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Local startup Higher Logic acquires another company to boost its website design services

By Jo DeVoe

Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow, Startup Monday is a weekly column that highlights Arlington-based startups, founders, and local tech news. Monday Properties is proudly featuring 1515 Wilson Blvd in Rosslyn. 

With a seventh acquisition under its belt, local startup Higher Logic is launching a new service for building easy-to-navigate websites.

Ballston-based Higher Logic (4250 N. Fairfax Drive) offers solutions to businesses to cultivate relationships with their customers and for membership-based organizations that want to improve how they engage with members online.

With the acquisition of eConverse Media, a 13-year-old company that has worked with Higher Logic for more than a decade, the company announced it is able to launch a new solution for users of Higher Logic Thrive Design.

The new product would specifically target improving website design for organizations that support an online community. The company says bad design can make it harder for people to stay engaged.

Higher Logic logo (courtesy photo)

“Associations are looking to create synergy between their website and community, but many times do not have the resources in-house,” Kevin Boyce, CEO of Higher Logic said in a statement. “For years, we have partnered with the eConverse team to provide additional design resources that help create that synergy for our customers. Today, we are bringing their expertise into Higher Logic and launching Higher Logic Thrive Design, to drive powerful member experiences across an association’s entire digital landscape.”

With the acquisition, Higher Logic welcomes nine new team members, including founder Martha Jack, who have a combined experience of more than 40 years with Higher Logic products.

Higher Logic Thrive Design aims to personalize how people interact with websites to improve how they engage with a company’s website and community. It is designed to be a one-stop-shop for customers.

“By officially joining Higher Logic, we will have more opportunities to collaborate and align our design services with product development,” Jack said in a statement. “In my new role as Senior Director, Design Services at Higher Logic, I look forward to strengthening relationships and offering more comprehensive design solutions that drive innovation and success for our customers.”

In two weeks, Higher Logic will be hosting its annual Super Forum conference, where Jack’s team will demonstrate how the website design service works.

Since its founding in 2007, Higher Logic has acquired seven companies, including Canada-based Vanilla in 2021, South Carolina-based startup Customer Imperative in 2020 and four other companies in 2017. This spree of acquisitions brought the company’s total headcount to 400.

Arlington Public Schools will launch a redesigned website this summer

By Jo DeVoe
A screenshot of the current APS website (via APS)

Arlington Public Schools is giving its website a facelift.

A redesigned website is set to go live on July 1. It culminates more than a year of work to revamp a website last redesigned seven years ago, which is well beyond the industry standard of 3-5 years, says Assistant Superintendent of School & Community Relations Catherine Ashby.

“The redesign aims primarily to address a common complaint about the current website, that it is difficult to find information because there is so much available,” she said. “The new design also shifts to a more graphics-oriented, intuitive layout which should make navigation easier for all audiences.”

The navigation scheme, she continued will be “centered on student and family needs, to make it easier to find the most-requested information like registration processes, school boundary zones, and student health and wellness information.”

Indeed, last month, an ARLnow reader reached out to highlight difficulty she experienced when trying to find information about the elementary school options.

“It just seems a little strange that out of the five option schools, three have broken links for their school profiles, and the other two link to press releases, not profiles,” the reader wrote. “One of the press releases is a story about a reading carnival held at the school. It is oddly difficult to get information about the schools.”

Since then, some of the pages have been updated. Another problem she identified — a broken link on a webpage about requesting a transfer — remains.

Ashby says work began with an internal committee of school-based and central office staff, who reviewed feedback and website use statistics and reviewed current best practices and trends in K-12 education websites. Last summer, an outside consultant reviewed the school system’s plans and tested out navigating the website.

This month, Ashby says, the visual design has been completed and the technical development is well underway. APS will invite staff, parents, students and community members to form a robust testing panel to try out the website in mid-April.

There will be various page layout options to make it easier for staff editors to present information that gets uploaded to the website clearly and accessibly. It will continue to feature instantaneous translation, compliance with web content accessibility standards, interactive calendars and quick access to common tools.

After the APS website launches on July 1, the school system will start rolling out the new design to the sites for individual schools.

