Is a county-government task force the way to advance the ball down the field on proposed changes to the governance structure that has been in place in Arlington for nearly a century?
That’s a request being made by the Arlington County Civic Federation. Whether county officials take the group up on its proposal remains to be seen.
The Civic Federation has led the charge in promoting governance changes, but has at times found itself at loggerheads with county-government leaders. In a recent letter to County Board Chairman Libby Garvey, however, the group suggested a middle ground: having the county government create a governance task force that would develop proposals for going forward.
Such a panel would “align with the Civic Federation’s interests,” said Dave Schutz, who heads the body’s subcommittee on governance issues.
As of yet, there is no firm answer one way or another – perhaps not surprising, given that the proposal was just made.
“The [County] Board has not yet had the chance to discuss the idea of forming a task force,” David Barrera, communications and policy manager for the governing body, told the GazetteLeader.
Boosters of changing the governance structure in place in Arlington since the early 1930s think it would be a logical outgrowth of Garvey’s emphasis this year on looking toward the year 2050.
Also in its Sept. 16 missive to Garvey, Civic Federation officials said they were canceling a planned Oct. 15 forum on governance issues, which was being facilitated (but not cosponsored) by the county government.
The reason for pulling out was not pique but logistics: A similar governance program is being slated for Oct. 9, sponsored by Advance Arlington and other groups.
“We think it is a lot to ask of our potential audience to go to such similar meetings [over the course of] two weeks,” Schutz wrote to Garvey.
(The Civic Federation forum initially had been scheduled for August, but was pushed back to October in an effort to get a larger crowd.)
For several years, a Civic Federation task force worked – largely in a vacuum – on a package of proposed county-governance changes. The package was ratified by the Civic Federation’s membership more than a year ago, albeit not without a level of opposition that took proponents by surprise.
The package calls on expanding the County Board and School Board from five to at least seven members, having board chairs serve more than the current one-year rotations, and changing the current every-year nature of local-government elections. Those who brought the package to life shied away from a number of options, including moving from at-large to district-based elections, having an elected-by-the-public chairman and seeking city status.
Del. Patrick Hope (D-Arlington) introduced General Assembly legislation earlier this year to empower Arlington officials to implement some of the proposed changes. But some county leaders, notably Garvey and at least one of her colleagues, were hostile to his efforts, saying the broader community had not vetted it. And the Civic Federation, while generally supportive of Hope’s legislation, also voiced the desire that any changes be held via a public vote, not action by elected officials.
From Reconstruction in the 1870s until the early 1930s, a three-member, district-based Board of Supervisors held legislative, executive and quasi-judicial autonomy in the community. Following authorization from the General Assembly, voters approved a switch to a five-member, at-large County Board and appointed county manager, a structure that has been in place since.
