Takis Karantonis by the candidate’s website.

This week, a select group of Arlington Democratic party members will choose a nominee for the county board seat held by Erik Gutshall, who tragically died of brain cancer in April. We ran responses to our questionnaire Monday from the four candidates: Chanda Choun, Barbara Kanninen, Takis Karantonis, and Nicole Merlene.

Greater Greater Washington agrees with the Arlington Democratic Party in preferring the special election could happen later, so that all Arlington Democrats could vote by mail. But so long as the election is happening as it is, we recommend eligible party insiders select Takis Karantonis as their first choice and then Nicole Merlene or Chanda Choun as second and/or third choices in the ranked-choice ballot.

Karantonis is an urbanist, and a progressive. His extensive resume features a great deal of time spent on housing, planning, zoning, and development review and policy in Arlington, as both a professional and an advocate. His civic engagement has been almost entirely oriented around housing and transportation.

One of Erik Gutshall’s strengths was his experience with planning as a practice rather than a theory; Karantonis is the best-equipped candidate to continue to provide this expertise.

As former head of the Columbia Pike Revitalization Organization, former president of his civic association in Columbia Heights, near the eastern end of the pike, and as a board member of Alliance for Housing Solutions, Karantonis has a long record of fighting for less fortunate people and an area of the county that has not gotten the planning or transportation investments it needs.

We appreciated Karantonis’ thorough responses to our questionnaire, which demonstrated a fluency in urbanism and how it works in practice. In his questionnaire, he wrote that “signal priority and off-vehicle fare collection will be at the top of my short and medium term agenda,” and that he would “further initiate a study of dedicated bus lanes during morning and evening peak-times.”

He also has the most resounding vision for what Arlington needs to accomplish as Amazon moves in and COVID-19 continues:

Significant upzoning of Crystal City occurred in 2010 with the purpose of bringing workspace and living space into balance. That means much density has already been baked into the plans. We have to hold the owners of properties in Crystal City accountable for achieving many, many new affordable units. It only makes sense as they will also be building hundreds of thousands of square feet of retail where workers will not be high earners.

I also believe that the County should look at Pentagon City in the same way that older apartment buildings on large parcels were looked at along Columbia Pike. We need to evaluate where the opportunities for infill or modest expansions are and how we can allow those increases while also meeting our need for affordable housing in the HQ2 neighborhoods.

Much of planning is getting a bunch of people to sign off on discrete, minute tasks, in service of achieving a sometimes fantastically broad vision. It’s evident that Karantonis has both the ideals and the practicality needed to make Arlington more accessible to all. He gets it, and gets how to do it.

As an immigrant and speaker of eight languages, he also can help connect the county board to communities that have been hard hit by the coronavirus. And, he boasts endorsements from many of the officials and committee members we work with and/or have supported.

Karantonis has dedicated himself to Arlington, a place that he clearly loves. Its residents would be well-served by his service on the county board.

Also rank 2nd and/or 3rd: Nicole Merlene and Chanda Choun

Chanda Choun and Nicole Merlene would both make excellent second and/or third choices in Thursday’s primary, in either order. We like them both a great deal and believe that they are each deserving of votes from the eligible committee members.

Both Merlene and Choun know their stuff. Choun was the only candidate to explicitly mention renter protections as part of an affordable-housing strategy, writing, “I would work with the state on tenant empowerment, targeted annual rent increase caps and housing vouchers to give Arlington’s majority renter population peace of mind and prevent displacement of long-time residents.” And we appreciated his unwavering and direct responses to reallocating space away from cars and their drivers to people walking, biking, and taking transit.

Merlene had, in effect, already answered a number of our questionnaire prompts in columns for ArlNow, and we endorsed her for General Assembly last year. More effectively than any other candidate, she identified concrete policies that Arlington could tap to fund more affordable housing, writing:

Change the formula for contributions to AHIF. We should make it easier for developers to build affordable units within market rate affordable buildings, because right now the formula disincentives this action. This would create diverse housing supply in all areas of the county instead of primarily in areas of south Arlington. With zero interest rates, we should also consider increasing our bonding of affordable housing funds.

We’re a bit perplexed as to why Choun withdrew from the regular 2020 county board primary against incumbent Libby Garvey, where he was a strong contender. And we weren’t thrilled with his deference to local control in our question about state delegate Ibraheem Samirah’s bill to legalize duplexes.

We would like to note that Merlene returned her questionnaire beyond the deadline, and that, while she’s wonderfully enthusiastic and knowledgeable about public transit improvements, her responses contained less detail than others’ on how she would actually execute the policies that she favors.

But, ultimately, this is a delightfully robust slate of candidates, and Arlingtonians are lucky that all four potential Democratic nominees are thoughtful and considerate of how transit and housing work. Though we found that longtime school board member Barbara Kanninen was not as ambitious in her support for more housing and more public transportation as Karantonis, Choun, and Merlene, her positioning was still strong. Kanninen’s answer on stormwater planning, which explained why redevelopment in Arlington results in improved stormwater outcomes, deserves particular praise.

Choun and Merlene, in particular, have bright futures in Arlington’s civic and political landscape, and we hope that they stay engaged and involved. Their voices, as a renter and small-business owner, and immigrant and veteran, are much-needed to ensure that Arlington fairly represents all its residents.

Arlington is better for Choun, Kanninen, and Merlene’s candidacies, and we look forward to seeing them lead the county into the future in their individual capacities, or in future political roles.

This is the official endorsement of Greater Greater Washington. All endorsements are decided by our volunteer Elections Committee with input from our staff, board, and other volunteer committees.