March 21 - 27, 2024
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 • Vol. XXXIV No. 6
The City of Falls Church’s Independent, Locally-Owned Newspaper of Record, Serving N. Virginia
F.C. Should Dump Plans for City Property Yard
MIGHT AS WELL BE SPRING!
With Beyer, Site Could be A Monster of Development by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
Accompanying City Manager Wyatt Shields’ annual Falls Church operating budget proposal due the end of this month will be an equally unwieldy so-called Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) budget that will suggest Council priorities for non-operating budget expenditures, mainly infrastructure projects. At its meeting scheduled for last night, the City’s Planning Commission was due to act on a measure to recommend adoption of the City staff’s outline of proposed coming CIP projects over the next half dozen years. But this year, the plan could run afoul of some new potentially ambitious economic development plans that have some members of the City’s quasiprivate Economic Development Authority (EDA) concerned, the News-Press has learned. The CIP recommended plans, developed under the City’s Operating Department head Andy Young and prepared by the City’s CIP Coordinator Caitlin Sobsey, could be standing in the way of some important development plans that are in an infancy stage. Perhaps the most critical case involves the City’s Public Works Department’s plan for a new building on the five acres of City-owned land that is now being used as a property yard off Gordon Road.
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THERE WAS NO MORE gorgeous tree in the entire DMV than what blossomed in Falls Church’s Winter Hill neighborhood to greet the arrival of Spring this week. (Photo: News-Press)
Beyer Spearheads Effort to Bypass House Speaker
by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
While Falls Church’s U.S. Rep. Donald S. Beyer Jr. joined colleagues at the Capitol today to unveil new legislation to change how Congress is elected, he is also helping to spearhead the effort in Congress to bypass the intransigent Trump-backing House speaker Mike Johnson get a vote on vitally needed military aid for Ukraine; Observers insist that if the matter, the version already approved by the Senate, can come to a vote in the House it will pass easily. But Johnson is standing in the way of that on orders from Russian agent Trump. Beyer was joined on the Hill for a press conference on a new
voting plan, but more important was his seminal role in trying to force the House to take action on the Ukraine aid measure. A “petition to vacate” needs 220 votes to pass, and so far as of Wednesday night, while every Democrat in the House has signed onto it, not a single Republican has. The Senate early Tuesday passed an emergency spending package that would provide military aid to Ukraine and Israel; replenish U.S. weapons systems; and provide food, water, and other humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza. The Senate jettisoned from the package a bipartisan effort to boost immigration enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border after most Republican senators,
following the lead of Trump, deemed the bipartisan proposal inadequate. Abandoning the border proposal brought the price tag of the bill down to about $95.3 billion. Now that the Senate approved the emergency spending package, it is up to the Republicanled House to take it up, change it or let it die. Speaker Johnson cast new doubt on the package in a statement Monday evening, making clear that it could be weeks or months before Congress sends the legislation to President Joe Biden’s desk — if at all. After a bill has been introduced and referred to a standing committee for 30 days, a member of the House can file a motion to have the bill dis-
charged, or released, from consideration by the committee. In order to do this, a majority of the House (218 voting members, not delegates) must sign the petition. Once a discharge petition reaches 218 members, after several legislative days, the House considers the motion to discharge the legislation and takes a vote after 20 minutes of debate. If the vote passes (by all those who signed the petition in the first place), then the House will take up the measure. Because discharging a bill from a standing committee is a lengthy process and there are multiple ways for the Speaker to intervene, members of the minority party might instead
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