Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Patch is happy to consider opinion articles for publication. We reserve the right to edit for accuracy, clarity and brevity.
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Tuesday, March 19
The following opinion column was submitted to Patch this weekend by Ken Robinson, president of the Woodbury Heights Condominium Association, regarding Arlington County's planned year-round homeless service center. Links added by Patch. It’s too bad Arlington undertook this expensive project without a lot of consideration of the alternatives. The county, for example, could have issued a request for quotations to provide homeless services — and contracted with one of the proven, national shelter operations such as the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, or Volunteers of America. Arlington would not have needed to buy and build a shelter and kit-out offices for its preferred vendor, A-SPAN. Arlington could have rehabilitated the existing …
Monday, March 18, 2013
County will establish a neighborhood advisory council and designate a homeless service center liaison in an effort to minimize its impact on the surrounding community.
A year-round homeless service center on two floors of the seven-story office building at 2020 14th St. N. in the Courthouse community has received final approval from the Arlington County Board. For advocates of ending homelessness, it was a victory a long time in the making. It advances Arlington's goal of providing the services needed to move more of the area's homeless into permanent housing. And it concentrates those services in a single place that's open all year as opposed to the current emergency winter shelter, about a block away, that's open only during the winter. For some residents of Woodbury Heights, the condominium building next door to the planned center, it was the latest move by Arlington County to balance the good of the …
Friday, December 14, 2012
Garvey will be sworn in to office in ceremony at 4:30 p.m. Friday.
Arlington County Board member Libby Garvey will be sworn in to her first full four-year term at 4:30 p.m. Friday in the County Board Room on the third floor of 2100 Clarendon Blvd. Garvey, who put forth an exhaustive effort this week to defeat or delay the approval of a new funding mechanism for major transportation projects, took office in late March. She filled the unexpired term of Barbara Favola, who is now a state senator, and ran for office in November on a platform that included opposing the Columbia Pike streetcar. After a barrage of questions Monday, Garvey told her colleagues allowing the county to use the Virginia Public-Private Transportation Act would mean Arlington was "one vote away" from awarding a contract for the …
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Elected officials will vote Saturday on whether to buy a seven-story building in the Courthouse community. Plans call for spending $42.6 million over five years on acquisition, renovation.
Following nearly a year of negotiations, Arlington County is poised to acquire the seven-story Thomas Building and turn two floors of it into a comprehensive year-round homeless service center. The Arlington County Board on Saturday will consider a recommendation to buy the building at 2020 14th St. N. in the Courthouse community for about $27 million and begin renovations. Over the next five years, the project is expected to cost $42.6 million, which includes financial assistance to some of the building's business tenants, who will be forced to relocate. Much of the building eventually will be used for county office space, but it’s the homeless center proposition that has drawn outrage from neighbors concerned about its proximity to …
T
9:47 am on Friday, December 14, 2012
"Arlington Way"? Tell me more. I thought the Arlington Way was to cram special interest legislation down the throats of protesting citizens. This is just one more example of legislating to suit monied benefactors. more ›