The division webmaster will work with each school web liaison to prepare their site for the new design and to communicate with school staff and families, Ashby said. All 39 school sites should get upgraded to the new design by the end of the 2023-24 school year.

Progress on the information architecture, visual design and technical development has been reported to the Superintendent’s Cabinet and to the School Board, most recently in January of this year.

“I’m very excited about the website redesign this has been a long time coming,” Ashby said during that School Board meeting. “We’ve wanted to do this for a long time.”

Following $525 million sale, Clarendon-based Axios aims to make its local newsletters ubiquitous

By ARLnow.com
1/12

(Updated at 5:10 p.m.) Clarendon-based Axios is now officially part of Atlanta-based cable operator and media conglomerate Cox Enterprises.

The $525 million sale of the five-year-old, newsletter-centric online news company — a seismic event in the media industry — closed on Sept. 1, according to Axios’ Dan Primack, less than a month after it was first announced.

The company grew rapidly after its January 2017 founding by Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz, former stars of Rosslyn-based Politico, which itself was recently acquired.

Just a year after its launch Axios graduated from a co-working space on a lower floor of 3100 Clarendon Blvd to snazzy new digs on a top floor. In 2020, after establishing itself as a prolific publisher of scoops in the worlds of U.S. politics, dealmaking, media and other topics, it set its sight on an unlikely expansion opportunity: local news.

Axios acquired the local news website Charlotte Agenda in December 2020 for a reported $5 million, rebranding it Axios Charlotte and enlisting its co-founder, Ted Williams, to help lead the rapid expansion of Axios Local.

Not even two years later, Axios Local now has 24 local newsletters across the country, operated by two-to-three person local teams that do a mix of original reporting and curation of other local news sources. The Axios D.C. newsletter launched about a year ago.

Local news, of course, is a difficult business. Newspapers are in rapid decline, with revenue down 60% and overall employment down 70% since the mid-2000s. TV stations, which generate much of their revenue from local news, may be at or near a peak before revenue starts to decline. Cox sold a majority stake in its TV station group to a private equity company in late 2019 and sold off stations in 12 markets earlier this year.

Axios is among a newer generation of online-only local news publishers that have not yet matched the journalistic firepower of local newspapers in their pre-internet heyday, when the printed paper was the go-to route into the homes for local advertisers, from department store inserts to “help wanted” classifieds.

Google, Facebook, Craigslist, Angie’s List, Yelp and any number of other online resources have since given advertisers more ways to reach local consumers, leading to a decades-long bleeding of revenue away from local newspapers and what had been their distribution-based monopoly on customer attention.

Into the breach have stepped Axios and its fast-growing local newsletter competitor 6AM City, as well as earlier local-news-at-scale efforts like Patch and more localized, independent online-only publications like ARLnow (plus sister sites ALXnow and FFXnow).

There are currently more than 700 independent local news startups in the U.S. and Canada, according to Local Independent Online News Publishers, a trade group that ARLnow helped to found. While a handful of online news ventures have grown to rival the size of local newspapers — the nonprofit Texas Tribune has more than 50 journalists — none so far have achieved anything approaching nationwide ubiquity.

Axios is seeking to be the first.

“Our goal of 100 cities is in reach,” Axios Local publisher Nick Johnston told Poynter’s Rick Edmonds in August. “I have a list of 384 metropolitan areas in my office, and we cross them off one by one.”

It was those kind of grand local ambitions that drew the 124-year-old, privately-held Cox Enterprises — which dates back to 1898, when its founder purchased the Dayton Daily News in Ohio — to Axios.

From CNBC:

The company ramped up talks to buy Axios several months ago, intrigued by the company’s push into local journalism, VandeHei said in an interview. […]

While some current investors weren’t interested in adding more capital, Cox felt confident in the leadership’s ability to monetize local journalism at scale with a lean digital-first approach, said Cox Enterprises Chief Financial Officer Dallas Clement in an interview.

“Cox became an investor in Axios last year and has a lengthy history of supporting local news,” Axios spokesperson Lauren Shiplett told ARLnow last month. “Cox’s leadership has publicly expressed its excitement about Axios Local’s rapid growth as well as the strength of our national platform.”

