January 21 - 27, 2016
Fa lls Chur c h, V i r g i ni a • ww w. fc np. c om • Fr ee
Fou n d ed 1991 • Vol. XXV No. 48
Falls Church • Tysons Corner • Merrifield • McLean • North Arlington • Bailey’s Crossroads
Inside This Week F.C. Braces for Mega-Storm
With forecasters now predicting an epic winter snow storm and blizzard to hit the Washngton, D.C. region this weekend, the City of Falls Church has sent out information on emergency snow routes that will need to remain free of parking or stopping for first responders, public safety officials and road crews at all times. See News Briefs, page 8
3 Shot By Assailant Outside State Theatre Suffer Non-Lethal Injuries
Police Seek Public Info on Early Monday Fight & Shooting
by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
Planners OK New Business Parking Rules
The Falls Church Planning Commission rejected its chair’s call for a deferral and voted 4-3 to recommend to the City Council that it give final approval to an ordinance that would update current commercial parking regulations based on evidence that current numbers are too high. See News Briefs, page 8
David Brooks: Time for a Conspiracy!
Members of the Republican governing class are like cowering freshmen at halftime of a high school football game. See page 12
Press Pass with Grant-Lee Phillips
Grant-Lee Phillips has traversed tough waters at least a couple times since he released his last album Walking in the Green Corn in 2012. See page 18
Index
Editorial..................6 Letters....................6 News & Notes.10-11 Comment......... 12-15 Calendar.........16-17 Food & Dining......19
Sports..................22 Classified Ads .....24 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword...........25 Business News....26 Critter Corner.......26
WITH THE CONVENING of the Virginia General Assembly last week, lawmakers spread out all over the commonwealth last weekend to update and listen to constituents, and in the City of Falls Church the meeting was held at the Community Center hosted by State Sen. Dick Saslaw (left) and State Del. Marcus Simon (right). (Photo: News-Press)
With Pro & Con Advocates Both There, Guns Dominate Town Hall
by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
Guns became the major issue of debate at Saturday’s state legislative town hall meeting at the Falls Church Community Center, despite the fact that State Sen. Dick Saslaw and State Del. Marcus Simon, both Democrats, agreed that such toxic issues in the Richmond legislature will get nowhere, as usual, and they’ve chosen to focus on bills that might actually win bipartisan support and pass. The annual Richmond legislative session
kicked off last week. Single representatives of both pro-gun and anti-gun groups showed up to speak, neither of whom were from Falls Church. As much as both Saslaw and Simon prefaced their remarks with “we don’t want to take away your guns,” but spoke to the need for universal background checks, their comments nonetheless came under fire, so to speak, from the pro-gun spokesman on grounds of a variety of “what-if” hypotheticals. This is despite the fact that 82 percent of members of the National Rifle Association
favor universal background checks. Sen. Saslaw noted that in the case of Florida, with whom Virginia has a “reciprocity agreement” on guns, 1,400 licenses were issued in the recent period to persons with criminal records, including 218 with outstanding warrants for their arrest, 14 of those for murder. Although plenty have been submitted by almost all Democrats in Richmond this session, no measure to put any
Continued on Page 4
City of Falls Church Police Chief Mary Gavin told the NewsPress in an interview Wednesday that the City’s State Theatre live music venue, always eager, she said, to cooperate with police, had “robust” security, including a magnetometer to detect guns at the entrance for its “go-go” concert Sunday night, and it was supplemented by five uniformed Falls Church police officers in marked police cars. However, that did not prevent a “brazen person” from taking a fight, which broke out inside the theater early Monday, to the parking lot outside at the end of the concert, and firing a gun that struck three patrons with non-life threatening wounds. It is not known for certain that the assailant was a single person, although, Chief Gavin said, the ammunition residue was consistent with that. Some bullet fragments were found in the wall of the adjacent restaurant, Clare and Don’s Beach Shack. Chief Gavin said, “This was a brazen act by one individual outside the theater. The incident was not as much about security as it was about the specific person who brought a weapon outside and fired it into the crowd. Five uniformed police officers and eight security personnel did not deter this incident and no other security measures would have probably deterred this shooting.” Gavin offered few new details of the incident in her phone interview with the News-Press, beyond the update report that the City of Falls Church released Tuesday. All
Continued on Page 5
PAGE 2 | JANUARY 21 - 27, 2016
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PAGE 4 | JANUARY 21 - 27, 2016
Saslaw & Simon Host Lively Community Center Town Hall Continued from Page 1
restrictions on gun use will make it out of a committee, Falls Church’s two local representatives agreed. On the other hand, efforts to extend the use of guns that will pass in one or both of the GOP-controlled Senate and House of Delegates will be vetoed by Governor Terry McAuliffe, and will not have the votes to override such vetoes, they said. But Saslaw, the veteran lawmaker who is the Senate minority leader, was taken to task over more than just guns. In fact, leading members of the Falls Church League of Women Voters – Ellen Salsbury and Sarah Fitzgerald – criticized him for not completing the LWV questionnaire last November prior to the election, which was distributed to every home in Falls Church, limiting some of his answers to “no comment.” Saslaw was ready with a
forceful response, however, saying that questions which require a “yes or no” answer are not adequate to explain a complex issue, yet if a lawmaker commits to answer in a poll, he or she is then held accountable to that. “I have sent out four newsletters to everyone in my district that explain my voting record and the issues in detail,” he said. “So you can’t say I am dodging the issues. Everyone knows my views.” On the other hand, he said, he knows that many of his colleagues in the legislature boast about “telling people what they want to hear” on such surveys and questionnaires. In a number of cases, also, he said, Republican legislators in the Senate will vote to appease an element of their constituency because they know that over in the overwhelmingly-Republican House (the margin is 66-34) it will get killed, anyway. As to the issue of gerry-
mandering that is getting more and more attention, Saslaw had his own unique position on the issue, saying that if those drawing the lines would consider a district with a 43 to 45 percent African-American makeup to qualify under federal anti-discrimination law, then that would be sufficient for most of those districts to still enjoy minority representation. However, he said, such districts get drawn with 65 percent minority make up, and that limits the number of districts that can be represented by the choice of a minority. Saslaw spoke out very strongly against charter schools, citing cases of being very poorly operated, even in wealthy sections of Virginia, and said they represent “nothing but draining away money from public education.” Del. Simon said some of his bills aimed at gaining bipartisan support include ones to extend sexual orientation and gender
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
identity as protected against discrimination in housing. He noted that groups of realtors and office building and apartment owners have dropped their opposition to this. Simon also hopes to get some traction for his bill to restructure student loan debt (House Bill 400). In the U.S., student loan debt has ballooned to $1.3 trillion, the largest classification of debt next to mortgages. This problem is now strangling economic development, he said, because too many people can now no longer qualify for the debt-to-income ratios required to buy a house or car. He’s proposing a mechanism to refinance the debts at lower interest. He said there is a bill to ban use of “crumb rubber” on athletic fields because of some studies showing increased rates of illnesses among youths playing on them. He cited the case of the Westgate Elementary School near here where such artificial turf was slated to be installed, but parental outrage has stalled the move, and piles of the stuff are now sitting as a testament to the concern. Saslaw spoke to the terrible irony of opposition to the extension of the Affordable Care Act
to Medicaid in Virginia, something the Republicans in rural parts of the state, in particular, have been responsible for. In the poorest parts of the state, where these Republicans hold sway, the life expectancy is 65 compared to 81 in Northern Virginia, Saslaw said, adding that 20 percent of babies in the rural areas are born with opiate addictions, a third of the population smokes in Grundy and Buchanan counties and 40 to 50 percent of adults are “morbidly obese.” If ever a people needed expanded health care, it would be where they and their representatives are the most adamantly opposed to it, he noted. Julio Idrobo of the Falls Church Housing Commission asked about the efforts to raise the minimum wage, and Saslaw said there is “no way to keep anyone in a job with the current $7.25 minimum wage because no one can afford to live on it.” It is a pro-business issue to raise it, he said, and some like freshman Del. Paul Krizek have introduced legislation to allow a local option on it. Still, Republicans are now allowing measures to raise it out of committees.
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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
3 Shot at State Theatre Monday Continued from Page 1
three people struck by the gunfire were taken to hospitals with nonlife-threatening injuries. In the latest official release Tuesday, police said they responded to a call around 1:45 a.m. Monday, January 18, to reports of a fight as the crowd exited the theater after a show. While on the scene, police report 15 to 20 shots were heard being fired from the street and the 212542A01 adjacent public parking lot behind Clare and Don’s Beach Shack and Argia’s restaurants. Despite being at the scene during the incident, police were unable to identify the shooter. The still-at-large suspect is described
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whatever steps are necessary to prevent such violent events in the future. Nothing is more important than the safety and security of our community.” All the victims early Monday, all adult males, were taken to hospitals. Police reported one victim went into the theater for help while the other two drove or were driven to a hospital in Frederick, Maryland. The show, a go-go concert taking place at the State Theatre was billed as “Love, Peace and Unity” on the venue’s website. Chief Gavin said that added security was in place for the concert because of the large crowd and because go-go and hip-hop
as a 5 ft. 8 in. slender male wearing dark clothing. But no further information, including photos or surveillance video, has been available to date. It is not known if there has ever been another time in the history of Falls Church where three persons suffered gunshot injuries from one incident. Falls Church City Councilman David Snyder, the former mayor and vice-mayor who has been the most vocal person on the Council advocating for gun control, issued a statement saying, “This is an absolute outrage. It must never happen again. Any involved persons or businesses must be held to account and the City must take
concerts throughout the region have been known to draw outbreaks of violence. In the case of the State Theatre concert, she noted, the crowd was not young, but more middle aged with a “lot of out-of-towners.” She said the State Theatre, exclusively a live music venue for
JANUARY 21 - 27, 2016 | PAGE 5
almost two decades, has “always been very security conscious,” and cooperative with local police. “They often call us to ask for security advice, and always listen to us,” the chief said. Falls Church Police ask anyone with information to call them at 703-248-5053 (TTY 711).
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Vol. XXV, No. 48 January 21 - 27, 2016 • City of Falls Church ‘Business of the Year’ 1991 & 2001 • • Certified by the Commonwealth of Virginia to Publish Official Legal Notices • • Member, Virginia Press Association •
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WWW.FCNP.COM The Falls Church News-Press is published weekly on Thursdays and is distributed free of charge throughout the City of Falls Church and the Greater Falls Church area. Offices are at 200 Little Falls St., #508, Falls Church, VA 22046. Reproduction of this publication in whole or part is prohibited except with the written permission of the publisher. ©2016 Benton Communications Inc. The News-Press is printed on recycled paper.
E D I TO R I A L
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F.C. Commercial Push Is Tightening Up
Over and above the annual operational and capital improvements budget processes getting underway between now and the end of April, the government of the City of Falls Church is facing a daunting schedule of economic development-related matters, and by all indicators, the administrative staff and the lawmakers, alike, are up for the challenge. With the next wave of new projects for the commercially-zoned areas of the City being queued up now, the City is also working to update some of its zoning provisions to accommodate a basic shift from suburban to quasiurban commercial development standards and needs. These include the vote this week by the Planning Commission to allow for substantially less than previously mandated public parking at commercial and retail sites. The old suburban model is evident all over the City now, and it is built upon plenty of surface parking in front of retail stores and restaurants. City Hall is now signaling that it doesn’t want this any more because it takes up too much space for too little yield, in addition to the environmental and stormwater issues attached to so much impervious real estate. The Planning Commission wrestled at length with the many subtleties of the proposed changes that impact both vehicle and bicycle parking policies, including a small widening of vehicle spaces going forward based on complaints about the tight squeezes caused by narrow parking spots in some of the recently-approved mixed use projects downtown. But the Planners gave a narrow 4-3 thumbs up to moving forward, and that’s very important. This will now come to the City Council, which provided a preliminary first-reading OK to this in mid-November. Another big measure coming up for the Planners and the Council will change the policy of by-right use of properties in the narrow commercially-zoned areas of the City for certain uses, notably including for churches. While the list of entities, including churches, that will, if the measure is made into law in the next month, require a vote of the City Council to permit a “special exception,” will probably involve considerable debate over which uses should or should not be included, it is very much the right move for the City to do this. Maybe it wouldn’t be so if there was a surplus of properties zoned this way, but for little Falls Church, it is definitely not the case. There are already five big churches that are planted in areas of town that would otherwise be designated for commercial uses. The churches are all an asset to the City, but we’re running out of room now. They are, after all, non-profits and don’t pay taxes, while the City is depending for its long-term sustainability on the smart development of new tax-paying commercial uses. There doesn’t appear to be a stampede of new churches wanting to gobble up potentially tax paying properties in the City, but this move will deter anyone from getting big ideas.
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Taking a Step & Changing Attitudes on Gun Violence Editor, We have all seen too many reports of shootings and gunrelated violence in communities in Virginia, across the United States and now in the City of Falls Church early Monday morning. We have seen the President and other leaders console mourning families, and commentators citing the statistics and calling for action. Ordinary citizens may feel helpless as the cycle repeats itself
again and again. If you “start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible” (St. Francis of Assisi). So what can we do? One significant step, for Virginia and as an example for others, will be to seek the approval of our legislators for a special interest license plate design. The Virginia General Assembly session began on January 13, 2016.
