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.
The process for Advisory Group appointments appears o not be transparent and appears subject to Board/County Manager favoritism.
While vacancies are listed, it is not clear how members are appointed, nor how to get appointed to Commissions such as Planning or Transportation. The County does little to advertise availability of Advisory Group openings and does not appear to actively seek candidates of diverse opinions. Advisory Group Chairs make recommendations to the Board regarding potential appointments, also creating the ability for Chairs to only put forth those with similar viewpoints.481
Community sentiment is that the Board and County Manager will only make appointments if the individuals support the County’s positions, especially for the more influential/powerful Advisory Groups. This perception reduces faith in the Advisory Group system and processes.
481 https://www.arlingtonva.us/Government/Commissions-and-Advisory-Groups
Appearance of Favoritism of Commission Chairs and Commissioners by County Board.
As shown in the examples where one advocacy group is favorited by the County Board, those same select individuals also participate or head several Advisory Commissions, which are similarly ignoring the concerns of residents.
Chair of the Arlington County Planning Commission on Twitter.
Appointed by the County Board to Commissioner and then Chair, Daniel Weir’s Twitter account prominently states his position regarding a significant change to county-wide zoning policies and appears to also publicy imply a bigotry label towards residents who don’t agree with the policy change.
Weir Tweets, “When Black Lives Matter, just, you know. Somewhere else.” (refer to screenshot) referring to the yard signs opposing the zoning policy changes.
Opponents to the zoning changes reference new construction townhomes high prices, such as $935k on 2134 S Nelson; $925k on S Taylor Court; and $930k 24th Road S. Median household income in 2020 dollars for Black or African American Arlingtonians is $64k and is $135k for White Arlingtonians.482 See also October 2020 affordable housing and racial concerns in section 3.6.2 for Columbia Pike housing. At the time of this posting, Weir is active with the YIMBYs of NOVA group. See more about how the County uses select individuals and groups, in addition to other tactics in order disrupt community engagement, suppress and stifle community concerns, evade transparency, accountability and inclusivity. Methods to marginalize and stifle substantive criticism and Other interests in engagement processes
482 https://www.arlingtonva.us/Government/Projects/Data-Research/Demographics/Race-Ethnicity-Dashboard data pull as of 9/18/2022
Commissioners appear to ignore residents and favor advocacies and developers
Special Land Use Study–Courthouse West
Special Land Use Study–Courthouse West483 appeared to favor a developer and their attorney during testimony. A Commission and County Board appeared to ignore residents’ concerns and included what the community felt was a biased and misrepresented survey484
Planning Commission recommended building height higher than staff recommendation despite community concerns.
Regarding the Court House West study,485 the Planning Commission Hearing held on September 7, 2022, County Staff stated that though the zoning change would allow 16 stories they recommend a height cap of 12 stories be adopted. Despite speakers from the County citing issues with the process and survey (see details in example 4.2), the Planning Commission nonetheless voted 4-2 in favor of the developers’ request for 16-story height limits, against staff recommendation of 12486 and 75% of testimonies from the community and the majority of survey respondents, requesting a lower height cap. At that hearing, Developer and their Counsel represented that a new metro access close to the development was imminent and in the CIP. Commissioners did not question this false representation made by Developer and their Counsel and allowed it to sway their decision. County Board Chair Katie Cristol refuted this misinformation at the County Board Hearing on September 17, 2022. However, the County Board did not discount the Planning Commission’s recommendation which was based upon misinformation and allowed it to heavily influence their decision-making. Further, several in the community believe one of the votes at the Planning Commission s invalid as the PC had not published new procedures for electronic voting in new hybrid meeting formats487 and a Commissioner who voted did not attend, nor was briefed on, the hearing prior to the vote.
487 https://www.arlingtonva.us/Government/Commissions-and-Advisory-Groups/Planning-Commission
Commissions and committees which ask too many questions of the County either cease to exist or are deferred indefinitely.
Two County Board Advisory Groups were eliminated in July 2022 with little public notice or debate.
The Emergency Preparedness Advisory Commission (EPAC) and Aquatics Committee (AC) were eliminated in July 2022. The Staff Liaison informed EPAC members in June 2022 that there would be no future meetings, despite the Board not yet publicly considering the issue. The Board Liaison for both Commissions, Vice Chair Dorsey, also informed Commissioners that the Commissions would cease prior to Board action.
