’s budget. I concluded that business as usual in setting budget priorities must change. In response, one commenter named “Courthouse Diva” said “[I] love the idea of defining core services — everything does not need to be core.”

Courthouse Diva nailed it.

Arlington needs to develop standards to define core services, and then use those standards to decide which services and programs are core services and those that are at the edge or outside of that core.

How does Arlington handle this now?

For the FY 14 budget now under review, the County Board essentially told the County Manager, “If you think there’s going to be a $50 million shortfall, design a budget that eliminates that shortfall by relying half on spending cuts and half on tax increases.” The manager was then left to recommend a combination of spending cuts and tax increases, using that very general guidance.

How would a core services approach be different?

Under a core services approach, programs and services at the center of the core would have much greater protection from any cuts. The farther out you move from the core, there would be less and less protection. The size of a cut as a percentage of the total expenditures in its category would be greater the farther out from the core.

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Peter’s Take: The New Normal of Arlington’s Budget Choices

By Peter Rousselot

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

Peter RousselotEven Arlington can’t have it all.

How Arlington decides what it can afford says a lot about the realism of our leaders. Are they making the hard choices, or just struggling to preserve the illusion that some choices are unnecessary?

I’ve been thinking about this since I received a political fundraising letter earlier this month saying the following:

“Our goal should be to balance the short-term budget adjustments with the long-term needs of our community. We should ensure that our schools remain among the very best, that we maintain a strong social safety net, and that we continue to provide affordable housing options. We must also continue to make needed capital investments in transportation and infrastructure that will improve the quality of life and protect the future vitality of the community.”

It’s hard to argue that we shouldn’t:

  • balance short-term budget adjustments with long-term needs, or
  • ensure that our schools remain among the very best, or
  • maintain a strong social safety net, or
  • continue to provide affordable housing options, or
  • make needed capital investments in transportation and infrastructure

But, we need to move far, far beyond the framing of this particular fundraising letter and ask ourselves questions like these:

  • What’s a short-term budget adjustment and what’s the new normal?
  • In the new normal, what projects and services should be cancelled?
  • What’s a needed capital investment and by what criteria should need be measured?
  • What must be done to ensure that our schools remain among the very best?
  • When the only way to ensure that our schools remain among the very best is to do without other county services or capital investments, will our leaders step up and say so?

We must define or redefine what our core services are because those are the services that ought to be guaranteed funding. Some of the other services and projects must be placed in a “so sorry, no can do” category. We must take these steps because the likely rate of growth in the value of Arlington’s commercial real estate tax base will be flat or very low for many years compared to the past. This is the new normal.

As the budget season unfolds, I will use this framework to define which specific Arlington services and projects (or categories of services and projects) should be retained, and which should be set aside to adjust to the new normal.

Peter Rousselot is a member of the Central Committee of the Democratic Party of Virginia and former chair of the Arlington County Democratic Committee.

Peter’s Take: The Dangers of Stricter Virginia ID Laws

By Peter Rousselot

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

Peter Rousselot

Remember those long lines many of you experienced in Arlington in last year’s presidential election? The easiest and cheapest solution to lines like those: no-excuse absentee voting for all voters — or even for some categories of voters like those 65 years and older. But, Republicans in the Virginia legislature have blocked every effort to pass such laws.

Instead, Virginia Republican legislators have been trying to make it much harder to vote. Last year, they tried to get a photo ID requirement enacted, but Governor McDonnell (perhaps trying to burnish his VP credentials) stopped that from happening. This year, the Republicans are right back at it.

On February 5, the Virginia House and Senate passed two bills which would make the strict voter ID law enacted just last year even stricter. These bills, introduced by Republican Senator Dick Black and Republican Representative Mark Cole, “would ban voters from presenting a utility bill, pay stub, government or Social Security card as proof of identity — all forms of ID allowed under the current law.”

There is no reason to change the 2012 law so soon after it was enacted. The proposed 2013 legislation would subject Virginia voters to three new voter ID requirements in three years. There is no justification for that many changes over that short of a period of time. The confusion this would create could lead many voters to show up at the polls in 2013 with only forms of ID that were valid last year, but not this year.

