April 12 - 18, 2012
Falls Church, Virginia • w w w . fc n p . c o m • Free
Founded 1991 • V o l . XXII No. 7
Falls Church • Tysons Corner • Merrifield • McLean • North Arlington • Bailey’s Crossroads
Inside This Week Moran Will Face Primary Challenge
Bruce Shuttleworth, a businessman and Navy veteran, has been certified to challenge 10-term Rep. Jim Moran in an 8th District Democratic primary on June 12, the action reversing an earlier determination that the candidate had come up just short of the required number of petition signatures to qualify. See News Briefs, page 8
F.C. Council Appears Poised to OK Salary Hike
Falls Church Sets Process in Motion to Sell Water System Bid Minimum Set At $44 Million, Final Say is City Voters’
by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
With less than two weeks before the April 23 deadline to button up the City of Falls Church’s operating budget for Fiscal Year 2013 that begins July 1, the seven-member F.C. City Council appears to be heading toward providing a “meaningful” salary increase for City employees. See page 19
David Brooks: The Two Economies
The creative dynamism of American business is astounding and a little terrifying.
See page 12
Press Pass: Donora
For a band like Donora that makes feel-good indie-pop music, it’s only fitting that the group has a similarly smile-inducing story of how it came to be. See page 25
JAMMING THE HISTORIC CHAPEL on the campus of The Falls Church Sunday, “continuing” Episcopalians came home to their property. (Photo: News-Press)
‘Continuing’ Episcopalians Come Home At Last to The Falls Church by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
Index Editorial..................6 Letters..............6, 24 News & Notes.10-11 Business News....16 Comment........12-15 Calendar.........20-21 Restaurant Spotlight ............................22
Sports..................23 Press Pass..........25 Classified Ads . ...26 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword...........29 Critter Corner.......30 Business Listing . 31
The historic chapel on the campus of The Falls Church was filled to overflowing last Easter Sunday, marking the homecoming of persevering Episcopalian worshipers who had been banished from the site for over five years. It was a moving and joyous occasion for many who attended, having endured the years of an occupation of the historic site by a breakaway congregation that left the Episcopal Diocese
in 2006 to protest, among other things, the Episcopal Church’s election of an openly gay bishop. In January, a Fairfax Circuit judge ordered the property, and that of other Episcopal churches in Virginia where the same thing happened, back to the Episcopal diocese. Sunday marked the first return of the “continuing Episcopalians,” who had persisted in their faith by worshiping in the fellowship hall of a church across the street. On a beautiful Easter morning, the chapel dating to 1732 was filled to capacity,
with folding chairs added to any and all available open spaces, for a rousing celebration of Easter and the return to the sanctuary. “You may notice some leading this service having breaks in their voices,” the Rev. Cathy Tibbetts, who led the service, told the congregation. “That’s because of the momentous occasion today represents. It is a wonderful day.” Preaching on a Resurrection theme, Tibbetts told the congregation, “We have come home to do God’s work.”
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By a 6-1 vote Monday night, the Falls Church City Council authorized City Manager Wyatt Shields to issue an invitation for public water suppliers to bid on the purchase of the embattled Falls Church water system. The “Invitation to Bid” was released yesterday through a press release to local media and mailings to all who’d responded to the City’s earlier “Request for Expressions of Interest” in the system. The invitations stipulated that all bidders receive the same set of conditions for the purchase of the City’s publicly-owned water system that would include the grant of a 40-year easement for water system facilities on public property. The conditions include a guarantee of employment for current utility employees for one year at comparable pay and benefits, and a rate freeze for one year. Notice of an optional pre-bid meeting was also provided, to be held Monday, April 23, at 10 a.m. in the Council chambers at the Falls Church City Hall. The Council’s decision came after a series of long sessions behind closed doors by the City Council, which mulled the large numbers of “expressions of interest” it received. “We heard from everyone we hoped to,” Shields told the News-Press in a background briefing on Monday. The decision to sell the system came as a shock to some observers, who noted the Council had a number of possible options short of an outright sale. However, the
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