Falls Church News-Press 10-20-2022

by Nicholas F. Benton Falls Church News-Press

The City of Falls Church’s chief financial officer Kiran Bawa reported to a work session of the Falls Church City Council this Monday a whop ping (for a jurisdiction Falls Church’s size) $4.05 million surplus at the end of the last fiscal year that ended June 30.

The projected annual budget of revenues and expenditures of $101,798,892 came in at an actual $100,993,152, a difference of that four million. The biggest single con tributor was general fund revenues that came in 3.5 percent above budget and was reflected in a healthy meals tax growth of 34 percent above bud get, even as the growth in sales taxes was only 3.5 percent above budget.

Most of the elements of the bud get were measured against the ghastly impact of the pandemic on all opera tions in the City the last couple years, and the City clearly came through it all with shining numbers.

Economic conditions also look good throughout the 8th

by Charlie Clark Falls Church News-Press

Portland, Oregon, a frequently cited model among advocates of looser zoning to encourage less-pric ey home ownership, took centerstage at an Oct. 13 panel on Arlington’s debate over “Missing Middle” at which a variety of organizations

Former MHS Student Performs

With “Hamilton” Cast Julia Estrada is a former FCCPS student achieving her dreams as a stage performer by being a part of the Kennedy Center’s “Hamilton” cast. Read about how her career started and what’s ahead for her.

called for action to address the regional housing shortage.

Sandra Wood, principal planner at Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (who grew up in Arlington), described progress and similarities in Oregon’s controver sies that include “NIMBYs” battling “YIMBYs,” exploding demand for units, rising land prices and concerns

over crowded schools, loss of trees, and strained parking and stormwater infrastructure.

Her hard data were present ed at a session at George Mason University’s Arlington campus titled “Exploring Missing Middle: The Economic and Market Impact of Infill Development,” spon sored by the Northern Virginia

Garden Tips for the Fall and Winter Season

Henry Cauley of Pimmit Hills Pollinator Company gives advice for how one can make their garden have a greater impact over the incoming colder months that can lead to a successful spring.

Association of Realtors, GMU’s Center for Regional Analysis and its Center for Real Estate Entrepreneurship.

In attendance were Arlington County board members Katie Cristol, Matt de Ferranti and Takis Karontonis, plus state

The City of Falls Church’s Independent, Locally-Owned Newspaper of Record, Serving N. Virginia

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FALLS CHURCH PLANNING Director James Snyder (far right) welcomes over 40 bike riders to the interior plaza area of the new Founders Row in Falls Church, located across the street from the W&OD Trail running through the City. The riders, members of the Sports Backers club led by Brantley Tyndall, came from Richmond on a fact-finding mission to explore the W&OD Trail as they seek a similar trail for their area. ( News-Press Photo )

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Kaine, Warner Urge WMATA To ‘Get It Done’ on Silver Line

Virginia’s U.S. Senators Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine released the following statement regarding the status of the Silver Line extension:

“The United States government, the Commonwealth of Virginia, local governments, taxpayers and commuters have spent billions to construct a state-of-the-art Silver Line. It’s taken decades to realize the dream of Metro service to Dulles and now travelers along the corridor can see tracks, gleaming new stations, and test trains moving along the route.

“All that remains is for WMATA and the Safety Commission to get their acts together and remember that they are not in existence to wage turf battles but to serve the transportation needs of area residents. We are making it clear to both agencies: it’s time to get this done.”

Fairfax County Board chair Jeff McKay also reported that last week he “hopped aboard a Metro train for the 3 minute 30 second (we timed it!) journey from Innovation Station to Dulles International Airport, a key part of the much-anticipated and long overdue Silver Line Phase 2 extension adding six stations, connecting Reston to Ashburn.”

McKay said that joining him were Providence Supervisor Dalia Palchik and Airports Authority Board Member and former County Board Chairman Kate Hanley and WMATA officials. McKay said “it is incumbent upon all regional leaders to advocate for better transparency and accountability and additional financial assistance from the federal government, the primary beneficiary of the service.”

According to a press statement from WMATA received yesterday, the date for opening “now rests with Safety Commission concurrence on both Silver Line certification and new 7K Return to Service Plan.”

WMATA stated that “after successfully completing two weeks of simulated service, Metro leaders said today that they will be able to open the extension to Dulles Airport Station in time for the start of busy Thanksgiving travel, subject to approvals this week from the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission (WMSC) of two submissions — a data-driven Return to Service Plan for 7000-series railcars, and a safety certification report of the Silver Line extension.

“We committed for the Silver Line extension to being operationally ready for the Silver Line extension in October, and we have met our deadline,” said WMATA General Manager and CEO Randy Clarke. “Since control of the extension was turned over to Metro, we and our partners at the

Airports Authority, Fairfax, and Loudoun have worked diligently to complete all of the steps needed for Metro to offer safe and reliable service for rail travel to Dulles Airport and Loudoun County, and we are just awaiting concurrence from our Safety Commission partners.”

GOP Candidates in Virginia Called Out for Incongruities

This week, GOP challengers in two critical U.S. House congressional races in Virginia were called out for cloaking important incongruities in their campaigns.

Tuesday, GOP House minority leader Kevin McCarthy campaigned for Jen Kiggans, who is challenging Democratic U.S. Rep. Elaine Luria in Tidewater, and his plan to put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block was featured.

McCarthy has been quoted saying that “if Republicans win control of the House the GOP will use raising the debt limit as leverage to force spending cuts — which could include cuts to Medicare and Social Security.” Kiggans was then cited endorsing McCarthy’s plan, calling it “a great plan.”

Then, in the campaign of the GOP’s Yesli Vega against Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger in the 7th District, Vega’s cited opposition to President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan was contrasted to her achieving the removal of $96,000 in student loan debts through personal bankruptcy in an article in the Prince William Times this week.

State Sen. Petersen Speaks at F.C. Chamber Luncheon

Falls Church’s new State Senator Chap Petersen, a Democrat, spoke to the monthly luncheon of the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce Tuesday. With the recently reconfigured districts in the state, Petersen, who has represented areas further west in Fairfax for 22 years, is now representing the City of Falls Church for the very first time, even though nobody in the City has ever voted for him.

Petersen said he’s been working on addressing that issue by undertaking extensive walking tours to meet City residents as well as meeting them at public events. He will be on the ballot seeking election to another four year term in November 2023, which will be F.C.’s first shot at voting for him.

He said a key issue for the legislature next year will be finding ways for salaries to keep up with inflation. Also, he said that Virginians have the “best value in the U.S. for their education dollars.”

LOCAL

Falls Church Needs to Grow 4.4 Percent in Value in Coming Year

Congressional District of Virginia, according to a report released yes terday by the Congressional Joint Economic Committee chaired by U.S. Rep. Don Beyer. The report says that 19,500 new jobs were created in the district since Biden was sworn in, and the benefits of the development of Amazon’s second headquarters just down the road are expected to continue to be felt in a positive way.

On the other hand, challenges remain for Falls Church. One of the most important will be assessing and acting on the completion of a com pensation study due this week that is aimed at examining salary structures and their relationship to equity stan dards in the government.

Also, City Manager Wyatt Shields has reported that the City’s real estate assessor Erwving Bailey is meet ing with his counterparts in the Northern Virginia region this week to compare notes, with the aim of being able to report rough projec tions for the coming fiscal year to the City Council and School Board at their annual joint budget guidance meeting in early December.

It was noted this Monday that the

City will have to grow in value by 4.4 percent in the coming year to avoid shortfalls, such that even though the surplus reported this week seems like an abundance, the realities of the world is that it is not so much that.

This may be a good time to observe caution and prudence more than usual, Bawa and Mayor David Tarter indicated this week due to the headwind pressures on the wider economy, including the impacts of inflation, supply chain pressures, the war in Europe, rising fuel costs and rising interest rates.

The Bawa-Shields message to the Council this week noted the $4.056,615 surplus, it set a cau tionary tone by saying, “While this shows economic recovery from the pandemic, we also need to exercise caution amidst signals of slowdown in economic growth. It would be prudent to hold a portion of the year-end balance in the fund balance for use during the next year’s budget development.”

There is also the more local ized issue of how deep the General Assembly may go to reduce or elimi nate the grocery tax, which will not be known until next spring. Another factor of uncertainty will be the

degree to which residential real estate values will continue to rise, or not, and actual real estate assessments will not come out until next February.

So, in seeking actual budget amendments from the Council in November on how to appropriate the surplus, the City staff is initially pointing to using the funds for capital improvement projects in lieu of issu ing debt, core transportation infra structure needs, the coming year’s “work plan” initiatives, replacement of necessary equipment past its use ful life, and investment in employee learning and development. On top of these are the results of this week’s compensation study and the need to project a 4.4 percent growth in the coming year to meet all the budget obligations. That includes the fact that nothing was said about further ing the City’s commitment to afford able housing.

Out of the current $4.1 net bal ance, Shields and Bawa are currently recommending adding $770,000 to the unassigned fund balance to bring it to almost 20 percent of the overall budget, and assigning $1.1 million to the City schools under the terms of the newly-minted revenue shar ing program between the City and

lined in the paragraph above this one.

There is no way to tell at this stage if the City Council will be able to cut the real estate tax rate further when it decides such things late next April for the new fiscal year beginning July 1, 2023. The rate was cut by 12.5 cents to $1.23 per $100 assessed valuation in the last two years.

The Council also took a look this Monday at the deployment of over $18 million that has come the City’s way in the form of the American Recovery Plan Act funding. Big items in the use of those funds include

ture with $7.6 million and an “Affordable Housing Acquisition Strike Fund” deployment of $1.9 million, premium pay for City and school employees operating above and beyond the call during the pandemic of about $1 million, small business economic assistance of $500,000 and a new HVAC for the Henderson Middle School of $500,000.

Under the terms of the ARPA assistance, the City must offi cially commit, or “encumber,” all the funds by December 2024 and expand them by December 2025.

THE FALLS CHURCH CITY COUNCIL met for the first time in the Dogwood Room at City Hall for a work session this Monday, with remote participation from others piped in through large screen TVs. (News-Press Photo)

Panel: NoVa Faces ‘Major Housing Challenges’ to Stay Competitive

Sen. Barbara Favola, along with Falls Church council member Letti Hardi and city Planning Commission members Tim Stevens and Andrea Caumont.

“Northern Virginia has been No. 1 for economic mobility in the past four decades,” said GMU business school professor Eric Maribojoc. But the market is not producing enough housing for 60,000 new residents expected next decade. Not only are prices rising, there’s been a “60 per cent hike in households without chil dren and in one-person homes,” he reported. What’s needed “is not just low-income housing but housing for all family incomes, and more diverse types,” he said. The choices are build ing further out (which is cheapest); building denser (most expensive); or building different (so-called gentle density). “Missing Middle” duplexes, triplexes, Maribojoc stressed, “is one way.”

In Portland as elsewhere, “fami lies have gotten smaller and hous es have gotten bigger,” said Wood, who in 20 years has worked on 30 projects amending her zoning code. Today single-family dwellings take up

43 percent of its land (or 75 percent excluding parks and industrial sites).

Portland from 2010-2035 is projected to add 250,000 to its current popula tion of 650,380.

So planners in 2015 started research for a Missing Middle initia tive, aided by a new state law that took effect in July 2022 allowing duplexes everywhere and four-plexes in some areas. The city zoning code was redone to permit four-unit build ings for most lots (six units if half are regulated as affordable), and planners introduced a sliding-scale floor-toarea ratio to limit home size, Wood said, with no parking regulations. They used “multiple strategies, includ ing fee exemptions, homelessness pro grams, and renter protections,” while expanding options such as cottage clusters and affordable townhouses.

“Allowing more and smaller houses reduces cost” because the land cost is divided, she said.

Portland keeps the four-plexes away from “sensitive environmental places” — those prone to floods, wild fires, airport noise and future indus trial development.

The result? Four-plexes are the most popular type, Wood said.

