Arlington Greens will meet on Wednesday, June 5, 7 pm, at the Ballston Firehouse Community Room which is located at George Mason Drive and Wilson Boulevard, about one mile from the Ballston Metro.

General topics:

Low income housing rental housing grants: requiring Arlington landlords to accept rental housing grants and or HUD vouchers.

Historic preservation of Westover apartments

Arlington Community Energy Plan update

Proposal to support ending prosecution of marijuana possession in Arlington

Report on opposing the Virginia pipeline

Update on fall elections in Arlington

All are welcome to attend, but voting is limited to members. Any Arlington resident may join the Green Party at the meeting.

The Westover Preservation Legal Fund invites you to join us on Wednesday, April 24, from 6-8 pm at the Westover Beer Garden to celebrate efforts to continue to preserve garden apartments in Westover Village and to raise legal funds to continue our efforts started three years ago. The beer garden is in the Westover Shopping Center 5863 Washington Boulevard, Arlington, VA 22205

For the past three years we have been advocating the preservation of all existing garden apartments in the Westover area through historic preservation. The Arlington County Government has refused to proceed and enact local protection of these units. Over 11 buildings with 90 apartments have been demolished along with 100-year old trees and lawns, replaced by townhouses costing well over $800,000 and unaffordable to the people living in the apartments, our friends and neighbors. We want to file a legal action against Arlington County Government for its failure to preserve the units.

We are asking for your financial assistance to the Westover Preservation Legal Fund for a lawsuit against Arlington County to force it to complete the historic preservation review of Westover Village garden apartments. We want a judge to order Arlington County to finally decide if the 80-year old Westover Village garden apartments should be protected with a local historic designation or demolished, but we need money to hire an attorney.

In 2016, many Westover neighbors and tenants were concerned with the demolition of the 80-year old garden apartment buildings in Westover Village with affordable rental units, surrounded by 100-year old trees and wide lawns. So we filed a petition under the state historic law and county ordinance with Arlington County asking for local historic designation of Westover Village that provides legal protection from further demolitions. In 2006, the whole Westover Village had already been placed on the National Register of Historic Places, but never protected from demolition with a separate local Arlington designation.

If you cannot attend our fun raiser on April 24, please write a check to the Westover Preservation Legal Fund and mail it to: Westover Preservation Legal Fund, P.O. Box 5172, Arlington, VA 22205

Any funds raised will be used to pay attorney and associated fees to file a case asking that Arlington County be required to immediately finish its historic review of Westover Village apartments. The Fund is a Virginia business trust aimed at historic preservation of Westover Village in Arlington. Your contribution is NOT tax deductible.

For the Westover Legal Preservation Fund:

Kirit Mookerjee Justin Schoville Steve Davis

John Reeder Tom Dickinson

Organic Broadcaster https://mosesorganic.org/publications/broadcaster-newspaper/organic4all-study/

Study shows pesticide levels drop dramatically after 1 week of eating organic
By Kendra Klein, Ph.D., Friends of the Earth

Can eating organic really reduce levels of pesticides in our bodies? A new peer-reviewed study published in the journal Environmental Research found that switching to an organic diet significantly reduced the levels of synthetic pesticides found in all participants in just one week. On average, the pesticides detected dropped by 60.5% after six days of eating an all-organic diet.

The study was led by researchers from the University of California-Berkeley and Friends of the Earth. We found families that didn’t typically eat organic food in four cities across the country —Minneapolis, Baltimore, Atlanta, and Oakland. (MOSES was the partner organization for the Minneapolis study. The Birchwood Cafe, a local, organic restaurant, prepared organic meals for the family for the family’s week on an organic diet.)

The study lasted 12 days. During the first six days, each family ate only conventional foods and beverages. During the second six days, each family ate only organic food, all the way down to oils and spices. To ensure that they were able to eat a completely organic diet, each family wrote up a grocery list and research assistants shopped for them; dinners during the organic week were prepared by licensed chefs. All of the organic food was provided free of charge to the families.

