Trump Arch Faces Lawsuit From Virginia 10/09 06:29

   

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Arlington County Board in Virginia filed a lawsuit 
Thursday opposing the construction of the Triumphal Arch, becoming the first 
governmental body to take legal action against President Donald Trump's planned 
monument.

   The lawsuit, filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, criticized the speed 
at which the project slated for Memorial Circle has moved without going through 
the full review process.

   "The National Park Service, the agency responsible for projects on national 
park land such as Memorial Circle, is proceeding full-speed toward 
ground-disturbing construction," the lawsuit said. "Although the agency has 
claimed that a final decision to construct the Arch has not yet been made and 
purports to be engaged in a routine decisional process, that rushed process 
appears to be a pretext designed to shore up justifications for building the 
Arch in accordance with the President's repeated marching orders."

   The lawsuit asks that "the agency's feverish pace toward construction of the 
arch" be halted to ensure that the requirements of the National Environmental 
Policy Act be followed and proper analysis and testing be done.

   "The Arlington County Board has filed this lawsuit because our community has 
the most to lose from this egregious and unlawful proposed project," Arlington 
County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti said in a statement. He added that the 
county has acted in good faith in the review process, pointing out the "severe, 
unique, and wide-ranging negative impacts" the project will have on the county 
and its residents, only to see them ignored.

   Memorial Circle sits on federal parkland west of the Potomac River across 
the Memorial Bridge and immediately adjacent to Arlington County.

   The county is being represented in the lawsuit by legal advocacy group 
Democracy Forward.

   The White House and Interior Department did not immediately respond to 
requests for comment.

   The lawsuit comes just a day after Association of Flight Attendants-CWA 
President Sara Nelson expressed concerns that the 250-foot (76-meter) arch 
compounds multiple safety issues that she said have gone unaddressed since a 
deadly January 2025 crash over the Potomac River that killed 67 people. Nelson 
also criticized Trump's plan to turn the arch into "a top grade military 
complex" able to host drones and snipers while storing ammunition.

   Though the arch has received early approval from the U.S. Commission of Fine 
Arts, whose members were all tapped by Trump, a group of three veterans and an 
architectural historian sued in federal court in Washington, D.C., saying the 
project needs to be approved by Congress. The judge in that lawsuit said the 
administration must give the court 48 hours before undertaking any activities 
related to or in preparation for construction of the arch.

   The arch is one of several projects around Washington that Trump has 
undertaken as he remakes the city, from renovating one of its storied public 
golf courses to threatening to demolish the John F. Kennedy Center for the 
Performing Arts.