I want to again congratulate Mr. Fisette on the successes of his Chairmanship in 2005; and to thank my colleagues for the confidence they have placed in me in electing me to Chair this Board for a third time.

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When I first came to the Board, almost a decade ago, it seemed to me that Arlington was poised on the verge of something special, of significance to us in the life of our community, but also of greater meaning.

At a time when frustration with the impact of sprawl on the quality of life, and a palpable yearning for community was emerging around the country, a movement was taking shape, under the anthem of

• “livable communities,”
• “sustainability,”
• “new urbanism,” and
• “smart growth.”

To the ears of an Arlingtonian, this had the ring of a familiar tune.

With our legacy of transit-oriented development and managed growth, we were already well along this path.

A community with great diversity among its people, a deep tradition of civic involvement in its policymaking, and a credo of social justice.

We had an extraordinary opportunity, not only to better our own lives, but to be an exemplar, to help show the way to a better life for communities everywhere.

This potential was apparent to many in our community, including my colleagues on the County Board. In assuming the chairmanship the first time, in 1998, I tried to give that potential a name, borrowing the term “the Urban Village.” I expressed my belief that,

“With the right efforts today, Arlington can be the model of an urban village, the standard for livability in the 21st Century.”

Since that time each of my colleagues, county staff, and many citizens have worked to refine that concept, to mold it into a vision for our community.

In pursuit of this vision, Arlington has done much over the last several years.

We’ve:

• invested heavily in our schools;
• boosted the capacity of our fire department,
• increased the size of our police force;
• enhanced neighborhood conservation;
• added park land and recreational facilities;
• expanded our affordable housing efforts;
• instituted traffic calming, “safe routes to school,” and numerous pedestrian improvements;
• created a local bus service, while increasing our commitment to the regional Metrobus and Metrorail system.
• took on leadership in environmental design with a Green Buildings program
• made a commitment to “e-government.”

We’ve undertaken new community planning efforts, among them the Columbia Pike Initiative, an Urban Forest Master Plan, a Public Art Master plan, Goals and Targets for Affordable Housing, and a new Public Space Master Plan.

Because civic involvement is central to our Urban Village concept, we sought to expand the vocabulary of community outreach, with forums and charettes and “walking town meetings” and a “neighborhood college.”

Along the way we crafted a new vision statement to both reflect and promulgate our values and aspirations.

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Now, midway through the first decade of the 21st Century, Arlington is in fact a model, cited regularly in articles and conferences, and receiving a steady stream of visitors from around the country and abroad seeking answers to their own community development challenges.

Clearly, the state of our county is very good. Yet we know we cannot become complacent, that our work is not done. We face significant challenges, some new, some born of our success. (As he assumed the chairmanship a year ago, my colleague Mr. Fisette summarized this as, “managing the maturing of Arlington’s vision as an urban community.”)

What we’ve been able to achieve is the success not of one year or one person, but of many. Not transitory, disjoint ventures, but a continuity of effort, passing the baton forward, year by year. And so, 2006 will be a year of carrying on the cumulative efforts of many years, and many hands.

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Delivering on the promise of the Urban Village

The gradual realization of our vision will be reflected in many ways this year. In almost every area of county activity, there will be both delivery on past promise and continuing effort on on-going projects. And, in a few there will be new initiative.

Today I will highlight 6 policy areas of importance as we strive deliver on the promise of the Urban Village. These concern our planning efforts, our responsibility to our employees, the continuing challenge of affordable housing, strengthening our commitment to our Seniors, and meeting our transportation and economic sustainability needs. As I go I’ll mention three new policy initiatives. I’ll close with a word about the core values that are central to all these efforts.

Planning and Building for the Future

We never finish planning Arlington; our community will ever be a work in progress. A number of key planning endeavors will reach important milestones in the coming year:

• the new Clarendon Sector Plan,
• Rosslyn Central Place,
• Fort Myer Heights North,
• Courthouse Plaza,
• revision of the County’s Master Transportation Plan; and,
• our first Historic Preservation Plan. From civil war relics to garden apartments, Arlington is a trove of American history that has yet to be fully inventoried. [As a friend likes to remind me, a ‘mature and well-rounded community embraces its present, future, and past’.]

We will also continue our aggressive investment in infrastructure during a challenging time of escalating construction costs. Among the “deliverables” for 2006 are the opening of a new library, a new theater, and a new community center.

At the same time, we will press forward with other important projects, such as Arlington Mill and the North Tract.

