Executive Committee Minutes
for September 16, 2003
The meeting of the ExCom was called to order at approximately 7:30 p.m. Members present were Officers Dan Krasnegor, Frances Finta, and Patrick Smaldore; ExCom Members Nancy Graham, Randy Swart, Bobi Wallace, Kim Smith, Ken Marcus. Chairmen present were Jerry Auten, Roger Meyer, Bob Atkins, Jay Wind and Jim Pebley.
In the early absence of the Secretary and Treasurer, the President's report was given first. The September session of the CivFed went well. Consideration will be given to the Gazette suggestion when the next debate will have a large number of candidates.
The November legislative agenda will be operated under traditional rules. The package will be in the October newsletter. Among the items removed were initiative and referendum. Additions will be made from the floor - changes must be given to Nancy Graham 72 hours in advance and 75 copies must be made available at the November Civic Federation meeting.
December will feature the School Board. An informal note has gone out. One of the issues to be considered is how to avoid having questions ignored.
There are several new co-chairs. Adam Parkhomenko (ajparkhom@netscape.net ) will be asked to co-chair Special Events with Ann Rudd. The date of the banquet will be March 26th. The Legislation Committee has a new co-chair: Jim Mayer. Parks does as well, but first Larry Finch must be made a delegate to the Civic Federation.
Fundraising: The cost of operating the Civic Federation, particularly newsletters (only 33% receive electronic distribution) and committee work, exceeds the revenues generated through dues. As a result, fund-raising must take place. Several suggestions were offered for later consideration: selling Entertainment books (however, Friends of Arlington Parks is selling these, and we don't wish to be in competition with a member organization); T-shirts; Phantom Party. One of the limitations is that we are a 501(c) (4) and are consequently not tax deductible.
Newsletter Deadline: September 28th
OCTOBER MEETING:
Crime Solvers will present to the full Federation during the civic forum period as will the Arlington Chapter of the American Red Cross. A presentation of appreciation will be made to Judy Green. The Parks Committee and the Schools Committee will jointly prepare a presentation on the plans for Washington and Lee High School (1 hour). Randy will check with the Commonwealth's Attorney to see if he would provide us with an educational briefing on having a Public Defenders Office for Arlington (20 minutes). Signs will be deferred because of the very real possibility that different recommendations from those originally made will be offered by County staff.
PUBLICITY
Channel 69 has begun airing a series of interviews with Civic Association Presidents. Ben Axelroad from Ballston-Virginia Square has been on the program, as has Dan. A letter will go out from Dan to the Civic Association presidents informing them of this opportunity.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
Transportation: Parking will be a major focus as will arterials. Jerry Auten is our representative to the Arterials Committee. Arterials will be meeting Thursday. They've hired a consulting firm to reduce capacity of the roads. It appears they want to move them to neighborhood streets. The first three arterials for consideration are: Four Mile Run; the western end of Wilson Boulevard; Carlin Springs Road. It appears that something similar to charettes will be conducted and that decisions will be made later in the fall.
A small group is being put together at the county level on the parking issue. Ed Parks is the new co-chair and the Civic Federation might have a seminar on this issue.
Planning and Zoning: A seminar will be held in November to educate interested delegates on the ins and outs of this very complicated subject. Attention will also be given to Zoning Administrator Rulings, a source of concern vis a vis community awareness.
Schools - Roger Meyer informed us that the County has appointed a citizen chair to the task force on W & L. Linda Henderson is a past president of the County Council of PTAs and will be leading this effort. The final decision on W & L has apparently been deferred until January. Because of the possibility that W & L will be relocated to Quincy Park, the Parks and Rec Committee will be working in concert with the schools committee on this issue.
Parks will be meeting on September 29th at 7:00 in Room 126 at Washington-Lee.
Additional information on the plans: non-negotiable items are - the stadium stays where it is currently located; the parking for faculty stays at the current site.
Roger will get a copy of the instructions to the working group. He will also insure that the most immediately affected civic associations are informed and included.
Terri Prell is our delegate to ACI; Roger Meyer is the alternate.
December meeting will feature the School Board and Superintendent. They will begin at 7:45 and have 1.5 hours allocated. It will be structured around the Civic Federation question format, and Dan will address invitations to the School Board members and the Superintendent.
Revenues and Expenditures - Because bonds will be an issue in the 2004 elections, the Civic Federation will host an educational seminar on January 24th for those who wish to understand the intricacies of this form of financing. This will be held on a Saturday afternoon at 1:30 p.m., and we will explore the possibility of holding it at the Hazel Auditorium, NRECA or Central Library, depending upon availability. Bob Atkins and Jay Wind will take major roles in designing this tutorial.
Planning and Zoning - Two areas where we wish to focus attention on this issue (among many) are Zoning Ruling Process and the basics of zoning (November 15 seminar). Suggestions were also made that we might wish to spread leadership by getting volunteers who would work not only on the all-Arlington issues but also by specific sectors of the county.
Public Services - The Public Services Committee is working on a number of issues: drop boxes at libraries; the Office of Public Defender; the FCC petition from the Citizen Corps Council to insure no charges for emergency communications via cell phones (resolution); a system of sirens for Arlington County (resolution in support of CCC's recommendation); the possible closing of Northern Virginia Community Hospital and Dominion Psychiatric Hospital (resolution).
Membership: ABC has paid its back dues plus dues for this year. The Membership Committee will present a motion for re-admittance.
TREASURER'S REPORT
Checking Account: $4000.26
Savings $2368.15
Total $6368.15
911 Fund (1031.92)
Civic Federation Fund 5336.49
Checks rc'd 100.00
Total $5436.49
48 of 85 organizations have paid
The meeting was adjourned at approximately 9:30 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Acting Secretary
(These minutes were prepared by Kim Smith with input from various notetakers. They were approved by email vote.)
This page was last revised on: December 27, 2003.
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Arlington County Civic Federation