Neither item was on the Board’s agenda, so the public was not given the opportunity to comment. Rather than being a numbered agenda item, the vote on EPAC demise was taken during the Board Member update and the existing Commission seemed to be barely mentioned.488 The Commissions were reportedly told by Vice Chair Dorsey that the County is not interested in assistance with setting policy and is no longer interested in monitoring the implementation of policy.489 EPAC will be replaced with an Advisory Group to a department head (Committee), however little action appears to have been taken to further that group since the Commission was eliminated.490
The Board no longer has community advisors providing an independent view on County issues related to policy and monitoring the implementation of policy. “The [County] Board will not receive neutral, outside advice on such county issues, making them more reliant on the manager and staff for decisions.”491 This also reduces the Board roles to create and monitor the implementation policy492. It leaves the County Manager with increased ability to perform the responsibilities of the Board and Manager.493
Additionally, Mr. Dorsey said that part of the reason to change the format was to eliminate quorum requirements and set meeting dates.494 Along with eliminating those requirements, the meetings will no longer be required to be open to the public and transparency will be reduced.
488 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqwe1gTyxlw&feature=share&si=ELPmzJkDCLju2KnD5oyZMQ&t=1515
489 https://www.arlingtonva.us/Government/County-Board/About-the-County-Board
490 https://sungazette.news/elimination-of-emergency-preparedness-panel-causes-some-brushback/
491 Ibid.
493 https://sungazette.news/editorial-the-choice-for-arlington-county-board/
494https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqwe1gTyxlw&feature=share&si=ELPmzJkDCLju2KnD5oyZMQ&t=1700
Safety and Innovation Zone Privacy Oversight Panel Eliminated.
The County Manager created a Safety and Innovation Zone495, 496 to experiment with unproven safety technology in the County. Significant concerns were raised by Commissions and the public497, but the County Board approved the project without requiring that the concerns were addressed. Privacy Oversight Panel was created to: Provide support with development and implementation of the project’s privacy risk management objectives and risk mitigation. The project used outside partners (Comcast,498 US Ignite,499 and the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI)500) and foreign technology (Juganu). Additionally, project goals appear to be beyond the Board-approved public safety scope.501, 502, 503, 504, 505, 506, 507
The Privacy Oversight Panel was intended to provide oversight of project privacy risk mitigation efforts throughout pilot program, verifying County activity alignment with commitments and raising any new areas of privacy risk consideration.
However, the Privacy Oversight Panel was eliminated the day after EPAC was eliminated (see Section 7.5.1). The general community has not been notified. Staff appears to no longer plans to discuss the project or similar initiatives with the public.508 Staff has not publicly provided a one year update to the Board as per prior approvals.509, 510
There is no evidence that the privacy principles have been used in the evaluation or monitoring of privacy related to the AT&T/JBG Smith Smart City project at National Landing.511, 512
There is no longer community insight into privacy issues related to County smart city technology experimentation. Additionally, there is no way to know if and/or when privacy principles are being applied despite impacts on the community. Transparency has been greatly reduced. The nature of Arlington’s population requires that issues related to privacy are very carefully considered.
See Section 4.4.4.
496 https://www.arlnow.com/2021/01/28/new-smart-streetlights-in-clarendon-could-improve-emergency-response-times/
497 https://www.insidenova.com/news/arlington/doubts-linger-over-clarendon-technology-pilot-program/article_f41e62ac-d354-11eb-bd00-479a0389faf1.html
498 https://corporate.comcast.com/smart-solutions
499 https://www.us-ignite.org/community/arlington-va/
500 https://cyberinitiative.org
501 https://vimeo.com/630614922#t=5922s
502 https://arlington.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=3859&meta_id=200520
503 https://arlington.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=3859&meta_id=200519
504 https://arlington.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=3923&meta_id=203769
505 https://www.arlingtonva.us/files/sharedassets/public/projects/documents/technology/safety-and-innovation-zone-board-briefing-20210615_final-1.pdf
506 https://www.arlingtonva.us/files/sharedassets/public/projects/documents/technology/safety-and-innovation-zone-board-presentation-updated.pdf
507 https://www.us-ignite.org/community/arlington-va/
508 https://www.arlingtonva.us/Government/Projects/Project-Types/Technology/Safety-and-Innovation-Zone-Demonstration-Project
509 https://www.arlingtonva.us/files/sharedassets/public/projects/documents/technology/safety-and-innovation-zone-board-briefing-20210615_final-1.pdf
510 https://www.arlingtonva.us/files/sharedassets/public/projects/documents/technology/safety-and-innovation-zone-board-presentation-updated.pdf
511 https://about.att.com/story/2021/5g_smart_city.html
512 https://northernvirginiamag.com/home/home-design/2021/10/15/national-landing-smart-city/
Temporary shut down of Joint Facilities Advisory Committee (JFAC)513; County Manager asserts that members are going beyond their “expertise” and scope.
