Officers with the Fairfax County Police Department have been deployed to Washington, D.C., as part of a region-wide emergency response to far-right extremists who have stormed the U.S. Capitol, Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay’s office confirmed to Tysons Reporter.

Fairfax County has also opened its emergency operations center to Virginia State Police.

Earlier this week, McKay advised county residents to avoid visiting downtown D.C. as several right-wing groups planned to hold demonstrations to protest Congress’ scheduled certification of the November 2019 general election results.

Fairfax County police previously said they did not anticipate needing to assist D.C. authorities in managing the demonstrations. Like other law enforcement agencies in the D.C. region, the county has a mutual aid agreement in place for situations where additional help may be needed.

McKay’s full statement is below:

What is happening in Washington D.C. right now is nothing short of a coup. This is a dark day in American democracy and I am personally sad and angry. I’m hopeful residents of the county heeded our advice to stay home today.

We have deployed members of our police department and opened our emergency oerpations center ot Virginia State Police. Let us pray for their safety as well as the safety of the innocent people impacted. Our democracy will not be destroyed by violent, lawless mobs.

I’m in constant communication with County officials to ensure we provide as much help as possible and also protect our communities in Fairfax.

Photo via Sherry Xu on Unsplash

Fairfax County Public Schools is moving forward with plans to expand James Madison High School.

An addition project for the Vienna-based school will be introduced as new business at the Fairfax County School Board’s meeting on Thursday, setting the stage for Fairfax County Public Schools to solicit bids for a construction contractor.

Intended to accommodate increasing enrollment, the addition will give Madison approximately 32,000 square feet of new space by augmenting the front of the school with a third floor and expanding the second floor at the back of the school.

On top of enhancing the building’s capacity, the addition will provide expanded cafeteria space and new library and technology learning spaces, according to Hunter Mill District School Board Representative Melanie Meren.

The project carries an estimated cost of $23.5 million that covers design, permitting, and construction. The funds come from school bonds that Fairfax County voters approved in 2017 and 2019.

“Fairfax County taxpayers want students to have modern and meaningful learning experiences,” Meren said. “…It is only through voter-approved bonds that FCPS can fund renovations and construction. I’m grateful to Fairfax County voters for investing in our public schools.”

Last renovated in 2005, Madison is designed to accommodate 2,115 students, according to the proposed FY 2022-2026 Capital Improvement Program. FCPS anticipates that the addition will expand its capacity to 2,500 students.

The school reached capacity during the 2015-2016 school year, and it now has 2,217 students.

Enrollment this year dipped slightly from the 2,272 students who attended during the 2019-2020 school year, when the school was at 108% capacity. Capacity utilization numbers for the 2020-2021 school year are unavailable since the COVID-19 pandemic has largely kept students at home.

FCPS is scheduled to open a bid for construction on the addition project on Jan. 21, and the school board will vote on the award when it meets on Feb. 4.

According to FCPS Facilities Planning Coordinator Jessica Gillis, the winning contractor will arrive on-site to start work this spring, and construction is expected to be complete by the end of 2022.

Photo via Google Maps

After a few months of delays, Island Fin Poké Co., a fast-casual beach shack serving up Hawaiian-style poké, is slated to open in Falls Church on Jan. 18 to coincide with Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

The poké (pronounced “poh-kay”) restaurant at 7501 Leesburg Pike in Idylwood Plaza will be owned and operated by Bonita Bell and her husband Howard. Bell said in a press release that she is excited to offer jobs and a health-conscious concept to the community during these turbulent times.

“We are delighted and grateful to open up this business at this time in our vibrant community,” Bell said. “The continuing restrictions due to the pandemic will present challenges, but we are now more excited than ever to start the new year promoting positivity and healthy lifestyles.”

The Idylwood Plaza location was set to open in the fall, but was delayed until this month. The owners did not return Tysons Reporter’s request for comment on the delay before publication.

The restaurant will be open from 11 a.m.-9 p.m. every day, according to the chain’s website.

