Category: Town of Vienna, VA

Post #231: Credit where credit is due

The Town has made good on its recent promise to make recordings of public meetings accessible in a timely fashion.  I didn’t want to pipe up about this until I started seeing all of the public meetings showing up.  But if you will go to this page on the Town website, you can see, for the first time, recordings of the Transportation Safety Commission (TSC) and associated sub-committees.

Mostly I want to say, kudos to the Town’s audio engineer.  I sat in and recorded the bicycle portion of the TSC meeting.  Those folks were not used to being recorded.  It was a mess, from an audio standpoint.   People didn’t use the microphones, they forgot to turn the microphones on, they banged the microphones — you name it.  And as much as I may appreciate low-key soft-spoken people in real life, they are a right pain to deal with when setting sound levels in an audio recording.

Producing clear audio is not as easy as you might think.  As I was recording it, I was wondering how the Town was going to deal with all that.  And the Town’s audio is clear as a bell. Despite the absolute hash that the speakers made of their own sound levels.  I have no idea how they managed that.

There are still various “work sessions” that the Town does not record, and so there would be some rationale for me continuing to record.  But I believe that everything that is of official record — where people could in theory vote on stuff — is now recorded and posted on the Town’s website.  At this point, for any of my recordings, it’s always preferable to use the Town recording if it exists.  Their audio is much better than anything I can manage to do.

This is a boon for anyone who wants to know what the Town is doing.  I did not stay for the TSC portion of this meeting, but I now know (in hindsight) that they discussed, in part, the process for petitioning for traffic calming in Vienna.  I need to listen to that.  And now I can.  Without this, I would have no idea what went on in that meeting.

My only other comment, to the Town, would be to take this full circle and post the agendas for every committee, before each meeting.  On this one, for example, I only realized after-the-fact that traffic calming was on the agenda.

Post #228: Maple Avenue Corridor Multimodal Transportation and Land Use Study

For those of you who are already confused, merely by the title, I’m talking about the Maple Avenue traffic study.  That official title is why I keep referring to it as the (thing formerly known as the) Maple Avenue traffic study.  For the official title, I literally cannot remember all the buzzwords in the correct order.

I’m eventually going to have a lot to say about this, but here I’m just going to say two things.  First, the study, as scoped, is fundamentally inconsistent.  Briefly, if taken at face value 1) it’s impossible to predict traffic 10 years ahead, so we’re not going to do that and instead 2) we’re going to talk about “multi-modal strategies” that could only have significant impact decades into the future.  Second, I’m going to do my own analysis of these issues.  That part will take a while.

Continue reading Post #228: Maple Avenue Corridor Multimodal Transportation and Land Use Study

Post #227: Lessons the Town has learned

I don’t encourage email.  You can find my email address on the splash page for this website, and I occasionally include it in posts when I am looking for someone to correct me on the facts.

I got an email on Wedenesday, from a reader of this site.  It was a classic example of why I discourage email.  I hate having to be “that guy”, that guy who always has something mean to say.

But in this case, I don’t see much choice.  There was nothing wrong with the email.  It was perfectly pleasant.  And I don’t need to say anything mean about the sender.

But it brought to my attention yet another thing the Town is doing.  So now — yet again — I need to say something deservedly mean about Town government.

Here’s what set me off.  My reader went to the Town’s “community workshops” last Friday and offered her comments.  And in her email to me, she included this, about 444 Maple Avenue West (the Tequila Grande development), emphasis mine:

" ...  The person with whom I spoke last Friday night said there was nothing the Town could do to reverse that.  She did however indicate the Town had learned lessons from that venture.  ... " 

Oh, yeah, our Town government has learned some lessons, all right.  But they are probably not the lessons you think.  Rather than just quietly email her back, I’m  going to lay out my view of the lessons the Town has learned.  In a nutshell, rather than back off one inch in the face of public protest, the Town has done nothing but double down.

Continue reading Post #227: Lessons the Town has learned

Post #225: Take the bus, edited PM 4/3/2019

I took the Fairfax Connector bus down Maple Street last night, to run an errand at the other end of town.  I was pleasantly surprised, to say the least.  I’m hooked.  This is not your grandfather’s city bus.

