The May 2021 newsletter is linked below. If you have any comments or questions, email editor@ashtonheights.org.

Shout Out to an Amazing Community and Civic Association by Scott Sklar, AHCA President

I want to thank you for supporting a solid team for the Ashton Heights Civic Association (AHCA) Executive Committee for the 2021-2022 year. I am now serving over 10 years as your President, it is wonderful serving you and with a great group of talented and caring people.

Since this is our last newsletter before the summer, I decided to use my column as a “shout out” to a number of volunteers that make the AHCA such a great organization which ultimately makes our community such a wonderful place to live. These volunteers devote their personal time, at the same low salary rate of “$0”, and deserve acknowledgement. I am sorry I cannot include everyone in the space provided, please do not be offended on omission – there’s plenty of room for kudos in subsequent editions.

New Executive Committee (AHCA ExCom) – Winners

We’re mostly the same old crowd with one addition and a switcheroo. But each and every one provides a valuable service to the association, and as a group, the AHCA Executive Committee follows many issues weekly, votes on actions monthly, and is the heart and soul of AHCA. Jim Feaster – VP for Programs, Jim O’Brien – VP for Membership, Doug Williams – Treasurer (since 2004!), and Chris Armstrong – Secretary. The At-Large Excom members: Cole Deines, Patrick Lueb who also Chairs the AHCA Transportation Committee, Ken Matzkin – who was our VP of Programs, and Jim Richardson who had Chaired the Development Committee for many years and then was VP of Programs this past year. This group has immense breadth and depth of experience, works well together, and are all very approachable – feel free to e-mail them with thoughts and ideas – their e-mails are on the third page of our newsletter.

Leaving

Jodie Flakowicz has served as our AHCA Secretary, as an ExCom officer and now is serving as the AHCA Nominations Committee Chair for 2021 . Dave Phillips, our heroic CoChair of the AHCA Development Committee who brought on CoChair Jack Spilsbury. He built the Committee as a very strong influence on County decision-making and built a solid dialogue with County officials. Emmilu Olson who stepped up as our coffee provider when we had in-person AHCA monthly meetings, and then stepped in to coordinate our monthly AHCA Zoom meetings.

Stood-up and Performed

My biggest shout-out in this department is Christopher Armstrong who took over scheduling our AHCA Monthly Zoom meetings and other civic association meetings. And, he took over Carmen’s job to coordinate advertising for our AHCA newsletter. Then he volunteered to run for AHCA Excom as the Secretary, and recently stepped up to coordinate the AHCA Board web elections – a four-fer, wow! Amy Miller who jumped in to fill an empty slot as our AHCA newsletter editor – I mean it’s amazing! I don’t know about you but I think the newsletter gets better all the time. Christina Schultz who Chairs our AHCA Safety & Security Committee pushed to have an AHCA effort on Housing. She suggested, and Matt Hall agreed to be the AHCA Housing Committee chair with Christina as Vice Chair, and they hosted a session on Middle Housing. Thanks Matt for stepping up as AHCA’s newest Committee Chair, and Christina for pushing on key community issues on two fronts.

Martha Casey proposed to lead an information service on COVID to keep AHCA members up-to-date on the State of Virginia and Arlington County policies and programs, and availability of vaccines. She worked with Lyon Park Citizens Association to set up a joint assistance service to help people in obtaining appointments for vaccines.

Jim Terpstra our long time AHCA Historian, who now is leading with a great group of members our 100th AHCA Anniversary celebration this year. He is working with AHCA residents: Jim and Rita O’Brien, Ann Felker, Julie Mangis, Brooke Alexander, Betsey, Lyon, Peter Bard, and Tom Petty.

The Ole Reliables

Bea Camp coordinates the newsletter distribution (a thankless job) and all the volunteers who deliver the newsletter. Bea delivers to six “mid-level” distributors, who then package smaller amounts for the block captains. Julie Mangis keeps the lists. (See a full article of thanks to the newsletter delivery team on page 11 of this issue.) Ann Felker who prepares the student jobs page in our newsletter monthly, helped co-coordinate out AHCA yard sale, and is active in our 100th anniversary celebration preparation.. Betsey Lyon – our listserv moderator who helped us transfer from Yahoo to Google, and it works seamlessly. We have over 600 residents on our AHCA listserv!

