4-30-2015

April 30 - May 6, 2015

Falls Church, Virginia • w w w . fc n p . c o m • Free

Founded 1991 • Vol. XXV N o . 10

Falls Church • Tysons Corner • Merrifield • McLean • North Arlington • Bailey’s Crossroads

Inside This Week Report: F.C. Leads Nation in Drinking

A report published last week by the American Journal of Public Health says that 78.7 percent of those 21 years and older in Falls Church have at least one drink a month, the highest percentage in the country.

See News Briefs, page 9

‘FIRST Friday’ Venue Changes This Week

The central location for this Friday’s “FIRST Friday” festivities in Falls Church will be at 205 W. Jefferson St., the new home of Tom Gittins’ Art and Frame of Falls Church, where there is over 6,000 square feet of space and ample free parking.

F.C. Council Adds a Penny to Tax Rate, Fully Funds School Request Dramatic 4-3 Vote Comes With Sze’s Late Night Switch

by Nicholas F. Benton

Falls Church News-Press

ment operations and a 5.3 percent increase in the School Board’s request, and an overall $1.4 million unfunded amount, requiring a 4-cent real estate tax rate increase.

But then “gap closing” measures were developed during the ensuing two months of deliberations, including a savings that was discovered of $597,881 in health

In a dramatic late night vote Monday, the Falls Church City Council voted 4-3 to fully fund the School Board budget request by raising the real estate tax rate a penny to $1.315 in the final adoption of the coming fiscal year budget. The outcome was achieved by a vote switch by Councilman Dan Sze to approve a budget of $83 million.

On a first vote to cut the school budget by $340,000 and hold the tax rate (at $1.305 per $100 assessed valuation) where is was, the motion failed by 4-3. But then Councilman Nader Baroukh said he’d also not vote for the other option, one to raise the tax rate a penny and fully fund the schools.

After some tense moments, both Sze and Baroukh asked the City Attorney what the impact of an abstention would be and Councilman Phil Duncan made an impassioned speech reiterating his commitment to no tax rate hike.

Then the new vote was taken, and Baroukh voted “No” along with the others who’d voted “Yes” for no rate hike, but Sze switched his vote so the motion passed, 4-3.

When asked by the News-Press why he switched his vote, Sze said, “Because we had to have a budget. It would have been unconscionable not to adopt a budget.”

That was because, had he not switched his vote, both budget options on the table would have failed, leaving the Council likely to have been forced to take the unprecedented move of postponing its action beyond the end of April.

Continued on Page 5

Continued on Page 4

See News Briefs, page 9

Maureen Dowd: Beware Our Mind Children

Are women necessary? Not with Ava around. Even without hair on her head or flesh on her legs, Ava has enough allure and cunning to become a classic film noir robot vixen.

See page 15

Press Pass With Saul Williams

GEORGE MASON HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER Joel Block testified for the full funding of the school budget before the F.C. City Council Monday night. (Photo: News-Press)

See page 25

Adding 1¢ to Fund Schools Will Cost Average $64 More

With his new multimedia project Martyr Loser King, artist Saul Williams is taking on all the world’s ills.

by Nicholas F. Benton

Falls Church News-Press

Index

Editorial..................6 Letters....................6 News & Notes.12-13 Comment........14-17 Sports .................18 Calendar.........20-21

Food & Dining .22-23 Classified Ads .....28 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword...........29 Critter Corner.......30

The difference between a zero tax rate growth for the City of Falls Church and the onecent increase voted by the Falls Church City Council Monday night (up to $1.315 per $100 assessed valuation) amounts to $64 dollars for the median home tax bill, City Manager Wyatt Shields told the City Council

before its vote.

Even with no tax rate increase, taxes on the median value home, which is $643,900, went up an average of $354 due to rises in assessments. But the one extra penny on the tax rate added only $64.

In his presentation Monday, Shields said the budget recommendations he introduced on March 9 called for a 1.5 percent increase in general govern-

PAGE 2 | APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015 | PAGE 3

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

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PAGE 4 | APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Council Passes Budget, Adds 1¢ to Tax Rate Continued from Page 1

Postponement of the vote Monday night was a position that some citizens favored, those opposed to the budget hike and full school funding, as they stated in petitions and letters to the Council.

It would have introduced an element of destabilization that could have caused the whole budget process to unravel. Sze’s move prevented that.

The stubborn sticking point of the tax rate and the level of school funding, which has been like a broken record for so many City budget deliberations in the last quarter century (the News-Press’ first hand knowledge goes back 25 years to when the paper first got its start), did not get resolved until the last minute Monday night even though the impact of the conflict had been diminished by savings found over the course of the budget deliberations dating back to February this year.

The process began when the School Board forwarded a formal budget request of a 5.3 percent budget increase to the City Manager. This followed a month of careful vetting of the schools’

needs by the School Board that included allowing five teacher positions to be lost to attrition.

When City Manager Wyatt Shields took the School Board request and applied it, as required by law, to his own budget recommendation to the City Council, the result was Shields’ assessment that a four cent increase in the real estate tax rate would be needed to balance that budget – an increase from $1.305 to $1.345.

This set off one of the angrier and least civil discourses on the budget in years, even if much of it took place in blogs online, and in comments and emails to the Council.

Some of it spilled over into the public comments Monday night, including when former City Council member Ira Kaylin, denounced “egregious misjudgments made” by the City Council that cost, he claimed, around $2.5 million, and promised he would submit Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) petitions for access to financial documents. Others also assailed an alleged “lack of transparency” in certain budget matters.

F.C. School Board Superintendent Dr. Toni Jones

countered against what she called “a bunch of gossip” on some blogs, citing the results of an independent audit of what was found to be a very lean administrative organization.

School Board member John Lawrence reminded the Council that 85 percent of the School Board budget goes to “people” (teacher and staff salaries and benefits) and that with the $340,000 cut from the board’s request “will mean people.” The Council was told that it would result in four more teacher layoffs, or a total of nine by next September. School Board chair Justin Castillo added, “The idea the schools are eating the City alive is not supported by the facts.”

Among the citizens who spoke in favor of Option 1 (no tax hike and cut the school request) were former Council member Johannah Barry, Linda Neighborgall, Mark Kaye, Evelyn Moore, Mark Quaid, Pat Gianelli and Alison and David Kutchma. Among those who spoke for Option 2 (one cent tax hike and fully fund the schools) were Gary Hill, Joel Block, Letty Hardi, Amanda Blanchard and Lindy Hockenberry.

F.C.’s Chief Financial Officer Richard LaCondre reported to the

Council member Marybeth Connelly said she didn’t like Option 2, “but it is better than Option 1.”

She appealed to the citizens to “upgrade their discourse” on the budget, and said, “The power of kindness is immense.”

Mayor Tarter said that he would hold to the commitment to “live within our means” as stated at the beginning of this budget cycle, and said he was satisfied to give the schools “99 percent of what they asked for.”

Then the vote on Option 1 took place, and when Baroukh cast the last vote, it failed, 4-3. But not before he quickly added that he would not vote for Option 2, either.

So that led to a motion for Option 2, and the vote repeated the pattern of the first vote, except that Baroukh voted no again. Then, with the last vote, Sze voted yes, and the matter was finally settled.

Much of the full house that had been present through much of the evening, cheering and applauding all the citizen speakers depending on which position they spoke in favor of, had left by the late hour, so that the reaction to the surprise Sze vote was much less raucous than it might have been earlier in the night.

Council that the current fiscal year budget, which runs through the end of June, is “beginning to flatten,” with a $349,000 deficit “as of 5 p.m. today.” However, while Councilman Baroukh expressed concern about this, Duncan noted that the City’s undesignated fund balance is at the top of the City’s policy level, at just below 17 percent of the annual operating budget number, and that making up even an $800,000 deficit from the current fiscal year would be made up by tapping that fund balance in a manner that would still leave it at over 15 percent.

But while Duncan said he favored keep the tax rate even, Vice Mayor David Snyder said that both options – for the level tax rate and for a one cent increase that would fully fund the schools – are wrought with problems. “But at least Option 2 does not lay off any teachers,” he said. “And if the schools go downhill, our City is washed up, finished, done.”

Council member Karen Oliver said that “it is irresponsible to hold the tax rate flat just to hold the tax rate flat. We undervalue and underpay our teachers,” and said she favored Option 2.

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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

A Penny Tax Rate Hike to Cost Average $64 a Year Continued from Page 1

care plan costs, yields from bond proceeds higher than expected ($305,000), limiting the City’s contribution to WMATA to 30 percent (due in part to low gas prices), putting $15 million of the City’s active accounts into the higheryielding Virginia Investment Pool, increasing the Treasurer’s Office debt collection efforts with the retention of a formerly temporary specialist, and the shifting of two items from the Schools’ transfer request ($100,000 for a campus planning study, and $90,000 from cash purchase to the debt financing of a new bus).

Added to the budget was $585,000 through debt financing for the replacement of police radios, and other short, five-year term bonding totaling $1,104,000 at an annual debt service cost of $260,000, and long, 20-year bonding for $3,700,000 (including $1.4 million for transportation improvements and $2 million for a new HVAC system for

the Thomas Jefferson Elementary School) with projected annual costs of $340,000 a year.

While the new budget would add debt service costs and residual WMATA costs of $1,580,000 to the following fiscal year’s budget, reductions in City pension costs, the new annual $640,000 yield from investing some of the City’s water sale funds into its pension plans and the impact of new development projects is expected to bring in $2,350,170, or a net positive impact of $770,170.

Unfunded needs in the current budget to be considered next year total almost $3 million, Shields noted, including money for facilities maintenance, fleet replacement, paving and sidewalk repairs and neighborhood traffic calming.

APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015 | PAGE 5

Overall, with its new $1.315 tax rate, Shields noted, the City of Falls Church has the second lowest tax rate for any smaller jurisdiction in the region (led by Manassas Park at $1.65, with only Fairfax City lower than Falls Church). A scatter graph Shields presented comparing tax rates and population levels confirmed that the Falls Church rate will remain among the lowest for smallersized jurisdictions.

With all this, he said, the City retains its AAA, AAA and Aa+ credit ratings on Wall Street because of its fund balance level, its strong capital reserves, its fully funded pensions, its significant new economic development and its record of strong financial management by the City Council and staff.

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PAGE 6 | APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015

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Vol. XXV, No. 10 April 30 - May 6, 2015 • City of Falls Church ‘Business of the Year’ 1991 & 2001 • • Certified by the Commonwealth of Virginia to Publish Official Legal Notices • • Member, Virginia Press Association •

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T� C������ ��� N���-P���� �����: 703-532-3267 ���: 703-342-0347 �����: ���������.��� ������� ����������� ��������.��� ���������� ��� �������������.��� ������� �� ��� ������ ������������.��� ������������� ������������ � �������� �������������.��� WWW.FCNP.COM The Falls Church News-Press is published weekly on Thursdays and is distributed free of charge throughout the City of Falls Church and the Greater Falls Church area. Offices are at 200 Little Falls St., #508, Falls Church, VA 22046. Reproduction of this publication in whole or part is prohibited except with the written permission of the publisher. ©2015 Benton Communications Inc. The News-Press is printed on recycled paper.

E D I TO R I A L

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The F.C. Budget Comes Out Right

Maybe it’s just the way the process is structured, but seems to us unnecessary and even tragic that a small community like the City of Falls Church needs to be torn asunder every spring in the budget cycle by what comes down to very small sums of money, in a comparative sense, needed for very important things.

We are very pleased that in its wisdom the City Council here voted, albeit 4-3, to give the school system that final $340,000 it needed to achieve its objectives for the coming year. It took a long time, from the first of the year on the one hand, and from 7:30 p.m. Monday night until the final vote after 11 p.m. was held.

The final penny on the tax rate needed for that $340,000 averages out to $64 for the average household in the City, such average household having an assessed value of $643,900. Now, if one is living in more modest digs in the City, such as one half the value of the median, then the number that everyone was so exercised about Monday night added up to $32 per household a year. Notwithstanding the few remaining fast food joints in the City, it is hard for two people to go out to dinner once in an entire year and spend less than $32.

So, while the number was small, the impact was huge. According to the School Board, lacking that last penny’s value for the schools would have caused the loss of four teachers, because by that point, everything else had been reduced to the max, and the only remaining area to give on was salaries.

But in the context of these things – the contrast between the cost and the benefit – there was more acrimony in the deliberations, especially from a tiny group of anti-school funding citizens (note: they will never permit themselves to be called anti-school, only anti-school “funding”) whose voice became angrier and more shrill, though often on blogs and comments on the Internet, than we’ve seen in a long time.

It is regrettable that some of these same elements have made it known that this approach will continue all the way to the November City Council election, when three incumbents, Mayor David Tarter and Council members Nader Baroukh and Phil Duncan, will have to decide if it remains worth their while to seek re-election.

For our money, and we’ll put it out there right now, although we’ve not agreed with any of these three all the way, we’d be willing to support their re-election, if only to stand for the kind of civility we think this town deserves. Officially, we’ll wait to see who runs before making our formal endorsements this fall.

Shrill and ad hominem attacks on hard working and barely paid public servants (and that includes teachers) in this activist community will only serve, hopefully, to arouse the righteous indignation of more civil and community-minded folks.

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Buses on I-66 Shoulders: Transit’s New Champion?

Editor, Allowing buses to use the shoulder on crowded I-66 is smart.

It is low cost, requires little or no additional construction, is unobtrusive and can be implemented quickly. According to a cooperative research study last year from the Transportation Research Board and Federal Transit Administration, “A Guide for Implementing Bus On

Shoulder Systems,” it has been a success in the dozen or so communities around the country where it has been installed.

Beyond the obvious capacity and fuel saving benefits of opening an unused lane to commuter buses when traffic snarls, it also highlights public transit’s role in unclogging our region’s (and the nation’s) roadways.

A faster commute on the bus will attract more riders. More rid-

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

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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.

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

ADVERTISE IN THE

The News-Press is delivered to every household and many businesses in the City of Falls Church (22046), and to many homes and businesses (but not all) in the adjacent 22041, 22042, 22043, 22044 and 22205 zip codes. Its total circulation of 15,000 per issue is greater than any other newspaper in the distribution area, including dailies. For complete advertising information, call us or check out our web site.

Call 532-3267 x2274 or visit www.FCNP.com

All original and some syndicated content is accessible via the Falls Church News-Press online site, www.FCNP.com.

FCNP.com also includes photos, stories, ads and more not appearing in the print edition.

For information on online advertising, please contact Nick Gatz at 703-532-3267 or ngatz@fcnp.com.

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ers mean less cars on our roads, and fewer cars mean an easier ride for everyone.

Such logic extends to other transit projects in the region – the Silver Line, the Purple Line, streetcars, bus rapid transit, even bike share programs.

Some projects will advance.

Others may not fit quite as well yet.

Each time a bus on the shoulder breezes by traffic stuck on I-66, however, it will remind stalled drivers why the region needs reliable and extensive public transportation.

Michael Townes Transit Market Sector Leader, HNTB Corporation, Arlington

[ LETTERS ] Send us a letter and let us know what you think.

Email letters@fcnp.com Fax 703-342-0347 Mail or drop off Letters to the Editor, c/o Falls Church News-Press, 200 Little Falls Street #508, Falls Church, VA 22046

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CO MME NT

APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015 | PAGE 7

G � � � � C � � � � � �� �� F.C. Budget Provides a Call to Action for All Citizens B� M������� C�������

A round of applause! Falls Church has a FY2016 budget. It took sweat, disagreement and compromise. Some say we failed because the tax rate did not remain flat.

Others worry that we are not raising enough for future capital needs. I’m calling it a success, with room for improvement in the future. This budget provides a map of Falls Church priorities, and a vision for a sustainable and bright future.

