With summer nearing an end and days getting shorter, a new art exhibit in Vienna is focusing on shadows.

Titled “Shadows,” the exhibit opened earlier this week at the Vienna Arts Center (243 Church Street NW, Suite 100 LL).

Lu Cousins, the director of the Vienna Arts Society, told Tysons Reporter that the exhibit will run through October.

Artist Bob Magneson is set to come to a meeting next Thursday (Sept. 12) to demonstrate his application techniques for Impressionistic and post-Impressionistic paintings.

Events at the center are free and open to the public.

The art center is open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday.

Image courtesy Vienna Arts Society

After months of waiting, pedestrians and drivers can expect two McLean roads severely damaged by flash flooding in July now to reopen this fall.

The 1300 block of Kirby Road and Swinks Mill Road by Scott’s Run have been closed since the July 8 storm. The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has said that it will take months to repair the damage.

In a newsletter to residents, Dranesville District Supervisor John Foust said that VDOT plans to complete repairs to Swinks Mill Road by the end of this month and Kirby Road by late November.

“VDOT is working on both roads concurrently and has committed to aggressive schedules for completing the repairs on each road,” Foust wrote in the newsletter.

VDOT is looking to secure an emergency contract for bridge and road repair at Kirby Road.

More from the newsletter:

Kirby Road has been cleared of debris, and temporary repairs to the bridge and roadway have been completed to make travel safe for local residents until the permanent repairs can be completed. However, the road is not open to through traffic. Safety and structural assessments have been completed, as have boundary and topographic surveys, which are being used to plan the repairs. Identification of types and locations of utilities have been completed, and utility repairs are planned.

The design has been finalized for a contractor bid, with the contract expected to be awarded by mid-September. Completion of the roadway and bridge repairs is expected by late November, with the roadway being completed first in order to maintain access to homes, and the bridge repairs being completed after.

Swinks Mill Road has been cleared of debris and been made safe for travel for local residents and emergency responders, but the Swinks Mill bridge was and remains closed. Safety and structural assessments, as well as boundary and topographic surveys, are being used to develop plans for the repairs. The bridge design has been finalized. VDOT state crews began making the permanent repairs on August 9. Construction is expected to be completed by the end of September.

Kirby and Swinks Mill roads weren’t the only local ones damaged — VDOT has said that “extensive repairs” were made to 12 McLean-area roads right after the storm.

Firefighters have extinguished a dump truck fire that broke out this afternoon by the Nouvelle Apartments in Tysons.

Fairfax County Fire and Rescue said they were on scene at Westpark and Jones Branch drives around 12:25 p.m., according to a tweet. The truck was by the construction site for the Monarch, a 20-story condominium tower northeast of Tysons Galleria.

One reader sent a video to Tysons Reporter showing the front part of the truck in flames and firefighters hosing the truck down.

The fire department tweeted that people can “expect delays in the area.”

Units currently on scene of a dump truck fire on Westpark Drive and Jones Branch Drive in the Tysons area. Fire has been extinguished. Expect delays in area. #FCFRD #FairfaxCounty #traffic pic.twitter.com/Bh5pj4srGz

— Fairfax County Fire/Rescue (@ffxfirerescue) September 5, 2019

Image courtesy MBA

Some attendees at a meeting about a multi-year road project that recently kicked off in the Vienna area said they are worried about traffic impacts.

The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) is currently working on its Transform 66 project, which includes construction near the Vienna/Fairfax-GMU Metro station.

Rich Clifton, the project’s design engineer from FAM Consulting LLC, provided attendees with a construction update at a meeting yesterday (Sept. 4) at the Providence Community Center. Every seat was filled for the presentation at 7 p.m., with dozens of people standing in the back.

Starting today (Sept. 5), the ramp from Saintsbury Drive to eastbound I-66 will be permanently closed.

The ramp will temporarily reopen for buses during the weekday from October 2019 to September 2020 while another road construction project is underway. Clifton strongly urged non-bus drivers to stay off of the ramp.

“The ramp can’t handle the volume of traffic if it was open to the general public,” Clifton. “There are 19 bus routes that go over Vaden.”

Along I-66, the barrier between the collector-distributor (CD) road and eastbound I-66 will be removed and access to I-66 from the CD road and Nutley Street will shift east of Vaden Drive.

On westbound I-66, the lanes will shift, along with the CD road. Clifton said that the exit ramp to Country Creek Drive will remain open.

Starting in October, the bridge at Vaden Drive will close for demolition and construction of a new bridge — a process that will take about a year, Clifton said.

