Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Zimmerman Gets My Vote

A Short Post Today--A Quick Endorsement.

I’m throwing my weight behind Chris Zimmerman in the race for the county board seat. Not that it really matters. First of all, despite my girth, I don't have much weight, politically speaking. Also, with the race for the U.S. Senate so tight, Democrats in Arlington will vote in force, and Mr. Zimmerman, the incumbent Democrat, will skate to victory, I’m guessing.

I’ll admit that I’ve been thinking a lot about Josh Ruebner. Mr. Ruebner is asking the right questions and challenging the board in the right way. I hope this isn’t the last election we see him in. He’s asking the people of Arlington to take a close look at how we deal with some key issues, not the least of which is low- and moderate-income housing. He’s unabashed in his pursuit of new answers to these concerns, and I wish him the best of luck going against other board members.

In an earlier post, I said that Mike McMenamin’s Republican candidacy just felt uninspired. It has the same rhetoric (“cut taxes”) as every other GOP campaign out there; a sort of one-size-fits all feel to it. Although I’d love to have more money, I don’t want to take it from a program that might really need it (but now I’m getting into a huge ball of beans).

Finally what hit me about Mr. Zimmerman is that I see him quite a bit in Buckingham. I’ve seen him at the Buckingham Festival (at least three years), I saw him when the Buckingham Plaza opened about a month ago. I’ve seen him just driving through the neighborhood. He was part of the board’s task force on the Buckingham Village Apartments renovations.

He has emailed me at least twice regarding information in my blog (we have agreed and disagreed on issues). When I said hello to him at the Buckingham Plaza event, he already knew me and talked about the blog with me. When I ran a small paper in the neighborhood a few years back, he took the time to talk with me (once while washing dishes in his kitchen).

I don’t agree with him on everything (in fact we have recently played email tag to set up a time to meet and discuss a disagreement), but I can’t completely fault a guy who’s involved and listening.

I don’t know how much he gets into other neighborhoods, but he gets my vote for showing up in mine (it’s more than some of the other board members—some who live closer to Buckingham—manage to do).

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