Hello Yupette,
I'm going to retire from County Government in a year or two. So I signed the "change the government" petition and I don't care what the County Board thinks.
Arlington County is a huge Ponzi Scheme that benefits the Elite. Our region is like a black hole that sucks in money from all over the world to fund the military industrial complex and constant warfare in the Third World. That's where the money comes from for the County Board's Ponzi Scheme.
The County Board and its boosters and facilitators are Elitists. Many are also Racists. The Elitists want Arlington to become like a Creative Class (aka "Yuppie") Disney World. Several people who posted to your blog alluded to the County Board wanting every household with an income of less than $200,000 a year out. That's pretty much correct. They can't fund their extravagant programs that cater to the lifestyles of the "Creative Class" without gentrifying out the middle class, replacing middle class housing with ever more expensive residential buildings. They also raise taxes and borrow - a lot - every year.
They transfer tax dollars around like crazy, from basic infrastructure to projects that benefit the Elite, Creative Class, Yuppies. This a HUGE Ponzi Scheme. It is so pervasive and so bad that (for example) Zimmerman cut the FY 11 taxpayer funding for ART by $1.1 million and used most of it for his pet Creative Class projects, like $500,000 to take over Columbia Pike maintenance from VDOT to build his trolley folly. So they are raising ART fares for the working class (which uses ART as its only means of transportation to get to and from providing services for the Elite) to fund Zimmerman's upscale projects.
Whatever "affordable" housing that's constructed is for the household servants of the Elite, who live in increasingly expensive luxury enclaves.
So we are going to be close to gridlock soon because many more people who work in Arlington won't be able to live in Arlington.
How long can this continue? As long as the military industrial complex keeps sucking money into the region. As long as the world keeps lending our government money. Arlington County would be in big trouble if peace broke out around the world.
DHS