Another proposed photo ID bill introduced by Republican Senator Mark Obenshain “imposes burdensome new voter identification requirements, could cost Virginia millions of dollars to implement, and may ensnare Virginia in costly litigation.” At a House of Delegates subcommittee meeting last month, representatives “from the League of Women Voters to the NAACP — opposed the photo ID requirement as costly and unnecessary, saying it would disenfranchise minority, elderly and low-income Virginians.”

Disenfranchising these categories of voters is precisely the goal of photo ID laws — despite vehement denials from the Republicans sponsoring them. They claim it’s to prevent fraud. But documented cases of such fraud are minuscule  while the number of voters likely to be disenfranchised is in the tens or hundreds of thousands.

The costs to democracy and our pocketbooks of these voter ID laws far outweigh the benefits — a point brushed aside by Republicans who otherwise boast about their commitment to sound fiscal policy.

Peter Rousselot is a member of the Central Committee of the Democratic Party of Virginia and former chair of the Arlington County Democratic Committee.

Peter’s Take: The Case for Non-Partisan Redistricting in Va.

By Peter Rousselot

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

Peter Rousselot

While Virginia Democratic State Senator Henry Marsh was attending President Obama’s inauguration last month, Virginia Republican Senators ambushed their Democratic counterparts, and passed a far-reaching bill to redraw the lines of Virginia’s districts.

On Feb. 6, Republican House Speaker William Howell effectively killed this bill by ruling that the proposed massive Senate redistricting was not a germane amendment to the minor House redistricting bill to which it was attached. One can only imagine what concessions on other legislation were extracted from Virginia Democrats behind the scenes in exchange for Republicans “voluntarily” killing the Senate redistricting bill.

This 2013 Senate Republican redistricting ploy came only two years after Va. Senate Democrats and Va. House Republicans struck a deal in which Democrats allowed Republicans free rein to gerrymander the district lines in the House in exchange for allowing Democrats free rein to gerrymander the district lines in the Senate.

What all these deals have in common: hyper-partisanship by Republicans and Democrats, incumbent protection, and legislators choosing their voters—rather than the other way round. Other states have found better ways to do this, and Virginia should too.

John Miller, a Democratic Senator from Virginia’s 1st Senate District in Newport News, has proposed SB 742—a bill to create a bipartisan Virginia Redistricting Commission to draw the legislative district lines. Senator Miller’s bill certainly isn’t perfect—but it’s a big step up from the chaotic hyper-partisan system Virginia has now.

Even better would be legislation to create a non-partisan redistricting commission. Efforts to do that have been blocked repeatedly by Virginia Republican legislators, most recently when a House of Delegates subcommittee unanimously voted to table such a proposal by Democratic Delegate Betsy Carr of Richmond. Republican opponents of Carr’s proposal claimed there couldn’t be any such thing as a nonpartisan redistricting commission, conveniently ignoring that California and other states have one.

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Peter’s Take: Should Va. Elect a Science Denier As Governor?

By Peter Rousselot

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

Peter RousselotVirginia’s Republican Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, wants to be elected Governor of Virginia this year. So does his Democratic opponent, Northern Virginia businessman Terry McAuliffe.

This year’s campaign for Governor presents starkly different visions of the direction Virginia should take. There will be many opportunities to debate which vision makes more sense. And, there is still a chance that a third major candidate — Virginia’s current Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling — might jump in the race.

But only one of these candidates for Governor — Cuccinelli — has a track record of denying the conclusions of the scientific community.

To advance his cause as a climate science denier, Cuccinelli went so far as to sue the University of Virginia — our flagship university. Although Cuccinelli’s lawsuit was thrown out as frivolous by Virginia’s highest court, it had chilling reverberations within the scientific research community.

Regardless of what you think of Cuccinelli’s positions on any other issue, he should be disqualified from further consideration as Virginia’s Governor because of his record as a science denier. Why?

This is only a sampling of public policy issues facing Virginia’s next Governor:

  • Uranium mining
  • Rising tides
  • Offshore drilling
  • Transit technology choices
  • Tax incentives for green technologies

What to do about each of these issues depends on an understanding and respect for scientific findings.

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Peter’s Take: Has The Arlington Way Lost Its Way?