Employees

Our commitment to the men and women who serve Arlington County, from whom we expect a great deal, remains a key priority. While we have done much in recent years; to ensure we continue to be an “employer of choice” we need to cope with the continuing pressures of a competitive market.

Housing

No challenge has so vexed Arlington, nor commanded more attention from its leadership, than the crisis of affordable housing. The effort to deal with it will remain at the top of the policy agenda. We will need to employ all our existing tools, while fashioning still more new ones. We will have to take a fresh look at some untried options, such as: modifications of tax policy; the regulation of building form; accessory dwelling units; and the use of co-operative housing.

We must continue to confront the affordable housing challenge because it is fundamental to the kind of community we aspire to be. We cannot be diverse and inclusive if there are not places to live in our community for people of all backgrounds, all income levels, all ages.

Senior living in Arlington

This last aspect of inclusion is one that I want to bring particular attention to in 2006: Aging presents particular challenges to the goal of community preservation.

What many seniors are looking for is a place that’s walkable, with services like libraries, the post office, a grocery, the doctor’s office easily reachable. With access to transit (i), so you’re not dependent on being able to drive. A real community, where you know your neighbors. In other words: An urban village. What place could be more suitable than Arlington? The challenge is ensuring that living in Arlington in ones later years is truly an option.

This is an issue for today that will only become larger in importance tomorrow. America is aging, and so is Arlington: By 2030 it is projected that one fifth of us will be over age 65. This year, we will assess Arlington’s “aging readiness.” (ii) We’ll look at the question from the perspective of housing, health services, transportation, and other issues. We will examine the future need for additional “Continuing Care Retirement Communities” within our county. And, we will explore the possibilities for establishing a “virtual” CCRC in Arlington.

The goal is to ensure that our commitment to inclusion effectively extends across the life-cycle. To be true to our vision, our community must be livable for people of all ages.

Transportation

Another key issue for 2006 is transportation. Our new governor and the General Assembly are expected to devote real attention to the transportation problem, and we in Arlington will be closely involved. In particular, we will be working in close cooperation with regional allies on the effort for dedicated funding for Metro.

[One regional item of particular note is that] this is the big year for 8-car trains on Metrorail. The Orange line will start seeing them this month. By December, rush hour will feature 20 percent 8-car trains on the system, bringing much-needed relief to crowded commutes.

We will continue with our aggressive program of transportation improvements, including:

• completion of 20 “WALKArlington” pedestrian projects;
• improvements at key points on Lee Highway and Wilson Boulevard and at major intersections along Glebe Road;
• completing the final phase of traffic signal optimization in the county; and,
• utility undergrounding on Columbia Pike.

Bicycle improvements will include beginning construction on the long-awaited Four Mile Run-Shirley Highway underpass and the installation of 50 new bike racks around the county.

As for transit, we’ll:

• make improvements to our [award-winning] ART bus system,
• initiate new Metrobus service in the Crystal City/Potomac Yard corridor,
• open new elevators at the Ballston Metro station, and obtain new escalator canopies at several rail stations;

Also, the Board will receive the final recommendations of the Columbia Pike transit study, and will be asked to determine future steps.

Youth Transit Initiative

[Four years ago I addressed the paradoxical difficulty in Metro-centric Arlington of getting around within our county on transit. Since then, we inaugurated Pike Ride and our ART bus system, which has received national honors from the American Public Transportation Association, and now carries over half a million riders a year.] This year I want to bring focus to the mobility needs of one particular segment of Arlingtonians.

One of the great uncalculated costs of our automobile-dependent society is the lost freedom of young people. Being a teenager is hard enough, but in the United States, if you don’t have a driver’s license, if you don’t have a car, you can be completely stranded – separated from after-school jobs and programs. The horizons that access to Metro can bring are only good if Metro is accessible to you; even in a community as compact as Arlington, most schools are not located near rail stations. (iii)

Not every kid can or should have a car. Transit has the potential to open up new horizons for young people, to connect teens with jobs, after school programs, and other teens. Or, to go to a movie, to a mall, or to The Mall – yes, sometimes kids even want to go to a museum. Transit can make it possible. But only if it goes where they need to go, when they need to go. And only if they know how to use it, and can afford it.

Recently, thanks to the Teen Network, School Board member Mary Hynes and I, along with staff from both the county and schools, had an opportunity to meet with a group of young people to discuss transit issues in Arlington. We learned a lot.

And so, this year Arlington County will launch a “Youth Transit Initiative,” a joint effort with the Arlington Partnership for Children, Youth, and Families and Arlington Public Schools. The goal will be both to provide better service and better information to teens, but also to engage them directly in the initiative.