Honorable Mentions

Jack Spillsbury joined as CoChair of the AHCA Development Committee which takes a huge amount of time covering very many actions and issues. In 2021, he assumes the role as it’s sole chair, and coordinates with a great group of AHCA residents who have been very active on these issues for a long time: Brooke Alexander, Cole Deines, Joan Fitzgerald, Julie Mangis, Ken Matzkin, David Phillips, Jim Richardson, Julia Tanner. Rob Liford, a name most of you don’t know, maintains our web site accounts and helps us not get hacked as often.

And most importantly – all of you – our members! Your participation on the listserv, on the committees, at the monthly meetings and at special AHCA and County events makes this all come together. I know we are all busy raising our families. working, errands, etc, — so this public service is all on top of that — but it does make a difference.

So, thank you each and every one of you, and have a wonderful and safe summer!

The April 2021 newsletter is linked below. If you have any comments or questions, email editor@ashtonheights.org.

The Future of Ashton Heights by Scott Sklar, President, AHCA

In our March AHCA meeting, we heard Arlington County Board member Libby Garvey present on Missing Middle Housing, discussing a multi-year process where the Board has started to look at affordability, housing equity, and options in Arlington County. She stated quite rightly that “change is inevitable.” In fact, housing has changed quite a bit since Arlington’s founding. As we celebrate Ashton Height’s 100th anniversary this year, we will learn about that in more detail.

I have lived in Arlington since 1980 and moved into the house I live in now on N. Ivy Street in 1984. Arlington has changed pretty radically from a sleepy suburb into an urban suburb. In my last column, I acknowledged much of what has been done right has been due to leaders in our civic association along with our sister associations on the planning and guidelines that have been formalized and enshrined in the County planning process. The reason we have open spaces, tree canopy, pedestrian friendly walkways & bikeways, and preservation of residential neighborhoods has been in large part to this effort. These features are really what make Arlington and our area, an especially wonderful place to live.

And as we all know, these decisions impact traffic, crime and safety, affordability, schools, taxes, parks and open space, etc. At the same time, as we urbanize, land prices and housing prices rocket upward, and so we face a future of being a neighborhood of the richest rather than as being more eclectic and diverse.

Before we all take sides and move into our respective positions, I ask everyone to take a deep breath. This process started by the Arlington County Board and brought ably before us by our new AHCA Housing Committee chairs Matt Hall and Christina Schultz, is to envision and balance how Arlington evolves. There are lots of trade-off as we all know. For instance, we may form a consensus that multi-family and duplexes along thoroughfares rather than cement buildings (like CVS) may be an appropriate buffer and address housing affordability issues. And frankly, more commercial space that may stay partially vacant in the post-COVID world, may shift more tax burden to residential owners. I am not taking a position here, just offering that there are many sides to these issues.

The Ashton Heights Civic Association (AHCA) is going to continue what we have always done with development, traffic, schools, open spaces, tree canopy and safety – build some common knowledge as our AHCA Housing Committee started, and slowly build a united consensus that we can articulate clearly to Arlington County. To do this correctly, our Housing Committee needs some volunteer time, and also needs some listserv and monthly meeting time to keep this dialogue going.

We have been able to forge a consensus and articulate our positions over many issues, which has made the Ashton Heights Civic Association well respected, and in most cases “listened to”. So as always, let’s work together to forge consensus and a vision. We are lucky to live in such as great community and have so many people willing to offer their thoughts and time, and put in some elbow grease to make this an even better place to live.

So thanks and welcome Spring 2021 to a hopefully safer and more joyful year.

Our February newsletter is linked below. If you have any comments or questions, send them to editor@ashtonheights.org.