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Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com
Amazon HQ2 reflected in a puddle in Pentagon City (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

New Way to Complain About Helo Noise –Those with concerns about helicopter noise in the local area now have a new outlet to provide feedback. A new helicopter-complaint pilot program was announced June 24 by U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-8th) in collaboration with the Helicopter Association International and Eastern Regional Helicopter Council. Residents will be able to submit noise concerns online at https://www.planenoise.com/dcmetro/, or by voicemail at (877) 209-3200.” [Sun Gazette, Press Release]

Arrest After Crash on the Pike — From ACPD spokeswoman Ashley Savage, responding to an ARLnow inquiry about this crash: “At approximately 12:10 p.m. on June 27, police were dispatched to the report of a crash with injuries at the intersection of Columbia Pike and S. Quincy Street. The preliminary investigation indicates the driver of the striking vehicle hit two vehicles and a tree before fleeing the scene on foot. Responding officers canvassed the area, located the driver and took her into custody. One patient was transported to an area hospital with injuries considered non-life threatening. The investigation is ongoing and charges are pending.”

Amazon Eyes Greenhouse for HQ2 — “The greenery proposed for Amazon’s second headquarters in Arlington is so extensive that the company needs a greenhouse to keep it going. According to plans submitted to the county, Amazon hopes to convert Meadow Farms Nurseries and Landscapes (10618 Leesburg Pike) in Great Falls into a greenhouse to provide a ‘permanent operation to provide for the continuous maintenance of the extensive landscaping elements’ at HQ2.” [FFXnow]

APS Website Redesign Coming — “We are in the early stages of redesigning our website. Can you spare 15 minutes to help make sure the new Arlington Public Schools website will be easy for everyone to use? We’ve set up an online exercise to gather feedback, and we’d love for you to participate.” [Arlington Public Schools]

It’s Tuesday — Partly cloudy throughout the day. High of 79 and low of 61. Sunrise at 5:47 am and sunset at 8:39 pm. [Weather.gov]

Essential tips for creatives running a business, according to this Ballston digital agency

By Jo DeVoe

Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups, founders, and other local technology news. Monday Properties is proudly featuring 1515 Wilson Blvd in Rosslyn. 

Two millenials coding websites from a co-working space in Ballston have spent the last two years building their digital agency Exobyte from the ground up.

And along the way, Taylor Bagwell and Dominic Giacona — who are both brimming with ideas, inventions and solutions — say they’ve learned a lot about the balance required to grow a company while indulging their creative side.

“We have certainly had our fair share of growing pains,” says co-founder Bagwell.

Website development was a bit of a side-gig for both co-founders. Bagwell was bored at his government contracting job and began designing people’s websites for free until his name got around and he decided to monetize his skills. Giacona was in the U.S. Navy for five years and after leaving, got into user interface/user experience design (which is known by the abbreviation UI/UX) because he needed more work.

As he dove deeper, he became increasingly fascinated by the idea of telling hypervisual stories through website design.

“It all starts with user experience,” he said. “Making something visually appealing is one thing, but the goal is making it easy to use so that they don’t have to think at all.”

Some examples of their work include websites for a candy brand, fitness devices and a health coach-turned-podcaster.

Growing Exobyte, which offers web design, app development, e-commerce and marketing services, has taught both entrepreneurs business lessons. Bagwell says he now cannot understate the importance of vetting potential hires with real-time skills tests. As for finances, he realized a good accountant is key to an unsurprising tax season.

Exobyte co-founders Dominic Giacona, left, and Taylor Bagwell, right (via Exobyte)

Most of all, building Exobyte taught them not get distracted by “shiny things.”

“We’ve made mistakes with getting excited about things we wanted to work on and pulling our attention away from things that mattered,” Bagwell said.

At one point, they tried to design an app that helps people find temporary contract labor — a market they learned is already saturated with options.

They’re taking a more measured approach with a new idea, which Giacona says came from a family member. It is aimed at making people feel safer on the road, and particularly during traffic stops.

“I always had ideas and solutions for problems,” Giacona said. (Bagwell and Giacona met because Giacona had the idea for a biodegradable liner for a protein shake, and he needed a website for the product concept.)

