Thursday, October 11, 2007
Meetings, Meetings, and More Meetings!
County Board: The county manager, Ron Carlee, has given his blessing to the project; the county board usually follows his direction. This is just the beginning of a major project to revamp that intersection, including new lights, bus stop shelters, and entrances and exits to the parking lots. If all goes as planned (but it has never gone as planned in about seven years and counting), the project should be completed next spring. +++++++++++ The county in June made the loan of $7 million to Buckingham M.I. Limited Partnership to facilitate construction of Buckingham Village 1’s affordable housing component. Village 1 sits on N. Pershing Drive, west of N. George Mason Drive and runs north on George Mason to N. Henderson Road. The demolition of buildings will begin soon, as many are already encircled with fencing. The $7 million loaned from the county’s Affordable Housing Investment Fund was scheduled to be subordinate to the about $18 million in financing that was made by contractors, banks or other investment partners. This means, basically, that should the project default, Arlington would not start collecting until after the other $18 million was paid. The county manager is recommending that the county change that threshold to about $42 million to satisfy lenders. The county manager is OK with this and is recommending approval. More on this next week. +++++++++++ In an email, Mr. Berne, wrote: “The developer is asking for both a change in the General Land Use Plan (GLUP) and in a rezoning that would permit the greatly increased height and density that it is proposing. Such a change in the GLUP would set a precedent for the neighborhood. There have been no changes in the GLUP for any site within the Ballston Sector Plan since the County Board approved the Sector Plan in 1980. “The County Board usually only changes the GLUP in an area that has a Sector Plan during a comprehensive review of the Sector Plan. However, the Board has made exceptions to this policy when a developer offers something that the Board wants, especially when the County Manager and staff supports the GLUP change. In this instance, the developer is proposing to provide affordable housing on the site as an incentive for the Board to change the GLUP. “The developer is most likely aware that the County Board approved a site plan that greatly increased densities for the site that Buckingham Village I occupies in exchange for an affordable housing component in a new project on that site. The developer of the Peck-Staples site clearly hopes that the Board will do the same thing for the Peck-Staples project. “A change in the GLUP for the Peck-Staples site would set a precedent that will greatly increase traffic in the Buckingham neighborhood. Further, the highest height and density of the project will be at the corner of Wilson and Glebe, which is the corner of the site that is closest to the Buckingham neighborhood. Thus, the Buckingham neighborhood would experience a significant impact from this project.” ++++++++++ Food and beverages provided. Labels: BV1, mcmenamin, meet-n-greet, meeting, sprc
Gutters, curbs and sidewalks. That’s what Buckingham gets, and no doubt most people reading this will consider this fantastic news. The county board is set tomorrow 
during its regular meeting to vote on a contract to pay A&M Concrete Corp., a certified minority-owned business in Dulles, Va., just over $750,000 for new sidewalks, curbs and gutters at the corner of N. Glebe Road and N. Pershing Drive. With contingencies and other fees figured in, the cost could run to nearly $900,000. 
After you slog through the technical jargon and geek-speak, you learn that the county will be voting on whether to allow a loan they approved in June to be made more subordinate than it already is. 
Site Plan Review Committee:
The SPRC is meeting Monday, and you should care, according to Buckingham gadfly Bernie Berne, because they are looking at changing the county’s General Land Use Plan in order to allow for redevelopment of the block on the northwest corner of N. Wilson Boulevard and N. Glebe Road, where the Bob Peck Chevrolet building and the Staples office supply store are.
MEET-n-GREET:
Meet-n-Greet—SUNDAY, 2:00 p.m. Arlington Oaks Community Center—with Mike McMenamin, a Republican running for county board.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Pedestrian Meeting, Concerts and Music
Another meeting addressing the quality of life in Buckingham will take place this week on Friday. Addressing pedestrian safety at the corner of N. Carlin Springs Road and N. Glebe Road, the meeting will bring together the public with Assistant County Manager Shannon Flanagan-Watson. Ms. Flanagan-Watson has as yet to prepare for the meeting, she said in an interview today, but is planning to meet with staff before Friday. The intersection boasts 15 lanes of traffic including turn lanes and exit lanes from the Ballston Commons Mall, and it is a high-use pedestrian and vehicle commuter area. Residents, especially the elderly and disabled, have long complained about the intersection. And the county has reported and fretted over the corner. Some improvements have been made.
Pedestrians walk across seven lanes of traffic while cars pass through the crosswalk at N. Glebe Road and N. Carlin Springs Road.
