May 5 – 1 1 , 2 0 1 6
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 N O. 11
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After eight years as principal at George Mason High School, Tyrone Q. Byrd announced Tuesday that he has offered his resignation effective June 30. SEE NEWS BRIEFS, PAGE 9
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Angry Parents Assail F.C. School Board Mulling $1 Million in Cuts L����� C��� B��� R����
Initial Proposal to Remove Assistant Principal Targeted
BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
chair Michael Novotny – for the intense focus session on the Little City yesterday. “Falls Church is a great place to be developing,” Hitt told his colleagues in the real estate development business. “The right leadership is in place and it’s predictable. (That’s one of the most important things for a developer to hear – ed.).
A standing-room-only throng of parents and teachers in the Council chambers at the Falls Church City Hall Tuesday night vented anger and frustration at the Falls Church School Board, assailing the choices the board was faced with and initially made in the first hours after the F.C. City Council cut almost $1 million from the School Board budget request last week. Assailed for lack of transparency and communication, the School Board and Superintendent Dr. Toni Jones were accused by angry parents of “ripping the heart out of a living organism” for proposing cuts that would diminish teacher raises and result in larger classroom sizes. The budget cut proposals were exacerbated by the announcement earlier in the day that eight-year Principal Tyrone Byrd of George Mason High School has resigned as of June 30 (see story, elsewhere this edition). The surprise announcement marked the third resignation of a principal out of the four schools in the Falls Church school system, and was targeted by some angry parents who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting of “mismanagement” in the leadership of the system. One specific proposal for a cut in the budget that the School Board floated last week involved the removal of an assistant principal position at the Mt. Daniel Elementary School. That brought the Mt. Daniel principal Kathleen Halayko to the speaker’s podium to object to the idea.
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Ted White, copy editor at the News-Press, has lived most of his life in Falls Church City and took time to reflect on his career as a writer and The Little City. SEE PAGE 24
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Americans have always put great emphasis on individual choice. But even by our own standards we’ve had a choice explosion over the past 30 years. Americans now have more choices over more things than any other culture in human history. SEE PAGE 14
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X Ambassadors have been on fire since March 2015 when they released the single “Renegades” off of their first full-length album VHS, and are coming to Echostage on May 12. SEE PAGE 25
CITY OF FALLS CHURCH EMPLOYEES installed nifty bike racks like this one seen on the corner of Washington and Broad Streets around the City on Thursday, April 28 donning the Falls Church nickname in an effort to encourage more bicycle ridership in and around the City. (P����: N���-P����)
City of Falls Church Gets Its Day
In Front of 200 Developers
BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
INDEX
Editorial.................6 Letters...................6 News & Notes 10-11 Comment ........ 12-15 Business News ...16 Sports .................18
Calendar ........20-21 Food & Dining.....23 Classified Ads ....28 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword ..........29 Critter Corner......30
In case anyone didn’t already know, developer Todd Hitt of Kiddar Capital, who has three major real estate development projects going on in the City of Falls Church right now, made plain his passion for Falls Church to the over 200 sets of intently focused real estate developer eyes that concentrated for better
than an hour on all things City of Falls Church at the luncheon of NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Corporation, at the fancy Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner yesterday. Hitt joined three other powerful advocates for the City and its economic development potential – Mayor David Tarter, City Planning Department chief James Snyder and the City’s Economic Development Authority (EDA)