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For information on online advertising, please contact Nick Gatz at 703-532-3267 or ngatz@fcnp.com. ONLINE
To move this forward we need to present 450 prepaid applications from applicants with active vehicle registrations to our legislators and the Department of Motor Vehicles, as soon as possible (next two weeks). We’ve taken an ad out in this week’s edition of the Falls Church News-Press on page eight with more information on how to submit your application. This will be a step that is possible moving us towards what seems impossible, which is changing attitudes about gun violence. Carol Luten Coalition to Stop Gun Violence Falls Church
Why Did Parents Abandon a 6-Year-Old Boy? Editor, The story of Brian Villegas is a touching one, and I think that regardless of where anyone falls on the immigration issue we can all agree that we want nothing but the best for the boy. But there is one question Drew Costley’s article doesn not ask, much less answer: If Brian’s parents care about him, why did they abandon their then six-yearold boy to live with his grandparents in such dangerous conditions? Jeff Walyus Falls Church
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CO MME NT
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JANUARY 21 - 27, 2016 | PAGE 7
Virginia’s Sensible Health Care Reform Plan B� S��� C����������
Health care is everywhere these days. It’s a hot topic in national, state and local politics. With all that talk, it can be tough to cut through rhetoric that unfortunately has become polarizing since the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010. What I’d like you to do is take a few steps back and see health care for what it truly is. Health care is vital to our economy and our well-being. Virginia’s hospitals and health systems are major contributors on both accounts. Hospitals and health systems provide good-paying Virginia jobs (115,000 overall), generate $36 billion in positive annual economic activity, and spend $17 billion on goods and services with local businesses. Hospitals are among the largest employers in the communities they serve, even in regions such as Northern Virginia. Beyond direct jobs, many local businesses that support the livelihoods of our friends, family, and neighbors are linked to the health care economy. Hospitals’ economic footprints are especially prominent in rural communities, where they provide 17,500 jobs. Each hospital job in rural Virginia supports two additional local economy jobs. Overall, health care accounts for 1 in 9 Virginia jobs (11 percent of the workforce). Health care was one of Virginia’s few employment growth sectors in 2014. U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics forecast a similar story ahead when health care jobs are expected to help propel national job market prosperity. While those numbers are impressive, the real import of hospitals is often only evident
“Health care was one of Virginia’s few employment growth sectors in 2014.” when all we want is reassurance that the facility where a loved is receiving medical care has highly-trained staff, and state-of-the-art equipment and facilities necessary to treat them. At some point, each of us will need a hospital, whether for a scheduled procedure or an unexpected crisis, a birth in the family or end of life care. Hospitals are there for those moments. There when Ebola strikes. There to treat people after natural disasters, man-made incidents, and acts of God. They are there for the insured and uninsured alike. You see, years of government decisions have put unfunded mandates on hospitals that cost them billions. Medicaid and Medicare, the 50-yearold subsidized insurance programs, reimburse hospitals at rates less than the cost to provide care. A 30-year-old federal law requires hospitals to treat emergency room
patients even if they can’t pay. Those unfunded mandates obligate hospitals to provide substantial amounts of free and discounted care at great expense. That level of government involvement means health care is not a free market system. Virginia hospitals also face rising federal funding cuts from sequestration and ACA escalating to roughly $1 billion annually by 2021. All those burdens jeopardize the jobs, economic and public health benefits hospitals provide. Also threatened is access to health care services and facilities which could become scarce depending on policy outcomes. Protecting our hospitals as the assets they are requires common sense health care policy measures. Two prominent health care issues before the Virginia General Assembly involve extending health care coverage to more Virginians – sound fiscal analysis shows that is economically prudent – and protecting a health care law that helps control costs and offset charity care mandates on Virginia’s health care delivery system. Virginia’s Certificate of Public Need (COPN) law is a review process for proposed new health care facilities, services, and equipment. Eliminating it would weaken health care, allowing some providers to cherry pick the most profitable types of care, in the most profitable regions, leaving less wealthy areas with fewer health care options and forcing hospitals to subsidize money-losing types of care. A work group the General Assembly
ordered to study the issue recommended updating COPN, but concluded the law should remain intact. That is a sensible health care reform plan. Another big issue is health care access. Under ACA, states have the option to expand Medicaid so more people are insured. Thirtyone states have done so. Virginia has not, though nearly 400,000 primarily working poor Virginians could benefit. Money for that is available from Washington, funded with health care taxes from Virginia. Some worry Washington won’t fulfill its promise to fund most costs from the new population, even though Virginia’s budget is built on billions in federal funds that support our roads, schools, police, prisons, you name it. Virginia hospitals have put forth a proposal to allay fears about state costs from insuring more people by conditionally offering to contribute funds to support health care. That approach is flexible enough to backfill existing Medicaid funding, or to expand health care coverage to many more Virginians. Hospitals, not taxpayers, would cover the state’s cost. Drawing down additional federal funds that way would improve the state budget, and enhance the fiscal stability of Virginia’s health care system without costing taxpayers. That is a fair bargain when so much is at stake. Sean Connaughton is president and CEO of the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association.
Q������� �� ��� W��� Will the shooting at the State Theatre affect your decision to attend shows there in the future? • Yes
Last Week’s Question:
Will the Mason Row project be a positive thing for the City of Falls Church?
• No • Don’t know
Log on to www.FCNP.com to cast your vote
FCNP On-Line polls are surveys, not scientific polls.
[WRITE FOR THE PRESS] The News-Press welcomes readers to send in submissions in the form of Letters to the Editor
& Guest Commentaries. Letters to the Editor should be no more than 350 words and writers are limited to one appearance every four weeks. Guest Commentaries should be no more than 800 words and writers are limited to one appearance every four months. Because of space constraints, not all submissions will be published. All submissions to the News-Press should be original, unpublished content. We reserve the right to edit submissions for length, grammar and accuracy. All submissions should include writer’s name, address, phone and e-mail address if available.
Email: letters@fcnp.com | Mail: Letters to the Editor, Falls Church News-Press, 200 Little Falls St., #508, Falls Church 22046 | Fax: 703.340.0347
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PAGE 8 | JANUARY 21 - 27, 2016
What YOU can do about Gun Violence You can start by seeking the approval of our legislators for a special interest license plate design. To move this forward we need to present 450 prepaid applications from applicants with active vehicle registrations to our legislators and the DMV in the next two weeks.
Here's how: Complete the form at www.dmv.state.va.us/webdoc/pdf/vsa10.pdf Check the Special Interest Box and enter: Coalition to Stop Gun Violence On the line below enter: Proposed design, Stop Gun Violence Make check payable to: Coalition to Stop Gun Violence Mail check and application to: 805 15th Street, NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20005 Annual Fee: $10 non-personalized or $20 personalized
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F.C. Braces for Mega-Storm With forecasters now predicting an epic winter snow storm and blizzard to hit the Washngton, D.C. region this weekend, the City of Falls Church has sent out information on designated emergency snow routes that will need to remain free of parking or stopping for first responders, public safety officials and road crews at all times. Snow emergency routes have first priority for salting, sanding, and plowing. Traffic signs identify City streets that are designated as emergency routes and vehicles abandoned or parked on the routes may be ticketed and towed to allow snow removal crews to clear the roads. A citizen information line will remain in effect at 703-248-4200 throughout the storm and information, including all the emergency snow routes can be found on the City’s website at www.fallschurchva. gov.
The Falls Church School Board began its work on the 2016-2017 budget Tuesday night. Its first work session focused on the third of three Three-Year Plan options to close the gap on teacher compensation. The work session data packet available on the FCCPS website includes information on historical teacher and all personnel salary increases and proposed teacher salary scales. The next work session will be held next Tuesday, Jan. 26th at 7 p.m. in the Central Office Conference Room, 800 W. Broad.
Planners OK New Business Parking Rules The Falls Church Planning Commission Tuesday night rejected its chair’s call for a deferral and voted 4-3 to recommend to the City Council that it give final approval to an ordinance that would update current commercial parking regulations based on evidence that current numbers are too high. The ordinance states that the City’s current requirements are more daunting for office and commercial entities than either Fairfax or Arlington counties, putting the city as a “competitive disadvantage.” The measure calls for the use of new “transportation demand management” techniques in new projects to, for example, monitor where employees in buildings are parking to help the efficient use of fewer parking spaces.
3 Tenants to Move Into West Broad Residences This Month Falls Church - Idylwood Towers Fully Furnished Spacious 2 BR, 2 BA condo on the 12th floor with great views! Furniture, dishes, pots & pans, linens, TV, everything you need and cheaper than a hotel! 2311 Pimmit Dr #1205 $1,920/mo
Falls Church City! Rare end Falls Church City 2 BR, 2 BA Falls Church - Lee Oaks unit 3 BR town house (all with Spacious 2 BR, 2 BA, Den, Sun1,426 sf Broadway condo, on ensuite full BAs!), 4.5 total BAs, quiet courtyard side. Gourmet kit room & wood burning fireplace!! 3013 sq ft, 4 level elegant town w/gas cooking, 9’ ceilings, fplc, Updated Kit & BA. BIG rooms. home w/sweeping staircase, Quiet spot overlooking greenery balcony, laundry room, hardspacious rooms, kitchen opens wood floors. Double storage unit! at rear. Great location - close to to breakfast nook & fam room. 2 pkg spaces. Party room, Gym, shopping, 495, Merrifield, Deck. Walk-out LL w/rec room. Tysons. McLean High School! Library, Concierge Mon-Fri. 2 car gar! 139 Rees Pl $895,000 502 W Broad St #421 $544,000 2806 Lee Oaks #201 $305,000
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According to the leasing office at the West Broad Residences now under construction above the coming Harris-Teeter store in the 300 block of West Broad, there are three tenants scheduled to move in this month and several more scheduled for February. The Harris Teeter store is tentatively scheduled to open June 20.
DMV Move to Barcroft Plans Canceled The proposed re-location of the Four Mile Run Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles customer service center to Barcroft Plaza in Falls Church has been canceled. The DMV announced this week it has negotiated a reduced rate to remain at its current 4150 S. Four Mile Run location in South Arlington for another 10 years. Virginia entered into a 10-year lease with Federal Realty for the Barcroft Plaza center last October but after a variety of concerns raised from local residents and lawmakers including State Del. Kaye Kory and Del. Alfonso Lopez and Senators Dick Saslaw and Dave Marsden, the company approached the DMV about the possiblity of mutually terminating the lease. Kory credited citizen emails, phone calls, petitions, and attendance at the forum to discuss this location with forcing the cancellation.
News-Press 25th Anniversary Celebration Announced The Falls Church News-Press will host a celebration of its 25th anniversary on the evening of March 31 at the Ireland’s Four Provinces restaurant, starting at 6 p.m. The event will include a full buffet dinner, live music, brief remarks by important people and plenty of community camaraderie. This is a one-of-a-kind event for the News-Press in its 25 years of consecutive weekly publication, with the cost to friends and supporters of the paper being $60 per ticket or $100 per couple and can be ordered online at www.fcnp.com/fcnpturns25. Other components of the celebration will be reported as they are set up.
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
JANUARY 21 - 27, 2016 | PAGE 9
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ORIG* PRICES ARE OFFERING PRICES, AND SAVINGS MAY NOT BE BASED ON ACTUAL SALES. SOME ORIG. PRICES NOT IN EFFECT DURING THE PAST 90 DAYS. CLEARANCE & SALE PRICES IN EFFECT 1/21-1/25/2016. *Intermediate price reductions may have been taken. Extra savings are taken off already reduced prices; “final cost” prices reflect extra savings. Jewelry photos may be enlarged or enhanced to show detail. Fine jewelry at select stores; log on to macys.com for locations. Almost all gemstones have been treated to enhance their beauty and require special care, log on to macys.com/gemstones or ask your sales professional. Clearance items are available while supplies last. Advertised items may not be at local Macy’s and selection may vary by store. Prices & merchandise may differ at macys.com. Luggage & electric items shown carry warranties; to see a manufacturers’ warranty at no charge before purchasing, visit a store or write to: Macy’s Warranty Dept., PO Box 1026 Maryland Heights, MO 63043, attn Consumer Warranties. N5120513 OPEN A MACY’S ACCOUNT FOR EXTRA 20% SAVINGS THE FIRST 2 DAYS, UP TO $100, WITH MORE REWARDS TO COME. Macy’s credit card is available subject to credit approval; new account savings valid the day your account is opened and the next day; excludes services, selected licensed departments, gift cards, restaurants, gourmet food & wine. The new account savings are limited to a total of $100; application must qualify for immediate approval to receive extra savings; employees not eligible. N5120513D.indd 1
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Community News & Notes F.C. League of Women Voters To Host $ in Politics Forum The League of Women Voters of Falls Church is hosting a National Issues Forum called “Assessing the Relationship Between Money in Politics and Free Speech Under the First Amendment” on Sunday, Jan. 24 from 3 – 4:30 p.m. at the Falls Church Community Center at 223 Little Falls Street. The keynote speaker will be Tara Malloy, deputy executive director of The Campaign Legal Center. Malloy litigates a wide range of campaign finance and election law cases in state and federal court, and has expertise in campaign finance, lobbying, and congressional ethics issues. The forum will explore whether all or some political activity should constitute free speech protected under the First Amendment in contrast to recent Supreme Court’s rulings to allow unlimited
spending in candidate elections that entirely discount any danger from undue influence other than quid pro quo corruption. The Falls Church League of Women Voters is joining with other Leagues around the country in a national study to update the League’s position on money in politics in light of recent Supreme Court decisions that have changed campaign finance laws significantly. For more information, visit lwvfallschurch.org.
Record-Setting 15 F.C. Boy Scouts Achieve Highest Rank According to an email from Boy Scout Troop 895, which is based in the City of Falls Church and chartered by Falls Church Presbyterian Church, 15 members of the troop achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest rank in the Boy Scouts of America. The amount of scouts reaching
that rank is the highest number the troop has ever produced. The 15 scouts, Nathan Royce, Brandon Castillo, Jackson Dillard, Chris Markus, Tyler Gogal, Alex Pelaez, Logan Nesson, Matthew Hoskins, Daniel Butler, George Castillo, Matt Dillard, Jacob Bruner, James Schneider, Grant Goodwin and Douglas Bossart, provided over 1,776 hours of service to 13 different community organizations in and around Falls Church while leading their Eagle Service projects. The projects benefited Falls Church and Fairfax County schools, the Falls Church Recreation and Parks Department, Mary Riley Styles Public Library, the WO&D bike trail, several local churches, two Little League districts, a women and children shelter, the Brother’s Brother Foundation and the Columbia Baptist Food Bank.
TWO STUDENT VOLUNTEERS from J.E.B. Stuart High School and a Fairfax County police officers clean up part of Hogge Park in Bailey’s Crossroads during a clean up day hosted by the Fairfax County Police Department on Saturday, Jan. 9. More than 60 residents of Fairfax County and students from Stuart joined police officers, sheriff’s deputies and members of the Fairfax County Park Authority in the clean up effort. (Courtesy Photo)
F.C. Library Hosts Pair of Video Game Events
Fairfax Police Dept. Hosts Community Clean Up Day
Mary Riley Styles Public Library at 120 N. Virginia Avenue is hosting a pair of video game events for local children. On Thursday, Jan. 21 the library is hosting Teen Throwback Video Game Night from 7 – 8 p.m. in the library’s conference room. Children in grades 6 – 12 can go to the library to play some video game classics, including the original Super Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog. Then the library is hosting a Wii Game Day for Early Release Wednesday on January 27 from 3 – 4 p.m. Children in grades K – 5 can test out their skills on the Nintendo Wii in the library’s conference room. Registration is required for both events, which are free. For more information, call 703-248-5034.