“We’ll try to stay out of Nutley while we work on Vaden bridge,” Clifton said.

While the bridge is closed, drivers will have 2-mile-long detours to follow. A modification of traffic flow at the Nutley Street intersection and Saintsbury Drive will accommodate the detour, Clifton said.

Some attendees at the meeting said that they expect drivers to head west instead of following the detour, possibly clogging up local roads. Clifton said that posted signs about the detours are meant to encourage drivers to take detour routes, but that there is no guarantee that drivers won’t come up with their own directions.

For pedestrians, a shorter detour will allow them to use the bridge at the Vienna/Fairfax-GMU Metro station, which will stay open all day and night. Clifton said that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) will be able to close off the station, while keeping the gates open for the bridge.

In about six months, work will start on Chain Bridge Road (Route 123) to relocate utilities and to construct bridges, ramps and new box culverts for a future path.

A temporary traffic pattern change will allow for the construction of new ramps:

• westbound I-66 and northbound Route 123
• westbound I-66 and southbound Route 123
• eastbound I-66 and northbound Route 123
• southbound Route 123 and eastbound I-66

There will also be four new traffic signals in that area.

Once all of that work is finished, construction will start on the Nutley Street and I-66 interchange.

While a diverging diamond design was proposed a few years ago, Clifton said that the interchange will instead have a double roundabout.

That work is slated to finish up in the early part of 2022.

After several questions about traffic for each portion of the project, Clifton told attendees to check out the traffic impacts online.

Maps via VDOT

School is back in session, and a local McDonald’s is hosting a fundraiser for public education.

The McDonald’s at 3009 Galls Road is donating 5% of their profits to charity now until Friday (Sept. 13). Each day — with the exception of the weekend and Monday — the proceeds will benefit a different school in the area.

The store will also offer students free ice cream cones from 3-5 p.m.

Community members can come to support specific schools on the days shown below.

• Wednesday (Sept. 4) — Camelot Elementary School
• Thursday (Sept. 5) — Stenwood Elementary School
• Friday (Sept. 6) — Fairhill Elementary School
• Tuesday (Sept. 10) — Pine Spring Elementary School
• Wednesday (Sept. 11) — Woodburn Elementary School
• Thursday (Sept. 12) — Jackson Middle School
• Friday (Sept. 13) — Falls Church High School

“As owners of the restaurant and members of the community, we wish to honor the schools in our market area to celebrate,” a press release said, adding that the owner wants to use this event as an opportunity to celebrate the location’s recently remodeled building.

Photo via Moving Merrifield Forward

The Food for Others annual 5K is set to take place this upcoming Saturday (Sept. 7).

The race will feature a fun run and prizes for participants while also benefiting local community members who cannot afford basic groceries, Alison Padget, a Food for Others spokesperson, said.

The race registration will begin at 8 a.m. at the Tysons Corner Center, just outside the L.L.Bean outlet. Tickets can be purchased online for $35 through Sept. 5 or $40 on the day of the event. 

Special guests will speak at the event, including Dranesville District Supervisor John Foust, Padget said.

“People think of it as being wealthy areas,” she said. “But, there is something like 50,00 people [who] are food insecure.” 

As the sixth annual event, Padget added that she typically sees around 400 participants manage to raise around a $45,000 net profit for donation. For comparison, $35 will supply 15 families with eggs and milk.

According to the Food for Others website, the organization is part of Northern Virginia’s “safety net” for low-income families. They work with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, local grocers and food drives to supply extra food for those in need.

Photo via Food for Others

A husband and wife team have opened a business franchise that cleans and does maintenance on homes in the Tysons area.

Carmen Hendricks and Chad Akers, who both have backgrounds in real estate, decided to join the TruBlue Total House Care franchise after looking for affordable home care in the area, according to a press release.

“There was definitely a need for a holistic, reasonably-priced approach to exterior and interior home maintenance in this area that could help seniors stay in their homes longer and be great for busy professionals, like ourselves, who want to spend less time working on their own homes and more time with family and friends,” Hendricks said.

TruBlue Total House Care of Vienna provides handyman, maid, lawn and seasonal services in Vienna, Oakton, Tysons, McLean, Great Falls, Falls Church and Dunn Loring.

The business offers a monthly maintenance program, along with services to homeowners, realtors and rental property owners who need help with moving maintenance and commercial services for business clients.

“We both love this area, but have never felt like we’ve gotten to know the community or the people who live here, other than those we have met through work,” she said. “We want to be the neighbor you can trust with all of your house care needs.”

Photo courtesy TruBlue Total House Care of Vienna

A Tysons-based company aims to keep companies and government agencies secure by curtailing and catching employees’ risky behavior.

