When Your Top Priority Crashes Down
We growled on January 22 about the chokehold the Virginia General Assembly had placed on Arlington County’s transit occupancy tax. This morning, Scott McCaffrey posted a story online at the Arlington Sun Gazette that it came “crashing down” in a House of Delegates subcommittee, writing:
“A House of Delegates subcommittee on Monday unceremoniously stomped on one of the Arlington County government’s key legislative priorities for 2011, in a showdown over the county government’s lawsuit related to HOT lanes on Interstates 95 and 395.
“The bill in question, patroned by Del. Bob Brink (D-48th), would extend by three years the ability of Arlington officials to collect a 0.25-percent surtax on top of the existing hotel and motel (transient occupancy) tax, with the roughly $900,000 a year going toward tourism promotion in the county.
“The measure was one of two main legislative priorities of the county government this year.
“Del. Tim Hugo (R-Fairfax County), the subcommittee chairman, held the measure up for more than a week, and then garnered enough votes to table it indefinitely, effectively killing the measure, on Jan. 31.
“The 3-2 vote essentially prevents the measure from moving forward in the House of Delegates, although legislators still have to contend with a similar measure passed in the state Senate.”
Will the county’s five panjandrums be willing to prostrate themselves before the General Assembly to get the transit occupancy tax renewed? Time will tell.