How sad it is to be an Arlingtonian now; to have witnessed our first negative, single-issue Board campaign since the Reagan era.<\/p>\n
This fire first struck on January 4, 2013, with an unexpected burst of lengthy, anti-Columbia Pike streetcar rhetoric from behind the dais, at the traditional and, heretofore, cordial and pro-forma New Year\u2019s Day, Board Meeting.<\/p>\n
(Interestingly, at the Dec. 17 swearing-in ceremony — only 18 days earlier — this new Board member spoke not one word of the streetcar.)<\/p>\n
The person behind this ire had turned sharply against the Democratic party from which she sought and received its 2012 County Board nomination, and — just weeks before — was elected under the label, Democrat. <\/p>\n
Then began a campaign crafted to split our County\u2019s sound and consensus-building leadership.<\/p>\n
She used her Board status and media-savvy persona to construct a negative, single-issue strategy, which appeared to be opposition to the Columbia Pike streetcar project. <\/p>\n
This strategy \u2014 call it the “Party of No” — viewed in the wake of last month’s election, now seems to have had, as its ultimate goal, the election of a candidate in direct opposition to this Board member’s Democratic party.<\/p>\n
And on Nov. 4th a small minority<\/em> \u2014 21 percent of registered<\/a> (scroll down to page 10) Arlingtonians \u2014 voted<\/a> for her winning candidate.<\/strong><\/p>\n They were voters who:<\/p>\n – could afford to take time-off to vote on election day,<\/p>\n – had the means to get to the polls,<\/p>\n – had the ability to obtain the requisite photo-i.d. cards, and<\/p>\n – heard and believed the negative clank of the \u201cNo Party.\u201d<\/p>\n However, \u201cNo,\u201d centered on one person and her electoral scion, has no deepened roots.<\/p>\n Those who’ve seen Columbia Pike traffic, and those who live and work along The Pike, know that the centuries-old thoroughfare is a more vehicle-strained transportation corridor than Wilson Boulevard, and has been strained long before Metro planners created the “Rosslyn-Ballston corridor.”<\/p>\n We in North Arlington have that fast-paced Metro — tunneled beneath Wilson, under the “corridor” — around which new merchants have blossomed and ever more residents thrive at every station stop.<\/p>\n With its snap, post-election decision to cancel all streetcar contracts, has our Board again made solid mass transit for South Arlington but a pipe dream?<\/p>\n These post-election days have been a sad, sad time for citizens and fair-minded policymakers, alike, in Arlington County, Virginia. <\/p>\n We cannot allow our County to be overcome by the dark clouds of the single-issue \u201cNo Party,\u201d which, as is written in Ecclesiastes, has used its campaign as a \u201ctime to tear down.\u201d <\/p>\n Arlingtonians have always had pride for our Arlington Way: propose, discuss, listen, cooperate and reach thoughtful consensus.<\/p>\n Now is the time to prepare for a New Year, a new \u201ctime to build up.\u201d<\/p>\n Choose YES for those who have devoted years of open, all-inclusive meetings, planning sessions, budget talks — formal and informal — to prepare this well-designed mass transit project for the Pike.<\/p>\n YES for unity.<\/p>\n Let’s build a positive campaign for action. <\/p>\n Let’s re-cultivate for 2015.<\/p>\n Let’s ALL restore the bloom of hope for all of Arlington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How sad it is to be an Arlingtonian now; to have witnessed our first negative, single-issue Board campaign since the Reagan era. This fire first struck on January 4, 2013, with an unexpected burst of lengthy, anti-Columbia Pike streetcar rhetoric from behind the dais, at the traditional and, heretofore, cordial and pro-forma New Year\u2019s Day, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580"}],"version-history":[{"count":64,"href":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":702,"href":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580\/revisions\/702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}