January 7 - 13, 2016
FA LLS CHUR C H, V I R G I NI A • WW W. FC NP. C OM • FR EE
FOUN D ED 1991 • VOL. X X V NO. 46
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The Falls Church City Council is slated to cast its final up-or-down vote on the Spectrum and Mill Creek’s 4.3-acre Mason Row project on the northeast corner of W. Broad and N. West Street at its meeting next Monday night. The project needs a five-vote “supermajority” to pass. SEE NEWS BRIEFS, PAGE 9
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Tarter Council’s Unanimous Pick For Re-Election as Mayor of F.C. K ������ �� ��� N �� Y ���
It’s a new year and a new opportunity to work on a new you for 2016. Check out the FCNP’s special health and fitness special inside this edition.
M���� B��� W�� H������ H���� T������ After coming up empty-handed in their five previous entries, George Mason’s varsity boys basketball team finally won the Joe Cascio Holiday Classic, topping Dominion High School, 57-42, in the championship game last week. SEE SPORTS, PAGE 24
INDEX Editorial.................6 Letters...............6, 8 News & Notes 12-13 Comment ........ 18-21 Business News ...22 Food & Dining.....23
Sports .................24 Calendar ........26-27 Classified Ads ....28 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword ..........29 Critter Corner......30
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A COUPLE RINGS IN 2016 with a midnight kiss at Falls Church’s annual Watch Night New Year’s celebration last Thursday night. Coordinator Barb Cram says a record number of revelers turned out for this year’s event. See more photos of The Littile City’s Watch Night on pages 10-11. (P����: C�������� B����)
Superintendent Jones Tips Off PTAs to Her New Budget BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
Falls Church Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Toni Jones was slated to address a public meeting co-hosted by the City schools’ three PTA organizations in the cafetorium at Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School last night, spelling out the parameters that will inform her coming fiscal year budget recommendations that
she will formally introduce at a School Board meeting Tuesday. While Wednesday night’s meeting was scheduled to occur after the News-Press was set to go to press this week, Dr. Jones provided the News-Press with the power-point presentation developed to form the basis for her remarks and projections. Jones told the News-Press in supplementary remarks, “I need the community to understand that
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
the principals, directors and teachers only ask for what they feel are really needed to maintain great schools. They do not constitute a ‘wish list.’” According to her power-point, the schools will need to ask the City Council for considerably more than would be provided by the projected modest 2.3 percent increase in revenues coming to the
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SEE PAGE 18
BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
P. David Tarter was re-elected to a second term as mayor of the City of Falls Church by a unanimous 7-0 vote in the first meeting of the newly-constituted Falls Church City Council Monday night, and Council member Marybeth Connelly was elected vice mayor by another unanimous vote. The new Council, officially installed as of Jan. 1, after being sworn in mid-December, included one personnel change as Letty Hardi was seated for the first time since winning election in November, replacing Nader Baroukh who did not seek reelection to a third term. The new Council now includes three women – Connelly, Hardi and Karen Oliver – for only the second time in Falls Church history and first since the late 1980s (when Carol DeLong, Betty Blystone and Betty Havlick served at the same time). As has been the custom whenever the election of a new mayor and vice mayor takes place in the first meeting after an election, the meeting Monday was called to order by the City Clerk, in this case Celeste Heath was performing the duty for the first time. After leading the chamber in the Pledge of Allegiance and calling the roll of Council members, she asked for nominations for mayor. Council member Oliver nominated Tarter, who was first elected mayor by his colleagues two years ago and was the top vote getter in achieving re-election in the November 2015 general election, and there were no other nomina-
SEE PAGES 14-17
On New Year’s Eve some friends and family members had a drink at a bar in Tel Aviv. The next day a gunman shot up the place, killing two people and wounding at least five.
For Vice Mayor, Snyder Defers & Backs Connelly