May 7, 2001
Mr. Ron Carlee Dear Mr. Carlee, Congratulations on your nomination to be Arlington's County Manager. As an all-volunteer organization striving to improve the quality of life in Arlington, ArlingtonDogs looks forward to working with you to effect sound policies and procedures on behalf of citizens in this terrific county. I must confess, however, that some of the most recent actions by your office have caused us much concern. Specifically, your April 12 letter to members of the Madison Dog Exercise Area Work Group troubles us. We understand that siting issues can be difficult and in that spirit, have worked diligently with other community members when issues relating to specific dog parks arise. Toward this end, we invested many hours and a great deal of effort as part of the Madison Dog Exercise Area Work Group. The Work Group did public outreach, solicited comments, held public hearings, and followed all the rules laid out for it to ensure that issues were aired publicly, investigated, County-defined consensus sought, and resolution found. The group began working in July of 2000, held three widely-advertised public hearings, received comments from dozens (if not hundreds) of people, and developed a County-defined consensus solution which was presented to DPRCR staff who in turn, endorsed our majority vote, and presented this proposal to you. The Work Group process currently being utilized countywide provides County staffs, residents, and organizations the privilege of sharing in the conduct of good government and, in my opinion, exemplifies the best of The Arlington Way. County staff ably ran both the Madison Dog Exercise Area Work Group and the Douglas Park Dog Exercise Area Work Group (whose South Arlington proposal was recently approved). Steve Temmermand and Howard Hudgins of the DPRCR exhibited professional, fair, and thorough demeanors. They served all stakeholders in both of these Work Group processes extremely well and for that ArlingtonDogs is grateful. The County Board in the meantime has reiterated its strong support for working out a solution based on the guidelines set forth by our Former County Manager and the recommendations of the Madison Dog Exercise Area Work Group. Of particular concern to us is that after all of this work, your office is apparently yielding to last-minute pressure by individuals who chose to either not participate in the Work Group or public comment processes or did participate, but were displeased with the results, and now claim they weren't represented. It seems that all of our hard work may be tossed out on behalf of a cobbled-together last-minute alternative plan. Let me assure you that we do not mean to stand in the way of final resolution of the Madison DEA issue. However, an apparent willingness to circumvent public process on behalf of those who elected to sit out the County-established procedure and enter the debate late or are simply unhappy with the results of the process, cannot help but erode confidence in leadership, and bodes ill for public decisions. This course of action threatens all public decisionmaking, of any sort. I am certain that you do not want to step into a new job under this very serious cloud. Consequently, we invite you to meet with us or articulate in a letter that we can share with ArlingtonDogs members as well as other organizations that rely on public decisionmaking, regarding your plans for and commitment to an open, fair, equitable public process for all of Arlington. Again, congratulations, and we do hope that there are opportunities to work together in an open, fair, and equitable process in the future. Sincerely,
Judith A. Green
cc: Arlington County Board |