Did you miss the recent candidate debate sponsored by the Arlington County Civic Federation? You can watch it here.
As Arlington Now reported, “The County Board forum began with topics such as police staffing and the office vacancy rate, but heated up during a later question about transparency. The question elicited criticism from every candidate about how the county makes information available. Multiple candidates suggested an overhaul of how Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests are handled, saying the status quo is laborious for staff and expensive for residents.”
“We’ve not gotten to a place where our FOIA requests… are searchable and available to all, and that’s a waste of staff time and our own time,” said Democratic candidate Susan Cunningham.
Fellow Democratic candidate Maureen Coffey suggested another overhaul of the website to make it easier to find information, including more details about applications to build Missing Middle-type homes. “To the question of transparency from earlier, this is this is really concerning and that we should be pushing for it,” she said, noting that “it’s not realistic to ask people to go through 100 steps to get there.”
2023-09-05 ACCF General Meeting, 5 Sept 2023 from Arlington Cty Civic Fed [ACCF] onVimeo.