Arlington County Board candidates on schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please volunteer with JV's campaign! He needs people to door knock, host coffees in their homes, volunteer to hand out stickers at the Arl Co fair, etc. There are lots of ways to get involved! If Matt replaces John on the CB, schools will be totally screwed. Matt is a Katie wanna-be, but not as smart.

Katie wants Don Beyer's seat. She knows she just has to wait it out in the County Board for another 8-10 years and Beyer will retire. He is already almost 70. Katie doesn't give a crap about APS because that doesn't translate into a national message. But she can run on daycare, AH, and economic development when she campaigns for Congress. She picks her issues with the longer term in mind. Hope someone runs against her next year, because unless you want her representing you in DC in a few years, we need someone to stop her political career now.

With the one JV exception, it is IMPOSSIBLE to unseat a Dem CB member -- she is ENTRENCHED in ACDC and nobody within the party will challenge her. Unless she makes an egregious mistake or scandal, someone outside the party stands no chance. Until people in Arlington wake up and start voting, we will continue to be stuck with Cristols and Fisettes and Hyneses and Tejadas. You'd have better luck changing the County government structure to ward representation.

[Anonymous]

Under Virginia law, party designation can't be included on the official ballot for candidates for local election. That's why that ACDC sample ballot is so powerful-- millennials who don't pay any attention use it to vote for local election. So as someone said above, the Kaine re-election is going to be a big deal for Vihstadt, because it will drive out a lot of millennial voters who don't follow local politics at all and will just vote whatever the ACDC sample ballot says. Vihstadt needs all the non-millennials who follow these issues to vote for him-- and spread the word-- to counteract the thousands of 20-somethings living along the orange line who have no clue/interest in things like the aquatics center and schools. Vihstadt's re-election is not a sure thing, but without him on the County Board, nobody is even going to push the school problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please volunteer with JV's campaign! He needs people to door knock, host coffees in their homes, volunteer to hand out stickers at the Arl Co fair, etc. There are lots of ways to get involved! If Matt replaces John on the CB, schools will be totally screwed. Matt is a Katie wanna-be, but not as smart.

Katie wants Don Beyer's seat. She knows she just has to wait it out in the County Board for another 8-10 years and Beyer will retire. He is already almost 70. Katie doesn't give a crap about APS because that doesn't translate into a national message. But she can run on daycare, AH, and economic development when she campaigns for Congress. She picks her issues with the longer term in mind. Hope someone runs against her next year, because unless you want her representing you in DC in a few years, we need someone to stop her political career now.

Agreed. She reminds me of Tracy Flick from the movie “Election.”

Well, her mom was a teacher, and she used to work in "educational consulting" (which I assume is a business set up to milk school districts with boilerplate ideas?) -- she really should be paying more attention to schools, it would would play to her strengths

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/the-confident-generation-millennial-women-are-changing-what-work-looks-like/2012/11/21/3b9f74d2-237c-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.553ce388c839

The whole daycare thing is nonsenical -- the Children's School has existed for years at the Reed site, and only moved b/c reed is becoming an elementary. Also, its not open to the wider community but instead APS employees (which is fine and a good retention package for hiring teachers), but how is it news at all?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I still don't understand why millenial Marylander Cristol is on the board.

Is there a residency requirement that candidates must meet before they run for County Board? If not, there should be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please volunteer with JV's campaign! He needs people to door knock, host coffees in their homes, volunteer to hand out stickers at the Arl Co fair, etc. There are lots of ways to get involved! If Matt replaces John on the CB, schools will be totally screwed. Matt is a Katie wanna-be, but not as smart.

Katie wants Don Beyer's seat. She knows she just has to wait it out in the County Board for another 8-10 years and Beyer will retire. He is already almost 70. Katie doesn't give a crap about APS because that doesn't translate into a national message. But she can run on daycare, AH, and economic development when she campaigns for Congress. She picks her issues with the longer term in mind. Hope someone runs against her next year, because unless you want her representing you in DC in a few years, we need someone to stop her political career now.

Agreed. She reminds me of Tracy Flick from the movie “Election.”

^This. Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please volunteer with JV's campaign! He needs people to door knock, host coffees in their homes, volunteer to hand out stickers at the Arl Co fair, etc. There are lots of ways to get involved! If Matt replaces John on the CB, schools will be totally screwed. Matt is a Katie wanna-be, but not as smart.

Katie wants Don Beyer's seat. She knows she just has to wait it out in the County Board for another 8-10 years and Beyer will retire. He is already almost 70. Katie doesn't give a crap about APS because that doesn't translate into a national message. But she can run on daycare, AH, and economic development when she campaigns for Congress. She picks her issues with the longer term in mind. Hope someone runs against her next year, because unless you want her representing you in DC in a few years, we need someone to stop her political career now.

APS is a mess and no one associated with it deserves to be elected to any higher office.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please volunteer with JV's campaign! He needs people to door knock, host coffees in their homes, volunteer to hand out stickers at the Arl Co fair, etc. There are lots of ways to get involved! If Matt replaces John on the CB, schools will be totally screwed. Matt is a Katie wanna-be, but not as smart.

