Back in the day when there were more face-to-face interactions between elected officials and we the local press corps[e] that covered them, there’d be times when a politician, probably thinking I had just tumbled off the turnip truck like some of the others in the local deeee-emmmmm-veeeeeeeeeeeee media, presumed I would fall for a little white lie about this or that.
“Come on, now,” I’d reply in exasperation. “You’re talking to me.”
That sprang to mind over the weekend as Arlington County Board members attempted, with more or less straight faces, to convey the message at their Saturday meeting that all opinions mattered and all points of view would be taken into consideration when it came to possibly amending local zoning laws and eliminating single-family zoning in the county.
People, people, people, c’mon now. The fix is in, and barring some truly astounding change of heart by those in power, it’s going to happen no matter how many people in the county object and how valid their objections may be. That is, after all, the Arlington Way.
(We called it back in 2019, writing in an editorial that the newly empowered wokesterism wouldn’t be stopping until it took aim at single-family areas of the county. And here we are.)
Circling back to the photo that accompanies this article, the County Board members on Saturday essentially gave the back of their hand to the Arlington County Civic Federation’s proposal to allow for more public-comment time before the big wheels keep on turnin’ and this proposal moves from concept to enactment. None of the board members seem to have any interest in slowing down this choo-choo.
So just as the New York Daily News gave us “Ford to City: Drop Dead” after President Ford refused to help the city float a bond referendum to stay solvent, the headline for this week should perhaps be “County Board to Civic Federation: Drop Dead.”
Ah well, such is the way of the world. Progress at all costs.
– Scott McCaffrey