February 1 – 7, 2018
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. XXVI I NO. 50
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As the planning phase for the new George Mason High School goes into full swing this summer, special considerations are already being made for how to transfer years of commemorative items donated by school alumni to the new campus. SEE PAGE 5
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5 Impressive Design/Development Teams Reply to New High School Call
Noonan Says He’s Thrilled With Quality Of Respondents
BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
The City of Falls Church is accepting nominations for the 2017 Employee of the Year award. Anyone who’s received exceptional service from a City government employee or knows one who goes above and beyond on a regular basis, is encouraged to submit a nomination. SEE NEWS BRIEFS, PAGE 9
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The word that came to mind most often as I watched Donald Trump deliver his first State of the Union address was “pretend.” SEE PAGE 14
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Heating up at just the right time, the George Mason High School’s boys basketball team easily downed Rappahannock County twice in the past week with a win over Strasburg High School sandwiched in between. SEE SPORTS, PAGE 16
U.S. SENATOR TIM KAINE toured Eden Center in the City of Falls Church yesterday, visiting with Vietnamese-American civic leaders, media and business persons. He chatted with the News-Press about Tuesday’s State of the Union address. (P����: N���-P����)
Kaine Visits F.C.’s Eden Center To Talk Trump & Immigration
BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
INDEX
Editorial.................6 Letters...................6 News & Notes10–11 Comment ........ 12-14 Business News ...15 Sports .................16
Calendar .......18–19 Classified Ads .....20 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword ..........21 Critter Corner......22
He wasn’t sitting behind the president for the State of the Union Tuesday night, the way he maybe should have had he won as Hillary Clinton’s running mate, but Virginia U.S. Senator Tim Kaine was in the audience on Capital Hill, and brought a stinging criticism, especially of the immigration component, of President Trump’s speech to the
Eden Center in the City of Falls Church yesterday. His message to Eden Center’s Vietnamese-American civic and business leaders, built around a casual tour of many of the Vietnamese-American retailers in the center and lunch at the Little Viet Garden restaurant, was that all Americans hurt by what President Trump is doing need to think about running for office, whether it’s at the local, regional or wider level.
He cited, to the delight of his roving audience, the case of the election of VietnameseAmerican Kathy Tran from Fairfax, a former refugee, to the state legislature in November, one of 19 newcomers to the Virginia legislature. He added a reference to Del. Elizabeth Guzman, another first-time elected delegate, who delivered the Spanish-speaking version of
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As promised in the interests of maximum public transparency, only somewhat redacted versions of responses to the Falls Church City Schools’ initial request for conceptual proposals for the construction of a new George Mason High School were unveiled on the City of Falls Church website yesterday, and the display of skills, accomplishments and professionalism of the five respondents are breaktaking. “I couldn’t be more pleased with the quality of the companies who responded,” F.C. School Superintendent Peter Noonan told the News-Press in an interview yesterday. “These are all big companies that will do an outstanding job if given the chance. All responded appropriately with comprehensive and thorough looks at what we need.” The task of narrowing the list from five to three by Feb. 20 now falls to an “RFP DownSelect Committee” composed of Noonan, City Manager Wyatt Shields, Planning Commission chair Russ Wodiska, Councilman Dan Sze, School Board members Justin Castillo and Erin Gill and School Board legal counsel Trish Minson. Once this group announces who’s made the cut, a more detailed “request for proposal” is then issued on Feb. 22, and the three finalists will have about three months to hone their more detailed responses. Their submissions will be due in June and the final choice (to be made by a different group) will come in July.
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