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The preceding sponsored post was also published on FFXnow.com
Local residents will get their first glimpse of the planned Dunn Loring Elementary School later this week.
Fairfax County Public Schools will kick off the public input portion of the project’s design process on Thursday (Nov. 10) with a meeting at the Gatehouse Administrative Center (8115 Gatehouse Road) in Merrifield.
The meeting will take place from 6-7 p.m. in the building’s first floor cafe, where capacity will be limited to 150 people. As a result, a Zoom link will also be sent to those who register in advance.
Advanced by the Fairfax County School Board in March, the capital project will repurpose the Dunn Loring Administrative Center at 2334 Gallows Road as an elementary school expected to accommodate 900 students.
From a message that FCPS sent to area families:
The Dunn Loring Administrative Center was originally built to address the needs of a rapidly growing population. Additions were needed throughout the 1940s and 50s as the Baby Boom generation entered elementary school in this thriving community. Needs changed and by 1978, the school was repurposed, eventually serving FCPS staff as an administrative center. As our community grows in a new era, we have the opportunity to return the building to its original purpose and support the needs of students in the surrounding community.
The repurposing of the Dunn Loring Administrative Center will provide approximately 900 students with an elementary school rooted in history and poised to provide 21st-century learning, preparing young children for bright futures. Through this single project, FCPS supports quality education in ten other schools by relieving the pressures of increasing enrollment growth.
The planned renovations and additions will result in a 118,000-square-foot facility, according to the project page.
The engineering firm Samaha Associates was contracted to design the school, which is being funded by $36.8 million in bonds originally designated for a facility in the Fairfax/Oakton area.
The upcoming meeting will give members of the public their first opportunity to see and weigh in on the future school’s design, but “no major changes may be made” at this stage, FCPS said.
“Small adjustments may be considered,” FCPS said, noting that the feedback will be shared with the Fairfax County Planning Commission, Board of Supervisors, school board, and its staff.
Though originally pitched as a solution to crowding concerns at Shrevewood Elementary School, the Dunn Loring project has ruffled some feathers among school board members and residents who feel it jumped the renovation queue that FCPS uses for major capital projects.
The McLean Citizens Association, which urged FCPS to drop its plans this past spring, shared a report last week that argued the school system’s student enrollment projections might not fully capture the growth anticipated in the Tysons area.
FCPS has maintained that the future school’s boundaries remain to be determined.
“Boundary discussions will begin at the start of construction, which may be as early as spring 2024,” FCPS said.
At least one more community meeting will be held on the school’s design, along with a meeting by a design feedback and engagement committee. Comments for the committee can already be submitted online.
Those meetings will precede a public hearing before the county’s planning commission. No dates have been set beyond Thursday’s meeting.
A new survey of Fairfax County Public School (FCPS) students shows local teens have been facing a decline in mental health over the last few years.
The Fairfax County Youth Survey is an anonymous and voluntary survey of students in grades 6, 8, 10 and 12. The newest survey, compiled from the 2021 school year, involved the participation of 33,479 students. There was no survey during 2020, making this the first look at student health since the COVID-19 pandemic started.
The report said FCPS students were more depressed than at any other time in the past decade.
“In 2021, the rates of feeling persistent sadness or hopelessness among Fairfax County youth were highest in the past 10 years,” the report said.
FCPS is hardly alone in this: the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report earlier this year reporting poor mental health among teens and children nationwide. While Fairfax County’s figures are high, they’re still below the national average.
The report said that every measure of depression showed a marked increase over the past few years:
The greatest increase was observed in the percentage of students with persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness. Overall, almost two-fifths of the students in 8th, 10th, and 12th grade (38.1%) reported feeling so sad or hopeless for two or more weeks in a row in the past year that they stopped doing some usual activities. More than 41% (41.6%) of 12th grade students reported such feelings, as compared to 35.0% of 8th grade students. Overall, the percentage of students reporting this level of sadness was about 8 percentage points higher than in 2019 (29.9%), reaching the highest point in the past 10 years.