Each participant provided a urine sample every morning. These were shipped to labs at the University of California at San Francisco and the Québec National Institute of Public Health. These labs looked for 18 different pesticides and the chemicals that pesticides break down to in our bodies, called metabolites.

Our study was designed to assess whether an organic diet could reduce exposure to pesticides, not to provide insight on the health risks associated with the pesticides in our diets. But we chose the pesticides we tested for because they’re among the most commonly used in U.S. agriculture and because they have been associated with harm to human health.

The most significant declines in our study involved organophosphates, a class of highly neurotoxic pesticides linked to brain damage in children. We found a 95% drop in levels of malathion, a probable human carcinogen, a nearly two-thirds reduction in chlorpyrifos, and a 70% drop in DAPs metabolites that represent exposure to organophosphates as a class. Organophosphates are so toxic to children’s developing brains that scientists have called for a full phase out.1 Organophosphate exposure is associated with endocrine disruption, autism, learning disabilities, reduced IQ, attention disorders, delayed motor development, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, decreased sperm quality, and cancers.2,3,4,5,6

The neonicotinoid pesticide clothianidin dropped by 83%. Neonicotinoids are among the most commonly detected pesticide residues in baby foods.7 They are associated with endocrine disruption and changes in behavior and attention, including an association with autism spectrum disorder.8,9,10 Neonicotinoids are also a main driver of massive pollinator and insect losses, leading scientists to warn of a second “silent spring.”11,12
Levels of pyrethroids were halved. Exposure to this class of pesticides is associated with endocrine disruption, adverse neurodevelopmental, immunological and reproductive effects, increased risk of Parkinson’s and sperm DNA damage.13,14,15,16

Finally, 2,4-D dropped by 37 percent. 2,4-D is one of two ingredients in the Vietnam War defoliant Agent Orange. It is among the top five most commonly used pesticides in the U.S.17 and is associated with endocrine disruption, thyroid disorders, increased risk of Parkinson’s and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, developmental and reproductive toxicity and damage to the liver, immune system and semen quality.18,19

Small Exposures Matter
Although we used to believe that “the dose makes the poison,” in recent decades, science has shown that even extremely small exposures to pesticides matter. Consider the fact that chemicals prescribed by doctors to alter behavior, like the drug Ritalin, are active at levels that are the same or lower than some pesticides detected in children’s bodies. We now know that small amounts of pesticides can act like drugs and alter our brain development, hormones, immune systems, and more. Chemicals that affect our hormone systems, called endocrine-disrupting chemicals, can be especially problematic at very low doses.

We’re also increasingly understanding that even if the level of each pesticide is below legal limits, mixtures of pesticides can have an additive “punch” in total toxicity. Various studies have sought to assess this cumulative exposure, including one that looked specifically at organophosphates and found that if you consider the totality of U.S. children’s exposure from diet, approximately 40 percent may be exposed to levels that exceed benchmarks for neurological harm like ADHD and learning disabilities.20

Other recent studies show that reducing pesticide exposure by choosing an organic food can improve health, suggesting that the pesticide residues on our food matter. One study found a 25% reduction in cancer risk for participants who ate the most organic food.21 Another study found fertility benefits for women who ate organic food.22

Organic For All
Organic works. But the U.S. government’s food policy favors pesticide-intensive agriculture while failing to provide adequate incentives to farmers to transition to organic practices. As a result, pesticide-intensive agriculture is subsidized to the tune of billions of dollars while organic programs and research are woefully underfunded. This misdirection of public dollars makes pesticide-laden food the norm and is a significant reason why many people across the country still don’t have access to, or can’t afford, organic food.

Friends of the Earth, along with over 40 organizations across the country, believe that we all have the right to food that is free of toxic pesticides. The farmers and farmworkers who grow our nation’s food, and their communities, have a right to not be exposed to chemicals linked to serious health problems. And the way we farm should protect rather than harm the biodiversity, soil and water that sustain all life.