ClearForce offers a customizable employee risk management platform for private and public sector organizations. Started in 2015, the company is located at 8000 Towers Crescent Drive, Suite 1525.

CEO Tom Miller told Tysons Reporter that the company has an ideal headquarters because of “the level of talent and expertise with not only national security but also with analytics” in the Tysons area.

“This may be the perfect location to start a company that is focused on security,” he said.

While Miller declined to say how many clients ClearForce has, he said “some” are located in the Tysons area.

The platform continually monitors employees’ activities inside and outside of their organizations. Information can come from peer reports, arrest records and complaints, Miller said.

On the front end, the portable platform helps organizations discover risky behavior — from a physical risk like working with kids or an information access risk — by providing real-time alerts for high-risk behavior, Miller said.

Miller pointed to two main “red flags” for risky behavior that ClearForce has seen over and over again — patterns of low-level criminal activity and disengagement.

“Everybody hires individuals they trust, but over time, things happen,” Miller said, adding that “life events” can lead employees to feel disengaged at work.

How does ClearForce flag disengagement? Miller said that peer complaints, reports about bullying and harassment, complaints from outside of the organization, whistleblower reports and reports of criminal activity tied to an individual can indicate an issue.

While some places have self-reporting policies, Miller said that “doesn’t happen often, especially when it puts the job at risk.”

Usually, each organization will assign people from the legal, security and human resources divisions to have access to the information ClearForce collects about the employees. Meanwhile, employees who use the platform can access a portal where they can submit self-reports and peer reports.

“It’s not designed to be a punitive system,” he said, stressing that the information in the platform can encourage preemptive actions, like counseling and wellness programs. “It’s not designed to replaced HR.”

The platform works slightly differently for each organization. It is tailored to match organizations’ policies and level of scrutiny needed for different employees, contractors, volunteers — anyone associated with each place.

For example, Miller said that driving under the influence charges may be more important for ClearForce to monitor for employees who drive than ones who don’t.

Companies only doing background checks before hiring employees or rechecking could miss negative information about employees, Miller said.

“Static point-in-time behavioral checks are outdated today,” Miller said, adding that most organizations do a pre-hire check and then an annual check.

“The difference between rechecking and continually evaluating is you’re exposing yourself to gaps,” he said.

The subscription fee for the platform depends on the number of the employees in the system from each organization interested in using it.

“Every employee wants to work in a safe and secure workplace,” Miller said.

Image via Google Maps

Tired of underpaid jobs and inconvenient hours, three entrepreneurial McLean teens decided to start their own company.

Their new company, TeenServ, aims to solve teenage unemployment with a platform that matches students and community members who need short-term assistance with various tasks. Website users can pick-up shifts wherever and whenever they want, making it convenient for hectic schedules.

Around a year ago, Jack Lannin, Quin Frew and another McLean teen were walking home together from the local pool where they worked as lifeguards, upset that they received a significant pay cut when they came up with the idea for TeenServ.

Lannin told Tysons Reporter that pay change “almost cut their salary in half,” and they wanted to find another job but there were few options.

“Aside from getting a real job, reffing sports or yard work, there isn’t really a good way to make money,” Lannin said, adding that even becoming a referee requires a significant startup cost for teens — around $70 — to pay for training and a uniform.

They started out by going door-to-door and asking community members if they would pay teens fair wages for short-term yardwork. Soon enough, they began gathering opportunities.

“For teens, it’s really intimidating going door-to-door,” Lannin said. “But for us, it wasn’t a big deal.”

With help from an entrepreneurship class at McLean High School and feedback from peers, the students were able to turn their idea into a reality. Currently, they said they are learning as they go, thanks to guidance from their class and feedback from customers.

So far, the website has employed more than 200 teens, according to Lannin.

The third founder, whom Tysons Reporter wasn’t able to receive parental permission to publish their name, said one of his friends has made more than $1,500 so far by taking on random jobs and managed to build a rapport with homeowners who request him for all their upcoming tasks.

TeenServ pays students up to $18 per hour — well above Virginia’s minimum wage of $7.25.

The boys say the platform is mutually beneficial for community members and teens. The community members enjoy working with teens because it gives them an opportunity to interact with someone they otherwise wouldn’t, and teens feel like they are giving back to the community, they said.

If the customers are unsatisfied with the work, the three founders will come back to finish the job free of charge. The founders said they only had to take a customer up on this once or twice so far.

“For the future, we really want to start with McLean and expand as large as possible thought the area,” the third founder said.

Photo Courtesy TeenServ