Blog posts are the personal views of Letty Hardi and not official statements or records on behalf of the Falls Church City Council

Dear Friends,

With the thawing temps, the remaining snow will melt – so hopefully this is the last time I have to write about snow! If you haven’t already, please shovel (and widen) your sidewalks now that the snowcrete has softened and to avoid overnight re-freeze. The City Council asked for an after action discussion on the snow event – having seen neighboring jurisdictions, I think the city’s snow response has been commendable, but I think there’s opportunity to step up enforcement with private property owners.

This week’s post will be briefer ahead of no City Council meeting next week with the holiday. You can catch me at my office hours next Wednesday at 5 pm at the Stratford Garden. We’ll be back in session on February 23. Keep reading for:

• New businesses and celebrations
• Richmond Happenings: transit funding (and why you should care) and a new Congressional District for us
• Transportation annual report and capital project updates

Happy Lunar New Year –
Letty

PS – If you get city curbside trash/recycling service and want to change the size of your gray trash cart, you have until Monday to fill out the form. (For reference – the current year’s cost is $336 (55 gallon trash) vs $236 (35 gallon trash). And remember, the new yellow organics/composting carts are coming this spring.)

What Happened This Month:

(1) Celebrations All Around:

We welcomed two new businesses this week, Giving Tree K-9 Club on W Jefferson and the Grocery Outlet, the first in Virginia. Congrats to Prince and Omid Wafa for investing in The Little City, adding 30 new jobs, and being our newest residents too! When the cost of food keeps rising, it’s great to add an affordable, high quality grocery option to the city, now #6 in Falls Church, maybe the unofficial grocery capital of Northern Virginia.

If you’re checking out Grocery Outlet this weekend, you’ll be in the Tinner Hill neighborhood – which is a great spot to celebrate and learn more about civil rights history in Falls Church since February is Black History Month. The Tinner Hill arch is prominently at the entrance to Grocery Outlet. More resources here.

I also joined an early Lunar New Year celebration at Winter Hill Apartments which is home to many seniors and residents with disabilities — and boasts a vibrant Vietnamese community. This year’s celebration was extra special as we honored a resident’s 99th birthday – the oldest resident in Winter Hill and maybe even in the city!

Lunar New Year is next Tuesday, and the Eden Center will be hosting their annual celebration (when temps are supposed to be in the 50s!)

(2) Richmond Happenings

Transit funding – in our meeting this week, we heard a presentation from the Metropolitan Council of Governments (aka MWCOG or COG) – the regional body for DC and localities around MD and VA. We unanimously adopted a resolution in support of a sustainable funding model for the region’s transit network.

In the current General Assembly session, there have been several bills at the state level we’ve been tracking and supporting, in hope that Virginia would give us more revenue options. As we approach crossover next week (like halftime for the General Assembly – the midpoint deadline by which bills must pass their originating chamber (House or Senate) to be considered by the opposite chamber) – the transit funding bills aren’t advancing in their current form so more discussions are underway on other options. This continues to be a risk for our upcoming local budget.

Why you should care: Metro is critical to Northern Virginia’s economy and Northern Virginia’s economy is critical to the entire Commonwealth (40% of Virginia’s GDP comes from NoVA). And Metro funding is a sizeable portion of our annual local budget. With a serious and permanent funding gap to come – this is not something we (localities) can solve alone, so there has been a lot of regional work to pursue long term, sustainable funding.

As part of Virginia’s congressional redistricting proposal – if the referendum is approved by voters on April 21, it looks like Falls Church will be losing Congressman Don Beyer and will be in a new congressional district, a new 7th district where there currently is no incumbent.

(3) Transportation and Capital Project Updates

Transportation Committee: we heard a thorough annual report from our transportation committee (Citizens Advisory Committee on Transportation – or CACT). Given that transportation safety is one of the top community priorities, the CACT is also one of our most active boards and commission. Besides advising us on projects and advocating for spot improvements across the city, they are also the group of neighbors who vote and help prioritize traffic calming projects. If you’d like to give public comment or watch them in action, the CACT meets the 2nd Wednesday of every month at 7 pm.

And if you’re “board and commission curious” beyond the CACT – here are our other boards and current vacancies if you’re interested in volunteering your time or expertise or want to contribute to your local community.

Capital Projects: we received the quarterly report on capital projects (CIP) across the city. Related to the above, you can see that transportation projects make up the largest portion of the CIP (15 out of the 27 active projects), followed by stormwater and facilities upgrades. Much of the CIP is grant-funded along with some local dollars. We approve a long range, rolling 6 year CIP every year in the budget process – which will kickoff for us at the end of March.

Projects to note:

• Underway right now: Greenway Downs traffic calming, Maple & Annandale roundabout, Washington & Columbia intersection. All of these are scheduled to be completed in the spring, weather permitting!
• Coming soon: Aurora House solar panels (summer), new playground equipment at Cavalier Trail (fall), initial phase of Greening of Lincoln (spring)

More details in the CIP report here.

What’s Coming Up:

February 23 – City Council Meeting*

March 2 – City Council Work Session*

March 9 – City Council Meeting*

March 16 – City Council Work Session*

March 23 – City Council Meeting* (budget presentation)

*All Mondays (except 5th Mondays and holidays) at 7:30 pm. You can access the agenda and livestream here, including recordings of past meetings

Office Hours:

Letty’s – Wednesday, February 18 (5 pm, Stratford)

City Council’s – Wednesday, March 4 (9 am, City Hall)