It’s perhaps no real surprise that neither a majority of Arlington County Board members, nor the county manager, attended the Arlington County Civic Federation’s annual dinner the night of April 12.
Just eight days later, this past Saturday, board members and the manager gave up any last pretense of caring for the needs of homeowners – be they first-timers in small condos, those in substantial single-family homes, or somewhere in between.
The long-awaited double-whammy of a tax-rate increase dolloped atop higher home assessments was confirmation that county leaders, sitting as they do inside their “bubble,” no longer prioritize the impact of government’s rising, often insatiable, costs on those who are footing the bill. If you own a residential property, you are merely an ATM at this point.
One might think that both the fiscal impacts of the county’s cratering commercial-office sector, combined with the infrastructure stresses that surely will be a byproduct of the leadership’s push toward residential urbanization, would cause some belt-tightening in this budget in preparation for economic challenges ahead. But no. (County leaders already are patting themselves on the back for self-restraint. While we admire their pure shamelessness, we don’t buy their act for a second.)
Why do elected leaders pillage homeowners of their hard-earned cash to further expand government? Because they no longer fear any public uprising, and for the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks: because the cash is there for the plundering. And it seems more often than not, those who come into office wanting to impose fiscal responsibility find themselves co-opted and quickly learn to go along for the ride.
It’s no surprise why: The public largely has lost interest in civic activism (the revived Civic Federation being one notable exception) or even in paying attention to local county government, let alone trying to impose restraint on it.
And for elected officials, it’s always better to be viewed as Santa than as the Grinch. But you really don’t want Santa running a local government, do you?