Between Aug. 2021 and Aug. 2022,

196 lots were redeveloped, produc ing 400 extra units, 55 percent of the lots which were single-family and 45 percent Missing Middle. In addition, 279 accessory dwelling units were built. Portland projects a 28 percent drop in the displacement of “vulner able households” over 20 years. Her office forecasts 4,000 more Missing Middle units in the next 20 years. She said she is less concerned about infrastructure impacts on schools and storm drainage than she would be if builders build infrastructure further out.

Northern Virginia faces major challenges in retaining talent to stay economically competitive in highvalue services, said economist Terry Clower, professor of public policy at GMU’s Schar School. “The mil lennial generation is finally growing up and realizing that living above a bar is not as much fun when you have a toddler. But there’s little hope for young working families to afford getting into a home.” He flagged a 40 percent rise in mortgage costs in just the last year, and the “shock factor” of the Fed’s recent interest rate hikes after a time when “we were spoiled.” Clower said “it’s time to quit talk ing about it and doing something,”

despite opposition from some singlefamily homeowners whose “favored infrastructure is a moat,” he joked. “Nothing is stronger than the fact that once folks get something, it can’t ever change. “

The characterization was echoed by Michelle Krocker, executive direc tor of Alexandria-based Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance, who bemoaned “misinfor mation” that feeds the discussion. “It’s as if there’s a third rail — don’t mess with single-family homeowners,” she said. “But we are experiencing a housing crisis,” she added, reporting a nationwide shortfall of 3.79 mil lion homes, and 320,000 needed in the D.C. area. “We need affordable, multi-family and single-family—we need everything.” An AARP sur vey showed most Americans prefer a mixed neighborhood with trans portation options close to schools, shopping centers, entertainment and green spaces, Krocker said. But there is a “zoning mismatch” between gen erations. She praised Arlington for “providing a road map” of research and best practices.

Some skepticism came from Charles Taylor, a developer of singlefamily homes by Classic Cottages,

LLC, who underlined the state laws that protect “by-right” development. True, the current Missing Middle pro posal allows the same lot coverage for multifamily structures. But if required “to solicit community input or appear before the board, a prudent developer would be apprehensive about taking it on,” he said. New regulations raise costs, he said, and “subjective regula tions can be tough for us and for staff.” The proposals may “sound great in theory but not at the expense of clarity and predictability.”

Noting the anti-Missing Middle yard signs, Taylor said he’s still await ing the county’s final proposal—set to come after the Nov. 8 elections.

“But we’re excited,” he said. We take flak for McMansions, and have no great love for building single-family homes, which are expensive and few can afford them. If we split the costs of a four-plex, it’s good for everyone.”

Ryan McLaughlin, CEO of the realtors group, spoke of current-day market “headwinds” — the average price in Arlington rose 4 percent over last year, to $809,000, he said. “It’s not just Arlington but the rest of the country.” But with the Missing Middle debate raging, “All eyes are on Arlington.”

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COMMENT

Commentary We Are Suddenly Taking On China And Russia

Thomas L. Friedman NEW YORK TIMES

In case you haven’t noticed, let me alert you to a bracing turn of events: The U.S. is now in conflict with Russia and China at the same time. Grandma al ways said, “Never fight Russia and China at the same time.” So did Henry Kissinger. Doing so may be necessary to secure our national interests. But have no doubt: We are in uncharted waters. I just hope that these are not our new “forever wars.”

The struggle with Russia is indirect, but obvious, escalat ing and violent. We are arming the Ukrainians with smart mis siles and intelligence to force the Russians to withdraw from Ukraine. While taking nothing away from the bravery of the Ukrainians, the U.S. and NA TO’s support has played a huge role in Ukraine’s battlefield suc cesses. Just ask the Russians. But how does this war end? No one can tell you.

Today, though, I want to fo cus on the struggle with China, which is less visible and in volves no shooting, because it is being fought mostly with tran sistors that toggle between digi tal 1s and 0s. But it will have as big, if not bigger, an impact on the global balance of power as the outcome of the combat be tween Russia and Ukraine. And it has little to do with Taiwan.

It is a struggle over semi conductors — the foundational technology of the information age. The alliance that designs and makes the smartest chips in the world will also have the smartest precision weapons, the smartest factories and the smart est quantum computing tools to break virtually any form of en cryption. Today, the U.S. and its partners lead, but China is deter mined to catch up — and we are now determined to prevent that. Game on.

Last week, the Biden ad ministration issued a new set of export regulations that in effect said to China: “We think you are three technology generations behind us in logic and memory

chips and equipment, and we are going to ensure that you never catch up.” Or, as the national se curity adviser Jake Sullivan put it more diplomatically: “Given the foundational nature of cer tain technologies, such as ad vanced logic and memory chips, we must maintain as large of a lead as possible” — forever.

“The U.S. has essentially declared war on China’s abil ity to advance the country’s use of high-performance comput ing for economic and security gains,” Paul Triolo, a China and tech expert at Albright Stone bridge, a consulting firm, told the Financial Times. Or as the Chinese Embassy in Washing ton framed it, the U.S. is going for “sci-tech hegemony.”

But where does this war end? No one can tell you. I don’t want to be ripped off by a China that is increasingly using tech nology for absolute control at home and creepy power-projec tion abroad. But if we are now locked on a path of denying Chi na advanced technologies “for ever” — eliminating any hope of win-win collaborations with Beijing on issues like climate and cybercrime, where we face mutual threats and are the only two powers that can make a dif ference — what kind of world will that produce? China should be asking the same questions.

All I know for sure is that regulations issued Friday by President Joe Biden’s Com merce Department are a huge new barrier when it comes to export controls that will block China from being able to buy the most advanced semiconduc tors from the West or the equip ment to manufacture them on its own.

The new regulations also bar any U.S. engineer or scientist from aiding China in chip man ufacturing without specific ap proval, even if that American is working on equipment in China not subject to export controls. The regs also tighten the track ing to ensure that U.S.-designed chips sold to civilian companies in China don’t get into the hands of China’s military. And, maybe most controversially, the Biden team added a “foreign direct

Our Man in Arlington

By Charlie Clark

In this era of renamings, there’s one longstanding Arlington school whose shedding of its mon iker seems lost in mists of time.

Page Elementary, at 1501 N. Lincoln St. in my boyhood neigh borhood of Cherrydale, was built in 1953 during the postwar baby boom—a time when our county was bent on honoring heroes of the Confederacy.

Thomas Nelson Page (18531922) was a popular author who doubled as a lawyer and diplo mat. Born on a Hanover County plantation, he led a thorough Old Dominion life, studying at Washington College when Robert E. Lee was its president, reading law at the University of Virginia, then practicing in Richmond. He would later work in historic preservation of such sites as the Yorktown battlefield.

His mainstream writings are hardly admirable to the modern eye. Novels like “In Ole Virginia: Marse Chan and Other Stories” and “Two Little Confederates” romanticized antebellum life under slavery. Circulated by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, they featured, like the Uncle Remus stories, dialect unflattering to blacks (I found it difficult to follow) and portrayed slave owners as kind.

His 1904 book “The Negro: The Southerner’s Problem” argued that “the Negro race must either remain distinct and keep to Itself, or it must be removed to some region, whether within or with

out the confines of the United States, where it will be substantially sepa rated.” And his views on lynching, though acknowledging its cruelty, admonished blacks that preven tion is partially up to themselves. Page is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery.

Flash forward to January 1978. A post-baby-boom enroll ment decline in Arlington schools prompted Superintendent Larry Cuban to tackle the unpleasant task of closing Page among other under subscribed schools. Neighborhood parents protested at hearings. But other parents were concerned about what they saw as too much experi mental education, pressing for a back-to-basics choice school. So Page Elementary was recast as Page Traditional.

That lasted until 1995, when the traditionalist program was slated to move to the building that had been, ahem, Stonewall Jackson Elementary at N. George Mason Dr. and Wilson Blvd. A new name was solicited. According to Washington Post coverage, 23 candidates emerged. Contenders included keep ing the Page name to mean “pages of a book.” Other finalists were Betty Carol Best (for a local AfricanAmerican teacher), statesman George Mason, inventor Thomas Edison, and the winner: Arlington Traditional School.

Then a twist came to the Page building. A new principal, Betty Hobbs, was recruited from Alexandria to start an elementarylevel program focusing on “every thing from a science perspective as much as possible,” she recently told

me. The school didn’t yet have a name. But after talking with staff and families, “We decided on Science Focus, which is what we called it ini tially.” For the 1995-96 school year, Thomas Nelson Page was removed from the building.

Today, Page School is recalled mostly by alumni, on Facebook nos talgia sites and chats at high school reunions.

***

The 68-year-old man called “arguably the greatest Little League player in county history” paid a hometown visit on Oct. 12, for the Arlington Sports Hall of Fame.

Jim Barbe was inducted at a ban quet at Knights of Columbus along with former Georgetown University basketball player and later coach Craig Esherick; Washington-Lee (now Liberty) three-sport star and University of Virginia baseball hurl er Harry Thomas Jr.; and Yorktown High School and University of Texas champion diver Maren Taylor.

Barbe, whom I recall as a mon ster-sized 11-year-old pitcher and slugger for the Vet Vans team, was later a three-sport star at W-L and baseball standout at James Madison College. He is now a normal-sized, nationally ranked pickleball champ in Arizona.

One tale he told: While a player in the Texas Rangers farm system, Barbe was in spring training in Florida when Major League Hall of Famer Ted Williams drove up in a golf cart. Barbe worked up the nerve to introduce himself, having read a biography of Williams as a kid. The game’s top hitter cut him off, saying: “You’re Barbe? You have a tremendous swing.”

EDITORIAL

In Defense of Real Newspapers

An article by reporter Michael Scherer in last weekend’s Washington Post on the emergence of “mystery publications” to spread “partisan news” creates the distinct impression that it is progressive elements who are dominating this new trend in politics, the formation of news entities that camouflage an underlying purpose to advance a candidate, campaign and/or political agenda. But in fact, the article sorely missed two words: Fox News. That is, it is the egregiously partisan Fox News of the Rupert Murdoch organization that has set a whole new standard for masquerading partisan disinformation as “news.”

Nonetheless, it is important to note citations in the Post article by, among others, David Brock of the Media Matters watchdog group, that recent use of “newspapers” to advance causes “grew out of research that showed “high trust for local news, particularly among women.” Brock is quoted saying, “Independent women are not cable news junkies. They are on Facebook but they don’t trust it. The thing they trusted from the survey that we did was local print news.”

“The thing they trusted is local print news.” Such trust must be grounded in credibility and reliability, and while those remain lacking in faux newspapers that mimic what a local paper is supposed to be, it points to a matter of great import when it comes to legitimate local newspapers like ours, the mighty Falls Church News-Press, and our track record of 32 years of consecutive weekly publication.

More than just “reach,” it is trust that matters most, because even if a newspaper has a partisan slant editorially, that is transparent and readers are not being tricked into trusting something they shouldn’t.

In our case, we have been operating in a period in our nation’s history when democracy itself is being uniquely challenged, and when the free press is facing unprecedented headwinds. So, the City of Falls Church has enjoyed the benefit of finding itself in the increasingly rare and advantageous position of having a viable weekly newspaper that has been delivered to every household in the jurisdiction for over 30 years. Comparatively, the number of households that receive and digest the City’s online communications cannot hold a candle to the News-Press’ total market coverage every week, including the fact that people tend to read us more than once over the course of any given week.

It is a widely-held view that the lack of viable newspapers represents a grave loss to our democracy, severely limiting access not only important information, but also to a meaningful discourse of ideas upon which a healthy democracy depends. It is not surprising that as online social media options invite short, overly opinionated and filth-laden, often bot-driven comments, this comes in the context of the demise of regular, credible newspapers.

But when an entire community can share in a deliberation on sound ideas through viable discourse, the outcome is always good, no matter what particular outcomes may prevail at any particular moment.