More than 60 residents of Fairfax County and students from J.E.B. Stuart High School joined members of the Fairfax County police officers, Fairfax County Sheriff’s deputies and Fairfax County Park Authority members on Saturday, Jan. 9 to clean up the area of Hogge Park in Bailey’s Crossroads. After meeting at Saint Anthony’s Church, the volunteers gathered about 70 bags of trash, according to a press release from the Fairfax County Police Department. The Fairfax County Sheriff’s Community Labor Force and Fairfax County Park Authority are working together with local home owners associations to continue the effort to clean up downed trees and invasive plants and trash throughout the month.
ON THE CORNER OF W. BROAD AND N. LEE construction is well underway on The Kensington, a facility designed for seniors that began construction in September 2015 with a groundbreaking ceremony attended by several City of Falls Church officials and politicians. Once it’s completed, the Kensington is projected to yield $403,794 net annually to the City on only three-quarters of an acre. (Photo: Courtesy of Dan Lehman)
Send Us Your News & Notes!
The News-Press is always on the lookout for photos & items for Community News & Notes, School News & Notes and other sections of the paper. If you graduate, get married, get engaged, get an award, start a club, eat a club, tie your shoes, have a birthday, have a party, host an event or anything else you think is worth being mentioned in the News-Press, write it up and send it to us! If you have a photo, even better! Because of the amount of submissions we receive, we cannot guarantee all submissions will be published, but we’ll try our best!
Community News & Notes: newsandnotes@fcnp.com | School News & Notes: schoolnews@fcnp.com Mail: News & Notes, Falls Church News-Press, 200 Little Falls St. #508, Falls Church, VA 22046
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
Arlington Lions Club & Charities Holds Citrus Sale
The Northwest Arlington Lions Club/Charities will be selling fresh Florida citrus, Georgia pecans and Vermont maple syrup at Overlee Pool’s Main Pump House, located at 6030 Lee Hwy., Arlington, Friday, Jan. 22, through Wednesday, Jan. 27. Sale hours are from 12:30 – 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 22, 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 23, 11:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 24, 8 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 25, 10 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 26 and 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 27. Sales will go to support the Northwest Arlington Lions Club’s community service projects. For more information, call 703-528-1130.
Community Center Seeks Governing Board Candidates The McLean Community Center located at 1234 Ingleside, Ave., McLean is seeking candidates to run for the open seats on its 2016-2017 governing board, which provides oversight and guidance for the community center’s programs and facilities. In order to have their name placed on the ballot, prospective candidates for the governing board must reside in the Dranesville tax district and collect the signatures of a minimum of ten Dranesville tax district residents. Candidate petition forms will be available at the community center’s reception desk starting on Monday, Jan. 25. The deadline for filing completed petitions is Friday, March 25, at 5 p.m. Voting will be held
during the annual McLean Day festival from 10:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. on Saturday, May 21, at Lewinsville Park, located at 1659 Chain Bridge Road, McLean. Absentee voting is permitted from Monday, April 11 – Wednesday, May 18 at the community center or at the community center’s Old Firehouse Teen Center. The governing board needs to fill three adult seats and two youth seats. The three adult candidates will serve three-year terms and the youth members will serve oneyear terms. Adult candidates must be at least 18 years old and youth candidates must be 15-17 years old as of May 21, 2016. One of the youth members elected will be from the McLean High School boundary area and the other will be from the Langley High School boundary area, though youth candidates are not required to attend either of the two schools. For more information, call 703-790-0123, TTY: 711, or visit ow.ly/WUaGf.
9th Annual Chinese New Year Festival Slated for Feb. 6 Falls Church’s Asian Community Service Center is hosting its 9th Annual Chinese New Year Festival on Saturday, Feb. 6 from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. at Luther Jackson Middle School, located at 3020 Gallows Road, Falls Church. At the festival, there will be cultural live performances including dragon and lion dances, a Han Costume Fashion show, Asian foods, Chinese name writing, language, craft and business booths, a children’s world and a lunar new year dragon parade. Admission
LO CA L to the event is free. If schools have to close because of inclement weather, the event will be held on Saturday, Feb. 13. 2016 is the year of the monkey and the Asian Community Service Center will promote wisdom as the main topic. For more information, call Tiny 703-868-1509, email contact@AsianServiceCenter.org or visit ChineseNewYearFestival.org.
Marianne Bohr Speaks at One More Page Books Writer, editor and French teacher Marianne Bohr will appear at One More Page Books, located at 2200 Westmoreland St. #101, Arlington, on Thursday, Jan. 28 at 7 p.m. for an author talk. Bohr will be sharing from her book Gap Girl: A Baby Boomer Adventure Across 21 Countries at the event. In the book, Bohr and her husband free themselves of the shackles of the ordinary life, at least for a year and revisit places they encountered in their youth, recapturing what was and creating fresh memories along the way. Also, she describes what it’s like to kiss your job goodbye, sell your worldly possessions, pack your bags, and take off on a quest for adventure. Page by page, she recounts the experiences, epiphanies, highs, lows, struggles, surprises and lessons learned as she and her husband journeyed as independent travelers on a budget – through medieval villages and bustling European cities, unimaginable culinary pleasures and the entertaining (and sometimes infuriating) characters encountered along the way.
FOLLOWING HIS OWN remarks on how “the road to the White House passes through Northern Virginia,” U.S. Rep. Donald S. Beyer Jr. (right) greeted State Sen. Dick Saslaw at the Fairfax Democrats’ breakfast on Sunday, Jan. 10. Both Beyer and Saslaw represent the City of Falls Church in their respective legislative bodies. (Photo: News-Press)
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Time for a Conspiracy!
Members of the Republican governing class are like cowering freshmen at halftime of a high school football game. Some are part of the Surrender Caucus, sitting sullenly on their stools resigned to the likelihood that their team is going to get crushed. Some are thinking of jumping ship to the Trump campaign with an alacrity that would make rats admire and applaud. Rarely has a party so passively accepted its own self-destruction. Sure, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are now riding high in some meaningless head-to-head polls against Hillary Clinton, but the odds are the nomination of either would lead to a party-decimating general election. The Tea Party, Ted Cruz’s natural vehicle, has 17 percent popular support, according to Gallup. The idea that most women, independents or mainstream order-craving suburbanites would back NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE a guy who declares his admiration for Vladimir Putin is a mirage. The idea that the GOP can march into the 21st century intentionally alienating every person of color is borderline insane. Worse is the prospect that one of them might somehow win. Very few presidents are so terrible that they genuinely endanger their own nation, but Trump and Cruz would go there and beyond. Trump is a solipsistic branding genius whose “policies” have no contact with Planet Earth and who would be incapable of organizing a coalition, domestic or foreign. Cruz would be as universally off-putting as he has been in all his workplaces. He’s always been good at tearing things down but incompetent when it comes to putting things together. So maybe it’s time for governing Republicans to actually do something. Yes, I’m talking to you state legislators, or local committeepersons, or members of Congress and all your networks of donors and supporters. If MoveOn can organize, if the Tea Party can organize, if Justin Bieber can build a gigantic social media movement, why are you incapable of any collective action at all? What’s needed is a grass-roots movement that stands for governing conservatism, built both online and through rallies, and gets behind a single candidate sometime in mid- to late February. In politics, if A (Trump) and B (Cruz) savage each other then the benefits often go to Candidate C. But there has to be a C, not a C, D, E, F and G. This new movement must come to grips with two realities. First, the electorate has changed. Less-educated voters are in the middle of a tidal wave of trauma. Labor force participation is dropping, wages are sliding, suicide rates are rising, heroin addiction is rising, faith in American institutions is dissolving. Second, the Republican Party is not as antigovernment as its elites think it is. Its members no longer fit into the same old ideological categories. Trump grabbed his lead with an ideological grab bag of gestures, some of them quite on the left. He is more Huey Long than Calvin Coolidge. Given the current strains on middle- and working-class families, many Republican voters want a government that will help the little guy; they just don’t want one that is incompetent, corrupt or infused with liberal social values. In addition, younger voters and college-educated voters are more moderate than party leaders. According to one of the smartest conservative analysts, Henry Olsen, somewhere around 35 to 40 percent of the GOP electorate is only “somewhat conservative.” What’s needed is a coalition that combines Huey Long, Charles Colson and Theodore Roosevelt: working-class populism, religious compassion and institutional reform. Years ago, reform conservatives were proposing a Sam’s Club Republicanism, which would actually provide concrete policy ideas to help the working class, like wage subsidies, a higher earned-income tax credit, increased child tax credits, subsidies for people who wanted to move in search of work and exemption of the first $20,000 in earnings from the Medicaid payroll tax. This would be a conservatism that emphasized social mobility at the bottom, not cutting taxes at the top. Maybe it’s time a center-right movement actually offered that agenda. And maybe it’s time some Republicans took a stand on what is emerging as the central dispute of our time – not between left and right but between open and closed. As the political scientist Matthew MacWilliams has found, the key trait that identifies Trump followers is authoritarianism. His central image is a wall. With their emphasis on anger and shutting people out, Trump and Cruz are more like European conservatives than American ones. Governing conservatism has to offer people a secure financial base and a steady hand up so they can welcome global capitalism with hope and a sense of opportunity. That’s the true American tradition, emphasizing future dynamism not tribal walls. There’s a silent majority of hopeful, practical, programmatic Republicans. You know who you are. Please don’t go quietly and pathetically into the night.
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
David Brooks
Health Reform Realities Health reform is the signature achievement of the Obama presidency. It was the biggest expansion of the social safety net since Medicare was established in the 1960s. It more or less achieves a goal – access to health insurance for all Americans – that progressives have been trying to reach for three generations. And it is producing dramatic results, with the percentage of uninsured Americans falling to record lows. Obamacare is, however, what engineers would call a kludge: a somewhat awkward, clumsy device with lots of moving parts. This makes it more expensive than it should be, and will probably always cause a significant number of people to fall through the cracks. NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE The question for progressives – a question that is now central to the Democratic primary – is whether these failings mean that they should re-litigate their own biggest political success in almost half a century, and try for something better. My answer, as you might guess, is that they shouldn’t, that they should seek incremental change on health care (Bring back the public option!) and focus their main efforts on other issues – that is, that Bernie Sanders is wrong about this and Hillary Clinton is right. But the main point is that we should think clearly about why health reform looks the way it does. If we could start from scratch, many, perhaps most, health economists would recommend singlepayer, a Medicare-type program covering everyone. But single-payer wasn’t a politically feasible goal in America, for three big reasons that aren’t going away. First, like it or not, incumbent players have a lot of power. Private insurers played a major part in killing health reform in the early 1990s, so this time around reformers went for a system that preserved their role and gave them plenty of new business. Second, single-payer would require a lot of additional tax revenue – and we would be talking about taxes on the middle class, not just the wealthy. It’s true that higher taxes would be offset by a sharp reduction or even elimination of private insurance premiums, but it would be difficult to make that case to the broad public, especially given the chorus of misinformation you know would dominate the airwaves. Finally, and I suspect most important, switching to single-payer would impose a lot of disruption on
Paul Krugman
tens of millions of families who currently have good coverage through their employers. You might say that they would end up just as well off, and it might well be true for most people – although not those with especially good policies. But getting voters to believe that would be a very steep climb. What this means, as the health policy expert Harold Pollack points out, is that a simple, straightforward single-payer system just isn’t going to happen. Even if you imagine a political earthquake that eliminated the power of the insurance industry and objections to higher taxes, you’d still have to protect the interests of workers with better-than-average coverage, so that in practice single-payer, American style, would be almost as kludgy as Obamacare. Which brings me to the Affordable Care Act, which was designed to bypass these obstacles. It was careful to preserve and even enlarge the role of private insurers. Its measures to cover the uninsured rely on a combination of regulation and subsidies, rather than simply on an expansion of government programs, so that the on-budget cost is limited — and can, in fact, be covered without raising middle-class taxes. Perhaps most crucially, it leaves employerbased insurance intact, so that the great majority of Americans have experienced no disruption, in fact no change in their health-care experience. Even so, achieving this reform was a close-run thing: Democrats barely got it through during the brief period when they controlled Congress. Is there any realistic prospect that a drastic overhaul could be enacted any time soon – say, in the next eight years? No. You might say that it’s still worth trying. But politics, like life, involves trade-offs. There are many items on the progressive agenda, ranging from an effective climate change policy, to making college affordable for all, to restoring some of the lost bargaining power of workers. Making progress on any of these items is going to be a hard slog, even if Democrats hold the White House and, less likely, retake the Senate. Indeed, room for maneuver will be limited even if a post-Trump Republican Party moves away from the scorchedearth opposition it offered President Barack Obama. So progressives must set some priorities. And it’s really hard to see, given this picture, why it makes any sense to spend political capital on a quixotic attempt at a do-over, not of a political failure, but of health reform – their biggest victory in many years.
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
NATI O NA L
Insurgencies Driven by Hurt & Pain
January 20 this week marked the one-year point from the inauguration of the next U.S. president. With the way things are developing now, it is a chilling thought. I’m sorry, this will not be an upbeat report. But perhaps this is required, because the American public will truly be put to the challenge over the next 12 months to see to it that the nation, and the world in fact, does not unravel and spin out of control toward unthinkable outcomes. The Trump campaign came one step closer to the looney bin with its embrace of Sarah Palin this week. Rather than moving away from the lunatic fringe in hopes of embracing a wider constituency in his own party and in the country, Trump has again thumbed his nose at that FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS approach, and has dived further into his more comfortable role as a fanatical flag-waver of the inmates’ revolt at the asylum. Perhaps Trump brought on Palin because she’s about the only person who is more of a policy airhead than he, himself. But lest this be cause for levity, it should be noted that the times have changed since 2008 and in terms of the health and well-being of America’s middle class, very much for the worse. The fallout from George W. Bush’s Great Recession, despite the efforts of President Obama to clean things up, have only deepened the consequential rot of average American households. No little credit for that, too, goes to the ongoing worst obstructionism and barely disguised racist insurgency that the GOP and its Wall Street and “military industrial complex” backers, have wittingly fueled ever since Obama was elected. If you want a taste of what these moral slugs have in store, try drinking the polluted water the GOP governor in Michigan inflicted on the men, women and children of Flint. (Who needs terrorists poisoning our water?) In the other party, an insurgency is going on there, too, that Hillary Clinton doesn’t seem to grasp. The last time she ran for president was 2008, but as I just noted, this is not 2008. The country is in much worse shape now. This is fueling Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign, and as much as Clinton may be able to poke holes in his democratic-socialist (as in, FDR) remedies, she’s missing the point if she thinks this will defuse his momentum, just as the official GOP’s expressions of disdain for Trump are only adding to his popularity. Based on what we’ve seen so far, Clinton has to recalibrate to fit these tumultuous times or, even if she noses out Sanders, she will be subject to the worst possible consequence for us all, a Trump revolution. The economic data about the one percent ruling over the 99 percent is not just academic. It is not just a matter of the “rest of us” holding a grudge over the ability of the super rich to be so selfish. No, it is a matter of a ton of pain and hurt being felt by a majority of Americans. The death rate is actually on the rise among white male middleaged citizens. This is truly shocking and should be treated as a national emergency. Most of the rise is due to alcohol and drug abuse, depression and suicide. A minimum wage at $7.25 an hour makes it impossible to survive. As lives unravel, a drug epidemic of epic proportions is arising from the abuse of powerful pain-killing prescription drugs leading to debilitating addictions. This epidemic is spreading to children. The nature of the opioid drugs is that they do not kill pain so much as to make it feel that the pain doesn’t matter. So, as the cost of these drugs increase, massive numbers are moving to cheaper heroin, with a similar neurological effect. Now, with its increasingly symbiotic relationship to the nosediving Chinese economy, the U.S. is confronting another major downturn. The U.S. Dow plunged more than 500 points on January 20, and oil prices are dipping to all time lows, and neither shows causes to see an end in sight. These will trigger not only a new recession, but worse, minus a major public intervention.
