Fairfax County Public Libraries will no longer charge fines for most overdue materials, joining other jurisdictions in the D.C. area in an effort to maintain equity.
The FCPL Board of Trustees unanimously approved the policy in a meeting on Wednesday (Dec. 8). The new system, which begins on Jan. 1, would also reset fines that have already been incurred.
Board of Trustees Chair Fran Millhouser said the policy change is intended to encourage all individuals to take advantage of the library system.
“The FCPL Board of Trustees has approved eliminating fines on most materials and joins surrounding jurisdictions in removing this significant barrier to equitable access to information and library services,” said Millhouser.
The move comes after the board discussed the issue with the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in mid-October. An FCPL analysis showed that overdue fines affect young people and individuals in low-income areas.
Blocked cards — cards that are not allowed to check out materials due to fines exceeding $15 — were more prevalent in the following areas:
- Reston Regional Library
- City of Fairfax Regional Library
- George Mason Regional Library
- Kingstowne Library
- Sherwood Regional Library
Before the pandemic, 17% of all cardholders had blocked cards. Blocked youth cards accounted for 23% of the total youth cardholder population. A link was found between low-income communities and blocked cards.
Library systems across the country, including in neighboring Alexandria City, Loudoun County, and Prince William County, have adopted fine-free models — a move that has resulted in a surge of returned materials.
Fines will still apply to materials in special collections like interlibrary loan materials, Chromebooks and mobile hotspots.
At the Thursday meeting, board trustee Liz Walker encouraged the library system to further identify what items were still not fine-free.
But Millhouser noted that a prescriptive approach was not appropriate because the library offers many resources.
“It’s good to leave it open as the library just becomes so diversified… we’re not just a library anymore.”
Omicron Variant of COVID-19 Found in Virginia — Yesterday (Thursday), the Virginia Department of Health confirmed the state’s first case of the omicron variant that was first identified in Botswana and South Africa in November. The sample came from an adult in the northwest region who had no history of international travel, but did travel domestically during the exposure period. [VDH]
Tysons Event Company Is Now Public — “Event management company Cvent has once again become a public traded company. As of Thursday morning, the firm began trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker CVT following the close of a merger deal with special purpose acquisition company Dragoneer Growth Opportunities Corp. II.” [Technicl.ly]
Local Startup Raises $7 Million — “Tysons tech startup Datasembly, which gives grocers and other retailers real-time product pricing data, has raised millions in new funding to hire aggressively and get its analytics platform to more customers in a period of pandemic-fueled demand.” [DC Inno]
Washington Post Reviews Local Selfie Wrld — “I have feelings about Selfie Wrld, an Instagram selfie studio tucked away in the Tysons Corner Center mall; feelings I considered while attempting to make a sultry, thoughtful face while uncomfortably posed on a hard red plastic couch shaped like a pair of lips, in a red room, beneath a red neon sign that said ‘Feelings,’ because nothing about this place is subtle.” [The Washington Post]
Voting Starts for Vienna Holiday Lights Contest — “As homes and businesses get decorated for the holiday season in Vienna, it’s time to vote for the best displays in town. The annual Vienna Holiday Decorating Contest is now open for voting through Dec. 16.” [Patch]
Fairfax County police are investigating two threats of violence reported at schools in the county earlier this week.
Both threats concerned schools in the Herndon area and were determined to be unfounded, according to the Fairfax County Police Department.
The first incident involved a threat of violence written inside a bathroom at Rachel Carson Middle School. School officials notified a school resource officer at the site about the discovery around 2:10 p.m. on Tuesday (Dec. 7), according to police.
The FCPD says it provided additional officers who conducted extra patrols of the area around the school on Wednesday “out of an abundance of caution.”
“FCPD takes these threats serious and continues to investigate the case with the assistance of FCPS administrators,” the police department said. “…We encourage anyone with information about this threat to please share it with either school officials or our officers.”
At approximately 6:15 a.m. yesterday (Wednesday), Herndon Middle School officials notified a school resource officer that they came across “a vague threat of violence made over social media,” according to police.