The numbers Four Council members voted to raise the tax rate by $.01, for a rate of $131.5 per $1,000 of assessed value. ($70 per year on a $700,000 house) We began discussions with the potential to raise it four times that amount. Diligent and thoughtful work brought us to the approved budget.

Appreciation Hundreds of people wrote, attended meetings and commented passionately on budget priorities and vision. Every commenter made me nod my head in agreement at some point. Unfortunately there’s no way to create a budget that pleases everyone.

Even if you are disappointed, know that your ideas were heard and your concerns weighed carefully.

Employees of Falls Church City and F.C. Schools spent hours, round the clock, building this budget. Because we are a small city, this requires cooperation, nimbleness and flexibility. It is appropriate that City Council issued a proclamation declaring May 3-9,

2015 as Public Service Recognition Week.

City Council and School Board members also put their hearts into this budget.

We haven’t always agreed. That tension, though sometimes uncomfortable, is also essential. Those who advocated for a flat tax rate provided a clarion call to keep the

“This budget provides a map of Falls Church priorities, and a vision for a sustainable and bright future.” needs of all citizens front and center.

Reality check There are a number of factors in budgetbuilding that are out of our local control.

• Falls Church tax rate is higher than our neighboring counties.

• Falls Church tax rate is on the low end when compared with nearby cities and towns.

• Cities and towns don’t benefit from economies of scale, so it costs us more to provide some services.

• We have to contract some services to neighboring jurisdictions. We can’t cut these – and are beholden when the bill increases. Just this month, we learned that ambulance fees due to Arlington will increase by $135,000.

• We don’t have Federal investment

like our neighbors. Arlington, Alexandria and Fairfax benefit financially from the Pentagon, airports, Federal District courts and military installations.

• We don’t benefit from Virginia funding. The Virginia Local Composite Index (LCI) determines how much money sent to Richmond comes back to support schools.

Falls Church has among the highest LCI ratios in the state, which means we receive the least state support.

• Our ratio of residential to commercial tax revenue is imbalanced. Most of our tax revenue comes from homeowners. We’ve grown into this and need to alter this ratio.

Vision These challenges may seem overwhelming but together, as a community, we can overcome them. Falls Church is headed in the right direction. Our property values continue to grow. Our location couldn’t be better. Our commercial economic development, with the expectation of increased revenue, is expanding. Our schools are excellent, and will continue to provide world-class education. A year from now, we will add Harris-Teeter and Fresh Market to our grocery shopping choices.

This budget funds the school and city operating requests. While there are unmet needs to think about in planning for next year, we are in good shape. It also funds: • Mt. Daniel School construction • City Hall and Public Safety renovations • GMHS track and field replacement • Arts funding for programs and operations • Park improvements

• Downtown reinvestment • Neighborhood Traffic Calming • GMHS Campus Joint Planning Committee See what I mean - a round of applause!

Call to Action for All Citizens 1. Shop local. Buy your groceries, gas, gifts and dinner in the City of Falls Church.

A $700 purchase at Integrity Tire supports a small business, and puts $7 in the city’s coffers. The $200 a week you spend on groceries at Giant, BJ’s, The Local Market or Good Fortune is worth $2 in sales tax. The $80 meal at Pizzeria Orso brings $3.20 to the city. It all adds up. Spend right here in Falls Church!

2. Embrace, don’t fear, economic development. To keep our city sustainable, we need to engage with developers to get the development we want and need.

3. It’s time to change the budget process.

Elected leaders need to work together, earlier in the year, considering other reasonable formulae for school funding. Arlington has a robust revenue sharing agreement that we can examine as a start.

4. Look after one another and be kind.

That’s what a community is all about. If you are (or know) a person or family struggling with taxes, Falls Church offers tax relief and deferral programs. Contact Falls Church Treasurer Jody Acosta at jacosta@ fallschurchva.gov or 703-248-5049 to find out about those programs.  Marybeth Connelly is a member of the Falls Church City Council and newly appointed chair of the Budget and Finance Committee.

Q������� �� ��� W��� Did the F.C. City Council do the right thing by funding the City Schools’ budget request?

• Yes • No

Last Week’s Question:

How will the Falls Church City Council vote on the budget?

• Don’t know

Log on to www.FCNP.com to cast your vote

FCNP On-Line polls are surveys, not scientific polls.

[WRITE FOR THE PRESS] The News-Press welcomes readers to send in submissions in the form of Letters to the Editor

& Guest Commentaries. Letters to the Editor should be no more than 350 words and writers are limited to one appearance every four weeks.

Guest Commentaries should be no more than 800 words and writers are limited to one appearance every four months. Because of space constraints, not all submissions will be published. All submissions to the News-Press should be original, unpublished content. We reserve the right to edit submissions for length, grammar and accuracy. All submissions should include writer’s name, address, phone and e-mail address if available.

Email: letters@fcnp.com | Mail: Letters to the Editor, Falls Church News-Press, 200 Little Falls St., #508, Falls Church 22046 | Fax: 703.340.0347

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PAGE 8 | APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Slain F.C. Foreign Service Specialist to Be Honored Falls Church resident Rayda Nadal, who lost her life while serving in the United States Foreign Service, will be honored at the Annual Memorial Ceremony at the U.S. State Department C Street lobby in Washington, D.C. this Friday, May 1, at 10:20 a.m.

The ceremony is being organized by the American Foreign Service Association.

Nadal joined the Foreign Service in 2008 as an Office Management Specialist; she served in the economic, political, and commercial sections of the U.S. embassies in Kuwait City, Kabul, and Nassau. She addition-

ally spent two years as an Office Management Specialist for Ambassador Capricia Marshall at the Office of Protocol in Washington, D.C. In 2013, she accepted the post of Office Management Specialist with the Office of Engineering Services at Embassy Moscow. She died from injuries sustained in an explosion in her Moscow apartment in May 2014.

Described by friends and colleagues as “a ray of sunshine,” she was an excellent cook, avid reader and writer, and had a quick wit and a ready smile. She lived what friends and colleagues called the “ideal Foreign Service experience.”

Nadal’s name will be inscribed on the memorial wall next to the names of 245 individuals who have been recognized for making the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy will speak and American Foreign Service Association President Robert J. Silverman will preside over the ceremony.

I’m a mother. My baby is 20 months old and amazes me daily. In my work, I help adults learn English alongside wonderful colleagues and volunteers. My students want to improve their lives. I’m happy to be part of that.”

P����: L���� G�����

Open House 1-4 Sunday, May 3rd IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING YOUR WATER RATES Announcement of Public Hearing for Proposed Changes to the Schedule of Rates, Fees, and Charges 3:30 p.m. on Thurs., May 21, 2015 8570 Executive Park Avenue Fairfax, VA 22031

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Dear Fairfax Water Customer, As you know, the water systems of the Cities of Falls Church and Fairfax joined Fairfax Water’s legacy system in January 2014. In the acquisition agreements, Fairfax Water agreed to equalize rates by Jan. 2, 2016, for the City of Falls Church and Jan. 2, 2017, for the City of Fairfax.

After gaining a full year’s operational experience with these systems, the Fairfax Water Board of Directors is now proposing to place the new customers on the same rate schedule as Fairfax Water legacy customers, effective with all meter readings taken on or after July 1, 2015. (That means a commodity rate of $2.55 per 1,000 gallons.) If approved, the changes will place all customers on the same annual rate-review cycle.

If you have questions or would like to speak at the hearing, please send an

email to pr@fairfaxwater.org or call 703-698-5600, TTY 711.

Thank you, Philip W. Allin Chairman, Fairfax Water Board of Directors

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

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APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015 | PAGE 9

Fa l l s C h u r c h

NEWS BRIEFS F.C. Leads Nation in Drinking, Report Says Falls Church adults lead the nation in overall alcohol drinking according to a new study from the American Journal of Public Health. A report published Thursday by the journal says that 78.7 percent of those 21 years and older in Falls Church have at least one drink a month, the highest percentage in the country. Aki Mokad, a lead author of the study and a professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington says in USA Today “Educated, affluent (people) enjoy a glass of wine every night. They can afford it, and they are cautious about their health.” While Falls Church leads the U.S. in overall drinking, Menominee County in Wisconsin leads in binge drinking and Esmeralda, Nevada is home to the country’s heaviest drinkers.

‘FIRST Friday’ Venue Changes This Week The central location for this Friday’s “FIRST Friday” festivities in Falls Church will be at 205 W. Jefferson St., the new home of Tom Gittins’ Art and Frame of Falls Church, where there is over 6,000 square feet of space and ample free parking. The monthly event will begin at 6 p.m. In the new space, Gittins has announced, 18 art studios will be available, making it the “birthplace of Jefferson Street Artisans,” he said. “Our new location allows us to increase the number of artist studios to 18, likening it to a mini-Torpedo Factory,” he said. This Friday, photographic images by Peter Tomlinson will be the featured exhibit, with a performance by the Harley String Band.

F.C.’s Nepalese Restaurateurs React to Nepal Quake Pragun and Salina Rana, the husband and wife team who have owned and operated the Argia’s Restaurant in Falls Church for the last three years, are natives of Nepal, and endured hours of terrible stress last weekend before learning that all members of their close family in Katmandu, Nepal, where a devastating earthquake hit, are OK. The quake hit about 3 a.m. last Saturday (F.C. time) when the two were notified of the disaster by a relative calling from China. All communications with Katmandu were down and there was no information on the status of anyone as the couple worried while having to stay busy preparing for a special group of over 100 due to arrive to dine at their restaurant that day. “Having to prepare kept our minds off the situation to Argia’s Salina Rana. some degree,” Salina told the News-Press. She said their brother (Photo: News-Press) in China finally got through by wireless phone to Katmandu and learned everyone in their family was OK. “That is because the worst devastation hit the rural areas,” Salina said, partly due to the fact that the buildings constructed in the last 20 years in the nation’s capital were much stronger, due to the known vulnerability of the area to earthquakes. As the death toll rose above 5,000 this week, the Ranas recommend a relief fund to help, run by doctors in the U.S. and Nepal, accessible at life. indiegogo.com/fundraisers/nepal-earthquake-relief-fund.

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‘Topping Out’ Party at Harris-Teeter Site May 22 A “Topping Out” party, an event held at new large-scale construction sites when the point has been reached to complete the roofing, has been announced for the “301 W. Broad” building that will be home to a new Harris Teeter, hosted by developers Rushmark Properties and HITT Construction. The building’s residential and retail components are expected to be occupied in about a year. The party will be held Friday, May 22, at 11 a.m. at the construction site on W. Broad.

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F.C. GOP Pitches for Candidate Vs. Del. Simon In a “Call for a Legislative District Mass Meeting of the 53rd House District,” the chair of the Republican Party’s 53rd Virginia Delegate District, Falls Church’s Brad Tidwell announced this week a May 16 caucus to select the party’s nominee to run against incumbent Democratic Del. Marcus Simon. A non-refundable filing fee of $700 and petitions with signatures of 250 registered voters in the district must be filed by May 8 to qualify for candidacy. The announcement cites that “the mass meeting will be cancelled if no qualified person files by the May 8 deadline.”

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PAGE 10 | APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015

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F� � � � C � � � � �

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

B������� N��� � N���� Art & Frame of F.C. Moves to New, Larger Space Art and Frame of Falls Church has moved from its location at 111 Park Avenue to 205 W. Jefferson Street in Falls Church. Owned and operated by Tom Gittins, founder of FIRSTfriday of Falls Church, Art and Frame is a custom framing shop that highlights local artists. The new location will also include 18 art studios known as Jefferson Street Artisans.

A FIRSTfriday reception will take place Friday, May 1 from 6 – 8 p.m. at the new location.

For more information, visit www.artandframeoffallschurch.com.

Weichert Agent Received Negotiation Award Gary Hughes, a real estate agent with Weichert Realty, has been awarded the Certified Negotiation Expert designation from the Real Estate Negotiation Institute. The CNE is earned by real estate professionals after successfully completing formal negotiation training. Agents who receive this certification are among the top agents in the country in negotiation skills. With professional negotiation skills, agents are able to help clients obtain better results in the sale or purchase of their home. For more information about Hughes, visit www.novaagent.com.

F.C. Chamber Hosting Orientation Meeting Tuesday The Falls Church Chamber of Commerce is hosting a member orientation meeting at EagleBank on Tuesday, May 5 from 5:30 – 6:30 p.m. Prospective and current members of the Chamber are invited to this free informational event to learn about the promotional and networking benefits of membership. EagleBank is located in the Mosaic at 2905 District Avenue, #190. For more information, visit www.FallsChurchChamber.org.  Business News & Notes is compiled by Sally Cole, Executive Director of Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce. She may be emailed at sally@fallschurchchamber.org.

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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

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APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015 | PAGE 11

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20% Off Prescription Sunglasses LISA EMRICH, the chair of communications for iConquerMS, practices for an upcoming performance. Emrich, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2005, has been blogging about her experience living with the disorder since 2007. (P����: D��� C������/N���-P����)

Local Resident Helps Lead Multiple Sclerosis Initiative

BY DREW COSTLEY

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS

Falls Church resident Lisa Emrich was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disorder that affects the central nervous system, nearly ten years ago.

But the first time she experienced what can be one of the more extreme symptoms of the disorder, temporary blindness, was in 2000.

“That bout of optic neuritis was my first major MS attack, or exacerbation,” Emrich said. “And then it took five years after that before I finally did get diagnosed.

So it was a long time.”

Diagnosing multiple sclerosis takes as long as it took for Emrich to get diagnosed in some people, sometimes it takes longer and sometimes not as long.

And the disorder, which is thought to be caused either by the destruction by the immune system of the myelin sheath that protects nerve cells or the failure of the myelin, presents differently in every person who has it.

The diversity of the experiences people with multiple sclerosis have is one of the things that Emrich, and the rest of the team working on iConquerMS, a national patient-driven research initiative launched by the Accelerated Cure Project for MS, want to harness through the project.

Emrich is the chair of communications for the initiative, which operates as a website that encourages people living with multiple sclerosis to play an active role in research by sharing their health data with researchers and propose areas of research they believe need to be studied.

Before being appointed communications chair for the initiative, Emrich had plenty of practice communicating about her experience with multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, which she also has, and communicating with other patients experiencing either disorder. She’s been writing about her experience living with both disorders – including her bout of optic neuritis – on her blog Brass & Ivory: Life with MS and RA, a play on her two musical instruments of choice, since 2007.

“It was awfully scary,” Emrich, who is a professional pianist, horn player and music teacher, said of the time that she went temporarily blind in one eye for two months. It was a busy time for her in the spring of 2000. She had lots of gigs, like playing with the Baltimore Opera and Fairfax Symphony.

“And one morning I woke up and I couldn’t see. I thought ‘Is there vaseline over my glasses.’ It scared me.”

Emrich saw three doctors that day – her eye doctor, a retina spe-

cialist and a neuro opthamologist.

And by the next day she couldn’t see anything out of one eye.

“It was very dramatic and very frightening and then I had to find people who would drive me places, to take me up to Baltimore for rehearsals, so that first experience was very scary.”

Eventually her eyesight came back and doctors told her that it may or may not ever happen again, which it hasn’t thus far.

But she started experiencing other symptoms years later, like fatigue, difficulty walking and losing the ability to use her left arm.

Experiencing symptoms like this can be debilitating for some patients of multiple sclerosis, making it difficult or impossible to work or maintain a career.

There is no cure for the disorder, but there are twelve diseasemodifying drugs on the market which can delay the progress of the disease. Still, there are still a lot of unknowns about multiple sclerosis.

The goal of iConquerMS, according Laura Kolaczkowski, who is living with multiple sclerosis and is the lead patient advocate for iConquerMS, is to increase the health data available to researchers with the aim of unlocking the mysteries of multiple sclerosis – find what causes it, explore new thera-

Continued on Page 24

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PAGE 12 | APRIL 30 - MAY 6

News-Press

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Community News & Notes Creative Cauldron Readies Final Production of Season Creative Cauldron is preparing to present its final production of the 2014-2015 season, “Once on This Island,” which will premier at ArtSpace Falls Church at 410 S. Maple Street next Friday, May 8 at 8 p.m.