JANUARY 21 – 27, 2016 | PAGE 13
Nicholas F. Benton
Nicholas Benton may be emailed at nfbenton@fcnp.com.
GOP & the Apocalypse Last week I suffered through another dust-dry Republican debate in which a slimmed-down roster of seven candidates leveled many of the same attacks and regurgitated many of the same staid pitches. There were a few flashes of life that caught my attention or made me chuckle: Ted Cruz debuting some entertaining lines of attack to rebuff the questions the real estate developer keeps raising about whether Cruz is indeed a “natural born citizen” and able to become president. The real estate developer managed a surprisingly maudlin moment when he rebuked, quite successfully, Cruz for his outrageous us-against-them comments about “New York values.” Jeb Bush calling the perpetual squabbling between Marco Rubio and Cruz a “back and forth between two senators – backbench senators.” But what struck me most about the debate was just how unremittingly bleak the tone of it was. There seemed to be a competition to see who could describe the state of the country. Understandably, a NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE candidate has to identify a problem that they plan to fix. That’s simply the nature of politics. If there is no problem to fix, there is no need of a fixer. Democrats are identifying problems as well. Bernie Sanders has identified Wall Street greed, the “casino capitalist process” and income inequality as the enemy, and himself as the only one in the race with the credibility and philosophical track record to bring them to heel. Hillary Clinton has identified Republicans and the prospects of their dismantling the progress made under the Obama presidency as her enemy, and she has positioned herself as the only logical heir to the current president, to protect his legacy and build on it. But even as the Democratic candidates point to very real concerns, they seem to my mind also able to offer a vision of hopefulness and idealism. Republicans are missing the second shoe. They are describing a coming apocalypse from which we must be saved, not a future that is full of light. Indeed, it is as if they must inflate some mythical beast so that they will appear more valiant in their quest to slay it. Everything is about arms and war and the Islamic State, guns and taxes and joblessness. It is about taking the country back to a different posture, a different period.
Charles M. Blow
I can’t imagine that this will work in the end. While fear and anger can be effective electoral motivators, presidents are often elected on messages that carry a positive vision. That positive vision is achingly absent from the Republican field. At least Ben Carson, with his meandering, absent-minded answer, came across as positive – not by his policies so much as by his soft-spoken, easy to laugh, slow to attack demeanor. But even that, during the most recent debate, didn’t work. Carson came off as more jester than that cogent candidate. Most of the rest of the evening was consumed by the negative. The real estate developer: “Our country’s a mess.” Later: “I’m angry because our country is a mess.” Bush: “We have the mess in Washington, D.C.” Later, on Hillary Clinton: “She wants to continue down the path of Iran, Benghazi, the Russian reset, DoddFrank, all the things that have – that have gone wrong in this country. She would be a national security mess.” Chris Christie: “There’s a number of things that the next president is going to have to do to clean up this mess.” But, mess wasn’t always a strong enough word, so they sometimes amped it up. Rubio: “She wouldn’t just be a disaster. Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being commander in chief of the United States.” The real estate developer: “Our military is a disaster.” Bush: “Hillary Clinton would be a national security disaster.” Later: “Everybody’s record’s going to be scrutinized, and at the end of the day we need to unite behind the winner so we can defeat Hillary Clinton, because she is a disaster.” It isn’t completely clear to me the relationship between the candidates’ rhetoric and the prevailing views of Republican voters: Are the candidates merely a reflection of the disaffected base, are the candidates helping to create the disaffection, or do they all exist in a national echo chamber amplifying each other? But whatever the origins or the source of the expansion, this strikes me as a losing strategy. At some point, someone among the Republican candidates will have to offer a positive message to reach the middle of the voter spectrum and the crossover voters that one needs to win the presidency. If not, this field is destined to be remembered as a group of hyperbolic doomsayers rather than as successful presidential politicians.
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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
A Penny for Your Thoughts
News of Greater Falls Church By Supervisor Penny Gross
Delegate Marcus Simon’s
Richmond Report
Budget Town Meeting are open to the public. The long-deferred public hearing for the Spectrum proposal to redevelop vacant parcels along Route 7 in Bailey’s Crossroads drew nearly a dozen speakers, and many concessions by the developer to address neighbors’ concerns. Long vacant and derelict, the properties between Washington Drive and Charles Street reflect the challenge for commercial revitalization in our older areas – shallow lots, tightly fit between residences on one side and a major roadway on the other. Ultimately, a redesigned plan, fewer buildings, a wall and irrigated buffer, improved ingress and egress, and 35 proffers for the 2.72 acre site made for a workable proposal, which was approved by the Board of Supervisors. After the vote, I warned the applicant that “a lot of eyes are going to be on this project, so you better get it right.” The planned move of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles Service Center to Barcroft Plaza was a surprise when it was announced last fall, and so was the decision to cancel the move. The move was cancelled last week, and the DMV will remain in its Four Mile Run location in Arlington. The proposed site at Barcroft Plaza met the county’s legal requirements for zoning and parking, but opposition by residents and state elected officials eventually doomed the move. Significant renovations of the Barcroft Plaza space already had begun; no information has been made available about the cost to taxpayers for the cancellation.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors began its “LOBs” review on Tuesday, the first of many day-long budget meetings that will examine what the county does, and how well it is done. LOBs stands for Lines of Business, and the LOBs exercise is the first step in a multi-year process that will be both educational and policy-driven. Phase 1 is a review of the 390 Lines of Business that make up non-school and non-General Fund services, or about 47 percent of the General Fund (53 percent of the county’s General Fund goes to schools). Many county services are federally and state mandated, while others are designed to meet local needs in our very diverse county. The review will include metrics of service quality, efficiency, and outcomes for each Line of Business, and examine current and future trends and challenges. Phase 2 will focus on action items recommended by the Board from Phase 1, and include work plans and timelines, as well as reports to the Board about project results. The LOBs and related documents are available on-line at http://www.fairfaxcounty,gov/ budget/2016-lines-of-business.htm. Prior to each day’s presentations, the PowerPoint documents for that presentation will be made available on the website. An on-line survey is being developed to solicit additional ideas and input, and expected to go live in mid-February. Additionally, the Mason District Budget Town Meeting, which will feature County Executive Edward L. Long, Jr. and an update about the LOBs discussions, will be held on Wednesday, March 16, at 7 p.m., at the Mason District Governmental Center, 6507 Columbia Pike in Annandale. LOBs meetings and the Mason District
Penny Gross is the Mason District Supervisor, in the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. She may be emailed at mason@fairfaxcounty.gov. S:11.5”
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The 2016 General Assembly session is underway. This year is a long session, lasting 60 days, during which the General Assembly will pass a biennial state budget based largely on the budget proposed by Governor Terry McAuliffe. We will also hold committee meetings and subcommittee meetings to consider more than 1,200 bills and have floor votes and debates on several hundred of those. State of the Commonwealth Governor McAuliffe delivered his third State of the Commonwealth address last Wednesday evening, outlining his plan to expand economic opportunities and move beyond partisan issues to focus on legislative priorities on which we can all agree. As I said in the Washington Post article covering the State of the Commonwealth, I absolutely agree with the Governor that we need to concentrate on the things that both parties can find common ground on. The campaigns are over and it is time to get to work on the 2016 Session. Session Issues & Priorities In addition to the budget, which will take up a large part of the Assembly’s time, several other themes have emerged that may present us with opportunities to have a healthy and vigorous debate over what direction the Commonwealth should go. Many of us want to adopt laws and policies that will bring Virginia into the 21st century, transforming our economy and way of life, and ensuring the Commonwealth is a place that all sorts of Americans can be proud to call home. One area of potential friction and fireworks will be how the General Assembly reacts to the recent Supreme Court Decision that made same sex marriage legal in all fifty states, including Virginia. Some members of the legislature have introduced legislation that presumes that those who would discriminate against Virginians on the basis of their gender identity or their choice to marry someone of the same sex are in fact the real victims, rather than those against whom they seek to discriminate.
Fortunately, I have been working to reach across party lines to find like-minded members from all over the state to advance the issues and values that we share. I’m pleased to be able to report that I will have GOP members Chief Co-Patron two of my signature initiatives in 2016. Delegate Glenn Davis (R-Virginia Beach) and I will work together on the creation of a Student Loan Debt refinancing authority. Another Republican Delegate from Virginia Beach, Scott Taylor, will work with me on my annual effort to add sexual orientation and gender identity to Virginia’s list of protected classes under our state’s fair housing law. You can by visiting lis.virginia.gov and finding my name under the General Assembly Members heading. Budget Amendments I submitted a few budget amendments this Session, mostly in response to fiscal impact statements linked to my legislation. However, I also submitted a couple of amendments for important causes like paid sick days for providers of Medicaid home and community-based waiver services and for funding for the Tinner Hill Historic Site to continue its historic preservation work. All budget amendments submitted this Session will be available online by noon on Thursday, January 21. Falls Church & McLean Town Hall Meetings This past Saturday, I held my Falls Church and McLean Town Hall meetings to discuss the Session and answer questions from the community. Several issues were raised, including raising the minimum wage, bipartisan redistricting, restrictions on TANF, gun violence prevention initiatives, and accountability for VDOT projects. It was great to have so many in attendance and learning of your priorities helps me better represent you! Delegate Simon represents the 53rd District in the Virginia House of Delegates. He may be emailed at DelMSimon@house. virginia.gov
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
C ancer C hro n icl e s
The Unfathomable, Part I
I sit on the sofa again today. This time not nestled in pillows, rather suffocating into them. I’m trapped. I couldn’t move if I tried, and what would be the point anyway? My lungs would just shake feebly as they try to take air into the ever shrinking space in my chest. I turn to my right and don my oxygen mask to try force some air down. I begin to relieve the tightness I’m feeling, this growing sensation of drowning. I had a chat with my oncologist recently, reviewing the scans we had done last week to use as a new baseline for my current health situation. The results were daunting. The cancer has accelerated to an alarming rate of growth and I now have tumors strewn throughout my lungs, liver, spleen, arms and neck (at a minimum). When I asked how many there were, the response was “too many to count.” Thinking about life after death can be a strange sensation. When I was very young, I would try to imagine what it would be like to die and go to sleep forever. Not a sleep with dreams or the hope of waking, but an unconscious and dark sleep of non-existence. A black endless space that consumed every thought and every breath. Being a child with a great capacity for creativity and imagination, I would delve so deeply into the image in my mind that I’d suddenly come up gasping for air when I began to realize the implications of such an existence (or lack thereof). I couldn’t fathom it. How could I possibly just stop thinking or feeling anything at all after I died? Everything about this life, my thoughts, emotions and spirit, were so real and vivid. I distinctly remember riding home from school one evening when I was seven and looking out the window at the sunset. I asked myself, “How could the deep and visceral connection I feel to the persimmon and gold colored skies and the thick green of these trees turn into a big black nothing, as if it never happened?” (Or in so many words as a seven-year-old might conjure up). My brain would tuck it away for another time. Then I’d try to imagine a life of eternity. The picture that always arose in my young mind was sitting on some golden cloud strumming a harp and going to church six times a day…every day…of every week… of every year…of every millennium…of every… I’d stop and catch my breath panting again. My head would start to spin. “I don’t want that.” I thought to myself. “I don’t want to be stuck in a life of dressing up nice and going to church forever and ever, never getting the chance to do anything fun or exciting.” Every time I allowed myself to dwell on that word “forever” my brain felt like my dog chasing its tail. This too was unfathomable, and I would just have to forget about it for now. Someday, when I was old enough, someone smarter would explain everything more fully to me. The years went by and I trusted in that idea. I trusted in my Christian upbringing and the concept that there probably was a life after death, that God was there and that it would be, on the whole, a generally positive experience. I didn’t have any physical proof to offer but that was how most things I had been taught thus far in life had worked out. An adult would explain the concept to me, and then eventually, I would come to realize why it was true. Why should this be any different? But as I grew into my late teens, I began to realize that I wasn’t really any closer to understanding my place in the universe than I had been 15 years prior. I would look at the faces of the adults who were there to answer my existential questions and observed that many of them seemed perfectly satisfied and at peace with the answers they gave me. They seemed to believe them as fact, why couldn’t I? The answer to this question and my searching can be found in next week’s column.
Samuel Waters
A 22-year-old from Falls Church and graduate of George Mason High School, Samuel Waters is a vocal performance student at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, but is now home battling the progression of the cancer, rhabodomyosarcoma, that he has been fighting for five years.
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Our Man in Arlington By Charlie Clark
Down in Richmond, the General Assembly will soon renew its stalemated debate over whether to expand Medicaid for 170,000 uninsured Virginians under the Affordable Care Act. In preparation, three health policy heavy-hitters gathered Jan. 13 at the Arlington Committee of 100 to highlight the local impact of our health system’s strains on low-income citizens. All three, not surprisingly, hail from Arlington, where to many the resistance of downstate Republican legislators to accepting already-appropriated federal dollars seems mysterious. Nancy White, for the past five months executive director of the Arlington Free Clinic, said Obamacare has had a small effect on her operation that serves 1,700 uninsured low-income patients a year. More than 150 patients “have transitioned to coverage under ACA, which has allowed us to accept others” from the clinic’s monthly lottery and referrals from Virginia Hospital Center, she said. But that leaves thousands without insurance because many of her clinic’s patients earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to use the Obamacare exchanges. “The average annual income is $15,000,” said White, whose clinic off Columbia Pike relies on donations and volunteer providers. “Many of those we take care of are minimum-wage workers – office cleaners, child-care givers, food service workers.”
