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The public is invited to compete in the third annual Mayors’ Fitness Challenge that commences March 18 and runs to May 13. Registration on the City of Falls Church website is required, and all who register compete by submitting the number of minutes exercising each week (with any physical exercising counting).

No fee is required, but for those who give $5 a Fitness Challenge shirt is provided.

F.C. Mayor David Tarter will spearhead the effort in F.C., which is competing against the City of Fairfax (which won last year) and the Town of Vienna. A celebratory reception will be held at the conclusion of the challenge to announce this year’s winner.

Henry Behr and Amity Pratt won the Book Award for their work as the Republic of China (Taiwan) in the Pacific Island Cooperation Summit component of Georgetown University’s 60th annual North American Invitational Model United Nations event in D.C. last weekend. Sixteen members of the Meridian High Model U.N. Club participated.

The event draws over 3,000 high school students globally. Resolutions drafted and passed included ones addressing global warming and the impact of private military contractors on international security.

Mark Warner announced this week that he is teaming with Susan Collins to renew the National Alzheimer’s Project Act, through 2035.

In a joint interview on Monday from the Capitol, the senators held up photos of their parents — Collins lost her father, Don, to Alzheimer’s, in 2018, and Warner lost his mother, Marjorie, to the disease, in 2010 — and described the heavy toll Alzheimer’s takes on caregivers.

The WMATA has opened the public comment period for the proposed Fiscal Year 2024 budget that seeks to expand service on Metrorail and Metrobus, provide more equitable fares, implement a low-income fare program, enhance public safety, and maintain a safe and reliable system through capital investments.

The community is encouraged to provide feedback on the $4.8 billion capital and operating budget proposal that focuses on creating the improved service and customer experience on Metro throughout the region. The funding will modernize transportation and infrastructure for the future and deliver services that support and grow ridership.

Long overdue work on the Oak Street bridge near the Oak Street Elementary began this week, with resulting rerouting and detouring of traffic that will remain in effect until the end of 2023, the F.C. School Board was informed at its meeting Tuesday.

Walkways to the school remain open as the bridge undergoes its first upgrades since 1953.

An all-affordable residential high-rise project of two 21-story buildings adjacent to the Tysons Dominion Square West Metro site is moving forward. At its meeting this week, the Fairfax County Planning Commission unanimously OKd the project, which will replace parking lots currently used by auto dealerships with two 21-story buildings with 516 apartments and a 33,500 square foot two-level community center.

After declining between 2017 and 2019, opioid overdose cases increased in the Fairfax Health District from 285 in 2019 to 366 in 2022, including 63 fatalities, as of Sept. 30 last year according to the county’s data dashboard.

The department updated the dashboard last week to better illustrate the presence of fentanyl in nearly all overdose deaths and an increase in overdoses among youths, including children and teens.

The dashboard now lists people 17 and under as a distinct age group and provides data specifically on fatal overdoses involving fentanyl “to help Fairfax County residents better understand the threat that opioids, including fentanyl, pose in the community,” Director of Epidemiology and Population Health Dr. Benjamin Schwartz said.

were higher than for single family homes and townhouses for the first time in the City, due to the multifamily construction boom well underway and expected to continue that citizens can see from the number of construction cranes that are now hovering over the City’s 2.2 square miles.

Shields said the slightly higher than expected overall assessments will be used to address core issues already being discussed by the City Council, which are labor demand and inflation.

Overall residential real estate values increased by 3.5 percent over the last year. Single family homes and townhomes had varying changes but overall were up 4.03 percent and 5.86 percent, respectively. Residential condominiums had varying changes but an overall decrease of one percent.

The overall increase, based on the work of F.C. Assessor Erwving Bailey, is far below the 11.42 percent increase that was announced a year ago and which led to a record number of appeals. Last year was Bailey’s first in the job, and assessments came after assessments for the previous two years rose by 2.7 percent and 3.9 percent, respectively.

Last year’s huge jump was attributed mostly to a big jump in sale prices, as according to state law, assessments for purposes of taxation must be set at 100 percent of fair market value. Bailey’s office calculates property value annually using “mass appraisal techniques that are standard in the real estate industry,” the City’s statement said.

In the assessment overview that Bailey just released, overall commercial property values increased 7.67 percent since January 2022 and multi-family property values increased 32.12 percent over the last year largely due to new construction.

New construction (valued at $57.56 million) accounted for 24.4 percent of the increase in assessed value, residential new construction accounted for $10.15 million of growth and commercial new construction accounted for the remaining $47.41 million of growth.

It is based on the new assessments, as calculated annually, that the City government calculates the tax bills for individual property own- ers. From this week’s report, City Manager Wyatt Shields will develop his recommended budget for the coming fiscal year (beginning this July 1), including what he recommends what the residential tax rate ought to be.

It is now at $1.24 per $100 of assessed value, and the final decision on that will be voted on by the City Council in early May. That will include the level at which City programs, and the public schools, get funded in the Council’s adopted Fiscal Year 2024 Operating Budget and Capital Improvements Program.

Falls Church School Board is expected to formally adopt the budget it wants the City to fund at its meeting next Tuesday, and it is fully expected that its request will be fully met.

(Meanwhile, in adjacent giant Fairfax County, the manager’s proposed budget released this week calls for no tax rate increase, but with 7 percent rise in residential assessments, and a cut from the School Board’s proposed budget of $15 million.)

Public hearings on Falls Church’s proposed budget, prior to the final May 8 vote, will be held on April 10,

April 24 and May 8.

Tax bills from real estate owners based on the new budget will come due on Dec. 5, 2023 and June 4, 2024. The second payment on the current year’s billings is due this June.

Individual assessments will be mailed in early March. After evaluating the assessment, those homeowners wondering if their assessment is correct should contact the Office of Real Estate Assessment at 703-2485022 (TTY 711).

If there is a disagreement with an assessment, citizens can appeal to the assessor or to the Board of Equalization.

Deadlines for assessment appeals are Monday, April 17, 2023, for an Office of Real Estate Assessment review and Friday, June 2, 2023 for a Board of Equalization review.

As appeal reviews may not be complete prior to the Board of Equalization application deadline, if a property owner has not received their first level appeal results by May 19, 2023, they should file an appeal to the Board of Equalization to preserve their rights.

Property owners must prove that their property’s market value is either inaccurate or unfair. State law puts the burden of proof on the property owner to demonstrate that the assessment is incorrect.