Pat Hope, the president of the Buckingham Community Civic Association, wrote in an email to the BCCA that he wants to put together a small workgroup “following this meeting to make sure all areas of concern are being appropriately addressed.”
The public is invited Friday, June 29, at 3 p.m. at the Carlin (4300 N. Carlin Springs Rd.). Mr. Hope has asked for people to email him if they wish to help.
The first meeting scheduled for this week is by invitation only (or primarily) scheduled for Wednesday at 3p.m. It concerns loitering and public drunkenness in the neighborhood. Scroll down to the June 20 post for more on this meeting.
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This weekend at Lubber Run Amphitheatre:
Friday, June 29:
8:15 p.m. The Art of Belly Dancing: Demo & Lesson
8:30 p.m. Film: Casablanca (1942)
Saturday, June 30
Mary Ann Redmond Band: Kick Butt Blues (From the “What’s Up Arlington” Newsletter: “Mary Ann Redmond presents an evening of her "Kick Butt Blues" at Arlington's outdoor amphitheatre. A Washington, DC native, she has won a staggering 14 WAMMIE Awards for best female jazz singer, best rock-pop vocalist, best roots rock/tradional R & B, and best female blues vocalist.”)
Sunday, July 1
Slavic Male Chorus: Hi-Energy Folk Music (From the The Slavic Male Chorus Web Site: “The Slavic Male Chorus of Washington DC has thrilled audiences with heartfelt interpretations of the folk songs and sacred hymns of Russia and many Slavic lands.”)
To keep up with the Amphitheatre’s summer schedule, look to the right hand column, and click the Arts al Fresco link under “County Gov’t Sites.”
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A Little More About Music
Ever since the Steve Songs Concert a couple weekends ago (see the June 7 post), friends and I have been talking about great kids music (hey, it’s what we do).
Anyway, I thought I’d add a few names and titles for those people interested. Feel free to email me with more, or simply add ideas to “comments” below…
Eddie Spaghetti—He’s an aging rocker, from the looks of his photos, and his “Greatest Hits” album is really good. My fave: “Rainy, Rainy Day Blues.” With lines like “Don’t let the clouds down in my shoes/Don’t want no rainy, rainy day blues…” it’s like something out of a 70s sitcom (I’m thinking “Love, American Style,” or maybe “The Monkeys”). Click the link and you can download the songs—he also has a link to order CDs.
Jessica Harper—She’s got a good band behind her, especially her pianist. Her voice is nice, her songs are fun. (Her web site is interesting because it’s very focused on her kids books—I didn’t even know she had any.) I like “Inside/Out” though, for albums. “Little Brown Dog Named Joe” is my fave, a bluesy tune about a dog that has eaten all her shoes (“…then you ate my cowboy boots/and now you ride the range/hey, you little brown dog-named-joe…”).
They Might Be Giants—I remember from a Washington Post story when their album “NO!” came out that they would get on stage and yell, “We’re Number 1 on the children’s music charts!” during their adult concerts. (I couldn’t find a link to the Washington Post story, sorry.) Frankly, their kid’s music isn’t a whole lot different than their adult stuff. My favorite tune on “No!” is “The Edison Museum”: “The OLDest, LARgest AND most FAmous MAUsoleum in New JERsey.”
Finally, Brent Holmes—He sings about cows, bears, whales, walruses, and moose. Many of these animals help him out on the songs (Marty the Moose and Bernie the Bear take time out of their concert schedules to accompany Mr. Holmes.) A lot of them are simple addition or multiplication songs. He does a great job with the voices, especially on the song “Peanut Butter” where sticky-mouthed bears are eating their beloved food.
But the one I have pretty much committed to memory is “The Backpack Tree.” If you don’t know what that is, it’s the tree backpackers use to keep their food from bears. You find a tree, throw a rope over a whimpy branch that couldn’t hold a bear, and hoist your pack off the ground to a height taller than a bear and a distance as far from the trunk as you can get. This is all for naught, the song suggests (sing it with a goofy, bear-like sound, and you get the idea): “The backpack tree, the backpack tree, I love it when I run into a backpack tree/When I’m bouncin’ down the trail/my favorite thing to see/is backpacks hanging in a backpack tree/backpacks are my favorite food/they put me in a wonderful mood/it’s never very hard to get them down/I climb up the tree and I knock them to the ground.” After he eats the food, he buries the backpacks in order to grow more backpack trees. Classic.
Labels: amphitheatre, concert, kids music, lubber run amphitheatre, meeting, pedestrian