JANUARY 21 - 27, 2016 | PAGE 15
Expanding Medicaid would help 20-35 percent of the clinic’s patients, said White, a physical therapist by background. But “we’re only meeting 20-30 percent of the needs out there.” The hospital industry’s case for expanding Medicaid came from James Cole, chief executive officer of the Virginia Hospital Center, the main donor to the free clinic ($1 million a year) and Arlington’s third largest employer. (A show of hands from the audience confirmed that nearly all still call his institution Arlington Hospital.) “The most important impact of not expanding Medicaid,” Cole said, “hits when patients are discharged with no doctor to follow up.” The result is “a downward spiral” for those with diabetes or asthma. The federal law reduced Medicare payments to hospitals on the assumption that they’d gain new paying patients, Cole said. So Virginia’s rejection of Medicaid expansion is “a financial hit” as well. Virginia Hospital Center on most days is at full capacity, which is why it is seeking additional buildings. The political case for expansion was made by former state Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple, who now works for the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association. “There’s nothing I’d like better” than to have Virginia join 30 other states and close the Medicaid gap, she said. Her 107 hospitals provide $600 million annually for charity patients but receive only 66 percent reimbursement under Medicaid.
C i t y o f Fa l l s C h u r c h
CRIME REPORT Week of January 11 - 17, 2016 Sexual Assault, 300 block E. Broad St. On Jan. 12, police received a report of a sexual assault. As a result of an investigation, a male, 19, of the City of Falls Church, was later arrested for the Sexual Assault. Driving Under the Influence, 400 block W. Broad St. On Jan. 12, police responded to the area for a report of a motor vehicle crash. A driver, a female, 49, of Arlington, was arrested for Driving Under the Influence. Narcotics Violation, 205 Hillwood Ave. (Marriott TownPlace Suites) On Jan. 12, a female, 35, of Washington,
Expansion would add $2.5 billion to the economy and 30,000 new jobs, she added. Hospitals recently agreed that if the legislature would act, the industry would cover the 10 percent drop in federal money slated to kick in during future years, one argument Republicans used against the plan. Whipple pronounced herself “baffled” that Republicans resist the federal money. When pressed on motives, she suggested that some oppose it as a “handout.” (I suggested Republicans are stalling for a new president who will repeal Obamacare.) She remains optimistic about a scenario in which one GOP senator in the evenly split chamber switches and votes for expansion. That, she said, would allow the bill to go to conference and become law without Republican delegates having to put their fingerprints on it. *** Arlington’s decade-old push to count the homeless paid off last week. The county announced it had become the second community in these United States to reach “functional zero” in finding stable housing for its known homeless military veterans, who number 20. That feat dovetails with the federal government’s multi-agency push to end veterans’ homelessness. The key was human contact, according to Kathy Sibert, president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit A-SPAN. “We literally kept a list of our homeless vets by name and sat down in face-to-face meetings on a regular basis to assess how they were progressing toward the goal of stable housing.” The county goal for 2016: end all Arlington homelessness. of Marijuana. Public Drunkenness, 306 Hillwood Ave. (Lesly’s Restaurant) On Jan. 17, a male, 18, of Alexandria, was arrested for Public Drunkenness.
DC, was arrested and released on summons for Possession of Marijuana.
Larceny from Motor Vehicle, 300 block Riley St. On Jan. 17, a purse was stolen from the victim’s unlocked vehicle.
Narcotics Violation, 400 block S. Maple Ave. On Jan. 17, a female, 22, of Washington, DC; a female, 21, of Washington, DC; a male, 22, of Washington, DC; and a male, 23, of Washington, DC, were arrested and released on summons for Possession
Vandalism to Vehicle, 500 block Roosevelt Blvd. On Jan. 17, a vehicle was found vandalized with key scratches
Auto Tampering, 300 block Riley St. On Jan 17, a vehicle was found in disarray.
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PAGE 16 | JANUARY 21 – 27, 2016
Community Events
THURSDAY, JANUARY 21
Preschool Storytime. Stories, finger plays and songs for children ages 2 – 5 on Monday and Thursday every week. Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Youth Services Room (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). Free. 10:30 – 11 a.m. & 3 – 3:30 p.m. 703-2485034. Early Literacy Center. Explore educational and manipulative items to teach early literacy through play on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday every week. This program is for ages birth to 5 years. No registration required. Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Youth Services Room (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). Free. 11 a.m. – noon. & 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. 703-248-5034. Teen Throwback Video Game Night. Children in grades 6 – 12 can play classic video games, including Super Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog. Registration required and participation is limited to 15 people. Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Youth Services Room (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). Free. 7 p.m. 703-248-5034. Poetry Reading. Sandra Beasley and Sass Brown will read
from their poetry collections. One More Page Books (2200 N. Westmoreland St. #101, Arlington) Free. 7 p.m. onemorepagebooks.com.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 22
1-on-1 Computer Tutoring. Receive personalized assistance using computers, Internet and e-books. Registration required. To schedule an appointment, stop by the reference desk or call 703-2485035. Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Conference Room (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). Free. 10 a.m. – noon. 703-2485035.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 23
F.C. Farmers’ Market. Vendors offer fresh locally grown fruits and vegetables, cheeses, meats, baked goods, plants, and wine. City Hall Parking Lot (300 Park Ave., Falls Church). Free. 9 a.m. – noon. 703248-5077. Open House: W&OD Master Plan – The City’s Greenest Street. Members of the community are invited to review and provide feedback on the proposed master plan for the W&OD Trail. Falls Church Community Center (223 Little Falls St., Falls Church). Free. 10 – 11:30 a.m. fallschurchva.gov/ WODMasterPlan.
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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
Send community event submissions to the News-Press by e-mail at calendar@fcnp. com; fax 703-342-0347; or by regular mail to 200 Little Falls St., #508, Falls Church, VA 22046. Please include any photos or artwork with submissions. Deadline is Monday at noon for each week’s edition.
Sing! Books with Emily. A winter singing storytime with illustrated songs. Emily’s repertoire includes hundreds of songs to delight audiences of any age, many enhanced by instruments like guitar, glockenspiel, kazoo, foot tambourines and limberjack. No registration required. Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Youth Services Room (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). Free. 11 a.m. 703-248-5034. Open House. BalletNova will host an open house at its studio, where the public can take free classes. BalletNova Studios (3443 Carlin Springs Road, Falls Church). Free. 1 – 4:30 p.m. balletnova.org. Concert. In celebration of its 40th anniversary Levine is presenting the “Monuments & Miniatures” concert series. The program will include piano trios written when the composers were age 40, including Beethoven’s “Archduke” trio and Schumann’s “Piano Trio No. 3 in G minor, Op. 110.” The Falls Church Episcopal (115 E. Fairfax St., Falls Church). $15 – $20. 7 – 9 p.m. levinemusic.org.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 24
League of Women Voters Forum. The League of Women Voters of Falls Church is hosting a National
Issues Forum called “Assessing the Relationship Between Money in Politics and Free Speech Under the First Amendment.” Falls Church Community Center (223 Little Falls St., Falls Church). Free. 3 – 4:30 p.m. lwvfallschurch.org.
MONDAY, JANUARY 25
Preschool Storytime. Stories, finger plays and songs for children ages 2 – 5 on Monday and Thursday every week. Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Youth Services Room (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). Free. 10:30 – 11 a.m. & 3 – 3:30 p.m. 703-248-5034.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 26
Preschool Storytime. Songs, movement, and stories for ages 18-36 months. Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Youth Services Room (120 N. Virginia Ave. Falls Church). 10:30 – 11:15 a.m. 703248-5034.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27
Early Release Wednesday. Children in grades K – 5 can gather at Mary Riley Styles Public Library to play their favorite Nintendo Wii games. Registration required. Limited to 15 participants. Mary Riley Styles Public Library (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). 3 – 4 p.m. fallschurchva.gov/Library.
Theater Fine Arts THURSDAY, JANUARY 21
“The Critic & The Real Inspector Hound.” Experience a madcap night of life in the theatre with two classic behind-the-scenes comedies, “The Critic” and “The Real Inspector Hound.” First, playwright and adaptor Jeffrey Hatcher (The Government Inspector) returns with a fresh take on Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s 18thcentury romp “The Critic.” Then the laughs continue with Tom Stoppard’s absurdist tourde-farce, “The Real Inspector Hound.” Through Feb. 14. Shakespeare Theatre Company (450 7th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $44 – $92. 8 p.m. shakespearetheatre.org
SATURDAY, JANUARY 23
“Georgie: My Adventures with George Rose.” It‘s all about the story, George Rose would
instruct fellow actor Ed Dixon over the course of their 20 year friendship. And boy, did Georgie have quite a story. Dixon chronicles his relationship with his friend and mentor, the Tony Award-winning character actor George Rose. Filled with witty reminiscences and tantalizing us with anecdotes, snippets of song and dance and Dixon‘s pitch perfect impersonations of the colorful and famous, “Georgie” is a one-man, one-act play that is as hilarious as it is poignant and powerful. Through Feb. 7. Signature Theatre (4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington). $45. 8 p.m. sigtheatre.org.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 24
“Bad Jews.” The night after their grandfather’s funeral, three cousins engage in a verbal battle royale over a family heirloom. In one
corner is the unstoppable and self-assured force of “Super Jew” Daphna. In the other, the immovable and entitled object of her secular cousin Liam. And in the middle is Liam’s brother Jonah, trying to stay out of the fray. Through Jan. 31. Studio Theatre (1501 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $20 – $71. 2 p.m. studiotheatre.org.
“Between the Riverside and Crazy.” Irrepressible ex-cop Walter Washington is facing eviction, City Hall, and the recent death of his wife. Clinging to both his grievances and the palatial rent-controlled apartment he shares with his ex-con son and a ragtag surrogate family, Walter needs to shake the past – but isn’t ready to move on. Through Feb. 28. Studio Theatre (1501 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $20 – $86. 2 p.m. studiotheatre.org.
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
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live_music&nightlife THURSDAY, JANUARY 21 H���, N�� ��� F������ ���� E��� K��� � T�� T��� L���. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $20. 6 p.m. 703-255-1566. M����� D�� � T�� T���. The Birchmere (3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria). $69.50. 7:30 p.m. 703549-7500. E���� � L�� F������ ���� N��� N�������� ��� B�����’��. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $10 in advance; $12 day of the show (Backstage). 7:30 p.m. 202667-7960. T�� T�� T���. Iota Club and Café (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $12. 8:30 p.m. 703-522-8340. T���������� T�������. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 8:30 p.m. 703-241-9504. R��� P��������. Dogwood Tavern (132 W. Broad St., Falls Church). 9:30 p.m. 703-237-8333.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 22
M������� C������� � T�� B����� R������. The Birchmere (3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria). $29.50. 7:30 p.m. 703-549-7500. R���� H�������� ���� E��� S����. Wolf Trap (1645 Trap Road, Vienna). $25 – $28. 8 p.m. 703-255-1900. T�� L���������. The State Theatre (220 N. Washington St., Falls Church). $18. 8 p.m. 703-237-0300. G���������� ���� T�� D����� B�������. Iota Club and Café (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $10. 8:30
p.m. 703-522-8340. C����� ��� T�� C���������. Clare and Don’s Beach Shack (130 N. Washington St., Falls Church). 9 p.m. 703-532-9283. W����� J������. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 9 p.m. 703-241-9504. J�����/F���� ���� DJ M���� S������ ��� DJ M��� S������. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $10 in advance; $12 day of the show (Mainstage). 9:30 p.m. 202667-7960. L��� S������. Dogwood Tavern (132 W. Broad St., Falls Church). 10 p.m. 703-237-8333.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 23
B�����������. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $5. 11 a.m. 703-255-1566. E��� B���� � P���� C�����. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $15. 5:30 p.m. 703-255-1566. L���� B�������. Clare and Don’s Beach Shack (130 N. Washington St., Falls Church). 6 p.m. 703-532-9283. E���� W���. The Birchmere (3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria). $25. 7:30 p.m. 703-549-7500. M����� B���. Wolf Trap (1645 Trap Road, Vienna). $35 – $40. 8 p.m. 703-255-1900. T�� L���������. The State Theatre (220 N. Washington St., Falls Church). $18. 8 p.m. 703-237-0300. J����� T������ ��� T�� C����� G���. Iota Club and Café (2832
Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $10. 8:30 p.m. 703-522-8340. T�� T���� ���� T�� P������. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $10 – $15. 9:30 p.m. 703255-1566. J����� A����� B���. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 9:30 p.m. 703-241-9504. Z������. Dogwood Tavern (132 W. Broad St., Falls Church). 10 p.m. 703237-8333.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 24
M������ �� ��� P����������� O��������. Wolf Trap (1645 Trap Road, Vienna). $35. 3 p.m. 703-2551900. A���� R�� ��� T�� B����������. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 4 p.m. 703-241-9504. C��� M������� ���� E��� S���� ��� A����� P�������. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $15. 6 p.m. 703-255-1566. R��� T������ T���. The Birchmere (3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria). $17.50. 7 p.m. 703-549-7500. T�� G�! T��� ���� G����������. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $15 in advance; $17 day of the show (Mainstage). 7:30 p.m. 202-667-7960. S����� J��� B���. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 8 p.m. 703-241-9504. M���� H����� ���� MOTHXR ��� F������ A��. 9:30 (815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $20. 10 p.m. 202-
JANUARY 21 – 27, 2016 | PAGE 17
265-0930.
MONDAY, JANUARY 25 A������� H���� ���� Y���� H����. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $10 – $18. 6:30 p.m. 703255-1566. Q���������� ���� M����� ��� H������ W��. 9:30 (815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $35. 7 p.m. 202265-0930. H��� ��� H�����. Iota Club and Café (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). 8 p.m. 703-522-8340. D����� F���������’� M�������� M������ ���� S��� R����� G������� � “H�� H���” S��������. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). 8 p.m. 202667-7960. W���� B���� J��. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 8:30 p.m. 703-241-9504.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 26
A�� D�F����� ���� H������ O� T����. 9:30 (815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $40. 7 p.m. 202-265-0930. W��� ���� E��� V������� ��� S�������. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $10 (Backstage). 7:30 p.m. 202-667-7960. S���� J����� ���� L����� B�� B�� B���. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 8:30 p.m. 703-241-9504.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27
R��� M���. The Birchmere (3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria). $35. 7:30 p.m. 703-549-7500.
