Vihstadt Outlines His Top Priorities for 2016

PHOTO: John Vihstadt, Arlington County Board member; official photo from Arlington County

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ARLINGTON, VA — Editor’s note: The following remarks are by Arlington County Board Member John Vihstadt, from Friday’s annual New Year’s Day board kickoff meeting.

Thank you.

At the outset, I want to thank my retired colleagues Mary Hynes and Walter Tejada for their decades of service to Arlington. We’ve had healthy differences, but no one can doubt their hard work and dedication to the people of Arlington.

I thank our new Chair, Libby Garvey, for her big picture perspective and setting our course for the twelve months ahead.

Today, we continue a long local tradition of another New Year’s Day County Board meeting. But January 1, 2016 also marks a new day for Arlington: a continued transition to fresh faces, new ideas, and rethinking our challenges, both on this Board and our School Board.

Of the ten members of the two Boards combined, six of us, or 60%, are now in our first terms. I’m excited about the fresh perspectives offered by my newest colleagues, Christian Dorsey and Katie Cristol, each of whom last year stressed themes of openness and fiscal responsibility. I’m eager to work with the School Board’s Reid Goldstein and his colleagues on even greater collaboration, from school capacity to shared planning and more.

While the County Board tackles numerous issues in 2016, my top priorities include the following four items:

First, continue to strengthen accountability and transparency in County Government. Just in the last year, we initiated a toll-free fraud and abuse hotline for County employees and gave them the protection needed to come forward confidentially and without fear of reprisal through a new employee whistleblower protection policy. I see no reason why we cannot make this hotline available to the general public this year. But I’m most proud that, thanks in part to Delegate Patrick Hope and a push from so many people regardless of political outlook, the Board has now hired its first ever County Auditor.

Starting in just two weeks, our new County Auditor will help strengthen peoples’ confidence in County government, and better ensure that our taxpayer dollars are being spent effectively and only for the purposes intended. This new position will report directly to the County Board and be overseen by an Audit Committee to include Jay Fisette, myself and members of the public to ensure true accountability. In the same vein, I applaud our Acting County Manager, Mark Schwartz, in announcing our new Open Data initiative, which will catch us up with what so many communities are already doing.

Ensuring more complete, comprehensive and user-friendly access to public documents and information on the web will further enhance County transparency and responsiveness. It is also past time for Board adoption of a new policy that requires posting of Board agenda items, staff recommendations and reports a certain period of time prior to Board meetings. Whether that means 48 or 72 hours in advance, I look forward to working with the community and my colleagues to buttress the Board’s own transparency, an area where we have admittedly fallen short.

Second, bring new faces to the community table. Our 40-some County-appointed advisory boards and commissions serve as the County Board’s eyes and ears on a range of issues from housing to transportation and social services to urban forestry. Sometimes, these groups are perceived as merely rubber stamps for pre-determined County actions. Yet at other times, we may fail to even consult with them. And while seasoned perspectives are invaluable, so are new people with new ideas from new communities.

My colleague Katie Cristol and I will initiate a new ad hoc working group to examine our commissions, including how to foster greater diversity of representation to practical ways of staying connected and approaching issues. Robust discussion from a multiplicity of voices is an essential component of the Arlington Way.

Third, augment the role of small, locally grown businesses and entrepreneurs in our economic competitiveness challenge and to help keep local dollars working locally. Building on the work of last year’s Business Brain Trust, I’m calling for a Small Business Summit.

A representative group of small business owners across the County—both bricks & mortar and home-based and virtual--including minority, women and veterans’ owned businesses, will convene and collaborate with the Arlington Chamber of Commerce, County government, including Arlington Economic Development, the Commissioner of Revenue, the County Treasurer and other stakeholders to examine new ways to foster small business growth and sustainability.

Our BizLaunch program to help small businesses get off the ground has been highly successful, but now it is time to determine whether there are broad-based administrative or regulatory steps we might take. Tax structure, licensing and permitting, inspections, parking, signage and other requirements that impact this community on a daily basis deserve a fresh look across the board.

Fourth, scrub the budget and examine our priorities to help ensure that we do first things first. Arlington faces a new economic paradigm: gone are the days when we can rely on rising commercial and residential tax assessments to fund everything we want and when we want it. In a County budget now climbing over 1.3 billion dollars a year and with over 3,000 public employees, surely we can find programs and projects to reduce, recalibrate, eliminate or defer while ensuring that our schools, public safety, infrastructure maintenance and other essential services are protected. Tax rates and tax burdens do matter.

In closing, I look forward to working with my colleagues, our dedicated County staff and the community on these initiatives and so much else—from improved public transit on Columbia Pike to new tools to help our seniors age in place. Now is the time.

Thank you!