Blogpost #14 - It seems to me that Fisette and Hynes are in kind of a pickle, now

I responded to the SunGazette editorial at http://www.insidenova.com/opinion/editorials/arlington-sun-gazette-editorial-will-we-hear-the-real-streetcar/article_59edda36-74ac-11e4-bf6c-af134544c311.html#user-comment-area

"Arlington Sun Gazette editorial: Will we hear the real streetcar story?

Someday, the full story behind the change of heart on the Columbia Pike and Crystal City streetcar projects by County Board members Jay Fisette and Mary Hynes may come to light. We’re not suggesting that Fisette and Hynes were being untruthful in explaining last week’s stunning turnabout. They explained their decisions as an attempt at ending community discord and moving forward in what clearly has become a new political and economic environment across the county.

But we doubt Arlington has been told the FULL story. Was this decision a knee-jerk reaction to John Vihstadt’s election victory earlier in November? Did it come about because Fisette and Hynes have seen financial projections – for the streetcar project or for the county government as a whole – that scared them so much they decided to drop the project? Those who know aren’t talking, and those who are talking, well, they likely don’t know..."

I’m not convinced it’s so mysterious: John Vihstadt got twelve percent more votes than Alan Howze in a congressional/senate election which the ACDC was convinced was going to produce the most favorable electorate possible for the ACDC’s candidate (‘all these sheep will take the Dem sample ballot and vote our way’). Howze had run a perfectly decent campaign, at least as good as Walter Tejada’s and Mary Hynes’ had been the last time they ran, he spoke at every civic association and had a booth at every public event. And he got his clock cleaned. A reasonable reading of this is that the ACDC had run out of good will in the living rooms of Arlington, and that if the ACDC members of the Board continue to push the trolley, and if Vihstadt and Garvey decide to join together in endorsing independent candidates for 2015, Mr Tejada and Ms Hynes will lose. The way Jay Fisette chose to describe this was ‘community discord’, which is quite true, as far as it goes.
It seems to me that Fisette and Hynes are in kind of a pickle, now. They cannot go back to backing the trolley: that bridge is burned. Much of their argument before the cancellation had been based on the claimed utter impossibility of reexamining the project, which argument they have now destroyed. Tejada has been making ‘my way or the highway’ noises about his former allies, so it’s very hard to see them coming to a joint enterprise with him, at this point. So they really have to come up with a strategy which will attract at least one of the Garvey-Vihstadt faction, preferably both of them.