The show, which was written by the Tony Award-winning songwriting team of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty and is based on the novel My Love, My Love

by Rosa Guy, the show features a calypso-reggae musical score.

Set in the Caribbean Antilles, this enchanting musical parable tells the story of Ti Moune, a peasant girl who falls in love with the well-born Daniel and is aided by the gods of earth, water and love in her desire to be with him.

Once on This Island garnered eight Tony nominations in its 1991 Broadway run, including Best Musical, Book and Score. It also

won the 1995 Olivier Award for Best New Musical.

The Creative Cauldron production of the play is directed by the organization’s associate artist Matt Conner and is choreographed by Kara-Tameika Watkins. Walter (Bobby) McCoy is serving as musical director, Margie Jervis is the scenic and costume designer and Joseph Lovins is the lighting designer. The show will feature Tiara Whaley, Ian Anthony Coleman, Daphne Epps, Iyona Blake, Carl Williams, Harrison Lee, Malcolm Lee, Jade Jones and Avia Fields. Tickets for the show, which runs through May 31, cost $22 – $25 and tickets for the gala performance on May 9 cost $45. For more information, visit creativecauldron.org.

City of F.C. Supports Two ‘Bike to Work Day’ Pit Stops The City of Falls Church is supporting two official pit stops

for Bike to Work Day 2015, which is scheduled for Friday, May 15. The pit stops will be open from 6:30 – 9 a.m. and 4 – 7 p.m. at Tricentennial Park (W&OD Trail at Grove Avenue).

The City will have free food, beverages, giveaways, demonstrations and raffles at the pit stops.

Sponsors of the pit stops include Bikenetic, Dancing Mind and Tri360. Riders who will participate in Bike to Work Day can register at fallschurchva.gov/BTWD or biketoworkmetrodc.org.

The first 14,000 registrants who attend an official pit stop will receive a free event t-shirt. All registrants will be entered into a raffle to win one of several bicycles that have been donated to the city.

Businesses interested in sponsoring the City of Falls Church pit stop through donations of in-kind goods or monetary support can contact Paul Stoddard at pstoddard@fallschurchva.gov or 703248-5041 (TTY 711).

At Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School’s Cafetorium Thursday night, pioneer visionaries of two key programs that have distinguished the Falls Church City Schools since 1975 were recognized, those who pioneered the extended day care program, begun in the 1975, and those who pioneered the introduction of the International Baccalaureate program that in the school system beginning in 1981. Before the formal program began, current George Mason High School Principal Ty Byrd (right) chatted with two such pioneers, former F.C. School Superintendent Dr. Warren Pace (left) and IB pioneer Lou Olom (center). (Photo: News-Press)

Chris Earman Joins Louise Molton Real Estate Team Chris Earman, a lifelong resident of the City of Falls Church and 1981 graduate of George Mason High School, has joined the Louise Molton Real Estate Team, Louise Molton reported to the News-Press in an e-mail last week.

According to Molton, Earman has had long term involvement in the City through PTAs, athletic booster clubs, little league teams and much more and is bringing his experience in mortgage, financial and small business operations to the team. For more information, visit louisemolton.com.

Frady Park Gets a Makeover Donald S. Frady Park looks splendid this year as the result of many years of work by the City, with the Village Preservation and Improvement Society, The Victorian Society all donating

time and money to establish and improve the Park.

Additionally, for the past five years during April the Falls Church ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has contributed hundreds of hours each April to improve Frady Park soils by spreading truck loads of leaf compost and Compro. The Church volunteers plant and weed, flower beds; collect broken limbs and rake the beds to improve the appearance of Frady Park, located between Broad, Cherry and North Fairfax Streets.

All of the volunteer efforts are working toward a common vision to create a beautiful respite in the east end of Falls Church.

Historically what is now Frady Park is known best as the location for the First Arbor Day in Virginia in 1892. At that event they planted trees to replace the ones destroyed by a tornado there at the site of The Jefferson Institute on the north side of the current park.

IN RECOGNITION OF THE SUPPORT that the Bailey’s Crossroads Rotary Club has given to the Fairfax County Public School system over the last year, Superintendent Karen Garza asked Bailey’s President Harry Henderson to present FCPS with a ceremonial check for $25,100 at a community meeting at J.E.B. Stuart High School April 22. Also at the meeting, two members of the Bailey’s Crossroads Rotary Club promoted to top administrative positions at FCPS were introduced to the community. Honorary member Penny Gros was promoted to principal of Stuart and member Shawn DeRose was tapped as acting principal of Glasgow Middle School. (Photo: Courtesy of David Borowski)

Send Us Your News & Notes!

The News-Press is always on the lookout for photos & items for Community News & Notes, School News & Notes and other sections of the paper. If you graduate, get married, get engaged, get an award, start a club, eat a club, tie your shoes, have a birthday, have a party, host an event or anything else you think is worth being mentioned in the News-Press, write it up and send it to us! If you have a photo, even better! Because of the amount of submissions we receive, we cannot guarantee all submissions will be published, but we’ll try our best!

Community News & Notes: newsandnotes@fcnp.com | School News & Notes: schoolnews@fcnp.com Mail: News & Notes, Falls Church News-Press, 200 Little Falls St. #508, Falls Church, VA 22046

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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

6th Annual Plein Air “Scenes In the City” Festival Begins

The Plein Air Festival draws many new artists to Falls Church who compete for cash prizes and bragging rights in placing in this popular competition. All artwork must be done outside and represent “Scenes in the City” of the City of Falls Church and be done during the festival, which runs through June 20th.

This year the plan is to have the competition and sale of the artwork from 10 a.m – 1 p.m. on June 20 at Harry Wells Park in front of the City Hall near the corner of Little Falls Street and Park Avenue. The public participates by voting for their favorite painting and the winner receives The People’s Choice Award. All artists from anywhere are eligible to participate and sign up online at fallschurcharts.org.

Winners in the past include Isabelle Babington, Meg Breedon, Bill Abel, Rajendra KC, Patricia Wallach Keough, who all won the first place Don Beyer Plein Air Prize.

This year the winner of the first place prize will receive $1,000. The second place winner of the Tori McKinney Rock Star Realtor Prize will receive $500 and the Falls Church Arts President’s Prize for third place is $250. The public votes on June 20 at the Farmer’s Market and the artwork that receives the most votes wins People’s Choice Award.

‘Blue Collar Boys’ Wins at NoVa Film Festival “Blue Collar Boys,” a gritty tale of revenge, won best feature film as awarded by the Northern Virginia Film Festival, a platform for both local, national and international films that took place April 13 – 18 at the Angelika Film Center in Merrifield.

In addition to workshops and

networking opportunities for filmmakers, over 115 films were shown on two screens, including features “All I Need,” a psychological thriller set in a claustrophobic hotel room, and “Leaves of the Tree,” starring Eric Roberts, about an olive tree’s coveted healing powers, shot around the luscious scenery of Sicily.

“A Man On The Edge,” about a father contemplating suicide, won best short film, one of many beautifully rendered shorts such as “Gaia,” a Godfrey Reggioinspired critique of human culture through dance and “Art Of Richard Thompson,” a celebration of the famous cartoonist’s illustrations and battle with Parkinson’s disease more recently. For more information, visit novafilmfest.com.

Choralis Hosts British Composer Bob Chilcott The Falls Church based arts organization Choralis is hosting British composer Bob Chilcott this Saturday, May 2 at The Falls Church Episcopal at 115 East Fairfax Street for singing sessions and a question and answer session.

Chilcott will lead singing sessions of his compositions as well works by Francis Pott and 2014 British Composer Award-winner Cecilia McDowell, who will be in attendance. McDowell will also join Chilcott in answering questions from attendees.

The event will kick off with coffee and check-in at 8:45 a.m. and the rest of the event will run from 9:30 a.m. – 3 p.m. Preregistration for the event costs $45 and on-site registration costs $55. For more information, visit choralis.org/events.

NVCC Offers Workshop for Improving Organizations The United States Senate Productivity and Quality Award Program for Virginia is part-

APRIL 30 - MAY 6 | PAGE 13

JANET HAYNES (CENTER, HOLDING ROSES) was honored at the opening of the Falls Church City Council meeting Monday night on the occasion of her 90th birthday for her service as a volunteer crossing guard at W. Broad and N. Spring Street, at the St. James School, since 1967, keeping three generations of students safe. She was the grand marshal of the 2013 Memorial Day Parade in Falls Church and her birthday this year has been designated as Janet Haynes Day. (P����: N���-P����) nering with Northern Virginia Community College to offer a two-day workshop on improving organizations.

“An Inquirer’s Guide to the Baldrige Excellence Framework” will be held May 12 – 13 and will provide a guide for assessing and improving the performance of an entire organization.

According to a press release from Northern Virginia Community College about the course, the Baldrige Excellence Framework can be applied to any size organization operating in any industry including healthcare, education, government, service and nonprofits.

The course will be held at Northern Virginia Community College’s Manassas Campus, located at 6901 Sudley Road, Manassas. Materials and lunch both days are included in the $275 registration fee. For more information or to register for the workshop, visit spqa-va.org or call 571-215-8881.

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AARP Names Arlington One Of The ‘30 Most Livable Cities’ Arlington County was named one of the “30 Most Livable Cities,” in a study done by the AARP Pubic Policy Institute.

Washington, D.C. and two Maryland cities made the list, as well. The AARP Public Policy Institute launched the AARP Livability Index last week. The index aims to allow people to determine how well their communities are meeting their current and future needs.

Five Virginia cities – Arlington, Blacksburg, Charlottesville, Fredericksburg and Richmond – made the cut to be included in a feature on the new tool to be run in the May edition of AARP Bulletin.

In addition to the “Most Livable Neighborhoods” list, AARP Bulletin also reports the best cities – of all sizes – that meet a few key priorities of Americans 50-plus.

Arlington ranked number six among medium-sized cities on the “30 Most Livable Cities” list.

Madison, Wis., topped the list of livable medium-sized cities. The most livable big city (population over 500,000) is San Francisco, while the most livable small city (population between 25,000 and 100,000) is La Crosse, Wis. The AARP Bulletin feature, which can be read at aarp. org/mostlivable2015, includes the ten “Most Livable Neighborhoods” in the country.

Odeon Chamber Music Series Features Alon Goldstein Piano player Alon Goldstein is the next musician to be featured in the Odeon Chamber Music Series. He will play a concert featuring works by Liszt, Ginastera and Schubert at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church, located at 3241 Brush Drive, Falls Church, next Sunday, May 10, at 4 p.m.

Admission to the concert is free, though the organizers of the event suggest at $15 donation. A wine and cheese reception will follow the concert. For more information, visit odeonchambermusicseries.org.

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PAGE 14 | APRIL 30 - MAY 6

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Goodness and Power

There was an interesting poll result about Hillary Clinton last week. According to a Quinnipiac poll, 60 percent of independent voters believe that she has strong leadership qualities. But when these same voters were asked if she is honest and trustworthy, the evaluations flipped. Sixty-one percent said she is not honest and trustworthy.

Apparently there are a lot of Americans who believe that Hillary Clinton is dishonest and untrustworthy but also a strong leader.

Let’s set aside her specific case for a second. These poll results raise a larger question: Can you be a bad person but a strong leader?

The case for that proposition is reasonably straightforward. Politics is a tough, brutal arena. People play by the rules of the jungle. Sometimes to get anything done, a leader has to push, bully, NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE intimidate, elide the truth. The qualities that make you a good person in private life – kindness, humility and a capacity for introspection – can be drawbacks on the public stage.

Electing a president is different than finding a friend or lover. It’s better to hire a ruthless person to do a hard job.

I get that argument, but outside the make-believe world of “House of Cards,” it’s usually wrong. Voting for someone with bad private morals is like setting off on a battleship with awesome guns and a rotting hull.

There’s a good chance you’re going to sink before the voyage is over.

People who are dishonest, unkind and inconsiderate have trouble attracting and retaining good people to their team. They tend to have sleazy friends. They may be personally canny, but they are almost always surrounded by sycophants and second-raters who kick up scandal and undermine the leader’s effectiveness.

Leaders who lack humility are fragile. Their pride is bloated and sensitive. People are never treating them as respectfully as they think they deserve. They become consumed with resentments. They treat politics as battle, armor up and wall themselves off to information and feedback.

You may think they are championing your cause or agenda, but when the fur is flying, they are really only interested in defending themselves. They keep an enemies list and life becomes a matter of settling scores and imagining conspiracies. They jettison any policy that might hurt their standing.

It is a paradox of politics that the people who set out obsessively to succeed in it usually end up sabotaging themselves. They treat each relationship as a transaction and don’t generate loyalty. They lose any honest internal voice. After a while they can’t accurately perceive themselves or their situation. Sooner or later their Watergate will come.

Maybe once upon a time there was an environment in which ruthless Machiavellians had room to work their dark arts, but we don’t live in Renaissance Italy. We live in a world of universal media attention.

Once there is a hint of scandal of any kind, the political world goes into maximum frenzy and everything stops.

We live in a world in which power is dispersed. You can’t intimidate people by chopping your enemies to bits in the town square. Even the presidency isn’t a powerful enough office to allow a leader to rule by fear. You have to build coalitions by appealing to people’s self-interest and by luring them voluntarily to your side.

Modern politics, like private morality, is about building trust and enduring personal relationships. That means being fair, empathetic, honest and trustworthy. If you stink at establishing trust, you stink at politics.

People with good private morality are better at navigating for the long term. They genuinely love causes beyond themselves. When the news cycle distracts and the short-term passions surge, they can still steer by that distant star. They’re less likely to overreact and do something stupid.

People with astute moral sentiments have an early warning system.

They don’t have to think through the dangers of tit-for-tat favor-exchanges with billionaires. They have an aesthetic revulsion against people who seem icky and situations that are distasteful, which heads off a lot of trouble.

Of course, private morality is not enough. You have to know how to react to unprincipled people who want to destroy you.

But, historically, most effective leaders – like, say, George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill – had a dual consciousness. They had an earnest, inner moral voice capable of radical self-awareness, rectitude and great compassion. They also had a pragmatic, canny outer voice. These two voices were in constant conversation, checking each other, probing for synthesis, wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove.

I don’t know if Hillary Clinton possesses this double-mindedness.

But I do know that if candidates don’t acquire a moral compass outside of politics, they’re not going to get it in the White House, and they won’t be effective there.

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

David Brooks

Nobody Said That Imagine yourself as a regular commentator on public affairs – maybe a paid pundit, maybe a supposed expert in some area, maybe just an opinionated billionaire. You weigh in on a major policy initiative that’s about to happen, making strong predictions of disaster. The Obama stimulus, you declare, will cause soaring interest rates; the Fed’s bond purchases will “debase the dollar” and cause high inflation; the Affordable Care Act will collapse in a vicious circle of declining enrollment and surging costs. But nothing you predicted actually comes to pass. What do you do?

You might admit that you were wrong, and try to figure out why.

But almost nobody does that; we live in an age of NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE unacknowledged error.

Alternatively, you might insist that sinister forces are covering up the grim reality. Quite a few wellknown pundits are, or at some point were, “inflation truthers,” claiming that the government is lying about the pace of price increases. There have also been many prominent Obamacare truthers declaring that the White House is cooking the books, that the policies are worthless, and so on.

Finally, there’s a third option: You can pretend that you didn’t make the predictions you did. I see that a lot when it comes to people who issued dire warnings about interest rates and inflation, and now claim that they did no such thing. Where I’m seeing it most, however, is on the health care front. Obamacare is working better than even its supporters expected – but its enemies say that the good news proves nothing, because nobody predicted anything different.