The report also found that female, Hispanic, and LGBTQ students as well as students from food-insecure homes were all more likely to experience depression.
Students also reported an increase in bullying at home from parents or other adults.
“One in four students (24.8%) reported having been bullied, taunted, ridiculed, or teased by a parent or other adult in their household in the past year,” the report said, “which increased from 22.9% in 2019, and is the highest in the past 6 years.”
Around 8% of students reported experiencing physical abuse at home.
Additional highlights from the report include:
- The rates of reporting persistent feelings of sadness/hopelessness, suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts increased among Fairfax County youth this year, following the national trends.
- More than 38% of the students in 8th, 10th and 12th grade reported feeling so sad or hopeless for two or more weeks in a row in the past year that they stopped doing some usual activities (persistently sad or hopeless). Approximately 17% reported suicidal thoughts and 6% reported suicide attempts.
- Female students were more likely to express high stress, persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, consider attempting suicide and attempt suicide compared to male students.
- Students of Hispanic ethnicity and students of other/multiple races were most likely to express feelings of persistent sadness or hopelessness, consider suicide and attempt suicide.
- Students who identified themselves as transgender or gay/lesbian/bisexual reported higher rates of stress, feelings of sadness/hopelessness, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. The data shows that they also face greater challenges that can affect their mental health including emotional and physical abuse by a parent or adult, forced sexual intercourse and sexual harassment.
- Students who reported a lack of food in their home were more likely to report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts than those from food-secure homes.
The full report is available online.
Photo via Christian Erfurt/Unsplash
With Election Day 2022 now underway, more than 200,000 Fairfax County residents have already voted.
That includes approximately 130,000 residents who voted early — a 66% increase from the last midterm election in 2018 — and about 72,000 votes cast in person on Election Day, as of 10 a.m.
In total, that represents about 27.5% of registered active voters in the county.
As of this morning, we’ve had an estimated 9.8% turnout countywide in today’s #midterm election. This is only for votes cast at the polls today, and early votes account for another 18% turnout before today.#ElectionDay #ElectionDay2022 #Midterms2022 #VA08 #VA10 #VA11 #Virginia pic.twitter.com/OCLtXr1jZO
— Fairfax County Votes (@fairfaxvotes) November 8, 2022
That remains short, so far, of county turnout during the 2018 midterms, when 59.5% of registered voters in the county voted. That year saw a significant jump from 2014, when only 41.6% voted.
Early voting ended Saturday (Nov. 5), and about 130,000 county residents had voted by then, either by mail or in person, Fairfax County General Registrar Eric Spicer told FFXnow in an email. Overall, that represents about 18% of the 736,000 active registered voters in the county.
That’s about 44,000 more people than 2018. Since that time, however, early voting rules and habits have changed significantly. Virginia introduced no-excuse absentee voting in 2020, leading the county to add more early voting sites with longer hours, and permanently approved ballot drop boxes last year.
In 2020, 414,000 residents voted early due to traditional high turnout related to a presidential election and the ongoing pandemic. Last year, about 170,000 residents cast a ballot early in the House of Delegates and gubernatorial elections.
This year’s early voting numbers suggest the shift in voting behavior from the last midterm election cycle has continued.
We're preparing so that after the polls close we can count the about 82,000 early in-person votes cast before today. Under public observation, election workers are pulling this data from the voting machines used for early voting.#Vote #GoVote #ElectionDay #IVoted #Midterms2022 pic.twitter.com/wL3NnaDV19
— Fairfax County Votes (@fairfaxvotes) November 8, 2022
In Fairfax County, 76,000 vote-by-mail ballots were requested, close to 10% of registered voters, Spicer said. About 67% of those ballots, or 48,000, were returned by the end of early voting.
Residents can continue to return their mail-in ballots at a drop box at any polling place.
