September 24 - 30, 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. 31
Falls Church • Tysons Corner • Merrifield • McLean • North Arlington • Bailey’s Crossroads
Inside This Week Make a Lava Lamp at Va. Tech Makers Festival Saturday
This Saturday, Virginia Tech’s Falls Church campus is hosting the Makers Festival, a free event where attendees can write with soy ink, make a lava lamp, get licensed to drive a robot and more. See page 10
Taco Bamba Wins 2015 Taste of Falls Church
Hot on the heels of its being listed in Business Insider’s “Best Tacos in America” list, Taco Bamba was named the winner of the 2015 Taste of Falls Church last Saturday.
LaCondre: Closing Numbers for FY15 Show F.C. ‘Moving in Right Direction’ Major Contributions R elease of the M onarchs Came From New Mixed-Use Projects by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
and his hand-picked member of the Planning Commission, John Ulfelder, to its much-publicized opposition to the Mt. Daniel expansion plan. The association issued a paper this summer claiming that the 8.73 acre site located three blocks outside the City of Falls Church in Fairfax County would simply be too crowded with the planned improvements. The plans involve increasing the site’s student capacity from 436 to 534 students.
There was no doubt that the financial picture presented by the City of Falls Church’s Chief Financial Officer Richard A. LaCondre to the F.C. City Council on Monday and the F.C. School Board on Tuesday was rosy and upbeat. A diligent fiscal conservative, LaCondre would be reluctant to confirm either descriptive term, always mindful of potential land mines in the future, but everyone seemed pretty encouraged by his numbers, the City general fund’s unaudited actual performance against the budget for the 2015 fiscal year. These numbers will be carried into the Fiscal Year 2017 budget process, which begins with a joint Council-School Board meeting next month, even as there continues a veritable flurry of budgetrelated activity ranging from prospective approval of new large scale development projects to major capital improvement issues facing the City schools and governmental buildings. By LaCondre’s numbers, the City has made a steady and almost complete rebound from the impacts of the last decade’s Great Recession and of the costs of litigating and losing access to transferable funds from the City water system. A general rebound in the wider economy, robust residential real estate value growth, and yields from major new mixed use development projects built since 2003 are combining to strengthen the City ability to press ahead with
Continued on Page 4
Continued on Page 5
See page 22
David Brooks: Pope Francis’ Lessons
One of Pope Francis’ favorite novels is The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni. It is about two lovers whose longing to marry is thwarted by a cowardly and morally mediocre priest and a grasping nobleman. See page 14
Press Pass with Devon Allman Band
Devon Allman said that his live show, which he’s bringing to Gypsy Sally’s in Washington, D.C. next Wednesday, follows the arc of his career. See page 25
TENNLEY JACKSON HOLDS a monarch butterfly in her hand during a release of the butterflies by the Monarch Teacher Network at Cherry Hill Farmhouse last Saturday. The monarchs are currently migrating to Mexico for the winter but are in need of waystations. (Photo: Drew Costley)
Fairfax Co. Planners OK Delay on Mt. Daniel Expansion to November by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
Index Editorial..................6 Letters................6, 8 Sports..................27 News & Notes.10-11 Comment........14-17 Food & Dining......22
Calendar.........20-21 Business News....26 Classified Ads .....28 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword...........29 Critter Corner.......30
A major win for the Falls Church City Schools was achieved at the Fairfax Planning Commission meeting last week when a deferral was granted by the commission on its decision concerning the Mt. Daniel School renovation and expansion. Not only was the deferral granted to permit more time for the City Schools to answer questions from commission members and
the public, but the deferral was set back to after this upcoming November 3 election, which could be considered the most important success for the F.C. Schools. It means, in short, that politics as a factor influencing any decision by the commission has been neutralized. Fairfax County’s Dranesville Supervisor John Foust is engaged in a rough re-election battle this fall against challenger Jennifer Chronis. In this context, the McLean Citizens Association has been demanding the allegiance of Foust
PAGE 2 | SEPTEMBER 24 – 30, 2015
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
Political Influence Blunted in Latest Mt. Daniel Plan Delay Continued from Page 1
The rule of thumb for such matters when taken up by the Planning Commission is the same as it is for the county’s Board of Supervisors. That is, the rest of the commission or board is heavily inclined to vote in whatever direction the representative of a district in question recommends. Therefore, in this case, the recommendation of Ulfelder, as a perceived surrogate of Foust, would be decisive. If Ulfelder were to go against the wishes of the McLean Citizens Association and recommend in favor of the Mt. Daniel expansion, then the project would be approved overall, but without a doubt at the expense of Foust’s re-election. So, Ulfelder opened the agenda item on Mt. Daniel last Thursday with the following, “The applicant (Falls Church Schools – ed.) has requested that we further defer our decision while they proceed with a detailed traffic analysis to help address the impact of the difficult traffic access and circulation issues involving this particular school site now and into the future, as well as to consider possible alternatives to the proposed expansion plan.” He added that while written request “for further referral did not propose or suggest a specific date for a decision in this matter, the applicant’s representative made it clear to me that a new date in early November would be both appropriate and acceptable.” Thus, by recommending a postponement of the date to reconsider until November 4, the day after the November election, Ulfedler relieved himself of a lot of political pressure, helping to better ensure that the matter will be considered on its merits alone. “I am hopeful that the applicant will use the additional time to further reexamine the original proposal in light of the various questions and concerns raised during this review process and consider all possible options in order to not only meet the needs of their growing school system, but to ameliorate the potential impacts of any expansion of Mt. Daniel on their Fairfax County neighbors,” Ulfelder said. His motion passed unanimously without
any further comment. Ironically, whereas opposition to Mt. Daniel upgrades in the past drew the most opposition from immediate neighbors to the site, that has not been the case this time, at least not so far. Neighbors are now more concerned that the Falls Church Schools might decide to move the school off the site, altogether, and sell the site to a residential developer who could build hundreds of residential apartments there in its place. For the neighbors, therefore, the school expansion has been seen as the “lesser of evils.” In a summary of the schools’ position, it is stated on its website that “Mt. Daniel School is currently 100 students over capacity. Just in the last two years, dedicated program areas such as art and music rooms, and even the library have been converted to general classrooms. Couple that with the Americans With Disabilities Act deficiencies (lack of sprinklers, wheelchair ramps, small door widths, etc.), Mt. Daniel is in need of an overhaul.” The proposed expansion and renovation involves a demolition of a building with 22,498 square feet and the new addition of 25,843 feet for a net increase in building footprint of 3,345 square feet. Falls Church has provided data to the Fairfax Planning Commissioners citing that “the proposed school expansion is similar in extent as many school sites located in close proximity in Fairfax County.” The nearby Haycock Elementary School, for example, has 879 students on a 10 acre parcel, or 87.9 students per acre, compared to the Mt. Daniel plan for 534 students on 8.73 acres or 61 students per acre. Also in the Dranesville District, Spring Hill Elementary has 955 students on a 10 acre parcel for 99.5 students per acre, Dranesville Elementary has 770 students on five acres for 154 per acre, Glen Forest Elementary has 1,042 students on a 10.2 acre parcel for 102 students per acre, and Greenbriar West Elementary has 1,138 students on 10 acres in the Chantilly area for 113 students per acre. Even when the enrollment at Mt. Daniel is expected to grow to 665 students in 15 years and 690 students in 20 years, the average would remain under 80 students per acre.
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
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Final FY15 Financial Report Shows Impact of Mixed Use
Continued from Page 1
new infrastructure improvements and with optimism about what the development of the 34 acres of now-City held property at the site of its high and middle schools may yield. Budget to actual numbers for FY15 (the fiscal year ending last June 30) showed a net gain of $944,177, with revenues coming in ahead by 0.3 percent of budget (a $215,699 gain), and government expenditures being held 1.9 percent below budget (a $713,944 gain). Over and above that, voluntary concessions for school capital costs saw $680,000 coming in from the Northgate project, with $2,035,481 projected to come from the 301 West Broad (Rushmark/Harris Teeter) project and $1,577,310 from the Lincoln at Tinner Hill project expected in the next year to be used on the Mt. Daniel Elementary renovation and expansion. LaCondre noted that the City’s total fund balance of $31,095,861
includes a robust $14,274,680 in an unassigned category, a form of a “rainy day fund” that at the present time is well over the range required by City ordinance. The range is supposed to be between 12 and 17 percent, but it is currently at 18.5 percent. Reversing earlier trends, the City enjoyed a robust 6.6 percent increase in its personal property tax collections, a 3.7 percent increase in its sales tax and a 3.3 percent increase in its meals tax yields, indicating positive growth of the City’s commercial and retail components, one of the yields anticipated from the new gains in large scale mixed use projects in town. The capital reserves include $1,643,859 from the sale of parcels of downtown City-owned land and $9,358,000 as an aspect from the sale of the City’s water system. Of the water sale proceeds, planned uses in the City’s Capital Improvement Plan include $3,466,146 for parking. “This shows us moving in the right direction,” School Board chair Justin Castillo quipped in an
SEPTEMBER 24 – 30 , 2015 | PAGE 5
RICHARD LACONDRE, the chief �inancial of�icer for the City of Falls Church, presents the year-end �inancial report for FY15 to the Falls Church School Board at its meeting Tuesday night. LaCondre is at the far side of the table, far right. (P����: N���-P����) understated way to the News-Press following LaCondre’s presentation to his board Tuesday night. As the City’s Economic Development Office has evaluated, six new mixed use projects in the City, all built since 2003, have yielded $7.1 million in gross, direct, annual tax revenue to the
City from real estate and personal property taxes, as well as taxes generated by business tenants in these buildings. Their analysis also showed that the new projects yield about $38,688 per year for every child residing in them who attends Falls Church City Schools, a hefty net
plus over the $15,703 that it costs to educate a child. “In aggregate,” according to the EDO report, “mixed use development has proven itself a reliable generator of millions of dollars each year in new tax revenue and positive net fiscal impact for the City.”
E D I TO R I A L
PAGE 6 | SEPTEMBER 24 - 30, 2015
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Vol. XXV, No. 31 September 24 - 30, 2015 • City of Falls Church ‘Business of the Year’ 1991 & 2001 • • Certified by the Commonwealth of Virginia to Publish Official Legal Notices • • Member, Virginia Press Association •
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T� C������ ��� N���-P���� �����: 703-532-3267 ���: 703-342-0347 �����: ���������.��� ������� ����������� ��������.��� ���������� ��� �������������.��� ������� �� ��� ������ ������������.��� ������������� ������������ � �������� �������������.��� WWW.FCNP.COM The Falls Church News-Press is published weekly on Thursdays and is distributed free of charge throughout the City of Falls Church and the Greater Falls Church area. Offices are at 200 Little Falls St., #508, Falls Church, VA 22046. Reproduction of this publication in whole or part is prohibited except with the written permission of the publisher. ©2015 Benton Communications Inc. The News-Press is printed on recycled paper.
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The Canonization of Junipero Serra
Our editor (this writer), not being Catholic, except in the most general “lower-c” sense of the word, nor up on the news of the church, was very pleasantly surprised this week to learn that a big part of Pope Francis’ visit to the U.S. this week was to partake in the canonization to sainthood of Father Junipero Serra, the founder and builder of the California mission system. From his cushy corner in the clouds, there is no doubt that one Franciscan Father Noel Francis Moholy is especially pleased. Moholy was a friend of our editor. It was his job within the Catholic Church to make the case for the elevation of Serra to sainthood, something he dedicated over 40 years of his life to until he passed away in our editor’s home town of Santa Barbara at age 82 in 1998. Santa Barbara’s mission is, by consensus, considered the most beautiful of the string of nine missions that Serra was responsible for. Moholy, a San Francisco native, following his ordination as a priest in 1941 earned a doctor of theology in 1947 and taught for years at the Santa Barbara Theological Seminary. In the 1950s, he led a campaign to restore historic buildings at the Santa Barbara Mission before taking up the call to spend his full time to win sainthood standing for Serra. Cultural relativists have convinced many that Serra was an abuser of indigenous peoples, and as Moholy began to shape his case, opposition to it grew at the same time. Serra was portrayed as an evil, exploitative tyrant. Yet for anyone who has toured his missions, especially the Santa Barbara one, what is on display there are musical instruments, choir robes, books on a variety of scientific and engineering subjects, and even classroom desks, hardly the contents of dungeons. Serra volunteered to lead the mission building in California around the same time as the American revolution was being waged on the other side of the continent. It was launched because of the Spanish empire’s concern that the Russian empire was moving in on California to expand its fur trade and port access from the north, which was true. The two forces came close colliding with each other – Serra from the south and the Russians from the north – a couple hours north of San Francisco (Fort Ross being the southernmost Russian intrusion). Russia backed away. The Spanish plan, in fact, was more in keeping with Enlightenment “city building” than only mission building. Each outpost Serra selected was to have three components: first, a presidio to secure a military defense; second, a mission, to educate the surrounding population; and, third, a pueblo, or city, with a civic government, as a the seat for commerce and trade. Remnants of all three components survive in California, but mostly the missions. Serra laid the groundwork for California’s entry into the U.S. on the side of the Union a half century later.