Fairfax County police investigated the threat with support from the Herndon Police Department and Fairfax County Public School administrators. Investigators identifed the person behind the post and determined they did not have access to any weapons.
“Officers are continuing to investigate further and charges are pending,” the FCPD said.
FCPS confirmed to FFXnow that there were two threats involving local schools, but the school system opted to share details only with the affected schools.
“We are not proactively sharing details to those outside the immediate school community to avoid encouraging copycat threats,” FCPS spokesperson Julie Moult said.
The two FCPS threats came at the same time that the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrest of 18-year-old Fairfax resident Shane D. Lucas, who allegedly made threatening statements toward Farmwell Station Middle School in Ashburn in a social media post that included a photo of a firearm.
Detectives determined that the photo came from the internet and did not find any firearms in Lucas’s house, but he has been charged with threats of bodily injury or death to persons on school property.
FCPS says students, parents, and other community members can report concerns through its safety tip line at 571-423-2020. Tips can also be sent by text to 88-777 with the keyword TIP FCPS.
Photo via Google Maps
Fairfax County’s approach to criminal justice is quite different from when public defender Bryan Kennedy started his job here a decade ago.
In 2010, the county housed 1,207 people in its jail. That population has been nearly halved, down to 667 people in 2020, according to 2020 Census data compiled by The Marshall Project.
Going back further, the county’s inmate population was 3,749 people in 2000. But the changes from 2000-2010 involved the 2001 closure of the Lorton Reformatory, which housed over 2,800 people as of Dec. 31, 1999 and had its inmates moved to other facilities across Virginia and the federal prison system.
More recently, policy and cultural changes have dramatically altered the county’s judicial system, according to Kennedy, who also belongs to the criminal justice reform group Justice Forward Virginia.
“Ten years ago judges sentenced people to jail much more frequently on low level charges (both misdemeanors and felonies), including misdemeanors like possession of marijuana and driving on a suspended license,” Kennedy said in an email. “People were also held pretrial and held on secured bonds (cash bonds) that they could not afford much more frequently.”
After taking office in 2020 as one of three new progressive prosecutors in Northern Virginia, current Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano ended the use of cash bail and stopped prosecuting simple marijuana possession cases prior to the state’s legalization, though future reform efforts could be challenged by Virginia’s incoming Republican administration.
Kennedy told FFXnow that the judicial system is now more receptive to alternatives to incarceration, as judges and prosecutors feel more comfortable not placing people in jail, because those individuals are getting more services outside of jail.
County Adopts Diversion Framework
One possible driving force behind the decline in Fairfax County’s incarcerated population in the last decade is its Diversion First policy, which began in 2016 after Natasha McKenna’s death at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center in February 2015.
The initiative aims to reduce the incarceration of people with mental health and substance use issues, as well as intellectual and developmental disabilities, by directing those arrested for nonviolent offenses to services instead of jail, which the county says is less costly.
“Through broad stakeholder collaboration, we are giving individuals with mental illness, developmental disabilities and co-occurring substance use disorders the treatment and support they need to maintain a healthy and productive life in the community and stay out of jail,” Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Andi Ceisler said in an email.
She noted that Sheriff Stacey Kincaid’s office has increased the availability of education, life skills, therapeutic, and behavioral health programs that give inmates more opportunities and reduce recidivism.
Tied to the diversion policy, the county also launched the Merrifield Crisis Response Center (MCRC) in 2016 as an alternative to jailing people experiencing mental health problems.
A Diversion First annual report released in August noted that the number of individuals with behavioral health issues incarcerated on misdemeanors decreased by 28% from 2015 to 2020, and MCRC cases increased 37% from 2016 to 2020.
A state corrections spokesman, Benjamin Jarvela, said the Fairfax County probation office and the Commonwealth felt it was “too early” to comment or determine the effect of the diversion policy, saying doing so would be “premature.”