In the process, we may help to make a new generation of transit-users.

Economic sustainability

Our ability to do as much as we have, and to take on more, is directly tied to the strength and vibrancy of Arlington’s economy, which remains healthy and well-poised for the future. Nonetheless, in this area too, we face new challenges, especially with the pending impact of Defense Department changes approved by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC).

Last month the Board established a Task Force, under the leadership of the Economic Development Commission, which will address the effects on Arlington's economy, tax base, real estate market, hospitality industry, and small businesses. (iv) The County will establish a BRAC Transition Assistance Center, to help businesses and employees impacted by the coming changes, especially in the Crystal City area.

Focus on small business

As important as large enterprises are, on a day-to-day basis, Arlingtonians feel more impacted by their local coffee shop, pet store, hair salon, their favorite restaurants, and of course, their grocery. They see local entrepreneurship as essential to the vitality of our community. We need to pay close attention to the impacts and challenges to small businesses.

As a matter of fact, “Over 82 percent of Arlington employers have fewer than 20 paid employees”. (v) (And, more than a sixth of Arlington’s small businesses are minority-owned). (vi) These enterprises make an essential contribution to our community’s distinctive character and its livability. We need to be able to assure that we have on-going mechanisms to retain otherwise successful local enterprises that are impacted by re-development, and that our residents will have ready access to the rich variety of services that the term “urban village” implies, and sustainability demands.

This year I will ask the Board to direct the Manager to develop a framework that will systematically and comprehensively address these issues. This initiative can build on earlier work (vii), utilize the many resources already available (viii), and perhaps better coordinate our existing efforts. Its aims will include both helping start-ups and aiding businesses in distress. It will look anew at what maybe done by way of ‘neighborhood commercial revitalization’ and ‘retail recruitment’; (ix) expanding the kiosk effort begun last year; and conducting a neighborhood grocery feasibility analysis.

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Our Values – the core of our vision

[In closing] In each of these areas I’ve discussed – planning, our employees, affordable housing, Senior living, transportation, and economic sustainability and small business – our policy structure is based on the Arlington Urban Village concept and the values that undergird it. This is what the Urban village is about: careful planning, shared commitment, inclusion; being a welcoming community, a complete community, for young and old, with opportunities for all. And it’s about how we do things as much as what we do.

For all the plans made at its start, we can never know what new issues the new year will force upon us. There are always surprises – some welcome, some not – that have to be dealt with. Whatever may come, Arlington’s response will be guided by our vision, summed up in that 34 word statement that I referred to earlier, and the values it represents.

Our vision statement begins with the descriptors “diverse and inclusive” and ends with the words “in which each person is important.” I think this befits a community that claims a place in the history of the struggle for civil rights, and is today home to people from over 100 countries. A community never timid to defend the rights and dignity of all of its members, regardless of ethnic background or nationality, sexual orientation or immigration status.

Over the years, these core values have impelled Arlingtonians to take important, often difficult stands. From leading Virginia in the integration of public schools in the late 20th century, to treating day laborers with dignity in the 21st. Struggling for ways to provide affordable housing and domestic partner benefits. Some may say we frequently get out in front of the rest of the Commonwealth, even the nation – and they are right.

As in the past, we may be forced to take stands based on those values. We will not win every battle, but we will never shrink from the fight, because those values are at the core of the Urban Village concept; they are the continuing thread that runs through the modern history of this county; and they are what makes so many of us most proud to call ourselves Arlingtonians.

It is in that spirit that we go forward in 2006 to carry on with all our efforts to deliver on the great promise of our community.

I thank you all for being here, for listening, and for being Arlington.

Happy New Year.

Arlington will be a diverse and inclusive world-class urban community with secure, attractive residential and commercial neighborhoods where people unite to form a caring, learning, participating, sustainable community in which each person is important.

i. Surveys have indicated 70 percent of elderly respondents wanting to live with access to transit.

ii. This will involve several advisory commissions, including those for Long-term Care, Aging, Housing, and Transportation.

iii. In the case of older residents, we have recognized this special need: Our website provides easy access to information about various Senior Transportation programs.

iv. I will be meeting with them later this week.

v. AED, Board Briefing on Small Business, May 6, 2004.

vi. Ibid.

vii. E.g., research done in 2003 for the Small Business Task Force on Community Retail; the “only in Arlington” campaign.

viii. E.g., the current “BizLaunch” program.

ix. Placing local businesses in newly developed spaces.