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Why Not Move Mt. Daniel To F.C. City Hall Site? Editor, Upon the announcement of another request for deferral of the Fairfax County Planning Commission vote, I felt compelled to write. At a recent PTA meeting, Dr. Toni Jones was asked when we would start to consider looking for a location within the City for Mount Daniel. Her response was that a proposal to relocate City Hall and use that site was met with resistance. I am
wondering what are the cons of that scenario? I see a ton of opportunities with Cherry Hill Park, Mary Riley Styles Library and the Community Center facilities nearby. The biggest pro for me would be control over our own destiny. I am concerned that we are starting to look like the pimple-faced teenager scared to ask the popular girl to the dance. We need to know our worth and the merits of this
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project. If they say no, we need to move on. Amaya Lambert Franklin Falls Church
City of F.C. Already Has Enough Traffic Editor, Is there anyone living in this Little City that can remember the stress of trying to drive through the Merrifield area a decade ago during rush hour? Then you remember true frustration of traffic backing up to our city. Fairfax County kept promising it was working on
the situation but promises were all we got for a decade. But, by golly, Fairfax got it right. What a breeze it is to drive the area now! Two left turning lanes, one right turning lane and three through lanes and on both sides, fairly timed traffic lights. Easy in and out to Mosaic and lots of free parking, some which, in turn, attracts a wide variety of business to the area, anchored by a large Target store and nearby Home Depot. Wow! Now where is the traffic? It’s here in the Little City at every major intersection – Broad St., Washington St., Annandale Rd. –
Letters Continued on Page 8
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
CO MME NT
SEPTEMBER 24 - 30, 2015 | PAGE 7
G � � � � C � � � � � �� �� Anti-Development Letters Promote Misguided Fears B� R������ E. M�C������
I read with dismay recently, letters to the editor and an ad in the Falls Church News-Press expressing concerns regarding the demise of the quality of life in Falls Church: too many grocery stores, too many new people, too many new school children, too much new traffic, too few trees and too many ugly new buildings. Over 35 years ago we built our home here. At that time, as far as I know, nobody said we were too many of anything. We added to the school cost and population, increased traffic; and perhaps some people complained about the architectural style for our new home. When my family moved to Falls Church there was too little of almost everything necessary for a distinctive cohesive town center. When we were looking for a place to live that would add to the quality of our life, the real estate agent told us that the “Small town/ Village of Falls Church” would be just the place. I remember driving around the “village” and wondering, “Village, what village? The town was pretty much a strip development stretching east and west along Route 7 and north and south along Route 29. It was a hodge podge of houses converted to retail establishments and strip centers with large parking lots in front. Broad and Washington Streets were essentially routes passing through to shops, restaurants and entertainment in Seven Corners, Tysons Corner and Arlington. There were two blocks of Broad
Street with one and two story non-descript midcentury retail shops on one side of the street, and vacant lots on the other side. There was a large vacant lot on the southwest corner of Broad and Washington and a midrise white brick office building on the diagonally opposite corner, all contributing
“These letters are remembering a past that did not exist.” to the ambiance of “village”? There were no sidewalk trees along Broad Street, no traffic medians with trees, no sidewalk cafes, no ice cream shops, no ethnic restaurants, no toy store, no antique shops, no Art Space, no choice of grocery stores within walking distance of most homes. There were, however, many large parking lots, car repair shops, service stations and car sales lots most of which remain today. There was a City Hall, one block off Broad Street. It was built diagonally across a corner lot with so many front doors that it was like entering the pentagon trying to find the desired department. There were of course several superb qualities which remain today: the wonderful welcoming small town library, Cherry Hill Farm, a community center, eventually a farmers market, a Fourth of July parade, a Memorial Day
fun run, a wonderful hardware store, beautiful churches and churchyards, tree lined residential streets and high quality schools. Our property taxes continue to rise despite some wishes to “hold the line” on physical change. In the meantime there has been increased building just outside the perimeter of our town which has not helped our tax base. This has allowed these new developments to take advantage of a close association with Falls Church without paying our higher property taxes. Construction to the east added to the lower tax base of Arlington by creating several apartment/condo projects with small retail shops, as well as, at least two restaurants with outdoor seating drawing customers from our town. To the west side of town, just outside our perimeter on Lincoln Avenue, an entire block of million dollar plus homes were constructed along with numerous teardown reconstructions on surrounding county streets. These homes are financially more attractive than the same value homes constructed within our town limits because of Fairfax’s lower tax rate. This type of construction is continuing just across from the high school. All these areas, are within easy access and are impacting our town with no Falls Church property tax obligation attached. I hope we are finally learning that we can add our own projects and control the quality of our town while at the same time enhancing our tax base. All of these issues cited in the letters are a continuation of the same old misguided fears:
“too much,” “ruination of our little town’s quality,” “having to choose between our old life and a new Mosaic life,” etc. These letters are remembering a past that did not exist, ignoring the construction continuing apace just outside our control, or are projecting a future that will not be. They are ignoring basic facts. Despite many admirable qualities, we’ve never had a cohesive downtown character; we are not now and will not be a “Mosaic District.” There will not be too many grocery stores but rather an increase in choice and quality. Nobody is writing to complain about too many auto repair shops, service stations, car sales lots or vast street front shopping center parking lots. There will not be too much traffic. When is there ever just enough traffic? All of the projects completed or being proposed will have underground parking for residents as well as shoppers. All of the projects will add street amenities, most with trees lining streets and more not fewer pedestrian oriented retail shops. The Kensington article in the September 17, News-Press cites the demographic consequences of the recent projects: New tax revenue per new school resident is more than twice what it cost to educate a new student coming from these condos or rentals. The City leadership deserves a hearty congratulations for wisely guiding our small town toward a more equitable tax base and an enriched town life. Richard McCommons is an Emeritus member of the American Institute of Architects.
Q������� �� ��� W��� Does Falls Church’s latest positive financial report change your opinion on the direction of the City? • Yes • No
Last Week’s Question:
Are you planning on attending the 40th annual Fall Festival and Taste of Falls Church?
• Don’t know
Log on to www.FCNP.com to cast your vote
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[WRITE FOR THE PRESS] The News-Press welcomes readers to send in submissions in the form of Letters to the Editor
& Guest Commentaries. Letters to the Editor should be no more than 350 words and writers are limited to one appearance every four weeks. Guest Commentaries should be no more than 800 words and writers are limited to one appearance every four months. Because of space constraints, not all submissions will be published. All submissions to the News-Press should be original, unpublished content. We reserve the right to edit submissions for length, grammar and accuracy. All submissions should include writer’s name, address, phone and e-mail address if available.
Email: letters@fcnp.com | Mail: Letters to the Editor, Falls Church News-Press, 200 Little Falls St., #508, Falls Church 22046 | Fax: 703.340.0347
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PAGE 8 | SEPTEMBER 24 – 30, 2015
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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
TO LETTERS THE EDITOR Continued from Page 6 and probably on your street too! While our city planners, with tax dollars in their eyes, are allowing more buildings so close to the existing streets, that it will never be able to expand the width of said street to accommodate the added traffic. It won’t be long before Falls Church will be the city to drive around because you can’t drive through – unless you really need pizza, beer or frozen yogurt! G.J. Wilson Falls Church
P����: L���� G�����
“I started painting when I moved into my new house that had no art. I started to really enjoy it so I kept painting but I had no wall space left. I continued to paint and ended up with a roomful of paintings that I wanted to sell. So I decided to open up a gallery in the city.”
Fairfax County Shouldn’t Add Meal Tax Editor, The recent growth in Fairfax County is unmatched except for possibly after World War II. This added new residency must be creating a burden on the county school
budget. This boom is not being properly planned for as it relates to the expansion of expenditures in the school budget. The record profits being earned by real estate developers is where county elected officials need to focus. To pick on a different industry to cover the burden created by land developers is an inequity. An example of this inequity is the new Mosaic District. Why were the developers allowed to create all that new housing without having to directly contribute to new county school facilities? Will the new property taxes generated by the housing completely cover that costs of all those new families using the school system? I believe that during the post-WWII boom developers were required to actually build schools in the neighborhoods they were developing. If the county is to choose one industry to tax it should be the industry that is directly affecting the revenue needs, not one that appears to be easy picking. When speaking to elected officials, the people in their offices and the
people who work directly for the county bureaucracy like school administrators I often hear: “they have meal tax in Arlington, Falls Church City and Fairfax City so why shouldn’t we do the same?” To this I would like to quote something my mother told me as a child: “If Joe Blow jumps off the Memorial Bridge it doesn’t mean that I should” and “two wrongs do not make a right.” Before the county considers placing a meal tax on the ballot they better well consider other options. They need to consider finding new taxes in the enormous well-funded real estate development industry before coming after an industry that has no part in the creation of the fiscal shortfall that the tax is supposed to remedy. Michael J Natoli Falls Church
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Falls Church EDA Proposes New Pocket Park Michael Novotny, the chair of the Falls Church Economic Development Authority came before the F.C. City Council Monday to outline alternatives for sprucing up a small Cityowned parcel of land in the downtown area which, he proposed, would go hand-in-hand with existing City plans to improve the walkability, looks and access to the downtown. The parcel, which he proposed to be called the “Downtown Falls Church Plaza,” is in the middle of the 100 block of W. Broad Street on the north side, between Hunan Chef and the new Hot N Juicy Crawfish restaurant. The Economic Development Authority began to explore the options for the site a year ago. A range of options include retaining a drivethrough lane or not, outside dining and general use seating options, a water feature and other possibilities. The cost was estimated as high as $500,000. The Council took the report under advisement, with no immediate plans for further action.
Part of S. West St. to Close for 2 Weeks A portion of South West Street was due to be closed for up to two weeks starting this Wednesday, Sept. 23, as the City of Falls Church’s South West Street reconstruction project was to be moved into phase two, according to a City statement. The street will be closed for one to two weeks from Poplar Drive to Fowler Street and a detour for through traffic will take drivers from Parker Ave. to S. Spring Street and Poplar Drive. The City project is reconstructing aging infrastructure along S. West St. and repairing stormwater facility crossings and failing pavement when needed. Where the pavement does not need to be repaired, the street surface will be milled and repaved. More information and a look at past and future phases of the project can be found on the City of Falls Church’s website at www. fallschurch.gov/SWestSt.
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VPIS Announces Fall Tree Planting Schedule Falls Church tree planting volunteers will have a robust planting list this fall, according to a statement released by the F.C. Village Preservation and Improvement Society this week. Each event will begin with a brief demonstration and refreshments before teams fan out to plant trees. Dirt-friendly clothes, boots or heavy shoes and gloves are among the things suggested, and those with a long-handled shovel are encouraged to bring it. Still, there will be plenty of extra tools, and children must be chaperoned. Tree planting events (in case of heavy or steady rain the rain date will be the following Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m.) are: 1. Saturday October 24 at 8:30 a.m. in back of TJ Elementary School (223 W Cameron Rd., Falls Church City, 2. Saturday November 7 at 8:30 a.m. to meet at 1015 Parker St. Tree mulching events will be Friday November 13 at 10:30 a.m. in Cherry Hill Park located behind City Hall in Falls Church City, 311 Park Ave. at the pavilion behind Cherry Hill Farm House), a special event where VPIS will host MVLE, an organization that provides support to disabled adults and Saturday November 21 at 8:30 a.m. Cherry Hill Park (tentative).
Beyer Introduces Federal Pay Bill, Comstock Signs On Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Beyer, who represents the 8th District of Virginia that includes the City of Falls Church and Republican Rep. Rob Wittman distributed a letter to U.S. House colleagues Tuesday to build support for the Federal Employee Retroactive Pay Fairness Act. The bipartisan proposal has already collected 24 cosponsors, including Republican U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock of the 10th District of Virginia, ahead of its introduction next week to protect federal worker pay in the event of a shutdown. “Our federal employees work every day to carry out vital missions keeping our country healthy, safe, and strong,” said Rep. Beyer in a statement this week. “Their pay, and their family’s well-being, should not be in jeopardy because Congress failed to do its job again. I hope my colleagues on Capitol Hill empathize with the anguish these funding battles cause hard-working American families.” Federal employee pay is suspended in the event of a funding lapse or government shutdown. Retroactive pay for all “essential” and “non-essential” federal workers must be approved by Congress. “Consistency and certainty in government funding is critical for our federal employees to carry out the vital missions with which they’ve been tasked,” said Rep. Wittman. “Congress’ unfortunate tendency to govern by crisis stymies the efforts of these dedicated public servants. I will fight to minimize the impacts of this funding uncertainty on the well-being of our federal workers and their families, while also working to return Congress to a regular schedule of budgeting and passing appropriations bills.”
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PAGE 10 | SEPTEMBER 24 - 30, 2015
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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
Virginia Tech’s F.C. Campus Hosts Makers Festival by Drew Costley
Falls Church News-Press
Residents of the region can write with soy ink, make a lava lamp and get licensed to drive a robot at the Makers Festival on Saturday, Sept. 26 from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. at Virginia Tech’s Northern Virginia Center in Falls Church. Virginia Tech’s Falls Church campus is hosting the free festival as part of the statewide Virginia Science Festival, which starts on Saturday, Sept. 26 and lasts through Oct. 30. There are science-related events happening all over the region throughout the next month, but the Makers Festival is probably the largest undertaking planned for the month-long Virginia Science Festival. “We thought that it would be a great opportunity for Virginia Tech, since we have so many resources up here in the National Capital Region, that we share those resources with the local community in a meaningful way,” said Jennifer Carter, associate director of continuing and professional education at Virginia Tech. “The only way that most people engage with Virginia Tech is through a degree-seeking opportunity and that limits us to engaging with one age group who’s looking for graduate school.” Lise Visser, assistant to the associate dean and director of Virginia Tech’s Northern Virginia Center, said that that they expansive resources and research interests to share with the surrounding community. “There’s a wide number of activities involved in the Makers Festival, from circuit making and robotics to motion science. There’s even a cup positioning system thing to build for young makers,” Visser said. “And the
Maker Lab will be open for 3D printing and projects that are readily available for execution will be executed there in that lab.” Carter said that this type of event, which aims to present the public with popular and practical applications of the science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines, has been successful at Tech’s main campus in Blacksburg and Southwest Virginia. And last year, a slightly-smaller version of the Makers Festival was put on in Loudoun County. “So we decided to extend the event to Falls Church in the hopes that we could engage the Falls Church community and surrounding communities with meaningful engagement through hands on activities and experiential learning,” Carter said. Carter said that this type of learning is important because it immerses people in the concepts they are learning about and takes them out of the traditional classroom setting, where it’s more difficult to engage students. The Makers Festival, which will feature a slate of activities that harken back to the Nickelodeon show “Mr. Wizard’s World,” is aimed particularly at children. “I think what we have to do for kids is make science tangible. Make them understand what they’re doing and why they’re doing it,” Carter said. “Obviously we want them to have fun, but we also want them to learn something at the same time so that they become problem solvers and good citizens. “And I think the combination of creating that game environment where they’re completely engaged, they’re doing things with their hands versus just sitting there and being lectured to in a classroom, and they make some-
ONE OF THE 3D PRINTERS in the Virginia Tech Northern Virginia Center’s Maker Lab prints out three-dimensional versions of the school’s logo. (Photo: Drew Costley/News-Press)
JUNBO ZHAO, A PHD CANDIDATE in electrical and computer engineering at Virginia Tech, shows his fellow students, (l to r) Kaveh B. Kelarestaghi, Shalini Sankaranarayanan, Amal Chacko and Harshala Sardar one of the many 3D printing projects that can be executed in Virginia Tech’s Maker Lab in the above photo. Zhao will be helping out with the Makers Festival on Saturday. In the photo on the right, Zhao shows his fellow students some of the products of the school’s 3D printers. (Photos: Drew Costley/News-Press)
thing that they can take with them home, that is a good reminder of their day’s activities.” Visser said that it’s important to bring “young makers in to do activities that they will build on for the rest of their lives.” “They will have an opportunity to get excited and engaged by what’s going in science through these activities,” Visser said. In addition to the Virginia Tech students and staff who will be volunteering at the event, George Mason High School students will be volunteering their time to the event. Members of Mason’s FIRST Robotics will be at the event showcasing the 150-pound robot and teaching children how to drive a much smaller robot. At the end of their robot driving lesson, they’ll get a robot driv-
er’s license to “credential” them for such operations in the future. “The kids can sign up and they can walk up and they get to drive the robot for a couple of minutes. They are taught how to do that, how to control it,” Carter said. “And once they have driven the robot they will be receiving a small robot drivers license that they can take home with them.” Another of the activities that the festival goers can do at the Makers Festival is create ice cream. For that, “students are given a number of ingredients and they learn how, by putting together these different ingredients in certain way then shake up the ingredients, to actually turn that into ice cream,” Carter said. The layout of the festival will be similiar to a science fair, with
different activities stationed at different tables and booths. Festival goers will be given a Makers Festival “passport” and once they complete an activity they will get a stamp in their passport. Other activities that festival goers can partake in include LED painting, t-shirt and paper making and smoothie wars. Visser said that preparations for the event started at least two weeks in advance and will continue through to the event. Virginia Tech has also partnered with other locally-based organizations like Virginia Science Olympiad, STEM Kids and TechShop for the event. “We’re really trying to embed ourselves in the community in a more meaningful way,” Carter said.
