en Español

Good morning and welcome to the County Board’s annual New Year’s meeting.  It’s good of you to spend a part of this second day of the new year with us.   Before I launch into any 2012 remarks, I want to be sure to say thank you, Mr. Zimmerman, for leading us so ably in 2011. It was a busy year!

Thank you, colleagues, for electing me to serve as Chair this year.  I appreciate your confidence.  Over the years, each of you has brought your best thinking to this table –from community energy planning to supporting small business to strengthening our culture of fitness and health - and our community is the better for your work.  I pledge to do my best to facilitate the community’s work this year - continuing our efforts to build a great community together. 

As Chair, I plan to continue my focus on maintenance capital and the Capital Improvement Program. The condition assessment of County facilities and parks that the County completed in 2011 identified more than $50 million in critical maintenance capital needs over the next eight years. Now more than ever, when every dollar of public funding counts, we must be sure to take care of what we have by developing and funding a realistic plan that ensures the sustainability of Arlington’s physical infrastructure.

We have a civic infrastructure that’s critical to this community’s future vibrancy too.  I’d like share a story with you today that explains why I got more involved in Arlington.  About 30 years ago, when I was still pretty new to Arlington, I wrote a letter to the Superintendent of the Arlington Public Schools expressing concern about reduced support for a particular program.  His reply was an invitation to meet with the School system’s Director of Finance, Joe Guter.

I accepted that invitation and found my way to the Finance Director’s office.  Mr. Guter was a retired Marine – a burly man with a buzz cut and a gravelly voice.  I was a young mother, not much accustomed to dealing with “officials.”  After a lengthy conversation -- me probing, him parrying -- he finally said to me "Look, the School Board isn't going to provide this service any longer because it doesn't have to,”  Then he paused, looked me straight in the eye, and said, "but Mrs. Hynes, Arlington is the kind of place where a persistent, thoughtful, constructive person can make a difference."  He stood and shook my hand and the meeting was over.

I walked out of his office thinking, "Hmm.  I can be persistent, thoughtful and constructive."

What I got in that meeting 30 years ago was some real insight into what makes our community unusual – and special.  Our governance – our civic infrastructure – is rooted in the belief that good ideas can come from anywhere; that collaboration between citizens and County government typically leads to better results than working alone, and that strategic decisions stand the test of time when developed together.

There are many things that set Arlington apart.  First we are geographically small – the smallest self-governing county in the nation.  As a result, there is little distance between citizens and our government.  Second, we are well-educated and wonderfully diverse – bringing a range of creative ideas to the issues and challenges we face as a community.  And, many of us want to be involved -- offering our time, energy, and ideas to make Arlington a constantly improving place.

We often refer to the process that brings citizens together with our government to address Arlington’s needs and challenges as “the Arlington Way.”  We’ve become known for it - regionally and nationally.  Over the years, it has served our community uncommonly well, helping us address all sorts of problems and take advantage of many opportunities.  It’s also worked well because from time-to-time, we’ve taken a step back to think about how we can improve on it and make it even more effective.  It’s always been a work in progress.  And even while we’ve worked to improve the Arlington Way, our core values of inclusiveness, mutual support, caring, and tolerance, have continued to bind us together, to make us a stronger, healthier community. 

We've been busy building this great place for more than 60 years.  And we have many successes to show for it.  I believe that our reputation of shared problem-solving and strong neighborhood involvement has been an essential building block in our long term success and attractiveness to a diversity of newcomers. Our challenge now is to ensure that Arlington – our home town – continues to tap into our resident’s and County staff’s talents so that Arlington remains a great place for all kinds of folks – even in these increasingly demanding times.

In this context, I believe it's time:

To reinvigorate the Arlington Way - intentionally - with regular training for citizens, commissioners and staff - supporting interactive dialogue on key issues that contribute to better civic decision-making. 

• To take advantage of technology without losing the incredible value that comes from working face-to-face with our neighbors and public servants to solve common problems and chart our community's future.
• To find new ways to encourage persistent, thoughtful, constructive citizens to engage in the continuing work of improving Arlington.

PLACE

With support from my colleagues, I'm announcing that in 2012 we will work with members of the community and County staff to update the Arlington Way by focusing on “PLACE -- Participation, Leadership and Civic Engagement.” Taken together, participation, leadership and civic engagement encompass the main ways in which our residents currently engage with each other and our government to enrich Arlington.  Intentionally strengthening these three components and systematically linking them together has tremendous potential to effectively expand our civic conversations and decision-making to more Arlingtonians.

Let’s expand on what I have said, starting with PARTICIPATION, the “P” in “Place”:

For the vast majority of us, community means much more than the simple geography that defines Arlington.  It encompasses:

• groups, like Kiwanis, PTAs, Civic Associations, and churches that we and other members of our family belong to,
• sports leagues and other groups we join from soccer to cycling to rowing, and
• the charities and volunteer organizations – like the Community Emergency Response Teams, the Arlington Free Clinic, or the Arlington Community Foundation – where we donate our time, treasure or talent for the good of the greater community. 