We can work together to pass laws in our cities, states and nationally that decrease pesticide use and expand organic farming. We can change the national Farm Bill and can advocate for policies that support fair pricing and fair contracts for family-scale farmers in order to support the increase in organic farming that we need to provide organic food for all. We can tell food companies and grocery stores to end the use of toxic pesticides in their supply chains and expand organic offerings. And we can support farmers markets, CSAs, and independent retailers and food companies that source from local, organic growers.

Together, we can demand that our leaders step up and shift support, research, and policies to create a system where organic is for all. The solution is here— we just have to grow it. For more information and ways to take action, go to www.OrganicForAll.org.

Kendra Klein is senior staff scientist for Friends of the Earth.

1 Hertz-Picciotto, I., Sass, J.B., Engel, S., Bennett, D.H., Bradman, A., Eskenazi, B., Lanphear, B. and Whyatt, R., (2018). Organophosphate exposures during pregnancy and child neurodevelopment: Recommendations for essential policy reforms. PLoS medicine. 15(10), p.e1002671.
2 Ibid.
3 UC Berkeley. Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children in Salinas. Online.cerch.berkeley.edu/research-programs/chamacos-study
4 Le Couteur, D.G., McLean, A.J., Taylor, M.C., Woodham, B.L. and Board, P.G., (1999). Pesticides and Parkinson’s disease. Biomedicine & pharmacotherapy, 53(3), pp.122-130.
5 World Health Organization. International Agency for Research on Cancer. Monograph 112: Evaluation of five organophosphate insecticides and herbicides. Online. www-prod.iarc.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/MonographVolume112-1.pdf
6 Recio‐Vega, R., Ocampo‐Gómez, G., Borja‐Aburto, V.H., Moran‐Martínez, J. and Cebrian‐Garcia, M.E., 2008. Organophosphorus pesticide exposure decreases sperm quality: association between sperm parameters and urinary pesticide levels. Journal of Applied Toxicology, 28(5), pp.674-680.
7 Cimino, A.M., et al. (2017). Effects of Neonicotinoid Pesticide Exposure on Human Health: A Systematic Review. Environ Health Perspectives. 125(2): p. 155-162.
8 Hoshi, N. et al. (2014). Insight into the mechanism of reproductive dysfunction caused by neonicotinoid pesticides. Biological and Pharmaceutical Bulletin, 37(9), pp.1439-1443.
9 Science Daily. 2018. Neonicotinoids may alter estrogen production in humans. April 26. Online. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180426125939.htm
10 Cimino, A.M., et al. 2017. Effects of Neonicotinoid Pesticide Exposure on Human Health: A Systematic Review. Environ Health Perspectives. 125(2): p. 155-162.
11 Bittel, J. (2014, July 9). Second Silent Spring? Bird Declines Linked to Popular Pesticides. National Geographic. Retrieved from news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140709-birds-insects-pesticides-insecticides-neonicotinoids-silent-spring/
12 New York Times Editorial Board. (2017, October 29). Insect Armageddon. New York Times. Retrieved from www.nytimes.com/2017/10/29/opinion/insect-armageddon-ecosystem-.html
13 Go, V., Garey, J., Wolff, M.S. and Pogo, B.G., 1999. Estrogenic potential of certain
pyrethroid compounds in the MCF-7 human breast carcinoma cell line. Environmental health perspectives, 107(3), p.173.
14 Quiros-Alcala, L., S. Mehta, and B. Eskenazi, 2014. Pyrethroid Pesticide Exposure and Parental Report of Learning Disability and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in U.S. Children: NHANES 1999–2002. Environ Health Perspect.
15 Beyond Pesticides. Pesticides Trigger Parkinson’s Disease. Online. www.beyondpesticides.org/assets/media/documents/gateway/health%20effects/parkinson%27s%20cited.pdf
16 Jurewicz, J., Radwan, M., Wielgomas, B., Sobala, W., Piskunowicz, M., Radwan, P., Bochenek, M. and Hanke, W., 2015. The effect of environmental exposure to pyrethroids and DNA damage in human sperm. Systems biology in reproductive medicine, 61(1), pp.37-43.
17 US Environmental Protection Agency. 2017. Pesticides Industry Sales and Usage: 2008 – 2012 Market Estimates. Online. www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-01/documents/pesticides-industry-sales-usage-2016_0.pdf
18 Beyond Pesticides. Pesticides that Disrupt Endocrine System Still Unregulated by EPA. Online. www.beyondpesticides.org/assets/media/documents/gateway/health%20effects/endocrine%20cited.pdf
19 Beyond Pesticides. Chemical Watch Factsheet: 2,4-D. Online. www.beyondpesticides.org/assets/media/documents/pesticides/factsheets/2-4-D.pdf
20 Payne-Sturges, D., Cohen, J., Castorina, R., Axelrad, D.A. and Woodruff, T.J., 2009. Evaluating cumulative organophosphorus pesticide body burden of children: a national case study. Environmental science & technology, 43(20), pp.7924-7930.
21 Scutti, Susan. 2018. You can cut your cancer risk by eating organic, a new study says. October 22. www.cnn.com/2018/10/22/health/organic-food-cancer-study/index.html
22 Chiu, Y., et al. 2018. Association between pesticide residue intake from consumption of fruits and vegetables and pregnancy outcomes among women undergoing infertility treatment with assisted reproductive technology. JAMA internal medicine, 178(1), pp.17-26.

