Sun Gazette Arlington, January 25, 2018

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Inside: Find our quarterly guide to local real estate

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Sun Gazette

VOLUME 83 NO. 9 JANUARY 25-31, 2018

ARLINGTON’S SOURCE FOR HOMETOWN NEWS SINCE 1935

O’CONNELL GIRLS ARE HAVING A STANDOUT SEASON! Bishop O’Connell’s Maikya Simmons drives to the basket against Jaidyn Harris of Capital Christian Academy in a girls basketball game earlier this season. O’Connell began this week with a 12-5 overall record. See a basketball roundup in Sports and find updates throughout the week at www. insidenova.com/ sports/arlington.

Arlington’s County Board chairman says that, win or lose, the local government is willing to provide residents with an accounting of any incentives it dangles in an effort to lure Amazon to the local area. Provide it eventually, that is, though not immediately. “There’s nothing in there that couldn’t ultimately be made public,” Katie Cristol

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SCOTT McCAFFREY Staff Writer

surmised during a “Meet the Chair” event held Jan. 18, the day that Amazon announced Northern Virginia was among 20 localities on its short list for what’s being called its “HQ2” – a secondary headquarters that would bring an estimated 50,000 jobs to the community that nails it. Northern Virginia’s proposal to Amazon includes potential sites in Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun counties and the city of Alexandria, but economic-develContinued on Page 14

Continued on Page 14

Cristol Pledges Transparency on County’s Efforts to Lure Amazon Staff Writer

Lower-Than-Expected Assessment Growth Is Recipe for Hard Choices The year-over-year increase in realestate assessments throughout Arlington came in lower than government officials had expected, which may cause problems for County Board members trying to avoid either tax increases or budget cuts. Figures were reported by the county government on Jan. 19. While residential assessments were up 3.9 percent from 2017, office-building assessments declined significantly, leading to an overall increase of 1.9 percent. That 1.9-percent rate was significantly lower than the 3.2-percent rate of increase that had been estimated last fall, when County Board members directed County Manager Mark Schwartz to prepare a budget with no increase to last year’s realestate tax rate. The lower-than-anticipated assessment increase complicates the county manager’s work. “We’ll have some challenging decisions in the months ahead,” Schwartz said in a statement. Residential-property owners in 2017 paid $1.006 per $100 assessed valuation, up 1.5 percent from a year before. Commercial-property owners each year pay the base rate, plus one or more surcharges for transportation and other services.

PHOTO BY DEB KOLT

SCOTT McCAFFREY

Budget Could Be a Problem

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