While Fairfax County doesn’t have any races attracting significant national attention like 2021’s gubernatorial race, every seat in the House of Representatives is on the ballot this year.
The county has three congressional districts: the 8th, 10th, and 11th.
The 11th Congressional District includes 586,000 Fairfax County residents, the most of any of the districts. The 8th has 282,000 residents in the county while the 10th only holds 14,500 residents.
Incumbents Don Beyer, Jennifer Wexton, and Gerry Connolly are all Democrats and all favored to win against their respective Republican challengers, Karina Lipsman, Hung Cao, and Jim Myles.
The Town of Herndon is seeing competitive races, though, for mayor and town council. Incumbent Mayor Shelia Olem is running against councilmembers Sean Regan and Jasbinder Singh.
Election officers told FFXnow that, anecdotally, voting has gone smoothly so far this morning with precincts getting steady streams of voters.
However, the lead-up to Election Day saw a few hiccups. Late last month, voters in Clifton, Herndon, and Vienna got a letter directing them to an incorrect voting location. The county blamed the state for the error with the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors calling for an investigation into what happened.
Last week, the county received approximately 11,000 voter registrations that were delayed in being sent over by the state. This was on top of nearly 12,000 other delayed registrations that were finally sent over at the beginning of October.
The county’s elections office said on Nov. 3 that it had successfully processed all of the registrations.
McLean Pizza and Subs has served up its last slice.
The Italian and Greek restaurant at 1434 Center Street is permanently closed after supplying the neighborhood with pizza, pasta, subs and more since 1962, according to its website.
A notice posted to the door states that the business “has closed for good” and apologizes for the inconvenience, but it doesn’t elaborate on what led to the closure. FFXnow didn’t receive a response to its attempts to contact the owner.
McLean Pizza appears to have shuttered in late October, though an exact date is unclear. Twitter user Thomas Malloy alerted FFXnow on Oct. 28, and a Yelp reviewer said on Oct. 18 that it was closed when they went by to order a pizza.
“Sad. Great food and really nice people,” the reviewer wrote.
Renovated in October 2021, the dining room was still fully furnished when FFXnow visited Sunday (Nov. 6), with tables, chairs and even ketchup bottles visible through the darkened storefront windows.
Located in Old Dominion Shopping Center, McLean Pizza occupies a sizable space next to McLean Hair Center, which was established in 1956 and is McLean’s oldest barbershop, according to a sign by the door. The strip mall also houses Chesapeake Bagel Bakery, McLean Shoe Store and Repair, and Comfort One Shoes.
According to Fairfax County records, Old Dominion Shopping Center was built in 1956 and has been owned by McLean Properties since Feb. 28, 2007.
The landlord has reportedly opted not to renew leases for longer-term tenants or only offered renewals by the month.
FFXnow has reached out to McLean Properties and is awaiting a response.
McLean Properties also owns the McLean and Chain Bridge shopping centers. A redevelopment is in the works for the latter that would renovate Giant Food, its anchor store, and reposition the buildings along Beverly Road.
Fairfax County has a new ambassador for poetry.
Danielle Badra will serve as the second Fairfax Poet Laureate through 2024, leading a program to bring poetry-related activities to local parks, ArtsFairfax shared yesterday.
Introduced by the arts agency in 2020, the poet laureate is intended to celebrate poetry and promote the art form to new audiences through a community service project and events. The title was first bestowed on “How to Prove a Theory” author Nicole Tong for the inaugural 2020-2022 term.
“The Fairfax Poet Laureate is a remarkable example of how support to a single artist can impact the whole County,” ArtsFairfax President and CEO Linda S. Sullivan said in the news release. “Danielle’s vision to bring poetry to the parks is inspired, and we’re as excited to learn from her as we are thrilled to share her work with the Greater Fairfax community.”
