Greens Share with American High School Students at the Junior State of America Student Conference in Crystal City, Arlington

Two Greens, Miriam Gennari and Kirit Mookerjee, were invited to present at and attend the Annual Junior State of America Conference at the Double Tree Hotel in Arlington on Saturday, February 18, 2017. Like many of us, Greens have been a bit down about the state of our political system—political division, few new ideas and very little straight talk. But that was certainly not the case with the young people from around the U.S. who visited the Green Party table. They listened attentively to one another’s questions, and paid close attention to every answer Miriam and Kirit gave about the Arlington and National Green party.

More than 200 students looked over the 10 Key Values of the Green Party and then shared their reflections on what we Greens stood for. They wanted to know how decentralized government would address issues like gun control and the distribution of wealth. They wanted to know what financial impact free college would have on the countries fiscal future and they wanted to know what our foreign policy and value of non violence would mean when our allies were threatened.

Many of these high school students are frustrated with our nation’s environmental policy, and seemed certain that if there were more than two political parties at the table, common ground would be found to advance progress towards a cleaner greener environment. Even more were skeptical that the two major political parties’ grip on power would relieve itself without a major change in campaign rules that allow the rich and corporations unlimited power over our elections.

The picnic of Greens and Westover tenants was a fun event with about 100 people attending, and enjoying food and good music from Westover Beer garden musicians. Over 30 tenants signed up to be part of the new tenants association and to be part of the effort to keep existing apartments in Westover from demolition.

Arlington and Virginia Green members staffed a booth at the Arlington County Fair during Aug. 19-21, and gathered many signatures for a petition urging historic preservation of Westover Village in Arlington, and also many signatures to get Jill Stein for president on the Virginia ballot in November.
Below are Greens Kirit Mookerjee and Steve Davis at the booth at the county fair which as usual was held at the T-J Middle School in south Arlington. Greens got to meet many Arlington supporters and old friends at the fair.

Greens and tenants in Westover have been advocating for the past three months to have Arlington County historically designate and protect the Village area which contains over 700 rental apartment units. Greens also are upset at the high rate of tear downs of well maintained 60 or 70 year old brick detached houses for middle income homeowners now being demolished to make way for ugly, overlylarge McMansions destined for the wealthy able to buy a $1.5 million energy guzzler with no trees, greenspace or taste.

Jill Stein was nominated by the U.S. Green Party for president, but has yet to get on the Virginia ballot. She is on the ballot of about 20 states in the U.S. but not so far in Virginia nor 29 other states that make it difficult for third party candidates to actually appear on the election day ballot. The two dominant parties of course wish to limit third parties like we Greens from appearing democratically on the ballot.

SAVE HISTORIC WESTOVER FROM DEMOLITION
Community Meeting Tue. May 31, 7 PM at Westover Library

Many historic Westover apartment buildings over the past year were demolished, evicting residents and destroying green space and 100-year old trees. Westover has been designated since 2005 as a national historic district in a futile effort to protect our buildings and neighborhood from excessive development, but this did not stop this senseless demolition. Residents want the county government to now protect existing buildings from demolition by designating the Westover area as a county historic district.

Come to a neighborhood meeting to find out how we can together maintain the current historic neighborhood of Westover with its trees, green space, and 75-year old buildings, and its mix of small commercial properties, homeowners, and renters as it has been since 1940.

Where: Westover Public Library

When: Tuesday, May 31, 2016 @ 7 PM

Who: Joan Lawrence, chair of the Historic Architectural Review Board
(HALRB) will describe obtaining local historic district protection

Sponsors: the Arlington Greens and the Westover Civic Association
For more information: Email Info@greensofarlington.org

Co-chair Marie Pellegrino spoke on March 29 to the Arlington County Board public hearing on the fiscal year 2017 budget for Arlington County and urged the board to expand the living wage for current county and county contractor employees to $14.50 per hour, and for the board to more than double the number of housing grants provided to low income renters.

(Marie Pellegrino, cochair on the left, with Sandra Hernandez, cochair on the right.)