Police Credit New Training
The county also reworked its crisis intervention team training for law enforcement in 2016, following criticism and a lawsuit over how its handling of a police officer’s fatal shooting of Springfield resident John Geer in 2013.
The Fairfax County Police Department says its use of crisis intervention team training has helped officers with a better understanding and deeper appreciation for people experiencing mental health crises.
Other nearby law enforcement have had higher training rates, but the FCPD says the training is just one of the many efforts to lower the inmate population, along with social services, the county’s Mobile Crisis Unit, and a Community Response Team that assists with people who frequently utilize public safety services.
“Diversion First has undoubtedly helped divert individuals suffering from mental illness who commit low level, low risk offenses from the criminal justice system,” FCPD said in a statement. “We also recognize our community partnership with the Fairfax County-Falls Church Community Services Board (CSB) has played a key role in helping reduce the number of individuals arrested.”
The Fairfax-Falls Church CSB was formed to provide mental health, substance use treatment, and disability services in January 1969, making it one of the first in Virginia after the state adopted legislation establishing the agencies in 1968.
Over the first six months of Diversion First, law enforcement officers brought 771 people to the CSB’s Merrifield Crisis Response Center, 209 of whom ultimately received treatment services instead of facing criminal charges.
The number of diversions has slightly increased since then, with 484 diversions out of the 2,176 individuals transported to the MCRC in fiscal year 2021, according to the CSB’s most recent annual report.
Overall, more than 2,100 people have been diverted from potential arrest under Diversion First, as of Dec. 31, 2020.
Kennedy says the CSB has done a lot of outreach, assisted the judicial system, and “helped ensure that our jail is used as a mental health facility less frequently, although it is still a problem and more work needs to be done.”
Vehicle manufacturers at Tysons Corner Center can now let customers purchase a car on-site and drive away with it.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to grant the mall’s request that vehicle sales be a permitted use in its parking garages after a public hearing on Tuesday (Dec. 7).
Under the approved plan, Tysons Corner Center can allocate 30 parking spaces each to up to eight different vehicle manufacturers for vehicle storage and sales. The designated spaces will account for 240 out of the roughly 11,000 spaces available at the mall.
Tenants are prohibited from using the spaces to provide vehicle services, and the mall has committed to limiting loading activities to outside its operating hours, so they won’t disrupt customer traffic, Fairfax County Zoning Evaluation Division Director Tracy Strunk told the board.
“No outdoor display is going to be permitted. That’s one of the development conditions,” said Brian Clifford, a land-use planner with DLA Piper who represented Tysons Corner Center at the hearing. “At the moment, we only have two [tenants], but we asked for eight total just for the sake of flexibility, and there’s nothing that could limit another manufacturer from coming.”
The mall’s two current vehicle manufacturers are Tesla, which also has a store on Tyco Road, and Lucid Motors, which opened a showroom on Nov. 6.
According to Tysons Corner Center’s rezoning application, Tesla was allowed to have six designated parking spaces, including two electric chargers, to store vehicles when the county permitted its showroom in 2012, but customers couldn’t make purchases directly from the showrooms.
Instead, customers order a vehicle, make a deposit, and have the car delivered to them at a later date, according to Clifford.
He says allowing on-site vehicle sales will put Tysons Corner Center “at the forefront of the vehicle sales industry,” allowing the showrooms to offer a standard car dealership service but in an environment similar to other mall retail stores.
The Fairfax County Planning Commission recommended on Nov. 17 that the supervisors approve the mall’s application, a decision also supported by county staff.
Lucid Motors is also planning to open a store and service center at Tysons Galleria. That proposal got the planning commission’s approval on Oct. 20 and was later granted by the Board of Supervisors on Nov. 9.
Providence District Supervisor Dalia Palchik said she believes the addition of auto sales at Tysons Corner Center will add to the mall’s vitality.
“I did get a chance to swing by on the opening day of the Lucid location recently — very enthusiastic public, very well-displayed,” Palchik said. “I look forward to seeing more of these electric vehicle sales coming to our county, especially Tysons.”