Badra was selected by a six-person panel of Tong, Maryland Poet Laureate Grace Cavalieri, Poetry Daily Managing Editor Gregg Wilhelm, Beltway Poetry Quarterly Editor Kim Roberts, Fall for the Book Festival Director Kara Oakleaf, and Anya Creightney, a programs specialist for the Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center.
The panel considered applicants’ proposed community projects, their professional activities, and the artistic merit and impact of their work, according to Arts Fairfax.
“Grace Cavalieri emphasized that Dani’s style of poetry and delivery allows her to be vulnerable, warm, friendly, and accessible, which in turn helps her meet people where they are in their poetry journey whether they are new to the form or avid fans,” the agency told FFXnow.
A Clifton resident who works as a technical writer for the county’s Land Development Services, Badra sees the poet laureate position as an opportunity to share her love of poetry with the community.
“Poetry is one of those subjects that a lot of people learn in school and never want to learn again. And I want to change that,” she told FFXnow by email. “Poetry is inspirational, it is healing, it is empowering. I want to share that with the community.”
An ArtsFairfax spokesperson says that while the selection panel was aware that Badra had a county government job, it “was not a factor in their selection,” though they saw a “potential benefit of having representation of a poet who does not work in academia.”
Originally from Kalamazoo, Michigan, Badra has published two collections: “Dialogue with the Dead,” which was published in 2015 and dealt with the loss of her sister, and “Like We Still Speak,” which won the 2021 Etel Adnan Poetry Prize, according to her website.
The $1,000 prize is awarded annually by the University of Arkansas to a writer of Arab heritage for their first or second book of poetry in English. Badra is of Syrian and Lebanese heritage.
She obtained a bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Kalamazoo College and a master’s of fine arts degree from George Mason University. The latter program also counts Tong as an alum.
Badra told GMU that her “Poetry in the Parks” project reflects her enthusiasm for the outdoors and nature — a source of “poetic inspiration” for her.
“Poetry in the Parks looks to not only provide inspiration for creative expression but to also advocate for environmental stewardship,” Badra told FFXnow.
Her plans for the next two years include poetry readings, workshops, a “Poetry Beneath the Stars” event, and “poetry plaques” that will display a poem and prompt at scenic stops around local parks.
The plaques will specifically appear at Riverbend Park, Huntley Meadows Park, Burke Lake, and Ellanor C. Lawrence Park. A QR code will let visitors upload their own writings.
Readings during National Poetry Month, which comes in April, will likely be held at Ellanor C. Lawrence in Chantilly, she said.
“My experiences in life and in the literary world directly inspire my vision for the next two years as Fairfax Poet Laureate,” Badra said in a statement to ArtsFairfax. “Through poetry workshops, readings, and activities in the Parks, I want to illuminate how language and our natural environment can be a source of comfort and creativity.”