Go back to 2013, before reform went fully into effect, or early 2014, before the numbers on firstyear enrollment came in. What were Obamacare’s opponents predicting? The answer is, utter disaster.

Americans, declared a May 2013 report from a House committee, were about to face a devastating “rate shock,” with premiums almost doubling on average.

And it would only get worse: At the beginning of 2014 the right’s favored experts – or maybe that should be “experts” – were warning about a “death spiral” in which only the sickest citizens would sign up, causing premiums to soar even higher and many people to drop out of the program.

What about the overall effect on insurance coverage? Several months into 2014 many leading

Paul Krugman

Republicans – including John Boehner, the speaker of the House – were predicting that more people would lose coverage than gain it. And everyone on the right was predicting that the law would cost far more than projected, adding hundreds of billions if not trillions to budget deficits.

What actually happened? There was no rate shock: Average premiums in 2014 were about 16 percent lower than projected. There is no death spiral: On average, premiums for 2015 are between 2 and 4 percent higher than in 2014, which is a much slower rate of increase than the historical norm. The number of Americans without health insurance has fallen by around 15 million, and would have fallen substantially more if so many Republican-controlled states weren’t blocking the expansion of Medicaid. And the overall cost of the program is coming in well below expectations.

One more thing: You sometimes hear complaints about the alleged poor quality of the policies offered to newly insured families. But a new survey by J.D. Power, the market research company, finds that the newly enrolled are very satisfied with their coverage – more satisfied than the average person with conventional, non-Obamacare insurance.

This is what policy success looks like, and it should have the critics engaged in soul-searching about why they got it so wrong. But no. Instead, the new line – exemplified by, but not unique to, a recent op-ed article by the hedge-fund manager Cliff Asness – is that there’s nothing to see here: “That more people would be insured was never in dispute.” Never, I guess, except in everything ever said by anyone in a position of influence on the American right. Oh, and all the good news on costs is just a coincidence.

It’s both easy and entirely appropriate to ridicule this kind of thing. But there are some serious stakes here, and they go beyond the issue of health reform, important as it is.

You see, in a polarized political environment, policy debates always involve more than just the specific issue on the table. They are also clashes of world views. Predictions of debt disaster, a debased dollar, and Obamacare death spirals reflect the same ideology, and the utter failure of these predictions should inspire major doubts about that ideology. And there’s also a moral issue involved. Refusing to accept responsibility for past errors is a serious character flaw in one’s private life. It rises to the level of real wrongdoing when policies that affect millions of lives are at stake.

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

NATI O NA L

Nothing to Lose But Their Chains

Anyone who has ever taken the train from Washington, D.C. to New York, or vice versa, who in daylight looked out those big windows to view a big portion of the backside of Baltimore, should have no problem understanding the rioting that has occurred there these last days.

The squalor is hard to believe. It’s hard to believe you’re looking at a major American city. Whole neighborhoods look more like bombed out third world shanties.

This is where the America that is hidden by the major media suffers levels of poverty and hopelessness day in, day out. Why not lash out? Why not loot? Why not break into the ruling class’ decorum?

The Washington Post actually did a FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS decent job this week with a series of graphs documenting the levels of hardship and lack of educational and job opportunities that plague inner city Baltimore.

The same also applies to many other U.S. cities like it. But you don’t need to read the data, you can witness it all first hand with a train ride up the Eastern Seaboard.

Frankly, the issue is not the violence, either systematically by the police or randomly by packs of angry citizens. The issue is everything about America that has caused and continues to cause the current unprecedented and worsening economic divide between the one tenth of one percent of the super rich and all the rest of us.

Wall Street, the military-industrial complex, and legions of super rich right wing zealots like the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson are fueling what, for now, only rarely bursts forth as angry protests in the U.S. But if they are not stopped, and the momentum of their policies not turned around, what we saw in Baltimore earlier this week is nothing compared to what may come.

I am not encouraging this, I am merely observing it. No one likes or wants violence, and especially if it gets out of control. That’s one difference: police violence against minorities is kept under control, but mob violence could and sometimes does get out of control.

During the Great Depression in the 1930s, President Roosevelt and his key advisers were smart enough to adopt policies to avert a revolution and maintain a democracy.

Revolution was inflaming the globe, led by the Bolsheviks under Stalinist tyranny in Russia. One reaction by the privileged classes in the west was to counter with fascist tyrannies, as they did in Italy, Germany, Spain and elsewhere.

Many of the same forces sought that same “solution” for the U.S. There was a near-miss assassination attempt against Roosevelt before he was sworn in in 1932, and an aborted Wall Street-led military coup against him his first year in office.

These forces did not relent the whole time he was in office, although they were set back by the positive impact that Roosevelt’s policies had on the public with initiatives like Social Security (much like today with the impact of Obama’s Affordable Care Act).

What these right wing moguls of super-wealth failed to realize then and still do today is that their solutions will fuel, not deter, the flames of revolution, of a complete overthrow of their power, in ways that no one can really control if they wanted to.

How terrified are these elites of this? Consider that when the “flash crash” of the stock market occurred in 2010, it was when riots in the streets against austerity policies were being shown on live TV from Greece. Such things truly inspire terror among the moguls, magnified in part by their own guilt.

Now, the weapons of social control are, as much as the elites have labored to accomplish it, not entirely in their hands alone. The major media have descended shamefully into slavish control by such forces. There is no “free press,” only the illusion of it, among them.

But for growing legions, this is being bypassed by new direct access to information, intelligent analysis and calls to action through the Internet.

Notably, in America, revolution can still most effectively be achieved through genuine elections, notwithstanding the social turmoil, radical reforms and counterrevolutionary measures that may accompany them. That’s what’s now underway.

APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015 | PAGE 15

Nicholas F. Benton

 Nicholas Benton may be emailed at nfbenton@fcnp.com.

Beware Our Mind Children WASHINGTON – Are women necessary? Not with Ava around. Even without hair on her head or flesh on her legs, Ava has enough allure and cunning to become a classic film noir robot vixen.

Despite being a plastic and mesh gizmo locked in a glass cell, she can enmesh men with frightening ease.

Ava is the appealing heroine, or apocalyptic villainess, of “Ex Machina,” a stylish sci-fi thriller set in the near future, written and directed by Alex Garland, a 44-year-old Brit who wrote the 2002 zombie hit “28 Days Later.”

Critics are divided over whether “Ex Machina” is a feminist fable or misogynistic nightmare. Garland has it both ways: He offers a mocking meditation on the male obsession with man-pleasing female sex robots while showing off an array of man-pleasing female sex robots.

Ava, played with a delicate edge by the Swedish actress and dancer Alicia Vikander, is far more than a “basic pleasure model,” as some female replicants in “Blade Runner” are known. She has wiles that are a lot more NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE potent than the weaponized breasts of Austin Powers’ fembots.

Her Dr. Frankenstein is an abrasive Steve Jobs-type named Nathan, played by a hypnotic Oscar Isaac.

“Is it strange to have made something that hates you?” Ava icily asks Nathan.

Nathan has a peach-fuzz coder in his firm, Caleb, fly to his hideaway in Alaska to test whether the curvy artificial-intelligence machine can outwit a nerdy human. It quickly becomes clear that Caleb, in the great film noir tradition of love-struck saps, is going to have a tough time with this silicon femme fatale. Nathan devilishly confides that Ava has a sexual “opening with a concentration of sensors” and admits that he modeled her appearance on Caleb’s online porn history.

Garland has said it’s “tricky” to assign gender to robots because it raises questions about whether sexuality is a component of consciousness, and he has called Ava’s femininity purely external. But, given how much her looks and charms drive the movie, he told me that it feels “oddly wrong” to call Ava “it.”

Indeed, he confesses to having “a sort of crush” on his creation, and answers “No” a bit too quickly when I ask whether we should assume that Nathan, who lives alone in his glass house with his android Galateas, has had sex with Ava.

Maureen Dowd

Does that notion make him jealous? “Maybe,” he concedes. “That’s not an unreasonable thing to say.”

Asked if he would want a sex robot, the married father of two replies: “Could I imagine falling in love with a robot that was sentient and attractive to me?

Well, sure, I could. But do I want a complicated version of a vibrator? No, I don’t. Some people might. I’m not judgmental about it.”

I ask if the movie will enhance the fear of some women that guys are more into the porn stars on their phones than the girls on their arms.

“The thing we desire and think we can’t have we can now shape exactly to the specification of how we want it,” he says. “There’s something incredibly scary about how unstoppable it feels.”

“Ex Machina” arrives in theaters amid a raft of stories about the swift advance in robotics, with everything from investment-banker bots that make stock picks to blueprints for spider-shaped bots that can potentially spy or assassinate. Some visionaries – Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak – warn that humans will be superseded by robots, who will soon be smart enough to redesign themselves to become exponentially smarter.

Garland is not alarmed because he views robot superiority as inevitable. He suggests that we view androids not as our competitors but as our progeny – or “mind children,” as robotics expert Hans Moravec calls them.

Talking about Ava being programmed to Caleb’s porn preferences, I tell Garland that this is a scary scene, given all the Julian Assanges of the world who are eager to spill our most private exchanges.

He says he’s more worried about surreptitious humans than sentient robots and noted that Nathan’s “dude-bro” speak is a metaphor for how tech companies lure us into divulging our lives.

“It’s like your hipster best friend that you aspire to, which is often how these companies market themselves,” he says. “They’re your mate, your buddy. ‘Now let’s go to this club; let’s hang out.’ And a sense that the familiarity of that is just pulling your attention away from the fact that they’re going through your address book and recording everything in there. And every now and then, pulling a dollar bill out of your wallet and going, ‘Dude, hey.’”

As we part, I ask Garland what will end humanity first, zombies or robots?

“Neither,” he says. “We will. We’re going to manage that perfectly without any help from zombies or robots.”

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PAGE 16 | APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

A Penny for Your Thoughts

News of Greater Falls Church

By Supervisor Penny Gross

state, whose funding is determined by actions of the Virginia General Assembly. Your state income tax dollars provide funding for VDOT operations, not county real estate taxes. Nevertheless, responding to constituent inquiries and concerns is a priority for me, whether a local or a state issue.

Now for some good news: State Senator Dick Saslaw has advised me that Annandale Road will be repaved by VDOT this year, hopefully alleviating a lot of angst and anger about the condition of the road. A few other roadways in Mason District also are scheduled to be repaved this year: Old Columbia Pike, Elmdale Road, Evergreen Lane, and Jayhawk Street, just to name a few.

Congratulations to Winnie Lebo, Mason District’s Community Champion for 2015. Winnie and other volunteers were honored Friday at the annual Volunteer Fairfax Service Awards breakfast. Winnie Lebo is an unsung heroine. A simple conversation with a group of friends became the St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church Outreach Ministry to Westlawn Elementary School. When the church wanted to “adopt” a child for Christmas gifts, Winnie reached out to a guidance counselor at Westlawn. Very quickly, Winnie’s assistance for one family turned into identifying needs – food, warm clothing, school supplies, and toys – for more students. Everywhere you turn at Westlawn, you can see the fruits of Winnie’s efforts. She inspires others, and asks them to reach a little deeper, so that children in need can be helped.

Thank you, Winnie Lebo.

“Annandale Road is a mess. Fix it!” “Old Columbia Pike has deteriorated to the point of uselessness. Fix it!” “My driveway apron is crumbling.

Fix it!” “I hit a pothole and now my car needs repair.

Who’s going to pay for that?”

These are samples of the pleas I receive every day, and weekends, too, at my office, at the grocery store, on the doorstep. Once, even, in the dentist’s chair! Local elected officials handle a lot of everyday complaints – drainage, traffic calming, burned out streetlights, missed garbage pick-ups, domestic and wild animal issues, etc. In Virginia, however, filling potholes, paving, snowplowing, and other road maintenance operations, are the responsibility of the state, not the county. Under the laws of the Commonwealth, Fairfax County has no legal authority for road maintenance. That is solely the purview of the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), the state agency that maintains and controls roadways in Fairfax County. So all those complaints about road conditions should be routed to the local delegate and state senator – theoretically.

Problem is, state delegates and senators usually are not as well-known as the local district supervisor, who also has a nearby office and staff to assist constituents. I once asked a delegate how he handled all the constituent calls he got with only one part-time aide. His response? “Oh, they never call me. They know they can call you.” So, when a constituent communicates his/her concern about a road issue, my staff and I work with VDOT staff to address the problem, even though local officials have no legal authority or decision-making role in what gets fixed, paved, or plowed. That responsibility lies squarely with the

Before anything else, we are all human.

It’s time to embrace diversity.

Let’s put aside labels in the name of love.

Rethink your bias at lovehasnolabels.com

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

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S traigh t

A Candidate for Deadbeats

Texas Senator Ted Cruz launched his campaign at the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. He rode in on a moral high horse, gay bashing and Washington trashing, while pledging to polish America’s “family values.”

So, it is surprising that Cruz has emerged as the preferred candidate for deadbeats and tax-cheats. Media personality and Love Line co-host Adam Carolla endorsed Cruz because the candidate wants to abolish the IRS and replace it with a flat tax.

I can understand this. Cruz already believes in a flat earth, so he might as well support a flat tax.

The flat-tax, however, disproportionally harms the poor and middle class, which seems antithetical to his professed Christian beliefs. Perhaps, Cruz is waiting for Jesus to weigh in on this issue.

Oh, wait he did: “Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” See you in Hell, Teddy.

It is a bizarre endorsement by Carolla who gushed, “I want to support Ted. I love me some Ted Cruz.” I’m still trying to figure out how the philosophy of these two opportunistic stage horses aligns. Cruz’ father and his primary political advisor is a fire and brimstone preacher. Ted Cruz is a champion of the blue-nosed Religious Right. Yet, Adam Carolla is a second-rate jester whose claim-to-fame is the risqué radio broadcast, where he advised young listeners on blow up dolls, masturbation, and 3-ways.

Carolla isn’t the only miscreant to support Cruz for his wacky attacks on the IRS. The candidate’s new Sugar Daddy is New York hedge fund mogul Robert Mercer, an alleged tax cheat who wants the tax collectors banished.

What’s Mercer’s beef with the Internal Revenue Service? About six years ago the IRS began investigating Renaissance, the hedge fund company that made him filthy rich.

In 2014, the New York Times reports, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation accused Renaissance of exploiting abstruse financial structures that allowed the company to bilk the US government out of $6 billion in tax revenue.

According to Sen. Carl Levin, taxpayers “had to shoulder the burden these hedge funds shrugged off with the aid of the banks.”

So, it appears that “Money-bags Mercer” shopped for a shifty candidate willing to close the very agency, the IRS, which is investigating him for potential fraud. Ted Cruz gleefully answered the call and now the buffoon has found a tycoon who can indefinitely fund his nutty campaign. While this may be gold for comedy writers, it is has all the gaudy and goofy appeal of gold fillings for the rest of us.

The chutzpah of Mercer is shocking. Maybe if he receives a few traffic tickets he will hire a candidate to close down the Department of Transportation. Perhaps he will also support Rick Perry who will shutter three entire federal departments, if only Perry can remember what they are.

Robert Mercer is bad news. He was once described as “an automaton” in a book titled, “More Money than God.” But thanks to the destructive force known as Citizens United, every billionaire can buy (or at least rent) a beggar doubling as a presidential candidate. The horrible hedgehog, Mercer, is behind a network of four pro-Cruz Super PACs that have raised $31 million.

Mercer is clearly the new Sheldon Adelson, who kept Newt Gingrich’s failed campaign on life support longer than Jeb Bush kept a feeding tube in Terri Schiavo.

As in the odd Carolla endorsement, how can Cruz justify cozying up to the shady Mercer? According to the New York Times: “In 2013, a group of former employees sued him for not paying overtime. They also accused him of deducting money from their semi-annual bonuses as a form of punishment for among other things, failing to replace shampoos, close doors, and change razor blades.”