Fairfax County has officially expanded its tax relief program for seniors and people with disabilities for the first time in more than 15 years.
At a Tuesday (Dec. 7) meeting, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved expanding the county’s real estate tax relief program by allowing people with higher incomes and net worth to qualify. A 75% tax relief bracket was also added, and the program gives some residents the option to defer payments.
The changes are expected to serve an additional 2,500 Fairfax County residents, according to Jay Doshi, director of the county’s Department of Tax Administration.
Doshi said the county’s tax relief program is now three times the size of Virginia Beach’s program, which is the next largest jurisdiction in the state.
“These proposals represent the largest change and an increase for our residents,” Doshi said.
The maximum gross income to qualify for tax relief was raised from $72,000 to $90,000, while the limit on net worth increased from up to $340,000 to $400,000.
The program also allows homeowners to exclude up to five acres of land that can’t be subdivided when calculating their net worth.
The 75% relief bracket would be available to households with a combined income of between $60,0001 to $70,000. But the amount of tax relief for all brackets would be capped at 125% of the mean assessed value of county homes.
Residents can also defer payment of real estate taxes if the household has a combined total income not more than $100,000 and a net worth of $500,000. Deferred taxes would be subject to interest.
Changes will go into effect on Jan. 1 and will be phased out over the next two years.
Older adults pushed for the changes at Tuesday’s board meeting.
“Having a tax relief program designed for the economic reality of 2006 does not make sense in the economic reality of 2021,” said Catherine Cole, chairwoman of the Fairfax Area Commission on Aging.
Cole noted that rapid inflation, rising economic insecurity among the county’s older populations, declining assets, and rising housing costs have strained many seniors, pushing some to leave Fairfax County.
“It would make sense to encourage those who are growing older to remain in their homes,” Cole said.
But others said the changes did not go far enough.
Daniel Campbell, a Fairfax County resident with two adult sons who are handicapped, said the county should consider freezing property tax assessments once residents retire and remove net worth as a requirement for seniors to qualify for property tax relief.
He said the net worth requirement penalizes people who have significant savings. Campbell and his wife hope to leave savings for their sons in the form of a special needs trust.
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay said the changes — though imperfect — were long “overdue.”
“This has become an acute need at this point,” McKay said, calling the changes a significant advancement. He said the changes increased the yearly fiscal impact on the county from $28 million to $48 million.
McKay said he would like to evaluate tweaks to the program in the future.
Others said the county needs to find other ways to diversify its income beyond real estate taxes as the primary revenue source.
“Tax reform is really where we have to go,” said Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn. State law limits sources of revenue for jurisdictions.
But Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity — who supported the changes — said that controlling spending, not diversifying revenue should be the priority.
“It’s unfortunate that it took the pandemic for us to do this,” he said.
Graphic via Fairfax County Government
(Updated at 9:35 am. on 12/10/2021) The Highland District apartments — now branded The Rylan — are on their way toward completion next year.
Construction crews are now adding floors and setting the wooden framework in place for a five-story complex with 390 units of multifamily housing at 1768 Old Meadow Road.
Despite supply-chain issues making it harder to obtain materials, the project remains on track to be finished in summer 2022, according to Josh Wooldridge of The NRP Group, the developer behind The Rylan.
However, don’t expect a restaurant or coffee shop to follow suit.
When Fairfax County approved the Highland District in 2016, plans for the mixed-use development along Old Meadow Road featured a commitment to between 10,000 and 37,000 square feet of retail and service space.
That now appears unlikely to come to fruition, according to Wooldridge.
The Rylan was previously envisioned with 5,000 square feet of retail under original developer MRP Realty, but the current developers chose to go entirely residential, he says.
NRP specializes in apartment development, and there was no mention of retail when the company announced in May 2020 that it had partnered with real estate firm PointOne Holdings to work on the building.
“Essentially, there’s no market for it,” Wooldridge told Tysons Reporter. “When you put just a little bit of retail in these buildings, it almost never succeeds.”