L ����� �� E ����� Traffic Safety Changes Needed Editor,

As a pedestrian and driver in the Falls Church area, I am grateful to be alive everyday to witness the growth of the City. I urge all, especially those who have the authority and responsibility to keep traffic moving safely, to please research through the wealth of information online about best practices in city planning, traffic control, pedestrian walkways, bicycle safety, etc. No need for expensive travel to study what other cities or countries have found useful. As an example, a YouTube channel called “Not for Bikes Only” talked about how crossing the streets should not be so deadly. The video mentioned the Dutch banned right turn on red. I heartily agree after being nearly hit several times as I cross

the streets near East Falls Church Metro. Cars here just do not Stop on Red before making a right turn. They just sail on right through. Feeling invincible inside the hunk of metal weighing thousands of pounds. As a driver, I get honked at when I do stop at a red light. The driver behind me wants me to turn right on red. I decided to take action—write to the editor of the newspaper— after recent incident on Columbia Pike where a car behind me swerved around me to get in front to turn right on red as my car was stopped on red , waiting to go straight across the street to Aldi and Harbor Freight. Why is his time more important than mine? The few seconds saved can cost lives. Including the rule breaker’s.

Helen Litoy City of Falls Church

P�������

1. Keep the news clean and fair.

2. Play no favorites, never mix business and editorial policy.

3. Do not let the news columns reflect editorial comment.

4. Publish the news that is public property without fear or favor of friend or foe.

5. Accept no charity and ask no favors.

6. Give “value received” for every dollar you take in.

Mail or drop off

7. Make the paper show profit if you can, but above all keep it clean, fearless and fair.

FALLS

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS

It’s (Still) Alive! Your Garden From Fall Through Winter

BY HENRY CAULEY PIMMIT HILLS POLLINATOR COMPANY

For years, conventional gardening tips for fall instructed us to clean up and remove fallen leaves, cut down dead or dying flowers, and let the ground go bare for the next few months. To make your garden have a greater impact over the winter that leads to a successful spring, try these approaches:

Do: Let Your Leaves Be a Natural Mulch

Do you spend a lot of time and money on purchasing and spreading mulch? Our trees provide this material and service for us, free of charge!

Allow the leaves that fall in your garden to serve as a natural mulch.

Fallen leaves protect plant roots over the winter by acting as an insulating layer that regulates moisture retention and soil temperature in garden beds and around the base of trees and shrubs and prevents frost heave.

Leaves should be removed from turf unless they are broken down using a mulching mower. As soon as the weather begins to warm, this natural layer of organic material decomposes into your soil, reducing your need to rely on outside compost and fertilizer.

Do: Let Your Plant Seed Heads Be a Source of Food

The seed heads that form after the flowers fade are no less important than the nectar and pollen that vibrant plants provide during the warmer months. Many different species that overwinter in our area, especially birds, rely on these seed heads for key sources of food when insects are not available. Spend some time watching the seed heads of Echinacea puperea (Purple Coneflower), and you will quickly realize that the plants are beloved by the American Goldfinch.

Chipmunks and squirrels gladly will feast on the seeds of decaying sunflowers and Cardinals will tug at the dormant spikes of Liatris for seed while you enjoy your morning coffee.

Do: Let your Garden Debris Be a Source of Shelter

Most of our native pollinators rely on the debris from our gardens for shelter. Some, including many of our native bees, use this debris as cover for the nests they build in the ground to help them overwinter. Others rely on the hollow stems of plants to make their homes or move loose plant debris to other locations to build nests and shelters. Fireflies live most of

their lives as larvae in leaf litter, feeding on slugs and snails. When you remove these sources of shelter, you remove the pollinators and fireflies that will emerge in the spring and get right to work in your garden, pollinating your plants.

Do: Let Your Dormant Plants Do the Planting

Though the colors of summer will have long faded by winter, the various shades of greys, browns, and blacks that your dormant plants create their own striking visual interest. For these plants to spread to fill in the garden, their seeds must be exposed to the cold of winter in order to sprout in the spring. Rather than cutting down your seed heads on plants you want more of and having to buy and plant additional plants in the spring, leave up those dormant plants and let them do the work for you by self-seeding.

Do: Plant the Things You Want for Next Year

With cooler air and warmer soil during the fall, plants invest their energy in developing strong, healthy root systems. Homeowners who install or transplant their plants in the ground now, instead of in the spring, are setting themselves up to have big-

what’s planted where. Take the time to map out what you’ve planted in your garden. Write down your ideas, too, to help you plan for next spring. Planning now allows you to identify projects that can be accomplished during the winter and you’ll hit the ground running as soon as the warm

Do: Remember, Winter is

Winter dormancy is all part of the natural process. Before you know it, the sights, sounds, colors, and smells of the garden will return with abundance. Enjoy the break and get

PICTURED ABOVE IS a bumble bee nest in leaf litter, a source of shelter that one’s garden can be. (P���� C�������: H���� C�����)

COMMENT

A Penny for Your Thoughts News of Greater Falls Church

By Supervisor Penny Gross

Taking out the trash is one of those weekly activities that you expect to hap pen like clockwork: you put the can(s) at the curb early on the morning of the assigned day for pick-up, go about your daily activities, and retrieve the empty can(s) after the trash hauler comes through the neighborhood. That’s the way it’s supposed to happen, but it’s not always the case.

Approximately 90 percent of Fairfax County residents have contractual rela tionships with private trash and recy cling companies that are authorized to provide services in Fairfax County. Those customers pay fees directly to the provider. The remaining 10 percent or so are in sanitary services districts col lected by Fairfax County’s Division of Solid Waste, and include many Mason District neighborhoods. Those custom ers pay an annual fee, which is billed on their real estate tax invoice. Whether properties have private collection or county service, trash and recycling are supposed to be picked up at least once a week, and yard waste is collected dur ing the growing season, usually March through November, although the terms of individual contracts may vary.

During the pandemic, county and private haulers faced severe service challenges because of Covid-19 and an absence of drivers with Commercial Drivers Licenses (CDLs), needed to operate heavy equipment. Most pro viders are offering significant signing bonuses for CDL operators right now, which has addressed some immediate vacancies, but which may be unsustain able in the long term.

Despite the extra efforts of some pri vate haulers, the Board of Supervisors has received many complaints about fail ure to collect trash and yard waste, most recently by American Disposal Services (ADS), one of two major private haulers in the county. Earlier this year, a settle

ment between Fairfax County and ADS led to a $2500 civil penalty regarding code violations and a consent agreement to improve service quality. Nonetheless, in response to continuing complaints, the Board of Supervisors directed the County Executive and the County Attorney to determine further any addi tional enforcement actions for violations of the county’s Solid Waste Ordinance, and to examine applicable consumer pro tection statutes and other legal options available to aid residents to receive the services for which they are paying. The Board also asked for information about local governments’ abilities to move to a different system of solid waste collection that might be subject to state restrictions. As noted by my colleague, Braddock District Supervisor James Walkinshaw, “picking up the trash and picking it up on time is critical to public health, envi ronmental protection, and quality of life in our community.” All three are at risk when the quality of service fails to meet the standards and expectations of Fairfax County residents.

Two quick items of note: the everpopular book sale at the George Mason Regional Library, 7001 Little River Turnpike in Annandale, returns this week – Thursday, October 20, to Sunday, October 23, from 10:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. each day. Proceeds benefit the pro grams sponsored by the Friends of the George Mason Regional Library.

On Saturday, October 22, the Annandale Parade steps off at 10 a.m. from the inter section of Columbia Pike and Gallows Road, near the historic Little White Church. Wear your Halloween costume and plan for lots of fun at this longtime community event. I look forward to seeing you there!

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

of Falls Church CRIME

Fraud, N Washington St, October 11, 3:15 PM, an incident of fraud was reported.

Larceny of Vehicle Parts, Forest Dr, between 8 PM, October 10 and 8:30 AM, October 11, unknown suspect(s) removed the catalytic converter from a Toyota Prius.

Shoplifting, W Broad St, October 13, 7:47 PM, unknown suspect took items of value without paying. Suspect described as a male, 5`10” to 6’ tall, wearing black top, black jacket, and black pants.

Trespassing, W Broad St, October 14,

11:05 AM, a male, 49, of Falls Church, VA, was issued a summons for trespass.

Suspicious Driver. On the afternoon of Wednesday, October 12, a man approached a group of students walking home from Oak Street Elementary and offered them a ride. The students reported the event to the police. Chief Gavin stated that the case has been assigned for an investigation, but the Falls Church City Police have nothing to release at this time. They ask for the community to con tinue to call if they are witness to any suspi cious events or people in their neighborhood.

Delegate Marcus Simon’s

Richmond Report

At the beginning of the year, it seemed inevitable that Virginia would pass legislation to create a special Stadium Authority, allowing the NFL and its Washington Franchise to issue debt to build a new stadium in one of the DC exurbs. Taxpayer money (albeit money generated arguably only because the stadium was there) would then be used to pay the debt back.

The only question was how sweet the deal would be for the owner, and how high the tab might be for Virginia taxpayers.

The Senate Majority Leader, Democrat Richard Saslaw, carried the broader version of the bill in the State Senate. House Appropriations Chair, Republican Barry Knight of Virginia Beach carried a bill with a narrower ver sion in the House of Delegates. The bill even got a nod of approval from newly elected Governor Youngkin in his inau gural and State of The Commonwealth addresses.

Having this momentum, the bill cruised through the committee process in the House (keeping in mind the Appropriations Chair was the sponsor) and landed on the House Floor a few weeks into session.

Meanwhile, I was getting nothing but negative constituent feedback about a taxpayer-funded stadium. There was no organized opposition, but plenty of emails, commentators at town halls, and people pulling me aside at the gro cery store all saying the same thing:

“I’m against this.”

So, when the bill got to the floor, I was looking for ways to slow down the momentum of the train that was bar reling down the tracks toward either Dumfries or Loudoun. I decided to throw up a signal light.

Some constituents I heard from were concerned about traffic implications and others about the rate of return on stadium investments. And still others thought it was a bad land use decision. Most of the complaints I heard were that the primary beneficiary of the plan would be someone who had shown himself to be wholly undeserving of it: Daniel Snyder.

Some disapproved of the way the team had performed during his tenure as owner, but most felt like he was (based on press accounts and investi gations swirling around him) a bit of a creep. Certainly not someone they’d want to be in business with.

So that was my angle of attack. When the bill came up for a vote on the floor, I introduced an amendment that tied the

creation of the Stadium Authority to the NFL and the Washington Franchise agreeing to release the results of attor ney Beth Wilkinson’s investigation into the toxic team culture, includ ing allegations of sexual harassment and assault by team employees. Unless and until that report was released, as the U.S. House Government Oversight Committee had requested, the Stadium Authority legislation would not take effect.

Although the amendment was reject ed with all 52 House Republican’s votes, it changed the conversation about the bill and its trajectory.

Eventually both the House and Senate plans passed in different forms, but without language tying the release of the report to the creation of the Authority. The bill no longer seemed quite so inevitable.

The Senate version of the bill needed to be corrected to avoid giving the team access to billions in tax revenue related to all the business adjacent to the new hypothetical stadium. A Super bowl was played in February in a stadium funded entirely by its owner with no taxpayer help.

When the bill conferees working couldn’t come to an agreement on the size and scope, it became clear that there were no longer the votes for any bill. It was allowed die a quiet death.

Last week, ESPN Magazine reported that Mr. Snyder’s inability to secure public financing for a new stadium, and his inability to take on the debt to build one without government help, was con tributing to increasing noise that his fellow owners might force him to sell the team.

This goes to show that sometimes even when the numbers are stacked against you in the legislature, it’s worth putting an idea on the table and making people vote on it – making a statement even when it has no chance of passing.

My constituents didn’t want to pay for an NFL Stadium, they didn’t want it in Virginia, and they didn’t want Dan Snyder to reap the benefits of the deal.

I took their concerns to Richmond and made them heard.

If you’d like to share anything with me about the upcoming 2023 Session, the best way to reach me is via e-mail at delmsimon@house.virginia.gov or at 571-327-0053.