Arlington County is in the process of revising its community energy plan CEP that was adopted over five years ago, but never implemented largely because its two central policies were not done. The goal was a 75% lower carbon footprint by 2050. The vast majority of carbon output in Arlington occurs in buildings and to a far lesser extent in transportation. Electricity use is growing rapidly in Arlington. Progress in new county and school buildings and some new commercial high rise buildings has occurred, but this covers only a small fraction of fossil use in Arlington.

The CEP was not realized for two reasons. First the state building code covering all new buildings was never updated to achieve an expected 30% reduction in energy use. Secondly, the goal to have co-generation power plants in Arlington commercial areas never got going either because of the opposition of Dominion Power (which would lose sales of course), but also the large developers who are linked to fossil fuels.

Arlington Greens about two years ago advocated statewide and with county officials to get the state of Virginia to update the building code so that new residential buildings save 30% of their energy use, but the building industry blocked this change.

“County staff are currently leading a five-year review and update to the Community Energy Plan. The E2C2 Energy Committee is also providing a technical review of the plan and providing feedback.
The County will conduct a follow-up CEP Forum in 2019 to solicit feedback on the updated CEP. Stay tuned to the county webpage for additional details.” https://environment.arlingtonva.us/energy/community-energy-plan-cep/

Consider emailing your ideas to the Arlington County energy division for the new CEP to energy@arlingtonva.us

The New York Times reported today (see link below) that many localities are abandoning recycling programs for just straight burning or burying their solid waste. The immediate force of change was China refusing to accept any more solid waste from the U.S.

This is a good time for the environmental movement in the U.S. to re-evalute recycling programs. The premise of these programs is that localities should re-use the waste of a huge industrial sector which continues to produce more waste yearly without regard to the consequences. What is industries role in cutting the amount of waste in its products and itself re-using its own products?

At the very least there should be strict federal laws barring excessive plastic and other packaging for consumer products. There should be a tax on virgin newsprint, new aluminium, new plastic, new glass, new cardboard so that industry has a financial incentive to use recycled newspapers, aluminium, glass, etc. instead of buying newly produced materials.

It is wrong to expect just local cities and counties to solve the solid waste problem generated by trillion dollar industries which just continue to put out more useless garbage that ends up being burned or buried. if industry truly embraced zero packaging or something close to it, and took a holistic view of its products, then our society would save millions of tons of carbon emissions and the harmful emissions of solid waste burn plants.

Here in Arlington we recycle about half of our solid waste, but we burn the other half mostly. The burn plant–join with Alexandria and Arlington–is one of the largest sources of air pollution in our region. So, better solid waste management will help us all breath better.