While having ground-floor retail to serve residents sounds appealing, it’s risky unless the property lands a major brand like Starbucks, Wooldridge says, pointing to the closure of Republik Coffee Bar in Highgate at The Mile as an example.
He also says Tysons East is becoming “over-retailed,” noting that the initial proposal for The Rylan is dwarfed by the nearby Scotts Run development, where The Heming apartment building alone is expected to boast 38,000 square feet of commercial space.
Retail is also out at The Bexley, the condominium complex across the street that developer NV Homes completed in 2020. Wooldridge says that, as far as NRP is aware, the owners of the three other parcels designated for the Highland District have no plans to redevelop them, instead leaving the existing office buildings in place.
Despite the change in plans, Wooldridge says NRP is “really excited about what’s happening in Tysons,” noting The Rylan’s proximity to the Capital One headquarters and Fairfax County’s recently added recreational trail along Scott’s Run.
“So, you’re going to be able to walk from our site along that path up to the [McLean] Metro,” he said.
He also noted that the apartment building will benefit from the future pedestrian bridge connecting Old Meadow Road to Tysons Corner Center over I-495. A crew is currently preparing the site for the Virginia Department of Transportation project.
“On the weekend, weather’s nice, real easy walk over to the movie theater and to the food court at the mall,” Wooldridge said.
Amenities will include a resident clubroom with gaming rooms, working areas and a doorman, infinity edge pool, yoga lawns, outdoor activity areas, outdoor grilling areas, and a warehouse-style fitness center with separate spin and cardio studios, PointOne Holdings previously said.
The development will also have pocket parks, according to Woolridge.
Pricing could be released in the spring.
David Taube contributed to this report.
Local Libraries Get More COVID-19 Tests — Fairfax County Public Library started distributing an additional 10,000 COVID-19 rapid testing kits yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon after its initial batch ran out in an hour on Friday (Dec. 3). The system is now advising people to only take a kit if they need one immediately, since the tests expire at the end of December. [FCPL/Twitter]
First-Ever GW Parkway Overhaul Planned — “The National Park Service announced [Monday] that it had awarded a $161 million contract to rehabilitate the Parkway from Spout Run in Arlington to the Capital Beltway in McLean. After a design process in 2022, construction is expected to take place between 2023 and 2025.” [ARLnow]
Dolley Madison Library Display Criticized — FCPL removed a display from McLean’s Dolley Madison Library that featured the books “Gender Queer” and “Lawn Boy” alongside the Bible after resident Stacy Langton complained. Langton previously got Fairfax County Public Schools to pull the two LGBTQ-focused books from their libraries until they were reinstated last month after a review. [Associated Press/WTOP]
Vienna Approves Surplus Fund Allocations — “The Vienna Town Council on Dec. 6 unanimously approved a budget carry-forward that will allot $280,000 for a fiscal year 2023 real-estate-tax decrease, $270,000 to address employee turnover and retention, and $120,000 to correct pay compression the does not differentiate sufficiently based on employees’ work experience or skill levels.” [Sun Gazette]
Supreme Court Shares Possible Redistricting Map — “One of Virginia’s two battleground congressional districts would become a safe Democratic seat in the midterms under a redistricting proposal released by the state Supreme Court late Wednesday afternoon — but it has been moved completely into another region of the state.” [The Washington Post]
The owner of the Pan Am Shopping Center wants to overhaul the aging strip mall, potentially turning it into the latest effort to bring mixed-use development to the Vienna Metro station area.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors directed county staff yesterday (Tuesday) to evaluate a possible change to the comprehensive plan guidance for the shopping center at the southeast corner of Nutley Street and Route 29.
Property owner Federal Realty has expressed interest in working with the surrounding community on a redevelopment concept for Pan Am, according to Providence District Supervisor Dalia Palchik, who introduced the request for a review.
“This motion is intended to allow the planning process to be a platform for the property owner to work with staff and community stakeholders to consider how evolving the center to a more mixed-use environment could enhance the retail experience, ensure the long-term viability of the commercial center, and advance County objectives,” Palchik said in the board matter.
