For his efforts to shepherd the organization back to relevance in a post-COVID world, and working to bring (where possible) consensus on an array of contentious issues, outgoing Arlington County Civic Federation president John Ford on April 12 was presented with the 2024 GazetteLeader Cup.
The honor, bestowed under various names since 1938, is the highest accolade in Arlington civic activism. It, and other awards, were presented at a dinner at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall following four years in which the banquet was scrapped owing to COVID.
As president over the past two years, Ford has led the Civic Federation as it wrangled over difficult issues ranging from county governance and deer management to stormwater mitigation and tree canopy. He has worked to reinvigorate the 108-year-old organization’s committee structure and attempted to make monthly meetings more interactive.
“John’s leadership has reinforced the Civic Federation as the county’s leading civic voice, and restored its enormous positive potential to improve residents’ lives and our county,” noted the award citation.
Ford also “has quietly and persistently been instrumental in outreach to seek new and diverse organization members and to personally welcome and promote inclusion of individuals with different backgrounds and perspectives,” the award citation noted.
A committee within the Civic Federation determines the annual recipient. It is relatively common, though not universal, that a departing president receives the honor; a successor to Ford will be determined in June.
GazetteLeader editor Scott McCaffrey, who presented Ford the award, noted that the honor has outlasted three previous media outlets, two of which he had worked for. It was the Evening Star Cup from its debut until the early 1980s, then the Journal Cup until the early 2000s and finally the Sun Gazette Cup until 2022. It took its new name last year.
Held this year at Patton Hall at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, the banquet represented the return of an event last held in 2019. The banquet effort was led by a committee under the auspices of federation board member Nick Giacobbe.
“Five years is a long time. We’re rebuilding a tradition tonight,” Ford told attendees. “We’re also trying to rebuild the Civic Federation after a lot of stresses on civic life. You’re all a big part of that.”
County Board member Maureen Coffey, who in her early 20s first became a delegate to the organization, praised those who stuck through the tough times to bring about the rebound.
“The folks in this room are some of the most engaged, committed people I’ve ever met,” she said.
Coffey noted that the organization had made strides to broaden its membership to make sure “everyone is part of the conversation.”
The full Civic Federation citation honoring Ford:
As President of the Arlington County Civic Federation for the past two years, John Ford has worked tirelessly and skillfully to manage the organization through a particularly challenging time for Arlington and its civic organizations.
John’s highly skilled leadership through an inclusive team management style that recognizes, welcomes, includes, and supports individual contributions through collaboration has been critical as CivFed has emerged from COVID and resumed its traditional role at the center of the Arlington County’s civic life.
John has thoughtfully engaged the County Manager, staff, and the County Board to collaboratively focus on the specific priorities of CivFed-adopted resolutions including open government and FOIA, a review and planning for an update of the guidebook for commissions, restoring joint roundtables with the Manager, ACCF, and civic associations.
John has not only laid the groundwork and but participated in the hands-on work to make progress on all fronts.
In his prior role as chair of the Public Services Committee, John led the development of an effective campaign to identify and address critical countywide flood mitigation and stormwater management. Through his work, the committee drafted and passed four resolutions with guidance for the County in the approach to flooding and stormwater and he successfully led coordination with the County staff to implement the recommendations.
He coordinated a strategy to organize civic associations by watershed to develop and promote collaborative plans. This approach allowed these groups, totaling 25 civic associations and several hundred individual members, to speak with a unified, powerful voice to a busy County Board. The result was a ten-fold increase in stormwater mitigation funding in the Capital Improvement Plan.
As President, John has encouraged and supported extensive outreach for re-energizing the ACCF committee structure, the heart and strength of ACCF.
He has led the restoration of ACCF’s ability to engage on critical community issues by appointing new chairs or co-chairs for the Housing Committee, the Planning and Zoning Committee, the Arts and Culture Committee, the Legislative Affairs Committee, and the Schools Committee. He has engaged members directly on their issues and priorities by re-structuring the ACCF General Membership meetings to include regular exchange with members to develop interactive member conversations that are well beyond the traditional Q and A session or interaction with a talking head. He has strategically identified programs to focus on key issues and added ACCF jointly sponsored and hosted events led by committees and partnerships with members to feature topics that expand the reach of ACCF education programs.
This approach began with a program by the Environmental Affairs Committee on Arlington’s dwindling Tree Canopy, an educational program on rank choice voting held jointly with the League of Women Voters, and a timely presentation by the Environmental Affairs Committee on Deer Management. John has quietly and persistently been instrumental in outreach to seek new and diverse organization members and to personally welcome and promote inclusion of individuals with different backgrounds and perspectives.
He has been a critical part of the ACCF leadership team commitment to foster and require civil discussion as the bedrock of CivFed deliberations, particularly on controversial topics. John’s leadership has reinforced CivFed as the County’s leading civic voice and restored its enormous positive potential to improve residents’ lives and our County .
