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,

While this weekend is the unofficial start of summer, we will be remembering the Americans who gave their lives in service of our country – I hope you’ll join me at the 11 am Memorial Day ceremony. And I’ll see you at our beloved annual traditions of the fun run, parade, and festival – all the details you need are here. Our region is also mourning the passing of Congressman Gerry Connolly of the neighboring 11th district, who made such an impact. His legacy is visible from the Mosaic District to the Silver Line – we were lucky to have him and his fierce love and passion in serving the people of Northern Virginia.

There’s a lot to catch up over the past few weeks. Here’s a selection of important local government topics where I’d value your input. Read on about:

1. FY26 budget adoption – we’re done (for now) + amendments on current year’s budget
2. Founders Row’s Paragon Movie Theater – really, coming soon!
3. Affordable Living Policy
4. New sidewalk and crosswalk standards
5. Happy news: new mural, peace garden, and an award Falls Church and I received

Finally – two important PSAs:

1. The long awaited HAWK signals on Broad Street go live next week! We’ve launched a public awareness campaign, including an informative video as they’ll be different than a typical traffic signal. Help spread the word so drivers and pedestrians know what to do.
2. And if you’re a fellow school parent – did you get your school registration postcard? I know I don’t think of registering for next school year until I get to this year’s finish line, but it is much easier this year and helps FCCPS plan.

Take care,
Letty

PS – as I plan my summer office hours and schedule, I will be prioritizing neighborhoods and multifamily buildings. This week, I was with the Falls Plaza Condo HOA and met with the Grove neighborhood at my office hours. If you’d like me to visit your building or neighborhood, just drop me a line.

What Happened This Week (And Last):

(1) FY26 Budget Adopted & What’s Next

Last week: we adopted the FY26 budget last week (the new fiscal year begins July 1) with a 1 penny tax rate decrease to help blunt the impact of rising assessments, while preparing for likely harder times ahead. Like many budgets, this is one is about balance – funding competitive pay for our employees and top priorities such as more paving, road maintenance, housing, and public education, while minimizing taxpayer burden and asking everyone to start preparing for more uncertain times ahead. Even with a 1 penny tax rate decrease – because of increased assessments, the median homeowner tax bill will increase $500 or so.

This week: Yes it’s confusing that we adopted the budget and we’re already amending it, but that’s not what’s happening. The budget amendment we discussed in our work session this week is for the *current* fiscal year, FY25. There are a lot of big numbers in the budget amendment, but the TL;DR is that Rec and Parks programming fees are coming in higher so there slightly more revenue. Most of the numbers are from inter-department transfer of funds and use of fund balance by FCCPS to pay for projects like the baseball field, concessions stand, and other one time capital projects.

Letty’s Thoughts: – in all the debate, it was lost that the overall city budget will be growing at 6.6% (6.3% growth for the General Government and 6.9% for FCCPS) which is not only above average for the region but also historically high. Due to new commercial projects coming online, we’re able to lower the tax rate again while increasing services, while many in the region are increasing tax rates and cutting back services. We are closely monitoring unemployment and local revenues, such as meals and sales tax – as we know those are the early indicators of a potential economic recession due to the federal reductions. We all expect FY27 to be harder but I also think we will be more resilient with our growth to date, fiscal management, and without high commercial vacancies drag down our tax base.

Also looking ahead, I hope we will also be more nimble and remain fact-based in how we approach budgeting decisions this coming year, because the environment demands that we are vigilant and responsive to the entire community’s needs.

(2) Founders Row’s Paragon Movie Theater – City Council and other city leaders got a sneak preview of the Paragon Theater space and Modera Falls Church (fka Founders Row 2), including a cool co-working space on the ground floor, at a tour last week. The theater is expected to be in soft opening in June, with a grand opening in July. More photos here!

(3) Affordable Living Policy Updates

It’s been over 5 years since we last updated our affordable living policy, so we discussed the key changes that the Affordable Living Policy workgroup is recommending. Here is the full policy draft, with the presentation being a good synopsis.

Housing affordability and housing supply are among the top issues of concern for our residents and across the region, so if this is an important topic to you – the policy is a good read as it guides the strategies and priorities we take on. Also, “affordable housing” does not do the topic justice – as this is not just about housing for low income households. You’ll see that that policy covers everything from rental to ownership opportunities, why diversity of housing stock matters, unhoused and wraparound services, and how we should be funding all of these priorities.

There will be several more work sessions and public hearings before we adopt the new ALP in August (schedule in the staff report here).

(4) New sidewalk and crosswalk standards

Also long debated are the brick crosswalk and sidewalk streetscape standards we adopted when I was new Councilmember in 2017. Since then, we’ve received feedback from the public that brick can be less accessible and slippery in wet or icy conditions and from staff that it’s expensive to install and maintain, so much so that federal transportation grants no longer fund brick sidewalk installations. Note that sidewalk standards apply to our commercial streets like Broad and Washington, Park Ave, and the connecting streets off those corridors – not all streets across the city.

This week, we invited members of our CACT (Citizens Advisory Committee on Transportation), HSAC (Human Services Advisory Council), EDA (Economic Development Authority) and Planning Commission to weigh in on staff’s recommendations on new standards in light of these concerns.

Sidewalks: Staff has recommended we move to concrete crosswalks with brick ribbons. We all believed it was a good compromise and creates some continuity between the current all brick sidewalks with better accessibility and cost. (The closest existing example of this look is in front of Winter Hill and Broaddale, except without the horizontal brick separators)

Crosswalks: a tougher debate is what to do about our current standard of brick crosswalks – whether to move to the common Continental High Visibility (aka zebra stripes) or stamped asphalt crosswalks (looks like brick, but isn’t) – see the pilot one at Broad and S. Oak. We want to balance safety and accessibility with something that differentiates the space for pedestrians and distinguishes Falls Church.

(5) Happy news!

Finally, in case you missed it – there have been lots of happy news over the past week.

Falls Church and I received the 2025 Livable Communities Leadership award from the Coalition for Smarter Growth. My comments here which share credit with so many who have helped Falls Church blossom over the past 20 years, why a livable community matters, and looking ahead.

We unveiled a new mural at the Eden Center! (Check out more of our public art here.)

And we dedicated the Marian Costner Selby Peace Garden, who was the first African-American student to attend George Mason High School in 1961.

What’s Coming Up:

Tuesday, May 27 – City Council Meeting

Monday, June 2 – City Council Work Session*

Wednesday, June 4 – Ask the Council Office Hours (9 am, City Hall)

Monday, June 16 – City Council Meeting*

Monday, July 7 – City Council Work Session*

Monday, July 14 – City Council Meeting*

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

Letty’s Office Hours:

Monday, June 23 – 12 pm (Mr Brown’s Park)