B4 eZ Re the washington post.friday, february 21 , 2020
BY PATRICIA SULLIVANAfter two years of budget cuts
and tax increases, Arlington
County manager mark Schwartz
on Thursday proposed a $1.4 bil-
lion budget with no personnel
cuts and no change t o the current
property tax rate. Thanks to ris-
ing assessments, residential
property o wners would s till e xpe-
rience an increase of about 4 per-
cent in their tax bills.
Schwartz’s proposal, which the
County Board will debate before
setting the tax rate and adopting
the budget in mid-April, calls for
a $17.7 million increase in fund-
ing for schools, $9.1 million more
for affordable-housing initia-
tives, new officers for the police
and fire departments, and a 3.25
to 3.5 percent pay raise for most
employees. Public safety employ-
ees would be eligible for a 6.5 p er-
cent merit pay increase.
Ta x revenue is up 4.6 percent
in the county, driven by higher
residential and commercial
property values and a 2.5 percent
increase in Arlington’s occupied
office space — thanks in part to
excitement surrounding the ar-
rival of Amazon’s East Coast
headquarters.
“Now we’re coming out of the
trough,” Schwartz said in a bud-get briefing with reporters. “This
is a good-news budget.... We
have a revenue infusion that
allows us to do things we didn’t
have a chance to do.”
(Amazon founder and CEo Jeff
Bezos owns The Washington
Post.)
In two of the past three years,
the county laid off employees, an
almost unprecedented action
over the past 35 years. This year,
Schwartz’s proposal includes ex-
panding benefits for county
workers in addition to raising
their pay: increasing paid paren-
tal leave to six weeks; making
Election Day in November a paid
holiday; doubling the dependent
care benefit to $1,000; and in-
creasing the transit benefit to
$225.
Schwartz also wants to in-
crease both the minimum and
maximum salaries on the coun-
ty’s pay scale to address the tight
labor market and the constraints
on longtime employees who have
“topped out.”
The budget proposal also rec-
ommends removing the fines for
overdue library books, which
Schwartz said disproportionately
affect poor and minority resi-
dents.
The budget i ncludes money f or
sensors to measure storm-water
runoff, part of an effort to limit
recurrences of the heavy flooding
that hit several neighborhoods
after last July.
Schwartz said the budget for
capital improvement projects he
will propose in the spring will
include “tens of millions of dol-
lars” worth of storm-water-dam-
age repairs, some of which would
be funded by a bond referendum
that would before voters.
He said he will launch a study
this summer on whether t o main-
tain a flat storm-water fee or
move, as Alexandria and other
communities have, to charge a
fee based on a property’s imper-
vious surfaces, such as parking
lots.
In response to requests from
County Board members,
Schwartz proposed an increase
in the county’s investment in
affordable housing, which now
accounts for about 5 percent of
the general fund budget.
Schwartz said he would put
$2.7 m illion more into the revolv-
ing loan fund that helps build or
rebuild low- to middle-income
buildings.
He w ould also add $800,000 to
a county fund that helps local
residents cover their rent, and
$400,000 for supportive housing
services for residents with dis-
abilities. A pilot project would
explore helping to house youths
aging out of foster care.
If, as expected, the Virginia
General Assembly passes a ciga-
rette-tax increase, Schwartz
would allocate $2 million of that
revenue to affordable housing.
The budget sets aside $2.3 mil-
lion from Columbia Pike’s tax
increment financing fees for af-
fordable housing.
Schwartz also proposed new or
increased fees: for household sol-
id waste; the water and sewer
rate; site plan reviews; and the
new Long Bridge Aquatics and
fitness Center expected to open
at this time next year. A penalty
would be levied if m ore than 10
false alarms were logged at a
single address.
[email protected]VirginiaArlington budget keeps
property tax rate steady
County manager’s plan
draws on higher revenue
to expand pay, serviceswere partially inspired by a desire
to help students process what had
happened within a historical and
global context, particularly as
f ar-right movements rise in Ger-
many, Austria, Poland, Hungary
and the United States.