Michel Corkery, the NYT, Mar. 16, 2019, As Costs Skyrocket, More U.S. Cities Stop Recycling

Please attend the Arlington County Board public hearing on Saturday, March 16, starting at 9 am on whether to give Amazon $26 million in county tax funds as an inducement to open a new headquarters in Crystal City. We ask you to oppose giving any of our local tax dollars to the wealthiest corporation in the world. Location is 2100 Clarendon Boulevard, third floor, Arlington, VA 22201, adjacent to the Courthouse Metro.

Arlington Greens voted to oppose any county funds going to Amazon as a waste of scarce local funds better used for our schools, our community needs and affordable housing for current Arlington residents.

In addition to the $26 million in cash the county board proposes to give Amazon at least $300 million to upgrade infrastructure around Amazon’s office buildings. These $300 million in bonds could be better spent for schools, for Metro rail operations helping all Arlington residents on the Blue, Silver, and Orange lines or for our streets, community centers, our water treatment plant, and storm water management. Adding another entrance to Crystal City Metro station, a new passenger bridge, more sidewalks and such will not reduce the expected traffic congestion in south Arlington because current Metro rail operations cannot handle another 25,000 daily riders there.

Amazon HQ2 will significantly raise rents and housing costs in our community that will hurt tenants. Amazon has offered nothing to help affordable housing programs in Arlington, and its corporate pattern in Seattle Washington is to refuse to do anything to help reduce homelessness and high rents. Why should local tax funds be used to raise rents here and make life difficult for renters?

Amazon is one of the wealthiest corporations in the world; its principal owner Jeff Bezos has a net worth in excess of $150 billion. Amazon has a reported over $20 billion in cash reserves; pay no U.S. income tax, and is extremely profitable. It does not need Arlington County’s millions, and frankly we do not need Amazon because we have less than 2% unemployment, a rising tax base, and scores of companies opening here without a dime of subsidy. It is grossly unfair to help the richest businessman in the world and not help the thousands of small businesses already operating successfully here.

Whatever additional tax revenues Amazon will bring to Arlington County will be rapidly absorbed by rising school student costs and other non-school costs, according to economic reports. The Arlington County Board should spend our limited tax funds on schools, libraries, recreation, public safety, and community assistance that make our community a great one already.

Arlington Greens at their February meeting voted to support asking the Arlington County Board to add $3 million more for low-income rental (housing) grants that could help 400 or more households in Arlington in 2020.

With $3 million in funding, at least 400 more housing grants should be provided to people who are termed “extremely low income” (those earning 40-percent or less of the area median income (AMI), by lowering the current minimum age for seniors from age 65 to 50, and by eliminating other arbitrary restrictions that block thousands of such extremely low income Arlington renters from just applying for a rental grant.

There are currently 15,000 Arlington renter households—about 30,000 people who are considered as “very low income”–earning under 50-percent AMI, and nearly two-thirds of whom do not receive housing assistance in any form, and face a heavy housing cost burden. This forces them to apply for other forms of assistance from faith communities, the Arlington food bank (AFAC), and other forms of emergency assistance from the county and charities. Housing rental grants are the county’s single most effective and cheapest (per dollar of benefits given versus the cost of administration) housing assistance program, and benefits can vary per household depending on need, and amount of funding available.

In 2015, the Arlington County Board adopted its Affordable Housing Master Plan that set a yearly goal of helping an additional 630 more households in Arlington who earn under 60-percent AMI with housing assistance. The county was only able to aid 246 new households in the most recent year, and cut the number of households getting a housing grant by 30. About 1,215 households applied for a housing grant in FY 2019, a drop of about 400 from the 1,624 households who applied in FY 2015.

The two primary housing assistance programs in Arlington funded by local tax dollars are the affordable housing investment fund that subsidizes construction of mostly new apartment units (“committed affordable units (CAFs)”) ($13.7 million funding in FY 2019), and the separate housing grants program that provides rental grants for very low income seniors, families with a child or disabled persons ($8.7 million in funding in FY 2019).