This is not to say Mercer and Cruz have nothing in common. Mercer shoveled $1 million into a 2011 campaign to block an Islamic community center in Manhattan. Mercer also spent more than $2 million constructing a model railroad in his Long Island mansion – then sued the builder for overcharging him. That’s the exact kind of unreasonableness and gridlock Cruz brought to Washington!

Ted Cruz set out on his campaign with the goal of being a culture-warring Christian. Yet, somehow ended up on Obama Care and was anointed the candidate for deadbeats and tax cheats. I’m no theologian, but I don’t think Jesus is happy so far with the direction of the Cruz campaign.

Wayne Besen

Our Man in Arlington

By Charlie Clark

Last week’s county board decision to ax the Artisphere means that Arlington’s in-flux Rosslyn neighborhood will lose the arts but retain the sphere.

The demise of the edgy-urbane arts palace, effective June 30 after four and a half years of hemorrhaging $15 million of taxpayer money, is a victory for the recently surging movement toward fiscal restraint. But Rosslyn is left with a tough-to-rent-out dome-shaped white elephant.

I always harbored mixed feelings about Artisphere. Since it opened in October 2010 after a $6.7 million county investment, I felt duty-bound to include it as an option when scheduling my leisure time. Loved the Frieda Kahlo photos in the upstairs gallery, enjoyed a play about carnival magicians in its black box and grooved to a ‘20s-theme dance to benefit libraries held in the ballroom.

But I yawned at the Andy Warhol balloon display, the obscure South American music acts and those earnest artists-inresidence.

So I can’t argue with the county’s desire to save $2.3 million in support by acknowledging that the promises of high patronage and revenues were overblown. Some arts backers and boosters of enlivening Rosslyn’s night-time dead zone thought the project deserved more time. But the board, having felt in the past perhaps like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football, decided the jig was up. It redirect-

ed $496,000 of the money saved to fund alternative arts and cultural programming

countywide.

News coverage focused on how Artisphere was “doomed” from the start, with the Washington Post and ARLnow resurrecting thrilled quotes from Arlington officials in 2010, making them sound like builders of the Titanic calling the ship unsinkable.

But go back a bit further. The ambitious but odd domed building was brought into being beginning in 1991 at the behest of the Freedom Forum, following a decade of prosperity for the Gannett Co. after it launched USA Today in Arlington.

I was – and continue to be – a fan and visitor to the Newseum.

After zoning accommodations from Arlington for a bridge and park, it opened up on the Rosslyn skyline in 1997. But in 2000, Newseum began planning its move to its current location on prestigious Pennsylvania Ave. (To add insult to Arlington, Gannett in 2001 decamped for McLean.)

You can’t blame the Freedom Forum for taking advantage of opportunities. “By moving to the District, we will significantly expand our programming, reach a much greater audience and deepen our impact,” said Freedom Forum and Newseum President Peter Prichard at the time.“We are grateful to Arlington County, particularly the community of Rosslyn, for hosting the Newseum in its first five years,” added thenexecutive director Joe Urschel. “In

that time we have proven that both Arlington and the Newseum are powerful magnets for visitors to the national capital region.”

Yes and no. Now Arlington – which has eight years left on its lease for the Artisphere with Monday Properties – is now stuck with commitment to an irregular property that doesn’t lend itself to average office tenants.

The solution may come from Pete Erickson, an Arlingtonian who is CEO of Modev, which puts on conferences to promote digital technology. He and dozens of industry colleagues signed a letter the county board this month proposing that Artisphere be transformed into a technology center for professional gatherings. That dome, Erickson told me, sits over “an awesome speaking venue.

There aren’t many like it around.” *** In another harbinger of change in Rosslyn, Monday Properties is preparing to tear down the historic parking garage where famed Watergate reporter Bob Woodward in the early 1970s met with his secret source “Deep Throat.”

(Check out parking spot 32D at 1401 Wilson Blvd.)

Gregg Schwarz, a retired FBI special agent, told me he plans to show his out-of-town friends the site before the building – which is marked by a historic plaque that will be preserved in some form – comes down to make room for a residential-office complex.

Schwarz possesses a highly unusual artifact germane to the site: an official FBI photo-portrait of Woodward’s confidant, the FBI’s then-No. 2 Mark Felt, signed by Woodward himself.

“How can I tell my kids we’re losing our house?”

If you have mortgage problems, call 888-995-HOPE for one-on-one expert advice from this free government program.

It’s not over yet.

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APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015 | PAGE 17

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PAGE 18 | APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

GMHS Sweeps Regular Season Series with Clarke Co.

by Liz Lizama

Falls Church News-Press

The George Mason High School varsity girls soccer team continue their undefeated record with a 4-1 road win over Clarke County High School last Friday and 8-0 against William Monroe High School at home on Tuesday.

In Friday’s match at Clarke County, Mason’s Mustangs gained control of the game within the first ten minutes as senior forward/ midfielder Ava Roth and junior midfielder Kate Mills both scored goals. With a corner kick from sophomore forward/midfielder Becca Crouch, Roth headed in another goal 16 minutes into the game. The determined Eagles managed to break through with a goal in the last 10 minutes of the half to bring the game to 3-1 at halftime.

Junior forward/midfielder Corinne Carson scored Mason’s only goal of the second half with an assist by Roth. Senior goalkeeper Katie Cheney, who played the entire game, made five saves to prevent the Eagles from scoring additional goals.

“The Clarke County goalkeeper had a number of great saves to keep us off of the scoreboard,”

said head coach Jennifer Parsons of Mason’s 26 shots this game.

“I was really pleased with how well we played as a team on Friday night,” she said. “The girls really worked hard for one another, and it showed in their control of possession and pace of the game.”

Tuesday, the Mustangs faced William Monroe at home where they dominated the Dragons.

Carson headed in the Mustang’s first goal from a corner kick by Crouch eight minutes into the game. Mills, Crouch and freshman forward/midfielder Isabella Armstrong added one goal apiece to end the half 4-0.

Mason scored four more goals in the second half, reaching the eighth goal to end the game three minutes early as a result of the slaughter rule.

Crouch led the Mustangs in scoring with three goals, followed

by Carson and Mills with two goals and Armstrong with one goal. Cheney made four saves to shut out the Eagles, making it her eighth shutout of the season.

“They were very determined to play with intensity and purpose, against a strong, physical William Monroe opponent,” said Parsons of the team’s performance. “We

MASON JUNIOR MIDFIELDER/FORWARD Corinne Carson (right), senior midfielder/forward Ava Roth (center) and junior midfielder Ella Howard (left) celebrate one of Carson’s two goals in the Mustangs’ 8-0 win over William Monroe on Tuesday. (Photo: Brad Mills) created a lot of good chances (23 shots on goal), but more importantly we are getting to a point where we are taking more care in these instances and converting the opportunities into goals.”

C limbin’ T he R anks

MATTEO D’AGOSTINO, a senior midfielder for George Mason High School’s varsity boys soccer team, marks Warren County High School senior midfielder Nathaniel Lucas during the Mustangs’ 7-0 win over the Wildcats on April 17. The Mustangs (12-0, 12-0) were ranked 42 in Top Drawer Soccer’s Top 50 National Rankings this week. (Photo: Carol Sly)

As the Mustangs approach the last two weeks of the regular season, the team’s success is evident in their 12-0 record this season. Roth leads the team in scoring with 21 goals, followed by

Mills with 17, Crouch with 12 and Carson with 11. In assists, Carson and Crouch lead with 12 apiece.

Mason will play Central Woodstock High School at home next Tuesday.

LO CA L

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015 | PAGE 19

703-533-9013

Fa l l s C h u r c h

School News & Notes

join us today, TO GET STARTED ON TOMORROW • Challenging Curriculum • World Language Program (PS - 8th Grade) • Small Class Sizes • 1:1 Middle School iPad Program • Daily Physical Education Classes • Extensive Before and After School Care • Door-to-Door Bus Transportation

THE CONGRESSIONAL SCHOOLS OF VIRGINIA celebrated its 75th anniversary last weekend on April 24 and 25. The festivities began with on-campus celebration on Friday featuring Linda Ward Byrd, an alumna of the school, as the keynote speaker. (Photo: Courtesy of Chris Pryor)

FCEPTA Hosts Screen Free Week The Falls Church Elementary Parent Teacher Association hosted Screen Free Week this week.

The Falls Church Parent Teacher Association asked Falls Church students to participate in outdoor events after school, rather than watching TV or playing on iPads for Screen Free Week.

On Monday night, almost 100 children took advantage of a free soccer clinic hosted by Premier Athletics Club.

The president of Premier Athletics Club, Sully Hamid, is also the father to D.C. United’s goalkeeper, Bill Hamid and Bill came to the event to sign soccer balls and get the kids excited for the Premier Athletics Club’s upcoming try-outs. For more information, visit premierac.org.

MCDA Celebrates Earth Day

By Releasing Ladybugs Merrifield Child Development Academy released more than 3,000 ladybugs into the environment in honor of Earth Day at a celebration at the school last Friday.

In the days leading up to Earth Day, students at the school were busy learning about how helpful ladybugs can be to the environment. Ladybugs feed on aphids (plant lice) and other insects that are harmful to gardens, trees and shrubs. In an e-mail to the NewsPress about the event, Merrifield

OPEN HOUSE Wednesday, May 6, 2015 • 9:00am – 10:30am

Caring for children | Celebrating learning | Collaborating for success Nestled on over 40 acres, right inside the Capital Beltway, Congressional School’s programs reside at the intersection between challenging academics, caring staff and a community connected to a common vision; to provide our children with the highest quality educational experience available.

Congressional Schools of Virginia 3229 Sleepy Hollow Road Falls Church, VA 22042 (703) 533-9711

www.congressionalschools.org

150805_CSOV_FallsChurchNewsPress.indd 1

MERRIFIELD CHILD DEVELOPMENT ACADEMY released more than 3,000 ladybugs into the environment last Friday in celebration of Earth Day. (Photo: Courtesy of Sedi Bruce) Child Development Academy director Sedi Bruce said that the school teaches its students about “the importance of our planet Earth and exploring nature at a young age.”

Congressional Celebrates 75th Anniversary The Congressional Schools of Virginia in Falls Church marked its 75th anniversary with a weekend-long celebration on April 24 and 25, with events attended by hundreds of students, staff, alumni and friends of the school.

The festivities began on Friday, April 24 with an on-campus celebration featuring a keynote address by Linda Ward Byrd, a Congressional alumna from the class of 1968 who recounted her memories as a Congressional student, a school where she said “everyone knew my name.”

The on-campus celebration was followed by a golf tournament at Reston National Golf Course, and the celebrations culminated with a 75th Anniversary Gala on the evening of April 25, attended by over 250 parents, faculty, alumni, sponsors and friends of the school.

4/13/15 12:55 PM

CA L E NDA R

PAGE 20 | APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015

Community Events

THURSDAY, APRIL 30

Living Better with the Internet. This free, five-session class, taught by faculty and students from Marymount University, is being offered for seniors to learn how to use the Internet to enhance daily life. Through May 28. Falls Church Community Center (223 Little Falls St., Falls Church). 10 a.m. – noon. 703-248-5027. fallschurchva.gov.

Centennial Celebration. Shreve/ McGonegal is celebrating 100 years in business by hosting a cookout. The event will include the opportunity to learn about the business’ long history from John Shreve. Shreve/ McGonegal (212 N. West St., Falls Church). Free. 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

1800smworks.com.

Early Literacy Center. Explore educational and manipulative items to teach early literacy through play on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday every week. This program is for ages birth to 5 years. No registration required.

Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Youth Services Room (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). Free.

11 a.m. – noon. & 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. 703-248-5034.

Teen Knitting Club. Children in grades 6 – 12 come together to share

projects, ask advice or learn how to knit. All skill levels welcome.

Scrap yarn and needles available for beginners. Registration required.

Limited to 15 participants. Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Youth Services Room (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). Free. 7:30 p.m. 703248-5034.

SATURDAY, MAY 2

Social Justice Yard Sale. Gently used donations may be dropped off at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Fairfax starting April 30.

Volunteers are needed to help set up the yard sale on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Proceeds from the sale will be shared with local charities. The Unitarian Universalist Church of Fairfax (2709 Hunter Mill Road, Oakton).

Prices vary. 7 a.m. – 1 p.m. 703281-0538. uucf.org.

F.C. Farmers’ Market. Vendors offer fresh locally grown fruits and vegetables, cheeses, meats, baked goods, plants, and wine. City Hall Parking Lot (300 Park Ave., Falls Church). Free. 8 a.m. – noon. 703248-5077.

Sleepy Hollow Manor Community Yard Sale. The Sleepy Hollow Manor Community will be held south of Seven Corners Shopping Center between Sleepy Hollow Road and Sears in Falls Church.

&

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Send community event submissions to the News-Press by e-mail at calendar@fcnp. com; fax 703-342-0347; or by regular mail to 200 Little Falls St., #508, Falls Church, VA 22046. Please include any photos or artwork with submissions. Deadline is Monday at noon for each week’s edition.

Saturday, May 9 is the rain date for the sale. Prices vary. 8 a.m. – noon.

Habitat Restoration. Join the City of Falls Church Habitat Restoration Team in restoring the local ecosystem in city parks. Crossman Park (535 N. Van Buren St., Falls Church). Free. 10 a.m. – noon.

703-538-6961. melanite@verizon. net fallschurchva.gov/Volunteer.

Jazz Celebration. The Cathedral Brass presents a concert featuring jazz favorites by Stan Kenton, George Gershwin, Gordon Goodwin and Pat Metheny. Holy Trinity Lutheran Church (3022 Woodlawn Ave., Falls Church).

Free. 4 p.m. 703-532-6617.

SUNDAY, MAY 3

The Arc of Northern Virginia Corporate Team Challenge 8K - Going the Distance for People with Disabilities. The Arc of Northern Virginia, a non-profit serving people with developmental and intellectual disabilities, is looking for sponsors and teams of runners for its upcoming 8K and 2K walk. Burke Lake Park (7315 Ox Rd, Fairfax Station). 9 a.m. thearcofnova.org/ events/teamchallenge.

MONDAY, MAY 4

Gardening Program. James Gagiliardi, Horticulturist for

Smithsonian Gardens, presents a program called “Shade Gardens for Beauty and Wildlife Habitat” at the Falls Church Garden Club.

American Legion Post 130 (400 N. Oak St., Falls Church). Free. 7:30 p.m. 703-533-1945.

TUESDAY, MAY 5

Preschool Storytime. Stories, finger plays and songs for children ages 18 – 36 months every Tuesday.

Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Youth Services Room (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). Free.

10:30 – 11 a.m. 703-248-5034.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6

NARFE Meeting. State Sen. David Marsden and Del. Kaye Kory will report on the recent General Assembly proceedings at a meeting of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association. Mason District Government Center (6507 Columbia Pike, Annandale).

Free. 10 a.m. 703-980-6831.

Early Release Wednesdays: 3-D Roller Coasters. Build your own roller coaster using construction paper and art supplies. For children grades K – 5. Registration required. Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Youth Services Room (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). Free. 3 p.m. 703-2485034.

Theater Fine Arts THURSDAY, APRIL 30

“Murder Ballad.” Sara’s life is perfect – Upper West Side husband, daughter, and life – until her irresistible past blows back into her life in the form of an old �lame, a dangerous passion, and a love triangle headed for ignition. This explosive rock musical from Jonathan Larson Grantee Julia Jordan and indie rock singer/songwriter Juliana Nash puts the audience in the middle of its action for a full immersive experience.

Through May 16. Studio Theatre (1501 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $20 – $55. 8 p.m. studiotheatre.org.

