October 9 - 15, 2025
Falls Church, Virginia • w w w . fc n p . c o m • Free
Founded 1991 • Vol. XXXV N o . 35
The City of Falls Church’s Independent, Locally-Owned Newspaper of Record, Serving N. Virginia
F.C. Still Has Big Budget Surplus
NOT BACH-ING DOWN
Credit Economic Growth, But Storm Clouds Loom
by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
Robust economic development provided the City of Falls Church with a significant net surplus in revenues over expenditures in the last fiscal year, but the challenge will be to address how things will go going forward in the face of the mass federal layoffs, firings and government shutdown impacts that the Trump administration has been inflicting, impacting this region especially hard. A final report of the City of Falls Church budgetary performance for its FY25 fiscal year that ended last June 30 showed a healthy net surplus of revenue over expenditures. But some areas signaled a cause for concern going forward, as the Falls Church City Council discussed at its work session Monday night, following the report’s initial unfurling at a meeting of the Council’s Budget and Finance Committee the previous Friday morning.
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THE D.C. REGION’S ONLY classical music radio station, and one of the few in the U.S., Classical WETA, 90.9 FM, is fighting to stay on the air despite having all its federal funding cut by Trump. Veteran announcer Nicole Lacroix seated is shown here at their Shirlington studio with Mary Stewart, external affairs vice president. (Photo: News-Press)
A Classical Radio Station Overcoming Trump’s Cuts
by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
“Defunded But Not Baching Down!” So the new t-shirt declares. With the massive cuts in federal programs impacting almost every aspect of the regional and national economy alike, the future of many of the nation’s most important health, food and housing programs are looking grim. On top of all that, programs that advance soft diplomacy worldwide and soothe the human soul, to help us all to keep affirming that life is worth living and fighting for justice and peace are at risk of being shut down too.
Not the least of these is the Washington, D.C. area’s only classical music station, WETA Classical, which hundreds of thousands of listeners rely on for their sanity, and an appreciation of the uplifting, universal values of beauty and creativity. WETA, with its offices down the road in Shirlington, has been on the air 24-7 through the thick and thin over many years here, through the Great Recession and the Covid pandemic, with comforting voices spinning the hits, so to speak, from Handel, to Haydn, to Mozart to Beethoven, to Schubert, to Brahms, to Dvorak, Saint Saens, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and on and
on and on and on. Always strapped for funds, even with the almost 10 percent of them coming from the federal government, the station has famously carried out week-long fund raising drives from among its listeners twice a year, offering coffee mugs, umbrellas and CDs as thank you’s for the most modest to the most generous contributions. Listeners donate 20 to 25 percent of the budget to the station, but are being called upon to do even more now. The most recent one, conducted earlier this month, offered a new gift, a t-shirt with the slogan, “Defunded and Not Bach-ing Down.” The defiant
music-lovers slogan was chosen from among a set of options by listeners, and characterized the most recent drive. Many listeners, says Mary Stewart, station vice president for external affairs, including many firsttime respondents, gave more than the usual in reaction to the Trump administration’s cutting off of federal dollars. Many station supporters appreciate that WETA Classical is still playing its music as presented by live, on-the-air announcers, who routinely add a compassionate and caring tone to their work. It’s one thing to
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