The fitness industry, from workout apparel to nutrition, also became one where Exobyte made a name for itself. But now, Bagwell and Giacona say they’re hoping to take on more clients outside that niche.

“You get burnt out working with the same industry: at the end of the day, they all want the same thing and they’re competing with each other. It makes it harder to work with clients and differentiate them,” Bagwell said.

The key to staying happy as a digital creator, he says, is to be flexible and not to get too deep into one niche.

In the coming year, the two are looking to take on new clients and hire a developer so they can focus on building up Exobyte — and devote some more time to their side projects.

Arlington is playing up Amazon, D.C. and tech to attract relocating companies

By Jo DeVoe
1/3

When Amazon decided in 2018 to build its second headquarters in Arlington, the county’s economic development team heard one question from the business community: “Why?”

The county was, in the eyes of many, still the smaller and lesser-known neighbor of D.C., says Kelly Rindfusz, the communications director for Arlington Economic Development.

“We had to prove our worthiness,” Rindfusz said.

After two years of work, AED officially unveiled a new logo, motto, website and advertising materials that she says better answer the question, “Why Arlington?”

The new look and pitch plays up the obvious attractions — being close to D.C. and home to Amazon — and highlights the county’s tech scene, its high concentration of educated workers and thought leaders, and the region’s diversity.

“What was attractive for Amazon and will be attractive for other companies,” she said.

That will be the playbook as AED continues selling Arlington as a destination for multinational companies and key industries, such as cybersecurity and government contracting. Winning over such employers has a direct impact on the county’s economy, lowering its relatively high office vacancy rate, encouraging job growth and generating tax revenue.

The most notable change is AED’s new website, which requires fewer clicks to find resources and makes important information more digestible, Rindfusz said. It also features a searchable small business directory.

“We think it’s a much better marketing tool and it’s certainly easy to navigate,” she said. “It’s clean and concise and hopefully it is meeting its mark.”

To improve its marketing, AED asked companies why they did, or didn’t, choose Arlington. The most basic considerations have to do with cost and office lease availability, but there are others, like transit availability and access to tech companies and universities, Rindfusz said.

“One thing people liked about Arlington was not just its proximity to the nation’s capital, but also being near to the ocean and the mountains, and being a plane ride to New York City,” Rindfusz said.

Despite being a reason for the rebrand, the Amazon factor was a tad more divisive for other businesses.

“Most businesses thought it was a great opportunity, but some were concerned it was going to be too crowded,” she said.

AED’s response to that concern will be to show how Amazon is the reason Arlington is nabbing investments in public infrastructure, Rindfusz noted.

While rebranding was a massive effort for the organization, Rindfusz says AED’s outreach work is just beginning.

“We are in the spotlight and want to make sure we’re shining in it,” she said.

NEW: Arlington’s summer camp registration system melts down again, despite changes

By ARLnow.com
Cover of Arlington’s 2022 Summer Camp catalogue

(Updated at 11:50 a.m.) Like death and taxes, Arlington summer camp registration drama is inevitable, despite efforts to avoid it.

This year, of course, was supposed to be different. This year, beefier systems and new monitoring tools were supposed to help avoid the technical meltdowns of past years.

But Arlington moms and dads and their fast clicking fingers are undefeated, instantly bringing down the Dept. of Parks and Recreation’s camp registration website when the virtual gates were opened this morning at 7 a.m.

“Pulled up the web page at 6:50 this a.m.,” one frustrated parent of a seven-year-old tennis enthusiast recounted to ARLnow this morning. “Found the only camp I was trying to register… Waited until 7:00 a.m. when registration opened and tried to register… [spent] 40 minutes trying to log in.”

Numerous others reported similar experiences. The lucky ones were able to register for some camps after nearly an hour of navigating various error messages.

“With so many two parent working families in this county, summer camps are child care — plain and simple,” another parent who reached out via email wrote. “How can a county that proclaims equity have such a crappy website that crashes when it comes to summer child care? Every single year this happens.”

That parent, who was also prepared in advance and started clicking at 7 a.m. on the dot, was only able to notch a hollow victory in her registration quest.

