Gloves Come Off, F.C. Council Candidates In Bare Knuckled Slugfest for May 4 Votes

With still 10 days to go before the May 4 election, the race among six candidates for three seats on the Falls Church City Council it turning into one of the most rancorous campaigns in memory.

While the candidates were civil toward one another in person at Tuesday's luncheon of the Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce, their printed literature, including ads published in the News-Press, come as gloves-off scathing attacks.

The Citizens for a Better City, which is backing two incumbents seeking re-election to the Council, has large ads in this edition of the News-Press accusing two independent challengers of "vilifying residents" and using "irresponsible gimmicks" to introduce "bad facts" and advocate "bad policy."

Independent challenger Greg Brown fires back in a full-page ad of his own this week, calling it "A four-square indictment of CBC policies," focusing on a claim that 1,000 condos will arise in downtown and alleging Council "giveaways" to developers.

The CBC is backing incumbents Lindy Hockenberry and Robin Gardner and newcomer David Chavern, faced off against independents Brown, Lou Mauro and Joseph Bodmer.

The candidates are all invited to appear at a forum sponsored by the Falls Church League of Women Voters tonight at the Council chambers of City Hall in Falls Church at 7:30 p.m. They will also gather for a roundtable at the offices of the News-Press Saturday morning at 10 a.m.

A Falls Church League of Women Voters Guide with published responses of candidates to questions in City issues appears in this edition of the News-Press.

Clearly, the sharpest issue in the campaign centers on the three mixed use projects that the current Council, with the support of the two incumbents seeking reelection, approved in the recent period. The Broadway, which received final Council approval on Sept. 10, 2001, held its Grand Opening last Friday night. It will soon be open to residents of all 78 of its condominium units, while one ground floor retailer, Hollywood Video, is already open for business.

Two other mixed use projects were approved earlier this year: The Byron, to go on the current site of the Red Lobster, and The Spectrum, to go on the open space adjacent the so-called Panera Bread building in the 400 block of West Broad.

Further, another proposal for a similar project will be forthcoming soon on the site of the duckpin bowling alley on S. Maple St., and the City Center redevelopment project is now in its final stages of negotiation between City officials and the Akridge Company.

To the current Council majority and the CBC candidates, these projects represent a breakthrough in the City's years' long effort to bring new development, and with it new tax dollars, to the City. The three projects already approved will bring up to $2 million a year in new tax revenue to Falls Church, relieving the burden on current residential taxpayers to pay for vital City services and the schools.

But the opponents of the CBC candidates are critical of the developments, warning that they will result in added traffic congestion and will result in a burdening of the schools with more students. They contend that the Council should hold out for more commercial projects in its commercially-zoned areas, rather than mixed use with a ratio favoring residential.

The average 25% increase in assessments of all real property in Falls Church this spring is also a bone of contention in the campaign.

While the incumbents seeking re-election and backed by the CBC have spearheaded the efforts on the Council to lower the tax rate to mitigate the impact of the assessment rise, the challengers contend that there should be an independent blue ribbon panel appointed to investigate how the new assessments were done.

Mauro proposed such a panel at Tuesday's Chamber of Commerce luncheon, a plan that was favorably received by the other two challengers. However, it was noted by the CBC candidates that the Board of Equalization already exists as an appointed body of independent, qualified citizens to review citizen concern for assessments, and that despite the re-assessment of the entire City this spring, there have been only 28 appeals, so far.

At Tuesday's luncheon, Brown called for more commercially-generated taxes to pay for City services. However, Gardner retorted that the key is not whether the taxes are commercially generated, but whether new mixed use development produces more revenue than simply commercial.

An economic model developed by the City showed that the three mixed use projects approved by the current Council represent "the highest and best use" from a tax generation standpoint of the properties in question. "They will bring in far more revenue than the all-commercial building earlier proposed for the 444 W. Broad site," it was pointed out.

Brown conceded that while the Greer Report indicated that a small number of new children might come into the system by residing at the new developments, the majority of new students will come from older persons moving out of single detached homes in the City and selling them to young families.

He said that "even one more floor" of commercial use in the currently-approved projects would have produced the kind of result he said he was looking for.

But Hockenberry, a CBC-backed incumbent, stressed the net $2 million annually in new tax revenues to the City that the three projects will generate, along with $3.4 million in up-front proffers. "We have to continue the progress we are making," she said. "After years of unplanned development resulting in strip malls, drug stores and fact food places, we are finally getting the kind of development that is good for all of us," she said. "I am looking to four more years of late-night meetings."

Mauro said his call for a panel to review assessments is "based on perceived inequities and imbalances woefully out of line with market values." He said he's "not anti-development," but "anti the kind of ratios of residential to commercial in the current projects."

Bodmer said, "We must embrace change or change will happen to us. We need more diversity and discourse on the City Council and not just carry on the current course."

Gardner said she stands for "smart mixed use growth to generate revenues, create a sense of place and a walkable city, strong schools, community involvement, ethics on the Council and open space."

Chavern said he supports the "good, correct choices" the current Council has made on development.