P������� A����... Sunday, January 31 – 5th Annual McLean Chocolate Festival. The Rotary Club of McLean is hosting this event featuring some of the finest chocolate in
Northern Virginia. McLean Community Center (1234 Ingleside Ave., McLean). Free. 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. mcleanchocolatefestival.org.
Saturday, February 6 – 9th Annual Chinese New Year Festival. The Asian Community Service Center will hosting an event featuring live performance including
dragon and lion dance, a Han Costume Fashion show, delicious Asian foods, writing Chinese names, language, craft and business booths, children world, and also a lunar new year dragon parade. Luther Jackson Middle School (3020 Gallows Road, Falls Church). Free. 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. chinesenewyearfestival.org.
Sunday, February 14 – Valentine Tea. Bring someone special to tea at the historic Cherry Hill farmhouse. A costumed docent will host this holiday themed
tea. Guests will enjoy sandwiches, assorted sweets, warm scones, and a bottomless cup of tea in the lovely dining room. A tour of the historic home is included. Reservations required. Cherry Hill Farmhouse (312 Park Ave., Falls Church). $30. 2 – 4 p.m. 703-248-5171.
C������� S���������� Be sure to include time, location, cost of admission, contact person and any other pertinent information. Event listings will be edited for content and space limitations. Please include any photos or artwork with submissions. Deadline is Monday at noon for the current week’s edition.
Email: calendar@fcnp.com | Fax: 703-342-0347; Attn: FCNP Calendar Mail: Falls Church News-Press, Attn: Calendar, 200 Little Falls St., #508, Falls Church, VA 22046
A RTS&E NTE RTA I NME NT
PAGE 18 | JANUARY 21 – 27, 2016
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
Jan.
21 y
sda Thur
Morris Day & The Time The Birchmere 7:30 p.m. 3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria
703-549-7500 • birchmere.com
22 y
Frida
The Go! Team with Glockabelle Black Cat 7:30 p.m. 1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.
202-667-7960 • blackcatdc.com
Miami Horror 9:30 10 p.m. 815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.
202-265-0930 • 930.com
27 day
es Wedn
BY DREW COSTLEY
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
Singer-songwriter Grant-Lee Phillips has traversed tough waters at least a couple times since he released his last album Walking in the Green Corn in 2012. And now he’s set to release his newest album, The Narrow, on March 18, 2016. “The title is plucked from one of the songs, “Moccasin Creek,” and it goes ‘Go down to the narrows, where the water picks up,’ it’s a reference to a particular place that to me seems to symbolize the greater tone of the record,” Phillips said. “Navigating tough times, you know, a lot of my songs are about that. Trying to move your way towards the light. Navigate tough waters, as they say.” Phillips will be bringing his tales from The Narrow to Jammin’ Java on Thursday, Jan. 28. When asked what tribulations he’s had to navigate through over the past couple of years, Phillips revealed that his father died in 2013. Phillips and his family also picked up and GRANT-LEE PHILLIPS. (P����: D����� S�����) moved from Los Angeles, his home for more Phillips said that the arrangements and tonalthan 30 years, and moved to Nashville in July ity of the songs on the record “aren’t altogether of 2013 and he said that he loves living there. “It’s a good change of pace and I just think it’s new territory,” but that it’s more on the organic a much more normal kind of place to bring the side. “The old fans will probably take to it quite kids up,” he said. “Los Angeles is a place where easily,” Phillips said. “And for those who are people are always evolving and it’s a place where entirely new they have nothing to go off anypeople come from all over the world to chase how, so it’s all new to them. But I just feel like their dream. And that’s all well and good, but this approach is one that places the words and there’s something about being able to put your ear the melody and performance center stage. “It’s less about the collaboration or producto the ground and hear yourself think.” He said that those two events, his father tion – in fact, it has nothing to do with that. It’s dying and he and his family moving, created all about kind of capturing the moment in time.” Perhaps one of the reasons that Phillips’ disarray in his life. “All of that has a way of bringing chaos into your life, but it’s all a part new album is able to capture moments in time is because he’s played many of the songs on the of life, of course,” Phillips said. “So yeah, the songs reflect those experiences. record several times on the road before even But I think it’s a hopeful album. I think it strives recording him. He said that he had been carryfor some new possibilities, even if we don’t know ing some of the songs with him for two years before playing them in studio. what those things are moving forward.”
Another of Phillips’ creative outlets from the past, “Gilmore Girls”, has been making news with the revelation that a four episode mini-series is in the works. On the show, Phillips, whose character’s name is Grant, was elected to be the town’s troubadour. He said that while he hasn’t heard anything about being cast in the show’s revival, he’s at the ready to lend his guitar and voice to the town of Stars Hollow if asked. “I am poised and ready. I’m not entirely privy to all of the inner workings of the production, but I certainly would be there in a heartbeat. I guess we’ll file that under let’s wait and see,” Phillips said. “I’ve gained a lot of fans through that show from Hamburg and all over the place who arrive at my show with Gilmore Girls DVDs under their arms. It’s great.” • For more information about Grant-Lee Phillips, visit grantleephillips.com.
Raul Malo The Birchmere
These singles whet the appetites of the FCNP editorial team this week:
7:30 p.m.
Nicholas Benton – Desperado by Eagles
3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria
703-549-7500 • birchmere.com
Jody Fellows – In My Zone by Rittz featuring Mike Posner and B.o.B
Drew Costley – No More Parties in L.A. by Kanye West featuring Kendrick Lamar
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
FO O D &D I NI NG
JANUARY 21 - 27, 2016 | PAGE 19
5 Ideas for Sandwiches You Can Bring to Work BY MICHELLE STARK TAMPA BAY TIMES
HUMMUS AND VEGGIE
Even if the postholiday malaise still lingers in your heart, it is time to start making smart food choices again. That includes packing your lunch for work, instead of ducking into the nearest overpriced sandwich shop every time noon rolls around. Bringing your own stuff to nosh on is cheaper and usually more healthy. It can also be fun. Here are five ideas for sandwiches suitable for packing in a sophisticated lunch box. These recipes stay away from the standard cold cuts and instead rely on creamy salads and proteinpacked fillings to create substantial ‘wiches that will keep you full until the clock strikes Time to Go Home.
The key to beefing up veggie sandwiches is to add proteinheavy spreads like hummus. This sandwich takes the idea one step further with the addition of some mashed white beans. To make, spread a teaspoon of hummus each on 2 slices of whole-grain bread. Mash 1 (15ounce) can of white beans in a bowl with some olive oil and a squeeze of lemon until smooth but still slightly chunky. Top hummus layer with 2 tablespoons of the mashed beans on one slice of bread, then layer on 3 thin slices each of tomato, cucumber and avocado and add ¼ cup of grated carrots. Season with salt and pepper, then top with other slice of bread.
AVOCADO CHICKEN SALAD
TUNA SALAD
Chicken salad is an ideal work lunch option; it’s less smelly than its tuna counterpart and can easily be made ahead of time in bulk then assembled as a sandwich right before you eat it. This recipe uses avocado for extra creaminess. To make, mix ¼ of an avocado, 2 tablespoons plain yogurt and 1 teaspoon lemon juice in a bowl until combined. Add ¾ cup cooked shredded chicken and stir to coat. Season with salt and pepper to taste. To assemble the sandwich, scoop ½ cup of chicken salad onto one slice of an English muffin. Top with 2 thick slices of tomato, a handful of sprouts and some sunflower seeds, then top with other slice of English muffin. Recipe adapted from popsugar. com.
You might not be the most popular person in your cubicle when you pull out this Nicoise saladinspired tuna sandwich. But the healthy baguette sammy is loaded with fresh Mediterranean flavors that will pop in your mouth. To make, combine 1 (6-ounce) can of tuna in a bowl with ⅓ cup kalamata olives, ¼ cup sliced red bell pepper, ¼ small finely chopped red onion, 2 tablespoons finely chopped Italian flat-leaf parsley, 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil and sea salt and pepper to taste. Spoon the tuna mixture onto ¼ loaf crusty French baguette. Wrap sandwich well in plastic. Crush it down with your hands a bit and refrigerate overnight. Recipe adapted from food52. com.
AVOCADO CHICKEN SALAD can be made ahead of time, then stuffed into bread, or on an English muf�in, when you’re ready for lunch. (P����: �����������.���) FIG AND ALMOND BUTTER PANINI This sandwich is indulgent enough to eat for dessert, but the protein from the almond butter and banana will keep you full through the workday. To make, spread as much almond butter as you want on a piece of raisin or cinnamon bread. Slice 4 fresh figs into thin rounds, then lay them on top of the almond butter. Slice half of a banana into similarly sized rounds, then place on top of figs. Drizzle with some honey, then place a second piece of raisin or cinnamon bread on top and press down slightly. If you’re taking this sandwich to work, you can eat it like this or heat it up for 20 seconds in the microwave. If
you’re near a panini press, cook the sandwich on the press for 5 minutes until the almond butter starts to ooze out. Recipe adapted from popsugar. com. CHICKEN GYRO PITA This Mediterranean-inspired pita sandwich requires a bit more advance work, but as a result it’s simple to assemble come lunchtime. Start by making tzatziki sauce, a bright, fresh, addicting yogurtbased sauce that you spoon on right before eating. In a blender or food processer, puree half of a peeled and diced cucumber, 2 cups cold plain Greek yogurt, 4 teaspoons minced garlic, ⅓ cup chopped dill, 1½ tablespoons
freshly squeezed lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Next, pound 4 chicken breasts to ½ inch thickness and season with Italian seasoning, then cook in a large skillet over medium heat for about 6 minutes on each side, until cooked through. Remove from skillet and cut into strips. To assemble your sandwich, lay four pitas on a flat surface. Divide chicken strips evenly among pita, then thinly slice 1 red pepper and half of a red onion and divide both among sandwiches. Top each with crumbled feta cheese, salt and pepper, roll pita up and wrap in aluminum foil. When you are ready to eat, unwrap and slather on as much tzatziki sauce as you want. Makes 4 sandwiches. Recipe adapted from lecremedelacrumb.com.
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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
The Official Student Newspaper of George Mason High School The Falls Church News-Press has partnered with George Mason High School’s award-winning newspaper, The Lasso, to bring its readers some of the top articles appearing in the student-run digital paper. This regular feature will appear monthly in the News-Press during the school year. The Lasso can be found online at www.gmhslasso.org.
Former GMHS Senior Gift Shows No Signs of Life BY LAURA WHITAKER THE LASSO
Just two years after the school spent $23,531.97 for a new digital marquee at the Haycock Road entrance, the sign sits dormant in a back parking lot and students and staff are scratching their heads about what happened. “The whole thing is a mystery,” said Brian Fowler, head of the maintenance department at George Mason High School. “We wanted it so desperately and now we can’t use it. It’s here, it’s really frustrating,” said GMHS Principal Ty Byrd. This seems to be the reaction from administrators, staff, and students across George Mason. The short life of the digital marquee, which was meant to be a modern update to the original brick-andplastic sign that stands on Route 7, raises more questions than it provides answers. The sign was paid for with money raised by the graduating classes of 2011, 2012, and 2013 who donated their leftover class money to FCCPS to be used toward the project. According to Seve Padilla, the school’s Director of Facilities and Services, GMHS administrators met “numerous times” to discuss the plan and a few vendors came to give proposals. In the end, the group decided on this particular model.
The sign arrived at the school control of that so we could put meson September 26, 2013 and stood sages on it?” said William Snyder, at the Haycock Road entrance co-sponsor of the senior class. In addition, according to until the end of the school year of 2015. When students returned Padilla, the LED screen on the in September, 2015, the sign was sign had a bad computer procesgone, stashed away in a parking sor, which necessitated an outside contractor to come and perform lot behind the Science wing. “It’s unfortunate that the sign repairs. That, ultimately, led to the didn’t see much use,” said Stu Harvey, class of 2013 SCA presi- death of the sign. “When the contractor made the dent. “It’s disappointing to hear repairs, we arrived one morning to that the digital marquee is out find our locks cut and generator of commission.... That couldn’t stolen,” Padilla said. Unlike what Snyder and the have been cheap.” said Karishma John, the class of 2010 SCA presi- students envisioned, the school dent who contributed in the class’s never even had control of what donation of the mustang statue on appeared on the screen. Instead, the FCCPS central office did. This the school football field The digital marquee posed means it took a lot longer than planned to display one simple problems almost immediately. The first was the location, message. According to Padilla, “The which did not have an electrical source, forcing the school to reason it wasn’t being updated power the sign using gasoline and as much is due to the fact that it was running on the generaa generator. Therefore, every morning tor rather than from a permanent facilities staff members had to power source. This caused it to feed the generator five gallons of lose its network connection continuously because it was powered gasoline. The digital marquee displayed off at night and back on in the messages like “Click it before you mornings.” This particular sign – which get ticket” or simply, “Welcome to George Mason High School.” caused so many headaches for It did not, unlike the vision of all – was purchased intentionthe students who helped pay for ally to be portable, so it could be it, display school and athletic moved from its trailer and mountpermanently somewhere else. announcements. by ed TheShelterPetProject.org “[One] good question is, how However, as of today, the future of come the high school never got the sign is in limbo.
it’s not
it’s not
’s fault
’s fault
it’s not
THE MANUAL BRICK SIGN that stands on Route 7 in front of GMHS. The sign is outdated and infrequently updated. “Nobody uses it. It’s kind of a waste of space,” said Alice Castillo, sophomore. (P����: E�� E����) “We’re trying to find a place to put it,” said Mr. Byrd. “But also we’re trying to get a new building, so if we do the hardware wiring to put it [here], and when we destroy the building and move away, then
by TheShelterPetProject.org
’s fault by TheShelterPetProject.org
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THE ELECTRONIC MARQUEE SIGN that once ran on Haycock Road now lies collecting dust behind the science wing. This expensive gift from the 2013 graduating class is not running due to several issues. “We hope to have the power installed in the next few months. The large workload for our maintenance team has not allowed this to happen sooner,” said Seve Padilla, GM’s Director of Facilities and Services. (P����: L����)
we’ll have to build it again.” “I think future senior classes should do a little more research for projects like these so we all know everything there is to know,” said Fowler.