County Manager’s note to the County Board is revealed to the public514,
“The work in [JFAC’s] outline, to be done well, and to be accurate and thorough, requires staff from virtually every department to be involved, including department heads.
“Such a plan requires subject matter expert advice, along with citizen input beyond the JFAC members. In addition, the outline focuses on areas that I see as squarely within my purview as Manager.”515 While JFAC was again allowed to meet, the scope has been reduced and JFAC still appears to be unable to focus on their long-range planning purpose.516, 517, 518
514 https://arlingtonva.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2020/11/JFAC_CM_Message_2020-11-12.pdf
515 https://thearlingtonway.org/2020/11/20/short-term-thinking-schwartz-short-changes-arlington-again/
516 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI_-LwGOVUQ&feature=share&si=ELPmzJkDCLju2KnD5oyZMQ&t=2752
517 https://www.arlnow.com/2017/07/06/peters-take-planning-for-arlingtons-future-after-the-jfac-work-session/
518 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reTEgabplks&feature=share&si=ELPmzJkDCLju2KnD5oyZMQ&t=11615
Removing representatives from the Disability Advisory Commission and Commission on Aging from the Transit Advisory Committee to “increase more diversity”.
The Transit Advisory Committee,519 which reports to the County Manager announced in September 2022 that they are proposing a change to their bylaws520 to eliminate representation membership by the Transportation Commission, Commission on Aging, and Disability Advisory Commission. Furthermore, they are doing so to “increase diversity” despite losing representation for the disabled and aging.
This will reduce representation of the Disabled and Aging when considering transit-related issues such as STAR, metro entrances, accessibility, and other topics. This means that programs and or facilities may be designed without taking specialized needs into consideration. The result could be reducing the ability to take action while properly addressing the needs of the impacted population and considering universal designs. In addition to impacting services, this could increase expenses, such as when the accessible entrance to the new H-B Woodlawn had to be redesigned and reconstructed via a bond at an estimated cost of $11.39M.521 Additionally, the move will reduce the ability for the Commissions to advise the Board on related policies and how they are being implemented.
519 https://www.arlingtonva.us/Government/Commissions-and-Advisory-Groups/Transit-Advisory-Committee
520 https://www.arlingtonva.us/files/062c37ec-ae3f-45a4-9589-82e899f18149/2022_09_Proposed-TAC-Charter-Changes.pdf
Commissions’ effectiveness appears to have diminished since the start of the pandemic.
The County used the COVID emergency as an excuse to diminish the use and effectiveness of Advisory Groups.
At the start of the COVID emergency, the County took a position of not allowing Commissions to meet. When they were finally allowed to meet, the criteria were onerous.522, 523, 524, 525, 526, 527, 528, 529, 530
The Advisory Group Handbook states that “Members are Board-Appointed leaders in the community who “bring the skills, talents, knowledge and perspectives needed” to make our County better.”531 The pandemic, a time with limited resources and significant needs, was a time to expand rather than diminish use of community volunteers.
