Dear Friends,
I hope this finds everyone feeling uplifted by the spring sunshine and blossoms everywhere.
FY2025 Budget & Work Sessions
The County Board is in the middle of our budget season and holding budget work sessions most Tuesdays and Thursdays on the many departments and activities covered by the Manager’s budget. On Friday, we met with our School Board colleagues. Despite the intensity of meetings, I have always enjoyed our work sessions because they are a great opportunity to really talk with the people leading the work of the County. You can watch our work sessions live or on video afterwards. Likely most of my readers will not be interested in every work session, but you may want to watch those of particular interest to you. We will finish up our budget work sessions on April 11 and 16; there are a few sessions you can still sign up to attend. Then, the Board votes on our budget at our April 20th meeting.
I anticipate the biggest issues for us will be how much to raise taxes to help the school system close its deficit (which is projected to only get bigger in future years) and how much to increase salaries for crucial positions such as our emergency responder personnel and behavioral health professionals. Supporting affordable housing is, of course, a constant issue. I’m sure it will come as no surprise that the cost of housing is part of the reason we have trouble attracting and retaining employees.
Gun Buyback Program
At our Saturday meeting, we approved an ordinance to establish a Firearms Buy Back Program. We have very few ways open to us to help protect our residents from guns, but a voluntary buyback program is one of them. We authorized the Manager to establish the program so that any resident of Arlington or Falls Church City may surrender unwanted or unneeded firearms in exchange for gift cards, cash or vouchers. The ordinance also authorizes the Manager to work with private entities to fund or sponsor the program. Moms Demand Action and several residents have advocated for this program and I am glad that we should have it up and running soon.
Carlin Springs Road Speed Limits
On Tuesday, we voted to lower speed limits on part of Carlin Springs Road. This brought up the question of why not lower the speed limit on all of Carlin Springs Road, particularly the part south of Route 50 which has so many children walking along it for the 3 schools located there. We got into a very interesting and detailed discussion with our staff on what the State allows us to do and what transportation improvements make things safer and which do not. Transportation safety can sometimes be counterintuitive. For example, making a road appear narrower and feel less safe at higher speeds, actually makes the road safer because it makes drivers automatically slow down.
A posted speed limit that seems slow for a wide-open road does not tend to be obeyed. Automatic cameras that track a driver’s speed, however, are among the best deterrents to speeding. Finally, we have gained the legal ability to put up such cameras in school zones and we are expecting to have cameras ready to install in the next few months. Some studies still need to be completed to determine where those cameras go. If you watch our discussion, it is pretty clear they are likely to go all along the southern part of Carlin Springs. I am very hopeful that these cameras will be effective at slowing down drivers, especially when children are present along the road (which is much of the day because of after-school sports and activities). The Board also expressed an interest in being more aggressive at widening the sidewalks along Carlin Springs. I’m pleased that it looks like we can and will be able to address speeding issues on Carlin Springs, but it has taken much longer than anyone would like.
As always, I hope this newsletter has been helpful and of interest to you. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.
All best,
Libby
