The Civic Voice
Newsletter of the Arlington County Civic Federation
June, 2001 - Volume 85, No. 10
Public Safety Chiefs To Visit June Meeting
Annual Elections Set For Federation�s June Gathering
June General Meeting
7:30 p.m., Tuesday, June 5
Arlington Hospital, Hazel Auditorium
1701 N. George Mason Drive
We will wrap up our civic-year this month at the June meeting. That means
we will conduct our annual elections and also ask our members to tell us
what they liked about this year and what they want the Federation to do in
the following year. Here�s the program schedule for June:
-- June Meeting Program --
Annual Election of Officers
Public Safety Program
2000-2001 Year End Wrap-Up
More information about the elections and our program is inside this edition.
Neighborhood Day - A Super Event!
You can view some pictures of the event taken by our Executive Committee Chair, Pat Smaldore
And � if you missed the parade entirely, it will be replaying 4 times each
Friday on Cable Channel 31 throughout this coming month, starting at noon on
June 1st.
For those who completely missed our Neighborhood Day activities � ACCF civic
organizations hosted a wide variety of activities ranging from park
clean-ups, and community yard sales to helping seniors spruce up their
yards. The parade rated a �Thumbs Up� by the Sun Gazette�s editor for the
Civic Federation. We reached out to our new neighbors from other nations
with an impressive variety of cultures (credit goes to Walter Tejada) in the
parade and at the festival in the courtyard of the County Building. We
wrapped the evening up at Fort Myer with a truly moving ceremony by the Army
conducted in honor of Arlington. It was all nicely done!
Elections At June Meeting
At our April meeting, the membership elected a Nominating Committee
comprised of Tim Wise, Frances Finta, Wayne Kubicki, Ann Rudd and Sue Zajac.
The purpose of this committee was to search out and select candidates for
the Federation�s election of officers for the coming year. The work of the
committee isn�t always easy as they look for delegates from member
organizations who have a desire to serve and can commit to the extra hours
of volunteer time. This year work was not any easier than expected. The
Committee Chair, Tim Wise, reports that the committee worked hard to seek
out new faces to serve as officers. They came up with a slate of names
(some new, some familiar) for this year�s candidates, which is listed below.
This list is by no means the final word on who gets elected. It�s just
insurance that we�ll have enough names to fill all the spots. At June�s
meeting, we will open the floor to additional nominations. So � for now,
the Nominating Committee�s proposed nominees:
Slate of Nominees (Not Final)
Nominee for President: Jim Pebley
Nominee for Vice President: Dan Krasnegor
Nominee for Secretary: Tim Wise
Nominee for Treasurer Frances Finta:
Nominees for Executive Committee (Five):
Kim Smith
Mileva Hartman
Patrick Smaldore
Robert Atkins
Roger Meyer
Public Safety Chiefs Visit In June
If you remember last year�s Public Safety meeting, you will recall it was a
real eye-opener. We had some very frank presentations by the Fire Chief and
Deputy Chief of Police. This year we�ve decided to expand the discussions
to include the Sheriff and Head of the Emergency Communications Center
(ECC). The meeting format will be the same. We will ask them to each give
us a ten minute summary on the �State of Public Safety in Arlington.� We
plan to follow that with 45 minutes of questions and answers (questions will
be limited, as always, to delegates and alternates). The Public Safety
Committee has done a lot of work looking at what the concerns of our member
organizations are and developed a list of topics that we have forwarded to
our guests in advance of the meeting. Here are a few of the questions the
Federation has forwarded:
For the Police Department
1) What is the Triad Program and how does it work?
2) Staffing � We�ve heard staffing was down 30 sworn officers. What is the
status of staffing now?
3) Crime trends -- what types of crime does summer bring, and what can
citizens do to avoid becoming a victim of some of these crimes? What can
you tell us about Identity Theft? Credit card fraud?
For the Fire Department
1) Since 1991, how many new employees have been added to the Fire
Department?
2) We understand you are striving toward having all your personnel
cross-trained -- fire and EMS. How is that progressing?
3) With Arlington's aging population, including all the Baby-boomers who are
entering middle and beyond-age, what effect will this have on calls for
service?
