Plastic Bag Tax Passes Despite Ongoing Financial Hardship

At Tuesday’s meeting, I was the only Board member to vote against a 5-cent plastic bag tax that will go into effect on January 1, 2022. Before voting we heard opposition from numerous community members, business owners, grocery store owners, food bank volunteers, and the former EPA Administrator who opposed this tax because of the burden it puts on residents and the lack of environmental impact it will have. As I shared with you in my last newsletter, this is the wrong time for a new tax while we’re dealing with the pandemic, the fastest rising inflation in 12 years, and rising increasing gas prices.

While people who are well-off will largely feel little impact, it will disproportionately burden lower-income families both in cost and convenience without changing their behavior. The increased cost of implementing this tax will be passed from businesses to customers. For the first year of implementation, stores will be able to recoup two cents of every 5-cent tax to go toward their operating cost, then only one cent afterward. This letter from Food Lion shares concerns about the operating cost for the implementation. Other jurisdictions have implemented similar taxes and seen their consumers run outside the taxed area to save money.

We need to create more ways for people to recycle and more materials to educate them on how they can. We need to continue to support programs to creatively address litter issues like two I’ve proposed, No Charge and the highly successful Operation Stream Shield program.

In addition to the plastic bag tax, at Tuesday’s meeting the Board approved the Community-wide Energy and Climate Action Plan (CECAP) and directed staff to prepare an implementation plan for consideration next year. I support protecting our environment as long as it is done in a fiscally responsible and efficient way. I abstained on this vote for two reasons - the plan needs more community feedback/input and more grounding in which of the over 200 pages of recommendations are financially feasible for taxpayers.

This plan outlines actions that will fundamentally change Fairfax County for the next 30 years, but most of the report outreach has been done while residents have been rightly focused on the pandemic and recovering from lost jobs, health, homes, time in school, and lost loved ones. We need to make sure that more than just a couple thousand mostly advocates out of the 1.1 million people living here are behind a plan of this magnitude. The plan contains over 200 pages of recommendations ranging from electrifying commercial and residential properties (eliminating natural gas) to enforcing stricter regulations on tree canopy percentages within each census block. We need to look at which initiatives are feasible and balanced when we consider the tax burden already on  residents and what they will support.

That leads to my second concern: cost. The Board has yet to see the estimated cost and/or impact of this plan, which is a key component. The cost estimate provided in the approved plan estimates that each initiative will cost between one to three “$,” with no indication whatsoever of the value of the “$”. The Springfield District Focus Group for CECAP found that willingness to pay is a significant factor in resident support for climate initiatives. They highlighted the importance of education in changing attitudes to promote voluntary, individual action. Anything beyond voluntary action may lose buy-in from residents because of the cost. 

Other News & Information...

No excuse absentee in person voting for the Virginia statewide and general assembly races starts tomorrow Friday, September 17 at three locations in Fairfax County. Additional locations will open on October 21. The Fairfax County Government Center will be open for early voting on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. At the Mount Vernon and North County Governmental Centers, however, voting hours are from noon to 7 p.m. on weekdays. These three sites also will be open on Saturday, Sept. 18 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Any registered voter can cast their ballot without needing a reason or excuse. For full details on locations and times, please see this page.

Looking for a way to contribute towards our Redistricting Process? Residents are encouraged to draw their own redistricting maps for the Board of Supervisors and School Board districts using an online mapping tool. The Fairfax County Redistricting Advisory Committee, which was appointed to propose new electoral districts, will review and consider any publicly submitted maps. The deadline for the public to submit maps is Sunday, Sept. 19 at 11:59 p.m. For more information, please see this page.

The Fairfax County Department of Transportation (FCDOT) is hosting a virtual design public hearing on the Shirley Gate Road Extension project on Tuesday, Sept. 21, at 7 p.m. The project will extend Shirley Gate Road from its current terminus at Braddock Road south to the Fairfax County Parkway and will provide:

For more information, visit the project webpage at this page.

Strategic Plan Will Guide County Spending and Taxes (September 24)

I strongly encourage you to provide input to the County’s strategic plan that will map out County priorities and spending moving forward. Community input is sought through September 24, to participate click here.

Your feedback is very important as this plan will be used to determine future budgets and to justify raising your taxes as the priorities adopted in the Strategic Plan will guide future County policies and spending. You can find the full plan as it stands here.

You can take the Countywide Strategic Plan survey here and sign up to receive updates on the plan progress here. You can also share your general feedback by emailing strategicplan@fairfaxcounty.gov.

First, there does not seem to be enough community input yet for a document that is intended to guide all future policies and spending. Most residents I have talked to have not heard of the strategic plan or its community engagement process. With a County of 1.2 million people, I hope we will only adopt a plan that has received feedback from a more significant percent of our population.

Join me at Putting For Pets on Monday, September 27at 9 am. Register online or download the flyers below. While Friends Putting for Pets Golf Tournament has currently reached capacity, Hole in One Sponsorships are still available, please contact us at generalinfo@ffcas.org to be a Hole in One Sponsor. If you are interested in being put on a waitlist for individuals or teams, please email Putting For Pets at generalinfo@ffcas.org.  

Low-Cost Rabies Clinics are back! To register, please visit this page.

Registration and sponsor packages are available at this page.

Fairfax County is in need of election officers who can speak Korean or Vietnamese to serve in the Nov. 2 gubernatorial election. Officers are especially needed in Annandale, Centreville, Chantilly and Falls Church areas. Apply at this link.

Please note that Donations are NOT being accepted at the Dulles Expo Center at this time. However, many local organizations are eager provide support, and Fairfax County does partner closely with local refugee resettlement agencies to share information, establish points of contact for benefit coordination, and provide training on available programs and services. The local resettlement agencies for the Northern Virginia area are the following, please contact them if you would like to provide assistance:

For a list of resources and services available to refugees, please see this page.

To sign up and learn more, click here.

For more information, please see this page.

The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) announced that providers across the Commonwealth could begin vaccinating those aged 12-15 following federal approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for use in adolescents. Previously, this vaccine was only authorized for individuals ages 16 and older.

The announcement follows both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children ages 12-15  and a recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

For more information, please see this page.

If you are interested in him, send in a completed adoption questionnaire and we will go from there to share all the info the Animal Shelter has, answer any questions, and schedule a visit! If you have a dog at home already, the Animal Shelter will schedule a dog-to-dog intro as well to see if they get along. All adoption info, steps, and forms can be found online at: www.fairfaxcounty.gov/animalshelter/adopt/steps