September 10 - 16, 2015
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. XXV No. 29
Falls Church • Tysons Corner • Merrifield • McLean • North Arlington • Bailey’s Crossroads
Inside This Week Council Sends Out New Mason Row Plan
After a long presentation and debate Tuesday, the Falls Church City Council was without a consensus, so was forced to revert to a voice vote of 4-3 to send the latest iteration of the Spectrum Developers’ Mason Row mixed-use project directly to its volunteer boards and commissions for review. See News Briefs, page 8
Another Record Enrollment for F.C. City Schools as Total Now Tops 2,500 Forecast Almost ‘To a Tee,’ Jones Tells News-Press by Nicholas F. Benton
2 F.C. Businesses Robbed Over Holiday Weekend
Falls Church News-Press
be renamed after the civil rights activist and U.S. Supreme Court justice who once lived in the school’s neighborhood. In the wake of the Charleston church massacre in June, the initiative took on a sense of urgency and Alumni for Change, and then the Fairfax County Branch of the NAACP quickly signed on as supporters of the initiative. “I think that the NAACP has done a lot for the cause,” said Lisa McQuail, East Coast chairman of Alumni for Change. “Because they’re are a national organization
As anticipated “almost to a tee,” the Falls Church City Schools opened their doors to another school year Tuesday to a new record high in enrollment. A record 2,515 students were registered and signed in as of the first bell Tuesday morning. F.C. City Schools Superintendent Dr. Toni Jones told the News-Press yesterday that the first day went very smoothly. Student enrollment numbers, she said, will fluctuate some between now and the last day of September, the date when an official count gets sent to Richmond to calculate Falls Church’s share of state funds. Over the course of the coming school year, enrollment will grow by about 30 students at all four of the City schools, she said. “There are no surprises in these enrollment numbers,” she said. “We hire experts (the University of Virginia’s Weldon Institute) to forecast these sort of things, and also we have our own in-house modeling, what we call our Kimble Model (for long-time chief financial officer Hunter Kimble), which comes in extremely close to the Weldon model.” This is the third straight year of a new record high enrollment, and enrollment has been on a consistent path of annual growth since 1982. She said the expected opening in the spring of two new large mixed use projects – the Rushmark project on West Broad and the Lincoln Project on South
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Two businesses on the same street were robbed two days apart in the City of Falls Church over Labor Day weekend but police are calling the two crimes “seemingly unrelated.” See News Briefs, page 8
David Brooks: The Anti-Party Men
This summer three American politicians have risen to the fore, and they all sit outside or at the margin of the party they are trying to lead. See page 12
IT WAS BACK TO SCHOOL time for over 2,500 children in the City of Falls Church School System on Tuesday, as a new record enrollment was welcomed for a third straight year. (Photo: Drew Costley)
Press Pass with Lizz Wright
Lizz Wright is grateful for her new album Freedom & Surrender, which was released just last week. It’s her first album on Concord Records after she was let go by her first label last year.
Fairfax NAACP Weighs In on Call For J.E.B. Stuart Name Change
See page 18
by Drew Costley
Editorial..................6 Letters..............6, 16 News & Notes.10-11 Comment........12-15 Business News....17 Food & Dining......19
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Fairfax County branch publicly announced on Sept. 6 that it is partnering with the two groups, Students for Change and Alumni for Change, who are seeking to change the name of Falls Church’s J.E.B. Stuart High School to Thurgood Marshall High School. “It is time for our public institutions, including our schools, to reflect the values and diversity of today’s citizens and not those
Falls Church News-Press
Index Sports..................21 Calendar.........26-27 Classified Ads .....28 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword...........29 Critter Corner.......30
held over from the days of segregation,” said Shirley Ginwright, president of the Fairfax County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “We are committed to toppling every vestige of segregation within our county so that all citizens can feel welcome and supported.” In May, Students for Change proposed that the name of their school be changed so that it no longer represented the values of the Confederacy but instead represented values that the diverse student body could emulate. It was later suggested that the school