Arlington's Performing Arts Snobs - Welfare for the Wealthy Elitism at Its Worst

Think the Washington Shakespeare Company and Classika-Synetic Theater need $10 million from Arlington County for a new home in the Newseum Cultural Center? Think the Signature Theater needs an annual stipend from Arlington taxpayers? Check out who's on their boards of directors.

http://www.classika.org/classika3.html

http://www.washingtonshakespeare.org/board.html

http://www.sig-online.org/bod.htm

http://www.sig-online.org/2009gala.htm

http://www.rosslynva.org/who-we-are/rosslyn-bid/officers-and-board

http://www.rosslynva.org/who-we-are/rosslyn-renaissance/officers-and-board

Newseum Cultural Center Charade - Who Cares About Taxpayers?

The two major players in the Newseum Cultural Center charade, The Classika Theater and Washington Shakespeare Company, EACH have an extremely wealthy and influential major league K. Street tax lawyer on their board of directors. Who is representing Arlington's taxpayers?

County Board Spends Extravagantly on Self-Serving PR

The Arlington County Manager's Office alone employs 15 people who write and broadcast PR for County Board members and the Board's pet people, pet organizations and pet programs. Cost to Arlington taxpayers? At least $1.3 million.

Arlington County 2009 Budget Charade Continues - March 24-26

Tune in to arlingtonva.us to see the County Board's 2009 Budget Charade live. Starts at 7 PM. NEW THIS YEAR...the County Board Politricksters will close a popular nature center and branch libraries to help fund the County Board's pet projects. Just like the big city machine pols.

County Board Set to Pass Pike Trolley Folly Funding

Arlington County Emperor of Transportation Chris Zimmerman is bringing his Columbia Pike trolley folly before the County Board for preliminary design funding at the March 14th County Board meeting. Agenda Item 27. This is your your opportunity to speak out against Guru of Gridlock Zimmerman's irrational use of scarce transportation dollars to install an inefficient and expensive light rail system on an existing right-of-way that is unsuitable for light rail.

Arlington County Board is "Environmentally Challenged"

From the Washington Post on February 25th:

Grants Available for Solar and Wind Power

The D.C. government announced yesterday that residents, businesses, nonprofit organizations and private schools can apply for grants of as much as $33,000 to install equipment for making energy from the sun or the wind.

The program will provide as much as $2 million citywide, drawn from taxes on the use of electricity and gas. It will be parceled out based on the capacity of the renewable-energy system installed: an installation of solar panels large enough to produce 3,000 watts would qualify for $9,000 in assistance, at $3 per watt. Systems that can produce 3,000 to 10,000 watts will qualify for $2 in assistance per watt, and those that produce 10,000 to 17,000 watts will qualify for $1 per watt.

The program applies only to those installing solar-or wind-powered systems. In the future, the D.C. Department of Environment said, it will offer grants for geothermal systems, those burning biomass and those relying on recovered methane.

For more information, and to download application materials, go to greenenergy.dc.gov.

Next Arlington County Board Budget / Planning Charade Occurs on February 21st

Check out the agenda for Saturday's County Board meeting at arlingtonva.us. The County Board will not take up Newseum Cultural Center funding, that's already been pre-approved and it's why citizens are being socked with hefty real estate and fee increases ( Agenda Item 22), to pay for the Rosslyn Billionaires' Culture Club. While you're at it, check out Item 23, a Christmas in February give-away to another wealthy out-of-state developer who will build another huge yupscale energy-inefficient mixed-use redevelopment in Pentagon City with affordable housing to be constructed 60 miles away.