MAN ABOUT TOWN: A Web of Intrigue

By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Falls Church Times Columnist

August 30, 2010

Before the days of the Internet, getting “published” wasn’t that easy. Sure, you could pay a vanity press to privately print your work, but that didn’t mean anyone would read it. Today, though, any Tom, Dick, or Harriet can write a blog accessible around the world.

This seems like a useful innovation, but how does one separate fact from fiction? Truth from garbage? That’s one thing not even Google has figured out.

In little Falls Church, news sources are limited. For two years now we’ve had the Falls Church Times, but as a volunteer organization, this online newspaper doesn’t pretend to be able to cover all the local news of import. So we’re still often left with the News-Press, which recently set a record of 1,000 continuous weeks of publication.

Unfortunately, the News-Press, having over the years become accustomed to holding the only key to local publication, recently committed an egregious triple sin: First, it reported as “news” a couple of sentences posted anonymously on an obscure political blog. Then came an editorial bemoaning the “news.” Finally, the editor’s henchman laid out an action plan in reaction to the “news.”

If your reaction is “so what,” allow me to connect the dots. The News-Press editor remains in shock after the election of a mayor he opposed. First he petulantly reported that Mayor Baroukh had declined a request to congratulate the newspaper on its thousandth edition. Then, when it came time for the annual “State of the City” interview with the mayor, he handed the job off to an assistant.

It’s clear that the News-Press editor, along with his henchman, the ex-mayor’s husband, want very, very badly to see the end of Mayor Baroukh. Since Baroukh is a federal employee, and under the Hatch Act is not eligible to run in a partisan election, the ploy is to institute partisan elections for City Council.

Read more

MAN ABOUT TOWN: School Daze

By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Falls Church Times Columnist

August 23, 2010

Two more weeks of “freedom” before our children are returned to their educational cages.

Looking back on my 16 years in the public school classroom (including four years spent on the other side of the desk), I can say they were the most stressful years of my life.

But at least I was spared the agony of the current educational fad. Two of my daughters, both graduates of George Mason High School, were not.

I speak of the dreadful “block” schedule. Surprisingly, this form of torture has yet to be instituted at Guantanamo Bay. That it is visited on our children is, I feel, a travesty.

If you are over the age of 30, you may not have personally experienced the “block.” I know it only vicariously, through my daughters’ laments. But as a former teacher (and a former student) I can well imagine the agony.

Young people have short attention spans. We all know that. They are also restless – they need to move around frequently. In fact, the whole concept of confinement in a classroom is unnatural to a young person, which is why we prescribe so much Ritalin.

At GMHS, students have only four classes a day – one normal, 50-minute class, and the rest, grueling hour and 40-minute-long tests of endurance for the students and, no doubt, the teachers as well. Read more

MAN ABOUT TOWN: Top-to-Bottom Talk

By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Falls Church Times Columnist

August 16, 2010

Falls Church City’s longest-serving Council member and current vice mayor, Dave Snyder, writing in this week’s News-Press, has called for a “top to bottom, all-inclusive community discussion” of matters that could affect the sustainability of the City.

“We urgently need a community discussion of what constitutes ‘fiscal responsibility,’” says the vice mayor. The Man About Town agrees. And in fact, if you start with the vice mayor and end with me, that pretty much defines “top-to-bottom” doesn’t it?

Wait, I forgot about the community. Roughly 10,000 residents, of whom 1,000 vote in local elections, and maybe 500 read about such City matters as “top-to-bottom” discussions. Of those 500 readers, perhaps 100 actively participate. That’s about what we had for the budget town halls earlier this year.

So far, in response to Snyder’s piece, there have been six online commenters. Two are anonymous and so don’t count for much. The remaining four are former mayor Robin Gardner, former vice mayor Sam Mabry, one Richard Donnely who mutters “damn lies and statistics,” and one Robert Loblaw who writes in full: “David, Robin, and Mike, y’all are too cute for words.”

I think there’s room for a few more words, and not too cute. The subject is “the long term sustainability of the City, and indeed its very mission,” to quote Mr. Snyder. I’ve been criticized for dwelling too much on the City’s sustainability (actually, unsustainability), so I’m happy to see the vice mayor raise the issue.

To recap my thesis: Falls Church City is too small, and too hedged in by other high-density municipalities, to remain sustainable. The fault is the state of Virginia, which established a unique model for “independent” cities that conspires against our Little City. The problem is exacerbated by the outstanding reputation of our City schools, which is drawing disproportionate numbers of parents to settle here. Read more

LETTER: Let City Police Ticket Private Parking Violators

August 14, 2010

TO THE EDITORS OF THE FALLS CHURCH TIMES:

We live in a small townhouse community with both guest and assigned parking for residents. We recently have had some issues where guests were parking in resident spaces. The board of our homeowners’ association was asked to find a resolution. I was interested to find that our only recourse is to have the offending parties towed. There is no ordinance under which an Falls Church police officer could site someone for parking in an assigned spot.