The husband-wife duo have also committed to opening an Island Fin Poké location in Vienna, targeted to open in 2022.

Bell, an African American entrepreneur, said she wants to encourage others to serve their communities on MLK Day. To promote the mindset that the occasion is “a day on, not a day off,” her Falls Church restaurant will donate 20% of its opening day sales to the nonprofit Food for Others.

“The past year has hit many people hard,” she said. “With so many jobs lost from restaurant closings, we are happy to provide job opportunities and to partner with Food for Others to support those who are struggling in our community.”

Like the overall restaurant industry, the pandemic has posed challenges to Island Fin Poké, but the Florida-based fast-casual chain is poised to continue growing, co-founder Mark Setterington said in a statement.

The Falls Church location is Island Fin Poké’s first in Virginia, increasing the chain’s presence in the greater Washington, D.C., area after it opened an outpost in Bowie, Md., last year.

“The DMV area is somewhere we are really excited to grow in,” Setterington said.

He described Bonita  as “the perfect addition to our ohana, as she reflects our mission to bring guests high-quality poke in an immersive and welcoming environment. For us, ohana is a way of life, and we want every guest that walks through our doors to know they are a part of the family.”

Photo courtesy Island Fin Poké Co. 

Fairfax County Public Schools students will not start returning to in-person learning next week as planned.

After getting an update on local COVID-19 trends last night (Tuesday), the Fairfax County School Board gave its support to FCPS Superintendent Scott Brabrand’s suggestion that the school system delay bringing students back into buildings until February at the earliest.

“We can take some of the feedback today…and take a pause right now and come back with some more information about vaccinations and a revised timeline with input from our principals and our teachers,” Brabrand said.

All students are currently learning virtually after a two-week winter break, but FCPS had hoped to restart in-person instruction for some students in special education and career and technical programs on Jan. 12.

Other students were scheduled to follow in phases over the next month, with the last group of middle and high school students starting hybrid in-person learning on Feb. 9.

However, with COVID-19 surging in Fairfax County and vaccines not yet rolling out to school employees, school board members, principals, and teachers’ unions expressed concern that it would be unsafe for both students and workers to restart in-person learning.

Virginia Department of Health data shows that Fairfax County has exceeded multiple thresholds established by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for determining the risk of COVID-19 transmission in schools.

As of today, the county is averaging 520.6 new cases per 100,000 people over the past 14 days, and the 14-day testing positivity rate is at 13%. The number of new cases per 100,000 people in the past week is up 26.2% compared with the previous week.

In addition, FCPS has recorded 649 COVID-19 cases among employees, students, and visitors since Sept. 8. Brabrand told the school board that there have been 20 outbreaks in school facilities, even though only 11,810 students and staff have participated in in-person instruction this school year.

The Fairfax County Federation of Teachers, which represents FCPS educators and staff, has pointed to those case rates as evidence that the school system has not adequately implemented mitigation measures like social distancing and face masks that would reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission.

“We are deeply concerned that FCPS is rushing to reopen schools while COVID-19 cases are surging like never before,” FCFT President Tina Williams said in a statement issued prior to last night’s school board meeting. “We all want nothing more than for students and staff to return to school for face-to-face instruction, but right now, it just is not safe.”

Brabrand told the school board that he will bring a presentation reevaluating how FCPS should proceed with its Return to School plan on Feb. 2.

Fairfax County is seeking public input on the characteristics, skills, and values it should prioritize in selecting its next police chief.

Conducted by the search firm Polihire, the community survey asks respondents to share their thoughts on the most important public safety issues facing the county, the police department’s relationship with the citizens it serves, and the experience and skills that they expect from a police chief.

Available in English and Spanish, the survey has been open since mid-December, but this Friday (Jan. 8) is the deadline for contributing. The county is encouraging all residents and businesses to participate.

The survey is part of a nationwide search that Fairfax County hired Polihire to conduct after current Police Chief Edwin Roessler Jr. announced on Nov. 5 that he will retire in February.

The community engagement portion of the search process will also include focus groups with key community organizations, according to the county.