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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
JANUARY 21 – 27,2016 | PAGE 21
Fa l l s C h u r c h
School News & Notes
HORSE WORLD EXPO January 22-24
MD State Fairgrounds • Timonium, MD Over 450 booths of products & services for horse owners and horse lovers. Multi-breed demonstrations, Stallion Avenue, Breed Row & more!! Seminars by National Clinicians and Family Friendly Entertainment
www.horseworldexpo.com Information: 301-916-0852
A FATHER AND SON work together on a pair of axles using pencils, paper clips, compact discs and rubber bands during the first of Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School’s Steam Nights last week. (Photo: Carol Sly)
Hundreds of Volunteers Converge on TJ Elementary Hundreds of volunteers gathered on Monday, Jan. 18 at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School to pack school and hygiene supplies for school-aged children in Haiti. Backpacks full of school supplies will be sent to KIPP DC and the hygiene supplies will be delivered to school-aged children in Haiti. The inaugural event was organized by the Falls Church Elementary Parent Teacher Association and is the culmination of two supply drives – one in December 2015 and the second in January 2016, with fundraising efforts made through the sale of hot chocolate at recreational basketball games.
F.C. Residents Earn Academic Honors Across the Nation Several Falls Church residents recently earned academic honors from colleges, universities and other academic institutions across the nation. Kathryn Gilot, Ava Roth and Alexander Valentino were named to the dean’s list at Lehigh University, where students must earn a 3.6 scholastic average or better while carrying 12 credit hours to make the list. Julia Rodriguez, a public relations major, made the dean’s list at Champlain College, where stu-
GEORGE MASON HIGH SCHOOL students Anja Boneau (left) holds a rabbit after cleaning its cage and refreshing its food supply while Helen Vasquez cares for gerbils during one of Arlington Career Center’s courses, advanced animal science. Nearly 50 Mason students attend classes at the Career Center, spending part of their academic day there. (Photo: Carol Sly) dents must earn a 3.5 grade point average or higher to make the list. Marisa Sims, a junior communication studies major, made the dean’s list at Bridgewater College, where students must earn a 3.4 grade point average or higher to make the list. Robin Clark graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in comic arts.
GMHS Parent Meeting Scheduled for February 11 George Mason High School has organized a meeting for parents
of children at the school to help the parents guide their children through some of the challenges of adolescence on Thursday, Feb. 11 at 7 p.m. At the meeting parents can find out what parents and the community can do to strengthen mental health, decrease substance abuse and help students excel in “mind, body and character,” according to an email from the school system. Mason Principal Ty Byrd, school counselor Mica Thomasson and school psychologist Sharon Hoffman will discuss different aspects of the health and wellness of Mason students at the meeting.
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PAGE 22 | JANUARY 21 – 27, 2016
SPO RTS
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
Mustangs Add 2 More Wins to Unbeaten Record by Matt Delaney
Falls Church News-Press
George Mason’s varsity boys basketball team endured a week of spirited competition from two Bull Run District opponents and came out unscathed with two more wins to stay perfect at 15-0 on the season. The first challenge came away from Falls Church when Mason defeated Madison County High School 71-61 on Tuesday, Jan. 12. Mason hadn’t been fazed by district competition all year, but last Tuesday they encountered a hostile home crowd and a spunky Madison County team that was hungry for an upset. Luckily, in a game that quickly became more than just another regular season matchup, the Mustangs had one thing Madison County lacked: experience. “Ah, man, it was state playoff atmosphere. Full house…it was just great high school basketball,” head coach Chris Capannola said. “Our experience won it for us. Our guys have been there before. The last four to five minutes our guys jumped out by 10, a little 6-0 run is what it was, and they never got any closer.”
And, as has been the case all year, Mason’s bench was able to come in and make a difference when they needed it most. “We played rusty from the beginning [but] later on in the game we picked it up with guys on the bench,” junior forward Rovasoa “Tim” Andrianarison said. “We started playing our defense and [that gave] our offense the push that we needed.” Senior forward Robert Tartt led all scoring with 23, senior guard Elliot Mercado corralled nine rebounds while Mercado and senior guards D’Montae Noble and Josh Allen dished out three assists. The second test came on Jan. 14 where an “emotionally drained” Mason squad, per Capannola, had to stoke their competitive flames once more to dispatch Clarke County High School 62-36. “This is the first time I think that we didn’t play at the same level no matter who our opponent was,” Capannola said. “There was no cohesion, and that happens, and luckily we were good enough to overcome it.” Mason came out flat and ended the first quarter tied 8-8. They
MASON COACH CHRIS CAPANNOLA TALKS to the Mustangs during a timeout. (Photo: Carol Sly) responded with a 20 point second quarter to earn a 28-17 halftime lead and slowly built on that to suffocate Clarke County’s hopes of stealing
F ive- B agger
FIVE SENIOR BASEBALL PLAYERS at George C. Marshall High School recently had a signing ceremony to celebrate their commitments to join college baseball programs next school year. (L to r) Ben Kerns will be attending Ursinus College, Nick Cintron will be attending Cornell University, Steven Johel will be attending Coastal Carolina University, Justin Han will be attending Middlebury College and Nathaniel Scheinman will be attending Skidmore College. Kerns, Cintron, Johel and Han played little league in Vienna and Scheinman played little league in Falls Church. (Courtesy Photo)
the game from the Mustangs. Tartt led scoring again with 15, senior forward Douglas Bossart absorbed five rebounds and Noble
assisted five buckets. Mason played Central High School on January 20 but results were not available at press time.
GM Girls Lose 45-37 To Central at Home by Matt Delaney
Falls Church News-Press
Playing three Bull Run District games over the past week, George Mason’s varsity girls basketball team went 2-1 during that stretch by defeating Madison County High School on Wednesday, Jan. 13 and Clarke County High School on Friday, Jan. 15 before falling to Central High School on Tuesday, Jan. 19. Against Central, Mason found themselves in a frustrating position. Leading early in the third quarter 26-19 after a three-pointer by sophomore guard Nicole Bloomgarden, the team began to lose its grip on the game while Central began to find theirs. A slim 31-30 lead entering the fourth was wiped out by Central, who built on that lead after consecutive trips to the free throw line, ending the game 45-37 in Central’s favor. “It was just a tale of two halves,” head coach Michael Gilroy said. “We played the same kinda style in the first half that we did in the second and [the referees] called it a little tighter. We
need to be able to adjust to refs calls and we need to be able to attack on offense to see if we can get those same touches.” Mason had their chances late in the game, but an offense that predicates their rhythm on jumpers around the perimeter had trouble sinking shots, compounding other hurdles the team was struggling to overcome. “It has a lot to do with us not hitting our shots,” junior guard Sarah Lubnow said. “Kinda makes it hard to do everything else.” An ugly, unwelcome loss Tuesday night was preceded by ugly, but far more welcome wins the previous week against Madison County and Clarke County. Gilroy has stuck by his mantra that he’ll “take any win, whether it’s ugly or pretty.” “We’re finding different ways to win,” Gilroy said. “I’ve consistently said we’ve got a young group. We’ve gotta learn how to win, and win in different environments and different styles, which we’ve been able to do.” Mason plays their next game on the road against Warren County High School on Thursday, Jan. 21.
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
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JANUARY 21 – 27, 2016 | PAGE 23
Use of Crumb Rubber in F.C. Fields Causes Concern by Drew Costley
Falls Church News-Press
Amid local and national concerns over the safety of synthetic turf fields, Falls Church City Public Schools and the City of Falls Church Recreation and Parks Department finished replacing the synthetic turf field at George Mason High School in December 2015. Turf field has also been recently installed at nearby Westgate Elementary School, located in Pimmit Hills, despite the protestations of parents of children at the school and the school’s parentteacher association. The parents who opposed the installation of the turf field at Westgate cite a July 2015 study by the Yale University School of Engineering and Applied Science that says that a material used in the turf fields, crumb rubber, contains chemicals that are considered “probable carcinogens” and irritants that cause “problems for either breathing, the skin or the eyes.” The prevailing theory is that when people play on synthetic turf that they come into contact with crumb rubber, which puts them at risk for developing rare cancers. “I think it’s putting children in danger,” said Glenn Heller, whose child attends Westgate. Heller said that he will not allow his child to play on the school’s turf. In the course of his research about the dangers of crumb rubber, Heller saw an ESPN “30 for 30” documentary about the use of
crumb rubber in artificial fields and reached out to the Westgate Parent-Teacher Association with his research and concerns. In an article on ESPN’s website that accompanies that piece, soccer player Julie Foudy writes about soccer coach Amy Griffin’s record of athletes who have cancer who have played on synthetic turf fields. Foudy wrote that Griffin’s list now stands at “200 athletes, 158 of whom are soccer players,” 101 of whom are goalkeepers. Eventually, the Westgate Parent-Teacher Association voted unanimously to ask the school district to suspend construction of the field in order for the school community better understand the possible health risks associated with crumb rubber. In October 2015, Fairfax County Public Schools released a statement on synthetic turf fields. In it the school system said that converting natural grass fields to synthetic fields has provided a solution to the increased demand for use of outdoor fields in Fairfax County. “Fairfax County Public Schools relies on the experts at the Fairfax County Health Department and other state and federal agencies in determining if any health risks are associated with the use of crumb rubber fields,” the statement said. “The current available information has concluded that the use of synthetic turf in athletic fields remains safe with no findings showing a link between crumb rubber and any health risks. However, we understand the con-
THE NEW SYNTHETIC TURF FIELD at George Mason High School was completed in December 2015. F.C. Recreation and Parks Director Danny Schlitt said the lifetime of the old turf was gone. (Courtesy Photo)
cerns of parents and community members, and the need for clear answers on this important issue.” Danny Schlitt, the City of Falls Church’s Director of Recreation and Parks, said much the same in regard to the information available on crumb rubber and possible associated health risks. He said that the new field at Mason uses a mix of crumb rubber and sand to fill in between the blades of synthetic grass.
ONE OF SEVERAL PHOTOS TAKEN of the synthetic turf field being replaced at George Mason High School. Parents at Westgate Elementary School, which is nearby Mason, are concerned over the use of crumb rubber in synthetic turf fields. (Courtesy Photo)
“We haven’t heard any direct concerns. People have certainly discussed it….What we’ve done is relied on the industry and relied on the things they’ve been doing and there’s certainly a lot of conversation in regards to this product,” Schlitt said. “But still, to this day, there’s been no proof, the EPA hasn’t made any decisions based on it, the Center for Disease Control hasn’t made any statement tying to this to anything. “Now there is a lot of concern about it. There have been people who have been doing a lot of investigating….And we’re keeping an eye on the issue.” Schlitt, who has a daughter who plays on the girls lacrosse team at Mason, said that “at this point there’s nothing out there that has put us in a concerned position.” In a separate, but related issue, some in the Falls Church community expressed concerns over the school system spending money on a new turf field and track, which is only being resurfaced, when there are plans to redevelop the entire campus that houses Mason and Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School. Some in the community are concerned that it is a waste of money to replace the turf and track when they could be upended through the campus redevelopment project. Schlitt, as a taxpayer in the City, expressed the same concerns, but said that the turf, which
was over nine years old, was past due for a replacement. “The lifetime of the old turf was gone. We got through this football season by the skin of our teeth,” Schlitt said. “There’s a testing that has to be conducted on that type of field... and basically it tests the hardness of the field and the safety of the field. And we were starting to lose that battle. It had to be redone.” The Recreation and Parks Department, Schlitt said, went to the Falls Church City Council for funding to replace the turf at Mason prior to the redevelopment project becoming imminent. “We knew the first shovel wasn’t going to go into the ground for at least the next year and a half and we couldn’t put every single outdoor sport in jeopardy up at the school,” Schlitt said. “There was no way we could have figured out how to take care of all of the spring sports, recreation activities and all of the other community use of that field for an 18 – 20 month period. “We don’t know where to new school is going to go, ultimately, so I guess that’s a fear in the back of people’s minds, including mine,” Schlitt said. “I don’t want to see that kind of money go into a project and then for it to be ripped out, but it was a matter of timing and we just didn’t have the time to sit and wait for the [redevelopment project]... when we had all these activities that needed to be played.”
