As Arlington and the world come out of the critical stage of Covid and move into the chronic stage, it continues to be an honor and a privilege to serve Arlington County as a member of the County Board.
2020 tested us all. I’ve never been prouder of our community. Now we are finding our way to whatever the new normal is. I am hopeful it will be better than the old normal, but I believe it will be a turbulent time for the nation and the world over the next several years. Traditionally the poorest people suffer first and most, and recover last and least after a crisis. We need to change that. With the help of the American Rescue Act and other Federal money, we have been able to protect many in our community so far and to meet the housing, food and health needs of most of our residents.
As that money goes away over the next several years, I will be working to find permanent ways to better support our most vulnerable residents who, we all learned, are often our essential workers. Our community cannot thrive without the people who cook meals; clean our homes and hospitals; care for the elderly and young children; build our homes and infrastructure. I am hopeful increased Federal support for families like the child tax credit will continue so that the burden of supporting needy families falls less on local resources and becomes a national commitment.
If you would like to stay informed about our County Board work, you can sign up for my regular newsletter that is a brief summary of each monthly meeting and goes out after each monthly set of meetings. On occasion I send out other information when I feel it is important for my readers to know about it outside of the monthly cycle. Those newsletters are posted to this website as they come out. Issue pages are updated less frequently.
I hope this website is helpful to anyone interested in Arlington or local government. Local government is often rather ignored by the media, but it is, literally, where the rubber meets the road.
All best,
Libby