FRIDAY, MAY 1

“Barefoot in the Park.” This is the opening night of this production. Jerry Bonnes is directing the McLean Community Players’ production of the

Neil Simon’s hilarious romantic comedy, which is one of the longest running non-musical plays in Broadway history. The play centers around Corie and Paul, newlyweds who move into a rundown apartment in New York City. Besides having to cope with the state of their dwelling, they have to adjust to each other’s different personalities. Paul is a serious, career-minded lawyer and Corie wants Paul to lighten up, be more spontaneous, like going for a run “barefoot in the park,” for example. Through May 16. The Alden Theatre (1234 Ingleside Ave., McLean). $18 – $20. 8 p.m. mcleanplayers.org.

SATURDAY, MAY 2

“Uncle Vanya.” This new version of Anton Chekhov’s classic by Annie Baker brings modern language to this timeless story of relationships and yearning. Written to create “a version that

sounds to our contemporary American ears the way the play sounded to Russian ears during the play’s �irst productions,” Baker’s awardwinning Uncle Vanya reintroduces audiences to Chekhov’s enduring wit, insight, and emotional depth. John Vreeke is directing a powerhouse cast of DC actors in this production. Through May 3. Round House Theatre (4545 EastWest Highway, Bethesda). $25 – $50. 8 p.m. roundhousetheatre.org.

“The Wonderful Wizards of Oz.” This is a modern take on the classic tale of Dorothy and her quest to get back home. This production of L. Frank Baum’s classic tale, which was adapted for the stage by Jacqueline E. Lawton, is being directed

by Roberta Gasbarre and stars Paige Hernandez.

Through May 25. Adventure Theatre MTC (7300 MacArthur Blvd., Glen Echo). $19. 4:30 p.m. adventuretheatre-mtc.org.

CA L E NDA R

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

live_music&nightlife THURSDAY, APRIL 30 E��� D�����. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E., Vienna). $15 – $18. 6 p.m. 703-255-1566.

L���� B�������. Clare and Don’s Beach Shack (130 N. Washington St., Falls Church). 6 p.m. 703-532-9283.

R���� C���� ��� T�� P����������.

The State Theatre (220 N. Washington St., Falls Church). $13 in advance. $16 day of the show. 7 p.m. 703-237-0300.

M����������� ���� G��������, M������� F����� ��� N���� S������. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $12. 7:30 p.m. 202-667-4490.

E����� B�����. Bohemian Caverns (2011 11th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $15 online. $20 at the door.

7:30 p.m. 202-299-0800.

K���� G������. Blues Alley (1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.). $30. 8 p.m. 202-337-4141.

D��� D����� ���� U� ��� C���� ��� G����� S����� S����. Iota Club and Cafe (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $10. 8:30 p.m. 703-522-8340.

19�� S����� B���. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church).

8:30 p.m. 703-241-9504.

C���� D�����. Dogwood Tavern (132 W. Broad St., Falls Church). 9:30 p.m.

703-237-8333.

FRIDAY, MAY 1 H������ M������ ���� W��� D�����.

Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E., Vienna). $15. 5:30 p.m. 703-255-1566.

S��� Q�� N�� ���� F��� W�����.

Bohemian Caverns (2011 11th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $30 online. $35 at the door. 8 p.m. 202-2990800.

M� L���� � T�� H����� ���� N���� C ��� T�� R.S.B. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E., Vienna). $10 – $15.

9:30 p.m. 703-255-1566.

J��� L�����. Dogwood Tavern (132 W. Broad St., Falls Church). 10 p.m. 703237-8333.

SATURDAY, MAY 2 K���� D����� ��� M��� S�����. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 4:30 p.m. 703-241-9504.

T�� R������. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E., Vienna). $25 – $27 in advance. $30 – $32 day of the show.

6 p.m. 703-255-1566.

D�. R���� S������ ���� N����� S������ ��� T�� C����� M������� B���. The Birchmere (3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria). $35. 7:30 p.m. 703-549-7500.

T�� B������ T�����. The State Theatre (220 N. Washington St., Falls Church). $15 in advance. $18 day of the show. 8 p.m. 703-237-0300.

J�� P�� ���� F���� R�����. 9:30 (815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $15. 8 p.m. 202-667-4490.

P���� L������ ���� C������� R���. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $20. 9 p.m. 202667-4490.

A��� Z��� ���� R��� W����� ��� L����� V����. Iota Club and Cafe

(2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $10.

9 p.m. 703-522-8340.

D��� C�������� CD R������ P���� ���� J����� N���. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church).

9:15 p.m. 703-241-9504.

28�� A����� E������ �� C�����.

Wolf Trap (1645 Trap Road, Vienna). $25. 9:30 p.m. 703-255-1900.

T�� A��� S���� B���. Dogwood Tavern (132 W. Broad St., Falls Church). 10 p.m. 703-237-8333.

SUNDAY, MAY 3 M���� M���� L��� B����� ��� A��’� A��� ��������� F����� H����, C���������� ��� L��� A��������.

Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E., Vienna). $25 – $30. 12:30 p.m. 703255-1566.

B����� �� C������� ���� M������ P��� ��� C���� � J����. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E., Vienna). $19 – $30. 6 p.m. 703-255-1566.

E������ B��� ���� N���� R�����.

The State Theatre (220 N. Washington St., Falls Church). $25. 6 p.m. 703-237-0300.

J���� B������. Bohemian Caverns (2011 11th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $23 online. $28 at the door. 7 p.m. 202-299-0800.

A��� S����� � T�� M����� ���� L������ V������ � T�� B��������.

Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $12. 7:30 p.m.

202-667-4490.

L������ T����� B���. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd.,

APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015 | PAGE 21

Falls Church). 8 p.m. 703-241-9504.

MONDAY, MAY 4 J������ ���� K���� J����, M������ K�����-S����, L���� B������ ��� D�� F���. Iota Club and Cafe (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). Free. 8 p.m.

703-522-8340.

P������� M�W�������. Blues Alley (1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.). $25. 8 p.m. 202337-4141.

TUESDAY, MAY 5 IM5 ���� A����� J����, B����� M�C������, T�� W������ R���, T�� H���� O� C���� ��� T�� B��� D���. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E., Vienna). $20 – $25. 6 p.m. 703255-1566.

A���� S������� Q������. Blues Alley (1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.). $20. 8 p.m. 202337-4141.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6 T���� B����. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E., Vienna). $18 – $22 in advance. $22 day of the show. 6 p.m. 703-255-1566.

S��� W������� ���� S��� �� �� I���������� F�����. The State Theatre (220 N. Washington St., Falls Church). $20. 7 p.m. 703-237-0300.

S����� O���� ���� K���� ��� T�� I��� A��������. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $15.

7:30 p.m. 202-667-4490.

T������ E����. Blues Alley (1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.). $25. 8 p.m. 202-337-4141.

P������� A����...

Saturday, May 9 – Leaf Mulch Loading Day. City staff uses heavy equipment to load

D

erby Days are here again and Old Town Square in downtown Fairfax will be celebrating the race with a day full of horses, booze, food and music. The Derby-Q kicks off at 2 p.m. Saturday with a lineup of barbecue vendors, nine area craft brewers, live blues music, a whisky tasting and the Kentucky Derby on the big screen. Stage performers include two acclaimed D.C. blues acts: Moonshine Society (2 4 p.m.) and Clarence “Bluesman” Turner (4:30 - 7 p.m.). General admission to the festival is $10 with beer and whiskey tasting packages including admission, a souvenir tasting glass and beer tasting tickets available for $25 and $65, respectively.

What: Derby-Q When: Saturday, May 2, 2 – 7 p.m.

Where: Old Town Square, Fairfax, VA

See fairfaxva.gov/government/parks-recreation/special-events/derby-q for tickets and more information

open bed vehicles with our high quality, free double-ground leaf mulch and hardwood mulch. Participants must sign a waiver prior to loading. Recycling Center (217 Gordon Road, Falls Church). Free. 7 a.m. – 2 p.m. fallschurchva.gov/429/Leaf-Mulch.

Saturday, May 16 – Farmers’ Market Chef Series Demo. Unique to the Falls Church

Market is the monthly Chef Series, which brings chefs from area restaurants in to develop recipes and share tastes using local, seasonal food. Bertrand Chemel, the executive chef at 2941, will be the featured chef. City Hall Parking Lot (300 Park Ave., Falls Church). Free. 9 – 11 a.m. fallschurchva.gov/Chef.

C������� S���������� Be sure to include time, location, cost of admission, contact person and any other pertinent information.

Event listings will be edited for content and space limitations. Please include any photos or artwork with submissions. Deadline is Monday at noon for the current week’s edition.

Email: calendar@fcnp.com Fax: 703-342-0347; Attn: FCNP Calendar Mail: 200 Little Falls St., #508, Falls Church, VA 22046

FO O D &D I NI NG

PAGE 22 | APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015

Tysons’ Harth is Beautiful, Tasty & Pricey

by Jody Fellows

Falls Church News-Press

Harth, on pretty much all accounts, is a really good restaurant. It’s beautiful, the service is top notch and the food is inventive and tasty. Plus, its dishes are made with locally-sourced ingredients, including many that come from its own garden. It doesn’t get much more local than that.

Harth

7920 Jones Branch Dr. McLean 703-847-5000 hiltonmclean.com/harth Hours: Monday - Saturday: 6:30 a.m. - 10 p.m.

The fancy Tysons restaurant housed in the McLean Hilton hotel is certainly a stunner.

Entering through the elegant hotel lobby may make one want to double check their fly or secondguess their choice of attire but, rest assured, the welcoming hosts and servers do an excellent job putting any I’m-too-casual-for-

this-swanky-joint fears at ease.

The fanciness continues into the restaurant as flames dance between the glass panes of several decorative fire displays sprinkled throughout the dining room and, like something out of a couture Dr. Seuss book, a collection of purple alligator-skin throw pillows accompany its silky white plush booths. If they ever decide to nix the food, Harth would make an excellent nightclub.

Popular with the business lunch crowd, the dining room gets packed at midday during the week but tends to thin out come dinner time. Lunch was also my preferred time to dine here as the menu is more approachable than the evening’s, with smaller dishes like burgers and sandwiches. Harth touts its farm-to-table approach and the wait staff makes sure diners know it. The ghost chili aioli in the chicken and avocado sandwich, our server told us, was made using chilis harvested from Harth’s own garden, though the spread using one of the world’s hottest peppers didn’t register a blip on our heat index. A squirt of Sriracha would have been hotter.

Conversely, the bacon jam inside the stuffed burger, made with honey from Harth’s rooftop beehive, is outstanding and permeates each and every bite of the dish. The sweet-and-smoky mix is downright addicting and plays perfectly with the salty beef, sharp cheddar and fried onions on top.

At $17, we rather it was served with fries instead of Harth’s somewhat chewy housemade potato chips but because of the burger’s excellence, we can overlook the subpar spuds.

As for dinner, it’s hard to use a word to describe the menu other than “expensive.� Small plates are priced like entrees and the cheapest main dish – a vegetable casserole – is $25. If you’re looking for meat, you’ll need to pony up 26 bucks for the roasted half chicken and the smallest steak, the petit filet mignon, will cost you a cool $35. A lower-priced option is the flatbread (also available during lunch) fired in Harth’s wood-burning oven. The pseudo pizzas start at $14 for a basic tomato, mozzarella and basil margherita and run all the way up to $23 for one with smoked salmon and crab. We opted for the $21

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Get your free Eden Center magnetic bumper sticker at:

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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

HARTH’S CHICKEN AND AVOCADO sandwich with ghost chili aioli. (Photo: Jody Fellows) spiced lamb and cucumber option but with a measly four slices per order, despite a delightfully salty and crunchy crust that maintains its crispy integrity from start to finish, it’s still just a bunch of veggies and a rather small smattering of ground lamb on bread. Five-plus bucks a sliver is hard to stomach.

On the bright side, dinner also means a complimentary bread basket accompanied by even more of that amazing bacon jam.

What’s even better, they’ll refill your basket and jam once you inevitably polish it off, helping to

take the sting out of the premiumpriced dishes.

Maybe we’re being unfair.

This is a hotel restaurant in the middle of a bustling business center poised to become “America’s Next Great City� after all. We can’t blame a place that caters to expense accounts and those with enough money to stay at a Hilton on vacation. And that bacon jam is seriously delicious.

But for us, if we’re feeling flatbread in the future, the Little City’s own Zpizza makes a mean pear and gorgonzola for just nine bucks.

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

FO O D &D I NI NG

Hot N Juicy Brings More Crawfish to F.C. Area

Taste of Merrifield Saturday, Plus Mosaic Farm Market is Back

Hot N Juicy Crawfish is now serving up mudbugs in the City of Falls Church.

The seafood restaurant chain opened the doors on its latest location last Friday in the former Pilin Thai space on West Broad Street.

Its second area store – there’s one on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C. – Hot N Juicy has eight restaurants nationwide and serves a menu that specializes in crawfish, oysters, crab, lobster, clams and shrimp in a variety of seasonings and spice levels. This marks the second crawfish restaurant in the immediate F.C. area.

Just half a mile away is Chasin’ Tails on N. Westmoreland Street in the East Falls Church section of Arlington.

Also of note, Falls Church missed out on being the home to both Hot N Juicy and Crispy & Juicy at the same time as the Peruvian chicken restaurant closed down on West Broad last year.

More than 65 vendors are taking part in the Taste of Merrifield at Mosaic this Saturday featuring food from Capital Teas, Cyclone Anaya’s Mexican Kitchen, Dickey’s Barbecue, Flippin’ Pizza, Gypsy Soul, Kettle Corn, Matchbox, MOM’s Organic Market, Open Road, Scoops Ice Cream Truck, Sea Pearl Restaurant, Sweet Fix DC, Ted’s Bulletin and Trio Grill and a beer garden from Port City Brewery.

In addition to food and drink, a variety of children’s activities will be available including a Lego tent, fire truck tours, pony rides, face painting and more. The event, running from noon – 8 p.m., is free to enter with $1 tasting tickets (most tastings are between 3-5 tickets) available for purchase.

Also kicking off this weekend, the Central Farm Market returns to Mosaic on Sunday. The weekly farmers’ market features over 30 vendors and runs every Sunday on District Avenue from 9:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. until October.

Hot N Juicy 116 West Broad St. | Falls Church hotnjuicycrawfish.com

Mosaic District 2910 District Ave. | Fairfax mosaicdistrict.com

APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015 | PAGE 23

PLAKA GRILL IS planning for a mid-May opening at 513 W. Broad St. in Falls Church. (P����: P���� G����/F�������)

Plaka Grill Now Looks to Mid-May Opening The long-awaited opening of Plaka Grill’s Falls Church location will take just a little longer than originally planned. The Greek cafe had originally hoped to open in the former Cosi space on W. Broad St. this April but a rep for the restaurant says a midMay opening is now most likely.

“Work is nearly completed. We’re waiting for the signs to be completed and some

of the furniture,” Cathy Drosos told the News-Press.

Plaka Grill first opened in Vienna in 2007 and is known for its Greek specialties including wraps, souvlaki, soups and salads.

One of its signature items is the Plaka Gyro which stuffs french fries, slow-roasted marinated pork, tomatoes and onions into a pita.

Plaka Grill 513 West Broad St. | Falls Church plakagrill.com

400 South Maple Avenue, Falls Church City | www.pizzeriaorso.com

Available Monday - Friday Lunch Margherita DOC | tomato, bufala mozzarella, basil or

Diavola | tomato, pepperoni, mozzarella or

Italian Sandwich | mozzarella, spicy aioli, salami, prosciutto, arugula (served with fries or salad) The lunch selections include choice of soft beverage or iced tea

First Annual Spring Patio Party May 2nd, starts at 1:00 pm Live Music with Sean Tracy 3-7 $4.00 Bangers and Brats on the Grill New Daily Lunch Menu 6 for $6.99 Newly Renovated Dining Room, Patios and Restrooms

PAGE 24 | APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015

LO CA L

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Shreve McGonegal Celebrates 100 Years in F.C.

by Patricia Leslie

Falls Church News-Press

Today, at the entrance and dock at Shreve/McGonegal, there’s scheduled to be a 100th birthday party going on, and you’re invited to the celebratory lunch with hot dogs, ‘burgers, and all the fixuns.

