MAN ABOUT TOWN: A City in Retreat

By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Falls Church Times Staff

As I write this on a dreary, wet Monday afternoon, the City Council and the School Board are preparing to retreat. Shakespeare could not have orchestrated more appropriate weather, nor could our elected officials have chosen a better name. Because when conditions are this bad, a retreat is indeed required.

One definition of retreat is “a period of group withdrawal for prayer, meditation, or study.” Given the financial state of the City, all three options may be required.

Tonight (Nov. 30)  at 7 p.m., City Council and the School Board will retreat to MEH Middle School cafeteria. One item, and only one item, is on the agenda:

1. FY11 Finance discussion

That’s it. Assistant City Manager Cindy Mester’s 1-page cover memo describes the retreat as a time for “a comprehensive financial discussion for the FY 2011 budget development.”  She then injects some tragedy/comedy:

Time: 7:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.

That’s the comedy. A combined City Council/School Board meeting will do well to have recited the Pledge of Allegiance by 9:30. Now for the tragedy: Read more

FRIDAY, 12/4: FIRSTfriday in Downtown Falls Church

Falls Church’s FIRSTfriday, held the first Friday of each month, creates business and social synergy in the city of Falls Church. The event attracts people to view local artwork and events, learn about the city’s history, and shop and dine in downtown Falls Church.

Come to FIRSTfriday of Falls Church and join the fun. This month highlights include artists Shaun van Steyn, Liz Day, Hazel Brutsche, Denise Philipbar, and Bill Abel; musical performances by the Dirty Pints and Chris Collat; illustrator Marsha Lederman; and authors Betty Bruce Shepard and The Victorian Society at Falls Church.

See the full schedule of events for more detail.

WEDNESDAY 12/16: Mentor Orientation Meeting

Volunteers are needed to participate in an after-school program created by the Falls Church City Alliance for Youth in partnership with the Northern Virginia Family Service.  Adult men especially are needed to mentor young men; enough women have volunteered to mentor young women. The next mentor orientation is scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 16, so those interested should call soon. The 1-2-1 Mentoring program is designed to assist youth with building the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that prepare them to be healthy, productive, and contributing members of their communities now and in the future.

Youth in the program are matched with an adult volunteer mentor who will act as a role model and source of friendship and encouragement. Through the development of a consistent and goal-oriented relationship under the supervision of NVFS’ program coordinator, mentors and mentees will complete school assignments together, practice social and life skills, discuss issues of importance to the mentee, and participate in recreational activities.

Volunteer mentors should be 21 years old and above and be able to volunteer for a minimum of one year. They will receive thorough training and will meet their mentees each Thursday from 4-6 p.m. at the Falls Church Community Center, 223 Little Falls St.

For more information about the 1-2-1 Mentoring Program, contact Monica Arispe, program coordinator, at 703-219-2106 or marispe@nvfs.org.

All About Turnout – Part 1: Two Decades of Decline

By GEORGE BROMLEY
Falls Church Times Staff

The Falls Church City Council is considering moving municipal elections from May, their traditional date, to November, when they would conform with state or national elections.  The stated reason for the move is to increase voter turnout, which has fallen significantly since the early 1990s.

A report prepared by the Falls Church League of Women Voters in January 2001 first addressed local turnout decline, but no active consideration was given to changing the election date until October 2009, when councilmen Daniel Sze and Lawrence Webb publicly floated a proposal.

Virginia cities and towns have had the authority to conduct municipal elections in November for nearly a decade.  That the issue has abruptly surfaced seems surprising, especially as turnout here has been fairly stable since 2000 and remains far higher than in most localities.

Only last year an editorial in the Falls Church News-Press suggested that a low voter turnout was not necessarily a bad thing: Read more

OPINION: The Man Who Doesn’t Believe in Art

By SCOTT TAYLOR
Falls Church Times Staff

Our dog’s name is Daisy – a reference to Charles M. Schulz’s Daisy Hill Puppy Farm – and her weekends wouldn’t be complete without a Saturday morning walk from our house to Cherry Hill Park and the farmers’ market.  This morning, encouraged by the sunshine and towed down the sidewalk once again by a golden retriever eager for some new scents and sounds, my wife and I made our way to the vicinity of the farmers’ market where we secured Daisy in one of her favorite spots.  She has only experienced the market from a distance due to the sensible prohibition on walking dogs through the lanes between the stalls.  I am certainly no “retriever whisperer” yet I don’t believe the expression on her face is one of despondency as she looks down on the teeming marketplace. Read more

1863 Thanksgiving Reenactment at Cherry Hill Farmhouse

Saturday, November 28, was a little late for Thanksgiving – 146 years too late, in fact. But that’s what reenactments are all about. And on Saturday the Victorian Society at Falls Church reenacted what the first national Thanksgiving Day – Nov. 26, 1863 – might have been like at Cherry Hill farmhouse in the center of Falls Church.

By November 1863, relative peace had returned to Falls Church after 2½ tumultuous years of war and division, although there was a continuing threat of partisan guerilla raids. Most of the major Army camps had “folded their tents” and moved on, although some hospitals and the garrisons manning the forts and entrenchments protecting Washington remained. For the first time since the start of the war, local farmers were able to plant crops and bring in at least some of their harvest without major confiscation or interference, so there was something to be thankful for among the small remaining population in the village of Falls Church and vicinity. Read more

Library Gains Star Award Second Year in a Row

For the second year in a row, the Mary Riley Styles Public Library in the City of Falls Church has been named one of the best public libraries in the United States by the Library Journal.  The City library is one of only 258 top libraries out of 7,268 public libraries in the country to receive “star” ratings in a system similar to that used in the Michelin Guide.  Once again, the Mary Riley Styles Public Library received a 3-star rating — one of only three libraries in the Commonwealth to receive stars, and one of only two in Virginia and 202 nationally to have won the award two years in a row.

The new public library national rating system rates libraries with expenditures of $10,000 or more that serve populations of at least 1,000. Ratings are based on four per-capita service indicators:  library visits, circulation, program attendance, and public Internet computer uses. Read more

FC Brings Health Care, Technology to African Rainforest

By STAN FENDLEY
Falls Church Times Staff

The story is compelling.

“A young mother with two children is about to give birth to her third.  She has been in labor since early last night.  Her labor pains have been excruciating, but the baby won’t come.  She is totally exhausted and, as she feels her strength fading, she asks her husband to take her to the clinic, which is 14 miles away.  Her husband and brother load her onto a stretcher and carry her hours over muddy flooded tracks through driving rain to reach the little Kokolopori Health Clinic in Yalokole village.  There, Dr. Pondolo Saidi, a nurse, and a midwife welcome her.”

So reads the account of life in the African rainforest, posted on the website of the Kokolopori-Falls Church Sister City Partnership.  Dr. Barthelemey Pondolo Saidi is the clinic director in Kokolopori, Democratic Republic of Congo, Falls Church’s sister city.  The Sister-City Partnership recruited Saidi to move to Kokolopori in 2008, and since then Falls Church residents have paid his salary ($5,000 annually) Read more

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