We've Come A Long Way

Last Saturday morning, it was cool, crisp and windy in the City of Falls Church. But there wasn't a cloud in a sky that was clear blue.

City Council and School Board candidates endorsed by the Citizens for a Better City staged a kick-off rally for their campaigns leading to the May 4 municipal election that morning. They chose the parking area in front of the recently-closed Red Lobster on the idea it would have symbolic value. After all, the property upon which they stood had only recently been approved by the CBC-endorsed incumbents on the Council for a brand new, large scale mixed-use development project that promises to bring abundant new tax revenues to the City.

It is common practice at such events to take pictures from a variety of angles, including from behind the speaker's podium looking out at the crowd. Looking through the camera lens, this editor saw what struck him at first like a vision. Rising behind the three dozen mostly familiar faces of veteran community activists, beneath the clear, steel-blue sky, was the magnificently handsome now near-completed facade of the City's first new large mixed use project, The Broadway. It surprised me, and I don't think most of the people at the rally appreciated that it loomed behind them that way. The powerful sight (the photo is on Page 1 of this edition) made a profound impact on this editor and triggered a swift sequence of memories dating to the founding of the News-Press 13 years ago this month.

It brought back the many editorials in the News-Press in the earliest days of the paper crusading for economic development in the City of Falls Church, although never as an end in itself. It was always advocated as a means to ensure the necessary resources would always be there for the City's excellent schools. It was always for the kids. Those were days of pitched battles and 4-3 City Council votes over whether or not to cut the school budget, and in this editorial space this newspaper remained outspoken and resolute in its core commitment throughout. This editor also worked arduously in the Chamber of Commerce to meld what was being seen as sharply contradictory interests – those of the business community and the school community – into a shared, common one. It was a major cultural shock, and a sea-change in the process, when that effort led to the Chamber's board of directors declaring its support of full funding for the school budget in 1995.

Last Saturday, the backdrop to citizens passionately committed to Falls Church's future was a large and majestic new building framed by a clear blue sky. It's perhaps ironic that this was the unintended but best "photo opportunity" at that political rally. It was especially poignant given that the City is now set to begin construction of a new middle school, even as it awaits groundbreakings on even more larger mixed use projects and a new city center. Yes, we've come a long way, baby.