Two consent agenda items related to the proposed redevelopment deal between Arlington Government and WETA will be before the County Board on June 16th. The first, Item 2, is a phased development site plan for an addition to WETA's headquarters building. To be taken up at next month's CB meeting. The second, Item 14, is a temporary parking agreement between the County and WETA. A third, Item 29, was deferred by the CB on June 13th until next month and concerns the sale of WETA's studios to the County to be repurposed for outdoor sports.
An AY contributor obtained WETA's last annual report and WETA's last IRS Form 990. WETA is a very wealthy organization and does not need any financial assistance from Arlington County. WETA's CEO, Sharon Rockefeller, is not only wealthy herself but is also on the Board of the Rockefeller Foundation.
There is also the matter of environmental impacts of what will be a multi-jurisdiction sports facility and increased parking and vehicle trips in what is already a densely in-filled area.
WETA has little or nothing to do with Arlington County, apart from its headquarters, studios, and FM broadcasting tower located in Arlington. WETA increasingly appeals to an increasingly upscale audience, e.g., through fictional programming featuring an idealized British aristocracy.
Again, WETA needs no financial assistance from Arlington County.
22 comments:
The Green Valley Civic Association is very unhappy that temporary parking for WETA employees will be sited on a County-owned parcel that's supposed to be a community park.
Green Valley residents used everything but the R-word tonight against County Government for being massively insensitive about Green Valley's social, economic, and environmental needs.
Next month we'll see how much WETA will receive in the way of "economic incentives".
You can obtain a copy of WETA's most recent Annual Report and IRS Form 990 by calling WETA at 703-998-2724 .
If I want to park in the County-owned parking garage at Ballston Quarter it will cost $8 to park 8 hours. I am sick and tired of "welfare for the wealthy". There is no means-testing whatsoever, in fact, the wealthier the for-profit or non-profit the more gimmes from the County.
I watched this agenda item being discussed at the last County Board meeting. Time for Libby Garvey to retire.
Sharon and her hubby are worth $160 million...Rockefeller Family is worth $11 billion.
Libby Garvey should retire, not serve another 4 years on the County Board. She's served on the School Board and County Board continuously for almost 25 years, the past 7 years on the County Board. She's dismissive and disparaging to people she doesn't like when she doesn't ignore them entirely. She bestows millions on her favored special interests, her primary special interest being the bicycle cult, which she can't do enough for. The only reason pols like her keep getting elected and re-elected is the media make millions from promoting the status quo - massive in-fill gentrification redevelopment that Libby rubber-stamp approves with the other County Board members. Of course they, like Libby, live nowhere near "Smart Growth"(what an oxymoron).
Welfare for the Rockefellers agenda items to be rubber-stamp approved at the next CB meeting should be on-line for perusal at arlingtonva.us by July 11th.
Remember Chris Zimmerman? If the July 7th County Board special election is another referendum about Donald Trump we are going to have another C.Z. on the County Board.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the approximate beginning of New Urbanism's predecessor - Urban Renewal.
Libby Garvey and the rest of Arlington's so-called "Democrats" aren't even Democrats. They're Rockefeller aka Scranton aka Romney Republicans, circa 1970. Tax, borrow, spend. Over the past 50 years Limo Liberalism has morphed into Lexus Liberalism. Urban Renewal has morphed into New Urbanism. Libby was a college student 50 years ago (she's 69 or 70 years old but doesn't reveal her age). She grew up in Wisconsin when manufacturing and agriculture were thriving. No longer.`
I have just gotta Laugh Out Loud about Libby. She lives in a $600,000 townhouse which was workforce housing when she and her husband bought it more than 40 years ago. Her neighborhood, on the Alexandria border, is an actual Urban Village, but ardent Urbanist that she is, Libby rubber stamps infill gentrification site plans for neighborhoods all over Arlington.
Libby spends large amounts of time (and large amounts of our tax dollars) on her favorite special interest - bicycles, and tells ACPD not to enforce traffic ordinances related to bicycles (they don't). Libby drives around in her big SUV telling everyone to ride bicycles 24/7/365. What else does Libby do on the County Board? Travels around Europe at every opportunity. Spends many hours every month making promises to various "community leaders" and making Urbanist deals over lunch with various for-profits, non-profits, and special interests, which she turns over to County Staff for "facilitation".
But, hey, it's only what the Rockefeller Republicans were doing 50 years ago, in what became the Rust Belt, when Libby was growing up there and the Baby Boomers her age were rioting over Vietnam and demonizing Richard Nixon.
Libby also served on the School Board when her fellow Urbanists started jamming as many people into as little space as possible and was completely unprepared for the big increase in the number of APS students.
Libby sponsors group bicycle rides on the W & OD Trail and is lobbying NOVA parks and transportation VIPs to widen the trail, which is opposed by various environmentalists.
Twenty years after Baby Boomers were demonizing Richard Nixon and rioting about Vietnam they were moving into McMansions and buying SUVs.
Do a whitepages name/address search and then a Google Maps satellite view search on both the VIP Urbanists and their VIP Missing Middle associates.
Libby and many other Smart Growth VIPs have vacation estates carved out of productive agricultural land....Look her and the other Urbanist Pig Elites up om Whitepages.
Sharon Rockefeller and her hubby own a huge ranch in Wyoming.
Urbanist Pig Elites? Look up the Executive Director and Chair of the Alliance for Housing Solutions on whitepages. BTW, anyone who believes that AHS VIP Takis Karantonis still lives in the tiny condo he owns in Arlington Village also believes in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
See if Taki$ rubber $tamp approve$ thi$ on July 18th..
County Board's July Meetings agenda is on-line.
The deal with WETA is out and out bribery by the County and extortion by WETA.
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