Dear Members of the County Board:

We are here tonight to present the views of the Arlington Greens on the FY2017 budget. Thank you for your work to make our community a better place for all.

We support two items in the budget—a higher living wage for county and contractor employees and more affordable housing funds for housing grants. We ask you to expand the scope of the living wage ordinance, and to more than double the number of housing grants from today’s 1,300 low-income households to closer to 3,000.

The county manager recommends, and we support raising the living wage from $13.13 to $14.50 per hour for all county employees and for those few covered private contractor employees. A living wage ensures that an employee does not have to turn to the county and our community to live above poverty. We Greens want all Arlington employees to earn at least a living wage and live above poverty.

Please expand the scope of the living wage ordinance to require ALL contractors with the county no matter where their employees work in Arlington to pay them a living age. The current ordinance only covers contract employees physically working in a county facility. Many, un-covered contractor employees are low-paid healthcare aides, employees of group homes and other nonprofits, or employees of for-profit companies.
We would also like you to require private companies and developers that receive substantial direct subsidies from the county, such as the $55 million of county funds you gave last year to Forrest City Realty the billion-dollar developer/owner of Ballston Shopping Center, to pay a living wage to its employees.

We support doubling the 2017 budget for housing grants from $9 million to $18 million. Housing grants are the county’s single most effective housing assistance program, and help seniors, disabled adults, and families with a child. An average household gets about $500 a month, and earns well under $30,000 a year (less than 30% of the area median income (AMI).

Another $9 million could fund 1,800 households each with a $400 monthly housing grant. To get this $9 million, you could shift some of the current housing funds from less effective housing assistance programs, such as the AHIF. And, you could triple the current developers’ tax to raise another $6-7 million a year (see addendum). Developers pay a very low county fee when they choose not to provide at least 5% affordable apartments in new complexes and this fee should be raised.

It is far more effective to give tenants a grant, and let them rent their own apartment or share housing in Arlington than building just a few more expensive subsidized apartments. Only current county residents get a grant, whereas new subsidized apartments must be rented to anyone who applies. Housing grant recipients can live anywhere in north or south Arlington rather than only in subsidized apartments built mostly along western Columbia Pike.

Arlington Greens gathered at Potomac Overlook Regional Park on Sunday, September 20 to celebrate their second annual end-of-summer picnic. About two dozen people gathered and listened once again to Arlington local rock and roll band, Still Standing, play 60s and 70s rock and roll and rhythm and blues. New members and two county board members attended and welcomed the last day of the Summer of 2015.

Arlington Greens Vote Not to Endorse Any County Board Candidate in November Election

The Arlington Greens voted at their October 1st meeting not to endorse any candidates for the Arlington County Board election in November; there are two seats open on the Board this year. Co-chair Sandra Hernandez said, “After carefully considering and debating an endorsement, the Greens voted not to endorse either candidate in 2015 for County Board.”

There are four candidates on the ballot for the two open seats–two Democrats and two Independents. In 2014, the Greens endorsed John Vihstadt, who ran as an independent. He was elected the first non-Democrat to a County Board board seat in Arlington in over 15 years. Arlington Greens have nominated or endorsed a county board candidate every year since 2006.

Green Karaoke Fun Social at LA Bar on July 9

A dozen turned out on July 9 to socialize and sing karaoke at LA Bar on Columbia Pike led by Greens Sandra Hernandez, Kirit Mookerjee and Marie Pellegrino. Thanks everyone for turning out! Below is cochair Sandra Hernandez with husband Carlos singing a duo, and then Sandra and Miriam Gennari singing a separate song.

Editor’s Notebook: What third-party and independent candidates need to do
by SCOTT McCAFFREY of Sun Gazette Posted: Wednesday, April 1, 2015 7:00 am
About 20 intrepid souls gathered at Shirlington Library amid last evening’s darkening skies for a forum put on by the Arlington Green Party, discussing ways that independents and third-party candidates could find success in running for local office.
(For the purposes of this discussion, which will focus on Arlington, I’ll include the Republicans as a third party. Not intended as a slight, just a reflection of the difficulties the GOP faces in an overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning community.)