In the most recent year for which data are available (FY 2017), the county was able to add only 276 new CAFs, and has rarely added even 300 per year. The extraordinary high cost of building new units (averaging well over $350,000 per unit), and the number of years and difficulty it takes to build such units are major impediments to adding more CAFs. In addition, virtually no persons earning 40-percent AMI or less can qualify to rent a CAF because of their extremely low incomes. The new CAF program does not help extremely low income renters in Arlington for the most part.

In FY 2019, the county will spend $8.7 million for housing grants for 1,180 households—half of whom are disabled persons; one quarter are seniors over 65; and the remaining one quarter are families with a child. The average monthly grant is about $600 a month; the average rent in Arlington is about $2,000 per month. The average beneficiary family earned $27,000; a disabled person or a senior over 65 earned about $14,000 a year. The maximum income allowed for a housing grant is 40-percent AMI. In FY 2019, the county cut funding for housing grants by about $446,000 from FY 2018, and thus 30 fewer households got a housing grant.

The disposable income available per month for non-rental expenses for an Arlington family receiving a housing grant in FY 2018 was $930 without the grant, and $1,490 with a grant. A person with a disability with a housing grant had a disposable income available for non-rental expenses of only $50 per month without a grant, but $675 with a grant. For a senior receiving a grant, their disposable income for non-rental expenses was $102 without a grant and $677 with a grant. It would have been impossible for these households to live in Arlington, but for the housing grant.

Therefore, Arlington Greens call on Arlington County to provide $3 million more in funds in FY 2020 to its housing grants program that will allow at least 400 very low income households to receive a housing grant in Arlington. Far more than 400 households could be assisted with this $3 million if the monthly grant per household was reduced from its current $600 per month. An expanded housing grants program will allow Arlington County to finally reach its own goal of aiding at least 630 additional households in Arlington with housing assistance per year.

Virginia and Arlington Greens gathered in Richmond in the cold on Jan. 22 to support a Green New Deal resolution in the Virginia General Assembly, along other Virginia grass roots organizations including the NAACP and the Chesapeake Climate Organization and the Virginia Sierra Club. We then visited our elected delegates and state senators.

Virginia Delegates Rasoul and Guzman and others introduced this house resolutions that would begin the process of drafting a comprehensive bill in 2020 as state law that would radically redirect Virginia into a sustainable energy future. A somewhat similar bill at the federal level has been introduced in Congress, but its prospects this year are doubtful. The goal is to have Virginia have a secure environmental energy future and many new high paying jobs. Solar, wind turbines, and insulating and conserving energy will bring far more jobs to Virginia than the few now in coal mining and fracking.

It is striking that the NAACP would join environmental and labor groups to seek a just environmental future for Virginia that would begin to address environmental racism that continues to target communities of color in our state, including in the path of the Virginia gas pipeline in Buckingham County. A Green New Deal means high paying jobs in our state; ending environmental degradation of our state, and addressing climate change that likely will devastate many parts of Virginia, including the Hampton Roads ares which is likely to be under water with the rising of the Atlantic Ocean and Chesapeake Bay.

Assuming that Amazon does open its 25,000 employee office in Crystal City, Arlington residents most of whom are renters, should plan on a substantial increase in rents and housing costs. A recent forecast by a local realtor with McEnearney Brokers indicates that housing costs may rise in the 15-20 percent range as a direct result of HQ2. (http://www.mcenearney.com/blog/2018/11/impact-amazons-hq2-move-northern-virginia/). This rise will not happen over night as it will take a number of years before most of these 25,000 employees are hired (and as many as another 10,000 support workers are added), but it is clear that renters are going to be jeopardized.

Current home owners will reap an unexpected windfall, but only when they sell their residence and in the meantime will pay higher property taxes. Most homeowners are not interested in selling and leaving Arlington in the immediate future, and so they will experience an increase in their property taxes which now average about $7,000 a year. Homeowners–expect to pay another $1,000 to 1,400 a year in taxes.

