Latest / ARLnow Daily Update / ARLnow Daily Update: October 27, 2026

Transcript

ARLnow Daily Update: October 27, 2026 · ARLnow Daily Update

• 0:00
  It's Tuesday, October 27th. This is the ARL Now daily update. Community members pressed the county board last night over May's fatal police shooting of Sean Vowen on Columbia Pike.
• 0:12
  Speakers at a town hall called the body camera footage released Friday heavily edited and long overdue. One called for county manager Mark Schwartz to resign or be removed.
• 0:23
  Police say Vowen had barricaded himself in a convenience store and was holding a knife. Board member Takas Karantonis called the release woefully delayed and said a new policy to prevent such delays is coming.
• 0:36
  A special grand jury is reviewing the case. Waymo is now mapping Arlington's residential streets. ARL now spotted one of the robotaxi company's mapping vehicles here Friday.
• 0:48
  A spokesperson said Waymo has no plans to share, but is mapping in northern Virginia and pushing for a statewide law.
• 0:55
  Virginia doesn't allow commercial driverless service yet, and the sponsor of a pending state bill expects robotaxis no sooner than 2028.
• 1:03
  Arlington may make it harder for historic district proposals to reach the county board.
• 1:09
  As the county studies its designation process, a key question is whether a property should have to meet more than two of 11 criteria before a county review board can order a staff study.
• 1:21
  Local historic districts restrict exterior changes and redevelopment, and any rule change would require public hearings. Three men have been sentenced for an arson at a Columbia Pike apartment building last year.
• 1:33
  Prosecutors say it began with a Big Gulp cup of gasoline set alight in a stairwell after a dispute over a gun that was never delivered. More than 30 people were forced out, some jumping from windows.
• 1:46
  Marvin Hernandez Lopez, 19, who prosecutors say lit it, got five years. The other two got two years each. This sponsored update is from Eli Residential Group.
• 1:57
  Led by Ask Eli columnist Eli Tucker, the Arlington-based team helps people buy and sell homes across northern Virginia, the District, and the Maryland suburbs, offering personalized data-driven advice.
• 2:11
  Learn more at eliresidential.com. In Ballston, demolition is underway at the Ballston One office building on Fairfax Drive, where developer Penzance plans a seven-story building with more than 300 apartments.
• 2:25
  Next door, the former Holiday Inn is already rubble, with hundreds more homes planned there and at a nearby office building.
• 2:32
  The Lee-Way-Overlee neighborhood marked its centennial Saturday by installing 11 stumbling stones, brass sidewalk markers honoring people once enslaved on area farms.
• 2:44
  Keynote speaker and neighborhood resident Eugene Robinson called it an act of reclaiming history.
• 2:51
  One idea floated at the event, making part of the shuttered Lee Arts Center a permanent home for the Black Heritage Museum of Arlington. And Saigon Saigon in Pentagon City turns 25.
• 3:03
  The family-run Vietnamese restaurant will celebrate November first through seventh with a two-course menu for $25.
• 3:10
  The owner's father has been head chef since it opened, serving a pho recipe he created more than 40 years ago. That's all for today. Thank you for listening.