The party goes from 11 a.m.

– 1 p.m.

In these fast times it’s hard to find businesses which have been around 100 years, but at the plumbing and remodeling center, “we plan to be around 100 more years,” said John Shreve, the grandson of the founder, Carroll V. Shreve, in an interview at the company’s offices at 212 N. West Street.

His grandfather started the new construction business right out of his house at the corner of North West and Broad where Sunoco is now.

Flash ahead several decades to the 1950s and find the company at a new building across the street where Wells Fargo Bank is.

Still another move later on took it a few feet away to its current site on N. West, birthday party headquarters.

The name change to Shreve/ McGonegal came from Shreve’s purchase in the 1980s of the F.A. McGonegal business which specialized in kitchen and bath remodeling projects.

Now the firm offers electrical, HVAC, carpentry, tile work, remodeling, and handy man services and parts, and caters to homeowners, and small businesses. It devotes “more personalized care” to customer needs than what might be found at a big-box retailer, Shreve said.

When he was 16, John Shreve,

now 68, began working summers at his grandfather’s business, digging ditches (“like everyone else who started”), and he helped solve plumbing problems, too.

His father, William C. Shreve, ran the company from the 1950s to the 1970s when John Shreve and others took over.

John Shreve has no plans to retire anytime soon: “I enjoy it.

I like to come in and take care of business.

“Most employees have been here a long time, some for 15, 20, 25 years.”

This September will be the 13th anniversary at Shreve/ McGonegal for William Jenkins, 48, who began work there as a carpenter.

“Basically, it’s just a wonderful place,” Jenkins said. “It’s like a family. Just the atmosphere, the work, and the people. Everyone’s friendly.”

Jenkins travels daily to the shop from his home in Capitol Heights, Maryland which is not a bad commute, he said, since it’s only “about 20 or 25 minutes each way, and I’m going against the traffic.”

The times have not been totally rosy for the business over its lifespan. During the 1990s economic boom, it employed about 50, a number which has dwindled to less than half that now with 17 employees.

When asked if technology had made changes at the workplace, Shreve said, “technology affects everything.” The company uses computers for scheduling, jobs, inventory, and financial analysis.

Robots, however, are not on Shreve’s drawing board. He is not looking to hire any robots which can crawl under a house and make plumbing repairs. At least, for now.

JOHN SHREVE (above), 68, began working at what was then his grandfather’s business when he was 16. He took over the business in the 1970s. On the right side of the image on the right is the business’ first ledger entry from when it opened in 1915.

(Photos: Patricia Leslie/News-Press and Shreve/McGonegal)

According to a company statement, it’s not certain how long the business will remain at its present location, but wherever it goes, it shall remain in the area, always mindful of the founder’s mission: Unparalleled integrity and quality service, Shreve said.

Besides Shreve, other company owners are Jim Frank, Chuck Leake, and Coaty Frank.

F.C. Resident Helps Lead Multiple Sclerosis Initiative Continued from Page 11

pies and find out which patients respond best to what treatment.

Toward that goal, the advocates are trying to get 20,000 multiple sclerosis patients, about five percent of the multiple sclerosis population in the U.S., to register for the initiative and submit their health data by September.

“We’re looking for 20,000 people with MS to join iConquer MS, to help us gather the data to form big data,” Kolaczkowski said. “We need the big data because every last one of us has got a little piece of the puzzle that all fits together

and we don’t know which one of us has that eureka moment in us, but someone out there does, and if we could put all of this together to create big data we would be able to look at the whole big picture of all of us together and start comparing. I get excited to think that we have an answer there some place.”

Robert McBurney is the head of the Accelerated Cure Project for MS, an organization that has been functioning as a prototype for iConquerMS since it was founded in 2001 by Art Mellor, an entrepreneur who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2000. McBurney said that he was excited to learn about

the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, an independent, non-profit organization authorized

by Congress in 2010 that funds research to provide patients, caregivers and clinicians with evidencebased information needed to make better-informed healthcare decisions.

After learning about that institute, which was made possible by the Affordable Care Act, McBurney said that his organization applied for and eventually received funding for what became iConquerMS. “We spent about nine months working in conjunction with people living with MS to create a patient portal where they could

join and contribute their data and be part of a patient-powered community that is accelerating research in the area of multiple sclerosis,” McBurney said. He said that, because the majority of the people on the iConquerMS governing board are living with multiple sclerosis, it is “truly a patient-powered initiative.”

Kolaczkowski is optimistic about the potential of iConquerMS, saying that she thinks that the ability for researchers to harness the power of aggregate data to yield tangible results, like being able to tailor treatments based on biomarkers, is not far off.

But regardless of the timeline for this potential to come to fruition – if it even does – Kolaczkowski, McBurney and Emrich see iConquerMS as a tool that can empower people living with multiple sclerosis immediately.

“I think one immediate benefit may be that sense of contributing to a greater good. There’s a value in that,” Emrich said. “Perhaps the easier things to look at, like short of a cure, are the research topics where we can get quicker answers that would help people know what small things they can do that may just improve their ability to function.”

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

A RTS&E NTE RTA I NME NT

APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015 | PAGE 25

May

1

y

Frida

Sine Qua Non with Fred Wesley Bohemian Caverns 8 p.m.

2011 11th St. NW, Washington, D.C.

202-299-0800 • bohemiancaverns.com

3

ay

Sund

English Beat with Nappy Riddem State Theatre 6 p.m.

220 N. Washington St., Falls Church

703-237-0300 • thestatetheatre.com

Linwood Taylor JV’s Restaurant 8 p.m.

6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church

703-241-9504 • jvsrestaurant.com

6

day

es Wedn

BY DREW COSTLEY

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS

With his new multimedia project Martyr Loser King, artist Saul Williams is taking on all the world’s ills. The project, which is one part album, one part play and one part graphic novel, is being promoted through his nationwide tour Martyr Loser Kingdom, which comes to State Theatre next Wednesday, May 6.

“Basically I wanted to find a way to succinctly talk about every issue that I see around the world,” said Williams, who is from Newburgh, NY but lives in Paris. “I might have been in Senegal at the time and looking at the U.S. from outside of it, looking at the world, talking to people from around the world and wanting to talk about everything from globalization, to technology, to gender issues, to occupying forces, surveillance, all of this stuff.

“So I came up with this story that basically built up this platform for me to be able to talk SAUL WILLIAMS (P����: G������ W���) about all this s*** in the context of music.”

The album, which is slated for a July release, you study chemistry in one room, biology in is just one component of a multimedia project another, physics in another, but all of those that will reach at least into 2016. Williams said properties exist within the body. It’s the same that the play component of the project will likely thing with me....[And] I think we all at least premier in New York City in either late 2015 enjoy all of those things. We’ll read book or early 2016 and that the graphic novel, on while we’re listening to music. We’ll listen to which he’s collaborating with cartoonist Ronald an album while we watch a movie. All these things are connected. So for me it’s just the way Wimberly, will be released in 2016.

This diverse kind of creative output isn’t that I find my balance and keep my balance, by foreign to Williams, who’s a performance poet, expressing in all those different ways.”

In addition to the aforementioned pieces of published author, musician, acclaimed actor and screenwriter. But this is the first time, by his the “Martyr Loser King” project, Williams has own admission, that it’s all come together as been keeping a blog at martyrloserking.com, which features a mixed media representation a single project, something he’s humble about.

“Normally I have a book over there and – gifs, videos, essays, photos, etc. – of the mesan album over there and a movie over there,” sages he’s trying to express with the project.

One essay he wrote, which was actually Williams said. “And this time I wanted to bring all of the things that I do into one project, under exclusively published on his label FADER’s one heading. And other than that I wouldn’t say website, was published along with a track called “All Coltrane Solos at Once,” which won’t be it’s that big of a deal.

“I mean it’s true that you go to school and featured on the album but, Williams said, is part

of the “Martyr Loser King” project. On the hook, Williams chants “F*** you/understand me.”

“All people – especially disenfranchised groups whether we’re talking about the transgender community, people of color, impoverished people – yearn to be understood, whether it’s the powers that be, the government, we yearn to be understood,” Williams said.

“And when you don’t feel understood there’s a hardness that kind of prevails. Like the rib cage around the heart, essentially. That f*** you – there’s a lot of anger that you can hear in my music but realize that anger comes from this feeling of unreciprocated love. This love for humanity, this love for people, this love for humankind and sometimes seeing these politicians or these corporations try to stand in the way of love and progression, it makes us resist.

And that resistance is that f*** you.”

• For more information about Saul Williams, visit saulwilliams.com.

Saul Williams State Theatre

These singles whet the appetites of the FCNP editorial team this week:

7 p.m.

220 N. Washington St., Falls Church

703-237-0300 • thestatetheatre.com

 Nicholas Benton – Like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan 

Jody Fellows – Sleep Like a Baby by Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers 

Drew Costley – Cairo by Butcher Brown

PAGE 26 | APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015

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SENIOR LIVING

S����� N��� L���

Want to Feel Better?

Start Cleaning House

BY MATILDA CHARLES

KING FEATURES SYNDICATE

Seniors feel better after cleaning the house, according to a study done by the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing. Who knew?

Researchers looked at various influences on a senior’s health and emotional well-being, such as environment, smoking, income, education, health, socioeconomics and exercise. The participants (ages 65 to 94) had one serious illness, were enrolled in both Medicaid and Medicare, and had physical limitations that kept them from at least one daily task, such as bathing, handling medications or dressing.

What the researchers didn’t expect was that doing housework and maintaining their own prop-

erty had more of an impact on seniors than, for example, neighborhood poverty. They were able to prove what they’d seen: Seniors who lived in a neat and tidy environment were more satisfied than those whose environment was chaotic.

I saw something similar when I helped a frail neighbor clean out her pantry. While roomy, the pantry was a jumble of items stacked on top of one another amid outdated, expired food. It was difficult to even write a grocery list because it was impossible to tell at a glance what she had.

Once the pantry was neat and organized, she was delighted, and when I saw her again, she had started on the magazines and newspapers that were piled high on every flat surface, managing to take

small armloads to the recycling bin outside her back door. She was quite proud of her accomplishment.

The lesson here: With a small amount of effort, we can keep our environment neat (and safer) ... and the exercise is good for us. *** California, Costa Rica, Greece, Italy and Japan all have something in common. They all have a city with large numbers of people who reach age 100.

Only 25 percent of our longevity comes from DNA, says National Geographic author Dan Buettner in his book Blue Zones.

The rest comes from our environment and lifestyle. With teams of researchers, Buettner traveled the world and discovered the secrets to longevity.

There’s no one magic bullet from all of these locations, but lifestyle, spirituality and community combine with a few habits these centenarians follow. Moderate activity, semivegetarian diet, a clear purpose and staying socially engaged are common traits among the people who routinely live to be 100.

In 2009, AARP joined with the Blue Zones project to add years to

APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015 | PAGE 27

the lives of people in Albert Lea, Minnesota. The end result: The life expectancy of the nearly 800 participants rose, simply by making a few changes in their lifestyle and diet. Check aarp.org for more information about the AARP/Blue Zones Vitality Project. Search for The Minnesota Miracle or Creating America’s Healthiest Hometown.

Buettner’s books are worth reading. Blue Zones (subtitled “9 Lessons for Living Longer”) also is available on Amazon.com or BlueZones.com. Be sure to look for the updated second edition

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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Crossword

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1. With 37-Across and 54-Down, man Beethoven called the “original father of harmony” 7. Easy wins 12. NBA All-Star ____ Anthony 14. Well-bred 16. With 21-Down and 20-Across, evolutionary biologist who wrote “Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes” 17. “Scary Movie” actress Carmen 18. Backside 20. See 16-Across or 21-Down 21. See 56-Across 26. With 62-Across, U2 bassist ... or with 62-Across and 71-Across, Civil Rights leader who represented Harlem in the U.S. House of Representatives 28. Mixed bag 29. Off the beaten path 31. Compete 32. See 40-Down 33. Bronx cheer recipient?

34. B&Bs 36. ____ Khan 37. With 54-Down, Skid Row frontman 40. Juilliard subj.

43. Polynesian drink 44. Snorkeling sites 48. Copies 50. One in a cage 51. See 40-Down 52. E. Coast highway 53. Former “Meet the Press” host Marvin 55. John, Paul and John Paul

APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015 | PAGE 29

56. With 46-Down, Motley Crue drummer ... or with 46-Down and 21-Across, he played Cobb in “Cobb” 58. Afternoon socials 60. Where the Robinsons of ‘60s TV were lost 62. See 26-Across 68. Reporter’s aid 69. Writer Belloc 70. Least desirable 71. See 26-Across

35. Stopped lying?

38. Flew 39. Say ____ (refuse) 40. With 51-Across, German theologian who wrote “The 95 Theses” ... or with 51-Across and 32-Across, Time’s 1963 Man of the Year 41. So far 42. Looks like it does 45. Southpaw on a diamond: Abbr.

46. See 56-Across 47. AARP focus: Abbr.

49. Smirk 54. See 1-Across or 37-Across 57. Pound sounds 59. Stumble 61. Burmese, for one 63. Spanish greeting 64. Veer off course 65. Knot 66. NBA’s Magic, on scoreboards 67. “Tutte ____ cor vi sento” (Mozart aria)

DOWN

1. Chasez of ‘N Sync and others 2. Feedbag morsel 3. Much of central Eur., once 4. Rev (up) 5. Book after Ezra: Abbr.

6. D’back or Card 7. First Amendment subj.

8. Universal donor’s type, informally 9. Highest peak in N. Zealand 10. 1968 Julie Christie movie 11. “The Twilight Zone” host 13. ____ Day (vitamin brand) 14. Tennyson’s “____ and Enid” 15. Largest lake in Europe 19. Prudent 21. With 20-Across, robber baron Conde Nast Portfolio once ranked as the 8th worst American CEO of all time 22. Friend ____ friend 23. “Delta of Venus” author 24. Squeals of alarm 25. Streamlined 27. Like a McJob 30. Go ashore

Last Thursday’s Solution L A R K S

O C A L A

S A G E R

I D I E D

P I M P A N T I T V V C K I O N L R H E E E M A J N A L A E N E R

N G I A N G B A B I S I S H I R O S T R O P S Y H A O N E Y B O E S

C A I R O

I N L A I D

N A B S I C V E E P E S P S

C H A O L N M O L T R Y E R N O S L N B L O O Y A M F F O R A T E S C E

A N I T A

T U T T I

E P S O N

K I A O N S O C K B R Y A N

B O O S T

A G U E S

1. With 37-Across and 54-Down, man Beethoven called the "original father of harmony"

CHUCKLE BROS BRIAN & RON BOYCHUK

7. Easy wins 12. NBA All-Star ____ Anthony

Sudoku Level:

14. Well-bred

By The Mepham Group

1 2 3 4

16. With 21-Down and 20-Across, evolutionary biologist who wrote "Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes" 17. "Scary Movie" actress Carmen 18. Backside 20. See 16-Across or 21-Down 21. See 56-Across 26. With 62-Across, U2 bassist ... or with 62-Across and 71-Across, Civil Rights leader who represented Harlem in the U.S. House of Representatives

1

28. Mixed bag 29. Off the beaten path

LOOSE PARTS

DAVE BLAZEK

31. Compete 32. See 40-Down

Solution to last Sunday’s puzzle

NICK KNACK

1

© 2015 N.F. Benton

5/3/15

Complete the grid so each row, column and 3-by-3 box (in bold borders) contains every digit 1 to 9.