Renters, who are about 55 percent of Arlington residents, are going to be severely impacted, and there is no upside for them but simply paying higher rents. The McEnearney analysis does not specifically indicate how much rents will rise, but indicates areas close to Crystal City both in Arlington and Alexandria will experience the highest rent pressure. It is certainly prudent to expect rents to rise by at least by half the rise expected for prices of homes and condos: this would mean a rent increase of 7-10 percent.

The average rent in Arlington in 2017 was about $2,000 per month for an apartment, and thus renters should expect a $140 to 200 a month increase in rents charged. Rents are much higher in high rise buildings (above $2,500) and lower in garden apartments ($1,800) so the effect will vary but most of the apartments in Crystal City, Pentagon City and Potomac Yards are high rises.

There are fewer than 2,000 market rate apartments that are affordable to anyone earning 60-percent or less of the area median income in Arlington, and virtually none in these three areas. In 2013, there were 17,000 households earning 60% or less of the area median income (AMI) ($51,000 for a couple) who account for 30 percent of Arlington residents. (Arlington County Affordable Housing Master Plan, p. 37).

Most renters today earning 60 percent or less of the area median income are housing cost burdened, meaning they are paying more than one third of their income for rent. Another $200 a month in rent is going to further their housing burden, and in many cases they will leave Arlington for cheaper, far suburban areas like Loudon or Prince William Counties.

Arlington County Board has proposed to spend an additional $7 million a year to subsidize the construction of 100 units a year (a subsidy of $70,000 per unit). Unfortunately most of the $7 million will be absorbed by the housing builders and developers and only a few people will be able to get into these units.

Meanwhile, a 10-percent rent increase across the 50,000 apartment units in Arlington means that the total rent increase will be in the $100 million range, a great windfall for apartment complex owners but a loss for renters. The county board’s offer of $7 million would only cover an insignificant fraction of the total rent increase, and in essence is just window dressing.

About four years ago the county board adopted the affordable housing master plan with an annual goal of the county providing 630 households earning under 60% AMI with housing assistance to be able to rent an affordable unit in Arlington. https://housing.arlingtonva.us/affordable-housing-master-plan/ unfortunately the county added fewer than 300 units a year, and, last year, cut the amount of financial housing assistance for rental grants for seniors, disabled persons and families with a child, all of whom earn under 40-percent AMI.

The HQ2 will mean a worsening of the housing burden for all Arlington residents, and will disproportionately affect those lowest in income who tend to be black, Latinos, the elderly, the disabled and the young. The HQ2 deal is consistent with the unstated Arlington County’s goal for many years to displace lower income people and replace them with the affluent. It means a whiter, richer, and less diverse community with no place for working people, the elderly or young professional just starting their careers.

The Arlington County Board is going full speed ahead to sell its deal to provide hundreds of millions of public local tax dollars to Amazon for a new headquarters in Crystal City, and the “listening session” in mid-December at Gunston Middle School just highlighted this full bore sell campaign.

County Board members present heard an earful of good objections to giving this corporate giant any of our local tax dollars, and then gave bogus arguments in favor of this deal.
County officials and some board members present gave misleading reasons on why Amazon HQ2 would be good for Arlington County—Arlington needs more jobs; Metro can handle the transit problem of 25,000 more employees and they won’t clog up our streets; Amazon will fill up vacant office space which will raise more local tax revenues and improve county finances; and new GMU and VA Tech IT campuses are needed.

Crystal City High rise Buildings

Arlington Needs more Jobs in Crystal City?
Katie Cristol, a county board member present, said that Crystal City lost over 35,000 jobs when the Department of Defense moved employees to other areas of Northern Virginia with the so-called BRAC realignment beginning around 2005. This is misleading.

It is true there are fewer federal employees in that area of Arlington after BRAC, but total employment throughout Arlington is 28,000 higher today (up from 196,000 in January 2004 to 224,000 in January 2018). Other employers have picked up the slack, and added more jobs to Arlington. There is one job in Arlington for every resident, and the unemployment rate is about 2 percent. Arlington does not need to subsidize businesses to come to Arlington—they already are locating here without a fat subsidy from taxpayers.

