Restore Public Confidence in Arlington County Governance

Tracking governance issues in order to ensure that Arlington County is transparent, accountable and inclusive to its constituents.

Over 100 resident-aggregated governance examples with over 600 citations documenting recent Arlington governance issues that must be addressed

Governance Examples

View over a hundred examples aggregated by community leaders and engaged residents concerned about Arlington County governance

Community Engagement Methods

Concerns about how community engagement methods are unevenly applied or have fundamentally changed and no longer consistently include critical engagement principles and features, and where far-reaching decisions may be made without incorporating substantive resident input or broad community consensus.

Dismiss Concerns

Concerns about how it appears to many residents that the Arlington County Board and County Manager frequently dismiss concerns of individuals, civic groups, civic associations, multi-family residence associations, and the Arlington County Civic Federation, which historically have played an integral role in the county’s decision-making processes.

• The County Board and County Manager may not address safety concerns in a timely manner.
• Joint efforts expressing concerns appear to be ignored, even when multiple Civic Associations and residents express concern.
• County Board appears to dismiss engagement and concerns brought to their attention.
• County Board diminishes the role of the community and their input, even if the community is directly impacted.
• See Example where County Manager, Mark Schwartz, appears to deny and present misleading information in response to concerns raised by residents.

Pre-determined engagement process

Concerns abound about how no matter how many people participate from the very beginning and no matter how many people oppose a policy, there seems to be a full-steam ahead approach to county processes and policy-making decisions. Concerns that the Arlington County Board, County Manager and staff conduct processes frequently led by outside consultants that, from the perspective of many affected residents, lack transparency and seem to be designed to reach a single, predetermined conclusion (e.g., Sector Plan updates, Public Spaces Master Plan update, Site Plan approvals, increased density and other mechanisms) without addressing substantive community concerns expressed during the process. 

• Processes appear to be predetermined, even contracted with the developer, before a community engagement process begins, yet the community is never made aware of this pre-determined outcome.
• County Board appears to ignore poor and incomplete planning, even when staff states it.
• Processes appear to be opaque, seemingly pre-determined, lack community consensus and engagement, as well as impact analysis even for hugely consequential decisions.
• Arlington County appears to misrepresent their projects and processes.
• General perception by long-term residents that the County processes are now almost always pre- determined before even being presented to the public
• Appearance of failure to accurately represent feedback and data.

Methods to Marginalize or Stifle Substantive Criticism

Concerns that County methods include not recording public comments, using “push poll” surveys that are structured to support a single point of view, providing on-line only presentations that do not allow for two-way communications, encouraging special interest group support, not recording or posting public minutes, and failing to include some letters from the public record.

• Staff appears to ask select community leaders to “control” the community.
• The County Board, County Manager and Staff use techniques to skew the results of processes and to make them falsely appear that there was inclusive and transparent engagement as well as a consensus.
• County Board appears to strategically appoints Commissioners from the same advoacy group (YIMBYs of NOVA).
• County survey questions often appear to be biased, worded to lead to a specific answer outcome and sent to a limited number of people.

Lack of Commissioner appointments with broad and diverse views

Concerns regarding the citizen-commissioner appointment process and objectives lack transparency for member and Chair selection and seems to result in commissions that lack a diversity of opinion or thought and do not necessarily reflect the views of the public at large.

• The process for Advisory Group appointments appears to not be transparent and appears subject to Board/County Manager favoritism
• Appearance of Favoritism of Commission Chairs and Commissioners by County Board.
• Chair of the Arlington County Planning Commission on Twitter.
• Commissioners appear to ignore residents and favor special interests and developers.
• Commissions and committees which ask too many questions of the County either cease to exist or are deferred indefinitely.
• Commissions’ effectiveness appears to have diminished since the start of the pandemic.
• There appears to be selective enforcement of Commissioner and Commission Chair term limits.
• Advisory Group Member conflict of interest and financial disclosures do not appear to be transparent.
• Advisory Groups may fail to create and/or publicly post an Annual Report and Annual Plan.

Other interests in the planning review process 

Concerns how and if there are indeed two-way engagements with residents and the role of developers in these processes. For example, residents report that in some planning reviews, paid developer staff have the opportunity for two-way engagement at the table with planners while residents are limited to short, one-way comments. The information presented to planners can thus be considered “unbalanced” and “skewed”.  

• Engagement process appears to be “unbalanced” and “skewed”.

Transparency with public meetings

Concerns over how the County uses “office hours” to conduct meetings with special interests such as developers, while limiting the public from attending or being able to view records. Certain types of meetings exclude public attendance —even when the planning is holistic in nature (not a specific site plan)—permitting developers, approved “stakeholders” and staff to meet and consider planning during “office hours” in a way which limits public discussions public and skirts public “sunshine” laws’.  

• The County appears to design county-led meetings which may circumvent the public from accessing meeting notes and records and attending meetings. These activities may violate under Freedom of Information Act and Virginia Sunshine Laws § 2.2-3712 (G).
• Arlington charges substantial fees for Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) Requests. The FOIA archive is not comprehensive.
• See Example 13.1.1 for additional examples of issues with Open Data Portal and data/information requests.

Achieving a livable community

Concerns regarding land-use planning and development processes appears to focus almost exclusively on increasing density and satisfying developers’ goals and interests without providing specific metrics to document an equitable focus on achieving a balanced outcome that mitigates negative community impacts and enhances the long-term livability of both existing and new residents. 

• Requests and concerns about density impacts appear to be ignored.
• The County appeared to ignore calls to action and countywide consensus requesting that the County meet the needs of residents.
• County does not consistently apply of its own policies, including those related to equity and sustainability, in order to advance agenda.
• Civic Associations’ concerns over impacts to facilities are often ignored and unaddressed. 
• Even with an historic number of opposed residents who are vocal in person and on petitions, the County Board ignores their concerns and moves their agenda forward.

Ensuring community benefits

Concerns about the lack of accurate, measurable public accounting of the value of the “community benefits” developers offer as part of the site plan process and likewise no accurate public accounting of the value of the density and other benefits that property developers receive in return, leaving the public in the dark as to whether or not what is received is of roughly equivalent value. County uses “office hours” to conduct meetings with special interests such as developers, while limiting the public from attending or being able to view records. Certain types of meetings exclude public attendance —even when the planning is holistic in nature (not a specific site plan)—permitting developers, approved “stakeholders” and staff to meet and consider planning during “office hours” in a way which limits public discussions public and skirts public “sunshine” laws’.  

• There appears to be a lack of transparency and consistency regarding how community benefits are established with density increases as well as followed in implementation. Repeated requests for transparency on these concerns appear to be ignored.
• Independent review of developer’s meeting site-plan conditions/ community benefits is not followed through by the County Board or County Manager

Public speaking and participation

Concerns about the new restrictive rules and limitations on public speaking

• Virtual Commission meeting participation has been reduced.
• Public comments have been heavily restricted.

Data-driven/ smart communities

Concerns about the lack of data transparency, accessibility, and properly working systems such as policies, processes, broken website links, website links to meetings, documents, historic content, minutes and video resulting in significant impediments to residents’ ability to view, research, and participate in County activities in a transparent way

• County appears to lack data transparency and accessibility.
• County website redesign and associated problems make it harder for residents to find information.
• Public-facing County systems are released with significant errors appear to cause impediments for resident participation.
• County policies are not easily accessible or viewable to the public.
• County appears to delay or not fully utilize technology resources to provide greater transparency.