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
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SEPTEMBER 24 - 30, 2015 | PAGE 11
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Community News & Notes Pathways Magazine Hosting Natural Living Expo in F.C. Over 120 exhibitors will descend on Fairview Park Marriott and Conference Center, located at 3111 Fairview Park Dr., Falls Church, for Pathways Magazine’s Natural Living Expo on Sunday, Sept. 27 from 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. The magazine’s 42nd Mind, Body, Spirit Event of the year, the expo will feature 63 workshops that deal with different aspects of natural living. Admission for the event is $10 with a coupon. There is free indoor parking at the event. For more information and discount coupons for some of the event vendors, visit naturallivingexpo.com.
Creative Cauldron BroadwayThemed Gala Slated for Oct. 3 Creative Cauldron is bringing Broadway to Falls Church for its 2015-2016 season gala
Broadway Off Broad Street, which is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 3. The event will kick off with a reception at 6:30 and the premier performance of “World Goes ‘Round,” featuring the music of prolific Broadway composers John Kander and Fred Ebb, is scheduled for 8 p.m. The set list for the night of musical theater includes “And All That Jazz,” “Cabaret,” and “New York, New York.” Falls Church’s Hilton Garden Inn will provide light hors d’oeuvres and Creative Cauldron will provide complimentary libations. After the performance there will be desserts and a surprise announcement. Tickets for the reception are $100 per person. Previews of “World Goes ‘Round,” the season-opening production for Creative Cauldron’s 2015-16 season, will begin on Thursday, Oct. 1. Matt Conner is directing the production and
Kara-Tameika Watkins choreographed it. “Audiences will be dazzled by the brilliance of Kander and Ebb,” Conner said. “The songs in this wonderful revue celebrate the resilience of the human heart on a revolving planet filled with love, pain, success and failure.” The show runs through October 25th, with performances scheduled for Thursday – Sunday each weekend. Tickets are $24 for students, military and seniors and $26 for everyone else. For more information or to reserve tickets, visit creativecauldron.org or call 703-436-9948.
Columbia Baptist Church Hosts Family Health Fair Columbia Baptist Church is hosting a Family Health Fair at the church at 101 W. Columbia Street on Saturday, Sept. 26, from 8 a.m. – 1 p.m. There will be free
JIM SHERWOOD (center, white shirt, fixing earbud) and the rest of the runners take off from the starting line at the Falls Church Education Foundation’s Run for the Schools on Sunday, Sept. 20. Sherwood and Ellen Meinhart were the winners of the men’s and women’s categories, respectively. Teachers, students, City officials and school administrators, including City mayor David Tarter and City councilman Phil Duncan participated in the walk/run. (Photo: Carol Sly)
diabetes, blood pressure and eye exams available at the fair. Also, there will be information on health insurance, community support programs and preventative care. In addition to all of the healthrelated activities, there will be games for children to play and free refreshments. The event is being sponsored by the Embassy of Mexico, the Hispanic Institution for the Prevention of Blindness and Columbia Baptist Church.
Local Children’s Center Holds 3rd Annual Teddy Bear Run A free teddy bear will be awarded to all runners and walkers who cross the finish line at the Falls Church-McLean Children’s Center’s Third Annual Teddy Bear 5K & 1K Walk/Run on Sunday, Sept. 27. The event, organized to benefit the Falls ChurchMcLean Children’s Center, starts with a free fair at 2 p.m. and con-
tinues with the run/walk at 4 p.m. It will be held at a new venue this year – Lemon Road Elementary School, located at 7320 Idylwood Road, Falls Church which is home to the Children’s Center day-today operation. The fair will include activities like soccer clinics, puppet shows, balloon artists, face painters, exhibits and a performance by the singing pediatrician Dr. Chris Ko. Starting at 4 p.m., the 1K course will take runners on a shaded path at the foot of the school playground field. The 5K course will start at Pimmit Hill Park through the Pimmit Hills neighborhood to Olney Park. In the case of rain, the fair will be held inside the school’s gymnasium, but races will be held outside rain or shine. For more information, visit fcmlcc.org/2015-teddy-bear5k-sponsorship-opportunities and, to register for the run/walk, visit runsignup.com/TeddyBear5K.
FALLS CHURCH CITY MAYOR DAVID TARTER (center) receives a plaque recognizing the City’s designation as one of the National Wildlife Foundation’s Community Wildlife Habitats on Saturday, Sept. 19 at the Cherry Hill Farmhouse, while the City’s Fall Festival and Taste of Falls Church kicked off. Surrounding him are City officials and community activists, including City Vice-Mayor David Snyder and councilwoman Karen Oliver. (Photo: Courtesy of Judith King)
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4th Annual Day to Serve Sparks Massive Donations
Over 4,000 pounds of food and toiletries were delivered to local food banks on Saturday, Sept. 19 during Falls Church City’s Day to Serve. This year a food drive sponsored by the Falls Church ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints proved no different. Mayor David Tarter spoke to volunteers who attended the Day to Serve event at the Latter-Day Saints chapel on Great Falls Street. “Today I am reminded of what a special place Falls Church is, and in large part it is because of the community minded citizens who contribute so much time and talent to make our community one of caring, inclusion, and creativity,” he said. The food and toiletries collected went to benefit the Columbia Baptist Church “Spend Yourself Pantry” and the Falls Church Community Services Council Food Bank. More than 100 people served nearly 500 hours, canvassing 1,000 homes in the Falls Church area with donation bags and also requesting donations at area grocery stores. “All this just shows you the generosity of people in our area,” said Justin Huff, a church member, as he and others delivered and stocked donations to the “Spend Yourself Pantry.” Other organizations and congregations in the area are still organizing Day to Serve activities, which run until October 12. For more information visit daytoserve.org.
THE 21ST ANNUAL GREENWICH STREET Block Party was held over the weekend. Neighbors who live on and around the street gathered and brought their favorite dishes to share with each other. Children rode bikes and skateboards together and enjoyed face painting and water balloons. (Photo: Courtesy of Katrina Wagner)
New Manager Chosen for Bailey’s Community Shelter Northern Virginia Family Services has been chosen by the Fairfax County Office to Prevent and End Homelessness to manage the Bailey’s Crossroads Community Shelter, the countyowned 50-bed emergency facility for single homeless men and women, located at 3525 Moncure Ave., Falls Church, according to a press release sent out by Northern Virginia Family Services. The organization said that they assumed operations of the shelter on Tuesday, Sept. 1 from Volunteers of America, which had managed the shelter since 1994. Northern Virginia Family Services will operate within a
rapid rehousing model, assisting households to secure stable housing in the shortest time possible, with the support of shelter and community based case management and housing location. Northern Virginia Family Services will also continue to administer other critical services provided through the shelter to include daily shelter drop in and the homeless health care program in partnership with the Fairfax County Health Department. In a memo dated July 13, director of the Office to Prevent and End Homelessness Dean Klein stated: “In the past, it has been said, we managed homelessness. Now the focus is on preventing and ending it.” For more information, visit nvfs.org.
SEPTEMBER 24 - 30, 2015 | PAGE 13
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FAIRFAX COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD CHAIR PAT HYNES (center, blue jacket) stands with the five J.E.B. Stuart High School students who initiated the movement to change the name of their school, (l to r) Anna Rowan, Abby Conde, Lidia Ammanuel, Marley Finley and Cassie Marcotty, at the Fairfax County NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet. The students received the President’s Award at the banquet. (Photo: Courtesy of Mike O’Brien)
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NATI O NA L
Pope Francis’ Lessons
One of Pope Francis’ favorite novels is The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni. It is about two lovers whose longing to marry is thwarted by a cowardly and morally mediocre priest and a grasping nobleman. A good simple friar shelters the suffering couple. Then a plague hits the country, reminding everyone of their mortality and vulnerability, and also bringing about a moral reckoning. As the doctors serve in hospitals for the body, the good people in the church serve in hospitals for the soul. One cardinal remonstrates the cowardly priest. “You should have loved, my son; loved and prayed. Then you would have seen that the forces of iniquity have power to threaten and to wound, but no power to command.” In the end there are heart-wrenching scenes of confession, forgiveness, reconciliation NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE and marriage. I mention Francis’ favorite novel, which he’s read four times, because we in the media are about to over-politicize his visit to America. We’re comfortable talking about our ideological disputes, so we’ll closely follow and cover whatever hints he drops on abortion, gay marriage, global warming and divorce. But this visit is also a spiritual and cultural event. Millions of Americans will display their faith in public. Francis will offer doctrinal instruction for Catholics. But the great gift is the man himself – his manner, the way he carries himself. Specifically, Francis offers a model on two great questions: How do you deeply listen and learn? How do you uphold certain moral standards, while still being loving and merciful to those you befriend? Throughout his life Francis’ core message has been anti-ideological. As Austen Ivereigh notes in his biography The Great Reformer, Francis has consistently criticized abstract intellectual systems that speak in crude generalities, instrumentalize the poor and ignore the rich idiosyncratic nature of each soul and situation. He has written that many of our political debates are so abstract, you can’t smell the sweat of real life. They reduce everything to “tired, gray cartoon-book narratives.” Francis’ great gift, by contrast, is learning through intimacy, not just to study poverty but to live among the poor and feel it as a personal experience from the inside. “I see the church as a field hospital after battle,” Francis told the interviewer Father Antonio Spadaro. “The thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. … Heal the wounds, heal the wounds. … And you have to start from the ground up.” That closeness teaches you granular details but also arouses a sense of respect. “I see the sanctity of God’s people, this daily sanctity,” Francis has said. “I see the holiness in the patience of the people of God: a woman who is raising children, a man who works to bring home the bread, the sick, the elderly priests who have so many wounds but have a smile on their faces.” We practice moral and intellectual elitism, looking upward for status and specialized and de-spiritualized knowledge. Francis emphasizes that different kinds of knowledge come from different quarters. As he put it, “This is how it is with Mary: If you want to know who she is, you ask the theologians; if you want to know how to love her, you have to ask the people.” These days some religious people believe they need to cut themselves off from the corruptions of a decadent modern culture. But Francis argues that you need to throw yourself in the world’s diverse living cultures to see God in his full glory and you need faith to see people in their full depth. He is fond of quoting Dostoyevsky’s line from The Brothers Karamazov, “Whoever does not believe in God will not believe in the people of God. … Only the people and their future spiritual power will convert our atheists, who have severed themselves from their own land.” Francis’ whole approach is personal, intimate and situation-specific. If you are too rigorous and just apply abstract rules, he argues, you are washing your hands of your responsibility to a person. But if you are too lax, and just try to be kind to everybody, you are ignoring the truth of sin and the need to correct it. Only by being immersed in the specificity of that person and that mysterious soul can you strike the right balance between rigor and compassion. Only by being intimate and loving can you match the authority that comes from church teaching with the democratic wisdom that bubbles from each individual’s common sense. Francis is an extraordinary learner, listener and self-doubter. The best part of this week will be watching him relate to people, how he listens deeply and learns from them, how he sees them both in their great sinfulness but also with endless mercy and self-emptying love.