PAGE 24 | JANUARY 21 - 27, 2016
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NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING CITY OF FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA The following ordinances were given first reading on November 9, 2015 and December 14, 2015, respectively; second reading and public he aring are scheduled for Monday, January 25, 2016 at 7:30 p.m., or as soon thereafter as the matter may be heard. (TO15-14) ORDINANCE TO AMEND CHAPTER 48 “ZONING” TO REQUIRE A SPECIAL USE PERMIT FOR CERTAIN USES NOW PERMITTED BY RIGHT IN THE B-1, B-2, B-3 AND M-1 DISTRICTS, SHIFT REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF THOSE TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION AND CITY COUNCIL, ALLOW SECOND STORY BUSINESS SIGNS IN B DISTRICTS, AND REMOVE OBSOLETE CODE LANGUAGE (TO15-17) ORDINANCE TO AMEND CHAPTER 14, ENVIRONMENT, ARTICLE V, OUTDOOR LIGHTING, TO DELETE STRINGS OF LIGHTS FROM PROHIBITED INSTALLATIONS The first amendment would require a special use permit for churches, schools, day care facilities, payday lenders and title loan companies in the B-1, B-2, and B-3 commercial districts, and, by reference, in the M-1industrial district. It would also allow businesses on second stories in B-districts to have signs, allow strings of lights outside of merchandise sales areas, and update the reference to group homes to make it consistent with state law. The second amendment would amend City Code language to allow strings of lights as outlined in (TO15-14). Second reading and public hearing on the following item was deferred to Monday, January 25, 2016 at 7:30 p.m., or as soon thereafter as the matter may be heard. (TO15-13) ORDINANCE TO AMEND CHAPTER 48 “ZONING” OFFICE, MIXEDUSE, RETAIL AND BICYCLE PARKING, AND OTHER RELATED PROVISIONS All public hearings will be held in the Council Chambers, 300 Park Avenue, Falls Church, Virginia. For copies of legislation, contact the City Clerk’s office at (703-248-5014) or cityclerk@fallschurchva.gov. The City of Falls Church is committed to the letter and spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act. To request a reasonable accommodation for any type of disability, call 703-2485014 (TTY 711). CELESTE HEATH CITY CLERK
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We are pleged to the letter and
Virginia’s policy for We are pledged to spirit the ofletter and spirit of Virginia’s poliachieving equal housing opportucy for achieving equal throughout the nity housing throughout theopportunity Commonwealth. We encourage and Commonwealth. We encourage and support advertising and support advertising and marketing programs in which thereinare no barriers to obtainmarketing programs which no barriers to obtaining ing housing becausethere of are race, color, religion, national origin, housing because of race, color, sex, elderliness, familial handicap. All real estate religion,status national or origin, sex, elderliness,tofamilial status fair or housing law which advertised herein is subject Virginia’s handicap. All real estate advermakes it illegal to advertise “any limitation, or distised herein is preference, subject to housingreligion, law which national origin, sex, crimination because ofVirginia’s race,fair color, makes it illegal to advertise “any elderliness, familial status or limitation, handicaporor intention to make preference, because of race, any such preference, discrimination limitation, or discrimination.” This newscolor, religion, national origin, paper will not knowingly acceptfamilial advertising for real estate that sex, elderliness, status or handicap or intention to make violates the fair housing law. Our readers are hereby informed any such preference, limitation, or discrimination.” This newspathat all dwellings advertised in this newspaper are available on will not knowingly accept an equal opportunity per basis. For more or to file a advertising for real estate information that fair housingFair law. Our housing complaint callviolates the the Virginia Housing Office at (804) readers are herby informed that 367-8530. Toll free callall(888) 551-3247. dwellings advertised inFor this the hearing impaired call (804) 367-9753. newspaper are available on an equal opportunity basis. For more information or to file a housing complaint call the Virginia Fair Housing Office at (804) 367-8530. Toll free call (888) 551-3247. For the hearing impaired call (804) 367-9753. Email: fairhousing@dpor.virginia.gov. Website: www.fairhousing.vipnet.org
A RTS&E NTE RTA I NME NT
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
Crossword
ACROSS
By David Levinson Wilk 1
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21 23
28
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43 46
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© 2015 David Levinson Wilk
Across 1. ____ Strauss jeans
56
1. ____ Strauss jeans 5. Jessica of “Sin City” 9. “Empowering the Internet Generation” company 14. “____ pronounce you ...” 15. More than want 16. Let happen 17. Farewell offered to novelist Kingsley? 19. Tundra or rain forest, e.g. 20. Gretchen of “Boardwalk Empire” 21. One-named singer with the 2006 album “Konvicted” 22. Thought 23. Like someone anticipating the end of a run-on sentence? 26. Thriller author Follett 27. Newswoman Curry 28. Still-life subject 31. “Oh, now ____ bad guy!” 33. In the style of 36. Motto from a couple of beachgoers? 40. Adams of “American Hustle” 41. Three-time A.L. batting champ Tony 42. Piano’s 88 43. Thompson of “Back to the Future” 44. Place for tips 46. Treat enjoyed by a demander of special treatment? 53. One paying for staying 54. City down the river from Florence 55. Aries animal
JANUARY 21 - 27, 2016 | PAGE 25
57. One who believes in karma 58. “Try!” (or a hint to making 17-, 23-, 36- and 46-Across sound more familiar) 60. Nail the test 61. Barbershop sound 62. Kept in the loop, briefly 63. Contract fine print 64. Virginia ____ 65. Scant
33. Had wings? 34. Put down, as track 35. Response: Abbr. 37. Caffeine-rich seeds 38. Campaign sign directive 39. Pod used to thicken gumbo 44. “Heart of Darkness” author Conrad 45. Jai ____ 46. Unfrost 47. Word with circle or city 48. Director Roger who was married to Brigitte Bardot and Jane Fonda 49. Speak one’s mind 50. Honda model 51. Small amount 52. Itching 53. “Did I do ____?” 56. New Wave band Depeche ____ 58. Prime meridian std. 59. “31 Days of Oscar” network
DOWN
1. Ben’s costar in “Schindler’s List” 2. Provide with a fund 3. “Behold!” 4. Japanese word etched into Arlington National Cemetary’s U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial 5. Obi-Wan’s apprentice 6. Life Saver flavor 7. Human ____ 8. Spots 9. Wine often referred to by its first syllable 10. Perjurer’s admission 11. NFL ref’s aid 12. Astronomer’s sighting 13. Was in the red 18. Fill 22. Singer with the album “Live at the Polynesian Palace” 24. Furniture megastore 25. Mullah’s decree 28. Bus schedule word 29. Keypad locale 30. Grimy abode 31. NBA Hall-of-Famer Thomas 32. “Ridiculousness” network
CHUCKLE BROS BRIAN & RON BOYCHUK
Last Thursday’s Solution B A J A W I S B A L B O A
5. Jessica of "Sin City"
Sudoku
9. "Empowering the Internet Generation" company
Level: 1 2 3 4
E L A D I N U S T F C T I I C L O W F E E L T A G E K G B A M F I N E I N E D E D P A L E A T D D L E
U M A Z A P I N E O F F S P R U N E S
A G E A N S E R T R A N K I N E A H E S S O L I O O M A N P F I N A R E N A T
M A N G O
B R I E F
E N G L I S B A H I M L O F I T C E E L B E T U O R N Y
R E M E N D
S T A S E S
O W N E E E O N C E
W E S T
By The Mepham Group
14. "____ pronounce you ..." 15. More than want 16. Let happen 17. Farewell offered to novelist Kingsley? 19. Tundra or rain forest, e.g. 20. Gretchen of "Boardwalk Empire" 21. One-named singer with the 2006 album "Konvicted"
1
22. Thought 23. Like someone anticipating the end of a run-on sentence? 26. Thriller author Follett
LOOSE PARTS
DAVE BLAZEK
27. Newswoman Curry 28. Still-life subject
Solution to last Sunday’s puzzle
NICK KNACK
1
© 2016 N.F. Benton
1/24/16
Complete the grid so each row, column and 3-by-3 box (in bold borders) contains every digit 1 to 9. For strategies on how to solve Sudoku, visit www.sudoku.org.uk. © 2016 The Mepham Group. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency. All rights reserved.
LO CA L
PAGE 26 | JANUARY 21 – 27, 2016
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
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BACK IN THE DAY
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It is no the timw e for g o all o cows d to go to the aid of the pa stu ir re. *** **
Falls Church News-Press Vol. XV, No. 46 • January 19, 2006
10 Year s Ago
Thr ow it up. Pour it up It now is the time for all go od cows to go the to aid
Special Prosecutor Named to Probe Charges Vs. Lasso
Parents Get Rumors Only, No Details Of Henderson Middle School ‘Incident’
Arlington Commonwealth Attorney Richard Trodden told the News-Press in an interview yesterday that a letter to him in mid-November from Falls Church City Treasurer Robert Morrison outlining allegations of improprieties in the conduct of Falls Church City government made in a series of WJLA-TV news reports prompted an inquiry that led to his call for a special prosecutor to investigate two of the charges last week.
City of Falls Church school officials declined to provide details of an incident at Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School last week that prompted Principal Rochelle S. Friedman to send a letter to parents home with students on Friday. The letter addressed “a great deal of misinformation circulating throughout the community regarding an incident that occurred here this week.”
F� � � � C � � � � �
B������� N��� � N���� Sislers Offering Snow Help Sislers Stone is helping businesses and residents prepare for the coming snow by offering Ice Melt and Traction Aid, potassium chloride, all-purpose sand, coarse sand, and calcium chloride flakes in its Falls Church location at 7139 Lee Highway in Falls Church. Founded in 1937, the family owned and operated company offers a variety of landscaping materials, lighting, fire pits, and training seminars. For more information, visit www.sislersstone.com.
F.C. Chamber at Stifel & Capra Next Tuesday Stifel & Capra is hosting a networking mixer for the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday, January 26. Members of the chamber, friends of the business community, and Stifel & Capra patrons are invited to attend this free event for refreshments, networking and shopping. Located at 260 W. Broad Street, Stifel & Capra carries wine, sweet treats, jewelry, home accessories, art, vintage items and more. For more information, visit www.FallsChurchChamber.org or www.StifelandCapra.com.
Falls Plaza ABC Store Moves Across Route 7, Outside City Limits The ABC Store previously located in Falls Plaza at 1212 W. Broad Street has moved to the new building at 7121 Leesburg Pike with Conte’s Bikes, Computer Wingman, and soon Jimmy John’s deli. The liquor store’s former Falls Plaza location has been secured by The Kensington Falls Church which will open an information center in April. The Kensington Falls Church, an assisted living development with dedicated art space, is expected to open in late this year or early next year.
Seven Corners TD Bank Names New Store Manager TD Bank has promoted Elvis Castro to store manager of the Seven Corners location at 6198 Arlington Boulevard in Falls Church. He is responsible for new business development, consumer and business lending, managing personnel and overseeing the day-to-day operations at the store serving customers in the DC Metro area. Castro has 13 years of experience in banking, finance and mortgages. He joined TD Bank in 2009 and most recently served as an assistant store manager in Seven Corners. For more information, visit www.tdbank.com.
Chamber Young Professionals Attending Creative Cauldron Show ’47, Inc., the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce’s young professionals group, is attending Creative Cauldron’s Monsters of the Villa Diodati on Thursday, January 28. The musical by Matt Conner and Stephen Gregory Smith will continue Thursdays through Sundays until February 21. Opening weekend performances will also include a discussion with the writers following the show. Young local professionals interested in learning more or attending with ‘47, Inc. can RSVP to bcreswick@chartiscorp. Business News & Notes is compiled by Sally Cole, Executive Director of Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce. She may be emailed at sally@fallschurchchamber.org.
MEET CORA, a 1-year-old kitty who thinks she’s a dog. Her favorite activities include napping on her heating pad, watching birds and squirrels from her window and popping bubbles. She frequently forgets she’s a cat and will fetch you toys to play with, follow you around the house and give you the biggest “puppy eyes” if she doesn’t get her way. Just because you’re not famous doesn’t mean your pet can’t be! Send in your Critter Corner submissions to crittercorner@fcnp.com.
F.C. Resident, Native of W. Va. Donald R. Clark Dies at 69 Donald R. Clark, 69, died peacefully at an acute care facility in Aldie, Virginia on Tuesday, Jan. 5 after a long battle with cancer. He made his career in finance at First American/First Union Bank and later at Communication Workers of America as vice president of the employee benefits department. A native of Friendly, West Virginia, and graduate of West Virginia University at Morgantown, he came to Virginia in 1983 and made his home in Falls Church. As a young man Don was reluctant to attend college; however, his family, eager for him to attend, promised him a horse for a degree. This began a lifelong love affair with horses and the outdoors. In recent
years Don served as a volunteer at Spirit Open Equestrian Program in Herndon, Virginia. A second love affair occurred when he married his wife and soul mate of thirty years, Terry, who survives him in addition to his son, Andrew and daughter, Angela and two granddaughters, Attea and Olivia as well as brother, Carl Clark and two nephews, Brian and Brent. A memorial is scheduled at Truro Anglican Church, 10520 Main Street, Fairfax at 3 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 28. A reception will follow the ceremony from 4 – 5 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations should be made to Spirit Open Equestrian, 2705 West Ox Road, Herndon, VA 20171.
JANUARY 21 - 27, 2016 | PAGE 27
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
Directory Listings: Call Us at 703-532-3267
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ACCOUNTING
BUSINESS DIRECTORY n
ANTIQUES & COLLECTIBLES
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ATTORNEYS
Mark F. Werblood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534-9300 Sudeep Bose, Former Police Officer. 926-3900 Janine S. Benton, Esq. . . . . . . . . . . .992-9255 n
AUTOMOTIVE
Beyer Volvo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237-5000 Koons Used Car Outlet . . . . . . . . . . . 533-3363 n
BANKING
Burke & Herbert Bank & Trust Co.. . . 519-1634 BB&T . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241-3505 TD Bank/www.TDBank.com. . . . . . . . 237-2051 n
BOOK BINDING
BCR Binders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534-9181
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EQUIPMENT RENTAL/SALE
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FLORISTS
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FRAMES
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Art & Frame of Falls Church . . . . . . . 534-4202 n
GIFTS
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Stifel & Capra. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407-0770 n
HANDYMAN
Doug’s Handyman Service. . . . . . . . . 556-4276 Your Handyman . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571-243-6726
HOME IMPROVEMENT
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INSURANCE
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Family, Cosmetic and Implant Dentistry
Now Offering Dental Savings Plans!
REAL ESTATE
Merelyn Kaye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .790-9090x218 www.helpfulmortgage.us . . . . . . . . . . 237-0222 Casey O’Neal - ReMax . . . . . . . . . . . 824-4196 Rosemary Hayes Jones. . . . . . . . . . .790-1990 The Young Group. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .356-8800 Tori McKinney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 867-8674 Shaun Murphy, Realtor . . . . . . . . . . . 868-5999 n
Academy of Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 938-8054 Foxes Music Co . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533-7393
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All numbers have a ‘703’ prefix unless otherwise indicated.
Healthy Smiles Begin Here
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Dr Gordon Theisz, Family Medicine. . 533-7555
Dr. Alison Sinyai, Family Eye Care . . 533-3937
PHOTOGRAPHY
Gary Mester, Event, Portraits. . . . . . . 481-0128 Mary Sandoval Photography . . . 334-803-1742
MEDICAL
OPTOMETRIST
PHARMACY
Broad Street Pharmacy . . . . . . . . . . . 533-9013 n
MASSAGE
MUSIC
PET SERVICES
Apex Pet Partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532-8012 Feline Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 920-8665
www.healthybyintention.com.. . . . . . . 534-1321
Falls Church Florist, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . 533-1333 n
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Allstate Home Auto Life Ins. . . . . . . 241-8100 State Farm Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . 237-5105
EYEWEAR
Point of View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237-6500 n
HEALTH & FITNESS
FC Heating & Air Service . . . . . . . . . . 534-0630 Your Handyman LLC . . . . . . . . . 571-243-6728 Joseph Home Improvement. . . . . . . . 507-5005 Picture Perfect Home Improvements 590-3187 One Time Home Improvement. . . . . . 577-9825
DENTISTS
VA Outdoor Power Equipment . . . . . . 207-2000
1 Line Maximum
(30 characters + Ph. #, incl. spaces)
Vantage Fitness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241-0565 Jazzercise Falls Church. . . . . . . . . . . 622-2152
Family Dentistry, Nimisha V Patel . . . 533-1733 Dr. William Dougherty . . . . . . . . . . . 532-3300
Falls Church Antique Company . . . . . 241-7074 Antique Annex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241-9642 n
CLEANING SERVICES
Maid Brigade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823-1922 Acclaimed Carpet Cleaning . . . . . . . . 978-2270 Claure. Zenia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571-235-4295 A Cleaning Service. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 892-8648
Diener & Associates, CPA.. . . . . . . . . 241-8807 Eric C. Johnson, CPA, PC . . . . . . . . . 538-2394 Mark Sullivan, CPA. . . . . . . . . . . 571-214-4511 Hahn & Associates, PC, CPAs. . . . . . 533-3777 n
3 months - $150 6 months - $270 1 year - $450
TAILOR
Tailor Lee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534-8886
TAXES
Beatson Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 798-3590
PAGE 28 | JANUARY 21 - 27, 2016 NEW ENGLAND MOTOR PRESS ASSOCIATION
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