The Right Note is a biweekly opinion column. The views expressed are solely the author’s.
The County Board is scheduled to vote on the budget and tax rates later today. Sadly, the budget documents have not been posted to the county website as of the writing of this column. At best, the public will have just a handful of hours to review the final FY 2022 budget before it is adopted.
If you do not believe mistakes can happen when a budget is adopted, an accidental pay raise for County Board members was published in the adopted materials last year. County staff rushed out to say it was not supposed to be there and that the pay raise was not funded by the budget itself.
April 20, 2021 at 3:55pm
(Updated at 6:50 p.m.) It seems the Harris Teeter in the Pentagon Row shopping center, now rebranded as WestPost, will not be vacating its spot anytime soon.
And if it did, Arlington County will continue to hold the shopping center’s owner to a 1998 agreement that requires the space be filled by a full-service grocery and drug store. The County Board affirmed the status quo in a vote on Saturday.
Although Harris Teeter has at least 10 years on its lease, the Sun Gazette reports, residents in the 22202 zip code were worried about even the possibility that their neighborhood grocery store would one day be replaced with a smaller-scale grocer such as Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. (Pentagon City already has one Whole Foods, near Amazon’s future HQ2.)
County Board Mulls Changes to Affordable Housing Grants Ahead of Budget Vote arlnow.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from arlnow.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
April 12, 2021 at 3:55pm
Arlington County’s projected revenue appears sunnier than when County Manager Mark Schwartz first presented his proposed budget for the 2022 fiscal year in February.
The county can attribute this warmer outlook to two sources: the nearly $2 trillion American Rescue Plan and strong business license tax receipts, Budget Director Richard Stephenson said during a public hearing on the tax rate last Thursday. While he did not specify the revenue from the business taxes, Stephenson said President Joe Biden’s relief bill will apportion $46 million to the county.
Combined, the influx of cash could mean funding will be restored to libraries, community centers, Arlington Independent Media and the Virginia Cooperative Extension, for example.
Arlington Firefighters Union Calls For Pay Increase patch.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from patch.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.