Inside this edition is the News-Press’ first quarterly real estate guide featuring articles on the Falls Church and Northern Virginia real estate market, home and garden trends, home improvement, home sale numbers and much more. See Special Section
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The father of the slain Steve Cornejo told the News-Press yesterday that he was disappointed, but not surprised to learn that Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Raymond Morrogh wrote to Falls Church Mayor Robin Gardner this month that he would take no further action to bring Cornejo’s killer to justice.
“He killed my son, he was found culpable by a jury, and he walks the streets a free man,” Austin Cornejo said about Brandon Paul Gottwalt, who Fairfax authorities said killed Steve Cornejo, 24, in selfdefense during an altercation in June 2005. This was despite the fact that a jury in a civil trial found Gottwalt responsible for Cornejo’s “wrongful death” in March 2007, and awarded the
Cornejo family $2 million damages, which it will never collect. The coroner’s report confirmed that Gottwalt shot Cornejo in the back from a close distance with a .38 revolver. Jack Stephen “Steve” Cornejo was, as his father recalled, “extremely popular” with “a lot of friends” in the City of Falls Church. He was co-captain of George Mason High School’s
The Falls Church City Council and Planning Commission have been at loggerheads for a long time. This week, a leading Council member took the opportunity of her electoral defeat this May to hop over into the Planning Commission’s lair. By a 5-1 vote, the F.C. City Council appointed former Vice Mayor Lindy Hockenberry to the City’s Planning Commission Monday night. Hockenberry, who was defeated by a narrow 39-vote margin in a bid for a third term on the City Council in May, fills an unexpired term on the Planning Commission that will run through the end of 2009. The vacancy was created when Commission Rob Puentes resigned earlier this year. Hockenberry and the Planning Commissioners she’s joining haven’t agreed on much over her eight years on the City Council. This year, alone, the Planning Commission has given thumbs down to three large scale development projects, two of whom the City Council, with Hockenberry’s leadership as vice mayor, approved unanimously, and a third it is expected to approve next month. Hockenberry is a long-time Falls Church City resident who has taught over 30 years in the City school system. After a brief hiatus, she resumed fulltime teaching at the Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School last fall. With Councilman David Snyder absent, the only vote against Hockenberry came from new Council member Nader Baroukh, who had earlier failed
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