The late and, to many of us, great Arlington fiscal-restraint advocate Tim Wise used to call it “Arlogance” – the self-satisfied contempt that one-party rule had allowed county officials to have over the populace.
Arlogance was in full swing for about a decade prior to 2014, when voters got fed up, slapped the Democratic oligarchy around at the ballot box and, for a while, elected officials (both existing and those who would succeed them) began acting with a little more respect for the public they serve.
One could go on and on about the County Board’s decision on Tuesday, for a third year in a row, not to even offer a token tax-rate cut in the face of rising assessments and now the impact of inflation on everyone’s pocketbooks, but I’m going to save it for next week’s editorial.
From my personal perspective, all I can say is: I’m glad to be selling out and cashing in. Take the money, run, let somebody else deal with the spiraling tax bills.
CASHING IN: Speaking of Arlogance, it was one thing when County Board members lorded it over the community but were paid relative pittances for what were (and should have been) part-time jobs.
But now they’ve just teed up a big pay raise for themselves, which no doubt will ratify their belief that they’re all indispensable to the workings of the community.
(Wonder if any of them know the bon-mot from Charles de Gaulle, when told that he simply couldn’t govern without a certain necessary official on the team, about where all such “indispensable men” eventually wind up …)
KICKED TO THE CURB: “That’s harsh, honey” is a hilarious payoff line (you had to be there) in one episode of the guilty-pleasure, if crass, sitcom “Two Broke Girls.”
Harsh is indeed a word that could be used when, yesterday and by the very narrowest of margins, Democrats in the House of Delegates ousted their leader (Eileen Filler-Corn of Fairfax) in a toppling that, unlike better organized coups, didn’t take the important next step of actually installing a successor in her place.
As a result, House Democrats have been left rudderless and in a state of suspended animation until they can, presumably, agree on a candidate that wins support of all warring factions.
(One of the great ironies of yesterday was that the perpetually tone-deaf Democratic Party of Virginia spent it sending out press releases suggesting how awful and dysfunctional Virginia’s Republican leadership is. So out of touch with the day’s events it was almost painful. The Democratic and Republican state parties really need to both razed to the ground and rebuilt from scratch, so inept are they.)
Anyhoo, Democrats will get it sorted out. And with every day passing, it seems unlikelier and unlikelier that a federal judge is going to order new House of Delegates elections this fall, so the party will have a chance to get its act together in time for the 2023 campaign.
– Scott McCaffrey