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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 NO. 25
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Fairfax County police arrested a Vienna man they say robbed a bank in Merrifield Tuesday and have linked the suspect to earlier robberies at two other area banks. SEE NEWS BRIEFS, PAGE 9
Vote Today at BestOfFC.com! For details, see pages 10-11
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F.C. Council, School Board Begin Relaunch of School Land Project Joint Meeting Brings On Consultant to
‘Ask Right Questions’
BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
U.S. Rep. Donald S. Beyer Jr. sharply contrasted the economic plans of Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to that of her Republican rival Donald Trump at a press event in North Arlington Monday morning.
tial” to “parks and open space,” the map of the property in the Comprehensive Plan was to add a school symbol to the site, and to depict it and the entire Thomas Jefferson property as “other parks and open space.” The silence by the Council was interpreted by some as a form of acknowledgment of the truth of the claims by neighbors to the site. John Transue, a resident adjacent the Fellows land for the last
A three-hour joint meeting of the Falls Church City Council and School Board Tuesday night was the first public meeting they’ve held together since they jointly decided to change course on how to develop the 38 acres ceded to the City by the sale of its water system to Fairfax County. Efforts by Michael Akin and his colleagues at the consulting firm Link Strategies Tuesday were aimed at breaking the paralysis in decision making that has ensued since that “decoupling” decision was made. By the end of the meeting, the bodies reached a rough consensus to permit City Manager Wyatt Shields to draft a scope of work for the purpose of hiring (probably) the Link Strategies firm for three months at $15,000 per month to conduct a series of interviews with relevant public and private officials, and with other potential stakeholders in the project, such as Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA), the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech, Federal Realty (owners of the strip mall adjacent the site) and to present a series of carefully crafted questions whose answers will be determinant for how the project moves forward this fall. Among the “moving parts” in the project are the need to build and/or renovate the George Mason High School on the land, and to achieve economic development through the commercial use of up to 11 acres of the land to help offset whatever the cost of the new
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SEE NEWS BRIEFS, PAGE 9
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The campaign still has three ugly months to go, but the odds — 83 percent odds, according to the New York Times’ model — are that it will end with the election of a sane, sensible president. SEE PAGE 14
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X, a punk band from the nascent period of the musical genre, has been together for close to 40 years. Exene Cervenka, the group’s vocalist, says it’s because they are still alive. SEE PAGE 25
MICHAEL AKIN (right) of the Link Strategies Partners, stressed a point to the joint F.C.-School Board meeting Tuesday. Members of the School Board are to his right, and members of the City Council are across the table from him, not shown. (P����: N���-P����)
Council Votes, 5-1, to Change Designation of Fellows Land
BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
INDEX Editorial.................6 Letters.............6, 18 News & Notes 12-13 Comment ........ 14-17 Business News ...19 Calendar ........20-21
Food & Dining.....23 Classified Ads ....28 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword ..........29 Critter Corner......30
An eerie silence accompanied the 5-1 vote of the Falls Church City Council Monday night to reclassify in the City’s Comprehensive Plan the 1.95acre parcel known as the Fellows Living Trust Tract adjacent Thomas Jefferson Elementary School. The motion, the second and the vote was accompanied by exactly no comment from any member of the Council, or the City staff for
that matter. It came just after a number of citizens with property adjacent the Fellows tract at 604 S. Oak protested the move on grounds that it would deter the ability of the Fellows family to subdivide and sell parcels of the property for residential uses, and that it would thereby hold the land for possible City action to impose “eminent domain” for purposes of expanding the Thomas Jefferson school footprint. In addition to the reclassification from “low density residen-