Annual Organizational Board Meeting
Published on January 05, 2022
The Arlington County Board held its 2022 Organizational Meeting Tuesday evening, electing leadership and sharing its vision for the coming months. “I’m honored to serve as Board Chair and look forward to collaborative work with my colleagues, County staff and residents in 2022,” stated newly elected Chair Katie Cristol. Ms. Cristol will be joined by Christian Dorsey, who was elected Vice Chair.
The annual Organizational Meeting also allowed the members to share their focus and priorities for 2022. Among the topics discussed were:
- COVID in Arlington – testing, vaccination and education.
- Continuing concerns over stable, safe and affordable housing.
- Climate change and renewable energy.
Each of the Board’s five members provided their thoughts on the coming year, offering a road map for their strategy to address these issues for the community. Regarding the pandemic, out-going Chair Matt de Ferranti said, “preventing additional variants by lowering the numbers of cases will also be critical.” Vice-Chair Christian Dorsey addressed the effects of COVID, stating “Living with COVID means maintaining our vigilance, our patience, our flexibility, and our community spirit to overcome any challenge the virus and its variants may bring.”
Addressing climate change, ten-year Board member Libby Garvey observed, “Arlington will not be self-sufficient with locally produced food and energy any time soon, but steps in that direction are crucial to our future health and resiliency in a changing climate.” Newly-elected Chair Katie Cristol shared a similar position, saying “the Community Energy Plan provides a blueprint, but truly doing our part to address this existential issue requires not a set of initiatives or projects, but a lens through which we make all decisions.”
Board member Takis Karantonis summarized the meeting eloquently by sharing, “what connects every single item in your local government’s long list of accomplishments in 2021 is its focus on Arlington values: Equity, inclusion, compassion, and solidarity. Focus on Arlington values does not mean that there are no differences of opinion. It means that there is always common ground that what unites us is always more powerful than what potentially divides us.
Additional Board logistics were also addressed, such as finalizing the annual meetings schedule and meeting procedures. The next County Board meeting will be January 22, 2022. To view the entire Organizational meeting, visit YouTube.
Board members were also invited to meet with the Civic Federation to collaborate on community issues for the coming year. Inquiries were submitted by the organization ahead of time and members were able to provide responses and address any concerns. Questions from the Civic Federation centered around the recent line of credit obtained for the purchase of Barcroft Apartments, as well as other fiscal matters and protection of personal information. The entirety of the meeting can also be viewed on YouTube.