Katie wants Don Beyer's seat. She knows she just has to wait it out in the County Board for another 8-10 years and Beyer will retire. He is already almost 70. Katie doesn't give a crap about APS because that doesn't translate into a national message. But she can run on daycare, AH, and economic development when she campaigns for Congress. She picks her issues with the longer term in mind. Hope someone runs against her next year, because unless you want her representing you in DC in a few years, we need someone to stop her political career now.

APS is a mess and no one associated with it deserves to be elected to any higher office.

The Board needs to be overhauled completely. Wish better candidates would run.

[Anonymous]

JV is clearly our best CB member. It would be terrible to lose him. De Ferranti seems OK and I would prefer him over most of the others, so I hope he runs again next time and takes out someone else. Libby Garvey can't be gone soon enough but I think we have a few more years.

[Anonymous]

I'll be voting straight Democratic, except I've decided to vote for John V. again. I met Matt at a meet & greet and he gave me no reason to vote for him over Vihstadt. John has done a good job and I like having an occasionally contrarian voice on the board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'll be voting straight Democratic, except I've decided to vote for John V. again. I met Matt at a meet & greet and he gave me no reason to vote for him over Vihstadt. John has done a good job and I like having an occasionally contrarian voice on the board.

I'm voting for JV like I've done before. I live in Nauck and he came door to door here last spring, just to talk. Ferranti hasn't, as near as I can tell, and I'm a homebody. At any rate, I vote Dem on a state and national level but the label is not very meaningful to me at the local. Locally, it's a sort of bundled, interlocking set of orthodoxies surrounding affordable housing, urbanization, and vanity projects that as a SA homeowner I'm not entirely enthused about. Not opposed, just reserved. The local dems doesn't really seem to care or need to care what I might think. Which explains why Ferranti has been a no show. He knows what people like me want to talk about and so he doesn't bother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:JV is clearly our best CB member

Define "clearly" please.

If he does for APS what he's done for Columbia Pike transit, well, we won't have to worry about overcrowding much longer, as nobody will want to send their kids there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I still don't understand why millenial Marylander Cristol is on the board.

Is there a residency requirement that candidates must meet before they run for County Board? If not, there should be.

I realize that the Concerned Arlingtonians for Making It 1955 Again would probably prefer a 50-year county residency requirement, but isn't a simpler idea just to, y'know, not elect someone if she's so egregious? Surely there must be an endless list of REAL ARLINGTONIANS- white,male, conservative, over 60- just itching to snow the uppity young do-gooder a thing or two?

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, the Arl. County Dems are so far to the left that they become a caricature. Build more, spend more, change, change, change! (Oh, forget about schools, though, that's the SB's problem) It's unlikely that I'll ever vote R on the national ticket, but the D's around here don't have a lot of sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:JV is clearly our best CB member

Define "clearly" please.

If he does for APS what he's done for Columbia Pike transit, well, we won't have to worry about overcrowding much longer, as nobody will want to send their kids there.

It was Jay Fissette who pulled the plug, not JV. JVs election was a referendum on the streetcar and Fisette had the good sense to realize it. The pikes problem now is that in the absence of the streetcar, the only thing getting built are large affordable housing complexes. Though the food star site will be a grocery and a hotel, so there ar exceptions, it's going to be tough to convince developers who aren't allowed to build townhouses on the pike to build condos non-AH along a corridor just stuffed with it. Our planning sucks for business too. High rent, Street level retail in the age of Amazon and all the nearby tenants have zero disposable income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:JV is clearly our best CB member

Define "clearly" please.

If he does for APS what he's done for Columbia Pike transit, well, we won't have to worry about overcrowding much longer, as nobody will want to send their kids there.

I vehemently disagreed with JV regarding the streetcar and still do. I'm voting for him. You can blame him all you want for the demise of the streetcar; but it was the Democratic triumvirate of Fisette, Hynes, and Tejada who ultimately gave up. Actually Fisette and Hynes. Tejada was the only one to support it until the end (the only thing positive I'll say about that man). They still had a majority and could still push it through. But Arlington has to be a consensus state and they lacked any leadership or backbone.

JV is the only one who has pushed for geographical distribution of affordable housing. He's the only one who shows up at our neighborhood picnics and the County Fair and the farmers markets and actually asks what people's opinions are, and actually implements those perspectives in his arguments and efforts. The others all dismiss your concerns if you disagree and merely nod there heads in sympathy "yes, I understand. It's a difficult issue" and go on their merry Arlington democratic way. Matt will be no different. He's a very nice guy; but he offers no real reason to oust the incumbent. In fact, for those concerned or impacted by the economic segregation and the impacts in our neighborhoods and schools, Matt will be harmful. the streetcar got killed because the Pike's concentration of poverty does not warrant the County's investment. THAT's what needs to change. THAT's the message voting for JV will send. The last thing we need is to go backward.