The Falls Church City Police Department and the City staffs have been exceedingly helpful in developing and implementing a towing policy and we wanted to thank them. However, it would be so much simpler to call the City and have an officer issue a ticket. There would be no issues of predatory towing, the City would receive the fines, and simply turning on the patrol car flashers at night would bring the vehicle owner running. There is already an ordinance for Resident Parking Permits that applies to on-street parking. This could be extended to communities with common, assigned parking areas such as ours. Read more

OPINION: How Could Someone Steal the Yield Signs?

By STEPHANIE J. OPPENHEIMER
Falls Church Times Staff

August 11, 2010

Almost 10 years ago to the day, my father decided to take a bike ride to Leesburg via the W&OD Trail. It was a trip he had taken countless times, so when he didn’t return home after a few hours, we weren’t terribly worried; we figured he had just decided to ride a little further than originally planned.

But when afternoon turned to dusk, and dusk turned to night, we got scared. We called every hospital in the region, we filed a police report, we drove repeatedly to the parking lot where he had left his car. Finally, at 10 p.m., we found out that there was a “John Doe” in Fairfax Hospital’s ICU, who had been medevacked that afternoon from Sterling. He had been hit by a minivan as he crossed one of the many roads the W&OD intersects, and he was in bad shape.

John Doe was my dad. He spent two weeks in a coma, nine months in the hospital, and four more months in rehab and physical therapy as a nearly severed leg and a damaged brain healed. He ultimately returned to work, returned to golf, returned to the gym. In my eyes, it’s a miracle he survived at all.

Ever since then, I’ve treated W&OD road crossings as if the railroad were still operating — without crossing gates or ringing bells. I slow and look both ways before continuing through a crossing. I stop whenever I see a walker, jogger or cyclist approaching. Yet even with such caution, I’ve been amazed by the number of times another driver has zoomed around me and nearly hit the very person I was letting cross in front of me.

So imagine my delight last week, when six “Yield to Pedestrian” signs were erected at each of Falls Church City’s six W&OD road crossings. I was happy to see a post on the City’s Facebook page, reminding motorists “to slow down when approaching a crosswalk and stop if a bicyclist or pedestrian is in the walkway, because they have the right of way.” It continued, “Bicyclists must also observe the Stop sign before entering the crosswalk, and everyone is reminded to look both ways before crossing the road!”

Read more

MAN ABOUT TOWN: Still Wearing No Clothes

By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Falls Church Times Columnist

August 9, 2010

Hopefully the statute of limitations has run out on the following true story:

Freshly out of college, I was a copy editor for a Charleston SC newspaper then known as the News and Courier, although it was often called the “Newsless Courier.” With the 1976 film release of All the President’s Men, romanticizing how the Washington Post took down the Nixon administration, every available newspaper job in the country suddenly had a thousand college grads trying to land it. The News and Courier realized they could get some hard-working kids at next to no cost, and they hired a few.

One of the new reporters was a whiz kid named Peter who came out of Princeton, which shows you how strong the buyers market was. I’m not sure Peter had ever ventured south of the Mason-Dixon other than in a jet plane bound for Florida. But he found himself in the South Carolina Lowcountry, assigned the City beat for outlying municipalities such as Summerville and Moncks Corner.

Peter took his job mighty seriously, and while studying a road map he spotted a town within his beat that no one had ever mentioned to him. Its name was Lincolnville, founded in 1867, population 904. True to its name, the “Newsless Courier” had never reported the news of Lincolnville.

But Peter would change all that. He found out when the town council was meeting, asked if he could come, and showed up of an evening. Oh, they made a fuss over him! What an honor to have a bona fide newspaper reporter from the big city of Charleston attend their council meeting! He was recognized by the Mayor, asked to address the assembly, and generally treated like royalty. When the mayor gaveled the meeting to a close, everyone shook Pete’s hand and said they hoped he’d come back next time.

Peter walked out to his car, sat down, and decided to expand on his notes while his memory was fresh. So he started writing his report in the parking lot. And he wrote. And after a while he noticed something strange: not a single other person had left the town hall! Having dispatched the dignitary, the town council was now deliberating the real business of the day. Bemused, Peter drove back to his office, having learned something not taught in journalism class at Princeton University.

We’ve come a long way from those days, when it really was hard to know what your mayor and his cronies were up to. Now, at least in Virginia, any meeting (meaning any business discussion) of three or more elected officials must be public. Even better, we can watch those meetings at our leisure on the Internet.

And yet – watching the most recent financial reports to City Council, I almost felt like I was in Lincolnville. Read more

MAN ABOUT TOWN: Gone With the Windfall

By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Falls Church Times Columnist

August 2, 2010

I could have watched the entire “Gone With the Wind” last Thursday night in the same time I spent watching three and a half City Council members rehearsing the line, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Yes, that’s 3.5 members – one exhibiting a split personality causing him to vote both ways, in the process making the night’s labor meaningless.

Those 3 ½ members clearly don’t give a damn about the City’s precarious financial state, despite warnings from both the City Manager and the City Attorney. Apparently they, the elected part-time officials, know better than the full-time professionals they pay to administer the City. And that’s not all – they also ignored the advice of the chairman of the Long-Range Financial Planning Working Group.