COVID, Economy and Safety – by Scott Sklar, President, AHCA

The core issue on everyone’s mind is how long we are all going to endure this pandemic and when we will all be vaccinated. And I understand this being over 65 myself.

Leaving politics aside, we have four issues. Coordination with states proactively by the federal government, coordination by the state with Virginia cities and counties and Arlington County coordinating with all of us. I had issued a brief from Arlington County Manager Mark Schwartz at our January 2021 AHCA meeting. And to put it bluntly, the feds were unclear with the state, and Virginia bypassed Arlington on providing first doses via CVS/Walgreens for nursing/old age homes, and Virginia Hospital Center (VHS) for healthcare workers, first responders and a third of our teachers.

Now that is changing, in part, with vaccines going to counties, not hospitals, and the counties working with their hospitals and other healthcare providers. While this resulted in cancellations for those that signed up for vaccines with VHC, I expect that as vaccines come in, those appointments will be re-set ASAP.

The fourth issue, is that vaccine supplies have been limited, putting strains all over the country. The vaccine companies are having problems scaling up supply . Hopefully soon, a third “one dose” vaccine will be available.

With all these questions, we have a volunteer Martha Casey, who will coordinate timely information both through our monthly newsletter and our listserv. Any questions and suggestions, please contact her directly. Thank you, Martha. I am also in contact with the county on these issues, so if you have suggestions that you believe I should be inputting to the county, please email me directly: solarsklar@aol.com.

On a related issue, our local businesses are hurting. I personally am making an extra effort to buy food, goods and services right here in Arlington. Most are surviving on razor-thin margins. So if possible, please buy locally. I understand not everything can come from local businesses, and there are other considerations that come into play. Do what’s best for you and your family.

And I would be remiss not to re-emphasize that wearing masks, washing hands and sanitizing is very essential. Even those vaccinated can still convey the virus with unwashed/sanitized hands or even spreading droplets from others — so as tiring as this all is, please keep your resolve.

I feel very safe here in Ashton Heights – we have a caring community. And I want to thank all AHCA members for not only stepping up to the challenge but helping others in our community. Makes me very proud. Have a safe and joyous February.

Our May newsletter is linked below. If you have any comments or questions, send them to editor@ashtonheights.org.

An Amazing Community – Great Spirit and Generosity by Scott Sklar, President, AHCA

 I can’t express my appreciation for all the great work and camaraderie by our Ashton Heights community which is just overwhelming. Just too many to shout out, but I am listing the handful that comes to mind:

• a group making masks for health workers
• families giving out books for children and adults
• on street dancing for children and us old folks
• establishment of a buddy system for food and errands for those unable to leave their houses
• listserv trading items that people in our community need
• organizing a blood drive for COVID-19 patients

And it is wonderful seeing families walking, biking and playing together – chalk drawing on the street, skateboards and scooters and bouts of playfulness. This is our last newsletter before the summer, so I wanted to emphasize the breadth of commitment to our community.

The day-to-day actions we at AHCA are doing, all by volunteers, for AHCA Committees on traffic & street repairs, development & zoning issues, security and safety, schools, parks-playgrounds-open spaces, native plants & tree canopy preservation, affordable housing, water bills data collection, and those representing our community on the Arlington Commission on Aging, the Civic Federation, Neighborhood Conservation, Clarendon Alliance, etc. – are ongoing and also how we contribute to the well being of our community.

I want to thank all of you — everyone of you — for making Ashton Heights just a wonderful place to live.

I have no idea what will be the situation with this pandemic in September. We will begin again in September our AHCA newsletter for the Fall (thank you Amy Miller), but not sure whether it will be only electronic or handed out as in the past as a printed version too. I am also not sure whether we will be able to hold our monthly meetings (third Wednesday of every month) at the Clarendon Methodist Church social hall – if not we’ll explore a larger ZOOM meeting.

But all that aside – the generosity and initiative of all of you, are making a great difference. So I salute you and wish you a safe and healthy Spring & Summer.