Photo via FCPD

The Town of Vienna is about to lose an icon.

Amphora Restaurant will permanently close its doors on Jan. 12 after occupying 377 Maple Ave. for 44 years. Word of the impending closure started circulating on social media yesterday.

“It’s impossible to put into words what this place has meant to so many,” Amphora’s owners said in their announcement on Facebook. “With all of the support you’ve shown us over the years, we are beyond humbled to have contributed to our local restaurant and neighborhood community.”

Co-owner Maria Bilidas attributes the decision to close to the challenges of operating a restaurant under the limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Amphora Group will instead consolidate its operations and staff at the newer Amphora Diner Deluxe that it runs in Herndon, where it also has a bakery and catering business.

“We have our bakery up in Herndon. Our corporate offices are in Herndon,” Bilidas said. “Given the current situation and the fact that we don’t see things changing in 2021 any time soon, we felt it was the prudent business decision to consolidate all our operations at this point to our restaurant up in Herndon.”

Founded in 1977 by the Cholakis and Bilidas families, Amphora offers an eclectic, comfort food-oriented menu with more than 350 items, ranging from burgers and grilled cheese to Greek, Italian, and Mexican cuisine. The Vienna restaurant is also complemented by a bakery with cakes, pies, and other desserts.

With its 24/7 operating hours, including all-day breakfast, and congenial atmosphere, the seemingly permanent Maple Avenue fixture built up a reliable local customer base, becoming a go-to venue for families, couples on date nights, and students looking to hang out late into the night.

“We love Vienna,” Bilidas said. “We all grew up in Vienna, we went to high school in Vienna, we have a very strong symbolic relationship with the Town of Vienna.”

Bilidas says the owners all labored “for days and days” over whether to close Amphora Restaurant, but when they got an offer from someone looking to purchase the property, they determined that shutting down would be the best decision for the business and their employees.

Many of the workers at Amphora’s Vienna restaurant will move to the Herndon location, and the owners are encouraging patrons to visit the diner, which has essentially the same menu.

“It’s been a long run, and we’ve made so many connections and so many friends,” Bilidas said. “Some people have moved out to our other location out west as people have moved, and they’re now regulars at our restaurant up in Herndon…We really hope [our customers] come and visit us there.”

Photo via Google Maps

On Tuesday morning, the Fairfax County School Board approved a proposal to convert the Dunn Loring Administration Center into an elementary school.

All 10 board members who were present supported the measure. Two members were absent at the time of the vote.

The move is intended to relieve overcrowding at Shrevewood Elementary School in Falls Church and avoid the need to make multiple boundary adjustments.

“We want to limit the disruption to the community, and potentially facing several adjustments is not a path we want to go down,” Providence District Representative Karl Frisch told the board.

Fairfax County Public Schools staff support the plan but want to avoid setting a firm timeline to keep their focus on returning to school, he said. Once planning starts, a new school could be ready in five years.

“This is one of the first steps that needs to be done to deal with the development going on in that area,” Dranesville District Representative Elaine Tholen said.

Today, the Dunn Loring center houses some special education services and programs for parents, but it previously served as an elementary school from 1939 to 1978.

Converting it back will cost $36.8 million in school bond funds. The school board will be using funds that were earmarked for a new school in the Fairfax/Oakton area, which was intended to lessen overcrowding at Mosby Woods and Oakton elementary schools.

The student populations at those schools have since dropped below capacity, Frisch said. Meanwhile, Shrevewood is “bursting at the seams” and could reach 120% capacity by 2025.

The school was first identified as slightly overcrowded in 2012, and became substantially overcrowded in 2017, FCPS spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell said. Since 2012, the school has taken steps to ease crowding, such as adding space, trailers and more parking, she said.

Repurposing the Dunn Loring center is a more viable long-term solution than redrawing boundaries, Shrevewood Elementary PTA president Kate Coho told Tysons Reporter.

“Dunn Loring provides the long-term solution to the problem that’s only going to get worse in this immediate area, as we see housing continuing to go up,” she said.