What to Know for Election Day — “Three congressional races and the Town of Herndon council and mayor are one the ballot. Every polling place will be open on Tuesday from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m…Before you vote, double-check your registration status, polling place and congressional district.” [Fairfax County Government]
Fairfax City School Board Could Be All-Female — “All five seats on the Fairfax City school board are up for election this November and for possibly the first time, all elected members will be women. Those women — Stacy Hall, Amit Hickman, Sarah Kelsey, Rachel McQuillen and Carolyn Pitches — are uncontested candidates running for the board” [The Washington Post]
Regional Airports See Record High Temperatures — “The record for IAD was 76 degrees set in 2020 and the record for BWI was 77 set in 2020,1975, and 1938. The record high temperatures have already been broken at all three major airports as of noon [Monday]!” [National Weather Service/Twitter]
Missing Teen Found Dead on Halloween — “A missing 18-year-old from Fairfax County was found dead more than three hours away in Gloucester County…Investigators determined that the victim had been killed somewhere else and his body was left at the scene. An autopsy performed by the Tidewater Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Norfolk, Virginia, confirmed that the victim’s death was a homicide.” [WUSA9]
Fire Department Open for Toy Donations — “The Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department (FCFRD) will be participating in the Annual National Capital Region Fire and EMS Departments’ 2022 TOYS FOR TOTS Campaign. The intent of the campaign is to ‘bring holiday joy and deliver a message of hope to children.’ Stations will accept donations now through Sunday, December 11, 2022.” [FCFRD]
Winner of Frying Pan Cow Race Revealed — “Iris won the 2022 NASCOW sponsored by the Friends of Frying Pan Farm Park this past Friday, Nov. 4. Iris is an Angus/Hereford cross born on Easter in 2021. Proceeds from the event will help feed the animals, build new fences, and improve the game bird enclosure at the farm.” [Fairfax County Park Authority/Facebook]
New Metro GM Gets High Marks — “When the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s Board* hired Randy Clarke as WMATA’s new General Manager in spring 2022, it signaled a clear desire for a new direction for Metro. Just over 100 days in, has Clarke steered the agency into the right turn that WMATA needed? We graded him!” [Greater Greater Washington]
It’s Tuesday — Clear throughout the day. High of 60 and low of 45. Sunrise at 6:45 am and sunset at 5:02 pm. [Weather.gov]
A new data dashboard shows Fairfax County prosecutors are sometimes asking for more detainments of defendants than judges.
The Office of the Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney (OCA) released a dashboard in October with data comparing how often and under what circumstances prosecutors are asking for pre-trial detainment and release to a judge’s recommendations.
“We’re trying to become a more data-driven office,” Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano told FFXnow. “We’re using this information that we’re collecting here for internal improvements, internal trainings, restructurings, and changing of our processes.”
He acknowledged that too often decisions in the justice system lack transparency and are done without the public’s knowledge.
“We want to let the community know what is going on in their justice system,” he said. “I think this system is a black box to many people. We want to change that.”
Courts and prosecutors diverge on when to detain defendants
The dashboard only covers bond review hearings, where a county prosecutor makes a recommendation to a judge that a defendant either be detained or released before their trial.
Descano said that involves “a small percentage of our cases,” though he was unable to provide the exact percentage compared to the total number of cases handled by the county.
The dashboard also only has data from a six-month period between Jan. 1, 2022 and June 30, 2022.
According to the provided data, decisions by the OCA don’t always neatly line up with the self-described “progressive” prosecutor reputation that Descano ran on in 2019, nor do they clearly affirm detractors’ perception of the office as “soft on crime.”
While prosecutors and courts generally align on non-violent misdemeanors and felonies, the OCA recommended detainment for violent felonies 20% more often than the courts, including cases involving cash bail. Descano called that the number one “disagreement” between his office and judges.
As the dashboard notes, the OCA and courts don’t always agree on when a perpetrator is a “danger to family or household member.” Descano said those disagreements generally relate to domestic violence cases, particularly those involving strangulation.
“We take those really seriously because data has shown that if an intimate partner strangles somebody, they’re seven times more likely to actually murder them,” Descano said.
The OCA also recommended detentions for sex offenses at higher rates than the courts. For felonies, it asked for detainment 89% of the time, while the judges recommended it 52% of the time. For misdemeanors, OCA asked for detainment 58% of the time, with judges agreeing in only 25% of cases.
“It shows me that some judges may not see the same dangerousness to those types of crimes that we do or may value it differently,” Descano said. “We’re not putting this out data to try to slam judges or anything. If anything, it shows [how] different actors in the system view different types of accusations.”
The data also shows that the OCA recommended detainment at a higher rate — meaning a lower rate of release — for non-sexual misdemeanor offenses.
Overall, there were 312 bond review hearings for non-sexual violent and non-violent misdemeanors. The OCA recommended release in 212 of them — 68% of the time — while the courts recommended release in 224 — 78% of the time.
Descano said his office could “tighten up” its approach to bond recommendations.