This week, one student in the
class on far-right populism deliv-
ered an emotional presentation
that touched on his experience as
a counterprotester at the 20 17
protest. Another student, in the
class on political memory and the
Holocaust, has had a reckoning
with her education in rural Vir-
ginia, where she was taught that
the Civil War was about states’
rights — not slavery.
After the events in 2017, Gross-
man said, “We certainly felt a
strong consciousness... to take
steps to work for a better world so
things like that don’t happen
again.”
The delay in funke’s visa pro-
vided another teaching moment,
Grossman said. When a student
inquired about funke’s visa situa-
tion last week, an exasperated
Grossman replied: “You’re seeing
right-wing populism in action.”
[email protected]BY MORIAH BALINGITWhen German academic Hajo
funke received word he was se-
lected to be a visiting professor at
the University of Virginia, he
hastily began preparing. He ar-
ranged documentation to apply
for a visa and delivered it to the
U.S. Consulate in Berlin on
Nov. 18, his 75th birthday. After
an interview at the consulate in
December, funke rented an
apartment in Charlottesville and
arranged health insurance.
When the consulate returned
his passport, it was accompanied
not by a visa but by a letter that
said a decision about his visa had
been delayed for three to six
months. The two classes he was
set to teach — one on far-right
populism and another on politi-
cal memory in Germany — were
in jeopardy.
on Thursday morning, after
spending weeks teaching the
courses over video conferencing
from his home and after an ap-
peal from U-Va. officials, funke
got an email from the consulate
saying his visa had been granted.
The news comes just in time
for funke to finish the academic
term with his students. But ques-
tions have been raised about
what prompted the delay, which
was first reported by the Cavalier
Daily, the independent student
newspaper.
A State Department official de-
clined to answer questions about
funke’s case, saying she is barred
by law from commenting on indi-
vidual visa cases.
“We are constantly working to
find mechanisms to improve our
screening processes and to sup-
port legitimate travel and immi-
gration to the United States while
protecting U.S. citizens,” said the
official, who spoke on the condi-
tion of anonymity, saying she
cannot be named and asking that
her comments be attributed to a
“Department of State official.”
funke, a renowned academic
who studies far-right move-ments, last year wrote an article
for the website of the American
Institute for Contemporary Ger-
man Studies at Johns Hopkins
University linking violence in
Charlottesville, where a white na-
tionalist rally turned deadly in
2017, to the election of President
Trump.
He has also visited Iran, a
country whose citizens have
largely been barred from entering
the United States since Trump
took office. The professor last
visited Iran in 2014 for an aca-
demic conference and to visit the
family of his wife, who emigrated
from Iran to Germany in the
1980s and is now a German citi-
zen.
In an interview Thursday,
funke said he was confounded
because he had received the same
visa — one designated for stu-
dents and professors on academic
exchanges — exactly a year earlier
when he was a fellow at the
American Institute for Contem-
porary German Studies.
“I was appalled to a degree,
irritated,” funke said. “It’s not
very fair.”
Trump has sought to restricttravel from Iran, citing the poten-
tial that visitors pose a “national
security threat.” Within days of
taking office, he announced a
travel ban that barred visitors
from five predominantly muslim
countries, including Iran, and has
granted exceptions to a fraction
of those who have applied for
visas. The sweeping ban has kept
Iranian grandmothers from visit-
ing family in the United States
and barred a Libyan toddler from
being reunited with her Ameri-
can mother.
The travel ban has also posed
challenges for students and
scholars seeking to study or con-
duct research in the United
States. recently, Iranian students
have had their visas abruptly
revoked when they attempted to
return to school.
Protests erupted last month at
Logan International Airport in
Boston when Shahab Dehghani,
an Iranian student who had ar-
rived to start his spring semester
at Northeastern University, had
his visa revoked. Boston immi-
gration attorneys told Common-
wealth magazine that he was at
least the 10th student to be de-ported from Logan.
