March 9 – 15, 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. 3
Falls Church • Tysons Corner • Merrifield • McLean • North Arlington • Bailey’s Crossroads
Inside This Week Police Seek Attempted Bank Robbery Suspect Last Saturday morning, a man attempted to rob the SunTurst bank on West Broad Street in the City of Falls Church last Saturday before fleeing without any cash. See News Briefs, page 9
La Caraqueña Closes In Falls Church
Economic Development Group Added To Mull Road Ahead on Campus Site Tasked With Finding Best Uses to Offset New School Costs
by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
La Caraqueña, the popular Falls Church Venezuelan restaurant housed within the Stratford Motor Lodge, has closed. A note in the window of the restaurant this week read “La Caraqueña Latin Cuisine is closed. We love you, we will miss you and thank you very much for your support!” See News Briefs, page 9
Paul Krugman: A Party Not Ready to Govern
According to Politico, a Trump confidante says that the man in the Oval Office is “tired of everyone thinking his presidency is screwed up.” Pro tip: The best way to combat perceptions that you’re screwing up is, you know, to stop screwing up. See page 14
Mason Girls Season Comes to an End
One bad quarter spelled the end for George Mason High School’s varsity girls basketball team. See sports, page 16
U.S. SENATOR TIM KAINE SPEAKS at press conference to condemn ICE activity at the Rising Hope Mission Church in Alexandria last Thursday. (Photo: News-Press)
Leaders Show Solidarity With Victims of Hate & Prejudice
by Sam Tabachnik
Falls Church News-Press
Index Editorial..................6 Letters....................6 News & Notes.10–11 Comment........ 12–14 Food & Dining......15 Sports..................16
Calendar........18–19 Classified Ads......20 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword ..........21 Critter Corner.......22
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid at a mission church in Alexandria. A bomb threat at a Jewish Day School in Fairfax. A threatening letter sent to a mosque in Falls Church. In the past month, threats and attacks against minority communities have sprung up across Northern Virginia, mirroring a nationwide rise in hate crimes and Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, commonly known as ICE, raids that have stoked fear and anxiety with religious minorities and undocumented immigrants throughout the country. Virginia officials and local faith leaders, alarmed by the growing threats and provocations toward their constituents, held press conferences last week at the Rising Hope Mission Church in Alexandria and the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia in Fairfax to stand in solidarity behind these
vulnerable communities. Last Thursday’s event at Rising Hope came in response to a Feb. 8 raid by ICE agents outside the church in which six Latino men were reportedly interrogated, handcuffed and taken away in vans. Under the Trump administration’s new executive order, ICE agents have arrested more than 680 immigrants across the country between Feb. 7 – 14, according to
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The critical economic development component of the planning for a new high school on the 36-acre campus recently ceded to the City of Falls Church has earned its own special task force which began weekly deliberations last week. The Campus Economic Development Working Group was formed of members of existing Falls Church boards and commissions with an intended focus on addressing specific economic development potentials on the site. In the terms of the deal to transfer the property into the City, in exchange for the City transferring its water system to Fairfax County, up to 10 acres of the land can be dedicated to economic development, ostensibly to help pay for the construction of a new high school. “Our job is to find out what the market might support on that site,” task force member Andy Rankin, appointed to the group as a member of the F.C. Planning Commission, said to fellow Planning Commissioners Monday night. Planning Commission chair Russ Wodiska, another appointee to the group, added, “Our group needs to be laser focused on what the market may be willing to do,” including by looking into what neighbors to the site such as the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech, owners of an educational building and parking lot, and Federal Realty (owners of the shopping center where the Giant Food store is located) may be willing to do.
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