For strategies on how to solve Sudoku, visit www.sudoku.org.uk. © 2015 The Mepham Group. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency. All rights reserved.

LO CA L

PAGE 30 | APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

C������ C�����

BACK IN THE DAY

laz y The dog. c k q u i fox sly p e d jum e r o v lazy the g . d o is Now time the all for o d g o to cows

20 s Yearo Ag

e c o mthe to of aid i r t h e re. pastu w N o the is e t i m all for o d g o to cows e c o mthe to

20 � 10 Y���� A�� �� ��� N���-P���� Falls Church News-Press Vol V, No. 7 • May 4, 1995

Falls Church News-Press Vol XV, No. 8 • April 28, 2005

It is no the timw e for g o all o cows d to go to the aid of the pa stu ir re. *** **

10 Year s Ago

Sponsored by Jon DeHart, Long & Foster

Thr ow it up.

Pour it up It now is the time for all go od cows to go the to aid

Will Electrical Power Dispute Be Decided By Ballot Referendum?

Falls Church Tax Rate Falls to $1.03, Schools OK

The raging dispute between the City of Falls Church and Virginia Power over the future of the City’s electrical supply includes whether or not the citizens of Falls Church should make the final decision by ballot referendum.

Spokesmen for Virginia Power, which is fighting to block efforts by the City, led by Mayor Jeff Tarbert, to municipalize the electrical power service here, insist that state law requries such a move be put to the voters....

Swift action by two members of the Falls Church City Council averted a political train wreck on the eve of the Council’s final vote on the coming fiscal year budget last week.

The Council and the Falls Church School Board were on a collision course following a council work session that called for a cut in the School Board’s requested budget and resulted in a sharp exchange on the pages of the News-Press in its edition last www.fcnp.com week.

VISIT US ONLINE

www.fcnp.com

MISSUS DOVE and her new kids hung out together following their birth in a now well-established nest outside the back door of the FCNP’s Nick Benton. Within two days of this, everybody was gone.

The mama leaves the nest, and the kids sit for awhile waiting for her return, then they finally get too hungry and make their big moves. Ms. Dove was probably born at the same location a year ago, and one of these kids will hopefully be back next year!

NOTICENews•Photos TO THE PUBLIC OF AN APPLICATION BY VIRGINIA ELECTRIC AND POWER COMPANY, Online Polls•Sports FOR A 2015 BIENNIAL REVIEW OF THE RATES, TERMS AND CONDITIONS E-Issuu•Twitter•and More FOR THE PROVISION OF GENERATION, DISTRIBUTION AND TRANSMISSION SERVICES PURSUANT TO § 56-585.1 A OF THE CODE OF VIRGINIA CASE NO. PUE-2015-00027

On March 31, 2015, Virginia Electric and Power Company (“Dominion Virginia Power” or “Company”) filed an application for the biennial review of its rates, terms and conditions for the provision of generation, distribution and transmission services (“Application”) pursuant to § 56-585.1 A of the Code of Virginia (“Code”) and Rules 10 and 50 of the Commission’s Rules Governing Utility Rate Applications and Annual Informational Filings (“Rate Case Rules”), with the State Corporation Commission (“Commission”).

According to the Company, “the principal issue to be decided in this case is a determination of the Company’s financial performance over the 2013 and 2014 12-month test periods as compared to its Commission-authorized [rate of return on common equity (“ROE”)].” Dominion Virginia Power states that it earned a return of 10.13% on its generation and distribution services for the two combined test periods of 2013 and 2014, which is within the Company’s currently authorized ROE earnings band of 9.30% to 10.70% established in the 2013 Biennial Review. Dominion Virginia Power states that a revenue deficiency occurs in the rate year commencing January 1, 2016, based on an adjusted 2014 test year. The Company asserts that it is not requesting an increase in base rates pursuant to § 56-585.1 A 8 of the Code given the Earnings Test results, and no base rate adjustment would be permitted in this proceeding under the provisions of Senate Bill 1349. While Dominion Virginia Power does not seek a change in base rates in this proceeding, the Company does request approval of clarifying changes to various provisions of its Terms and Conditions.

While Dominion Virginia Power also does not anticipate its ROE will change in this 2015 Biennial Review, the Company states that it presents evidence, in accordance with the Rate Case Rules, that demonstrates that a current market cost of equity for the Company falls at the upper end of a range of 10.25% to 10.75%. Dominion Virginia Power asserts that this evidence, the Company’s level of performance pursuant to § 56-585.1 A 2 c of the Code, and the Commission’s prior precedent, supports an ROE of 10.75%, compared to the Company’s currently authorized ROE of 10.0%.

Dominion Virginia Power further states in its Application that the Company anticipates total capital expenditures of approximately $8.5 billion between 2015 and 2017, including: $4.1 billion for investments in generation, which includes $2.2 billion for new generation construction projects; over $2.1 billion for investments in distribution; and over $2.3 billion for transmission level investments.

The Commission’s orders issued in Case Nos. PUE-2014-00042, PUE-2014-00050, PUE-2014-00051, PUE-2014-00052 (“2014 Rider Proceedings”), all related to the Company’s rate adjustment clauses, accepted stipulations between the Company and the Commission’s Staff (“Staff”) that deferred the issue of the appropriate capital structure to use in calculating the revenue requirements for the 2014 Rider Proceedings to this 2015 Biennial Review. Dominion Virginia Power presents the Company’s 2013 and 2014 actual end-of-period capital structures and submits testimony in support of their use to calculate the revenue requirements in the 2014 Rider Proceedings, as well as for purposes of the 2013-2014 Earnings Test analysis, in its Application.

The Commission entered an Order for Notice and Hearing that, among other things, scheduled a public hearing on September 9, 2015, at 10 a.m., in the Commission’s Second Floor Courtroom located in the Tyler Building, 1300 East Main Street, Richmond, Virginia 23219, to receive testimony from members of the public and opening statements. Any person desiring to testify as a public witness at this hearing should appear in the Commission’s Courtroom fifteen (15) minutes prior to the starting time of the hearing and contact the Commission’s Bailiff. A public evidentiary hearing will convene on September 10, 2015, at 10 a.m., in the same location, to receive the testimony and evidence offered by the Company, respondents, and the Staff on the Company’s Application.

The public version of the Company’s Application and the Commission’s Order for Notice and Hearing are available for public inspection during regular business hours at each of the Company’s business offices in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Copies also may be obtained by submitting a written request to counsel for the Company: Charlotte P. McAfee, Esquire, Dominion Resources Services, Inc., 120 Tredegar Street, Richmond, Virginia 23219. If acceptable to the requesting party, the Company may provide the documents by electronic means.

Copies of the public version of all documents filed in this case also are available for interested persons to review in the Commission’s Document Control Center, located on the first floor of the Tyler Building, 1300 East Main Street, Richmond, Virginia 23219, between the hours of 8:15 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. Interested persons also may download unofficial copies from the Commission’s website: http://www.scc.virginia.gov/case.

Any person or entity may participate as a respondent in this proceeding by filing, on or before July 2, 2015, a notice of participation. If not filed electronically, an original and fifteen (15) copies of the notice of participation shall be submitted to Joel H. Peck, Clerk, State Corporation Commission, c/o Document Control Center, P.O. Box 2118, Richmond, Virginia 23218-2118. A copy of the notice of participation as a respondent also must be sent to counsel for the Company at the address set forth above. Pursuant to Rule 5 VAC 5-20-80 B, Participation as a respondent, of the Commission’s Rules of Practice and Procedure, any notice of participation shall set forth: (i) a precise statement of the interest of the respondent; (ii) a statement of the specific action sought to the extent then known; and (iii) the factual and legal basis for the action. All filings shall refer to Case No. PUE-2015-00027. For additional information about participation as a respondent, any person or entity should obtain a copy of the Commission’s Order for Notice and Hearing.

On or before July 30, 2015, each respondent may file with the Clerk of the Commission, and serve on the Commission’s Staff, the Company, and all other respondents, any testimony and exhibits by which the respondent expects to establish its case. If not filed electronically, an original and fifteen (15) copies of such testimony and exhibits shall be submitted to the Clerk of the Commission at the address set forth above. Respondents also shall comply with the Commission’s Rules of Practice and Procedure, including: 5 VAC 5-20-140, Filing and service; 5 VAC 5-20-150, Copies and format; and 5 VAC 5-20-240, Prepared testimony and exhibits. Respondents shall refer in all of their filed papers to Case No. PUE-2015-00027.

On or before September 2, 2015, any interested person wishing to comment on the Company’s Application shall file with Joel H. Peck, Clerk, State Corporation Commission, c/o Document Control Center, P.O. Box 2118, Richmond, Virginia 23218-2118, written comments on the Application. Any interested person desiring to file comments electronically may do so on or before September 2, 2015, by following the instructions on the Commission’s website: http://www.scc.virginia.gov/case. Compact discs or any other form of electronic storage medium may not be filed with the comments. All such comments shall refer to Case No. PUE-2015- 00027.

The Commission’s Rules of Practice and Procedure may be viewed at http://www.scc.virginia.gov/case. A printed copy of the Commission’s Rules of Practice and Procedure and an official copy of the Commission’s Order for Notice and Hearing in this proceeding may be obtained from Joel H. Peck, Clerk, State Corporation Commission, c/o Document Control Center, P.O. Box 2118, Richmond, Virginia 23218-2118.

VIRGINIA ELECTRIC AND POWER COMPANY

APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015 | PAGE 31

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Directory Listings: Call Us at 703-532-3267

Business Directory

ACCOUNTING

n

n

Diener & Associates, CPA. . . . . . . . . 241-8807 Eric C. Johnson, CPA, PC . . . . . . . . 538-2394 Mark Sullivan, CPA . . . . . . . . . . . 571-214-4511 Hahn & Associates, PC, CPAs . . . . . 533-3777

CLEANING SERVICES

Maid Brigade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823-1922 Acclaimed Carpet Cleaning . . . . . . . . 978-2270 A Cleaning Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 892-8648 Excellent Cleaning Service . . . . . 571-246-6035

COLLEGES

n

ANTIQUES & COLLECTIBLES

n

n

ATTORNEYS

n

CONCRETE

n

DENTISTS

Falls Church Antique Company . . . . 241-7074 Antique Annex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241-9642 Mark F. Werblood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534-9300 Sudeep Bose, Former Police Officer. 926-3900 Janine S. Benton, Esq. . . . . . . . . . . . .992-9255

n

AUTOMOTIVE

n

BANKING

Beyer Volvo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237-5000

n

Family Dentistry, Nimisha V Patel . . . 533-1733 Dr. William Dougherty . . . . . . . . . . . . 532-3300

n

HAULING SERVICES

n

OPTOMETRIST

n

HEALTH & FITNESS

n

PET SERVICES

n

HOME IMPROVEMENT

n

PHOTOGRAPHY

n

REAL ESTATE

n

TAILOR

Your Handyman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571-243-6726 Handyman Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556-4276 Hauling Services.................................691-2351 Jazzercise Falls Church . . . . . . . . . . 622-2152 FC Heating & Air Service . . . . . . . . . 534-0630 Joseph Home Improvement . . . . . . . 507-5005 Picture Perfect Home Improvements 590-3187 One Time Home Improvement . . . . . 577-9825

n

LAWN CARE

Falls Church Florist, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . 533-1333

n

MASSAGE

Art & Frame of Falls Church . . . . . . . 534-4202

n

MEDICAL

VA Outdoor Power Equipment . . . . . 207-2000

BOOK BINDING

n

FLORISTS

CHIROPRACTOR

n

FRAMES

n

GIFTS

Dr. Solano, solanospine.com . . . . . . 536-4366

n

INSURANCE

Point of View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237-6500

MUSIC

HANDYMAN

n

EQUIPMENT RENTAL/SALE

1 Line Maximum

(30 characters + Ph. #, incl. spaces)

n

CRJ Concrete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571-221-2785

EYEWEAR

BCR Binders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534-9181

n

American College of Commerce and Technology . . . . . . . 942-6200

n

Burke & Herbert Bank & Trust Co. . . 519-1634 BB&T . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241-3505 TD Bank/www.TDBank.com . . . . . . . 237-2051

n

3 months - $150 6 months - $270 1 year - $450

Stifel & Capra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407-0770

Allstate Home Auto Life Ins. . . . . . . . 241-8100 State Farm Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . 237-5105 Lawn Enforcement Services, LLC . . . 237-0921 Gabriel Lawn & Landscape. . . . . . . . 691-2351 www.healthybyintention.com. . . . . . . 534-1321

Academy of Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 938-8054 Foxes Music Co . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533-7393 Dr. Alison Sinyai, Family Eye Care . 533-3937 Feline Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 920-8665 Gary Mester, Event, Portraits . . . . . . 481-0128 Mary Sandoval Photography . . . . 334-803-1742 Merelyn Kaye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .790-9090x218 www.helpfulmortgage.us . . . . . . . . . . 237-0222 Casey O’Neal - ReMax . . . . . . . . . . . 824-4196 Rosemary Hayes Jones . . . . . . . . . . .790-1990 The Young Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .356-8800 Tori McKinney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 867-8674 Shaun Murphy, Realtor . . . . . . . . . . 868-5999 Tailor Lee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534-8886

Dr Gordon Theisz, Family Medicine . 533-7555

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PAGE 32 | APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2015

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

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Let us take the test drive to you.

A UNIQUE SALES AND SERVICE EXPERIENCE • QUICK, FRIENDLY, AND HASSLE FREE! • DON’ T GET LOST, LET US GUIDE YOU • MONTHLY SERVICE COUPONS, JUST FOR YOU • FAIR PRICING • NO PRESSURE/NO NONSENSE SALES STAFF • SALES PEOPLE ARE NOT PAID ON COMMISSION • FRIENDLY AND KNOWLEDGABLE • AMAZING SERVICE DEPARTMENT • FREE LOANER WHENEVER YOU NEED SERVICE • COMPLIMENTARY STATE INSPECTIONS FOR AS LONG AS YOU OWN YOUR CAR • LEADERS IN CUSTOMER SA SATISFACTION • FREE CAR WASH WHENEVER YOU WANT • LOCATIONS ALL OVER NORTHERN VIRGINIA • GIGANTIC INVENTORY • IF WE DON’ T HAVE THE CAR YOU WANT, WE WILL GET IT FOR Y OU • TEST DRIVE EASY • WE WILL BRING THE CAR TO YOU. • WE WILL BUY YOUR CAR • HASSLE FREE •

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beyerauto.com Check Online for Open Houses

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Charming brick Rambler a hop, skip and a jump from award winning TJ Elem school. 3 bedrooms, 2 updated full baths, LR with FP and built-ins, kitchen, with glazed cabinetry, granite counters and stainless appliances, separate dining room, family room addition has bay window. New hardwood floors, new windows. Near Express Bus to Metro. Owner agent. $719,900.

Dir: Rt 66 E on Broad St., R on Oak St., Right on Timber to 302

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Lovely home in the Woodson High School District featuring 4 BD and 2 BA on 2 finished levels. Backs to parkland on quiet cul de sac. Offered at $495,000

Exceptional 5 BD/5 BA home built in 2010 minutes to metro and downtown Vienna. Three finished levels, large fenced yard and absolutely turn-key. Don’t miss this one! Offered at $1,225,000

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412 Jackson St | Falls Church City

Fabulous renovated Cape in highly desirable Virginia Forest featuring 4 BD/2 BA, huge family room on ML, 2 car garage, spectacular yard. Offered at $825,000

1202 Cottage St SW | Vienna 22180

202 Patterson St | Falls Church City

Absolutely stunning 5 BD /4.5 BA home w/ delightful front porch on 3 finished levels. Family room off kitchen and walk out lower level. Steps to Metro, bike path and dining! Offered at $1,189,000

Call Me Today To Talk About the Spring Market!!

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