In this post, I am first going to go through the mechanics of it.  E.g., link to the website that does the real-time tracking of the buses.  Then give you my impressions.

Continue reading Post #225: Take the bus, edited PM 4/3/2019

Post #222: TC, PC, TSC joint work session, 4/1/2019, Part One: Sunrise Assisted Living

Last night, the Town Council (TC), Planning Commission (PC), and Transportation Safety Commission (TSC) held a joint work session to talk about two items.  The first was what used to be referred to as the Town’s Maple Avenue Traffic study.  But should not be referred to as that, in the future.  The second was the Sunrise Assisted Living facility proposed for Maple and Center, next to the Vienna Inn.

I will be posting the cleaned-up audio for that meeting, shortly, along with the usual Excel index file, so you can tell what was said, when.  In this post, I give my impression of the discussion of the Sunrise proposal.

Continue reading Post #222: TC, PC, TSC joint work session, 4/1/2019, Part One: Sunrise Assisted Living

Post #220: The NEVCA candidate forum

The North East Vienna Citizens Association (NEVCA) has a tradition of hosting a candidate forum for Vienna Town Council candidates.  They don’t hold this when candidates are unopposed.  But this year, with three contested Town Council seats, I have been assured that, in fact, NEVCA will hold a candidate forum in April 2019.

And if I can ever figure out when and where, I’ll let you know.  Because, as with so much that goes on in the Town of Vienna, it looks like you just have to know the right people, or know exactly the right place to look, in order to know what’s happening.

I have been diligently making audio recordings of Town of Vienna public meetings so that anyone can hear what goes on.  For each such meeting, I provide a recording and index available via public link on Google Drive.  But that’s not going to happen with the NEVCA candidate forum.  Shelley Ebert, of viennavotes.com, asked for permission to tape it, and was denied.  Nor will NEVCA itself tape it and make that available.  If you want to hear what the candidates have to say, you’ll have to show up in person.  If you can figure out where they are holding it.  And when.

Continue reading Post #220: The NEVCA candidate forum

Post #218: 2019 real estate tax increase – or – The Vienna School of Algebra

The Commonwealth has a rule that whenever real estate assessments rise more than 1 percent, but tax rates don’t fall to offset that (to within one percent), local governments have to publish a notice explaining that.  Just a simple bit of algebra to say, here’s the tax rate that would have offset that assessment increase.  Here’s what we’re actually proposing to charge.  And here’s the difference.  It’s just a way to make sure that citizens know how much their taxes are increasing.

I hate to have to be the one to say this.  But the Town just put out such a notice.  And their arithmetic is wrong.  Grossly incorrect.  I checked similar notices from three other jurisdictions, just to be sure that I was doing the calculation right.

And you know why I hate that?  Based on recent history, the most likely outcome is that, instead of just correcting their algebra, the Town will offer the usual bafflegab as why this unique Town of Vienna algebra is fully justified.  (And then quietly correct it.)

Let me be clear:  There is obviously no intent to deceive, because, clearly, nobody pays the slightest attention to this  notice.  Surely nobody within Town government, and I would guess, nobody (but me) outside of it.  I checked an earlier year, and I’m pretty sure their calculation has been wrong for some time now.

That said, at some level, this is all of-a-piece.  Five floors is really four floors.  A building the size of a football field preserves “small town” Vienna.  And a 5.6% increase in taxes is actually a 3.1 percent tax cut.  It all meshes together.

Detail follow.

Continue reading Post #218: 2019 real estate tax increase – or – The Vienna School of Algebra

Post 216: Accidents involving cars and trucks along Maple

This is a continuation of the prior two posts, same data source.  I’m just going to put up three maps showing 2018 reportable accidents along Maple.  The number of reportable accidents involving bicycles or pedestrians is tiny compared to the total number of car crashes annually on Maple.  As with the prior maps, a “reportable” accident is one involving injury or at least $1500 in property damage.

All (blue = injury, green = property damage only)
Bicycle
Pedestrian