522 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfb7lJANrBI&feature=share&si=ELPmzJkDCLju2KnD5oyZMQ&t=563
523 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfb7lJANrBI&feature=share&si=ELPmzJkDCLju2KnD5oyZMQ&t=2630
524 https://www.arlnow.com/2018/12/19/morning-poll-moving-on-from-the-arlington-way/
525 https://www.arlnow.com/2020/04/03/county-commission-meetings-cancelled-until-further-notice/
526 https://thearlingtonway.org/2020/07/04/the-arlington-county-boards-trumpist-approach/
527 https://www.insidenova.com/news/arlington/arlington-board-rejiggers-rules-for-commission-meetings-in-covid-crisis/article_93dd697c-b967-11ea-9ece-0ba80786e832.html
528https://10988493703797958236.googlegroups.com/attach/33f895b32bf5f/Commissions,%20Commitees,%20Boards,%20and%20Advisory%20Groups%20Letter%20to%20the%20Arlington%20County%20Board%20-%20June%209,%202020.pdf?part=0.1&view=1&vt=ANaJVrHF-74lQqjN1uQXxrZ1-M9bq-R
529 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lwjqM5e7wU
530 https://arlingtonva.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2020/05/Handout_ACG-VirtualPublicMeetings_DecisionTree_May2020-scaled.jpg
531 https://www.arlingtonva.us/files/sharedassets/public/Commissions/Documents/Advisory-Group-Handbook- 2014.pdf Introduction
County Auditor does not inform Commissions of topics related to Commission.
The County Auditor532, 533, 534 does not advise Commission leadership when issues related to their Commission are being considered in an audit. The County Auditor should inform Commissions of audit timing and presentations as a courtesy, consistent with Commissions advising on policy and monitoring the implementation of policy535.
Additionally, it would provide Commissions with the opportunity to provide comment and better track the outcomes which relate to policy.
532 https://www.arlingtonva.us/Government/Departments/County-Board/County-Auditor
533 https://arlingtonva.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2016/03/http law.lis_.virginia.gov_vacode_title15.2_chapter7_section15.2-709.pdf
534 https://www.arlingtonva.us/files/sharedassets/public/county-board/documents/final-revised-auditor-board-charge-4-20-2021.pdf
535 https://www.arlingtonva.us/files/sharedassets/public/Commissions/Documents/Advisory-Group-Handbook-2014.pdf
There appears to be selective enforcement of Commissioner and Commission Chair term limits.
The County Board selectively enforces Commissioner and Commission Chair term limits. The Advisory Group Handbook (2014)536, 537 specifies that term limits exist for Commission appointments. The Transportation Commission page states that “The Transportation Commission members are “No fewer than seven and no more than 13 members are appointed by the County Board to three-year terms, and a chairman is designated by the County Board annually.”538
However, the term limits are selectively enforced with loose tracking of official appointment dates539. Appointment information prior to 2018 is not readily available via the County Board Appointments site.540 The community believes that some Commissioners seem to have lifetime appointments (requiring continual, official reappointments). County Board members have reportedly privately confirmed the same.
537 http://arlington.granicus.com/GeneratedAgendaViewer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=2801
539 https://www.arlnow.com/2019/05/13/podcast-transportation-commission-chair-chris-slatt/
540 https://www.arlingtonva.us/Government/Commissions-and-Advisory-Groups/Appointments
Advisory Group Member conflict of interest and financial disclosures do not appear to be transparent.
“Advisory Groups” may advise the County Board or County Manager. Both are required to disclose specific conflicts of interest541. However, the County’s interpretation does not appear to specifically consider lobbying activities such as YIMBYs of Northern Virginia. The community sees this activity as a potential conflict of interest.
Additionally, some Commissions require financial disclosures542 but it is unclear whether that policy is enforced.
Additionally, Conflict of Interest parameters appear to be shared with the public primarily when a Commissioner, such as a Planning Commissioner, owns property in or near a property under consideration. However, the disclosures appear to rely on self-identification of a potential conflict of interest.
As a result, the community questions whether additional conflicts of interest exist, particularly if their Advisory Group considers issues related to a lobbying interest. Refer to Section 7.3.
542 https://arlington.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&meta_id=168015
Advisory Groups may fail to create and/or publicly post an Annual Report and Annual Plan.
Some Advisory Groups are required to submit an Annual Report and Annual Plan543 to document what transpired in the last year and is planned for the next. However, few of these reports appear to be posted in a way to be transparently made publicly available or preserved as a public record. This may also limit public understanding of functions and priorities.
543 https://www.arlingtonva.us/Government/Commissions-and-Advisory-Groups/Planning-Commission/Annual-Reports