 Delegate Simon represents the 53rd District in the Virginia House of Del egates. He may be emailed at DelMSi mon@house.virginia.gov

FALLS

LOCAL

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Escaping Into Art With ‘Scapes Show Now Open at F.C. Gallery

by Mark Dreisonstok

‘Scapes is the latest show at Falls Church Art Gallery, with a variety of aesthetic escapes, landscapes, seascapes, and cityscapes on offer in various artworks. While Falls Church Art shows often lean towards the modern, this particular show has many paintings more in an Impressionist vein.

One example emerges in a familiar scene to commuters on the Wilson Bridge as Xavier Hardison’s “National Harbor I” depicts the Harbor’s iconic Ferris Wheel with ubiquitous clouds painted across the sky. This paint ing draws forth many fond mem ories of the summer with its col orful sky and suggested beach and boardwalk towards the bottom of the painting. Visible but softly painted bushes with green strokes enhance such summer associa tions. The painting appears to take place during sunset with a warm orange tint on the right side of the clouds. A sense of motion is captured as well with the multi tudinous clouds flourishing from one direction of the painting to the other as we imagine the round Ferris Wheel circling around, no doubt to the delight of riders and spectators.

A scene of rain at night some what in the style of the French Impressionists depicts not a nineteenth-century Parisian café but the very American Woodie’s Crabs and Grill in Jane McElvany Coonce’s “Evening at Woodie’s Grill.” Parked cars under the trees shine their headlights in the

direction of a man gazing towards the restaurant. Perhaps he is wait ing for someone to accompany him to dinner or merely marvel ing at the rain and the timeless ness of a night scene. Although the subject has his back turned away from us, we can relate easily to certain moments in our lives in which time stands still, causing us to stop and view our surround ings with a sense of wonder.

Joan Slottow’s “Waves and Gulls” depicts a seascape via exaggerated shapes and outlines, encompassing several angles and perspectives in one canvas. Just like the red and white striped lighthouse, each wave is depicted with a different color palette. The seagull in the foreground is seen alone on the shore pacing back and forth between the shore and the waves. In the center of the painting, a flock of small seagulls is flying towards the right side of the painting, perhaps migrating towards a warmer location for the season, reminding the October visitors to the show that autumn is here. Objects such as the light house have been “dissected” or taken apart in an unusual way, yet kept clear and visible, thus reveal ing a fresh perspective. Perhaps it is up to the viewer to put the pieces back together, as each viewer has different associations with the seashore, lighthouse, and seagulls.

For a distinct change a pace, we turn to a distinctly urban set ting, Manhattan, in Craig Wright’s watercolor “World Trade Center.”

The perspective from the bottom looking up at the imposing sky scrapers reminds the audience of

the impressiveness of the building heights. Meticulous lines execut ed in extreme detail include the many windows in the four build ings with vaporous clouds to be spotted in the sky as well. While a watercolor, this artwork has been rendered in monochrome, for the author wished to “take a page out of [famed black-and-white pho tographer] Ansel Adams’ book.”

These, of course, are but a few paintings to be seen at ‘Scapes. Flip card views of some other noteworthy artistic works on dis play include John Valenti’s “Step

Down,” a study in photography of the steps in Georgetown fea tured in the 1973 horror film

“The Exorcist;” July Clark’s col lage “Indestructible,” based on a poem the artist read “about a mythical warrior princess who was strong as a mountain and beautiful as a flower;” and “Capricious,” an acrylic painting by Sara Bardin of an escape into colors in the detail of a flower (“bold reds, yellows, and blues calm me as they are brushed across the canvas inducing a state of mindfulness,” the artist stated

of her work). Those wishing to return to Impressionist views of nature would do well to look at Marilyn Miyamoto’s “Waterlilies 2” and Stuart Hindle’s “Golden Fields.”

Falls Church Arts’ exhibition of ‘Scapes encouraging various timeless escapes into seascapes, landscapes, and cityscapes will be on view from October 8 through November 13 in Falls Church Arts Gallery, Falls Church, Virginia. For further information, please visit www. FallsChurchArts.org

The AnimeUSA Convention: Cosplaying in Crystal City and Much More

by Mark Dreisonstok

AnimeUSA, a large three-day annual convention dedicated to anime and those who enjoy it, took place this past weekend at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City. The event drew cosplayers (those who portray their favor ite Japanese-inspired Anime characters) from all over the United States. Yet the event was much more than simply a gathering of Anime enthusiasts dressed up in costumes. Before we discuss the convention, how ever, we will meet a few of the cosplaying attendees.

One cosplayer, Lilac, dressed in black and lace, portrayed Yuri Katsuki, a figure skater who is

the protagonist of “Yuri!!! on Ice.” Lilac, like many visitors to the convention, found herself attracted to anime from early childhood; events such as this one allows her to embody her favorite character more fully. Another AnimeUSA attendee explained: “Artistically, I was drawn to the cuteness of anime characters’ look with their big eyes, long voluminous hair, and spirited character. The time here brings back many fond memo ries of watching many Studio Ghibli movies such as ‘Spirited Away,’ ‘The Cat Returns,’ and ‘Howl’s Moving Castle.’”

Groups of friends were attending together as well, sometimes wearing costumes

oriented around a common theme. We met one such group in which each person of a trio represented a literary person ality from the same series: Madeline Schmidt portrayed

Russian author Nicolai Gogol,

LITERARY COSTUMING: FORD L. AS OSAMU DAZAI, Ceclia S. as Elise and Madeline Schmidt as Nicolai Gogol (Photo Courtesy: Mark Dreisonstok )

‘SCAPES RUNS UNITIL NOVEMBER 13TH at the Falls Church arts Gallery (Photo Courtesy: Falls Church Arts)

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Former MHS Student Performs With ‘Hamilton’ Cast Heading to NY

BY KYLEE TOLAND FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS

A former Falls Church City Public Schools student is achieving her dreams as a performing artist by finishing her role as a “swing” in “Hamilton,” the hit Broadway musical by the Philip Company performed at the Kennedy Center.

Julia Estrada, a former student at Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School and Meridian High School, has been a member of “Hamilton’s” Phillip Company since the fall of 2019, and has covered roles as a “swing” for characters such as Eliza, Angelica and Peggy Schulyer, the popular “Schulyer Sisters” in the musical and more.

Growing up in the Falls Church area, Estrada said she was inspired to become a stage performer after renting movie musicals from the Mary Riley Styles Public Library as a child. She would often bring the videos home with her and sing along to the songs. Her personal favorite was “The Fiddler On The Roof,” which she shared that she memorized “the entire score” at the age of five.

As she got older, Estrada was able to travel to New York and see Broadway shows, such as Hamilton

creator Lin-Manuel Miranda’s debut musical “In The Heights,” a show with a large Latin-American cast.

As a Latina actress, Estrada stated this was the first time she had “ever really kind of seen myself on stage” and wanted to begin a career in stage performing.

Due to living in proximity to the D.C. area and seeing performances at the Kennedy Center, Estrada said the Falls Church area had some inspiration on her path of becoming an actress. She said she had many people who influenced her decision for an acting career, such as her middle school theater teacher Barbara Piscopo and two of her vocal teachers, Cara Cammarato and Tricia Lepofsky.

“Ms. Piscopo definitely opened me up to just how much fun theater could be,” Estrada said. “Ms. Cammarato and Ms. Lepofsky are the people who took me from that girl who could kind of sing to where I am now.”

Estrada’s first lead role in a musical was the character Jasmine in Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School’s production of “Aladdin” in 2008. She went on to play the role of Eponine in the George Mason (now Meridian) High School production

of “Les Miserables.”

After graduating from the Professional Performing Arts High School in Manhattan in 2013 and receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Texas State University in 2017, Estrada joined the Actors Union. Her first show was “Evita” at the North Shore Music Theatre in Massachusetts, where she played the role of the mistress. Later on, she would perform in “Evita” again at a theater in Connecticut, this time performing the lead role of Eva Perón, which she said was a big accomplishment for her since it was her first opportunity to be “a real leader in a cast.”

As for how her journey started to securing a role in “Hamilton,” Estrada said it started when she first auditioned for the musical as a sophomore in college in 2015 and took up to four years to finally be a part of it. It wasn’t until she participated in a workshop for an off-Broadway show “Only Gold” that she was cast in the swing role for “Hamilton.”

“It literally took me four years to build up my own confidence and it was through those smaller, regional productions,” Estrada said.

Estrada said being a part of the “Hamilton” cast has been a “huge

accomplishment” since she’s wanted to be a part of the show since its creation. As for future goals as a stage performer, Estrada said her experience of being a “swing” has made her realize that not only does she have the “skill set” for that kind of role, but also really enjoys “swinging” and having the opportunity to cover multiple roles in a show.

After completing her role as a “swing” for the Philip Company’s production of “Hamilton” at the Kennedy Center on October 9th, Estrada was asked to join the Broadway company of “Hamilton.”

She will be performing the ensemble role of Women #5 and covering the

Schulyer sisters through January 1st of next year.

Her advice for those who want to follow in her footsteps and pursue a career in acting and stage performing, she advises those to not “be afraid to interrupt the script,” a piece of advice she learned from a friend. This means that one should listen to what they need and create their own path; not to worry about living up to others expectations and accomplishments.

“It’s great to have people that you want to be like,” Estrada said, “but also recognizing that you have your own path and how you’re going to get from point A to point B is going to be unique to you.”

JULIA ESTRADA performing in “Evita” as the lead role of Eva Perón, shortly before her tour with “Hamilton.” (P���� C�������: J��� B������)

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP

News-Press

Community News & Notes

Harvey’s To Host “Blues, Boos And Brews” Event

On Thursday, October 27th, Harvey’s will be hosting their “Blues, Boos and Brews” event at 513 W. Broad St., Falls Church from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

The event will feature a performance by the Bobby Thompson Trio, a costume con test and beverages from local breweries such as Audacious Aleworks and Metro Cellars. 10 percent of sales from the entire day goes to the Tinner Hill Heritage Foundation.

Four nonpartial judges will be there to judge for best overall costume, best homemade cos tume and best couple costume. Prizes will be Harvey’s gift cards and tickets to the Tinner Hill Music Festival.

Call For Entries for Upcoming Falls Church Arts Exhibit

The Falls Church Arts Gallery is calling for entries for their upcoming exhibit “Bits & Pieces.” The deadline for sub mission is Sunday, October 23rd at midnight.

The exhibit asks for artists to

use disparate objects combined and transformed into something “new.” The exhibit will be avail able to view from November 19th through January 8th. The juror for the exhibit will Sherry Trachtman. All media is encour aged.

Falls Church School Year To Start Earlier Under New Policy

On Tuesday, October 11th, the Falls Church City School Board voted on a new school calendar policy and took other actions at its latest meeting.

The board’s 6-1 vote sets guidelines for creating future school year calendars. One of the notable changes will require the school year to start before Labor Day starting next school year. The current school year began one week before Labor Day, while neighboring Fairfax County Public Schools started two weeks before Labor Day.

Under the new start date, Falls Church City Public Schools will aim to end school years no later than June 10. The policy does not change fall, winter and spring breaks. Fall break must start the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and end the

Friday following Thanksgiving. Winter break must include Dec. 25 and Jan. 1 and ideally last two weeks under the policy. Spring break must be one week and align with nearby jurisdic tions.

GrandInvolve Allows Locals to Volunteer at Schools

Want to have a unique and rewarding volunteer experience while making a difference in a school, classroom, family, or in one child’s life? Volunteer with GrandInvolve, an awardwinning local nonprofit pro gram that facilitates volunteer opportunities in 25 of Fairfax County’s Title I Elementary Schools.

They are recruiting adult vol unteers who are interested in providing classroom assistance with math, reading, and other simple educational tasks that the teacher requests. Find more info at www.grandinvolve.org/ volunteer-with-us – including the online Volunteer Interest Form to complete to get notice of next Info Session dates.

Information Sessions for pro spective volunteers are sched uled periodically via zoom.

