Reply to Would looming N. Arlington school boundary changes prevent you from moving there?

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Reply to "Would looming N. Arlington school boundary changes prevent you from moving there?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I would repurpose some parkland to build a new school.  A couple large, dumpy sites come to mind. Greater good and all.[/quote]

Office vacancy rate is 25% -- you can eminent domain some 60s office buildings and turn them into schools in no time.  Or that old strip mall on Wilson Blvd which is losing businesses. Tear down a couple office buildings and you get at least the Wilson site. [/quote]

Yeah.  Getting the moms to accept vertical schools here will be tough, though.  Too urban-ish for their tastes.[/quote]

Put one in an office building in Clarendon, and rezone all of Clarendon, Lyon Village, Lyon Park, and the Rosslyn/Court House area there. These are the moms who won't shut up about how great their walkable neighborhood is, so let their children partake of urban living as well.[/quote]

You could do all of those things, but it will cost a lot of money. That is the crux of the issue, not the lack of space in the County. APS is forced to figure out how to make do with what land they already own, because they don't have their own taxing authority and have to live off the money the County Board designates to APS in the budget. Right now, almost half of County revenue goes to APS-- to do what you said, it means that an even larger portion would need to go to APS and/or we need to raise County taxes. The older/childless people in Arlington are not going to go for that-- attend any of the various County Board candidate debates going on right now if you don't believe me. The hard truth is that there is no easy answer here and all the alternatives suck to some degree. The best outcome (IMO) is to get the County to turn over that Carlin Springs parcel to APS. But even that is facing huge obstacles due to complaints from older residents about traffic on Carlin Springs Road.

Make the time to show up for the County and School Board caucus next week. Peter Fallon is the only candidate running for County Board who has expressed his full commitment to making sure APS gets the land and the money that it needs to deal with capacity. In the School Board race, we need to get Lander out-- he's been there for 8 years already and look at the mess we are in. Either McMahon or O'Grady would be an improvement-- write them in as #1 and #2. It is a run-off, so if none of the candidates get 50% of the vote, they drop the last place candidate and reallocate those votes to whoever got the #2 slot on those ballots. Make sure you show up though, or the baby boomers are going to continue to drive our County decisions and we'll have low taxes and great community centers, but our schools will continue to deteriorate.[/quote]

Can you repost these directions in concise form (I would try but afraid I would mis-transcribe on phone). Also what are exact dates of caucus??? We need to make this was for parents to act (I am doing this while holding a baby on my phone while rocking -- all of us have situational ADD ;) )[/quote]

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