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
David Brooks
The Rage of the Bankers Last week the Federal Reserve chose not to raise interest rates. It was the right decision. In fact, I’m among the economists wondering why we’re even thinking about raising rates right now. But the financial industry’s response may explain what’s going on. You see, the Fed talks a lot to bankers – and bankers reacted to its decision with sheer, unadulterated rage. For those trying to understand the political economy of monetary policy, it was an “Aha!” moment. Suddenly, a lot of what has been puzzling about the discussion makes sense: just follow the money. The basic principles of interest rate policy are fairly simple, and go back more than a century to the Swedish econoNEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE mist Knut Wicksell. He argued that central banks like the Fed or the European Central Bank should set rates at their “natural” level, defined in terms of what happens to inflation. If rates are too low, inflation will accelerate; if rates are too high, inflation will fall and perhaps turn into deflation. By this criterion, it’s hard to argue that current rates are too low. Inflation has been low for years. In particular, the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, has consistently fallen short of its own target of 2 percent, and shows no sign of rising. It’s true that rates – near zero for the short-term interest rates the Fed controls more or less directly – are very low by historical standards. And it’s interesting to ask why the economy seems to need such low rates. But all the evidence says that it does. Again, if you think that rates are much too low, where’s the inflation? Yet the Fed has faced constant criticism for its low-rate policy. Why? The answer is that the story keeps changing. In 2010-2011 the Fed’s critics issued dire warnings about looming inflation. You might have expected some change in tune when inflation failed to materialize. Instead, however, those who used to demand higher rates to head off inflation are still demanding higher rates, but for different reasons. The justification du jour is “financial stability,” the claim that low interest rates breed bubbles and crashes. I suppose this latest excuse for raising rates could be right. But it’s striking how convoluted and dubious the case for rate hikes has become. I like to think of it this way: if left-leaning politicians were to offer
Paul Krugman
rationales for their policies that were this dependent on shaky logic and weak evidence, they would be lambasted for their irresponsibility. Why does anyone take this stuff seriously? Well, when you see ever-changing rationales for never-changing policy demands, it’s a good bet that there’s an ulterior motive. And the rate rage of the bankers – combined with the plunge in bank stocks that followed the Fed’s decision not to hike – offers a powerful clue to the nature of that motive. It’s the bank profits, stupid. Many people have been led astray here by trying to figure out whether easy money is good or bad for wealthy people in general. That’s actually a complicated question. What’s clear, however, is that low rates are bad for bankers. For banks make their profits by taking in deposits and lending the funds out at a higher rate of interest. And this business gets squeezed in a low-interest environment: The rates banks can charge on loans are pushed down, but rates on deposits can only go so low. The net-interest margin – the difference between the interest rate banks receive on loans and the rate they pay on deposits – has fallen sharply over the past five years. The appropriate response of policy makers to this observation should be, “So?” There’s no reason to believe that what’s good for bankers is good for America. But bankers are different from you and me: they have a lot more influence. Monetary officials meet with them all the time, and in many cases expect to join their ranks when they come out on the other side of the revolving door. Also, it’s widely assumed that bankers have special expertise on economic policy, although nothing in the record supports this belief. (The bankers do, however, have excellent tailors.) So we shouldn’t be surprised to see institutions that cater to bankers, not to mention much of the financial press, spinning elaborate justifications for a rate hike that makes no sense in terms of basic economics. And the debate of the past few months, in which the Fed has seemed weirdly eager to raise rates despite warnings from the likes of Larry Summers that it would be a terrible mistake, suggests that even U.S. monetary officials aren’t immune. But the Fed did the right thing last week: nothing. And the howling of the bankers should be taken not as a reason to reconsider, but as a demonstration that the clamor for higher rates has nothing to do with the public interest.
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
NATI O NA L
Football & Mass American Dementia
It may not be evident yet, but pro football, if not football in general, is going the way of professional boxing as a sport in the U.S. Once enormously popular, pro boxing barely exists anymore. So it will become for football. The astonishing report issued by the Department of Veterans Affairs and Boston University this week revealed an absolutely staggering fact. Of 91 deceased National Football League players whose brains were studied, an incredible 87 of them had conclusive evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). That’s 96 percent of them. 96 percent! So far, evidence of the degenerative disease can only be detected if the subject is deceased. It doesn’t take obvious concussions, per se, to bring it on, just a FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS lot of cranial bumping. This latest story, taken from a PBS “Frontline” documentary, was buried on the inside of the sports section of the Washington Post last Saturday, even though the implications of the study are more than huge. They’re epic. Monday, reporting like giddy adolescents on the Sunday game outcome for the Washington, D.C. team, whose management is so stuck in the mud that it stubbornly refuses to correct its highly-bigoted nickname, the Post exclaimed in a front sports page banner headline four times the size of the one about CTE: “Ground and Pound!” Yes, “ground and pound.” That’s how you do it. That’s how you make brain chowder on a football field. That’s the recipe. How disgustingly ironic. At some future point, should our fragile democracy survive, people will look back to this time with greater contempt that they felt when Edward Gibbon famously wrote about the ugly facts of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Today’s football, being without regard for the kind of evidence reported last weekend, is worse than the old gladiator sports of Rome, because this time, it is an entire culture that is caught up in this orgy of self-destruction. In Rome, the “games” were not 22 of the best our society can issue forth in its developmental process to trot out onto a field at a time, with a hundred-thousand watching in person at scores of locations across the country and millions on TV. Today, the athletes have pumped up their bodies to over 300 pounds, cultivated agility and speed, and crash into each other faster and with more force that anyone considered feasible, even in the pros, two decades ago. Sadly, America’s “national pastime” has shifted from baseball to football. Baseball is the most elegant of popular team sports, even though pressured to compete with football, it was tarnished by steroids and false achievements in the 1990s. (Baseball, by the way, paid for my college education, not that there is any point to that in this conversation except to acknowledge that I am not at all anti-sports.) But the shift from baseball, where the size of a competitor is not necessarily a function of his success at all, to football is proving a function of a more brutish, militaristic, angry culture, in general. Virtually every young man growing up in America is expected to play football as a sign of masculinity. As CTE doesn’t require major concussions, only constant banging, who knows, really, how many of our society’s males are harboring the seeds of a crushing dementia, or a more generalized inability to think in an intelligent and nuanced way beyond reducing everything to winning and losing? Can this account, at least in part, for the decline of the national political or cultural discourse? For the Tea Party? After all, a star pro quarterback has made headlines by endorsing Donald Trump! When the VA/Boston University study comes out more fully in coming months, and when Will Smith’s new film, “Concussion,” hits the theaters around the same time, there will be no way to keep a lid on this issue. Like the dangers of smoking, it may take too long to sink in for the general public. But it will happen eventually. In the meantime, any impact this latest evidence can bring to deter what is surely a veritable epidemic of degenerative dementia through individual decisions definitely helps.
SEPTEMBER 24 - 30, 2015 | PAGE 15
Nicholas F. Benton
Nicholas Benton may be emailed at nfbenton@fcnp.com.
Don’t Coronate Fiorina Just Yet The media has a new darling in the Republican presidential disaster pageant: Carly Fiorina. She dominated, “dropped the mic,” “owned the stage” and of course she did it all while “standing in a pair of 3-1/2-inch heels for three hours.” This amount of drooling should come with a year’s supply of bibs. It is true that she found a way to effectively engage and combat the Republican front-runner, something her male counterparts had struggled to do. But before the fawning frenzy spins out of control, let’s take a breath and an honest look at whom it is that is being cheered. Part of Fiorina’s appeal, at least among Republicans, is the thirst for an outsider. A Washington Post/ABC News poll taken earlier this month found that 58 percent of Republicans and 64 percent of conservative Republicans want the next president to be “someone from outside the existing political establishment.” Like the other candidates at the top of the Republican field, Fiorina seems to fit that bill. Only Fiorina isn’t a political outsider by choice, but by defeat. In 2008, she was a top NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE economic adviser for John McCain and held the official title of “chairwoman of the Republican National Committee’s ‘Victory ‘08’ committee,” according to The New York Times. And before McCain picked for his running mate that disaster of a person who was governor of Alaska, The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank wrote of Fiorina’s ambitions: “Fiorina, for her part, couldn’t be any more plain about her vice presidential ambitions without taking out an ad.” In 2010 she ran to unseat California Sen. Barbara Boxer. Of course, she lost. But not before her campaign spent more than $22 million on the race, including more than $5.5 million of Fiorina’s own money. By the way, Fiorina scored points Wednesday by responding to the front-runner’s mocking of her face. But her indignation carried a hint of hypocrisy because when she ran against Boxer, Fiorina was caught on an open mic mocking Boxer’s hair. These are just different versions of the same person, folks: self-aggrandizing schoolyard bullies with deep pockets. But more importantly during Wednesday’s debate, Fiorina unleashed a scurrilous attack in her pitch to defund Planned Parenthood, saying of the attack videos released about the group: “I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch
Maureen Dowd
these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says, ‘We have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.’ ” In fact, the footage of the fetus was “stock footage” that “was added to the video to dramatize its content,” according to PolitiFact, which rated Fiorina’s comments as “mostly false.” FactCheck.org also said: “We are aware of no video showing such a scene.” As Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall put it Friday: “Fiorina has a habit of simply making things up.” But in a way, the veracity of the attack is only one of the problems here. The other is that Fiorina would deny reproductive health services to women who have vastly fewer resources, or choices, than she does. “The evil genius of Fiorina,” Adele M. Stan wrote in The American Prospect, “is her uncanny ability to play the gender warrior within the GOP while promoting the party’s misogyny.” Stan continued: “But her feminism seems to begin and end with the fortunes of Fiorina herself, and seeing as she probably doesn’t rely on Planned Parenthood for her health care, she’s happy to deprive millions of women of that care by promoting outright lies about the organization, as in her false description of the video she referenced.” This distancing herself from the realities of less fortunate women is not new for Fiorina. When she became CEO of Hewlett-Packard in 1999, she made the preposterous claim that “there is not a glass ceiling… My gender is interesting but really not the subject of the story here.” How many American women pressed up against that glass would agree with her? In 2005, Fiorina was unceremoniously ousted from that job. Since then, Fiorina has been trying to rewrite the narrative of that firing, pitting herself as the victim of an old boys’ club with a hint of cruelty, which couldn’t understand and appreciate her. She frames the firing as more about culture than performance. But after Fiorina’s memoir “Tough Choices” was released in 2006, my colleague Joe Nocera wrote a column entitled “Carly Fiorina’s Revisionist Chronicles” that detailed Hewlett-Packard’s lackluster performance during her tenure and stated emphatically: “So I come here this Saturday morning to offer a simple corrective. Carly, it was about performance. And if you didn’t realize that then — and can’t admit it now — you should never have been Hewlett-Packard’s chief executive in the first place.” We also have to ask ourselves now if Fiorina is the kind of person who should be president.
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PAGE 16 | SEPTEMBER 24 - 30, 2015
A Penny for Your Thoughts
News of Greater Falls Church By Supervisor Penny Gross
When the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, by a vote of 8 to 1, approved my motion to adopt the Seven Corners Comprehensive Plan Amendment this summer, a series of follow-on motions regarding transportation improvements in Seven Corners also was adopted. At the July 28 meeting, the Board requested development of milestones for the associated transportation studies, to be submitted to the Board at its September 22 meeting. Follow-on Motion 4 directed staff to conduct a phasing analysis and develop a funding plan for the transportation improvements recommended in the Seven Corners Comprehensive Plan that would include cost estimates for road and other transportation improvements, recommendations about the projected order of such improvements to maintain a balance between the future redevelopment of Seven Corners and the associated transportation infrastructure over time, conceptual plans for phased implementation, and descriptions of funding sources and estimates of funds available from each source. Accordingly, the Fairfax County Department of Transportation advised the Board, at its meeting on Tuesday, that two studies are anticipated: 1) a Seven Corners Transportation Phasing Study, which will identify the chronological order in which improvements should be implemented, including the entire ring road network, and 2) a Seven Corners Transportation Funding Plan, both as to the sources of funds and the amounts of funds. It is anticipated that the studies will commence in late 2015. The phasing study will take about 20 months; the funding study will take about 13 months, and both studies will be conducted concurrently. Funding for the studies has been secured. In January 2014, the Board of Supervisors approved Transportation Project Priorities
funding for FY2015 through FY2020. I was able to set aside $3 million in the TPP for advancing improvements to the Seven Corners Interchange at that time, pending approval of the Seven Corners Comprehensive Plan Amendment. Also on Tuesday, the Board endorsed submission of the Seven Corners Ring Road, Phase 1A/ Segment 1A, as a project to be submitted for FY2017 – FY2022 State Funding through the Commonwealth Transportation Board’s HB2 Selection Process. On Saturday, all eight Fairfax County police stations will host Operation Medicine Cabinet Clean Out. From 8 a.m. – 2 p.m., you can get rid of your unused or expired prescription medications in a safe, free, confidential, and eco-friendly manner. Pills or liquids only; please no pressurized canisters or needles! Sponsored by the Unified Prevention Coalition of Fairfax County and the Fairfax County Police Department, Operation Medicine Cabinet Clean-Out has been a very popular event in past years. You don’t have to worry about your medicines falling into the wrong hands, or being misused by youngsters. Last year, many constituents brought in shopping bags full of old medications. You can remove the labels or cross out personal information before dropping the medication, container and all, into a secure receptacle that will be taken to the county’s waste-to-energy plant for incineration. Please do not flush old medications, as they can contaminate water supplies. The closest police stations for NewsPress readers are the Mason District Station at 6507 Columbia Pike in Annandale, and the McLean District Station at 1437 Balls Hill Road in McLean. u Penny Gross is the Mason District Supervisor, in the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. She may be emailed at mason@fairfaxcounty.gov.
Congressman Beyer’s News Commentary
Updates on Women’s Issue Conference BY DONALD S. BEYER
Last month I announced that I will be hosting my first Women’s Issues Conference, “Women Driving the Economy” on October 10. I am happy to share some exciting updates with you today. Working in collaboration with George Mason University’s Arlington campus, this program will offer hands-on programs designed to help women find, apply for and get good jobs. We will also offer free headshots for all attendees and workshops dedicated to the critical components of a modern job search, like writing a resume tailored to online career networks. This program is free to all, just be sure to register online at my website ahead of time. We are happy to be able to provide childcare for all parents who want to attend. I am hosting this event because after 40 years in business, I know that when women succeed, America succeeds. The best way to ensure true financial security for all middle class families is to support women in the workforce. Working women make
up almost half of the American labor force and 40 percentof American households depend on a woman breadwinner – we need to make sure women have an equal shot in the workforce. And income inequality in this country is directly tied to the pay gap between men and women. The program’s keynote speaker will be Small Business Administration administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet, who oversees the organization responsible for creating nearly two out of three new private sector jobs in our economy and half of our nation’s private sector workforce. She has been a pioneer in establishing women in leadership roles in the economy as a public and private sector manager and philanthropic champion. Administrator ContrerasSweet’s keynote delivery will be followed by a plenary panel moderated by Megan Beyer with Judith Warner from the Center for American Progress and author of the 2005 New York Times best-sell-
er Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, local small business owner El Brown, and Rebecca Shambaugh, a leadership trainer for women in the workforce. Following this panel discussion, participants will break out into leadership training sessions on a number of topics affecting working women, including resume writing, using social and career networks, financial planning, perfecting interview skills and salary negotiation tactics. These are all important topics that too many of the workers in our modern economy miss out on, men and women alike. Finding a job and building your career in the 21st century requires a host of diverse skills that I hope to leave participants with in October. GMU’s Arlington campus is easily accessible from the Virginia Square stop on the Orange Line, with garage parking available at the campus. You must register to attend this event and can sign up by visiting our website at beyer.house.gov or contacting my district office at 703-658-5403.