NAMED ONCE AGAIN, in what has become an almost annual honor, to the Virginia School Board Association Media Honor Roll at the request of the Falls Church City School Board was Nicholas Benton (left), founder, owner and editor of the Falls Church News-Press , shown here at last week’s School Board meeting with F.C. School Board Chair Laura Downs. The cita tion noted that the News-Press “has aided this community in focusing on the goal of providing the best public schools we can for the students who attend them.” (News-Press Photo)

Email volunteer@grandinvolve. org for any questions.

ASO Celebrates Afghan Culture and Music

Under the direction of Music Director James Ross, the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra (ASO) presents “Scheherazade –Afghan Days, Arabian Nights” on Saturday, November 12, 2022 at 7:30 p.m. (Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center) and Sunday, November 13, 2022 at 3:00 p.m. (George Washington Masonic Memorial).

ASO performs Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s musical epic “Scheherazade,” derived from four stories from “One Thousand and One Nights,” a collection of ancient Middle Eastern narra tives. Scheherazade as the sul tan’s queen is portrayed by the solo violin, its hauntingly exotic melody weaves throughout the piece as each story is told. John Williams’ Adventures on Earth from E.T. The Extraterrestrial opens this adventuresome pro gram.

Two new Alexandrians from Afghanistan—Hamid Habib Zada and Negin Khpalwak—

bring their artistry to the ASO stage through these performanc es. The musicians recently locat ed to Alexandria after fleeing Afghanistan during the fall of 2021. Hamid is featured on tabla (a pair of hand drums evolved from the Indian subcontinent) for Dinuk Wijeratne’s Tabla Concerto. Negin will conduct two songs by Afghanistan’s “Elvis,” Ahmad Zahir: “Farwardin” and “Zindegi Akhair Sarayat.”

Through a generous contribu tion from Walmart’s Community Grant program, tickets will be provided to Afghan refugees at no cost to attend Saturday’s performance. Walmart stores 5753 and 2194, both located in Alexandria, played leadership roles.

Adult prices for single tickets start at $20; $5 for youth and $15 for students. Military, senior and group discounts are also avail able. Subscriptions available now; single tickets on sale July 1, 2022. Visit www.alexsym.org or call (703) 548-0885 for more information.

Covid-19 After-Action Community Survey

The City of Falls Church is con

AT THE MONTHLY LUNCHEON of the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce Tuesday, Falls Church’s new state senator, Chap Petersen (right), spoke and was greeted by current State Delegate Marcus Simon (left). ( News-Press Photo)

ducting an after-action review to assess their response to the Covid-19 pandemic and they’re asking City residents to com plete a short survey to provide input. This survey is an oppor tunity for people to assess the various programs and services offered by the City, communi cations, government operations and any other aspect of their response that one would like to provide feedback on. The survey takes approximately 5 minutes, depending on how indepth your responses are, and there is no identifying informa tion requested in the survey.

The survey is also available in Spanish and Vietnamese. It is available at https://www.sur veymonkey.com/r/3VSKWQQ

Submissions for VFW Scholarship Continue

Have a High Schooler or Middle Schooler looking for scholarship opportunities?

Veterans of Foreign Wars is still taking submissions for their Voice of Democracy Contest at the VFW until the end of October, but time is running out. The High School theme this year is “Why is the Veteran

Important.”

The national first place win ner of the contest receives a $35,000 scholarship paid direct ly to the recipient’s American university, college, or vocation al/technical school. For more information, visit www.vfw.org

Fashion Centre to Celebrate Global Culture

Fashion Centre at Pentagon City, a world-class shopping destination, will host representa tives from countries around the globe next Saturday in partner ship with the Asian-American Chamber of Commerce.

On Oct. 22, the mall’s annual Mosaic International Showcase will highlight representatives from Bavaria (Germany and Austria), Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Ireland and the Philippines. From noon to five, families are invited to the mall’s Dining Pavilion to experience a celebration of culture with each country providing its own traditional entertainment, music and dances. Retailers through out the mall will have products available at the event, includ ing AVEDA, Haagen Dazs, L’Occitane and Macy’s.

LOCAL

Located at the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City (1100 South Hayes Street, Arlington). For more information, visit www. simon.com

Guys Go Cycling Hosted by Falls Church Anglican

Experience fellowship and develop new friendships as you enjoy cycling with other men from The Falls Church Anglican.

Cyclists normally meet in the parking lot behind the church and depart at 8 am for a 2-3 hour social ride.

Saturday October 22 from 8 a.m. – 11 a.m.

Metro Seeks Input on WFC Station Parking

Metro is seeking public input on proposed changes to com muter parking and bus facilities at West Falls Church Station. The proposed changes would allow Metro and its private development partner to move forward with redevelopment plans, including future mixeduse development and transit facility modernization. The pro posed changes are intended to

promote transit-oriented devel opment, increase Metro rider ship, and modernize transit facilities. Proposed changes to the site include: Eliminating the south surface parking lot,

thereby reducing the total num ber of parking spaces, reducing the total number of bus bays, reducing the capacity of the Kiss and Ride spaces, eliminating or reducing hourly parking meters.

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FASHION CENTRE AT PENTAGON CITY will be hosting rep resentatives from countries around the globe on Saturday, October 22nd. From noon to five, families are invited to the mall’s Dining Pavilion to experience a celebration of culture from various countries (Photo Courtesy: Katie Harris)

LOCAL EVENTS

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20

FALLS CHURCH GHOST TOUR

The Falls Church Ghost Tour is a 90 minute, 1.5 mile walking tour of the ghosts and history of Falls Church. The tour also supports local food drives, as participants must donate 3 or more cans of food to get in. The tours are recommended for ages 14 and up. Located at Cherry Hill Farmhouse (312 Park Avenue, Falls Church). 6:00 p.m.

FRIDAY,

OCTOBER 21

ROSSYLN CINEMA

Rosslyn Cinema is back this fall on the lawn of Gateway Park every Friday evening in October! Join for a fun lineup of movies, this Friday “Top Gun” will be showing. Located at Gateway Park (1300 Langston Blvd., Arlington). 5:00 p.m. –

10:00 p.m.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22

FALL COMMUNITY CLEAN UP

Volunteers meet at the Community Center (213 Little Falls St.), are orga nized into teams, and assigned to work areas throughout the city. City staff distribute trash pick ers, trash bags, recycling bags, gloves, and reflective vests. 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. To register or for more information, email recy cling@fallschurch.gov or call 703-248-5466.

TRUNK OR TREAT

Lewinsville Presbyterian Church is hosting a Trunk or Treat event at 4:00 p.m. Carnival games, pumpkin decorating, ice cream and a “haunted” puppet show will be provided. Come in costume and trick or treat among the cars in the Church parking lot for candy and treats. 1724 Chain Bridge Road, Mclean.

CALENDAR

HISPANIC HERITAGE

MONTH CELEBRATION

Join Fairfax County Park Authority to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month and learn about Hispanic culture with food, music, arts and crafts and more. Located at Sully Community Center (13800 Wall Road, Herndon). 11:00 a.m. — 2:00 p.m.

WESTOVER BAPTIST

FALL FESTIVAL

The Festival will have crafts, games, puppet show, food and more. 1125 Patrick Henry Drive, Arlington. 10:00 a.m. — 4:00 p.m.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23

WALK TO END ALZHEIMER'S

Join The Kensington Falls Church and Alzheimer’s Association at Reston Town Center for the 2022 Walk to End Alzheimer’s. Sign up to walk alongside Team Kensington, led by Team Captain, Tonya Embly, Director of Memory Care. To support

to Kayla Peters at kpeters@ kensingtonsl.com Located at Reston Town Center (11900 Market Street, Reston). 8:30 a.m. — 11:30 a.m.

TUESDAY,

OCTOBER 25

NETWORKING MIXER

Bring friends and colleagues and get to know staff at the newest Apple Federal Credit

Credit Union (5701 Columbia Pike, Falls Church). 5:30 p.m. — 7:00 p.m.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26

LEWINSVILLE FALL FESTIVAL

Join Lewinsville Senior Center in welcoming fall

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Redden)

JOIN THE KENSINGTON FALLS CHURCH AND ALZHEIMER'S ASSOCIATION at Reston Town Center for the 2022 Walk to End Alzheimer's. Sign up to walk alongside Team Kensington led by

Carnival games, pumpkin decorating, ice cream and a "haunted" puppet show will be provided. Guests are encouraged to come in costume. (Photo: Diana Villarreal)

LIVE MUSIC

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20

BILLY THE KID & THE REGULATORS

JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd, Falls Church, VA). 8:30 p.m. (703) 241-9504

THE 19TH STREET BAND

The State Theatre (220 N Washington St., Falls Church, VA) 7:30 p.m. (703) 237-0300

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21

HIRIE: MOOD SWING TOUR

The State Theatre (220 N Washington St, Falls Church, VA) 8:00 p.m. (703) 237-0300

MATT BURIDGE

Solace Outpost (444 W. Broad Street, Falls Church, VA). 8:00 p.m. (571) 378-1469

THEATER & ARTS

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21

Elegies: A Song Cycle

Elegies is a celebration of life and music, penned by Tony Award-winning com poser and lyricist William Finn (Falsettos, A New Brain, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee), which commemo rates the lives of people both real and fictional with rousing theatricality and unforgettable songs. From Finn’s friends, to his moth er, to his dogs, to the vic tims of the World Trade Center collapse, these characters and their sto ries will enchant and enrich your spirit in this stunning masterwork that celebrates the human experience and life’s infinite joys. Showing at Keegan Theatre from October 22nd – November 20th. 8:00 p.m.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22

GMCW Presents "Judy"

The Gay Men's Chorus of Washington, DC opens its season with a cabaret saluting the great Judy Garland. Select soloists from the Chorus will share stories and bring you

CALENDAR

MOTHERS LITTLE HELPER

JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd, Falls Church, VA). 8:30 p.m. (703) 241-9504

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22

JIM MESSINA

The State Theatre (220 N Washington St, Falls Church, VA) 8:30 p.m. (703) 237-0300

KREEK WATER BAND

The State Theatre (220 N Washington St, Falls Church, VA) 8:30 p.m. (703) 237-0300

their best Judy tunes! Songs include: “Over the Rainbow,” “The Trolley Song,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “The Man That Got Away,” and “Happy Days Are Here Again.” Showing at Capital One Hall at 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. Tickets start at $45.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23

Design For Murder

Murder, romance AND comedy!

BILLY THE KID & THE REGULATORS are a high powered, guitar driven, rhythm and blues band based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 2014, they earned a spot at the 2014 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee. They will be performing at JV's Restaurant on Thursday, October 20th at 8:30 p.m. (Photo: Steve Hill)

The three best ingredients for a fun suspense-filled evening of theatre! This fast-moving, highly tense whodunit treats the audience to a remote man sion, a sleazy blackmailer, a trench coat clad detective and even a dark and stormy night. A

once-wealthy mother and son struggle to keep up appearanc es at the old mansion but when a maid is murdered, everyone becomes a suspect. Tallulah Bankhead toured in the origi nal production. Showing at The Little Theatre of Alexandria.

FALLS

"DESIGN FOR MURDER" incorporates murder, romance and comedy for a suspense-filled evening of theatre. Showing at The Little Theatre of Alexandria on Sunday, October 23, the story incorporates a tense whodunit plot at a remote mansion. (Photo: Brian Knapp Photography)

SCHOOLS

Falls Church School News & Notes

Pumpkin Contest Next Week

On Friday, October 28, Oak Street Elementary Student Council will host the annual Pumpkin Contest. Carve, paint, decorate or create a pumpkin to enter in one of four categories: funniest, scariest, most life-like and most creative.

School Board Chairs

Host Office Hours

Falls Church City Public School Board Chair Laura Downs and ViceChair Tate Gould will be holding “office hours” at Northside Social (205 Park Avenue) on Thursday, October 27th from 6:00 p.m. — 8:00 p.m. Parents, students, staff and com munity members who prefer to have a private exchange with the School Board can locate members’ email addresses at https://www.fccps.org/ page/school-board.

