Growls

First some background.

When the Arlington County Board adopted its 2011 General Assembly Legislative Priorities on December 11, 2010 (agenda Item 34), renewal of the transit occupancy tax was the Board's top priority. According to the report to the Board, the General Assembly was asked to:

“Renew Arlington’s .25 percent Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) surcharge, which funds the Arlington Convention and Visitors Service (ACVS) and expires on January 1, 2012.  Originally proposed by Arlington’s Economic Development Department and the Arlington Chamber of Commerce and its Hotel Committee, it was first authorized for three years by the 1990 General Assembly and has been reauthorized for three year increments ever since.  Because it is applicable only to Arlington County, it requires a 2/3’s vote of each chamber of the General Assembly to become law. Arlington is the only locality that has a “sunset” provision attached to its TOT.”

HB 1513 was introduced by Del. Bob Brink (D-Arlington) on December 17, 2010, and would extend the sunset date from January 1, 2012 to January 1, 2015. On January 17, 2011, it was considered by the House and assigned  to a Finance subcommittee. In the Senate, SB 980, a companion to HB 1513, was introduced by Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple (D-Arlington) on January 11, 2011, and referred to the Finance Committee, and reported from Finance on a 14-0 vote, and as of Friday, January 21, it was “read second time and engrossed.”

According to an Arlington Sun Gazette report on Friday, January 21, “The county government’s effort to retain authority for a tax surcharge on hotel and motel rooms has cleared its first hurdle in Richmond . . . Passage in the Senate is seen as likely, although Whipple has expressed concern about the measure’s chances in the House of Delegates.”

Where things get interesting.

This is where things get interesting for the fate of Arlington County’s Transient Occupancy Tax. Ben Tribbett (corrected 1/24/11), who blogs at his own Not LarrySabato blog as well as at Huffington Post, writes that Del. Tim Hugo (R-Fairfax) “grabs Arlington County by the throat and practices a choke-hold.” So that I don’t misinterpret what Tribbe posts at his Not Larry Sabato blog, let me quote it in its entirety (emphases in the original):

“Usually I am not a big fan of the Dillon Rule or the General Assembly using it to strong-arm localities but Tim Hugo just used it today to send a very loud signal to Arlington County about their lawsuit challenging hot-lanes on 395.

“A couple caveats before I get into this story. I don't support hot-lanes on 395, I think the state needs to meet its responsibility and pay for these projects themselves and not create an obstacle course of toll lanes that run adjacent to traffic snarled lanes- giving the rich an opportunity to fly home and the poor stuck sitting in traffic having to decide between paying a toll and spending time with their family or saving some money for their kids college fund.

“Secondly, I especially don't approve of this project when tolls are being raised very quickly on the Dulles Toll Road to pay for rail to Dulles -- it's very clear that once a toll road is approved and the tolling authority is given to unelected bodies that their right to toll/tax is abused and we don't need any more of that.

“Despite my opposition to this project, I am even more opposed to Arlington County's lawsuit to stop it.

“Why? The main reason is that the Arlington County Board is being abusive in the way they filed the suit. They are suing former government officials in a private capacity, meaning those officials have to hire private attorney's to defend themselves. A stunning tactic (especially in a county with so many government employees) and Arlington is refusing to amend the suit to current officials so the former officials can drop their attorneys.

“Some recent reports have put Arlington's cost on this lawsuit in the 2 million dollar range.

“Enter Tim Hugo, Chairman of the subcommittee that heard HB1513 yesterday.  HB1513 would extend Arlington's hotel tax by another five (sic) years, raising money for Arlington tourism promotion. Tim asked in the hearing how much money this would raise for the county- and learned it was about $800,000 a year.

"Well doesn't Arlington have that $800,000 already if they can spend $2,000,000 on a lawsuit like this?", Hugo asked at the hearing. Dagger. Instead of killing the bill outright, Hugo decided to allow Arlington officials the right to show up in a couple weeks to explain their lawsuit before his subcommittee makes their final decision. But this doesn't look good for Arlington's hotel tax- or the numerous other things they will need approval from in the General Assembly in coming years.

“I interviewed Tim about this last night, and he confirmed that while he supports the HOT lane concept that his main concern about this was the way Arlington was approaching this lawsuit and suing former officials.  He said that Secretary Sean Connaughton has pleaded with the county to "sue him" instead of the former Secretary Pierce Homer. Tim pointed out this wasn't a partisan issue as he was trying to defend Homer -- a Democrat who served under Kaine -- from this unfair treatment as well as a federal official Arlington was also personally suing.

“Hugo added that "I think Chris Zimmerman [Arlington Board Member] is a thug and that's on the record.

“In street life sometimes a thug meets a bigger thug and needs to back down. Looks like Zimmerman and the rest of the county board are going to have to decide if this lawsuit is worth everything else the county needs from state government. Maybe Hugo finally knocked some sense into them yesterday. We'll see soon . . . ."

That subcommittee meeting to be held in a "couple weeks" could prove to be very interesting. Indeed, it should be worth a front row seat! As we've said many times, the Arlington County Board's problem is not that they don't have sufficient tax revenues, it's that they don't know how to prioritize spending the revenues they do get.