According to county land records, the Pan Am Shopping Center was built in 1979, and Federal Realty bought the 1 million square-foot parcel for over $21 million in 1993.
The center still boasts Safeway as an anchor, along with CVS, Microcenter, and Michael’s as major tenants, but it has seen a few notable departures over the past couple of years.
The former Baja Fresh space has been vacant since the restaurant closed in January 2019, and a standalone building that had been occupied by a Capital One bank and McDonald’s since the shopping center opened is now empty after the fast-food chain left earlier this year.
Most recently, the Chinese eatery Lo’s Restaurant closed permanently last week after switching to delivery-only service during the COVID-19 pandemic.
While specific details likely won’t take shape for a while, Federal Realty says its goal with the redevelopment is to turn the Pan Am Shopping Center into “an amenitized and vibrant neighborhood.”
“We are constantly looking at ways to evolve our properties to best meet the needs of the communities that they serve,” Ramsey Meiser, Federal Realty’s senior vice president of development said. “Pan Am’s convenient location and close proximity to the Vienna Metro Station provides an opportunity to create an environment that brings residential living to an already successful retail mix. We look forward to working with Supervisor Palchik, County staff and the community to make this vision a reality.”
Palchik says she expects any redevelopment to consider the area’s transportation capacity and potential impacts on existing neighborhoods, along with opportunities to provide more bicycle and pedestrian amenities and open space.
“Additionally the provision of housing would need to serve a variety of income levels,” she told Tysons Reporter by email. “It is my further expectation that the planning process will need to have robust community engagement.”
According to Palchik’s office, the comprehensive plan review doesn’t have a specific timeline yet, but Federal Realty is expected to begin the community engagement process before submitting a formal rezoning application.
The news of a possible Pan Am Shopping Center redevelopment comes as the Fairfax County Planning Commission is scheduled to vote tonight (Wednesday) on a proposal for five residential buildings with 35,000 square feet of commercial uses in the MetroWest neighborhood to the north.
If the plan is approved, developer Pulte Homes says it will finally be able to introduce retail around the Vienna Metro station, where attempts at mixed-use development have long floundered.
The Vienna Town Council unanimously approved moving forward with the second phase of a project to restore Bear Branch stream on Monday (Dec. 6).
Originating north of Cottage Street and cutting through Southside Park, the stream has experienced “major erosion and stream bank failure,” according to project documents.
This portion of the project aims to restore approximately 1,900 linear feet of stream banks from Cottage Street SW down to I-66, running parallel to Patrick Street SW and George C. Yeonas Park.
The project will use natural channel design techniques to reduce sedimentation and improve the stream’s water quality while stabilizing the eroded banks.
The town council voted on Monday to approve an agreement to committing Fairfax County to providing half the funding for the project, which carries an estimated cost of $2.52 million cost.
The other half of the funding will be covered by a stormwater assistance grant that Vienna applied for from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) in November 2019.
The grant, which has now been awarded, comes from the state’s Stormwater Local Assistance Fund (SLAF), which gives matching grants to local governments for stormwater management efforts that address cost efficiency while committing to reducing water quality pollutants.
“As we have with all of our stream restorations, we are partnering with Fairfax County through their storm water funds,” Vienna Director of Public Works Mike Gallagher said during Monday’s meeting. “And they are funding 50% to match the DEQ 50% to make a full project.”
Funding for the first phase of the project was approved by the Vienna Town Council in August 2019 and by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in September 2019.
After receiving nine proposals and reviewing three finalists, Vienna awarded a design contract of up to $427,003 to Wood Environment & Infrastructure Solutions on July 6, 2020.
A survey of the site subsequently began in July 2020, and a citizen meeting was held on Dec. 15 to present and discuss concept plan design.
Following the Vienna Town Council’s vote on Monday, the county still needs to approve the new funding agreement before the project design is finalized and built.
“We’re probably talking at least 18 months from now to have something installed, implemented, between design and starting construction,” Gallagher said.
