February 14 – 20, 2019
FA LLS CHUR C H, V I R G I NI A • WW W. FC NP. C OM • FR EE
FOU N D E D 1991 • VOL. XXVIII NO. 52
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Former City of Falls Church developer Todd Hitt has pleaded guilty to eight securities fraud schemes that resulted in losses to investors of about $20 million. SEE NEWS BRIEFS, PAGE 9
Ferment Calling for Ouster of Top 3 State Elected Officials Cooling Gov. Northam, AG Herring Hit for Racism, Lt. Gov. Fairfax for Rape Allegations
BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
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The News-Press has announced the dates for Falls Church Restaurant Week 2019 with the seventh annual Little City event set for the end of March.
SEE BUSINESS NEWS & NOTES, PAGE 14
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It was reported late Wednesday that the total taxable assessed value for all properties in Falls Church, as of Jan. 1, is $4.28 billion, a 3.35 percent increase from last year. SEE PAGE 4
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Sierra Hull felt the borders of her bluegrass roots were too constricting and decided to expand her musical horizons. SEE PAGE 23
INDEX
Editorial............... 6 Letters.............6, 8 News & Notes 10–11 Comment ..... 12–13 Business News . 14 Sports ............... 16
Calendar ..... 18–19 Classified Ads ... 20 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword ........ 21 Crime Report .... 22 Critter Corner....22
The frantic tempo of calls, demands and promises of action of leading Democratic officials that attended the first days of the dizzying sequence of ugly revelations and charges involving Virginia’s three top state elected officials, all Democrats — Gov. Ralph Northam, Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax and Attorney General Mark Herring — in the last two weeks has cooled in recent days, maybe due at least in part to a less than enthusiastic participation by the party’s rank and file. Meetings called by Arlington Democrats in the last days and an array of email comments and many other communiques sug-
gest this. Under the leadership of Arlington Democrats’ chair Jill Caiazzo, two “listening sessions” were held in the last week to sound out Democrat constituents on the crises, one focused on the race issue last Thursday, and a second on the sexual assault issue Sunday night. Nuance prevailed in both, with issues of due process, definitions of consent, overly quick condemnations, racial factors in passing swift judgments being aired. On the weekend of Feb. 1-2, swift and strident demands came from virtually all Democratic elected officials in the state, not to mention from Republicans, that all three officials resign for their roles, in the cases of Northam and Herring, in wearing raciallyoffensive “blackface” makeup in
the 1980s and, in the case of Fairfax, in the face of allegations of sexual assault and rape in the last two decades. But things began to change beginning with Northam the day after damning evidence was first revealed against him on Feb. 2, when he held a press conference refusing demands to resign in the context of rescinding a dayearlier apparent confession that a medical school yearbook photo showing an offensive blackface makeup next to another with Ku Klux Klan garb actually were of him. That happened just as earlier allegations against Fairfax, who would have been Northam’s successor had he resigned, resurfaced from a woman, associate college professor Dr. Vanessa
Tyson, claiming he had assaulted her in his hotel room during the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004. Even though the Washington Post had vetted that allegation last year and determined it could not be corroborated, and Fairfax insisted the encounter was “consensual,” a cascade of Democratic elected officials’ demands for Fairfax’s resignation, on top of Northam’s, ensued almost instantly. The ink on headlines about that had barely dried when Herring, who would be second in line of succession to replace the governor behind Fairfax, stepped forward with his own confession of a party where he wore blackface in college.
Continued on Page 5
Popular Falls Church City ‘Pillar’ Gary LaPorta Dies Suddenly BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
Longtime City of Falls Church resident, business owner, Chamber of Commerce leader and civic activist Gary LaPorta died suddenly at his home in the City last Friday. City of Falls Church Police were called to his apartment in the 301 W. Broad building Sunday for a welfare check at the request of his daughter, who lives near Roanoke, and found him deceased, according to reports. LaPorta, 72, was recovering from a heart attack shortly
before Christmas. A employee of the Commissioner of the Revenue office at City Hall, he was given a “clean bill of health” following surgery and a recovery period in an area hospital following that incident and had returned to work. In the meantime, LaPorta was elected president of the City’s Citizens for a Better City (CBC) organization last month. A veteran and widower, a native of Cold Springs, New York, since moving to Falls Church he ran a popular local business that drew busloads of touring miniatures collectors, known as Miniatures from the Attic. He
was a two-term board chairman of the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce and an activist in support of a range of local causes from involvement in support of the Falls Church City Schools to being a board member of the Falls Church City Democratic Committee. He was also involved as a volunteer with the Creative Cauldron theater troupe, the Falls Church League of Women Voters, a City task force on parking and towing and was a member of the City’s Employee Advisory Council.
Continued on Page 4
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