Dear Friends, I hope this finds you as comfortable and secure as possible during these difficult times. It is heartening for me how much people are stepping up and trying to help those in need. If you have not done so yet, I urge you to sign up for the Arlington County COVID-19 Updates on our website. It is revised every evening. The situation is changing rapidly and it is important for all of us to stay informed. I also urge everyone to sign up for Arlington Alert. This is one of our best systems in Arlington for getting critical and time-sensitive information out to the … [Read more...]
Special Announcement to All Arlington Residents
Dear Friends,I want you to see this important announcement right away. The District of Columbia will be ordering everyone to shelter in place at 8pm tonight. This does not apply to people in Virginia, but I do want to emphasize that it’s crucial that everyone stay at home as much as possible. We all want to help, but just staying at home is helping…..a lot. Thank you, Libby SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT TO ALL ARLINGTON RESIDENTSArlington County Government sent this bulletin at 03/25/2020 07:07 PM EDT Having trouble viewing this email? View … [Read more...]
COVID-19 and How You Can Help
Dear Friends, As you know, I am temporarily suspending campaigning for my re-election due to the rapidly changing situation with COVID-19. I am now focusing on ensuring our resiliency as a community so we can get through this health and economic crisis and prepare to recover as quickly as possible.Many of us are eager to help our neighbors and small businesses and want to know how to do so in ways that protect our public health. I am heartened to see efforts springing up hourly to organize community assistance.I am repurposing my campaign organization and volunteers to leverage and … [Read more...]
Temporarily Suspending Campaigning & How You Can Help re: the Coronavirus
Dear Friends: I am writing today to let you know that I am temporarily suspending campaigning for my re-election due to the rapidly changing situation with COVID-19. I may re-evaluate this decision as we get closer to June, depending on how much progress the County has made dealing with this issue. I have filed for re-election and will be on the ballot June 9, and of course, I would appreciate your vote. For now, though, this is not a time for personal campaigning. In the foreseeable future, my focus must be on ensuring our resiliency as a community so we can get through this health and … [Read more...]
Further Coronavirus Updates, Closures, Cancelations and Safety
Dear Friends: Today, the Board ratified our County Manager’s declaration of a local emergency due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19). This follows Governor Northam’s declaration of a state of emergency for the Commonwealth and the President’s declaration of a national emergency. Arlington Public Schools have closed until at least April 14th. COVID-19 is serious, but there is no need to panic. This is a rapidly evolving situation, and it is important that we all stay informed and follow the recommendations of our health professionals. In Arlington, we have been testing … [Read more...]
Coronavirus Update, County Guidance & Postponing Freddie’s Fundraiser – March 15th
Dear Friends: This afternoon, Governor Northam declared a State of Emergency in Virginia due to the COVID-19 virus. Arlington County began canceling all non-essential group activities yesterday, and I have postponed my upcoming fundraiser at Freddie’s and the Salsa lesson fundraiser we’d planned. Many of you were planning to hold coffees for me. I am very grateful, but we will suspend those for the moment as well. Townley will be in touch with you. Although COVID-19 has only recently seemed important to many here in Arlington, our County Government have been working non-stop for … [Read more...]
Renewables, Speeding, Arlington’s 100th and Thank You!
Dear Friends,January’s meeting agenda was quite light, but two items are of particular interest for most residents. Both help our transition to a resilient 21st-century urban community. Meeting our Renewable Energy Goals Early: As you know from my September newsletter, when we adopted our Community Energy Plan (CEP) we set the goal of having at least 50% of the energy used by Arlington County government operations from renewable sources by 2022 and 100% by 2025. We just approved a partnership with Dominion Energy to buy about 80% of our power from a Dominion solar farm that will be built in … [Read more...]
Building a Future for Everyone in Arlington to Thrive
Happy New Year! Last night, the County Board held our annual organizational meeting. I was honored to be elected as chair, and wish to thank my colleagues for their confidence in me. We elected Erik Gutshall to serve as our vice chair. We honored Christian Dorsey for his excellent service as our chair in 2019. I look forward to working with Erik as my vice chair and my colleagues Christian Dorsey, Katie Cristol and Matt de Ferranti on our Board team. This is a strong team. In my chairman’s remarks, I talked about the large and clear challenge that Amazon’s arrival presents us: we want to be a … [Read more...]
Tariffs and the CIP, Tax Relief, Tin Roofs, Immigrant Children
As the summer weather arrives, your Board has been working through our ten-year Capital Improvement Program (CIP) and June’s meeting agenda. Capital Improvement Plan Our work on the ten-year CIP is relatively constrained because we will have less revenue in the current two-year period than we expected, and our investment needs for Metro and schools have increased. The new tariffs on steel and aluminum will also raise costs for projects in the works. Taken together, it is clear we will not be doing new projects, but simply trying to keep our facilities in a state of good repair and complete … [Read more...]
Birthdays, budgets, new knees, and campaigns
First, thank you to all who helped make my 66th birthday special! We Passed a Budget April is always a busy month with our budget. We adopted the budget with a 1.5 cent increase on the tax rate. This was 1/2 a cent less than the Manager’s original proposal. To find the 1/2-cent, we delayed some increases in staffing in various departments and used some one-time money to fund our schools. But in this budget, we were able to fund the schools fully, increase support for public safety, and begin a program to repair and maintain our streetlights. This was a relatively easy budget year. I am … [Read more...]
