March 2 – 8, 2017
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. X X V I I N o. 2
Falls Church • Tysons Corner • Merrifield • McLean • North Arlington • Bailey’s Crossroads
Inside This Week Do Cottages Have a Future in Falls Church? In the spring edition of the Real Estate Guide inside this issue, the News-Press takes a look at cottage communities in the Little City, the Northern Virginia Home Expo, an F.C. architecht who’s moved beyond McMansions and more. See pages 13–19
Supreme Court Rules Vs. Va. Gerrymandering
In Split 4-3 Vote, F.C. School Board Votes to Ask for 3.7% Funding Hike Bloom City
Request Comes in 1% Higher Than City Council Wanted
by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
In a press release last Friday, Manassas Park Police said they are currently conducting an investigation jointly with Child Protection Services on allegations that may have occurred between September 2014 and April 2015 while Estrada was a teacher at Manassas Park Middle School.
Faced by a deadline and in a highly uncommon development, the Falls Church School Board cast a split vote, 4-3, to approve its annual budget request that will be passed onto the F.C. City Manager and City Council. The vote sent a budget request calling for a 3.7-percent increase in the City’s transfer to the schools for the coming school year. That request was higher than the 2.7 percent “guidance” that the Council issued to the School Board in December, but was justified by the majority on the School Board by the 6.3-percent enrollment growth in the school system this year. The adopted budget request calls for a total school system budget of $50,708,200, with a transfer request from the City of $41,178,000. The next step in the process of developing the City of Falls Church’s Fiscal Year 2018 budget, to go into effect on July 1, will be for City Manager Wyatt Shields to take the totality of the School Board budget request and build it into his recommended overall budget for the City which last year exceeded $88 million. His recommended budget will be presented to the City Council in mid-March, and the Council will have until the end of April to determine the size of the budget, including whether or not a real estate tax rate increase will be required. Earlier last month, the City government learned that real estate assessments grew by 3.6 percent overall, higher than in most other jurisdictions in the region, but still not enough to avoid placing major constraints on the size and scope
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The U.S. Supreme Court found that a lower court applied an inappropriate analysis in a Virginia redistricting case which claimed that 11 House delegate districts in the state “withstood Constitutional muster.” See News Briefs, page 9
David Brooks: Today’s Age of Reason Last week we were finishing off a seminar in grand strategy when one of my Yale colleagues, Charles Hill, drew a diagram on the board that put today’s events in a sweeping historical perspective. See page 12
Mason Girls In Action Today vs. Martinsville
The third-seeded Mustangs will face the 2A West region’s secondseed, Martinsville High School, at James Madison University’s Convocation Center today. See sports, page 24
WITH TEMPERATURES HITTING near-record highs last week and the spring-like weather continuing through Wednesday, cherry blossom trees in the Little City have already begun to bloom. Trees lining Park Avenue in Falls Church were showing off their bright pink and white blossoms this week, days before the mercury was set to dip into the 40s. (Photo: News-Press)
Police Investigating Additional Allegations vs. F.C. Teacher
by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
Index
Editorial..................6 Letters....................6 News & Notes.10–11 Comment.. 12, 22–23 Calendar........20–21 Sports..................24
Food & Dining......27 Classified Ads......28 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword ..........29 Critter Corner.......30
City of Falls Church Mayor David Tarter began Monday night’s meeting of the Falls Church City Council by reading a forceful statement in wake of sexual abuse charges against Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School teacher Jose Daniel Estrada, arrested last week and charged with molesting
two female students. The charges have been compounded by unconfirmed reports by a regional media outlet that Estrada had been removed from other teaching positions and merely “counseled” to avoid situations of being alone with his students by the Henderson Middle School principal in the last year. The News-Press received similar unconfirmed reports.