“I got [my daughter] into one [camp] after an hour of watching the wheel turn saying please wait, trying to add the camps to my cart only to get kicked out, and then the website timing out completely just as I was about to register,” the parent wrote. “She is now waitlisted for 4 of the 5 camps. I have no idea what I am going to do for childcare over the summer.”

The parks department was, as in years past, apologetic.

“Thank you for your patience,” DPR said in a message posted to it website. “Due to increased registration volume the system is performing slower than anticipated. DPR is working hard to address the problem. Please stay in queue. We are seeing registrations go through slowly and have been working with our vendor all morning.”

Late Wednesday morning, a parks department spokeswoman provided the following statement to ARLnow.

We understand how important summer camp is to Arlington families and we strive to make the customer experience positive from beginning to end. That clearly did not happen today. We apologize for the frustrating experience that many people had this morning trying to register for summer camp. The DPR team is working diligently to help enroll our customers who have been waitlisted or otherwise unable to successfully register this morning. 

Last year our contractor added resources to support an even higher transaction volume and implemented. However, this year due to substantially higher registration volume these efforts didn’t go far enough.    

DPR will do a full review of the summer camp registration process; this will include exploring both technology and operational solutions to provide a better registration process for 2023.

More parent accounts of this year’s registration issues are below.

(more…)

County Manager apologizes for thousands of broken links on new website

By Jo DeVoe
What appears when a broken link is clicked on Arlington County’s new website (via Arlington County)

Arlington’s County Manager has apologized for the frustrating user experience on the new county website, which has left thousands of broken links in the wake of its launch.

The new website, sporting the new county logo, was implemented one month ago and since then those trying to navigate the site or search for information on the site via Google are frequently getting “Page or Site Not Found” errors.

“Not only are members of the community members frustrated, I’m frustrated — as are a lot of county employees,” County Manager Mark Schwartz told Board members yesterday. “We use the website all the time.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Schwartz provided County Board members with an update on staff’s efforts to restore many of the broken links — 6,634 by the county’s count — to working order by Thanksgiving. Progress is being made and users can expect next week a “marked improvement” to the broken links, as well as the website’s internal search engine, Schwartz said.

Despite knowing broken links would pose a problem, Arlington forged ahead with the move to the new website anyway because the old platform was, according to Schwartz, not secure and on the brink of collapse.

“We didn’t do it on a whim. Our old platform was wobbly and about to fall over,” he said. “We were forced to go a little bit earlier than we wanted to, given that the alternative was that our old website — which everyone now misses — was about to fall over.”

He also tried to take a swipe at ARLnow’s article yesterday about the broken links, which included a screenshot of a platform that tracks broken links to websites.

“If it didn’t make me cry, it was funny, in ARLnow there was an article published today saying there were 900,000 broken links on our website,” he said. “We only have 187,000 [links]. I think there’s something broken in that article.”

The number, generated by a broken link checker on the search engine optimization website Ahrefs, in fact refers to the number of inbound links to the county site — from other websites including those of news outlets, local civic associations, etc. — that are now broken.

Result of broken link checker for the county website (via ahrefs.com)

Those who encounter broken links can reach out to the county or use the reporting function at the bottom of the “Page or Site Not Found” page, officials said.

Board member Libby Garvey thanked those who have already written the county with links to fix.

“It reminds me of snow plowing. There might be cul-de-sac somewhere we might have missed and people let us know,” she said. “I know they’re often upset but that helps us get in there because we really don’t know everything all the time.”

Board Vice-Chair Katie Cristol said she appreciated Schwartz’s explanation of the timing of the website transition.

“People, Board members included, expect a high level of service from Arlington, and are disappointed when it’s not met,” she said. “Understanding there was some urgency, security reasons being part of that, is really helpful context.”

Still, the website launch promised “exciting things to come” and has yet to deliver, Board member Christian Dorsey said.

“You heightened people’s expectations they were going to get a fully finished product,” he said, drawing attention to other unfinished aspects, such as missing photos or icons and inconsistent grammar and syntax.

In response, Schwartz said every department will have someone click through each page to pinpoint those inconsistencies.

Two fixes will take more time, officials said. First, about half of the broken links are associated with old press releases, which are low on the county’s list of things to fix. Second, there are still issues with searching for PDFs uploaded to the website.

