Updates from Letty – September 12, 2025

Posted on September 12, 2025 by Letty Hardi

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,

City Council has been back in session the past two weeks with packed agendas. Before I jump into local business, I want to acknowledge there is a lot of anxiety in the national climate, plus the 47th school shooting in the US this year. Violence should have no place here or anywhere. We can disagree — passionately, even loudly – but let’s continue to be a community that can debate, disagree, and still care for one another without fear. And we should have commonsense gun reform.

This week, Falls Church has been a much needed bright spot with historic firsts recognized, important proclamations reflecting who we are as a city, and a final vote on trash that have been long discussed but not acted on til this year. Plus read on for the always popular economic development updates – we continue to have a lot of build outs finishing up and ribbon cuttings, signaling new commerce and businesses across the city. Let’s show them our support (note my office hours schedule at various restaurants below).

I look forward to hearing from you and hope to see you this weekend at the Falls Church Festival and the FCEF Run.

Take care,
Letty

What Happened This Week

(1) Historic Firsts & Proclamations

Typically I don’t write about all the honorific parts of our agenda (we do a lot of them at the beginning of every meeting) – but this week was notable.

First, we unveiled the portraits for Carol Delong, the first woman to serve as mayor of Falls Church, and Freddie Foote Jr, the first African American member of our City Council. We’ve had portraits of the founding fathers in Council Chambers (also our courtroom) for years and the addition of Carol and Freddie to the walls is a significant moment that will live long after all of us. It was a good reminder that leadership in Falls Church looks like all of us – the portraits represent a promise of a more inclusive, more diverse, and more vibrant future for Falls Church. And that our city is at its best when it welcomes new voices, new perspectives, and new possibilities. You can watch the unveiling here (beginning around 31:00)

We also might have set a new record with the number of proclamations we did this week. When taken as a whole, it was a clear reflection of who we are as a city. From recognizing our Employees of the Year and the importance of our public service, to our environmental priorities (Leave the Leaves and International Repair Day) to celebrating our diversity (Hispanic Heritage Month and Welcoming Week), to the importance of democracy and our constitutional rights (Constitution Week and Disability Voting Rights), and community building (Good Neighbor Day) – we packed Council Chambers, literally and figuratively. It was an honor to preside over a meeting that reflected so many of our voices and values and gives me hope that good things are still to come.

(2) Trash Vote

With a final round of questions and deliberations, we unanimously voted to change the way we pay for solid waste services and to add a new third cart for organics/composting service. Starting November 2025, curbside customers will see a new solid waste fee—based on their gray trash cart size—added to their real estate tax bill. All City residents will also see a 1.5 cent reduction in their 2026 real estate tax rate (from $1.21 per $100 in assessed value, to $1.20 decided at the budget adoption in the spring, to now $1.185). The annual fee will either $236 for the 35 gallon trash cart or $336 for the 65 gallon trash cart. Tax relief is available for residents in need. More information here, including all the past documents, FAQs, and community engagement that occurred. You can also go back to my posts from earlier in the summer and last year, which also has links to the news coverage.

Action Now: Curbside customers in townhomes and single-family homes will receive a yellow Organics Cart, along with their Trash and Recycle Carts. Choose an Organics Cart size or opt-out of the service before carts are distributed in Spring 2026. Residents have until midnight on Friday, October 31, 2025, to complete the form.

Letty’s Thoughts: I’ve long believed it is important we tackle this solid waste issue – not only for the fairness and environmental policy objectives we’ve adopted – but because it’s important that government solves problems. This has been long discussed but we did not have the political will to tackle it until this year. Moving to a fee based system for solid waste (that is not a slippery slope for those fearing we’ll be in an “a la cart government model” as this is a service that multi family buildings can’t access, unlike library, schools, public safety etc) is the right thing to do when our housing stock diversifies – this is a part of the Little City “growing up”. And as we grow up, we need to be open to different ways of doing things and being more reflective of the community we are and not cling onto the old ways of doing things, even if they were unfair. As with all changes, we’re committing to monitoring how this goes, see how we can improve, and will pull it off the shelf for more improvements if needed. A big thanks to the community and solid waste task force for their input and work and all the staff still work to come as we move into implementation in the next year.

(3) Facilities Chapter of Comprehensive Plan

The city’s Comprehensive Plan (Comp Plan for short) is the city’s long range “strategic plan” and each chapter gets periodic updates. The latest chapter to be updated is Chapter 8 – the Community Facilities, Infrastructure, Utilities, and Public Services Chapter. This was kicked off last year and we spent our work session last week diving into the first draft. The chapter includes our public buildings like City Hall, Library, the Property Yard, stormwater facilities, communication utilities, and others. Given so much investment in a new City Hall, Library, and school buildings the past 5+ years – many of our facilities have been updated with the exception of the Community Center (other than the new geothermal HVAC that finished this summer) and the Property Yard.

Expect the public engagement on the chapter updates over the next 6 months, beginning with our referral to the Planning Commission and other boards and commissions who will have work sessions on the chapter too. If you have input on community facilities you’d like to see (pool and pickleball courts are the two that I often hear most in the community) – we’d love to hear from you.

(4) Business Openings & Underway

From this month’s Economic Development Authority meeting, here are the new businesses announced and status of build outs. You can see the ground floors of most of the developments are filling up, with openings and build outs well underway.