Back about 1943, when it was becoming increasingly clear that the USA and its allies most likely were going to ultimately emerge victorious in World War II – no need to order textbooks to learn German and Japanese after all! – localities around the Washington area began the process of planning for a post-war environment.
Those visionary leaders, in Fairfax County and elsewhere, mulled what peace would bring in terms of socio-economic changes and their impacts. And they started developing concrete proposals to address them, when the time came.
It would have been nice had the same thing occurred in the COVID pandemic – local leaders steeling their nerves to face an uncertain future without flinching, and honestly weighing the pros and cons of ongoing lockdowns.
But they didn’t, at least not too much. Despite proclaiming otherwise, leaders in our region seemed to gain some satisfaction in keeping everyone hunkered down; perhaps it brought them the rare sense of power that those on the low rungs of the political-power ladder seldom see.
Better late than never, local governments did finally start getting their employees back in the office. And that was a good thing.
Still lagging, however, is the federal government. And in an Aug. 30 letter to Office of Management and Budget director Shalanda Young, appointed leaders from several dozen local governments in the region (Fairfax included) asked the feds to be more aggressive in getting their own workforce back in the office, at least part of the time.
They note that local transit systems have become financially imperiled by the lack of riders, and tacitly acknowledge that areas with concentrations of office space – from downtown D.C. to Tysons and elsewhere – continue to hurt economically. (And that hurt, not coincidentally for the purposes of this discussion, impacts tax revenue to localities in a myriad number of ways.)
The editorial page of a recently deceased local newspaper group (RIP, buckaroo) opined at nearly the beginning of the pandemic that lockdowns could continue as long as leaders insisted and a docile, scared public acquiesced to them, but the longer they went on, the more likely long-term, “systemic” and perhaps fatal damage would be done to parts of the region dependent on concentrations of people to remain economically vibrant.
Local leaders indeed are right to try and prod the federal government in the correct direction. But given that the COVID-era political-cum-governmental local leadership in the region was not exactly a profile in courage itself, we’re not sure that, collectively, their voices will resonate at the federal level.
We’ll see.
