Yesterday was the first day of the County Board's FY 15 budget work sessions and first up were the Clerk of the Circuit Court, Circuit Court, General District Court, and Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court Judges, Commonwealth's Attorney, County Treasurer, Commissioner of the Revenue, Magistrate's Office, and Voter Registrar. All are Democrats, like the County Board. And, like the County Board, they are major decision makers for the rest of us.
What have these folks been up to and what do they have planned for FY 15? Well, besides their usual activities, running the courts, collecting taxes, and so on, they're well on their way to creating huge integrated databases including everyone who has any transaction or interaction with the legal system whatsoever (parking tickets to unpaid taxes to felonies) and many who have had no interactions with Arlington's legal system at all but are engaging in non-conforming and otherwise suspicious behavior.
The Clerk of the Circuit Court will soon have all civil, criminal, and land records on-line. Circuit Court Judges (like Judge Bill Newman) are happy they're going to have more money to try more drug offenders (even though elsewhere marijuana possession is being decriminalized). General District Court Judges are happy that all traffic summonses will soon be on-line.
Commonwealth's Attorney Stamos is happy that putting massive amounts of parking ticket data online will help solve her perennial problems with bad parking tickets. She and the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court Judges are looking for much more use of "early intervention" whereby children, adolescents, and adults who violate some social norm (as one Commonweath's Attorney's employee joked, "They read books instead of participating in wholesome sports activities, like basketball") are tagged for "surveillance and intervention" by schools, police, and courts and their records of nonconforming behavior put into another social control database.
Last, but not least, County Treasurer O'Leary is expanding his "Special Collections Vehicle System" whereby retired Arlington police officers drive around Northern Virginia in vehicles equipped with license plate reader cameras to apprehend Arlington-resident vehicle owners who are shopping at places like Tysons and are in arrears in paying taxes, fines, and fees. Data from this operation are shared with the Commissioner of Revenue's Office where they will be integrated with income tax data in another big database.
Since Arlington County Democratic Committee members have been integrated into all county agencies for years - the Arlington Democratic Party IS County Government - the goal in the near-
term is to have ACDC activities seamlessly interact with County Government activities.
Needless to say, the County Board was quite pleased about the progress of ACDC-County Government's social control information system implementation agenda for FY 15.
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23 comments:
You forgot to mention that adult probation will be relocated to 2020 North 14th Street.
Boo Hoo. Voter Registrar reported that next special election and primary election will be the last opportunities for Dems who moved out of the County to vote with their old paper voter ID card before photo ID voting goes into effect in November.
All the more reason to eliminate car tax decals, since O'Leary now has the means to enforce car tax without decals.
Only what we deserve for electing and re-electing Smart Growth, Urban Hipster, Yuptard Democrats like Jay Fisette for the past 15 years.
If O'Leary is using roving license plate cameras to catch car tax scofflaws that means he has ZERO excuses for his vanity car tax decal program. End Arlington's car tax decal program NOW. Don't impose this waste of tax dollars on us another year.
Where is ACTA on this? Bunch of damn whales, like Tim Wise, who surface every budget season and then disappear until the next budget season.
Time for Frank to retire. Take Carla with him.
END THE CAR TAX DECAL PROGRAM !!!
Hey, the sex offenders in the new homeless shelter will have an easy commute to visit their probation officers. LOL
Yeah, win-win for the convicted sex offenders and their probation officers...easy commute to 2020 N. 14th Street for the probation officers.
This is what we get for having a bunch of damn chamber of commerce / county board boosters controlling local news.
AND other hardened criminals will have an easy commute to visit their probation officers at 2020 N. 14th Street.
Frank and Carla should retire to Decal Island and leave Arlington decal-free as their legacy.
Arlington Democratic, Republican, Green, Independent Green parties and CivFed, ACTA, Chamber of Commerce, non-profits, and Civic Associations are de facto clubs. They're basically useless and only serve to help promote the status quo with minor variations.
Look. Y'all have to practice the same amount of toleration with each other that's I'm telling the Russian and Ukrainian Governments that they have to exercise with each other.
I'll be happy to meet with all of you, Republican and Democrat alike, when I visit Arlington next month to attend a benefit performance of 'Sweeney Todd' at Arlington's award-winning Signature Theater.
Arlington Government is so bad it makes whatever appears in this blog look good.
Last VIP Republicrat to make a fortune by ripping off, and/or helping the REITs rip off Arlington taxpayers, please turn off the lights before retiring to Gated Beach Enclave South Carolina.
Want to know the WORST? County Board went along with everything they were presented while laughing, joking, and smiling.
John Vihstadt for County Board !!!
Dump the car tax decal. Then dump O'Leary.
Can we please have some oversight over Arlington's judiciary? Especially Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.
PLEASE exert Judicial oversight on Arlington's Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.
State law provides for the State to collect the car tax at the same time of vehicle registration. This would allow the Treasurer's office to cut a lot of staff and the car tax money would transfer automatically without the need for a massive staff.
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