Saturday, February 6, 2016

County Board's Agenda for Lee Highway Corridor: Total Clarendonization


Hello,

Last month A.Y. obtained copies of the County Board's, County Manager's, Economic Development Director's, and Planning Division Director's daily appointment calendars for the past several months. What today's Lee Highway Corridor Redevelopment "Community Meeting" at Yorktown High School proved is that Arlington's Smart Growth decision makers decided several months ago to make-over the Lee Highway corridor into a 5-mile long Clarendon.

If you didn't need more proof, you could hear and see the County Board's out-of-state Smart Growth "Planners" Dover-Kohl, replicating and reprising the New Urbanist mess they made of Columbia Pike, five years ago.

Oh, County "Planning Staff" is already talking with the likes of Clarendon Ballroom, A-Town, and other bars and restaurants that cater to Millennials for satellite operations beneath future mixed-used redevelopment in the Lee Highway corridor.

Cindy

Sunday, January 31, 2016

County Board - County Manager Held No Winter Emergency Planning Meetings During the Fall of 2015


Hello,

One of the contributors to AY was able to obtain copies of the County Board's and County Manager's appointment calendars for the months of October, November, and December. Although the County Board (with the exception of John Vihstadt, who works full-time) and County Manager held plenty of personal, political, and social meetings, as well as many deal-making meetings with pet developers, the County Board and County Manager had no appointments related to winter emergency preparedness whatsoever. So whatever winter emergency plans were made for the County were made in the week leading up to the first (and most likely not the last) major snowstorm of 2016.

It's decidedly NOT true that the "the County Board doesn't listen". The County Board DOES listen, repeatedly, but only to the same 100 Arlington residents and to the same 100 non-residents. Rather than focusing on the basics, like snow removal, the County Board, County Manager, and Economic Development Director are making Arlington into a number of neighborhood-by-neighborhood 'redevelopment opportunities' without bothering to tell the neighborhoods. Whatever deals are made with developers are passed down to the Democratic Party-controlled advisory commissions and Democratic Party 'facilitators' who control almost all Arlington's civic associations.

Too bad the local media are also facilitators for the status quo. We deserve to be informed about important decisions that directly affect us and the livability of our County, not continually deluged with second-hand feel-good propaganda and warmed over press releases.

Cindy