Jeffrey Grossman, the chair of
Germanic languages and litera-
tures at U-Va. who is co-teaching
the classes with funke, said stu-
dents are deeply interested in
both classes’ topics — far-right
populism and political memory
— in part because of Charlottes-
ville’s unfortunate connection
with both topics.
In August 2017, it was the site
of a violent protest by white
nationalists who had come to
oppose the removal of a statue of
Confederate Gen. robert E. Lee
from a downtown park, filling the
air of the quaint college town
with racist and anti-Semitic
chants. one protester, a man
from ohio with Nazi leanings,
drove his car into a group of
counterprotesters, injuring doz-
ens and killing one, 32-year-old
Heather Heyer.
Trump, later discussing the ral-
lygoers and the counterprotest-
ers, said there were “good people
on both sides.” I t became a flash
point for critics who charge that
Trump is emboldening white su-
premacists.
Grossman said the classesVirginia
After weeks of delay, professor from Germany gets visa
Scholar who studies
far-right movements was
selected to teach at U-Va.insanely clean™ carpetsAlso ask about
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Though classes were canceled
Thursday, much of the campus,
including the college’s counseling
center and the office of Diversity
and Inclusion, remained open.
The university held meetings and
sessions to address student con-
cerns and answer questions. fac-
ulty and staff were encouraged to
meet with students, and the uni-
versity announced an increased
police presence on campus.
Jay A. Perman, c hancellor of the
University System of maryland,
condemned “this abhorrent act”
and offered his support to the
school a nd s tudents.
“Hate speech and harassment
have absolutely no place in the
University System of maryland,”
Perman said in a statement. “The
Salisbury c ommunity has the Uni-
versity System’s complete support
as the investigation proceeds and
as students, f aculty, a nd staff come
together to examine issues of race
and racism, inclusion and intoler-
ance.”
Despite the school’s efforts and
assurances from the administra-
tion, some remained worried.
“It hurts. It’s happening again
and I’m upset and angry,” said
Sadé Herbert, 21, an African Amer-
ican senior majoring in c ommuni-
ty health. Herbert is a member of
the university’s gospel choir,
which planned to meet Thursday
night.
“ We’re going to have a prayer
circle to pray for everyone who is
affected by this,” she said. “We’re
also praying for the person who is
doing this, because they may not
be in t he right mind-set.”
[email protected]
[email protected]tion, according to university
spokesman Jason r hodes. T he l at-
est discovery of racist threats
prompted a range of emotions
among those students.
“We’re scared, but we’re not go-
ing to hide in fear. We’re not going
to show w e’re afraid,” s aid Aji Sarr,
22, an African American senior
majoring in s ocial work.
Sarr said Salisbury administra-
tors made t he right decision when
they canceled classes, but she
wants the university to take more
aggressive steps to find out who
was responsible for the graffiti
and to make sure all students are
protected. “The moment I have to
question my safety on campus is
the moment I realized I’m not
safe,” s he s aid.
The youth and college chapter
of the NAACP at S alisbury i ssued a
statement calling for accountabil-
ity by the administration.
“We will no longer tolerate
these racist acts on our campus,”
the civil rights organization said
in a statement. “It is time to makesocial media. Police have made no
arrests in t hat incident.
African American students
make up about 16 percent of the
university’s 8,700 student popula-He said he canceled classes “to
give us all the o pportunity to come
together to process what we are
experiencing, support each other
and figure out how we can move
forward t ogether as a community.”
Classes were scheduled to re-
sume friday.
officials at the school on mary-
land’s Eastern Shore s aid universi-
ty police were working with local
law enforcement and the fBI to
investigate the i ncident.
In N ovember, Salisbury Univer-
sity police launched an investiga-
tion into messages scrawled on
the walls of two stairwells in ful-
ton Hall that warned, “Sandy
Hook comes to SU kill [racial
slur].” Images of the comment,
which appeared to refer to the
2012 shooting that left 26 people
dead at an elementary school in
Newtown, Conn., were posted on
graffiti from B1
‘We’re scared, but we’re not going to hide in fear’
Todd dudek FoR THe WASHINGToN PoST
Salisbury University canceled classes thursday after racist threats
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