November 7 — 13, 2019
Fa lls Chur c h, V i r g i ni a • ww w. fc np. c om • Fr ee
Fou n d e d 1991 • V ol. XXIX No. 38
Falls Church • Tysons Corner • Merrifield • McLean • North Arlington • Bailey’s Crossroads
Inside This Week F.C. Veterans Day Ceremony Monday
A special Veterans Day Ceremony will be held at the Falls Church City Veterans Memorial in front of the Community Center this Monday at 11 a.m. See News Briefs, page 9
DMV Services Return To F.C. This Month
The City of Falls Church Commissioner of the Revenue has announced several opportunities for Department of Motor Vehicles services in The Little City in November.
F.C. Incumbents’ Sweep Hailed As Major ‘Vote of Confidence’ Tuesday’s Election Seen as Reaffirming Aggressive Agenda by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
from being enacted locally that is not explicitly permitted by state law. With full Democratic control of Richmond for the first time in 26 years, that is all likely to change now, and that may include an effort to do away with the Dillon Rule itself, a remnant of the old centrist Byrd Machine in the state that remains law in only a handful of states in the U.S.
All four incumbents won handily in Tuesday’s City of Falls Church City Council and School Board elections and their success was touted as a “vote of confidence” for the direction they and their colleagues have taken the City in the last four or more years. Securing a voter-approved all-time record $126 million school bond at a record low interest rate offered due to the City’s AAA bond rating and undertaking an all-new state of the art high school and major improvements to the City Hall and library are some of the City’s achievements credited to the incumbents’ win. Tuesday’s election saw Mayor David Tarter and incumbent Council members Letty Hardi and Phil Duncan re-elected with comfortable margins and Phil Reitinger and school parent activists Laura Downs and Susan Dimock landslide winners for the School Board. Liveliest were the post-election parties Tuesday night at Clare and Don’s Beach Shack, hosted by Hardi, who won a second term with the highest vote total among all the candidates in both races, at 3,425, and at Liberty Barbecue, hosted by Downs, winning for the first time with the most votes for her race at 3,380. Most of the Hardi clan, including Letty’s brother and her husband, Lucas, and their three young sons, and Letty’s brother- and parents-in-law, was holding forth
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See News Briefs, page 9
Mustang Volleyball Wins 4th Straight George Mason High School’s volleyball team now has four straight-set victories in a row after acing away the playoff hopes of Maggie Walker Governor’s School in the 3B Region quarterfinal Tuesday. See Sports, page 16
Mason Football Falls To William Monroe
The George Mason Mustangs struggled early on both sides of the ball, allowing three first-half touchdowns as they fell to 4-5 on the season. See sports, page 16
RE-ELECTED TUESDAY and celebrating at Clare and Don’s were (left to right) City Council member Phil Duncan, State Del. Marcus Simon and Council member Letty Hardi. (Photo: News-Press)
Legislative Priorities to Shift As Dems Win State Control by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
Index
Editorial................6 Letters..................6 News & Notes.10,11 Comment.... 12,13 Business News.15 School News.... 17
Calendar..... 18,19 Classified Ads... 20 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword........ 21 Crime Report.... 22 Critter Corner.... 22
As Tuesday’s historic election returns will translate into Democratic majorities in the Virginia House of Delegates and the State Senate come January, the City of Falls Church’s annual laundry list of legislative priorities has suddenly taken on a new level of significance. In past years, the compilation of City priorities for Richmond
took the form of a high-minded visionary ideals more than realistic requests, because important issues such as gun control, equality issues and the environment faced impossible odds under Republican leadership in Richmond. The City, as with local jurisdictions throughout the commonwealth, were stymied from taking meaningful actions to protect and affirm the needs of its constituents by the state’s infamous Dillon Rule, which prohibits any law