That’s what you call arrogance – an arrogance that you might have thought was washed away by the May election. But no – one of the newly elected members seemed as cocksure as the rest of them. Call me sucker-punched.

Maybe it’s our proximity to Washington DC that breeds a cavalier attitude toward deficits. In Washington, if you need more money you just borrow it. If you exceed the debt ceiling, you raise it.

But why do these council members think they can allocate money like the U.S. Congress? Read more

COMMUNITY COMMENT: Taken Aback by FCHC Request

By RICHARD SOMMERFELD

July 29, 2010

This comment is my personal view as a taxpayer and a voter, not as Chairman of the Long-Range Financial Planning Working Group.

I was more than taken aback by the request from the Falls Church Housing Corporation (FCHC) for the City of Falls Church to bail it out of its current financial predicament.  In no way is this a “minor modification” of the terms set forth by the City Council for the Wilden Project.  It is a major change to the terms and to the project risks.  Anybody who understands real estate development would understand that fact and Mr. Young confirmed it in his interview with the FCT.  What we now have here is an admission by the FCHC that it is financially insolvent because it cannot make payment of its $2.7 million note due on August 7.  To be clear, the definition of financial insolvency is when a borrower cannot meet its financial obligations as and when they come due.  It also admitted that it may have to sell assets at a loss to make good on the note.

The FCHC also admits that it is attempting to help the Sawner estate settle its debt to the City.  It goes on to admit that whoever the other “partners” are who invested $750,000 in pre-development work will lose their funds.  The FCHC, for reasons that defy logic, spent $1.2 million on pre-development work when it had neither complied with the very soft terms set forth by the City Council nor had it lined up all of its equity and bank financing.  By way of clarification, a loan from the City does not qualify as equity by normal accounting principles, even for a non-profit.  Now, the FCHC has the audacity to ask the taxpayers of Falls Church for a bailout caused by financial mismanagement and overly optimistic forecasting for the entire Project.  The City would not just be bailing out the FCHC, but all of the parties associated with this project, according to the FCHC memo.

Any assertion that this project ever made financial sense for the City is distinctly contrary to a thorough and well-reasoned analysis prepared by Mr. Mike Novotny of the EDA and comments made by Mr. John Lawrence, Chairman of the Planning Commission, who voted against the project.  It would cost the City at least $100,000 in lost tax revenue–when every penny counts.  If this project made that much sense, perhaps Mr. Young should advance the FCHC $1 million, inasmuch as he would be a benefactor of the total project.

To put the $1 million request into the context of the Schools’ budget, that would be the equivalent of 12 teaching positions plus 2 or 3 support staff.  Down the road, the subsidized cost of at least $100,000 per annum would be the annual equivalent of 1.5 teaching positions.  If we go through the math of the project, it is expected by the FCHC that in 15 or 16 years the City would essentially forgive the $2 million loan.  How many teachers or policemen or firemen does that equate to?

In terms of the financial gimmickry of the FCHC request, if I understand Mr. Rogers’ memo to the City Manager, taxpayer funds will flow from the City to the FCHC and then back and forth between the FCHC and the Sawner estate, with a some portion of the funding maybe returning to the City in some guise to make it appear this is nothing more than a usual and customary fiscal arrangement.  It would also allow Mr. Young to proceed with his development and then recoup $25,000 per parking space from the City.

I think that the City Council would be making a huge mistake taking taxpayer funds that were meant to restore the depleted fund balance and finance operations such as public safety and the schools and redirect funds for 66 subsidized housing units.  The City Manager even stripped the CIP of all but $385,000 of capital expenditure to fund the operating budget.  We just heard from the City Manager that he had approached Davenport & Co., the City’s investment bankers, about going to the debt markets to fund the depleted CIP.  The Assistant Director of Finance has confirmed that tax collections are running $3.5 million behind last year.

After we listened to City employees pleading for their jobs in the Council Chambers (and on the City’s TV station) just 3 months ago, this is a major insult to them and their families.  At the end of the day, the real issue is not whether the City Council would be voting on 66 subsidized housing units in the middle of the commercial district to be funded by depleting the fund balance again, but whether this Council wants to bail out the financial mismanagement of the FCHC and place further strain on the City’s operating budget.

Even if the City borrows the money from a bank, it would be sending the wrong signal to every household in the City that had to accept a 16% hike in real estate taxes to support the City’s operating budget, not bail out an entity that is admitting insolvency.  It is an audacious argument on the part of Ms. Jackson and Mr. Rogers to say that the Virginia Development Housing Authority would turn its back on Falls Church for not funding this $1 million request for an admittedly insolvent FCHC.  The Council needs to call in an independent auditor to examine the finances of the FCHA and its financial controls and not bail out the FCHC.  The City should not the “bailout banker” of last resort for a non-profit that speculates in land development.

Mr. Sommerfeld is a businessman who lives in Falls Church City

Editors’ Note:  The Falls Church Times has invited the Falls Church Housing Corporation to submit a Community Comment making the case for its request in this matter, and we invite others to share their views on this topic or others of importance to the City.  Our comment policy appears in our “About” section.  Please send your submissions to contact@fallschurchtimes.com.

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