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GOP’s Main Problem
The Republican establishment’s collective delusion is that if The Donald exited the presidential race, the party’s adults would reclaim the limelight. In reality, the candidates trailing him are even worse. The week began with apoplectic GOP talking heads eviscerating Trump for allowing a yahoo at a New Hampshire rally to attack all Muslims, as well as claim that President Obama is Muslim. However, before the full weight of the party could land on The Donald’s head, the second place candidate, Ben Carson, out-Trumped Trump. On MSNBC’s Meet the Press, Chuck Todd asked Carson about Islam. “So do you believe Islam is consistent with the Constitution?” Todd inquired. “No, I do not,” said Carson. “I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.” Carson tried to clarify his remarks on Sean Hannity’s show, but only made matters worse. “We do not put people at the leadership of our country whose faith might interfere with them carrying out the duties of the Constitution,” implying that any Muslim who would run for President was either a radical Islamist who supports Sharia Law or a “heretic” for rejecting extremism. While Carson’s remarks further branded the GOP with the stain of bigotry and alienated yet another minority, at least the somnolent surgeon confirmed that he still had a pulse. Just a week earlier, Carson managed to insult the African American community. On Fox’s MediaBuzz Carson told host Howard Kurtz that the GOP should court “neglected” black voters. Carson thought that African Americans might be ready to leave the Democrats and not “just blindly follow someone because they say do what I tell you do to.” Carson essentially called African American Democrats black sheep who follow the flock without thinking. The truth is, the rejection of the Republican Party comes from witnessing the prolific prejudice that has defined this campaign, as well as GOP voter suppression efforts. In terms of outreach to African Americans, the hyper-religious, long-shot candidates the GOP has fielded for president – Alan Keyes, Herman Cain and now Carson – have backfired and, if anything, further alienated black voters from the party. The latest flavor of the week in the “anyone but Trump” sweepstakes is Carly Fiorina. For most of the campaign Fiorina has been practically invisible. The one time she briefly emerged was for the sacrilegious praise she once showered on both Islam and Hillary Clinton. As the CEO of Hewlett-Packard in the aftermath of 9/11, Fiorina expressed concern for her Muslim staff members. She made sure that Islam wasn’t distorted and put the religion in historical perspective: “There was once a civilization that was the greatest in the world. It was able to create a continental super-state that stretched from ocean to ocean, and from northern climes to tropics and deserts…its poets wrote of love, when others before them were too steeped in fear to think of such things...the civilization I’m talking about was the Islamic world from the year 800 to 1600.” This raised the ire of former Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann who Tweeted: “Carly Fiorina delivered this speech in MPLS praising Muslims 2 weeks after 911.” To complicate Fiorina’s connection with the modern GOP voter, Mother Jones reported that in her 2006 book, “Tough Choices,” Fiorina described the soothing effect of listening to Muslim prayers when she was a teen and her family lived in Ghana. (Her father was a law professor then on a teaching sabbatical at the University of Ghana.) And there is the H-bomb, as in Hillary. In 2008 Fiorina gave an interview with BuzzFeed: “I have great admiration for her (Hillary Clinton) because I know what it takes in some small measure to do what she has done. She is obviously incredibly intelligent, focused, tough, determined, empathetic of all the tens of millions of people that she was trying to represent in her quest to become the first woman president of the United States. Her run for the presidency was historic.” Now that Fiorina is riding high on the hog, look for the struggling swine in the next GOP debate to use this information against her. I salivate at the prospect of Fiorina receiving the GOP nomination. Her awful record at Hewlett Packard, which led to her getting canned, ensured that she was unable to defeat a vulnerable Sen. Barbara Boxer in 2010 – losing by 10 points. There are now reports that staff she had laid off are lining up to appear in Democratic ads trashing her record at HP. Trump, for all his flaws, is a far superior candidate to Carson and Fiorina. While the Donald may be a runaway locomotive, at least he’s not off track, like the rest of the GOP presidential wannabes.
Wayne Besen
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SEPTEMBER 24 - 30, 2015 | PAGE 17
Our Man in Arlington By Charlie Clark
Whither Rosslyn? The “gateway” to Arlington has long suffered an identity crisis for its hodgepodge of glass towers, the Iwo Jima Memorial, artsy eccentricities and parks foreboding to pedestrians. In July, the county board, after years of community and business input, adopted a “transformational” sector plan called “Realize Rosslyn.” Its public-private collaboration promises “a vibrant place to live, work and play,” new streets, superior architecture built around skyline views, plus new open spaces and riverfront access. Few have taken Rosslyn’s travails to heart more than Cecilia Cassidy, the now-departed executive director of the Rosslyn Business Improvement District. She recently told me of the trust deficit she perceives between developers and county planners— and her bitterness over the county’s decision to pull the plug on Artisphere. Modern-day Rosslyn is far from its century-old reputation as a hub for pawn shops, brothels and a Cherry Smash bottling plant. Though I often admire its corporate-logo-bedecked skyline from across the Potomac, the nearconstant construction at the Metro stop and high-rises that may sit empty hardly makes it an ideal place for a stroll. There’s charm in its oddities— outdoor movies and concerts within eyesight of traffic, the Dark Star Park with its concrete globes casting shadows to honor Rosslyn’s
founding. No other community boasts a Bridge to Nowhere, whose iterations over decades to connect labyrinthine streets or steer Newseum visitors to a memorial embody indecision. Cassidy, now a writer, watched Realize Rosslyn draw from what the BID and its sister group Rosslyn Renaissance advocated for years. “We saw all the development getting out in front of what was prescribed in the 1992 plan,” she says. “We’d been clamoring for the Rosslyn Sector plan to be updated, but Crystal City and Columbia Pike came ahead of it, and the planning staff didn’t have the capacity.” She approves of the new plan’s provision to convert Fort Myer Drive and Lynn Street from oneway streets to two-way and fill in a tunnel under Wilson Blvd. “Rosslyn has unparalleled views of the nation’s capital, so we had negotiated a formal observation deck on the Central Place project planned by The JBG Companies, and this plan protects that view,” she said. “We also worked with the Arlington Boathouse Coalition for a connection to the river. This plan calls for a pedestrian link over the GW Parkway at Rosslyn Plaza.” Some details were threatened by antagonism between the development community and the commissions that oversee development. “There has to be a partnership, and none of this will come to fruition unless developers develop,” she says, noting that tax payments from Rosslyn comprise 20 percent of county’s revenues. Cassidy turns thumbs-down
C i t y o f Fa l l s C h u r c h
Larceny from Building, 1000 E. Broad St. (24 Hour Fitness) On Sep. 18, an unknown suspect stole a wallet from a locker.
CRIME REPORT Week of Sept. 14 - 20, 2015 Shoplifting, 167 Hillwood Ave. (Virginia ABC Store) On Sep. 15, liquor was reported stolen from the business. Driving Under the Influence and Drinking while Driving, 200 block W. Annandale Rd. On Sep. 17, a male, 25, of Falls Church, was arrested for Driving Under the Influence and Drinking while Driving. Larceny from Building, 1000 block Hillwood Ave. On Sep. 17, political signs were reported stolen from a residence. Public Drunkenness, 100 block W. Broad St. On Sep. 17, a male, 32, no fixed address, was arrested for Public Drunkenness.
on the termination of subsidies to Artisphere, the edgy arts and theater venue that closed June 30. Artisphere had been the primary community benefit of Monday Properties’ Moore Street highrise. “I don’t think the public understands the complications of negotiating legal details of how community benefits were drawn up,” she said. “It takes political will of elected officials not to bow to criticism of a vocal few, and to provide the community around Washington with the creative environment the county wanted,” she said. “Artisphere attracted thousands of arts lovers to cross Key Bridge to come to Arlington.” The doomed dome was not simply an “amenity, but a necessary part of a vibrant sophisticated environment.” *** Ninety percent of county board votes are unanimous, a certain member of that board once told me. Hence my pleasure in noting that the ambitious affordable housing master plan plan – a three-year effort that generated its share of community acrimony – was approved Saturday 5-0. Critics had taken out ads and complained at public forums that the plan lacked specifics and funding while risking overextending the welcome mat for low-income users of social services. But the plan will provide long-term guidance for any number of future board decisions to boost the housing supply, ensure access to units for diverse population and encourage siting in all parts of the county. For this board, the unanimity is a notable change from recent votes on major divisive issues. Yes, I mean the streetcar.
Larceny from Building and Motor Vehicle, 1000 E. Broad St. (24 Hour Fitness) On Sep. 18, an unknown suspect stole keys from a locker and opened car door to steal the victim’s personal items.
Destruction of Property, 370 W. Broad St. (Famous Dave’s) On Sep. in. suspected smashed 20, an1.812 unknown the glass to the revolving door.
2.562 in.
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
Domestic Assault, 900 block Ellison St. On Sep. 19, a male, 26, of The City of Falls Church, was arrested for Assaulting a Family Member. Larceny from Building, 700 block Parker Ave. On Sep. 20, a political sign was reported stolen from a residence. Driving Under the Influence, 500 block E. Broad St. On Sep. 20, a male, 26, of Silver Spring, MD, was arrested for Driving Under the Influence.
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Reversing Muscle Loss
BY MATLIDA CHARLES
KING FEATURES SYNDICATE
Most of us already have experienced it: age-related muscle loss. It doesn’t matter how athletic we were in our youth, some degree of muscle loss is to be expected. Researchers have long wondered how to avoid it, and now it appears they’ve found the answer: green tomatoes and apple peels. It turns out that both green tomatoes and apple peels contain the right molecules of ursolic acid and tomatidine, and can reduce transcription factor ATF4, which is a key in age-related muscle loss. None of this muscle loss happened overnight. In fact, it started very subtly when we were between 30 and 40 years old. As time went on, we lost muscle strength as well as mass. By the time we hit age 65, it’s fairly obvious in most of us.
Without enough strength, we can have fractures from falls, which leads to disuse of muscles while we heal, which leads to further muscle loss, which can lead to loss of independence. Researchers at the University of Iowa are to be commended for going down the tomato and apple road once they discovered the correlation between the fruits and a lack of certain chemicals in aging muscles. Experimenting with mice, they discovered that in two months on a special diet that promoted the missing ursolic acid and tomatidine, the mice increased muscle mass by 10 percent and muscle strength by 30 percent. That’s significant. The next step is for researchers and biotechnical companies to turn this information into foods, pharmaceuticals or supplements that we can really use to recover our former muscle strength and mass. Meanwhile, an apple a day
probably won’t hurt. *** The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a timely message for seniors: The use of flu antiviral medications cuts the length of hospital stays for those who are hospitalized with the flu, and reduces the risk of needing care after discharge. That’s important information. The last thing we seniors need this winter is to come down with the flu. It hits us harder than nearly any other age group, with 80 percent to 90 percent of flurelated deaths being in people age 65 and older. The study cited by the CDC says that the earlier the antiviral medications are started, the better they work. The key is seeing your doctor right away if you think you have the flu, because the medications are by prescription only – not something you can get over the counter. Antiviral drugs can be taken as liquid, pills, an inhaled powder or intravenously. Seeing a doctor within two days of getting sick and starting the medication within four days substantially reduced the
SEPTEMBER 24 – 30 , 2015 | PAGE 19
length of illness or hospital stay, the study indicated. Even those who started the medication more than two days later saw some benefit, although not as much. Those who were hospitalized and released were 25 percent to 60 percent less likely to need extended care. The CDC says even with antiviral medications, it’s still important to get our annual flu shots. Wash your hands frequently with soap and water, or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Don’t touch your eyes, nose
or mouth. And stay away from those who are sick. More tips: Carry a packet of sanitizer wipes and use them everywhere – grocery cart handles, library book covers, door handles, etc. Eat healthy food, drink plenty of water and get enough sleep. Matilda Charles regrets that she cannot personally answer reader questions, but will incorporate them into her column whenever possible. Send email to columnreply2@gmail.com.
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CA L E NDA R
PAGE 20 | SEPTEMBER 24 - 30, 2015
Community Events
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24
Early Literacy Center. Explore educational and manipulative items to teach early literacy through play on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday every week. This program is for ages birth to 5 years. No registration required. Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Youth Services Room (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). Free. 11 a.m. – noon. & 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. 703-248-5034. F.C. Rotary Club Meeting. Past Rotary Club president Dick Johnson will speak to the Falls Church Rotary Club and their guests at the club’s weekly dinner meeting. Harvest Moon Restaurant (7260 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). $15 dinner. 6:30 p.m. FallsChurchRotary.org. Teen Knitting Club. For beginning and advanced knitters. For teens grades 6-12. Mary Riley Styles Library Conference Room ( 120 N. Virginia Ave. Falls Church, VA 22046). Registration Required. Free. 7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. 703248-5034.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25
1-on-1 Computer and Internet Tutoring. Learn how to download eBooks and eMagazines, search the Internet, use social media,
and more. Personalized sessions by appointment. Mary Riley Styles Public Library (120 N Virginia Ave, Falls Church, VA 22046). Free. 10 – 11 a.m. 703-248-5034.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26
F.C. Farmers’ Market and Chef Series Demo. Vendors offer fresh locally grown fruits and vegetables, cheeses, meats, baked goods, plants, and wine. City Hall Parking Lot (300 Park Ave., Falls Church). Free. 8 a.m. – noon. 703248-5077. Book Sale. Used adult and children’s books for sale. Mary Riley Styles Public Library Conference Room (120 N Virginia Ave, Falls Church, VA 22046). Free. 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. 703-2485034.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 27
Yard Waste Composting Workshop. Learn how to compost! Topics include: leaf mulching in your yard, yard waste composting, hands-on composting demonstration, making compost tea, proper food waste composting, and vermicomposting. All participants will have their names placed in a raffle to win a free compost bin. Two lucky participants will win! Cherry Hill Park Picnic Shelter
&
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
Send community event submissions to the News-Press by e-mail at calendar@fcnp. com; fax 703-342-0347; or by regular mail to 200 Little Falls St., #508, Falls Church, VA 22046. Please include any photos or artwork with submissions. Deadline is Monday at noon for each week’s edition.