“We’re working through the challenges,” Assistant County Manager Bryna Helfer said.

Broken links on county’s new website still frustrating many residents

By Matt Blitz
What appears when a broken link is clicked on Arlington County’s new website (via Arlington County)

Despite promising improved functionality, Arlington County’s new website launched last month remains riddled with broken links that are frustrating some residents.

Last month, Suzanne Smith Sundburg was preparing to make public comments at an upcoming Arlington County Planning Commission meeting. As someone who is a passionate about weighing in on local issues, she uses the county website often for research and updates on county happenings.

But, starting in mid-October when the new website launched, Sundburg started having issues accessing information through the county website. She’d click a link and it would take her to a dreaded “Page or Site Not Found” error message.

“I searched for something on Google and tried to click on several of the county links that popped up. All were broken,” Sundburg writes to ARLnow in an email about her troubles. “So I then went to the site to see if I could use a more direct method to find what I needed. No dice.”

The changeover to the new site caused links from both search engines and websites like ARLnow to break. As of last week, one link-checking website listed nearly 900,000 broken links to arlingtonva.us pages.

Listing of broken links pointing to the Arlington County website

Arlington County launched its brand new website, complete with the county’s new logo, on Oct. 18. The intention was to improve the website’s security, performance, look and navigation.

“The County website is the first and sometimes only stop for important information about Arlington for many of our residents,” County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti said in a press release. “This upgrade will help ensure that the website is an easily accessible, safe, and reliable resource for our residents and businesses to engage with their government.”

For website users encountering broken links, however, that’s not yet the case.

Sundburg isn’t the only one who has noticed a number of dead-end links. ARLnow has received a tips in recent weeks from other users who have encountered broken links preventing them from accessing county webpages, documents and information, such as information on how to pay a parking ticket or the county’s Community Energy Plan.

“The Arlington County revised website is horribly broken, with links that don’t work,” said one anonymous tipster. “It’s a travesty.”

The Lyon Village Civic Association says it is still working with the county to update all the county links on its own website.

“We have asked the County webmaster to get these reestablished, some have, but not all,” it said in a recent post.

Last week, Sundburg wrote an open letter to county officials expressing her displeasure about this missing information.

“This revamp of the county website has been akin to the burning down of a library with half of the books still inside,” she wrote. “In this case, the ‘books’ still exist — the community simply has no access to them.”

County officials acknowledge the issues and say they’re working on it, noting the broken links are a result of issues migrating from the old site to the new site.

“The County is aware and actively working to resolve the issue of broken links on our new website, which launched last month,” county spokeswoman Jessica Baxter said. “Website migrations are highly iterative processes and we want to thank our residents and other website users for their patience during this time.”

Searching through Google for county webpages does result in a “higher prevalence” of broken links due to a “glitch,” she said.

“Our website provider, OpenCities, worked on resolving this glitch and we are beginning to see improved external search results to County webpages,” Baxter said.

Various county departments are prioritizing fixing broken links connected to current projects, plans, programs and services, since these are accessed most frequently, Baxter said.

“Our goal is to resolve as many of these broken links as possible by Thanksgiving,” she said. “An overall website clean-up is targeted to begin by the end of the year.”

Sundburg notes that, overall, county staff has tried to help and is “relieved” the link problems are being worked on, but she remains disappointed in so much older information remaining inaccessible.

“I understand prioritizing current items, that leaves out a significant portion of the site’s repository of documents,” she writes. “For those of us long in the tooth who have been around for decades, we have a greater knowledge base. But it’s not encyclopedic, and referring back to historical materials is frequently useful.”

