June 28 – July 4, 2018
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. XXVIII NO. 19
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Falls Church’s free annual Independence Day celebration is set again this year for next Wednesday at George Mason High School with live music, food trucks and, of course, fireworks. SEE NEWS BRIEFS, PAGE 8
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Major Planning & Decisions Loom for F.C. West End Project This Summer
Tight Schedules To Keep Everyone Busy For Weeks
BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
The Falls Church City Council voted unanimously Monday to authorize spending $182,000 on books, audiobooks, compact discs and DVDs from Baker and Taylor.
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
Don Beyer, who represents the 8th District of Virginia that includes the City of Falls Church. Beyer has led the effort, now joined by 77 Congressmen, to shed a spotlight on reports of mistreatment toward migrant children currently in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) by releasing to the press a letter signed by the 77 lawmakers to Scott Lloyd, director of the ORR, and Alex Azar, secretary
It may be the lazy days of summer for many of us, but not for the Falls Church City Council and School Board and those who are bidding to build a new high school or economically develop 10.3 acres on the City of Falls Church West End, as big planning efforts and decisions loom in the coming days and weeks to keep the massive project on schedule. Tomorrow, in fact, the special team appointed to evaluate and select the final design-build team that will work with the School Board to construct a new George Mason High School will conduct extensive interviews with the two finalists. The two finalist teams that the evaluation team will be selecting from are David Smoot with Perkins Eastman, and Gilbane, Stenec and Quinn Evans. The evaluation team down-selected from five bidders in the end of February to three, and then to this two. The evaluation team, it is hoped, will reach a significant consensus by the end of the day Friday to make its final choice, although the public, with the exception of a few hints that Superintendent Peter Noonan may signal concerning design concepts in the meantime, will not be informed of that final choice until the F.C. School Board meeting of July 17. At that meeting, the School Board will vote to ratify the recommendation of the committee, which will include the terms of a contract crafted after this Friday, and the City Council will vote to do the same the following week on July 23.
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SEE NEWS BRIEFS, PAGE 8
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For a solid week, the most discussed story in America — the one that dominated serious newscasts and owned the home pages of influential periodicals — was the Trump administration’s cruel separation of migrant families and detention of some children in de facto cages. SEE PAGE 14
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Monkeyboy Consumables, a new pop-up food incubator in Falls Church, brings veggie-based sauces, soda and more to the former Mike’s Deli space on N. West St. SEE PAGE 17
FALLS CHURCH PLANNING consultant Susan Bell briefed the F.C. City Council on a proposed rezoning ordinance for the West End Development project to designate it as “a special revitalization district for education and economic development.” (P����: N���-P����)
Virginia’s Legislators Remain Focused on Immigration Fight BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
INDEX
Editorial.................6 Letters...................6 News & Notes10–11 Comment ........ 12-14 Calendar .......18–19
Business News ...20 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword ..........21 Critter Corner......22 Classified Ads .....23
The U.S.-Mexican border is nowhere near the Commonwealth of Virginia, but the highest of elected officials in the state have been in sync, loud and visible in their vehement and sustained opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration policy of family separations. Despite an executive order signed last week, the policy has remained in effect, with the report yester-
day that less than a dozen of the more than 2,000 families separated have been reunited, prompting a California judge to order the immediate reunion of detained families. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam took the lead among U.S. governors a week ago to call back the state’s contribution to the National Guard force at the border, and the state’s two U.S. Senators, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, have been tireless in mobilizing opposition to the policy, as has U.S. Rep.