Meridian Musicians

Take on FCC

Meridian Instrumental Musicians

took requests, including “Twinkle, Twinkle” as they fanned throughout the community on Saturday morn ing to entertain and fundraise for the music department. They performed in small groups, door to door, and also played at the Farmers Market. One can support the musicians here: https://fccps-band-boosters-tag. square.site/

Disney Concert Hosted by MHS Sunday

Meridian High School and Henderson Middle School Choral Departments present “Mickey’s Music Spectacular” on Sunday, October 23rd. People can enjoy a concert of people’s favorite songs followed by treats and activities to go. Costumes are also encouraged.

The event will take place at Meridian High School, and school strongly emphasizes that people RSVP so that they have enough treats and activity mate rials. Admission is $5, with $20 max for families. The event is free for ages 2 and under. People may pay ahead or at the door. The event starts at 2:00 p.m.

Transportation Staff Celebrated by FCCPS

This week is Transportation Staff Appreciation Week. Falls Church City Public Schools wants to thank all of the school bus drivers and aides for all they do to ensure they are transported to/from school safely every day. It is also National School Bus Safety Week as well. The theme for this year is “1 Bus + 1 Driver = a BIG Impact on Education.” FCCPS is asking the community to help them remind students to follow the rules on the bus, including being respectful to the bus driver and aides.

FCHS to Celebrate Hispanic Heritage

On Friday, October 21st from 5:00 p.m. — 7:00 p.m. there will be a Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration on the Falls Church High School baseball field. This event is free and all students, faculty and commu nity members are invited. They will have DJ Melvin spinning,

TRANSPORTATION STAFF APPRECIATION is this week. It is also National School Bus Safety Week. The theme for this year is “1 Bus + 1 Driver = a BIG Impact on Education,” and FCCPS wants to remind students to be respectful to their drivers. (Photo: Chrissy Henderson)

foods, games and educational presentations.

First Parent Program Taking Place

Geared toward Mount Daniel Elementary and Oak Street Elementary families, the first parent program of the year will

take place on October 20, 2022 from 6:30 p.m. — 7:30 p.m. It will be virtual and led by one therapist Rachel Bailey. Ms. Bailey specializes in work ing with families of kids with big emotions. She will lead a Parent Program called “Taming the Drama: Addressing Big Emotions and Reactions in Your Home.”

Meridian’s Golf Team Places 3rd in State Championships

by Ryan McCafferty and Nick Porr

Meridian High School

Meridian Football lost 41-0 at Clarke County on Friday the 14th, remaining winless on the season at 0-8. This week’s game may be their best chance to finally notch a win as they host Park View.

Meridian Varsity Field Hockey earned a decisive 5-1 win against Liberty on Tuesday the 11th, improving their record to 11-3-1. Cassie DuBois scored a hat trick during the game, with Lucy Hladky and Annaliese Baron also finding the back of the net. Meridian will host Kettle Run on Tuesday the 18th, in the first round of district playoffs.

Meridian Volleyball lost both matchups this past week, fall ing 3-1 at Warren County on Tuesday and 3-0 to Manassas Park on Thursday at home.

Their record for the season drops to 6-15 with away games at Brentsville and Skyline this week.

Meridian’s Cross Country squad closed out its regular season this week, and brought plenty to write home about with Grace Crum winning the Emerging Elite event, which consisted of more than 200 girls. The girls overall placed tenth in the competition, while the boys placed 21st in theirs. The Mustangs’ next competition will be on Thursday the 25th as they travel to Brentsville for the Northwestern District Championship.

Meridian’s Golf team took home third place in the State Championships this week, capping off a fantastic season for the co-ed squad as there is plenty of optimism for the program moving forward.

Falls Church High School

After suffering five straight

losses, Falls Church Football (2-5) is back in the win col umn. The Jaguars defeated local rivals Justice High School 33-23 Friday night. They will search for their second consecutive win Friday against Annandale.

Field Hockey (3-9) defeated Hayfield 2-1 on Wednesday to end their regular season. They will begin District Tournament play this week.

Volleyball (9-6) split their results last week, bouncing back from a 3-1 loss to Thomas Jefferson Science and Tech Tuesday to blank Justice 3-0 on Thursday. They will play their last two games of the regular season this week, hosting John R. Lewis on Tuesday and visit ing Hayfield Thursday.

Boys and Girls Cross coun try ran at the Third Battle Invitational this past week. The teams performed well overall, but the standout again was Haley Heironimus. Heironimus set a personal record 5k of 18:39 for

8th place out of 233 runners.

Justice High School

Justice Football remains win less (0-7) following a 23-33 defeat at the hands of Falls Church. They play WashingtonLiberty (3-4) at home this Friday.

Field Hockey (6-6) is on a tear of late finishing off their regular season with four straight wins. Last week featured a dominant 6-0 win over Thomas Jefferson Monday and a 2-1 vic tory against Mt. Vernon. They begin District playoffs with a game against Hayfield Monday. Should they win, they will play again in the District Semifinals Wednesday.

Volleyball (15-11) split their results this week, beating Annandale 3-0 before falling to Falls Church 3-0. The Wolves will play twice more this regu lar season. They host Thomas Jefferson Tuesday and will visit Mt. Vernon Thursday.

Saturday Cross Country ran at the Arundel Invite. The Boys fin ished 11th of 15, while the girls finished 8th of 13. Sophomore Ella Galway impressed with a fifth place finish with a 20:43 time.

Marshall High School

Football (1-6) dropped their fifth straight with a scoreless 35-0 loss to Yorktown. Over the past two games they have been outscored 77-6. The Statesmen will hope the offense comes alive against the Langley Saxons (4-3) this Friday.

Field Hockey (11-4) was bounced in the first round of the Liberty District Tournament to Langley 2-1 off an over time penalty shot. Offseason success following a strong regular season is still possible. Marshall plays in the Regional Quarterfinals next Wednesday.

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Falls Church Business News & Notes

Former Northrop CEO Joins Red Cell Partners

Former Northrop Grumman Corp. executive Wes Bush has landed a new gig in Greater Washington. Tysons-based Red Cell Partners, an investment and incubation firm focused on tech companies work ing in national security and health care, said Friday it has tapped Bush to be a new director and adviser. Red Cell said his addition to the board will extend the company’s defense sector connection and increase its ability to bring new technology to the national security and health care markets. Bush led Northrop as its president and chief executive for nine years beginning in 2010 and added the chairman title in 2011.

WAEPA Extends Eligibility to Former Civilian Federal Employees

Worldwide Assurance for Employees of Public Agencies (WAEPA) of Falls Church announced that its membership eligibility will now include former Civilian Federal Employees. WAEPA’s Board of Directors approved an update in its bylaws on August 5, 2022, to allow for this change. WAEPA has provided current and retired Civilian Federal Employees and their loved ones with Group Term Life Insurance since 1943. For the first time, WAEPA is offering its exclusive membership to former Civilian Federal Employees who are looking to safeguard the future of their families. Former Civilian Feds of any agency, who served for any length of time, are now eligible. For more information on WAEPA membership eligibility, visit waepa.org/eligibility.

U.S. Chamber Session on Thriving During Challenges

The U.S. Chamber is hosting a Small Business Update on Wednesday, October 19 at 12:00 p.m., in which U.S. Chamber EVP and Chief Policy Officer Neil Bradley will join Co-Editor- in-Chief Jeanette Mulvey for a discussion of the trends and developments impacting your business, and the ways you can navigate them. Inflation, workforce changes and economic uncertainty add to the challenges and the session will share insights on positioning businesses to thrive through it all. For more information, contact the CO by U.S. Chamber team at COEvents@uschamber.com.

 Business News & Notes is compiled by Elise Neil Bengtson, Executive Director of the Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce. She may be emailed at elise@fallschcurchchamber.org.

OUTLOOK

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Bennie Thompson, said Thursday.

doubt or deny that Joe Biden won in 2020.

NEW YORK TIMES

The Jan. 6 committee, which held its ninth and likely final hearing Thursday, has lionized the figure of the Decent Republican.

Liz Cheney, vice chair of the committee, was its obvious star, imbued with moral authority by the fact that she’d sacrificed her posi tion in Republican leadership, and possibly her political career, to stand up to Donald Trump. But there were many others.

Rusty Bowers, the Trumpsupporting speaker of the Arizona House who refused to help the for mer president subvert his state’s election results, was a portrait of rectitude, reading from his journal, “I will not play with laws I swore allegiance to.” Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to Trump’s chief of staff, defied attempts at intimidation to describe a president at once calcu lating and berserk.

“When you look back at what has come out through this com mittee’s work, the most striking fact is that all this evidence comes almost entirely from Republicans,” the committee’s Democratic chair,

This attempt to separate Trump from the Republican Party made political sense. The committee was trying to reach beyond commit ted Democratic voters who were already appalled by Trump, and the Republicans who testified had the credibility that comes with acting against their own political interest. But the emphasis on Republican valor meant that the story the com mittee told, while compelling, was incomplete. Going forward, the threat to the American experiment comes not just from Trump but from the Republican base, which is making the figure of the Decent Republican a quaint curiosity.

The problem for Decent Republicans is that their party’s inter nal democracy makes a commitment to democracy writ large impossible. For decades, prominent right-wing politicians, pastors and pundits — Cheney very much included — cul tivated in their base the belief that Democrats represent totalitarian evil. Not surprisingly, the base came to see Democratic victories as intoler able and rejected candidates who would respect the results of general elections. As The Washington Post reported, a majority of Republican nominees for House, Senate and important statewide offices either

Queen of the election deniers is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. In his engrossing new book “Weapons of Mass Delusion,” Robert Draper chronicles Greene’s rise in parallel with Cheney’s fall. (An adapted excerpt was just pub lished by The New York Times Magazine.)

Plenty of Republican officials, and ex-officials, wish it were the reverse. Draper has a detailed re-creation of the Feb. 3, 2021, meeting where House Republicans first voted on removing Cheney from her position as Republican conference chair, a vote she survived. “How is it going to look if we kick out Liz Cheney and keep Marjorie Taylor Greene?” asked Tom Reed, a moderate Republican from upstate New York.

Initially, Kevin McCarthy, House minority leader, persuaded the party to close ranks behind both Cheney and Greene. “I’m not letting Dems pick us off one by one,” he said, add ing: “You elected me leader. Let. Me. Lead.”

But McCarthy is, fundamentally, a follower. By May, Draper writes, House Republicans were telling him that “Cheney was becoming a major distraction and a problem for their voters back home.” Greene, mean

Preparing for Republican Debt Blackmail

Paul Krugman NEW YORK TIMES

Nobody knows for sure what will happen in the midterm elections. But if Republicans take one or both houses of Congress, the most impor tant question will be one that is getting hardly any public attention: What will the Biden administration do when the GOP threatens to blow up the world economy by refusing to raise the debt limit?

In particular, will Democrats be prepared to take the extraordinary actions the situation will demand, doing whatever it takes to avoid being blackmailed?

Notice that I said “when,” not “if.” After Republicans took the House in 2010, they quickly wea ponized the debt limit against the Obama administration, using it to extract spending cuts they couldn’t have achieved through normal leg islative means. And that was a preMAGA GOP, one that for the most part didn’t deny the legitimacy of the

president and didn’t make excuses for violent insurrections.

In fact, I wonder whether Republicans will even seriously try to extract concessions this time around, as opposed to creating chaos for its own sake.

Notice also that I said “blow up the world economy,” not merely hamstring the U.S. government. The consequences of forcing a federal debt default, which is what refusing to raise the limit would do, would extend far beyond the operations of the federal government itself.

Let’s back up and talk about why any of this is an issue. U.S. law, for historical reasons, requires in effect that Congress vote on the budget twice. First, senators and representa tives enact legislation that sets tax rates and authorizes spending. This legislation ends up determining the federal budget balance. But if we end up running a deficit, Congress must vote a second time, to authorize bor rowing to cover that deficit.