“I think what we’ll see is that more and more prosecutors will, when they analyze these cases, actually start to come to the conclusion rightly, I think, that some of the people that we have asked to be detained in the past actually don’t represent a danger to the community, and we would actually ask them to be released,” he said.
Since entering office more than two years ago, Descano has been criticized as overly lenient by some, including Attorney General Jason Miyares and conservative groups that have launched recall efforts against him. Other reform-minded Northern Virginia top prosecutors have faced similar charges.
“What we’re doing here is not about leniency. What we are doing here is about what works long term to build broad, long-lasting community safety,” he said. “This isn’t about being nice. This is about effective.”
Cash bail decisions “incoherent,” Descano says
In addition to detention and release rates, the bond dashboard presents information about cash bail imposed by judges. In the six-month period, judges allowed cash bail in 113 cases — more than three-quarters of them for felony charges. The most common bail amounts were $2,500 and $5,000.
As promised during his campaign, Descano ended requests for cash bail in 2020, and he maintains that, while the courts still set cash bonds in some circumstances, they “have nothing to do with community safety” and create a “two-tier system of justice.”
“It can actually lead to more dangerousness because it gives rich people an opportunity to buy their way out immediately when they present a danger, and it holds people who can’t afford it,” he said.
According to the dashboard, in one case, a man was given a $2,500 bail after being arrested for drug possession and trespassing, while someone who shot into a crowded bar was held on a $5,000 bail. How the courts arrive at those decisions “doesn’t really make sense to me” and is often “incoherent,” Descano said.
“I would guess that they got picked because they are nice round numbers,” he said on why $2,500 and $5,000 were the most common bail amounts.
The OCA plans to update its dashboard every few months. Descano says the public can expect the next update to come as soon as January with data reflecting the rest of 2022.
He acknowledged it was risky putting this information out there, opening him and his office to potential criticism, but he believes it’s the right move.
“Putting out your decision-making data is a big risk. There’s a reason prosecutors don’t do it…but I think that’s bad public service,” Descano said. “Our goal is to really have dashboards like this for every decision-making process along the line when it comes to charges, pleas, sentences. We’re looking to make sure we’re in line with the values of the community.”
For a small development, a proposal for 86 condominium units near the Fairfax Square shopping center in Tysons has turned out to be surprisingly vexing.
Fairfax County’s planning staff recommended denying developer Pulte Group’s rezoning application for a Flats at Tysons Corner last Wednesday (Nov. 2), taking issue primarily with the size and location of sites for loading and trash collection.
“Operationally, the on-street loading has the potential to negatively impact and disrupt the pedestrian experience and safety and has the potential to impede vehicular travel,” planner Mary Ann Tsai said at the Fairfax County Planning Commission public hearing. “Design-wise, the on-street loading spaces do not meet the geometric size or location requirements in the zoning ordinance or public facilities manual.”
Pulte hopes to replace a parking lot at 1953 Gallows Road, right behind Patsy’s American, with two multifamily residential buildings and about 17,000 square feet of park space, including publicly accessible urban and pocket parks and a Gateway Plaza on Gallows.
The plan also calls for a 10,700-square-foot pop-up plaza in the parking lot between the residences and an existing, 8-story office building owned by The Meridian Group.
The property would have a new, private street and a Road A extending from what’s currently an entrance off Gallows Road. Initially designated as private, Road A would be the beginnings of a public grid street envisioned in the Tysons Comprehensive Plan as eventually connecting Gallows to Route 7.
In addition to 111 garage parking spaces on the ground floors of the residential buildings, the developer has proposed two on-street loading spaces: one on the private street and one on Road A that would be removed once it becomes a public street.
County staff objected to having loading spots on the street and noted that they would only be 8 feet wide — below the 15 feet required for off-street loading spaces in the county zoning ordinance and the 10 to 11-foot minimum in the public facilities manual.