At the event, there was a fair amount of bash-the-media for failing to give alternative candidates equal coverage with the major-party contenders. It is a familiar refrain.

But the reality is this: While there is a relatively low bar set to get on the ballot in local elections in Virginia (just 125 petition signatures will land you on the Arlington County Board ballot, for instance), we in media-land tend to set a far higher bar for considering a candidacy worth covering in a more substantial way.

I think I said it last year, when John Vihstadt was embarking on his candidacy to topple the Democratic County Board monopoly: Candidates who aren’t Democrats and want to have a chance on Election Day in A-town would need to raise at least $100,000 during campaign season before I’d be particularly inclined to give them a shot at winning, and providing a commensurate level of coverage.

Why? Two reasons:

• Raising that much money is necessary to get the word out about a candidacy, and to build the campaign infrastructure needed to compete against the extensive Democratic precinct-operations efforts.

• Raising that amount of campaign cash would show that a candidate has a network of supporters willing to, literally, put their money where their mouth is.

Vihstadt was very competitive in his fundraising efforts, picking up as much, and I think more, campaign cash than his Democratic opponent, Alan Howze.

But it’s been a vicious cycle for other candidates taking on Democrats: They say they can’t get traction because their candidacies aren’t publicized, but the media isn’t likely to take seriously a candidate unwilling to do the grunt work of raising cash. It’s a necessary evil in the political arena.

I stayed for the first 75 minutes of the program before having to head out into the night. Was an interesting and informative discussion. We’ll see if the Greens field a candidate this year, and time will tell the fate of independents who plan on running in November.

Goes to Show My Prognosticating Skills Are Worthy Zip

Yesterday also brought a drawing to determine ballot order among the first four candidates to file for the Democratic primary for County Board. As they all got their paperwork in on the first day (March 9) of filing, they were deemed by Democratic leaders to have filed simultaneously, and the elections office held a drawing to determine who would go where on the ballot.

Earlier in the day, for funsies, I guessed that the ballot order would be Katie Cristol/Andrew Schneider/Peter Fallon/Christian Dorsey.

I got the No. 2 and No. 3 slots correct, but flipped No. 1 and No. 2. The order, drawn from a bowler hat provided by Electoral Board secretary Allen Harrison Jr., was Dorsey/Schneider/Fallon/Cristol.

James Lander and Bruce Wiljanen, who filed their paperwork later in the filing season, will round out the six-person ballot in the June 9 primary.

Sometimes Police Chases Should Come with Soundtracks

Ay-yay-yay: Yesterday brought not only the prisoner that a security contractor let escape (as Maxwell Smart would have said, “sorry about that, Chief”), but also that wild police chase on the Beltway, one that in retrospect seems a bit, mmmm, ill-advised on the part of law enforcement.

The only thing missing was the chase music from Benny Hill’s old British TV show playing in the background. Would have been fitting, given the Keystone Kops-esque performance.

– Scott

http://www.insidenova.com/blogs/editor-s-notebook-what-third-party-and-independent-candidates-need/article_d9a645f8-d855-11e4-a257-b377ce19ffa7.html

Arlington Greens panel for first time candidates had about 15 people at Shirlington Library on March 31. The four panel members were Joe Galdo, former candidate for Congress in Fairfax, Dan Robinson, candidate for the Maryland General Assembly from Takoma Park, Maryland; Miriam Gennari former candidate for Arlington School Board; and John Reeder, former two time candidate for Arlington County Board. All candidates ran as Greens. Also on hand was Gretchen Reinemeyer of the Arlington Voters office to explain the legal issues of filing for office in 2015. There are two county board seats, one school board seat, all four General Assembly seats and the state senate seat open in 2015, and all the constitutional offices such as sheriff.

Panelists left to right” Gretchen Reinemery of the voters office, Joe Galdo, Miriam Gennari, John Reeder and Dan Robinson

Arlington Greens are looking for qualified first time candidates to run. Greens are independents; accept no corporate or PAC funds, and run against the two major parties.