By Peter Rousselot

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

Peter RousselotWhen County Board member Mary Hynes launched a new initiative called PLACE (Participation, Leadership and Civic Engagement), ARLnow posted a video and wrote a capsule story. In the video, various people were asked what they thought the term “Arlington Way” meant.  The capsule story asked and answered the question:

“What is the ‘Arlington Way’ exactly? It is essentially an open conversation between the local government and the people who live and work in Arlington. But the Arlington Way can mean different things to different people, as the video … seems to prove.”

Has the Arlington Way lost its way?

Arlington has created an elaborate system of advisory commissions, committees and task forces to tap the wealth of talent in our community This system was supplemented in 2012 with the PLACE initiative. And, in 2013, the County Board has added Walter Tejada’s Neighborhood Town Halls.

Compared to every other community anywhere near its size, the variety of opportunities that Arlington affords for citizen engagement and participation is admirable.

But, the Arlington Way is losing its way because of a combination of:

  • whether, when and how the County Board frames the issues for community discussion
  • what the County Board does with the advice it gets

Example: the PPTA guidelines.

The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) issued a report last fall warning that the Public Private Transportation Act (PPTA) lacked adequate safeguards, often enabling private firms to negotiate sweetheart deals that earn them high profits while placing most or all of the risk on the public.

The County Board has at least 3 citizen advisory groups that should have been asked to meet, review the proposed PPTA guidelines, and report back to the community: the Transit Advisory Committee, the Transportation Commission, and the Fiscal Affairs Advisory Commission. The County Board never requested such meetings or reports. Why not? What was the rush to enact such far-reaching guidelines without the input of these advisory groups?

Other examples:

  • The County Board’s recent decision on what to do with its fiscal year closeout funds, totaling many millions of dollars, included no opportunity for significant community engagement.
  • The entire structure of County Board decision making is a question too:  an item can appear once on an agenda and be voted on the same night.  Compare this with the School Board’s process of an item appearing first for information, with an opportunity for public comment, and then not being voted on until the next meeting – two weeks later. For major decisions, the School Board has even more time between public notice and action (like what to do with its fiscal year closeout funds).

We are losing our way. We have created many commissions, PLACE, and Neighborhood Town Halls so it looks like there is a lot of input, and there may be on many decisions. But, too many of the big, important decisions are reached without following the process we have created.

When we do use the process, the County Board too often disregards the input.  Of course, it is naïve to believe that the Board should always follow the recommendations, but when at midnight Board members are making changes to staff proposals and voting that same night – that does not inspire sufficient confidence in the Board’s decisions.

Peter Rousselot is a member of the Central Committee of the Democratic Party of Virginia and former chair of the Arlington County Democratic Committee.

Peter’s Take: Support Sensible Transit

By ARLnow.com

Modern BRT bus (via sensibletransit.org)Peter’s Take is a weekly opinion column published on Tuesdays. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

Last week, ARLnow reported on the formation of a new citizens’ advocacy group: Arlingtonians for Sensible Transit (AST).

I am an AST supporter. You can check AST out here. I urge you to sign up if you support AST’s mission.

AST’s mission is to convince the Arlington County Board to do something it has not yet done:

  • hire truly independent experts to do a cost-benefit analysis of the Columbia Pike (CP) streetcar compared to a modern bus rapid transit system (BRT) and other alternatives,
  • share the results with the community, and then
  • have a community conversation about whether the CP streetcar really is the best transit choice in these challenging economic times.

Several streetcar supporters posted comments to last week’s ARLnow story saying the streetcar has been studied for years, and it’s time to move on. However, the vital studies AST recommends have never been performed. Because these studies have never been performed and shared with the community, the “Arlington Way” has not been followed appropriately. Moreover, the CP streetcar’s price tag has soared during these years, as ARLnow has documented .

AST supporters have identified quite a few misunderstandings and misconceptions about both the CP streetcar and alternative BRT systems. Several of the comments posted to last week’s ARLnow story reflected misunderstandings and misconceptions like these:

  • You can only have a BRT service if you have a dedicated lane for it
  • White collar professionals will ride streetcars but not BRT
  • Given projected density on the Pike, only streetcars will be able to handle the anticipated increase in ridership
  • Streetcars, but not BRT, will attract needed economic development to the Pike
  • BRT service on the Pike really wouldn’t be any different from current bus service

Every one of the above statements is incorrect. To learn why, check out the Get the Facts, Resources, and FAQ sections of the AST website.