The office vacancy rate in Crystal City is about 18 percent today, and it is true that the main commercial realty company JBG/Smith there is having a hard time renting its vacant space. Still, Crystal City does not have the highest vacancy rate among all business areas in Arlington, the highest vacancy rate is in Ballston and Rosslyn, each with 24 percent. Filling office space is NOT the taxpayers’ or county government’s problem but JBG’s or other realty company’s problem to solve.

>Metro and buses can handle another 25,000 employees, and there will be no further traffic congestion, and Arlington County needs to spend $360 million on Metro in Crystal City?

The county transportation director said at the Gunston MS meeting there are far fewer Metrorail passengers using Crystal City Metro stations today than a decade ago, and that, therefore, Metro can handle 25,000 more employees working there. Just spend $360 million and add new entrances to the existing Metro stations, and voila.

The reality is that Metrorail ridership is down substantially, for example daily weekday ridership declined by 25 percent on the Orange Line during 2000-17, according to WMATA data. The decline is mostly because of train breakdowns and unreliable train service, but also Uber and Lyft competition. Under its current state of disrepair, Metro can barely handle current passengers. Metro rail cannot handle another 25,000 passengers into/from Crystal City today, and the problem is not a lack of Crystal City Metro stations or entrances but rather a lack of reliable service of the trains. Amazon employees will drive to work, use Uber and Lyft, clog up our neighborhood streets, and make life miserable for Arlington residents as well as themselves.

Metrorail needs a massive infusion of billions of dollars to fix equipment, trains, and stations that now exist. The county wants to spend $360 million to add two new unneeded entrances to Metro stations in Crystal City and Pentagon Yards; these funds instead should be directed to Metro rail operations and infrastructure. The rest of us in Arlington depend on Metrorail, and just fixing up two stations in Crystal City will do nothing to fix the Orange, Blue or Silver Line delays or help Arlington residents with effective mass transit.

Filling vacant office space will automatically raise county tax revenues and improve county finances?

Libby Garvey, another county board member present, said the HQ2 deal will reduce the average office vacancy rate in the county from 18 to 14 percent, and this will raise county tax revenues and improve county finances. Roughly each drop in office vacancy rate in Arlington yields about $3.4 million in local tax revenues annually; so a 4-percentage point drop yields another $13 million a year. However, HQ2 is expected to draw up to 5,000 employees to live here, who will add another 1,000 public school children who will cost the county about $20 million more in school spending. Other costs for non-school county services will rise nearly as much. So, the NET tax revenue increase is going to be very small once the cost of additional public schools and county services are deducted.

The county board is taking responsibility for lowering the office vacancy rate but this is no business of local government, rather the problem of the largest landlord JBG/Smith to fix.

Another graduate campus for GMU and VA Tech at a cost of $375 million or more will benefit Arlington residents

The State of Virginia has promised at least $375 million to build a new campus for a VA Tech and GMU that would have graduate IT education. Why?

There is no evidence today that there is a shortage of IT graduates coming from local or other nearby universities. Why should the government subsidize Amazon and train its employees who earn $150,000 each? There are hundreds of colleges that provide IT graduates all over the U.S. today, and scores in the D.C. area already that offer advanced degrees in IT. We don’t need any more colleges in our area.
Arlington probably has the most educated population in any county in the U.S.–Arlington residents do not need another college here.

Amazon located in Arlington because it is within the second largest region in the U.S. with current IT employees (New York City being the largest Metro region). IT employees will come from all over the U.S. to work for Amazon. These Amazon employees will be earning $150,000 a year, and they can pay for their own education.

Perhaps if this $375 million went to pay the costs of college education for lower income students in Arlington and in Virginia graduate from college, this might be a good idea. This amount could finance total college costs for 1,200 low income students per year for the next 20 years! There are many low income students from other parts of Virginia who also need a chance to succeed so why not provide college tuition grants to lower income students from Arlington and all over the State?

Arlington County now spends about $20,000 or more per student for K-12 education. Lack of funding is not an issue for Arlington for so-called STEM education. We don’t need the funds for our K-12 IT studies either.