(312 Park Ave., Falls Church). 2 – 4 p.m. fallschurchva.gov/520/ Composting-Workshops. Concert. Pianist Daniel del Pino will play a concert to open the Odeon Chamber Music Series’ 16th season. A celebratory champagne reception will follow the concert. St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church (3241 Brush Dr., Falls Church). Free. 4 p.m. odeonchambermusicseries.org. Concert. The Amadeus Orchestra begins its 2015-2016 season with Alexandra Mikhlin, violin soloist, in a concert that includes Gretry’s “Tambourin,” Ravel’s “Pavane,” Massenet’s “Meditation from ‘Thais,’” and Poulenc’s “Sinfonietta.” Saint Luke Catholic Church (7001 Georgetown Pike, McLean). Free for children under age 17; $30 for everyone else. amadeusconcerts.com. The Third Annual Teddy Bear 5K and 1K Walk/Run. The Falls Church-McLean Children’s Center is hosting a walk/run to benefit the children’s center. A free fair, featuring soccer clinics, puppet shows, balloon artists and face painters, will begin at 2 p.m. Lemon Road Elementary School (7230 Idylwood Road, Falls Church). $15 – $40. 4 p.m. fcmlcc.
org.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 Preschool Storytime. Stories, finger plays and songs for children ages 2 – 5 on Monday and Thursday every week. Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Youth Services Room (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). Free. 10:30 – 11 a.m. & 3 – 3:30 p.m. 703-248-5034.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29
Preschool Storytime. Songs, movement, and stories for ages 18-36 months. Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Youth Services Room (120 N. Virginia Ave. Falls Church). 10:30 – 11:15 a.m. 703248-5034.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30
Summer Reading Program: Last Day to Claim Prizes. Last day to turn in book logs and pick up prizes for participants in the Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Summer Reading Program. Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Youth Services Room (120 N. Virginia Ave. Falls Church). All Day. 703248-5034. Cancer Can Rock Benefit. Several musicians, including Jim Ebert and The Thrillbillys, will play this benefit show. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 8 p.m. 703-241-9504.
Theater Fine Arts THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24
“Chimerica.” This epic play tracks two decades of US-China relations alongside lives forever changed by the crosswinds of politics and history. In 1989, Joe, a young American journalist, photographs a protester facing down four tanks in Tiananmen Square. In 2012, with election season bringing US-China relations into the spotlight, Joe decides to seek out the subject of his most famous image – just as an old friend from China reaches out with an agenda of his own. Through Oct. 18. Studio Theatre (1501 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $20 – $76. 7:30 p.m. studiotheatre.org.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25
“Night Falls on the Blue Planet.” Renee has had a rough couple of years. Screw
that: Renee has had a rough life, shaped by alcoholism and estrangement. All that changes when she gets a massage and discovers that her body is a world unto itself. With help from her younger sister she starts to map and explore a lifetime of trauma: but is she healing, or is she vanishing into her own world? Will her exploration heal her relationship with her older sister, or widen their divide? Through Sept. 27. Anacostia Playhouse (2020 Shannon Pl. NE, Washington, D.C.). $20. 8 p.m. theatrealliance.com.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26
“Calendar Girls.” Veteran director Bob Sams leads an award-winning cast and crew in bringing this production to the Alden stage. Based on a true story, “Calendar Girls” was adapted from the �ilm of the same name and has
become one of the most popular plays in British theater history. Through Oct. 3. The Alden (1234 Ingleside Ave., McLean). $18 – $20. 8 p.m. mcleanplayers.org.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30
“Animal.” Rachel has it all: marriage, house, career. So why does she suddenly have this creeping feeling? Did she leave something behind? Or is there something in the walls…? Her husband thinks she needs time; her psychiatrist suggests positive thinking. But then the visions start. Apparitions of doubts, past decisions, future mistakes. Is it time for Xanax? Prozac? Or perhaps she just needs to forget it all, follow her instinct and kiss a stranger. Through Oct. 25. Studio Theatre (1501 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $20 – $40. 8 p.m. studiotheatre.org.
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
CA L E NDA R
live_music&nightlife THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24 L���� N��� ���� C������ M���. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $15 – $18. 6:30 p.m. 703255-1566. L����� L� H����. 9:30 (815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $35. 7 p.m. 202265-0930. D���� B��� ���� S��������� R������. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $10. 7:30 p.m. 202-667-7960.’ D��� C������� B��� ��������� B���� S����. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 8:30 p.m. 703-241-9504. A���� I������ ���� S���� G���� ��������� D��� M�. Iota Club and Café (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $12. 8:30 p.m. 703-522-8340.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25 M������ T������. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $15 – $18. 6:30 p.m. 703-255-1566. D�� � C����. Clare and Don’s Beach Shack (130 N. Washington St., Falls Church). 6:30 p.m. 703-532-9283. ���. 9:30 (815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $29. 8 p.m. 202-265-0930. E� T�� E�����. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $15. 9 p.m. 202-667-7960. S����� W��� B���. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 9 p.m. 703-241-9504. T�� L����� O�� ���� P������������ M������� ��� T�� B�������� L������. Iota Club and Café (2832
Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $12. 9 p.m. 703-522-8340. A�� ���� D�� D���. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $15 – $20. 9:30 p.m. 703-255-1566. S����� ��� D���. Dogwood Tavern (132 W. Broad St., Falls Church). 10 p.m. 703-237-8333.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26 J�� S����� B���. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 4 p.m. 703-241-9504. A���� T��-S���. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $25 in advance; $30 day of the show. 5 p.m. 703-255-1566. J���� 3 B���. Clare and Don’s Beach Shack (130 N. Washington St., Falls Church). 6:30 p.m. 703-532-9283. ���. 9:30 (815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $29. 8 p.m. 202-265-0930. L�� ���� A��� S����. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $20. 9 p.m. 202-667-7960. N�� E���. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $15. 9 p.m. 703-2551566. J�� H������ � T�� R������ ���� S������ ��� T�� W�����������. Iota Club and Café (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $12. 9 p.m. 703522-8340. W����� J������. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 9:30 p.m. 703-241-9504. B���� S������. Dogwood Tavern (132 W. Broad St., Falls Church). 10 p.m. 703-237-8333.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 B���� C����� ���� D��� C������� ��� A��� P����. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 12:30 p.m. 703-241-9504. S�� R���� B���. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 4 p.m. 703-241-9504. J�����’ J��� S���������� C�����: T������ �� Q����. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $16. 5:30 p.m. 703-255-1566. E��� L������. The State Theatre (220 N. Washington St., Falls Church). $15. 6 p.m. 703-237-0300. T�� J���� ��� M��� C���� ���� T�� B���� R����. 9:30 (815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $35. 7 p.m. 202265-0930. H��� ��� ��� H����. Iota Club and Café (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $12. 7:30 p.m. 703-522-8340. P����� M��. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $12. 7:30 p.m. 202-667-7960. M����� T������� � ��� J���� B���� E��������� ���� G��� C�����. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 9 p.m. 703-241-9504.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 E����� Y���� ���� B���� L���� ��� C�������� H�����. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $15 – $17. 6 p.m. 703-255-1566. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD ���� B�� S��� ��� H����. 9:30 (815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $40. 7 p.m.
SEPTEMBER 24 – 30, 2015 | PAGE 21
202-265-0930. F����� ���� D��� R���. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $17. 7:30 p.m. 202-6677960. H��� ��� H����� ���� I� ��� W����. Iota Club and Café (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). 8 p.m. 703522-8340. W��� B���� J��. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 8:30 p.m. 703-241-9504.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 M������ D���� ���� A��� T������ (�� P�’ G���). Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $10 in advance; $15 day of the show. 6 p.m. 703-255-1566. БУМБОКС (B���B�� / UA). The State Theatre (220 N. Washington St., Falls Church). $57 in advance; $65 day of the show; $102 early entry. 7 p.m. 703-237-0300. J��� D’A����. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 8:30 p.m. 703-241-9504.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 A��� G. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $10 – $18 in advance; $13 – $18 day of the show. 6:30 p.m. 703-255-1566. I���� ���� V����� T����. 9:30 (815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $20. 7 p.m. 202-265-0930. H������� ���� H�����������. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $10. 7:30 p.m. 202-667-7960.
P������� A����... Thursday, October 1 – Candidate Forum. The League of Women Voters of Falls Church and the Village Preservation and Improvement Society (VPIS) will co-sponsor
a forum featuring the candidates seeking election this year to three seats on the Falls Church City Council. The event will be moderated by Olga Hernandez, past president of the League of Women Voters of Virginia. City Council (300 Park Ave., Falls Church). Free. 7:30 p.m. lwvfallschurch.org
Saturday, October 3 – Household Hazardous Waste Disposal Event. Properly dispose of used or leftover contents of consumer products that are either toxic,
ignitable, corrosive or reactive. Property Yard (7100 Gordon Road, Falls Church). Free with proof of residency. 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. fallschurchva.gov/437/ Hazardous-Waste.
Saturday, October 10 – Farm Day. This family event features blacksmith demonstrations, horse-drawn hayrides, pumpkin painting, scarecrow making and a
petting zoo. Cherry Hill Park (312 Park Ave., Falls Church). 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. fallschurchva.gov/FarmDay.
C������� S���������� Be sure to include time, location, cost of admission, contact person and any other pertinent information. Event listings will be edited for content and space limitations. Please include any photos or artwork with submissions. Deadline is Monday at noon for the current week’s edition.
Email: calendar@fcnp.com | Fax: 703-342-0347; Attn: FCNP Calendar Mail: Falls Church News-Press, Attn: Calendar, 200 Little Falls St., #508, Falls Church, VA 22046
PAGE 22 | SEPTEMBER 24 - 30, 2015
FO O D &D I NI NG
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
La Bamba!: Taco Joint Wins Taste Of Falls Church by Drew Costley
Falls Church News-Press
Hot on the heels of its being listed in Business Insider’s “Best Tacos in America” list, Taco Bamba was named the winner of the 2015 Taste of Falls Church on Saturday, Sept. 19. The taco eatery, located on Pimmit Drive, served up its Chicken Tinga Taco to rave reviews from the festival attendees and judges alike. Falls Church Recreation and Parks Department also handed several superlatives to the rest of the restaurants that participated in the Taste of Falls Church. Cafe Kindred, winner of the Best Coffee category in the NewsPress’ Best of Falls Church in August, received an award for
THE 2015 TASTE OF FALLS CHURCH AND FALL FESTIVAL brought residents from around the region to the Little City on Saturday, Sept. 20. In addition to the Taste, which featured some of Falls Church’s top restaurants, and the Fall Festival, which featured local bands, crafts, moon bounces of various kinds and pony rides, the Monarch Teacher Network released monarch butterflies at the Cherry Hill Farmhouse. For a photo gallery of all of Saturday’s events, check out fcnp.com. (Photos: Drew Costley/News-Press)
the same category at Saturday’s festivities. Whole Foods received the Best Veggie award for their roasted corn dish and local frozen yogurt spot Zinga received an award for Best Value. The Hilton Garden Inn’s American Grille received the award for Best Bar Food, Clare and Don’s Beach Shack received the Best Party Atmosphere award, Famous Dave’s received the Best Meat award, Flippin’ Pizza won for Best Pizza, Hot N’ Juicy Crawfish won for their crawfish mascot that can be seen on Broad Street, Sweet Rice won for Best Spice, Plaka Grill won for Best New Restaurant and Sfizi Cafe rounds out the winners for Best Dessert.
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
SEPTEMBER 24 – 30, 2015 | PAGE 23
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A world premiere Kennedy Center co-commission with Hubbard Street 2, in collaboration with Manual Cinema
AHEAD OF BACK TO SCHOOL NIGHT for Thomas Jefferson Elementary School’s second and third grade parents, Jefferson third graders use Google Docs to write welcome notes to their parents and guardians. (P����: C������� �� FCCPS P����/J������ L��)
OCT. 2–11 • FAMILY THEATER KENNEDY-CENTER.ORG (202) 467-4600
Tickets are also available at the Box Office. Groups call (202) 416-8400.
Performances for Young Audiences is made possible by
Francisco Durán Named Chief Academic Officer for FCPS Fairfax County Public Schools superintendent Karen K. Garza has named Francisco Durán, who currently serves as superintendent of Trenton Public Schools in New Jersey as the County’s new chief academic officer, effective Tuesday, Oct. 20, the county announced in a press release on Tuesday, Sept. 22. Durán will replace Kim Dockery, who retired. “Francisco Durán is a seasoned educator with 23 years of experience in the classroom and in school leadership. He has a proven track record of success in improving student learning and in the successful implementation of educational programming,” Garza said. “Dr. Durán is considered a strong, collaborative leader who works diligently with stakeholders to build consensus, while valuing varied perspectives. Dr. Durán has studied our strategic plan and our Portrait of a Graduate and he embraces the direction that we have established away from high-stakes testing to more authentic engagement around 21st century skills.”