BOTTOM LINE: if you think that all or some of the above statements are correct, while AST does not, that’s one more reason why the Arlington County Board needs to hire independent experts to study and report back on all these issues, and share their conclusions with the Arlington community.

Peter Rousselot is a member of the Central Committee of the Democratic Party of Virginia and former chair of the Arlington County Democratic Committee.

Peter’s Take: Why McDonnell Failed as Governor

By Peter Rousselot

Peter RousselotHe’s still got one more year in office, but we already know that Bob McDonnell has failed as Virginia’s Governor. He never proposed a real plan to solve the major problem facing Virginia: how to generate enough public revenue to pay for our transportation systems.

We should have known.

We should have known when McDonnell said he could solve our transportation problems with a flawed proposal to sell off Virginia’s publicly-owned liquor stores. He campaigned on this idea in 2009, and spent his first year in office trying to get his flawed plan enacted.  Those were two wasted years.

We should have known when McDonnell said he could solve our transportation problems using Virginia’s Public-Private Transportation Act (PPTA).  In practice, the PPTA has produced tremendous distortions in risk allocation, allowing private sector companies unjustly to enrich themselves while forcing the public sector into wasting hundreds of millions of our tax dollars on ill-conceived projects.

In 2013, Bob McDonnell is giving transportation funding one last try. He won’t succeed. How do we know? Because he’s already proved that he lacks a strategic plan to generate sufficient public revenue for transportation. What’s missing from all his plans: sufficient new tax increases to generate the necessary funds.

The higher taxes we need to fund Virginia’s transportation systems have to be enough higher to solve the problem. McDonnell’s latest plan does involve an increase in the state sales tax, but that increase is way too little to generate the necessary funds. And, McDonnell is also proposing to eliminate the main current source of funding for transportation: the gas tax. Finally, the sales tax is used to fund many other vital programs, like education and mental health services, which also need more revenue, but will lose revenue to help try to pay for transportation.

Excusing past failures by saying a real solution will be DOA in the Virginia legislature is not an excuse.

Governor McDonnell: take a stand, propose a real solution and fight for it. Maybe you’ll get your plan enacted, maybe you won’t. Why not try?

Wouldn’t it be better in the end to propose a real solution and fall short rather than an inadequate solution and fall shorter?

Peter Rousselot is a member of the Central Committee of the Democratic Party of Virginia and former chair of the Arlington County Democratic Committee. Peter’s Take is a weekly opinion column published on Tuesdays. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

Peter’s Take: New Year’s Resolutions for Arlington

By ARLnow.com

Editor’s Note: This is the first of several weekly opinion columns that ARLnow.com will be publishing in 2013. The columns, from local thought leaders across the political spectrum, are intended to introduce fresh ideas and spark community conversations about issues of local and state interest.

Peter RousselotHappy New Year, and welcome to Peter’s Take. My name is Peter Rousselot. Thanks to Scott Brodbeck and his team at ARLnow, I will be writing a weekly column with my take on Arlington and Virginia politics, government or civic affairs.

A bit of background: my family and I moved from Reston to Arlington in 1997. Our youngest daughter graduated from W-L High School. I have served as a Co-Chair of the Advisory Council on Instruction to the Arlington Public Schools; as Chair of the Fiscal Affairs Advisory Commission to the Arlington County Board, and as Chair of the Arlington County Democratic Committee. I am currently a member of the Central Committee of the Democratic Party of Virginia.

As 2013 unfolds, you’ll find that my take on the subjects I’ll be writing about will depart sometimes from the “party line.” I often find that the emperor or empress has no clothes, while others claim to see a majestically-robed monarch.

And that brings me to some New Year’s resolutions for Arlington and its elected leaders:

  • Celebrate and utilize the wealth of diverse talent we have in our community
  • Cherish new ideas and new thinking
  • Practice strong and vigorous public dissent expressed with civility
  • Always be open to re-examine and to change based on new circumstances

In the coming weeks and months, I will try hard to follow these New Year’s resolutions myself, and be guided by them when I write about local or state affairs.