Crime Report

PAGE 16|JANUARY 12 - 18, 2023

COMMENT

A Penny for Your Thoughts

News of Greater Falls Church

By Supervisor Penny Gross

They say that you never want to see how laws or sausage are made. The final product may be tasty, but the process can be messy and ugly. That process was on full display, live and in color, in the U.S. House of Representatives last week, culminating in selection of a Speaker after 15 ballots across more than four days. Sausage it was, as Kevin McCarthy of California, was figuratively run through a grinder, over and over, in full view of the nation via C-SPAN. Because there was no Speaker selected, there were no rules, so the C-SPAN cameras, usually stationary and narrowly directed at the Speaker’s chair and the podium, freely roamed the chamber, capturing tête-à-têtes between dissenting Members, yawns, and obvious frustrations on both sides of the aisle. Finally, at 12:30 a.m., the 15th ballot finally cemented the selection of Mr. McCarthy as Speaker, but still without support from a majority of House members, missing the magic number of 218 because several Republican holdouts voted present. Outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi was famous for knowing every vote she had nailed down before going to the floor; the incoming Speaker’s count fell short 14 times, and nearly failed on the 15th.

As messy as it was to watch, the battle for Speaker demonstrated some of the basics of parliamentary procedure, which is crucial to governance and law-making. In a way, parliamentary procedure is a recipe: it provides the ingredients and the directions for a successful product. Motions, seconds, discussion, amendments, points of order, calling the question, and eventually voting, are the bread and butter of governing bodies at all levels of government. Parliamentary procedure ensures that all opinions can be heard before proceeding to a vote of the governing body. In Congress, debate can be lengthy, going on for days, since 435 Members may want their say. At the Board of Supervisors, debates among the 10 members are shorter, but the local public hearing process on land use issues or the budget, for example, can add hours to the agenda. And the public can view it as it occurs, on C-SPAN for Congress; Channel 16 or livestreaming for the Board meetings.

As Congress reconvenes, a lot of the discussion has centered on governance, or the ability to do the business of the body to which people are elected. As a long-time elected official, I often note that campaigning is fun; it’s governance that’s hard. Sadly, in today’s political arenas, campaigning seems to be constant, even after the election and, in the zeal to get one’s face on television or raise more money, or garner more press clippings and Facebook followers, governance gets left behind. Good governance is serious business, not show business. Good governance can bring together disparate points of view to agree on a common goal, and achieve that goal. Good governance doesn’t mean that you always get your way, but it should mean that, at the end of the debate and decision, most can come away with something positive, or at least a better understanding of what goes into, and what comes out of, that sausage grinder!

A quick correction to last week’s column about the second anniversary of the January 6th assault on the Capitol. My reference to the Republican chairman from Maricopa County should have been to the Republican Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, who was defeated in a primary after he defended the integrity of the 2020 election process in his state.

City of Falls Church CRIME REPORT

 Penny Gross is the Mason District Supervisor, in the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. She may be emailed at mason@fairfaxcounty.gov.

Week of January 2 - 8, 2023

Larceny of Vehicle Parts, Rolling Trace, between 8 PM, January 4 and 7 AM, January 5, unknown suspect(s) shattered the driver’s side window of a Honda Civic and removed the steering wheel airbag

Aggravated Assault, Wilson Blvd, January 5, 11:51 AM, victim attempted to break up a fight between two subjects and was stabbed in the back by one of them. Victim was transported with non-life threatening injuries. Suspect described as an Asian male, possibly in his 40`s, wearing a grey and black hoodie. Suspect left in a black SUV. Detectives are working to identify

Drunk in Public, Wilson Blvd, January 8, 2:06 AM, a white male, 36, of Alexandria, was arrested for Drunk in Public.

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Delegate Kaye Korys

Richmond Report

This column serves as an announcement of my establishment of the Accessibility and disAbility Legislative Caucus. This Caucus will meet weekly during the General Assembly session to follow the path of current legislation affecting people with disabilities and their families, and to discuss advocacy or opposition positions and/or activities. Both advocacy groups and legislators are invited to participate. I have started and staffed other successful caucuses, particularly the Joint Women’s Health Care Caucus and the Animal Welfare Caucus. I am fortunate to have college student interns enthusiastic about these subjects who will accomplish the hard work of bill-tracking and staffing the meetings. I look forward to building partnerships between advocates and legislators to accomplish awareness and real change.

Over my years of public service, both as a School Board Member and as a Member of the House of Delegates, I have advocated for the rights of people with disabilities and their families.

I began my legislative advocacy efforts in 2015, when I worked with the ARC of NOVA to develop a bill which would establish Virginia 529A ABLE Savings Accounts. The successful bill allowed the establishment of a savings account with the goal of assisting individuals with disabilities and their families to save private funds to be dispersed to maintain the health, independence and quality of life with such an account used to apply distributions for qualified disability expenses (including higher education expenses) for an eligible individual. These accounts are a key asset for parents wishing to provide for a disabled child in the event of the parents’ death. In succeeding terms of office, I was appointed to the Joint Committee on Health Care and successfully convinced that body to undertake a two year study of the concept of Supported Decision-Making. Supported Decision-Making is a legal step between a guardianship status for an individual with disabilities and complete independence. SD-M creates a contract between a person with disabilities and a courtapproved advisor who will literally and legally assist that person in making important, often life-altering, decisions. Several pieces of legislation were initiated by that study-all geared toward increasing the legal independence of a person with disabilities. I was honored to be appointed to the Disability Commission and was elected Chair.

It was during my term as Chair of the Disability that I worked with the Virginia Board for People with Disabilities. The VBPD is charged with annually assessing Virginia’s Disability Services System, and submitting annual reports to the Governor through the Secretary of Health and Human Services “that provide an in-depth assessment of at least two major service areas for people with disabilities in the Commonwealth. The Board is also charged with completing a similar analysis as it develops and amends its federal State Plan goals and objectives. The published assessment reports contain policy recommendations that were reviewed, discussed and finalized by an ad hoc committee of the Board and approved by the Board’s Executive Committee. I have based several of the bills that I plan to file for this session on those recommendations. It is important for me to stress that neither the VBPD, nor the Accessibility and disAbility Caucus are politically partisan in any way. These bodies are both designed to further awareness of the issues facing people with disabilities and their families and to work toward building a more supportive and inclusive Commonwealth.  Delegate Kory represents the 38th District in the Virginia House of Delegates. She may be emailed at DelKKory@house.virginia.gov.