4) What exactly happens when a hospital is on emergency or critical care
by-pass status? What are the EMS personnel instructed to do? What are
the hospitals obligated to do?
5) We understand that Fairfax has fire-engineering plans for all its
buildings. Does Arlington? Where are they housed? How accessible are
they?
7) The Tri-Data Study indicated you needed 25 new personnel immediately.
Realistically, how many people could you effectively add each year?
For the Sheriff�s Department
1) What trends are you seeing in the ages of the jail population?
2) Are sentences for drug crimes increasing or decreasing?
3) What trends are you seeing in gang related incidents?
4) What types of rehabilitative programs are now in effect for the jail
population? Have you done any recidivism studies?
For ECC
1) How many calls on average did you handle before use of cell phones became
the norm? How many calls are you averaging today? Can you break these down
by category -- i.e., emergency (fire, police, ambulance); non-emergency?
2) Your staffing was down an estimated 30% several months ago. What is it
now?
3) Can you please describe what happens when one of your personnel receives
a 911 call for police? For ambulance? For fire?
4) Several dramatic stories have appeared in the press recently about the
heroic actions of your staff. These types of situations have to produce a
great deal of stress. What types of staff programs are available should the
need to decompress occur?
West Nile Virus Lookout!
While we were happy to see the drought cut short by the recent series of
rainstorms hitting the area � another threat may appear in Arlington � West
Nile Virus. The recent rains have left behind standing pools of water,
which can provide breeding sites for Asian Tiger Mosquitoes. The mosquitoes
can transmit the virus between people and birds, which carry the virus.
Members who find dead birds that appear to have died from natural causes
should call the Animal Welfare League at 703-931-9241 to report it. If you�
d like a visit to your organization�s next meeting by County Health Services
for a presentation on the West Nile Virus threat, contact them at
703-228-7395. And, most importantly � get rid of that standing water!
President's Notes
Well � this year has flown by. While keeping up with all the extra duties
has been a challenge, the reward has been working with a truly great group
of people � the Federation�s officers and committee chairs. While we won�t
be holding membership meetings in July and August, we do have some
activities planned you may want to join...
- Civic Association�s Web Page.� It�s scheduled for July 28th, 1-5p.m. at
the Technology Enterprise Community Center in the Littman Law Offices 1st
floor at 3717 Columbia Pike. Contact Jay for details by phone 703-920-5193 or
an email to jay+
- County Fair Booth, Aug 16-19 -- This year, as last, we will have a Fair
booth to spread the word about the Federation and its member organizations.
Organization Presidents � make sure to get us your literature! And...we
need Fair booth hosts! If you can spare us 2 hours, please contact Patrick
Smaldore at 703-528-3935 or send him an email to patrick+
- Virtual Newsletters � This summer, I�ll be sending updates out to our
organization presidents every three or four weeks.
- Finally, don�t forget about our Civic Heroes Program! If you know some
truly worthy Arlingtonian, contact an Executive Committee Member or
Federation Officer about nominating him or her!
See you on Tuesday!
-- Jim Pebley
p.s.: Public Comment still starts at 7 p.m.!
ACCF Officers
President Jim Pebley 703-525-0766 jim+
Vice President Dan Krasnegor 703-534-4024 dan+
Treasurer Frances Finta 703-528-2882 (no email)
Secretary Tim Wise 703-243-8345 tim+
Executive Committee
Chairman - Patrick Smaldore 703-528-3935 - patrick+
Member - Robert Atkins 703-527-8859 - (voice or fax) - (no email)
Member - Darnell Carpenter 703-243-5188 - darnell+
Member - Mileva Hartman 703-841-9287 - mileva+
Member - Dan Krasnegor 703-534-4024 - dan+
Member - Susan Quinn 703-931-1755 - susan+
Committee Chairs
Newsletter Editorial Committee
+
News email: - civicvoice Fax: 703-486-0576 +
Web: - www.civfed.org (.com works too)
Recipients of this newsletter are encouraged to forward to all and any
interested parties
Copies of the Newsletter are available for Download from the Civic
Federation website. (This page!)
If you have comments or complaints, please contact the editor, Jim Pebley
This page was last revised on: December 28, 2003.
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Arlington County Civic Federation
