Three of four contenders for the open Arlington County Board seat believe the growth rate of property owners’ tax burdens is too high. The fourth – and the race’s almost guaranteed winner – appears to disagree.
The impact of the double-whammy of higher home assessments and a higher tax rate in 2024 didn’t seem to faze Democratic nominee J.D. Spain Sr. during the Arlington County Civic Federation’s Sept. 3 candidate forum.
“I don’t think [the tax increase] was too much,” he said in response to a question during what served as the beginning of a two-month sprint to Election Day.
Give Spain points for candor. But the three other candidates begged to differ.
“Taxes have increased too quickly,” said Madison Granger, representing the nascent Forward Party, who pressed for “smaller government focused on core services.”
Independent Audrey Clement termed the county government’s annual fiscal process a “budget charade,” complaining of “gimme groups” demanding “ever more money” from taxpayers. She zeroed in on the “so-called ‘affordable-housing’ lobby” for demanding more tax funding.
Republican Juan Carlos Fierro threw one of the night’s few sharp elbows in Spain’s direction.
“It’s very easy not to be bothered by increases in taxes when you don’t pay taxes,” Fierro sniffed, circling back to an earlier-in-the-evening dustup when Clement noted that Spain takes a disabled-veteran exemption of nearly $10,000 in real-estate property taxes.
A typical Arlington homeowner has seen his or her property-tax bill balloon about 7.5 percent this year, with rising assessments coupled with an effective 2-cent increase in the real-estate tax adopted April 20 by County Board members. And that might end up being the norm going forward, as declines in commercial-real-estate values coupled with growing local-government spending (now topping $1.65 billion a year) shift the burden more and more onto homeowners.
While the tax burden on local residents keeps rising, it seems not to be inspiring a revolt among the Arlington electorate. Few turn out at budget hearings to advocate for cuts, and the growth in the tax burden appears to have not altered the political dynamics of the county in a significant way.
The budget discussion was one of several topics covered by County Board candidates in a half-hour Civic Federation forum that charitably could be described as a passion-free zone, with all but Spain frequently reading prepared responses to questions that seemed to have been provided in advance.
If Spain’s opponents aimed to draw blood or force a misstep, their efforts landed short – perhaps owing to a format that gave no opportunity for robust back-and-forth among the four.
The event was limited to 30 minutes so the Civic Federation also could squeeze in forums for School Board and 8th District U.S. House of Representatives the same evening. As a result, there was no time for unscripted questions from the audience, which often provide the fireworks in a typical local debate.
Spain, who survived a Democratic primary in June with bruises but not too many lingering wounds, is all but guaranteed to rack up more than 50 percent of the vote on Nov. 5, eliminating the need for Arlington to go to the ranked-choice format that it has instituted for County Board races. Were no candidate to reach a majority of first-ballot votes, the lowest performing candidate would be eliminated and his/her votes reallocated as directed by voters. The process would repeat until a winner emerged.
Of the four candidates, only Granger has not sought public office before. Fierro was the GOP County Board nominee last year; Spain unsuccessfully sought Democratic nominations for County Board and General Assembly in the past; and Clement has been running nonstop for a dozen years, mostly for County Board but occasionally for School Board.
Given Democratic strength in Arlington, the party’s nominees largely need to stay low, make no major unforced errors and alienate as few people as possible to secure a general-election victory. The last time a non-Democrat won a County Board race was in 2014, when Republican-leaning independent John Vihstadt bested Democrats in both a special election and then in the general election.
The winner of the Nov. 5 race will, on Jan. 1, succeed Libby Garvey, who has served for 12 years on the County Board (and approximately as many before that on the School Board) but did not seek re-election.
