In an unprecedented move, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors will begin a series of extraordinary meetings later this summer to prepare for draconian cuts in its budget, including the elimination of some essential programs. Providence District Supervisor Linda Smyth reported this development in remarks to the monthly luncheon of the Merrifield Business Association Tuesday, laying out a grim pic-
ture of what the housing foreclosure crisis is causing to happen in Fairfax County. Smyth, who spoke with the News-Press following her remarks to the business group, said that the rate of housing foreclosures is continuing to accelerate in the county, centered in clusters around Springfield and the Route 1 corridor. She presented statistics showing that in 2006 there were a total of 593 foreclosures in the county, Virginia’s largest with over a million people. But in 2007, that number shot up
to 4,527. And in the first four months of 2008 alone, there have been 4,922, representing an annual rate of almost 15,000 if the same trend continues. Smyth said that the best guess at present is that the rate of foreclosures will result in a $350 million shortfall for the county’s next annual operating budget, the one that will commence in July 2009. She said there is no data, so far, to indicate how this will impact revenues for the fiscal
A final vote on a proposed 110-room Hilton Garden Inn in the 700 block of West Broad Street in Falls Church, projected to bring $381,000 annually in new tax revenues to the City, is expected by the Falls Church City Council next week. The vote will take place either at the Council’s regular business meeting Monday or at a followup meeting later in the week, depending on whether Council members are comfortable with casting their votes. But at a work session this week, all Council members who will be present Monday agreed that an “up or down” vote should occur before July 1, when two current members of the Council will depart and newly-elected Council members will come in. “This current Council has been involved in all the deliberations on this subject, and therefore it’s our responsibility to see it through,” Falls Church Mayor Robin Gardner said at the work session. Other Council members said they were prepared to vote this Monday. Meanwhile, more meetings seeking accommodations between developer Robert Young of the Jefferson Group LLC and neighbors to the site, including parents of students attending the nearby St. James School, were to go forward this week. Young announced major changes to his project this week, including eliminating his proposed office building on Park Avenue, thus enabling access to all levels of his proposed parking garage from Broad Street.
Continued on Page 4
Continued on Page 5