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Kennan Garvey - In Loving Memory
Libby Sworn-In for 4th Term
Libby was sworn in for her fourth term on the Arlington County School Board on Dec. 17th, 2008. Her remarks from the ceremony:
Thank you Paul and thank you Frank. And thank you everyone for being here tonight to help us celebrate. And we have so much to celebrate: our schools, our community, our Democracy and each other. It’s so nice to have my friend and neighbor Paul Ferguson here to administer the oath of office. It’s wonderful to have Frank Sietzen and Andres Tobar here to run the show.
We have a lot to celebrate tonight. First, we are celebrating our schools. Emma and I both ran our campaigns on experience and for me, especially, my own experience was not so important as our community’s experience with our schools. We’ve got a great school system and so, in this year of change, ever intelligent Arlington voters asked for more of the same on the local level. My re-election is a tribute to the work our teachers and staff do everyday.
We’re here also to celebrate each other and what we’ve all accomplished because no one gets elected by themselves. There are lots of friends and supporters who work really hard because they think together we can make a difference. And we did and will continue to make an important difference for our community. Thank you and keep it up! This is what keeps our Democracy healthy.
And we are celebrating family. As you’ve probably all heard me say before, running for office and being an elected official means that your family gets pulled in, too, whether they like it or not. They’ve put up with a lot for years and I thank them. Should I ever forget how important our work is on the school board, I have my grandchildren to remind me. It’s wonderful to have both my children and all three grandchildren here tonight. And Jeremiah, especially, an Arlington Public Schools student who held for me the Spanish-English Bible that my husband read so he could learn more Spanish.
That bi-lingual Bible has more than just family significance. We are celebrating our diverse Democracy tonight. With this historic November election our democracy is becoming more and more true to it’s most important principal that all men (and women) are created equal. On Monday, I had the privilege to be in Richmond to witness Virginia’s electors electing Barak Obama the first African American President of the United States. I found myself thinking how lucky we all are to be alive at this time in our nation’s history. We can celebrate tonight not only how far we have come as a nation, and a State, but also as a community.
As you all know, Arlington did not always have the right to elect its school board. In the 1960’s the elected Arlington School Board voted to desegregate our schools. This was the time of massive resistance. The Virginia Legislature then took away our right to elect our school board and gave us an appointed board that would do more what the Legislature wanted, not what the people of Arlington wanted.
Democracy is a fragile thing and depends on all of us. We must never forget that.
And here we are tonight to celebrate not only my re-election, but the historic election of Emma Violand Sanchez as our first Latina SB member. What an honor it has been to be on the ballot with the first African American President and the first Latina SB member in Arlington. They are different positions of course, but both proof of how healthy a Democracy we have.
It’s a great evening and I thank all of you for being here to help celebrate.
Libby Wins the Democratic Endorsement!
Official announcement from the Arlington County Democratic Committee
9:35 PM, May 3, 2998
Fellow Democrats,
I am pleased to report the results of our School Board endorsement caucus this week.
Our Democratic endorsees for School Board are:
Emma Violand-Sanchez and Libby GarveyCongratulations to our Democratic endorsees!
Over two days of voting, 4,425 Democrats cast their ballots in our School Board election. A record turnout in a School Board endorsement contest.
The results for each candidate were as follows:
Emma Violand-Sanchez 2,548
Libby Garvey 2,464
Karla Hagan 973
James Lander 874
Reid Goldstein 822
Terron Sims 411Congratulations to all candidates, campaigns and voters! This was a great, energizing election for Arlington Democrats!
Peter Owen