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com
A man rides a personal watercraft in Boundary Channel near Columbia Island Marina (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

APS Enrollment Down — “Despite intensive efforts to get them back, Arlington Public Schools has about 4 percent fewer students in class than it did pre-pandemic, according to new figures. Superintendent Francisco Durán on Oct. 14 said the school system’s official count for the 2021-22 school year is 26,911 students, based on enrollment Sept. 30 that will be submitted to state officials as is required by law. That’s down slightly from the 26,932 students reported on hand at the start of classes in August.” [Sun Gazette]

Update on Metro Woes — “While Metro aims to provide service consistent with the announced basic service plan through the rest of the week, customers should anticipate trains every 15-20 minutes on the Red Line and every 30-40 minutes on all other lines to account for any unplanned disruptions. There is currently no capacity to fill unforeseen gaps, which will result in longer wait times. Crews are working as quickly as possible to put more trains into service.” [WMATA]

County: Update Your Bookmarks — “With the launch of our new website, your favorite page or service has a new home! While we have redirect links for our most visited and discussed pages, we couldn’t do it for all 5,000+ pages. But the content you want is still there!” [Arlington County, Twitter]

Birds Banging into Arlington Windows — From the Animal Welfare League of Arlington: “We’re starting to see a lot of migratory birds come into the shelter, likely due to hitting windows as they fly. But we are here to help! This little Golden-Crowned Kinglet stayed with us overnight before heading off to a licensed rehabber this morning!” [Twitter]

IPO for Local Multinational Company — “Renewable energy storage firm Fluence Energy Inc said on Tuesday it is aiming to fetch a nearly $4 billion valuation in its U.S. initial public offering, as investor interest in such technologies soars alongside growing calls to limit climate change… Arlington, Virginia-based Fluence serves major utilities, developers, as well as commercial and industrial businesses, promising increased efficiency through its digital platform designed for renewables.” [Reuters]

Event to Mark Genocide Anniversary — “November 4, 2021 will mark exactly one year to the day that the Ethiopian & Eritrean regimes waged a devastating and ongoing genocide on the people of Tigray. You are welcome to visit our Arts & Photo Exhibition ‘Call It A Genocide’ which runs from November 5 to 7, 2021 at the ECDC in Arlington.” [Eventbrite]

Halloween Bike Ride for Families — “The Kidical Mass Arlington Halloween ride is BACK! Meet Sun 10/24 4pm at Zitkala’Sa (nee Clay) Park Costumes and decorations encouraged! Enjoy some pizza from our friends @TrekBikes Clarendon after the ride.” [Twitter, Facebook]

It’s Wednesday — ☀️ It’s another sunny day today, with a high near 76. West wind 5 to 7 mph. Sunrise at 7:23 a.m. and sunset at 6:22 p.m. Tomorrow is will be sunny, with a high near 78.

Join the ARLnow Press Club and get the Morning Notes via email, four hours earlier.

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com
Basketball under the lights at Alcova Heights Park (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

Metro Delays All Week — “Reduced Metrorail service is expected to continue until at least Sunday, October 24, as the investigation into the October 12 derailment continues. Beginning tomorrow, trains will operate every 15 minutes on the Red Line and will continue to operate every 30 minutes on all other lines. Silver Line trains will operate between Wiehle-Reston East and Federal Center SW only.” [WMATA]

WMATA Knew About Defects — “Wheel assemblies on Metro rail cars like the one at fault in last week’s Blue Line derailment had failed 31 times since 2017 — and renewed inspections last week identified almost two dozen similar defects, the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board said Monday. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority pulled the 7000 series cars from service Sunday night, leaving the agency down more than half its fleet.” [Washington Post, WJLA]

Beyer on Metro Mess — From Rep. Don Beyer: “This is going to be a very frustrating week for commuters. I’m maintaining close contact with WMATA and NTSB as we seek a safe return to regular service.” [Twitter]

Issues With New County Website — From Transportation Commission Chair Chris Slatt: “The new @ArlingtonVA website has broken SSSSOOO many links. The fact that the old link for the County’s IT Advisory Committee is broken and doesn’t redirect is the most ironic though.” [Twitter, Twitter]

Flags Lowered in Va. — Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam ordered flags lowered throughout the Commonwealth in honor of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a McLean resident, who passed away from COVID-19 complications on Monday. [Commonwealth of Virginia]

It’s Tuesday — ☀️ Sunny, with a high near 71 today. West wind 5 to 10 mph. Sunrise at 7:22 a.m. and sunset at 6:23 p.m. Tomorrow is will be sunny, with a high near 75.

Join the ARLnow Press Club and get the Morning Notes four hours earlier.

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