Participating in these community groups and activities enriches our lives.  They help us build healthy, productive and happy lives and are essential to a community’s vibrancy. Successfully connecting to them allows each of us to build relationships with others, helps us know where to turn in times of need, and provides us with multiple opportunities to contribute to our community.  

To gain a better understanding of Arlington’s community connections, we’ll invite the leaders of every Arlington group we can identify to an open house this winter to begin the creation of a community map that captures the depth and breadth of Arlington’s groups, leagues, organizations and other entities.  Our hope is that this:

1. expands our understanding of what each Arlington group does;
2. improves connections between groups and enhances community dialogues and civic decision-making in the future; and
3. becomes a valuable resource for each Arlingtonian, newcomer and old-timer, teen to senior, seeking to make connections in our community.

This map will be in draft form for some time. There will be opportunities for additional community input following the openhouse.  Ultimately, the map will be made available on the County website for all of us to use.

Finally, I want to announce that beginning in January, and each Monday throughout the year, individual Board members will hold “open door” sessions, from 7 to 9 p.m., at County facilities and community centers. The exact location will rotate throughout the month.  These will be informal sessions, where residents can discuss any County-related issue with a Board Member.  Locations will be posted later this week on the County Board page of the County website. 

LEADERSHIP is the second component of the “PLACE” initiative:

If you ask 10 Arlingtonians about the Arlington Way, you’re likely to get 10 somewhat different answers.  While there is broad appreciation for its value and importance to our community’s story and evolution, there is no common understanding of HOW the Arlington Way exactly works. 

To address that issue and ensure that Arlingtonians seeking to participate understand both the process and the opportunities available, we will convene a formal community-wide conversation to develop a clear description of the Arlington Way as it applies to and should energize our decision-making going forward.  Working with County Board Members, Commissioners, County staff, and Arlington residents, non-profits, and businesses, we will delineate the roles and responsibilities of participants in our civic decision-making processes.  On-going collaborations in the future will be greatly helped by this work, clarifying that each sector plays a vital role in key community decision-making and successful civic discourse. 

In addition, as we develop the community map this winter, we also hope to discover ways we can refine existing processes to ensure that local leaders have increasingly more success in their interactions with County Government. 

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT – The last component in PLACE but the heart of our work together:

Mapping community connections, the first or “Participation” phase of PLACE, is step one in our revitalization process. Step two - understanding and describing the crucial role that each of sector plays in achieving successful civil discourse - occurs in the “Leadership” phase of PLACE.  Both are important – but not sufficient to achieve our goal.  Using these new tools and understandings on our real work together is where the rubber hits the road.

So we will apply them together this fall to our land use planning processes as the initial pilot area of civic engagement.  We’ll conduct joint civic engagement training with key groups who interact around this issue – including Board Members, Commissioners, County staff, Civic Association presidents and property owners. 

In recognition of the critical role that collaboration with the community plays in our success, I am announcing that County Manager Barbara Donnellan has decided to build civic engagement more systematically into staff’s work and evaluation processes, in essence making effective civic engagement a required staff skill.  This decision follows work on civic engagement begun by Ms. Donnellan over a year ago.  I am very pleased about this initiative and applaud the County Manager for her strong leadership.

I’m certain we will learn a great deal from our land-use civic engagement pilot.  Some of what we learn will relate directly to the particular planning issues at hand.  Importantly, we also expect to learn a lot about the new tools, understandings and refreshed processes – what worked, what didn’t, what we should keep and what needs refinement.  We’ll apply any improvements arising from the pilot to other challenging and important issues that arise over time and across County government.

This will not be an exercise. It is not about simply checking a box on civic engagement. Our goal is for more members of our community to be involved – actively and constructively – in the important local government decisions that affect their lives and those of their neighbors.  

Over the years I’ve learned that you never know where a good idea will come from.  So, we need to increase our chances of hearing and employing good ideas by expanding participation, training participants and staff together, increasing the quality of our processes, and setting realistic expectations for participation in our decision-making processes.  This commitment to supporting high quality civic engagement will show Arlingtonians – and others - that strong partnerships between government and the governed can continue to produce better results for all of us.

Arlington is a very special place. 

1. It is special because each of us has decided to make it our home. 
2. It is special because so many who choose to live and or do business here are willing to share their good ideas and work actively to improve Arlington. 
3. It is special because those who bring good ideas often take on important leadership roles that lead to others making civic contributions. 
4. And it is special because through all of this we have used and will continue to use this process – the Arlington Way – to build a better Arlington.
5. Finally, it is special because the Arlington Way allows one persistent, thoughtful and constructive person to make a real difference.

Thank you all and Happy New Year.