End the Affordable Housing and No Car Diet Charades

Hello, Yupette,

County Board meetings resume in three weeks. More of the same on the agenda as before the Summer break.

How did this County get into a Car Free Diet program which is putting more vehicles in more new parking spaces and creating more vehicle trips?

How did the County get into an Affordable Housing program which is not building housing for low wage workers? Or students? Or interns? Or elderly persons living solely on Social Security benefits?

If all the County is doing is enriching real estate trusts and automotive dealers, why waste tens of millions every year on programs that are complete charades?

Something to think about before next month's County Board meeting.

Sharon, 22202

What Arlington's Local Media Can Learn from a 60's Local AM Station

Hey, Yupette,

Thanks for this blog.

I grew up in a county of about 5,000 in a rural part of the Midwest and my Dad was a farm equipment dealer. My younger brother runs the business today. Population is still about 5,000.

Where did we go for news fifty years ago? A woman in town published a weekly community newspaper with upcoming events that was distributed to the stores around town (population about 800) with a few ads to pay for the cost of printing.

Current local news and events were broadcast on the county's 500 watt daytime AM radio station. What did the station have in common with local media in Arlington County today? Nothing.

Our local AM station was all about the community. Starting with farm news at daybreak. Perhaps 10% of the station's broadcast time was dedicated to commercials. Lots of music played during the day, a little rock n roll. Interviews and local news were non-controversial and were about topics that directly affected our daily lives, e.g., curriculum changes by the State Board of Education. Someone from the County Board of Supervisors would announce whatever new they had planned for the county and invite everyone to attend meetings and comment. No open meetings to hold closed meetings to approve what was decided in secret meetings, like today in Arlington.

Also, although there were farm accidents and highway accidents the station's emphasis was on accident prevention, not chasing the volunteer fire department around the county to report accidents. There were lots of public service ads for seat belt wearing and getting farmers to replace old unsafe farm equipment. If you wanted to listen to Rock n Roll and the national controversies of the day you could tune to a 50,000 watt station in Chicago or Denver or Des Moines after dark.

Owner of the radio station also owned a big family farm. His father started the station in the 1930's. His son later started an FM station and both the AM and FM station are still broadcasting, with about the same format.

No one had the time to publish the "fake news" the Amazon Post, InsideNova and ArlNow publish today.

Brad - 22207