Arlington Greens Audrey Clement and Miriam Gennari spoke at the county board hearing on Jan. 27, 2015 urging the board to strengthen the proposed ordinance on solid waste and recycling at apartments and businesses in Arlington. Gennari spoke to the board and presented the AGP position on improving recycling and solid waste management in Arlington as follows:

Unfortunately, the county board refused to heed the requests of Arlington Greens to modify the proposed ordinance and unfortunately single use plastic bags and Styrofoam will continue to litter our environment and be burned in our trash burn facility emitting dangerous gases. Billions of plastic bags litter our oceans, streams and planet, and Arlington Government once again passed up an opportunity to eliminate a harmful and unnecessary pollutant.

Position of the Arlington Greens on the proposed ordinance

January 27, 2015

Dear Esteemed Arlington County Board Members:

The Arlington Green Party is excited that the Arlington County Board is looking to improve its already successful residential solid waste program. Like all programs, there is always room for improvement and the Arlington Greens would greatly appreciate your consideration in the implementation of our suggestions.

Arlington County: Bans Plastic Bags
Virginia Department of Environmental Quality states that the County Board has the legal authority under Virginia law to ban single use plastic bags. The Dillon Rule does not bar the Arlington County Board from a “bag-ban” so long as taxes are not levied on bag use. In other words, Arlington County can ban plastic bags as a policy as long as it is not monetarily punitive.

Arlington County: Adopts a Styrofoam-Free Policy
Arlington County is as forward thinking as neighboring Washington, DC and Montgomery County and could be the ecologically correct example to the rest of Virginia in banning Styrofoam from Arlington County events. Further, events using independent coordinators could be required to follow Arlington County’s stricter standards of waste management.

Arlington County: Provides Additional Enforcement
As part of stricter waste management policy, we recommend more code enforcement personnel. These dedicated individuals are also tasked with safety enforcement such as the citation of “Inadequate lights at public corridors and stairways” in residential buildings and ensuring that individual property owners upkeep their homes and sidewalks, which neglected “might endanger the health or safety of other residents of the County.” It is clear that for these individuals to also adequately supervise commercial and multi-unit residential building recycling and waste management, the office of Code Enforcement would require additional staff.

Arlington County: Creates a Seal of Approval for Sustainable Practices
The Arlington Green Party is eager to collaborate with Arlington County Board and the Arlington County Department of Environmental Services to develop guidelines of sustainable and achievable practices. With this list of guidelines, new and existing businesses could be encouraged to implement concrete changes that would affect the environment in positive ways; these forward-thinking businesses could be commemorated or otherwise incentivized, luring consumers to Arlington County businesses.

Thank you for your consideration,
Marie Pellegrino Arlington Green Party Chair
Sandra Hernandez Arlington Green Party Co-Chair

Sandra Hernandez and Marie Pellegrino were elected as co-chairs for 2015 for the Arlington Greens at the December general meeting. Sandra and Marie are longtime Greens who have extensive community involvement in Arlington, and worked hard on many prior Greens political campaigns, including on the successful campaign of John Vihstadt, an independent candidate for county board who the Greens endorsed.

Sandra has worked for historic preservation of her Columbia Pike neighborhood for many years, and also is a parent of two children enrolled in Arlington Public Schools. As a bilingual Latina, she has been a strong advocate for affordable housing and for the county schools and government to meet the needs of lower income Arlington residents.

Marie is a longtime Arlington resident who recently completed the Arlington Neighborhood College course, and is an English tutor volunteer with REEP program (the English program in Arlington County for recent immigrants). She began her Green Party activities working with the Greens efforts to help the unemployed in Arlington in 2009-10. Greens proposed a Green jobs program for unemployed and homeless persons to be trained and employed weatherizing low income housing using then available stimulus funds, and advocating in Richmond for Virginia to expand its unemployment program.

Arlington Greens Sandra Hernandez and John Reeder attended the Dec. 13, 2014 rally and march against police violence against blacks at the Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC. Tens of thousands of people from all over the U.S., including from Ferguson, Missouri and New York City attended in a peaceful and organized fashion to demand that police killing and violence against people stop. The NAACP, ACLU, churches, unions and youth groups participated.