Mark Kelly – The change we need in Arlington
on October 19th, 2010 at 10:40 PM
BIG NEWS: THE SUN GAZETTE HAS ENDORSED MARK KELLY FOR COUNTY BOARD!
It’s not hard to understand why their endorsing him. There’s been a great deal of frustration among Arlington County residents lately. Here’s some clips from the endorsement article:
“He would bring a fresh perspective to board discussions, and more importantly, would publicly raise issues and concerns that today never get much of an airing.”
“He is emblematic of a County Board that has seemingly lost touch with, at the very least, the community members represent, and, arguably, with a certain sense of reality.”
The Sun Gazette is right. The Board has lost a sense of reality.
Arlington County has a spending problem. A past article in the Sun Gazette showed that Arlington has a debt of $1.12 billion, or about $5,345 for every county resident.
In addition, there have been higher fees and taxes. The real-estate tax rate was increased by 8.3 cents to a total of 95.8 cents per $100 of a home’s assessed value.
While the County Board has no problem approving bond measures that total more than $161 million, they debated the placement of about 12 sidewalk tables for two businesses in Clarendon. The debate included a stunning 3-2 vote on whether to give one of the businesses 25 feet of space to place their tables or only 15 feet of space.
The cost of living in Arlington has gotten so out of hand, it has even caused DEMOCRATS to say something. That’s right. Not sure if anyone caught this, but in early July, former Delegate candidate Miles Grant announced that he will be moving to Falls Church, citing expensive cost of living.
To see the Sun Gazette’s full endorsement, click here.
Also – other BIG NEWS: As of Sept. 30, Kelly had a campaign balance of $28,480 to Zimmerman’s $18,155. For the full report, click here.
Mark Kelly’s opponent, Chris Zimmerman, has a terrible record of mismanaging Metro, which has harmed Arlington residents, as well as the environment.
Federal investigators rebuked the Washington Metro for a “systemic breakdown of safety management at all levels” that led to the deadly Red Line crash last summer, and other fatal accidents on the subway system.
Members of the subway system’s governing board, like Arlington County politician Chris Zimmerman, have turned a blind eye to incompetence, waste, wrongdoing, and safety hazards, even while jacking up subway fares by massive amounts.
See the web site URL listed above.
Thanks to lousy supervision and management, some Metro employees are incompetent, and some simply disregard threats to public safety, as a letter writer recently chronicled in the Washington Post. (“I saw it. I said it. Metro didn’t care,” October 20, 2010 Washington Post “All Opinions Are Local” Blog) (also contained in print version of Washington Post letters to the editor section the next day).
As Radley Balko of Reason Magazine noted,
“Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Area Transit Authority fired Metro bus driver Carla A. Proctor this week after Proctor struck a jogger earlier this month. The jogger was just released from intensive care at a local hospital.
It’s good to know nearly killing someone was—finally—enough to get Proctor out from behind the wheel of a public bus. Her record to that point:
• Proctor had five off-the-job traffic tickets in January alone, including driving an unregistered, unlicensed vehicle.
• In 2003, Proctor got off a bus she had been driving to check a sticky door without first assuring the bus was parked. The bus rolled down a hill without her, damaging eight vehicles, including the bus. Metro paid out $27,000 in damages.
• Also in 2003, Proctor turned into oncoming traffic, at which point her car was struck by another vehicle. Proctor’s car went flying into a fast food restaurant, injuring two women.
• In 2004, Proctor crashed another Metro bus, this time into a parked vehicle, injuring a 72-year-old pasenger.
Given the impressive record of the Metro workers union in helping scofflaws avoid discipline, it wouldn’t be all that surprising to see Proctor back on the job.”
As others have noted, by making Metro more unreliable and costly, Zimmerman has driven people back into their cars, resulting in more air pollution and traffic congestion.
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