George Mason High School Class Learns on Potomac One section of George Mason High School’s international baccalaureate environmental sys-
STUDENTS IN GEORGE MASON HIGH SCHOOL’s international baccalaureate environmental systems and societies class learn about watershed science while traveling the Potomac River with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. They learned how to determine the health of a river and bay by running nutrient tests, determining pH and turbidity and netting organisms to evaluate biodiversity. (P����: FCCPS P�����/C������ P������) tems and societies class traveled on the Potomac River with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation on Monday, Sept. 21. The students learned about watershed science and how to determine the health of the river and bay by running nutrient tests, determining pH and turbidity and netting organisms to evaluate biodiversity. Throughout the week, other students from Mason’s environmental systems and societies class traveled the Potomac to learn about watershed science.
League of Women Voters Registers Mason Students As part of National Voter Registration Day, the League of Women Voters assisted students at George Mason High School with registering to vote. Members of the organization were in the Mustang Cafe lobby on Tuesday from 11 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. Students who successfully registered to vote will be eligible to vote in this year’s City elections for School Board and City Council.
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
A RTS&E NTE RTA I NME NT
SEPTEMBER 24 - 30, 2015 | PAGE 25
Sept.
24 y
sda Thur
Lianne La Havas with Keenan O’Meara 9:30 7 p.m. 815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.
202-265-0930 • 930.com
25 y
Frida
moe. 9:30 8 p.m.
815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.
202-265-0930 • 930.com
Sharif and Doug Dogwood Tavern 10 p.m. 132 W. Broad St., Falls Church
703-237-8333 • dogwoodtavern.com
30 day
es Wedn
BY DREW COSTLEY
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
Devon Allman, founder of the Devon Allman Band, said that his live show, which he’s bringing to Gypsy Sally’s in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Sept. 30, follows the arc of his career. “There’s songs from my Honeytribe records, there’s some Royal Southern Brotherhood songs, definitely songs off the last two solo records, Ragged & Dirty and Turquoise, and then a few cool cover songs, there’s a couple instrumentals,” Allman said. “There’s a spot in the show where we sit down and play acoustic. There’s a wide range [of music] in the show. It’s a lot of energy, it’s a lot of fun.” He said that this tour has allowed him to go to a lot of cities he hasn’t been in a while and that it’s been a good last month or so of the tour. “It’s been really good. The turnout has been great and the response has been great,” Allman said. “I’m grateful that people still love organic DEVON ALLMAN (C������� P����) music served up live.” One of the dates on Allman’s touring sched- Guy’s drummer and keyboard player and prouled over the past few months was an opening ducer Tom Hambridge, who’s worked with spot for his legendary father Gregg Allman at the likes of Buddy Guy, George Thorogood, Portland’s Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival Johnny Winter, James Cotton and Joe Louis Walker. in early July. “I just wanted to get that Chicago vibe on “It’s always good. That happens a few times a year, you know,” Allman said. “And backstage the record,” Allman said. “I’ve always been I say, ‘Oh hey, what’s up, Dad?’ It’s always a a fan of the Chicago electric blues and I had pleasure of course and we got to play together done all my previous albums in the South, so I really just wanted to shake it up. You know, do and it’s always nice to have that happen.” Allman’s show at Gypsy Sally’s is one of something different.” Allman said that working with Hambridge, the last on his band’s tour to support Ragged & Dirty, which was released in October 2014. He whom he called a “triple threat,” was “amazsaid that, after recording much of his catalog in ing.” “He’s a songwriter, he’s an amazing drumthe American South, he wanted to pull from the mer and a great producer, so I got to utilize energy of the Chicago blues. That creative desire led him to actually all three of those [talents] with him,” Allman record the album in Chicago, with Buddy said. “He brought a lot to the table. It definitely
pushed me to bring in strong tunes and give him some good performances.” During this October, Allman said he’s going to take some time away from the road to spend time with his family and write songs toward a new album, which he expects to release in April or May of 2016. “I’m constantly writing, but I’m really just kind of cataloging small ideas,” Allman said. “And then I get home and I end up sifting through about 200 small ideas that I’ve cataloged on the iPhone or in Garageband and then I start fleshing out songs. So I need a good month home to really kind of flesh out everything.” • For more information about the Devon Allman Band, visit devonallmanband.com.
Devon Allman Band Gypsy Sally’s 7 p.m.
These singles whet the appetites of the FCNP editorial team this week: Nicholas Benton – Both Sides Now by Judy Collins
3401 K St. NW, Washington, D.C.
202-333-7700 • gypsysallys.com
Jody Fellows – Buddy (Remix) by De La Soul
Drew Costley – Green & Gold by Lianne La Havas
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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
B������� N��� � N���� F.C. Chamber Mixer Hosted by Creative Cauldron Sept. 24
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Creative Cauldron is hosting a mixer for the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce at ArtSpace Falls Church on Thursday, September 24 from 5:30 – 7 p.m. The event includes refreshments and a sneak peak of the nonprofits’ performing arts schedule. The event is free for Chamber members and friends of the business and arts communities. ArtSpace Falls Church is located at 410 S. Maple Avenue. For more information, visit www.FallsChurchChamber.org.
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Virginia-based Conte’s Bike Shop is opening three new locations in Virginia including one in the new building at 7121 Leesburg Pike in Falls Church, another at 3449 N. Wilson Boulevard in Arlington, and the third in Newport News. This brings the total number of Conte’s Bike Shops, which are owned by David Conte and Wayne Souza, in Virginia to eight. The Falls Church location is expected to open in October. For more information, visit www.contebikes.com.
Tysons Chamber Holding ‘Breakfast Near Tiffany’s’ Event The Tysons Regional Chamber of Commerce is hosting Breakfast Near Tiffany’s on Friday, September 25 from 8 – 10:30 a.m. as part of the Regional Women’s Circle of Influence breakfast series. The event will start at Chef Geoff’s for a light breakfast and a presentation by award winning and best-selling author Dr. Mary M. Gillam, president and CEO of M2G Dynamic Leadership Solutions. Following the presentation, attendees will walk to Tiffany & Co. for mimosas and teacakes, a tour and brief history of Tiffany and Co. and a drawing for a Tiffany gift. For more information, visit www.tysonschamber.org.
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Virginia Dance Coalition Gala Set for Oct. 3 Virginia Dance Coalition will present the 6th Annual Virginia Dance Coalition Gala Showcase on October 3 at 7:30 p.m. at the Ernst Community Cultural Center on the Annandale Campus of Northern Virginia Community College. The gala performance features the work of local dance studios and companies including Falls Church’s BalletNova along with Beth Elliott Dance Group, Classical Ballet Theatre, Dance Art Theater, Dancin’ Unlimited Jazz Dance Company, Encore Theatrical Arts Project, Lasya, Nrityanjali Dance Company, The Ballet Arts Ensemble of Fairfax, The Fairfax Ballet, The Kintz-Mejia Academy of Ballet and Xuejuan Dance Ensemble. For more information about the event or the scholarship awards that will be presented, visit www. virginiadancecoalition.org.
F.C. Chamber’s Mini-Golf Night Next Tuesday The Happy Family Banquet 2 (5 oz.) Filet Mignons 2 (5 oz.) Top Sirloins 4 (3 oz.) Polynesian Pork Chops 4 (4 1 ⁄2 oz.) Chicken Fried Steaks 15 oz. pkg. All-Beef Meatballs 4 (4 oz.) Omaha Steaks Burgers 4 (3 oz.) Gourmet Jumbo Franks 16 oz. pkg. Omaha Steakhouse® Fries 4 Caramel Apple Tartlets 46524SLB
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The Falls Church Chamber of Commerce is hosting its annual Mini-Golf Family Fun Night presented by Kiddar|Metz at Upton Hill Regional Park on Tuesday, September 29 from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. In addition to miniature golf, the event includes a picnic style dinner from Buffalo Wild Wings and Taste by Katie, beverages sponsored by Phil Duncan for City Council, s’mores sponsored by Sislers Stone, a moon bounce sponsored by Family Medicine in Falls Church, a manners booth sponsored by Tea with Mrs. B and a Falls Church Volunteer Fire Department truck. Tickets are $10 per person, free for children under 5 years of age. For more information, or to register for this community event, visit www.FallsChurchChamber.org.
www.fcn
Business News & Notes is compiled by Sally Cole, Executive Director of Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce. She may be emailed at sally@fallschurchchamber.org.
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SPO RTS
SEPTEMBER 24 - 30, 2015 | PAGE 27
Luray Rushing Attack Too Strong for Mason Defense by Kate Karstens
Falls Church News-Press
The George Mason varsity football team suffered a tough 12-7 home loss to Luray High School on Friday, Sept. 18, pushing the team to 1-2 on the season. The game was a defensive struggle on both sides, but the Luray rushing attack was too much for Mason in the end. “We came out hard, aggressive, and mean,” said senior running back/linebacker Hunter Sulc. “Our defense was the whole reason we were in that game.” Luray scored early in the first quarter, setting the tone for the game. The Bulldogs’ senior running back Jacob Moyer took the ball at the 45, barreled through at least four Mason defenders, and scored, putting an early six points on the board. Lengthy drives by the Mustangs maintained energy in the first half. In the second quarter, junior running back Dustin Green eluded two Luray defenders to rush 14 yards, but Mason did not capitalize and punted the ball back to Luray in the next play. The Mustangs were driving at the end of the second half and Sulc finished out the half with a 10-yard run, giving the Mustangs momentum going into halftime.
The Mustangs’ game plan was run-heavy, emphasizing Sulc and Green in the backfield. “Offensively, we went to a straight double wing,” said head coach Tony Green. Mason began the second half alternating run plays between Sulc and Green, driving their way down the field all the way to Luray’s 20-yard line. The pair had almost 40 yards combined on the drive, and yet, the Bulldog defense began pushing back, resulting in two sacks, and forcing the Mustangs to punt, ending a hopeful drive. As Luray began to push their way to the goal line at the start of the second half, the Mason defense fought against the Bulldogs’ consistent, successful rushing attack. The Mason defense was lead by junior Andrew Coulson and Sulc, who maintained aggression and successful tackles during Luray’s drive. But the Luray attack was too powerful, resulting in another rushing TD to give them a 12-0 lead. “I was happy with the effort and intensity that we played with,” said lineman coach Ryan Larcamp. “There were a couple plays that we got tired and gave up plays that we shouldn’t have given up.” Finally, in the fourth quarter, sophomore quarterback Thomas Creed broke through the Luray
MASON SENIOR RUNNING BACK D’Montae Noble (left) has been practicing with the Mustangs and will be back in action against William Monroe High School . (Photo: Kate Karstens/News-Press) defense and threw a 27-yard pass to Green, who caught it with one hand at the one-yard line. Green then ran it in to push Mason closer, 12-6. Kicker Ethan Morse connected on the extra point to bring the Mustangs within one score of taking the lead. “Well it should have been a touchdown on the catch but the line got a good push at the goal
line and I was able to get the ball over for the touchdown,” said Green. The Mustangs were unable to muster another scoring drive and Luray went away with the 12-7 win. George Mason will take on William Monroe (0-2) at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 25 at home. Senior running back, D’Montae
Noble is scheduled to return for the Mustangs for Friday’s contest. After being on athletic suspension, Noble has been unable to participate in games, however he has been participating in practices. “It’ll feel good to be back on the field again,” said Noble. “I have seven games to make up for my missed work so I have to get busy.”
Mustangs Volleyball Tops Central High School in Straight Sets by Matt Delaney
Falls Church News-Press
In what was hinted at being a near-guaranteed victory by junior outside hitter Kate Karstens, she lived up to expectations as the George Mason High School varsity volleyball team handled the visiting Central High School Falcons in three straight sets (25-15, 25-13, 25-15) on Tuesday, Sept. 22.
Though the Mustangs were exuding confidence during pregame warm-ups that didn’t translate to the court once the opening whistle was blown. The sluggish start consisted of some unforced errors by juniors Karstens and fellow senior outside hitter VickyMarie Addo-Ashong, which reached a climax with a Central kill that tied the set up at 8-8. “I think we started slow,” first year
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head coach Hillary Trebels said. “[But] we put it together in the middle of that first set and didn’t look back.” The Mustangs did just that. The team strung together a fivepoint rally capped off by junior outside hitter Shaun Rodock’s slicing spike that landed just inside Central’s right-side boundary, giving Mason a commanding 13-8 lead.