“I just think the loading dock…doesn’t work well for a whole variety of reasons, not least of which it’s not wide enough, it’s at somebody’s front door, and it conflicts with the impression of this project,” Hunter Mill District Commissioner John Carter said, noting a semi-truck wouldn’t fit in the spaces.
Staff have been trying to work with Pulte, but the 5.4-acre site is too small for a service road, and the developer has been “unwilling” to redesign the buildings to allow interior loading, Tsai told the planning commission.
Notably, Pulte can only redevelop a portion of the site, since Meridian plans to keep its office building and an accompanying 3-story parking garage. Other neighboring property owners also declined to sell.
DLA Piper attoreny Antonio Calabrese, who represented Pulte at the hearing, argued the development would enhance the property, bringing residents to a block intended as a transition between residential neighborhoods south of Gallows Road and Tysons Corner Center to the north of Route 7.
It would also provide gathering spaces for residents, visitors and workers at the adjacent office building with food trucks, outdoor seating, art and landscaping, including along Gallows.
“I think it was Voltaire who talked about not letting perfection get in the way of very good. From my perspective, looking at this site, which is just asphalt parking…this is a much better use,” Calabrese said.
The application got support from Southern Management Companies, which owns two adjacent office buildings. Executive Vice President Gabrielle Duvall said the proposed park spaces would be attractive to the company’s employees and tenants, asking the commission to “not penalize Pulte for the fact that we wouldn’t sell them our land.”
However, one resident of the townhomes across Gallows Road called the traffic situation “chaotic.” Another worried parking would spill over into the existing neighborhoods and questioned whether the new residents would use the proposed urban parks.
“There isn’t enough open, recreational space. I hear all about this kind of kitschy, decorative pavements, throwing some pingpong tables for goodness sakes,” Janet Bradley said, arguing people would be more drawn to the open, recreational fields at Freedom Hill Park.
The commission deferred a vote on the application until Nov. 16 to see if the loading issues can be addressed.
“Staff’s concerns are very legitimate and appropriate. There’s no question about that,” Providence District Commissioner Phil Niedzielski-Eichner said. “What we have to struggle with is if there’s factors that make this ironclad or other factors that would give us some desire to accommodate [the proposal] to the best of their ability.”
Laura Schwartz is a licensed Realtor in VA, D.C. and MD with McEnearney Associates in Vienna. You can follow Laura on Instagram at @LauraSchwartzRealtor or her Facebook page. Laura can be reached at 703-283-6120 or [email protected].
I’ve been getting so much positive feedback lately from people who read this column and I just want to extend a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who reads this!
It’s nice to know I’m not talking to myself, but also, please please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or ideas for content. I’m always open to suggestions!
If you’ve been around a while, maybe you’re looking for something new to do that’s not the usual jumping place, bowling alley, or movie theater. I went on the hunt for something new to me, that might be new to you too. Here’s what I found:
- George Mason University Center for the Arts: Discounted tickets to family friendly performances and a family series of shows. If you’ve got sports crazed kids like I do, the acrobats in high heels with football pads seems right up my alley! They also have a “Harold and the Purple Crayon” performance!
- Go to a Mason Athletics event for cheap! Both mens and women’s basketball starts this week. FYI for all the Cub/Girl Scout leaders, they have a “Scout Day” with discounted tickets.
- All Fairfax County libraries have “take and make” activity kits. They’re all different too.
- Join the Winter Reading Challenge and get a guest pass for several rec centers including Oak Marr and Spring Hill, or a free bucket of golf balls at Oak Marr (and several others).
- Check out the Partakes Calendar for events and classes to sign up for. They have so many options to explore your hobbies!
- Explore a show at the Kennedy Center. They do a family series if you want to make it a family affair. I hear Bluey is making his way to the stage around Thanksgiving this year.
Again, if you have other events to share, please leave a note in the comments or email me [email protected] and I’ll be happy to add it!
The preceding sponsored post was also published on FFXnow.com