It’s not clear that this procedure ever made sense. In any case, in modern times the debt limit empow ers cowardly posturing: Politicians can claim to be for fiscal responsibil

ity, refusing to vote for a higher debt limit, without specifying “how” the budget should be balanced.

And no, “We should eliminate wasteful spending” isn’t an honest answer. The federal government is basically a giant insurance company with an army: Spending is domi nated by Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the military, and voters want to maintain all of these pro grams. There’s surely waste in the government, as there is in any large organization, but even if we could somehow make that waste disap pear, it wouldn’t do much to reduce the deficit.

Someone seriously worried about the deficit could call for higher taxes. After all, the U.S. tax burden is low compared with other wealthy coun tries. But Republicans aren’t going to go there.

Where will they go? There’s lots of evidence that Republicans will, if they can, try to use the debt limit to extort major cuts in Social Security and Medicare. They prob ably couldn’t pass such cuts — which would be deeply unpopular — through the normal legislative process, and they certainly wouldn’t

while, had a deep connection to those voters, who considered Democrats demonic and the elections they win fake. This gave her power that McCarthy deferred to.

According to Draper, McCarthy invited Greene “to high-level confer ences in his office, making a show of sitting next to her and soliciting her opinions.” Last year Democrats stripped Greene of her committee assignments for promoting conspir acy theories and suggesting that the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, should be executed. If Republicans win the House, McCarthy has promised to put Greene on more powerful committees than she was on before. A source told Draper that McCarthy even offered Greene a leadership position.

The truth is, if Republicans win — a recent New York Times/Siena College poll shows them ahead by 3 points among likely voters — Greene will be a leader no matter what McCarthy does. Chances are she’ll be at the forefront of an expanding Make America Great Again squad, with at least one Republican who was at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and maybe more. A Georgia Republican who has promised to be a “great team mate” for Greene, Mike Collins, has a campaign video in which he shoots a gun at what looks like a garbage can full of explosives marked “Voting

have enough votes to override a Biden veto. But the idea would be to force Democrats into complicity, so that the public doesn’t realize who’s responsible for the pain.

And that’s a best-case scenario. As I said, the GOP is far more radical now than it was more than a decade ago, and it might well be less interested in achieving policy goals than in blowing up the world economy on a Democratic presi dent’s watch.

Why would refusing to raise the debt limit blow up the econ omy? In the modern world, U.S. debt plays a crucial role: It is the ultimate safe asset, easily converted into cash, and there are no good alternatives. If inves tors lose confidence that the U.S. government will honor its obli gations, the resulting financial storm will make the recent chaos in Britain look like a passing shower.

So what should be done to avert this threat? If Republicans do gain control of one or both houses in November, Democrats should use the lame-duck session to enact a very large rise in the debt limit, enough to put the issue on ice for years. Republicans and pundits who don’t understand the

Machine.”

The Fall of Liz Cheney and the Rise of Marjorie Greene Taylor Michelle Goldberg

It goes without saying that these Republicans will disband the Jan. 6 committee and impeach Biden. They’ll probably seek vengeance for Greene — and Paul Gosar, who lost his commit tee assignments for tweeting an animé video altered to show him killing Rep. Alexandria OcasioCortez, D-N.Y — by stripping Ocasio-Cortez and other progres sives of their committee assign ments. Expect them to shut down the government more than once and to launch investigations into the Department of Justice over its investigation of Trump. If the 2024 election is disputed, they’ll do all they can to swing it to Republicans. It’s what their vot ers are sending them to Congress to do.

“Our institutions only hold when men and women of good faith make them hold, regardless of the political cost,” Cheney said at the most recent Jan. 6 hear ing. “We have no guarantee that these men and women will be in place next time.” Indeed, we have a guarantee that many of them won’t be.

By Michelle Goldberg © 2022

The New York Times

stakes would furiously attack this move, but it would be far better than enabling extortion — and would probably be forgotten by the time of the 2024 election.

If, for some reason, Democrats don’t take this obvi ous step, the Biden administra tion should be prepared to turn to legal strategies for bypassing the debt limit. There appear to be several loopholes the administration could exploit — minting trillion-dollar platinum coins is the most famous, but there are others, such as issuing bonds with no maturity date and hence no face value.

The Obama administration was unwilling to go any of these routes, largely, I think, because it believed that they would look gimmicky and undignified, and it preferred to seek compromise. But surely Democrats don’t need to worry about dignity when the other party is ruled by Donald Trump.

Of course, none of this will be relevant if Democrats hold Congress. But they should pre pare for the worst.

By Paul Krugman © 2022 The New York Times

Male Supremacy Versus Democracy on the Ballot

Nicholas F. Benton FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS

With now less than three weeks before the critical U.S. midterm elec tions, President Biden made a powerful move this week to ad dress what is nat urally the most critical issue facing the nation now.

That is the unprecedented assault on women and their partners embodied in the pro-Trump majority on the U.S. Su preme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade earlier this year.

The usual pundits are completely missing the powerful impact of this reality on what is already beginning to be expressed in the midterm vot ing where record turnouts are already happening in advance of the Nov. 8 election day.

It is downright astonishing to see how miscalculations are operative in the lead up to this huge election. It is clear that Biden has seen this, which is why he’s singled the issue out with his speech and promises this week.

Let us be clear here. This is not an “issue” in the usual sense. This has been an assault on women, all women, and their partners as well. It is a far bigger matter than all the elec tion pundits are trying to convince us about. The so-called polls are iden tifying the biggest issues as exactly what the Republicans hope they will be, on the economy and inflation.

If this causes the Democrats to avoid the central nature of the abortion issue, then this is the best chance that the GOP has of tamping down the brewing revolt of women against this unprecedented assault on their bodies, to make them pris oners inside their own biology.

It is instructive to see how male supremacist ideology works as a dominant factor in our society, to the point of blinding the public to some of the most egregious actions taken in a war on women that we’ve been exposed to this year and that no one except women themselves acknowledge.

Given the nature of this full court press against women, rooted in deep seeded philosophical and ideological bias, many women are being subjected to self-doubt and

fear about daring to locate the cen ter of their political consciousness on this point.

They are being convinced to subordinate their righteous anger and concern for the impact of the Supreme Court ruling to the issues as defined by “their men,” namely, timeless concerns for the economy and inflation.

To the extent that women have been buffaloed into adopting their male perspective, it is only evi dence of the powerful impact of their systemic oppression. But I think that most women are not about to accept this, though they are not likely to let on their true sentiments on this matter, except in the privacy of the voting booth.

Not unrelated to this is the seri ous threat to the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) citizens, as well. The in credible hatred behind the move ment to ban abortion in any form is also geared up to reintroduce preju dice and legal assaults on anyone who identifies with any form of be havior that is not in agreement with the behaviors sanctioned by a white male supremacist social paradigm. That is, male dominant control of subservient women and children in a so-called nuclear family.

The dominant white male is, in this paradigm, to have dominion over his obedient spouse and chil dren and the subordinate peoples of the territories that he is to have under his thumb.

It is vital for the public to wake up to the threat this represents to us all. When the public recognizes that democracy is under threat in the current political environment, it is as defined by this male suprema cist paradigm. It does not allow for a rich and wide array of racial, per sonality, gender and other factors that go into the full range of what we’ve recognized over the centu ries about the impact of “equality” and the affirmation of fundamen tal rights that apply to all human beings to fill out what our nation founded itself on as the Founding Fathers’ commitment to the notion that “all persons are created equal,” and are due the protections and rights of all such persons under the law.

The male chauvinist dominion over others versus the democratic ideal spelled out in our Constitu tion are where the battlelines are now, once again, confronting our population.

OUTLOOK

Friedman: We Are Suddenly Taking On China & Russia at the Same Time

product rule” that, as the Fi nancial Times noted, “was first used by the administration of Donald Trump against Chinese technology group Huawei” and “in effect bars any U.S. or nonU.S. company from supplying targeted Chinese entities with hardware or software whose supply chain contains American technology.”

This last rule is huge, because the most advanced semiconduc tors are made by what I call “a complex adaptive coalition” of companies from America to Eu rope to Asia.

Think of it this way: AMD, Qualcomm, Intel, Apple and Nvidia excel at the design of chips that have billions of tran sistors packed together ever more tightly to produce the pro cessing power they are seeking. Synopsys and Cadence create sophisticated computer-aided design tools and software on which chipmakers actually draw up their newest ideas. Applied Materials creates and modifies the materials to forge the bil lions of transistors and connect ing wires in the chip. ASML, a Dutch company, provides the lithography tools in partnership with, among others, Zeiss SMT, a German company specializing in optical lenses, which draws the stencils on the silicon wafers from those designs, using both deep and extreme ultraviolet light — a very short wavelength that can print tiny, tiny designs on a microchip. Intel, Lam Re search, KLA and firms from Ko rea to Japan to Taiwan also play key roles in this coalition.

The point is this: The more we push the boundaries of physics and materials science to cram more transistors onto a chip to get more processing power to continue to advance artificial intelligence, the less likely it is that any one compa ny, or country, can excel at all the parts of the design and man ufacturing process. You need the whole coalition. The reason Taiwan Semiconductor Manu facturing Co., known as TSMC, is considered the premier chip manufacturer in the world is that every member of this coali tion trusts TSMC with its most intimate trade secrets, which it

then melds and leverages for the benefit of the whole.

Because China is not trusted by the coalition partners not to steal their intellectual property, Beijing is left trying to replicate the world’s all-star manufactur ing chip stack on its own with old technologies. It managed to pilfer a certain amount of chip technology, including 28 nano meter technology from TSMC back in 2017.

Until recently, China’s pre mier chipmaker, Semiconduc tor Manufacturing International Co., had been thought to be stuck at mostly this chip level, although it claims to have pro duced some chips at the 14 nm and even 7 nm scale by juryrigging some older-generation Deep UV lithography from ASML. U.S. experts told me, though, that China can’t mass produce these chips with pre cision without ASML’s latest technology — which is now banned from the country.

This week I interviewed U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, who oversees both the new export controls on chips and the $52.7 billion that the Biden administration has just secured to support more U.S. research on next-generation semiconductors and to bring ad vanced chip manufacturing back to the U.S. Raimondo rejects the idea that the new regulations are tantamount to an act of war.

“The U.S. was in an unten able position,” she told me in her office. “Today we are purchas ing 100 percent of our advanced logic chips from abroad — 90 percent from TSMC in Taiwan and 10 percent from Samsung in Korea.” (That IS pretty crazy, but it IS true.)

“We do not make in the U.S. any of the chips we need for ar tificial intelligence, for our mil itary, for our satellites, for our space programs” — not to men tion myriad nonmilitary appli cations that power our economy. The recent CHIPS Act, she said, was our “offensive initiative” to strengthen our whole innovation ecosystem so more of the most advanced chips will be made in the U.S.

Imposing on China the new export controls on advanced chipmaking technologies, she said, “was our defensive strat

egy. China has a strategy of mil itary-civil fusion,” and Beijing has made clear “that it intends to become totally self-sufficient in the most advanced technolo gies” to dominate both the ci vilian commercial markets and the 21st century battlefield. “We cannot ignore China’s inten tions.”

So, to protect ourselves and our allies — and all the tech nologies we have invented in dividually and collectively — she added, “what we did was the next logical step, to prevent China from getting to the next step.” The U.S. and its allies design and manufacture “the most advanced supercomputing chips, and we don’t want them in China’s hands and be used for military purposes.”

Our main focus, concluded Raimondo, “is playing offense — to innovate faster than the Chinese. But at the same time, we are going to meet the increas ing threat they are presenting by protecting what we need to. It is important that we de-escalate where we can and do business where we can. We don’t want a conflict. But we have to protect ourselves with eyes wide open.”

China’s state-directed news paper Global Times editorial ized that the ban would only “strengthen China’s will and ability to stand on its own in sci ence and technology.” Bloom berg quoted an unidentified Chi nese analyst as saying “there is no possibility of reconciliation.”

