Editor,
I’ve been saying from my first council meeting during Mason Row that we are not addressing a big problem. During that meeting I let it be known that Clarendon, not Arlington but Clarendon which is about a 4 block square, went from 3 patrol cars to currently about a dozen.
They understood the need for vertical policing capabilities. We have yet to expand our police force and therefore response times are suffering dramatically.
This subject was reinvigorated in my head after the most recent rape in a parking garage. I couldn’t help but picture one of my young staff or patrons walking to their vehicle late in the evening in a garage.
I think that the council can do a lot to protect the residents, visitors and staffs that utilize these underground garages.
When you are negotiating with these giant developers that stand to make 10s or hundreds of millions of dollars I think you should, in addition to your other things, demand that they pay for, in perpetuity, security detail to patrol the garages. People and property are extremely vulnerable underground. Some phones and radios don’t even function correctly 1-4 levels below grade. The presence of a golf cart roaming the lot with an officer aboard would be a huge deterrent to any would be wrongdoer. You, being responsible, for the safety and well bring of everybody within the city limits should do everything possible to do it.
David Tax
Falls Church
