July 31 August 6, 2025
Falls Church, Virginia • w w w . fc n p . c o m • Free
Founded 1991 • Vol. XXXV N o . 25
The City of Falls Church’s Independent, Locally-Owned Newspaper of Record, Serving N. Virginia
F.C. Gets FILLING CONNOLLY’S SHOES Its First Traffic Circle Construction Begins at Annandale & S. Maple
by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
For anyone who drives into D.C., roundabouts are nothing new. They’re wildly popular in Europe, as anyone who watched the Tour de France bicycle race last week can attest. And throughout the Caribbean. They’re growing in popularity in this region, too. With the blessings of the Virginia Department of Transportation, some have already appeared in Loudoun County, Prince William, Fauquier and Orange counties. Now Falls Church is about to get its first. The signage has gone up at the intersection of Annandale Rd. and S. Maple St. and the work was slated to begin July 21 with traffic disruptions due to begin later this week. Construction time is estimated at 300 days, indicating a finish by late next spring. There will be temporary lane closures and sidewalk closures. At times there will be full closures of the
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This Year’s Finalists NEWS-PRESS
2025
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DEMOCRAT JAMES Walkinshaw chatted with supporters following Monday’s well-attended debate with Republican rival Stewart Whitson in Reston Monday night. Early voting has begun in this race to fill the 11th Congressional District seat vacated in May by the passing of Rep. Gerry Connolly. Election Day is Sept. 9. (Photo: News-Press)
Walkinshaw Outshines Whitson in Big Debate
by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
The first consequential election since Trump won last fall is being held right in our own backyard. It is the special U.S. Congressional election in which early voting got underway this week in advance of a Sept. 9 election day in the 11th Congressional District of Virginia, a district just to the west of Falls Church that juts right up against the City in some areas. The election follows the death of long-time Congressman Gerry Connolly on May 11, who represented that district from 2009 on and oversaw its shift from moderately
Republican to decidedly Democratic over the last 16 years. Now, the next U.S. representative from that area will either be Democrat James Walkinshaw, Connolly’s long-time aid and collaborator, now an effective Fairfax County Supervisor from the Braddock District, or Republican Stewart Whitson, the senior director of Federal Affairs at the conservative D.C.-based Foundation for Government Accountability, credited with achieving major cuts in the federal SNAP (food stamp) program. Walkinshaw and Whitson squared off in a head-to-head debate this Monday hosted by the Reston Civic Association and held at the
Reston Community Center in front of about 300 noisy observers. If the debate were to be described as feisty or raucous, it would only be because the audience was, not so much the candidates. Despite repeated pleas from the moderator to desist, a dozen or so backers of Whitson continued to rile the audience with loud insults and objections to Walkinshaw’s remarks, in particular. Walkinshaw’s supporters in the audience sought to match the noise with loud applause and cheers for their candidate when he scored strong points. The pro-Whitson noise-makers were particularly vocal when Walkinshaw tied his oppo-
nent to President Trump, and proWalkinshaw backers were loudest when their candidate championed the plight of federal workers and contractors who are being laid off in record numbers by Trump. Most media coverage of the race is suggesting that Walkinshaw is the strong favorite because of Connolly’s success in turning the district “blue,” winning his last election with a 65 percentage point majority. But while Walkinshaw demonstrated a dauntless and straightforward knowledge and ability to articulate the issues, his new opponent Whitson proved a daunting adversary, with well-spo-
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