Welcome to the future…

By T homas F riedman © 2022 The New York Times

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING CITY COUNCIL CITY OF FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA

The following was heard at the April 25, 2022 City Council meeting. A public hearing and final City Council action is scheduled for Monday, October 24, 2022 at 7:30 p.m., or as soon thereafter as the matter may be heard.

(TR22-17) RESOLUTION TO GRANT A SPECIAL EXCEPTION SITE PLAN (SEC. 48-488.B(3)) FOR A MIXED-USE BUILDING WITH A BUILDING HEIGHT UP TO FIFTEEN (15) STORIES ON AP PROXIMATELY 0.76 ACRES OF LAND FOR THE PROPOSED SENIOR HOUS ING BUILDING OF THE WEST FALLS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PROJECT, LOCATED AT 7124 LEESBURG PIKE (PORTION OF REAL PROPERTY CODE NUMBER 51-221-010) ON APPLICA TION BY TC MIDATLANTIC DEVELOP MENT V, INC.

All public hearings will be held in the Council Chambers, 300 Park Avenue, Falls Church, Virginia. Remote participa tion information at www.fallschurchva. gov/publiccomment. Comments may also be sent to cityclerk@fallschurchva. gov. For copies of legislation, contact the City Clerk’s office at (703-248-5014) or cityclerk@fallschurchva.gov or visit www. fallschurchva.gov/councilmeetings. The City of Falls Church is committed to the letter and spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act. To request a reasonable accommodation for any type of disability, call 703-248-5014 (TTY 711).

CELESTE HEATH, CITY CLERK

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING CITY COUNCIL CITY OF FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA

The following was given first reading at the October 11, 2022 City Council meet ing. A public hearing, second reading, and final City Council action is scheduled for Monday, October 24, 2022 at 7:30 p.m., or as soon thereafter as the matter may be heard.

(TO22-17) ORDINANCE TO AMEND CHAPTER 16, “FINANCE,” ARTICLE III, OF THE CODE OF THE CITY OF FALLS CHURCH TO INCLUDE AN ELECTRONIC SUMMONS FEE

All public hearings will be held in the Council Chambers, 300 Park Avenue, Falls Church, Virginia. Remote participa tion information at www.fallschurchva. gov/publiccomment. Comments may also be sent to cityclerk@fallschurchva. gov. For copies of legislation, contact the City Clerk’s office at (703-248-5014) or cityclerk@fallschurchva.gov or visit www. fallschurchva.gov/councilmeetings. The City of Falls Church is committed to the letter and spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act. To request a reasonable accommodation for any type of disability, call 703-248-5014 (TTY 711).

CELESTE HEATH, CITY CLERK

FOR RENT

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ATTN. AUCTIONEERS: Advertise your upcoming auctions statewide and in other states. Affordable Print and Digital Solutions reaching your target audi ences. Call this paper or Landon Clark at Virginia Press Services 804-521-7576, landonc@vpa.net

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AnimeUSA Convention Wows

Ford L. was Japanese man-of-letters Osamu Dazai, and Ceclia S. represented, simply, Elise. Madeline explained: “I was Nikolai Gogol with the white hat and cape. All three of us, Cece, Ford, and I, are cosplaying characters from the manga and anime series “Bungo Stray Dogs,” which takes real-life authors from primar ily Japan, the United States, and Russia throughout the nineteenth and the United States, and Russia throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and gives them ‘gifted abilities’—superpowers of sorts. These abilities are tied to the personal history of the authors and analysis of their works. Nikolai Gogol, and Osamu Dazai are two of the characters, and Elise, Cecelia’s character, is actually a manifestation of another character, Mori Ogai’s ability, so no last name for her.”

Anime character Tohru Honda, heroine of the “Fruits Basket” series, was particularly popu lar this year. This character is imbued with almost contradictory personality traits: sensitive and insecure yet brave and assertive; at times a naïve schoolgirl dressed in Japanese sailor suit school uniform and at other times independent with clear managerial skills. (Many characters of the series also embody the characteristics of the animals of the Chinese zodiac.) One attendee, Danielle W., dressed as Tohru Honda, with her friends Chris C. as Kofuku from the “Norugami” action series and Rachel C. as Marin Kitagawa from “My Dress-up Darling”—the last series based on the idea of cosplay itself! Tohru Honda was also the costume donned by Allison Cook, who was accompanied by Ian Brennan

as Chrono, associated with the series “Lyrical Nanoha.” Allison informed us that she loves such conventions because of the atmosphere and being around people with the same interests.

As mentioned earlier, however, the AnimeUSA convention is not only about cosplay! This year there was a cultural room in which one could learn how to wear a kimono, see miniature reconstructions of rooms in a castle of Edo-era Japan, and learn how to make porcelain bead dolls under the tutelage of Anne Cox. Also featured was a Japanese tea ceremony demonstration by Chado Urasenke Tankokai. A performance of the koto (a traditional Japanese instrument somewhat similar to a zither) by Yuriko Gandolfo. Gamers, too, were not disap pointed: there were a large video game room, chess matches, and Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts running campaigns.

Academically-inclined attendees enjoyed panel discussions on topics such as “Pulp Science Fiction, H. P. Lovecraft, and Their Influence on Anime” and “Hunting the Forest Spirit: Mythology and Anime.”

We also met artists, in particular Akiko Meigetsu and Li Izumi of the Comiku Studio. Akiko, who studied under a Chinese master art ist, is a painter in both ink and watercolor, while Li, who studied under a Japanese master calligra pher, is an artist in calligraphy.

AnimeUSA has been occurring annually for some twenty years, though the in-person 2020 and 2021 events were cancelled due to Covid. This year marked the resumption of the conven tion, with attendees reveling in a wide variety of interests, including Japanese anime and manga (graphic novels), cosplay, gaming, as well as cultural explorations of Japan and other cultures.

COSPLAYER LILAC AS YURI Katsuki from the anime “Yuri!!! on Ice.” (Photo Courtesy: Mark Dreisonstok )

CROSSWORD

Falls Church News-Press Vol. VII, No. 31 • October 9, 1997

Planning Delays Threaten to Kill State Theatre

Falls Church City Manager Hector Rivera issued a strongly-worded letter to the City’s Planning Commission this week in the wake of the Commission’s refusal to grant approval for owners of the State Theatre to push ahead with their renovation plans.

Falls Church News-Press Vol. XXII, No. 34 • October 18, 2012

Groundswell Petition Drive Grows for Saving Historic Anthony’s Restaurant

For over 40 years, Anthony’s Restaurant at 309 W. Broad St., in downtown City of Falls Church has been an informal community center. City residents who don’t want to run into a half-dozen people they know avoid it, because that’s the kind of place it is.

Critter Corner

MUTTSY, a 5-year-old…mutt (of course)...still struggles to comprehend the difference between tables and chairs.

Marshall Volleyball Picks Up 2 Wins Local Organizations Lend a Helping Hand in Hurricane Ian Relief

Volleyball won twice last week, beating WashingtonLiberty 3-0 and Wakefield 3-1. They end their regular season Tuesday night with a visit to Yorktown.

Marshall competed alongside

Falls Church at the Third Battle Invitational Saturday afternoon. The Boys team finished an impressive 6th out of 45 behind a ninth place finish from Sean Sanders and a 20th place finish by Seth Oliver. The Girls also ran well, finishing 20th out of 34 in large part due to a sixth place finish from Haley Spoden.

Hladky’s Two Goals Lead Mustangs to District Semis Victory

by Ryan McCafferty

Facing the Kettle Run Cougars in the District Semifinals on a brisk Tuesday night, the Meridian field hockey squad was ready for action. They came out firing early in the first quarter but were unable to find the back of the net despite several prime opportunities, though Kettle Run also failed to convert on the few they saw. Lucy Hladky was

finally able to open things up with twenty seconds remaining in the first half, and she then scored again less than five min utes into the third. A third goal, this one from Cassie DuBois, late in the fourth put things away for good, and the Mustangs won by a final score of 3-0.

Meridian will now advance to play in the District Finals on Thursday, which will also be played at home against an oppo nent yet to be determined.

by Kylee Toland Falls Church News-Press

Although Hurricane Ian dis sipated over two weeks ago, the southeastern coast of the U.S. is still reeling from the effects and damages the Category 4 Atlantic hurricane has caused.

Labeled the “deadliest hurri cane to strike the state of Florida since the 1935 Labor Day hurri cane,” Hurricane Ian’s devastat ing impact has affected thou sands of people living mainly in Florida and South Carolina. With Virginia only facing fewer damages and reparations from the storm, local organizations are doing their part in helping with the relief of people and places heavily afflicted by the storm.

In the City of Falls Church and surrounding areas, shelters, churches and non-profit orga nizations are lending a helping hand to those who have suf fered losses due to Hurricane Ian. Whether it be returning or rehoming beloved pets, creating care packages, or traveling to those affected areas to search and rescue those unaccounted for, these organizations are doing their part to provide help in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.

Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation is a Falls Churchbased non-profit organization helping homeless pets “find their way to loving homes through rescue and adoption.” The organization prepared their Rescue Care Center for an emer gency intake of pets impacted by Hurricane Ian.

Chloe Floyd, the media and public relations manager and volunteer manager for the orga nization, said the organization was contacted by one of their national partners BISSELL Pet Foundation to help shelter preevacuated pets from the path of the hurricane. Floyd said they weren’t aware of the number of pets they would receive until the day of their arrival.

The Rescue Care Center received two intakes of ani mals, leading to a total of 37 dogs taking shelter at the orga nization. Floyd stated the first group of pets received were res cued before Hurricane Ian made landfall, which helped create “more capacity in the shelters

and rescues down in Florida.” The second group were found and rescued in the wake of the hurricane, which Floyd said the organization has evolved from “pre, during and post-Hurricane Ian.”

Although Floyd said the organization is “very well posi tioned to react to emergen cies and crises” like Hurricane Ian, there was the challenge of making sure the rescued pets received the “appropriate care” due to volunteers not knowing what their medical needs were and making sure they didn’t pose “an additional risk” to the animals already staying at the shelter. Floyd said the goal by the end of all this would be to make sure that all 37 dogs the organization brought in “find their forever homes” and receive the “behavioral medical care they need.”

Vienna Presbyterian Church in Vienna started a fundraiser called “Gift From the Heart Relief Kits” that is helping Florida residents. These relief kits are funded by donations given by church members and local residents. Cleanup bucket kits and hygiene kits are the two kinds of kits provided to the people affected by the hur ricane.

Once the kits are account ed for, volunteers will drive them to a processing center in Maryland, where they will then be delivered to hard-hit areas in Florida.

The church had previously held a similar drive to prepare welcome kits for Afghan refu

gees. That effort drew wide spread interest from the com munity, with an estimated 85 percent of kit donations coming from non-church members.

Fairfax-based first respond er non-profit organization Tidewater Disaster Response (TDR) serves nationally at the request of fire departments and emergency management agen cies. The organization deployed a five-person team to respond to Hurricane Ian.

After the initial landfall of the hurricane, the team of vol unteer first responders headed down to southwest Florida to meet a team of eight other local volunteers. When they arrived at Fort Myers, they began to pull people out of their flooded homes in the wake of Hurricane Ian.

During an interview with WUSA9, TDR logistics coordinator Costa Sardelis stated there were sev eral individuals that volunteers of the organization “took out of their homes and brought to a local area hospital.” He added there were a “handful” of individuals who chose to stay in their homes despite the storm, which vol unteers of TDR “checked on” while dispatched in the area.

The acts of kindness and service these organizations have displayed following the impact of Hurricane Ian can be a feeling of relief to local residents, as they can safely assume if an event such as Hurricane Ian was to affect them, they would have the help and resources they need. Hopefully in the future, there will be even more local organiza tions lending a helping hand for future crises.

LOST DOG & CAT RESCUE FOUNDATION has taken in 37 dogs affected by Hurricane Ian. The organization prepared their Rescue Care Center for the emergency intake. (Photo Courtesy: Chloe Floyd)

MERIDIAN VARSITY FIELD HOCKEY

Beyer