At-large school board member Abrar Omeish said Shrevewood’s over-capacity is not as stark as schools like Glen Forest Elementary School, which has “more kids in trailers than in the building” and a 75% poverty rate.

“When people say that we focus more on schools that have more than the ones that don’t, I can’t refute that,” she said.

Hunter Mill Representative Melanie Meren said no solution will serve everyone, but this repurposing option is available now.

“I thought this would be a more straightforward conversation,” she said.

The Fairfax County School Board currently does not have any official policies dictating a public process for reallocating bond funds to different projects than the ones they were intended to support when approved by voters.

Frisch held two community meetings in December on the Dunn Loring repurposing proposal, one for the Shrevewood community and one for the Mosby Woods/Oakton area. However, the school board’s guidebook does not require those meetings or even a forum discussion for proposals to change how bond funds are allocated.

As part of the approval, the school board also directed its governance committee, which is chaired by Frisch, to look at developing a mechanism for a public process to ensure more clarity and transparency for future projects such as this one.

Fairfax County police will not send officers to D.C. to assist with the First Amendment demonstrations set to take place tomorrow, police department spokesperson Sergeant Greg Bedor confirmed to Reston Now, Tysons Reporter’s sister site.

The region is anticipating thousands of Trump supporters to descend on the region to protest Wednesday’s Congressional certification of the presidential election. Since November, the president has made numerous unproven claims that the election was stolen.

Over the last several weeks, he’s also repeatedly encouraged supporters via social media to protest on January 6. One such tweet in December said, “Be there, be wild.” He even said he would be there himself.

Previous rallies in November and December both ended in violence, particularly after sunset.

Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay issued a statement yesterday advising residents to avoid the downtown area and to not engage with people potentially looking to incite violence. Arlington County has also disencouraged residents from going to D.C. to counter-protest.

Fairfax County police, along with a number of other local jurisdictions, have traditionally had mutual aid agreements in place with D.C. police, in case situations arise where help is needed.

However, Bedor says that he does not expect FCPD to be called into D.C. tomorrow. “The [D.C.] Mayor has arranged for other support, so our understanding [is] that’s been covered,” he says.

That other support is a reference to the D.C. National Guard being activated to provide traffic control and crowd management.

Virginia has awarded the Town of Vienna close to $50,000 so that it can assist residents and businesses struggling to pay their water and sewer bills due to economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Vienna Town Council voted yesterday (Monday) to formally accept the $49,290 grant from a coronavirus relief fund that the Commonwealth of Virginia established using federal CARES Act money to help municipal utility customers experiencing economic hardship as a result of the ongoing pandemic.

The grant funds must specifically go toward overdue utility payments incurred between Mar. 1 and Dec. 30 of last year.

Town of Vienna Finance Director Marion Serfass told the council that the town has identified about 59,000 water and sewer customers who might be eligible to receive funds.

“We’re now going through the process of reaching out to customers and trying to get them to accept the funds, because we really want to give those funds away,” Serfass said.

The town sent out letters to individuals and businesses that meet the grant criteria. Staff members will also call customers to ensure all of the funds are distributed by the grant’s Jan. 29 deadline.

Vienna coordinated with Fairfax County to apply for the state grant in November.

The grant can cover up to 5% of the administrative expenses related to allocating the funds, but Serfass says the Town of Vienna will only need to use a fraction of that amount to cover postage costs.

In order to receive relief, customers must show that they are dealing with economic challenges because of the COVID-19 pandemic, whether it is because they have been laid off or lost hours, are unable to work because they have contracted or at a high risk of contracting the disease, or have to stay home to provide childcare.

Serfass says the process of contacting eligible residents and businesses has been “slow-going,” but she is confident that the town will be able to distribute all the grant funds in time.

For residents of Fairfax County and the cities of Falls Church and Fairfax, Fairfax Water has extended the application window for its COVID-19 municipal utilility relief program to Jan. 15. The deadline to apply for payment assistance was previously Dec. 30.

Photo by Pan Xiaozhen on Unsplash