[Update, 2/2/24:]
The House of Delegates Committee on Counties, Cities and Towns on Feb. 2 deferred consideration on HB 1225, Del. Patrick Hope's bill on changes to Arlington's governance structure, to the 2025 legislative session.
Action was taken on a voice vote.
[Original article, 1/18/24:]
Arlington County Board members have requested a one-year delay in consideration of a bill introduced in the General Assembly that would enable changes to the county’s 90-year-old form of governance.
County Board Chairman Libby Garvey (D) and Vice Chairman Takis Karantonis (D) recently traveled to Richmond to discuss the bill with its patron, Del. Patrick Hope (D-Arlington), and request that it be held over until 2025.
In the meantime, county-government officials plan to embark on “Arlington 2050,” another in a succession of visioning processes that will involve extensive community involvement. Those discussions are likely to include consideration of possible changes to the governance structure that has been in place in the county since 1932.
The alterations proposed in Hope’s bill (HB 1225):
#1: It would allow, via voter referendum (initiated either by the public or the County Board), the county to begin electing a permanent board chair, rather than have the position rotate annually among members.
#2: It would allow the County Board to change the size of the body, currently five, to between three and 11. Governance-change advocates are hoping for an expansion to at least seven seats.
#3: It would allow the County Board to move from at-large representation to a district-based system.
The first two proposals came out of the Arlington County Civic Federation’s multi-year study of governance issues; the third was considered but not included in the Civic Federation’s final proposal, which passed (over not-insubstantial opposition) last spring.
While most elected and civic leaders headed for the hills and opted not to discuss the matter publicly, Garvey told the GazetteLeader that Hope’s legislation was premature and might lead to tinkering with the county’s governance structure by those in Richmond who might not have residents’ best interests at heart.
As part of its 2024 legislative-priorities package, County Board members in December effectively threw down the gauntlet on the governance matter, including a provision that there should be no changes to the county’s governance structure without County Board support. When Hope continued to move forward, sources told the GazetteLeader, top county officials first asked nicely that he desist, then became a little more aggressive in their approach. But the bill was introduced nonetheless.
To hold the bill over until 2025 could involve a vote in the subcommittee that considers it during the General Assembly’s 60-day session. Alternately, Hope could request the existing bill be pulled from consideration and another version be introduced in the 2025 session.
In either a 2024 or 2025 scenario, the cast of characters in Richmond would be the same: Democrats will hold control of both houses of the legislature, and Republican Glenn Youngkin will be governor. All would need to sign off on a measure for it to become law.
Arlington since 1932 has been governed by a five-member member County Board elected in at-large seats and overseeing a professional county manager. From the 1870s until the adoption of that format, the county was governed by a three-member Board of Supervisors representing individual districts running roughly in the northern, central and southern parts of the county and operating effectively as a legislative, executive and in some cases quasi-judicial entity.
