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The Neighborhood Came Out in October

The neighborhood came out on October 3 to give Congressman Jim Moran (above) a warm, but wet welcome, courtesy of the Neighborhood Day Fun Fair dunk tank. Congressman Moran, whose grandson is a student at the Arlington Traditional School, joined in the spirit of the day and proved that he can weather whatever is tossed his way. The Neighborhood Day event was co-sponsored by the Arlington Traditional School PTA and the Bluemont Civic Association. The event was said to be one of the largest neighborhood events of the day in Arlington.

October ended with the annual Halloween Parade held at Lacey Woods Park. Over 125 youngsters signed up for the event making it the largest Halloween parade in recent memory. Parade Judges (County Board Member Barbara Favola, Chief of Police Edward Flynn, and School Superintendent Robert Smith) awarded prizes for the most unusual, spookiest and fanciest costumes. And Storyteller Margaret Chatham told Halloween stories to an enthralled audience of young people and their families. It was a great day.

Santa is Coming to ATS on Wednesday, December 9th

Bring the family to meet Santa Claus on Wednesday, December 9 from 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM at the Arlington Traditional School. ATS is located at 855 North Edison Street. Santa will be looking for you in the Multi-purpose Room.

Neighborhood Conservation Plan Update

Bluemont Civic Association’s Neighborhood Conservation Plan is slightly behind schedule.Nonetheless, we still expect to complete the plan this spring and hope to submit projects to the Neighborhood Conservation Advisory Committee for funding in May. The five issue subcommittees have submitted draft reports, which are available on the Bluemont website (http://members.aol.com/bluemont). If you do not have web access, you can obtain a copy of the draft from Carl Hallinan, the NC committee chair (812-4797).

The issue committees and chairs are: Traffic (Sam Kubiak, Doug Levin), Streets & Sidewalks (Janet Weiner), Greenspace (Victor McMahan, JoAnn Gottschalk), Ordinances (Bob Atkins) and Business District (Talmadge Williams). Thanks go out to all of the members of the neighborhood who have participated in this process. Although we don’t have room to list everyone here, they will all be acknowledged in the plan when it is published.

Once the consolidated issue report has been approved by all the subcommittee chairs, the drafting committee will take over. They will write an overview of the neighborhood that will include the neighborhood history, a description of the neighborhood, including a demographic profile, and a summary of the NC survey results. They will also write the executive summary and conclusion, take photographs and make suggestions for graphics and maps. If you would like to assist in this stage, please contact Drafting subcommittee chair Ed Fendley(527-6118).

The final document will placed on our website for review and voted on at a BCA general membership meeting, most likely in March. Once the Association has approved the draft plan, it will be submitted to County NC staff, who will take our documentation, photographs and requests for graphics and produce the final layout. This document will go through the County approval process in the spring. The last step of the approval process is acceptance of the plan by the County Board. Once they have approved the plan, our projects will be eligible for funding.