DECEMBER 26, 2024 JANUARY 1, 2025
Falls Church, Virginia • w w w . fc n p . c o m • Free
Founded 1991 • Vol. XXXIV N o . 46
The City of Falls Church’s Independent, Locally-Owned Newspaper of Record, Serving N. Virginia
New Year’s SONGS OF THE SEASON WatchNight: Weather Will Cooperate Annual F.C. Tradition Alive And Well This Jan. 31 by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
Once again this year, the City of Falls Church will be home to a unique and hyper-local celebration on New Year’s Eve, this year being next Tuesday night. In the 100 block of W. Broad St., from 7 p.m. to shortly after midnight and the arrival of the New Year of 2025, Watch Night organizers have arranged for an ample lineup of family-friendly events and activities involving lots of music and amusements. The event is free to the public, and the only variable will, as always, be the weather. Forecasting so far looks very good. The daytime highs next week will be in the low 50s, and on New Year’s Eve in particular, the overnight low will be in the low 40s with a small chance of some precipitation. The annual tradition includes the countdown to midnight involving an historic lighted star that used to grace a water tower behind the State Theatre, hoisted high on a firetruck ladder and descends as the countdown proceeds to the moment the New Year arrives. A number of years back the star was discovered gathering dust in a City storage facility, and through the visionary efforts of some of the annual event’s earliest main organizers, was revived for this function, having enjoyed a new life much as what folks hope will come for them in any new year. Although it is not certain exactly who did what in the early days of Watch Nights in Falls Church, it is
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THE MERIDIAN HIGH music department under the direction of Mary Jo West, held many free concerts, as did their choral counterparts, around the LIttle City this month. This one was held at the Solace Outpost before a large turnout of diners, friends and fans. (Photo: News-Press)
Importance of Tree Canopy Issue Driven Home
by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
“Protecting and Expanding Our Tree Canopy” was the topic of the 2024 Falls Church Village Preservation and Improvement Society (VPIS) fall membership meeting last month held at the fellowship room of the Falls Church Episcopal. Speakers included Heidi Bonnaffon, a Senior Environmental Planner working with the Regional Tree Canopy Subcommittee of the Metropolitan Washington
Council of Governments, and Mary Glass, the Director of Arlington Tree Connection. Amy Crumpton, Volunteer Chair of the VPIS Neighborhood Tree Program moderated. In April 2024, the Regional Tree Canopy Subcommittee of the Climate, Energy and Environment Policy Committee with the Metropolitan Council of Governments released the report Conserving Trees and Forests in Metropolitan Washington. The report details the state of the region’s tree canopy and its environmental benefits, recommends
a 50 percent tree canopy goal for the region, and offers strategies for action at the local level. Ms. Bonnaffon spoke on the goals and impact of this policy report. The report cites three overarching goals for area jurisdictions, beginning with recognizing a goal of ensuring at least 50 percent tree canopy coverage for the entire region through 2050. It also established intermediate goals for jurisdictions based on population density and urbanization, set up to identify tree canopy goals for watersheds, planning districts,
census tracts and towns and smaller communities. Then smaller scale target goals for general land use categories are mature coverage levels associated with 18 general classes of land use categories encountered in the COG region. Arlington Tree Connection came together in late 2022 after a group of residents privately funded an independent tree canopy assessment of Arlington County. Glass discussed the organization’s efforts to bring together residents, businesses, other
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