Civic Federation Draft Resolution on POPS

Whereas, Arlington is only 26 square miles and space constrained, and

Whereas, Arlington’s statistically-valid survey  showed the highest recreational demand for open space and trails, and

Whereas, Arlington has a billion-dollar + budget and virtually zero dollars allocated for new park land acquisition in the most recently approved capital improvement plan, and

Whereas, the Arlington Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) has substantial evidence in its files of underutilized field space and recommendations from consultants to rework the management of field utilization, and

Whereas, the full and original methodology statement for best practices Population Based Level of Service (LOS) for estimating field and facility needs was not provided to the public nor to the County Board during the POPS process.  Instead, POPS is using a cherry picked version of the County’s own hired expert consultants’ stated LOS methodology, leaving out the supply/demand data and has erroneously labeled the incomplete POPS recommendations as valid “Population Based LOS (Level of Service),” and

Whereas, Arlington, for the foreseeable future, will not need anywhere near as many new fields nor investments as are proposed in the update to the Public Spaces Master Plan (PSMP or “POPS” plan) based on the actual utilization data in DPR’s own files, and

Whereas, the proposed PSMP will serve as a guiding document for all park planning for the next 20 years, and

Whereas, the PSMP will be used to guide all community park planning decisions and

Whereas, the PSMP will be used to guide all park investment decisions by the County and

Whereas, the PSMP will be used to guide other comprehensive plans such as Urban Forestry and Natural Resources Plans

Now, therefore, the Arlington County Civic Federation hereby resolves that the Arlington County government should

  • remove the erroneous quantitative estimates for sports field demand from the final POPS plan
  • commence a new, independent and transparent process to:

develop new quantitative estimates of county-wide supply/demand for sports fields

replace the county’s current field scheduling system with a real-time, web-based system