From then on out the Mustangs controlled the pace of the match with ease. The first set concluded with a barrage of kills from Addo-Ashong, Karstens and Rodock while getting help from some sloppy defensive play by Central, resulting in a 25-15 first set victory. The second set mirrored the first with Mason casually dominating the contest and Central doing its best to help
the Mustangs reach the eventual 25-13 result. The third and final set was close in score, though only in passing moments, as the Ladies were attempting to strike a balance between work and play while cruising to a 25-15 victory. The relaxed nature of the match’s final two sets could pay homage to the Mustangs skill,
Continued on Page 30
PAGE 28 | SEPTEMBER 24 - 30, 2015
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Public Announcements P
PUBLIC NOTICE CITY OF FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA VOTER REGISTRATION DEADLINE
Final day of registration is Tuesday, October 13, 2015 for the November 3, 2015 General Election for Member, Senate of Virginia, 35th District; Member, House of Delegates, 53rd District; Clerk of the Court (Arlington County and Falls Church City); Commonwealth’s Attorney (Arlington County and Falls Church City); Member, City Council (3 seats) (Falls Church City); and Member, School Board (3 seats) (Falls Church City). A Sample Ballot can be found online: http:// www.fallschurchva.gov/vote All citizens who will turn 18 years old by November 3, 2015 are eligible to register and vote. Online Voter Registration: http://www.vote.virginia.gov/ Deadline for applications submitted online via SBE’s website is 11:59 pm on October 13, 2015. Only applicants with a DMV license or identification card can submit an application electronically and these applications may also be untimely if missing material information. Va. Code § 24.2-416.7 allows electronic submission of applications for voter registration without any time limitation for the final day of registration. Section 24.2-416.4(B) does not appear applicable to applications submitted electronically. SBE is unable to find statutory language sufficient to justify treating as untimely applications submitted electronically before 11:59 p.m. on October 13. Please note: those applications filled out online that are
required to be printed and delivered to the registrar should be treated as regular mailed in applications and need to be postmarked by October 13, 2015 to meet the deadline. The 5:00 p.m. deadline on October 13, 2015 applies if any of these are submitted in-person at the registrar’s office. The deadline for mailed in applications remains that they be postmarked by October 13, 2015. PHOTO VOTER ID LAW. All voters casting a ballot in-person will be asked to show one form of identification. Any voter who does not present acceptable identification must vote a provisional ballot. Virginia requirements: Va. Code § 24.2643(B) valid Virginia driver’s license; valid United States passport; any other photo identification card issued by a government agency of the Commonwealth, one of its political subdivisions, or the United States; valid student identification card containing a photograph of the voter issued by any institution of higher education located in the Commonwealth of Virginia; any valid employee identification card containing a photograph of the voter and issued by an employer of the voter in the ordinary course of the employer’s business http://sbe.virginia.gov/Files/Cast%20 Your%20Ballot/VotingInPerson/VoterIdentificationChart.pdf Any voter who does not have a valid photo ID can go to any voter registration office and have a photo voter ID made and mailed to the voter’s residence for free. Absentee Voting for the City of Falls Church In-Person Absentee voting began Friday, September 18 in City Hall and will continue through Saturday, October 31. During that time, residents wishing to vote by In-Person
Absentee ballot can do so 8 a.m. to 5 p.m on Monday through Friday and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the two Saturdays preceding the election, October 24th and 31st. The office will be closed on Monday October 12 in observance of Columbus Day. Vote-by-Mail applications may be hand delivered, mailed, faxed, or scanned and emailed to the addresses below, so long as they are physically received in the Office of Voter Registration and Elections no later than 5 p.m. on Tuesday, October 27, one week prior to the election. Applications can be found on the Department of Election’s website. Election Day Reminders for the City of Falls Church Residents are reminded that on Election Day, street parking is available on both sides of Little Falls Street by the Community Center and on Oak, Seaton, Fellows, Parker, Timber, and Jackson near Thomas Jefferson Elementary School. Additional details, including a voter ward map, can be found online at www.fallschurchva.gov/ Vote. Contact the Registrar’s office at 703248-5085 (TTY 711) or vote@fallschurchva. gov for more information. David B. Bjerke, MPP, CERA, VREO Director of Elections & General Registrar of Voters, City of Falls Church Office of Voter Registration & Elections 300 Park Ave., Room 101E , Falls Church, VA 22046 Office: 703-248-5085; Fax: 703-248-5204; 703-248-5014 (TTY 771) vote@fallschurchva.gov; http://www.fallschurchva.gov/vote
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NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING CITY OF FALLS CHURCH VIRGINIA The City of Falls Church Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on Monday, October 5, 2015 at 7:45 PM in the Council Chambers of City Hall, 300 Park Avenue, to consider the following: Variance application V1573-15 by Tim Luwis, a variance to Sec. 48-1004 to allow a 30 percent reduction in the required parking spaces, on premises known as 419 W. Broad Street and 421 W. Broad Street, RPC #s 52302-059 and 52-302-056 of the Falls Church Property Records, zoned B-1 (Limited Business), said property owned by Tim Luwis. Variance application V1574-15 by Tim Luwis, a variance to Sec. 48-1101 and Sec. 48-939 to allow a rear yard setback of 10 feet instead of 20 feet on the southern property line and side yard setback of 10 feet instead of 20 feet on the western property line, both of which abut the R-M (Multi-Family) zone, to permit the construction of a new hotel on premises known as 419 W. Broad Street and 421 W. Broad Street, RPC #s 52-302-059 and 52-302-056 of the Falls Church Property Records, zoned B-1 (Limited Business), said property owned by Tim Luwis. Information on the above applications is available for review at: Zoning Office 300 Park Avenue, Suite 300W Falls Church, VA. 703-248-5015 (option 1) zoning@fallschurchva.gov This location is fully accessible to persons with physical disabilities and special services or assistance may be requested in advance. (TTY 711)
A RTS&E NTE RTA I NME NT
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
Crossword
ACROSS
By David Levinson Wilk 1
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© 2015 David Levinson Wilk
Across 1. Urban of country
1. Urban of country 6. Phi Beta ____ 11. Yahoo! event in 1996: Abbr. 14. One People, say 15. More pleasant 16. Just off the assembly line 17. 100% of attractive women flutter their eyelashes? 19. Finished off a brat? 20. “The Tempest” spirit 21. Part of POTUS: Abbr. 22. Rip into Scalia, Sotomayor and their peers for being so cheerless? 28. HuffPo’s parent 29. Greetings 30. Designer Armani 31. Jacuzzi session 33. “Understand?” 34. Thrash that doesn’t inflict a whole lot of pain? 40. Where Jimmy Carter became a distinguished professor in 1982 41. Southern pronoun 43. Libation that often comes in a large glass bottle 46. Capt.’s prediction 49. Have second thoughts about 50. Question posed to gauge interest in the purchase of a chain of B&Bs? 53. Super Soaker brand 54. Screw up 55. Tokyo Rose’s real first name 56. Cause of a paradigm shift ... or what’s gotten to 17-, 22-, 34- and 50-Across
62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67.
SEPTEMBER 24 - 30, 2015 | PAGE 29
DOWN
1. Optima maker 2. Subj. for a citizenship applicant 3. Many a trop. paradise 4. Instruments in military bands 5. Cozy spot by the fire 6. Kowtows, say 7. Window alternative 8. Toxic pollutant banned since the 1970s 9. Shade of green 10. “The only way to run away without leaving home,” per Twyla Tharp 11. Where to be snug as a bug, according to an idiom 12. Russian leader, 1682-1725 13. Has because of 18. Israel’s Netanyahu, informally 21. Plus-sized 22. Four-yr. degrees 23. Hang (over) 24. Jai ____ 25. Sun or stress 26. Toy on a string 27. Do 32. Was familiar with 33. “A Different World” actress Jasmine who, despite her sur-
CHUCKLE BROS BRIAN & RON BOYCHUK
6. Phi Beta ____
name, is a woman 35. Hacker’s cry of success 36. Tops 37. Nonkosher 38. Dinghy duo 39. Arts and crafts purchase 42. Call at Wimbledon 43. Turner of ‘’Northern Exposure’’ 44. Lopsided 45. Emulate Elvis, say 46. Author Jong and others 47. Addams Family nickname 48. Speedy Gonzales cry 51. Movado competitor 52. Running with scissors and such 56. Bit of cheesecake 57. “____ wrong?” 58. Prefix with day or week 59. Director Van Sant 60. Lingo suffix 61. Andy’s dinosaur in “Toy Story”
Circus safeguard Juan’s sweetheart No-goodnik Vane dir. ____ touch County abutting London
11. Yahoo! event in 1996: Abbr.
Sudoku Level:
Last Thursday’s Solution T H E A L P S
H O B B I E S
A L L E N D E
Z A A N N T D A I C
A D A L I B I G E N E R O O N S T R O N F O O B O O Y A I M E L D
O N E C A I C H E S I S O A B I A N D T O W A L R I P E T R E T S H S A
O H D T A G R I N C A L O R A L
R E N T A C A A R S A T P I M C E I L A Y
C H I D A D T O A L A B P H E R O U R T S H E S T P H I E R O N V O T S A C H E N T E R O A T R D S
By The Mepham Group
1 2 3 4
14. One People, say 15. More pleasant 16. Just off the assembly line 17. 100% of attractive women flutter their eyelashes? 19. Finished off a brat? 20. "The Tempest" spirit 21. Part of POTUS: Abbr.
1
22. Rip into Scalia, Sotomayor and their peers for being so cheerless? 28. HuffPo's parent 29. Greetings
LOOSE PARTS
30. Designer Armani
DAVE BLAZEK
31. Jacuzzi session Solution to last Sunday’s puzzle
NICK KNACK
1
© 2015 N.F. Benton
9/27/15
Complete the grid so each row, column and 3-by-3 box (in bold borders) contains every digit 1 to 9. For strategies on how to solve Sudoku, visit www.sudoku.org.uk. © 2015 The Mepham Group. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency. All rights reserved.
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PAGE 30 | SEPTEMBER 24 - 30, 2015
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
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Falls Church News-Press Vol. V, No. 28 • September 28, 1995
$2.2 Million Deficit Starts Budget Cycle Not only does the City of Falls Church face a $200,000 revenue shortfall already in the current fiscal year, which is only three months old, but is looking at having to close a $2.2 million gap between projected revenues and expenditures for the next fiscal year as it begins to take up its next annual round of City budget deliberations. Mayor Jeff Tarbert made this announcement at Monday’s City Council work session where Council members heard plans….
It is no the timw e for g o all o cows d to go to the aid of the pa stu ir re. *** **
F.C. Affordable Housing Stock To Nosedive
10 Year s Ago
Thr ow it up. Pour it up It now is the time for all go od cows to go the to aid
The City of Falls Church is on track to lose a whopping 754 existing affordable housing units to the pressures of development and appreciating market values in the next five years, the City Council was told Monday night. In a jurisdiction with barely over 4,000 total housing units, the impact promises to be enormous, Raymond Spicer, director of the City’s Housing and Human Services division, reported. In effect, 18% of the City’s total housing stock....
Mustangs Beat Central in Straight Sets, Currently on 4-Game Winning Streak Continued from Page 27
but it may not set them up for success later on. “It’s definitely hard when you’re playing [less challenging opponents] to stay at your level,” Rodock said. “It’s easy to let them set the pace because they’re sloppy so that’s another thing we’re trying to work on – not playing down to competition.” Trebels, aware of the trap complacency can be, offered up her remedy to combatting the problem. “Learning how to play our game regardless of what the competition is like is a key skillset to have,” Trebels said. “We see a variety of teams throughout the year and we want to approach the game with the same [mindset] that everyone is equally important.” For now, the fruits of victory appear to be low-hanging, though it wasn’t without labor for some. “Earlier this week we lost our sophomore setter Isabella [Ashton] to a sprained ankle so we knew our freshman setter Evelyn
[Duross] would have to step up,” Addo-Ashong said. “I think she did a really [great] job [especially] being thrown into it with only one day of practice. Both Addo-Ashong and Rodock also cited personal preparations in their techniques before the game as precursors to the day’s victory. A week ago Mason was victorious over Warren County High School with a final score of three sets to one. The Mustangs claimed a decisive first set victory of 25-15, but the Wildcats responded by claiming the second set in gritty fashion with a 28-26 end result. The Mustangs recuperated and seized control of the match in the third and fourth sets, winning by scores of 25-19 and 25-20, respectively. “I was really pleased with our match against Warren,” Trebels said. “Our passing was great, which allowed us to run all our hitters and Warren’s a good team so it’s not like we beat up on someone; we had actual competition.” Outstanding stats included
twenty digs by Rodock, twentythree assists by Ashton, and twenty kills by Addo-Ashong; a new school record. In a season that started with consecutive losses in straight sets to Riverside and Luray, Mason has been on a four-game win streak since, also topping William Monroe 3-2 and Pope John Paul the Great Catholic 3-0. The Mustangs play Strasburg High School in an away match on Thursday, Sept. 24.
THIS IS CHARLOTTE, a 9-year-old cat who went missing from the Foley home on Randolph Street, across from Roberts Park, on Tuesday, Sept. 8. She is white with gray/brown marks and blue eyes. Anyone with information about Charlotte’s whereabouts should contact Cheryl Foley at cfoley8000@aol.com. Just because you’re not famous doesn’t mean your pet can’t be! Send in your Critter Corner submissions to crittercorner@fcnp.com.
SEPTEMBER 24 - 30, 2015 | PAGE 31
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
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ACCOUNTING
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Falls Church Antique Company . . . . . 241-7074 Antique Annex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241-9642
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Dr Gordon Theisz, Family Medicine. . 533-7555
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Gary Mester, Event, Portraits. . . . . . . 481-0128 Mary Sandoval Photography . . . 334-803-1742
LAWN CARE
MEDICAL
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Broad Street Pharmacy . . . . . . . . . . . 533-9013 n
www.healthybyintention.com.. . . . . . . 534-1321 n
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Feline Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 920-8665
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Dr. Alison Sinyai, Family Eye Care . . 533-3937 n
FC Heating & Air Service . . . . . . . . . . 534-0630 Joseph Home Improvement. . . . . . . . 507-5005 Picture Perfect Home Improvements 590-3187 One Time Home Improvement. . . . . . 577-9825
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Tailor Lee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534-8886
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PAGE 32 | SEPTEMBER 24 – 30, 2015
Falls Church Charmer - Price Improvement!
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
Open Sunday 2-4pm rice Huge P n io t Reduc
2300 Grove Avenue | Falls Church
New Construction! 6 BD/5.5 BA. Huge Lot! $1,399,000
105 S Cherry St | Falls Church City
6 BD/6.5 BA Colonial w/ 4 finished levels. $1,475,000
Charm abounds! 1936 Cape Cod Lovingly updated and exquisitely maintained. stainless steel and granite kitchen , three gorgeous baths, five bedrooms, hardwood floors, rec room, Huge sun-drenched family room with fireplace Radiant heat, Hardiplank siding, Architectural slate roof, stunning moldings. Absolutely beautiful gardens, enchanting views from every room. Garage.$889,000. Call me to see this one of a kind home!
Merelyn Kaye
Meeting Real Estate needs since 1970. There is no substitute for experience Home Office: 703-362-1112 e-mail: merelyn@kayes.com
710 Villa Ridge Rd | Falls Church City
4 BD/3.5 BA colonial in Broadmont. Beautiful private yard with stone patio and screened porch. $1,175,000
1272 S Washington St | Falls Church City
4 level 3 BD/3 BA TH. Mins to everything. $659,000
158 Rees Place, Falls Church City
9356 Deer Glen Ct, Fairfax
Gorgeous 3 BD/3.5 BA townhome overlooking Tripps Run. Stunning interior and updates. Walk to downtown FCC. $879,000
Wonderful, spacious townhome steps from Vienna Metro featuring 3 BD/3.5 BA on 3 finished levels. $739,000
Voted Best Residential Real Estate Agent
Louise Molton NVAR Top Producer Phone: 703 244-1992 Email: louise@moltonrealestate.com
www.LouiseMolton.com
EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY
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REALTOR