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,

It’s been a packed two weeks. As we’ve all literally dug out of snow and ice, I’m also trying to dig out of my snow emails so if you’ve reached out, thank you for your patience. There’s a lot to share, along with a few important calls to action for this weekend:

• Sunday is the end of (extended) Restaurant Week – get some final great deals on meals this weekend while supporting our small businesses.
• Submit a name idea for our newest park, starting construction later in 2026. This is our 4th new park in 5 years – hurray for more gathering and recreation space across the city.
• TOMORROW (Saturday) 1-3 pm – town hall with Delegate Simon and Senator Salim. The General Assembly is almost to the halfway point and this is a great opportunity to hear updates and share your thoughts on priorities. One of the top concerns we consistently hear is transportation safety and wanting more authority from Richmond to expand automated photo enforcement especially for stop sign running. I’ve been in Richmond the past two weeks representing our interests. It will be uphill to get more authority this year due to data privacy concerns – so here’s your chance to make your voice heard about why it’s important.

Lots more to share – read on about scooters, Greening of Lincoln, business updates, and our biannual City Council “retreat”. My next office hours will be Wednesday, February 18 at 5 pm at the Stratford Garden. Look forward to hearing from you.

Stay warm and have a good weekend –
Letty

What Happened This Week (The Past 2 Weeks):

(1) Snow, ice, and everything not nice

As we hunker down again this weekend with more frigid temperatures, I wanted to shout out the commendable work by city and school staff and neighbors helping neighbors during the winter storm, now almost 2 weeks ago. This was a big storm for us plus the unusually cold weather that followed made digging out extra tough. While the city had temporarily relaxed enforcement of sidewalk clearing due to the extreme conditions, city staff has been following up again with property owners with unshoveled sidewalks during our brief thaw this week so that we can get everyone around the city safely. I’ve personally surveyed our streets every other day or so and followed up with staff with photos and notes.

For awareness next time (let’s hope there isn’t a next time): street plowing is prioritized, focusing on emergency routes, primary streets before getting to secondary and neighborhood streets. We know plowing the large volume of snow ended up on the sidewalks and also inadvertently un-did some shoveling which was unfortunate – our snow crews have been doing their best. Last week, crews helped school facilities teams with clearing schools and school routes (note: FCCPS was the only district able to return last week) and now have been overnight clearing curb ramps and hauling literally tons of snow away in our commercial districts.

For any public sidewalks or other concerns, you can submit them on the City’s online Request Tracker for follow up. You can use this same online form for other routine maintenance issues.

If you still need help digging out your property or sidewalk – here’s a great volunteer (not city-endorsed) Snow Brigade effort to pair requests for help with adult and kid volunteers.

Letty’s Quick Note: the big snow berms and narrower streets may be here with us for a little while longer. While inconvenient for cars, this is actually a great demonstration of how narrower roads indeed slow down car traffic – which is one of the strategies often used in neighborhood traffic calming projects. Also, while clearing the streets for car traffic is important, I will continue to emphasize resources for making our other modes of transportation – sidewalks, bus stop, bike lanes, etc – accessible.

(2) City Council Retreat

Last weekend, we also “retreated” for our every two year priorities and planning discussion. (We do this after elections when there is a new City Council seated to create a work plan for the coming two years.) Thanks to my colleagues and staff for spending a Saturday together to align on our shared priorities. Housing, transportation, and economic development remain the top priorities so no large departures from the past 10 years. For me personally, cultural shifts in making government work better are just as important as the policies: a focus on outcomes, a responsive and accessible government, and a test and learn mindset. I’m excited for the coming two years – especially in these times, we have a huge opportunity to show that local government can still work and deliver great results.

Coming soon – we’ll spend upcoming work session time reviewing the proposed priorities, based on available resources and hope to have a finalized work plan in the next month.

(3) City Council Business

Some highlights from our length work session and other meetings this week:

Scooter Pilot 2.0

Pre-Covid, we started a pilot of “shared mobility devices” which include dockless scooters and e-bikes (see my Nov 2019 post) – that pilot unfortunately had no applications from operators. Since 2019, the scooter industry has stabilized, neighboring jurisdictions have had them in operation, while Falls Church has become a donut hole where scooter companies cannot operate because they don’t have operating agreements. That means that for people who are riding on the W&OD into Falls Church or coming in from Arlington or Fairfax at our other borders, their scooters stop working or they are unable to park them inside City limits.

In line with our policy of encouraging other modes of transportation other than cars, staff has been revisited the rules for the program, discussing with select boards and commissions, and proposing a new 1 year pilot using lessons learned from the first pilot and from neighbors’. The pilot is targeted to begin this spring. The proposal received general support from City Council with more discussion to come in our March 2 work session.

More details in the presentation and staff report with some highlights below – where scooters would be allowed, how they should be parked, speeds, safety, and minimum age.

Greening of Lincoln Update

The Greening of Lincoln is a multi-phase stormwater, roadway, and streetscape project
intended to reduce flooding, improve safety and accessibility, and modernize
infrastructure along Lincoln Avenue and adjacent neighborhoods. The project has been delayed due to escalating costs and issues with easements so we received an update this week on the phased approach, ahead of authorizing the contract for Phase A, Part 1 for the storm water work around Lincoln Park to begin this May. More details are in the memo and project website and if you live in the vicinity, communication went out to the neighborhood as well.

Business Updates

The city’s latest grocery store (#6) is opening next Thursday – Grocery Outlet Bargain Market – at the former Baby Target space. Other updates below:

(4) Lots of Richmond time

I’ve been to Richmond a lot the past two weeks – watching committee meetings, meeting legislators and discussing and testifying for some of our priorities around traffic safety, housing, transit funding, and gun violence prevention. The General Assembly meets either for 30 (odd years) or 60 days (even years) – and even in the “long” years, the pace is fast and furious so the face time is valuable.

What’s Coming Up:

February 9 – City Council Meeting*

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)