The Alexandria Gazette Packet, Mount Vernon Gazette, and Arlington Connection newspapers published this article in their latest edition. Below is an excerpt from the section on David. (The reporter mistakenly wrote that David was in the Navy and not the Air Force.)
Four Dems Announce Run in 45th
Democratic campaigns for Van Landingham’s delegate seat begin.
By Stefan Cornibert
Connection Newspapers, January 27, 2005PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRAT David Englin is a newcomer to campaign politics. Englin is a former public affairs officer in the U.S. Navy [sic] with eight years of service on his record and is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. In Richmond, Englin said he wants to champion Democratic values in the face of Republican-dominated state politics.“I have a 5-year-old son,” he said. “This race is about his future. I want to serve in Richmond as an unabashedly progressive voice, a voice to defend our progressive values, the values of inclusiveness that are under attack in the commonwealth by Republicans.”
After leaving the Navy [sic] in 2004, Englin began his own online lobbying group aimed at encouraging U.S. officials to declare the ongoing atrocities in the Sudan’s Darfur region a crime against humanity. Using an online journal known as a Web-log, www.rippleofhope.net, Englin lobbied to have the Darfur conflicts declared a genocide. His background in public affairs, he said, has prepared him for a life in policy and politics.
“Over the years, I worked on policy issues that dealt with the environment, with public health and with meeting the needs of military families,” he said.
On transportation, Englin believes the best remedy to his district’s traffic woes is widening the diversity of transit options. “I would take a very holistic approach,” he said. “We need investment, but it is important that we think of all the different modes of transportation. Those of us living on a lower income tend to use the buses instead of Metrorail. We need to invest in a safe, convenient bus system.”
As a father, Englin said education is an issue that touches home, and raising teacher salaries is an integral part of raising the academic bar statewide.
“I’ve always thought that we don’t pay teachers enough,” he said. “They are partners in raising our children. My son’s teachers can’t afford to live in the town where they teach. That’s just wrong.”
Englin, a member of Alexandria’s committee on affordable housing, said the increasingly expensive proposition of finding a place to live in Northern Virginia could be made easier if local governments took it upon themselves to work together.
“We need to take a regional approach to affordable housing,” said Englin, who attended the ground-breaking ceremony for the Chatham Square complex in Alexandria this week, a project designed to offer affordable housing mixed with market-value housing. The governments in Arlington, Alexandria and Fairfax counties need to cooperate on that, working with housing groups and developers, he said.
