News-Press Editorial

The Failure of The CBC

We are mortified by the fact that, for the first time in 20 years, the City of Falls Church ’s City Council election will be uncontested this May. In the previous nine consecutive elections, from 1988 to 2004, there has been lively competition for seats on the Council. This time, however, with decisions by Mayor Dan Gardner and Vice Mayor Marty Meserve not to run again, there will be no race. Unless someone decides to do an aggressive write-in campaign, the four candidates who qualified for the ballot last week for the four open slots on the Council will sleepwalk into office. It is doubly ironic this time because the City’s gravy train of enormous annual increases in real estate assessed values is officially over, as City Manager Dan McKeever pronounced with his recommended FY 06-07 budget this Monday, and its dependence on those revenue increases now presents it with the specter of a spiraling symbiotic decline in the quality of the schools and value of residential properties. If anything, the City needs a robust debate and competition for ideas on how to negotiate the coming period. But, as they say, when everyone thinks alike, no one thinks.

We can only conclude that the “system is broke” in Falls Church, and we are heartened by the timely decision of the Falls Church City Democratic Committee to address that, as reported on Page 1 of this edition. It’s too bad the long-standing dominant civic electoral organization, the Citizens for a Better City (CBC), has taken such an adversarial posture toward the FCCDC’s decision Tuesday to begin endorsing candidates in local City elections for the first time. It sounds from FCCDC chair Mike Gardner’s remarks that the CBC resorted to arrogance and bullying in an attempt to quash the FCCDC action.

This cannot be out of a desire for good government in Falls Church so much as a desire to continue dominating the political landscape as the CBC has for so long. But the CBC was unable to perform its core political function this year, which is to offer a nominating convention to the citizenry where it can choose the best candidates for Council. There was no choice this year. The CBC barely found the four candidates that were nominated by acclamation at its convention, while its looming influence over the whole political process in town deterred anyone else from challenging it. Until, that is, the FCCDC stepped up.

Worse than the intimidation exhibited by the CBC against the FCCDC’s plans that Mike Gardner reports, however, are the reports that CBC bosses worked hard to dissuade prospective school board candidates it did not nominate from running, even though that would have led to no competition in that race, as well. There are many in the CBC who think it’s hunky-dory that there’s no real election this May. We say that anyone who harbors such sentiments should be unelected for that reason, alone, if for no other. The CBC failed in 2006, and it’s time to move to another electoral model in Falls Church . We are mortified by the fact that, for the first time in 20 years, the City of Falls Church ’s City Council election will be uncontested this May. In the previous nine consecutive elections, from 1988 to 2004, there has been lively competition for seats on the Council. This time, however, with decisions by Mayor Dan Gardner and Vice Mayor Marty Meserve not to run again, there will be no race. Unless someone decides to do an aggressive write-in campaign, the four candidates who qualified for the ballot last week for the four open slots on the Council will sleepwalk into office. It is doubly ironic this time because the City’s gravy train of enormous annual increases in real estate assessed values is officially over, as City Manager Dan McKeever pronounced with his recommended FY 06-07 budget this Monday, and its dependence on those revenue increases now presents it with the specter of a spiraling symbiotic decline in the quality of the schools and value of residential properties. If anything, the City needs a robust debate and competition for ideas on how to negotiate the coming period. But, as they say, when everyone thinks alike, no one thinks.

We can only conclude that the “system is broke” in Falls Church, and we are heartened by the timely decision of the Falls Church City Democratic Committee to address that, as reported on Page 1 of this edition. It’s too bad the long-standing dominant civic electoral organization, the Citizens for a Better City (CBC), has taken such an adversarial posture toward the FCCDC’s decision Tuesday to begin endorsing candidates in local City elections for the first time. It sounds from FCCDC chair Mike Gardner’s remarks that the CBC resorted to arrogance and bullying in an attempt to quash the FCCDC action.

This cannot be out of a desire for good government in Falls Church so much as a desire to continue dominating the political landscape as the CBC has for so long. But the CBC was unable to perform its core political function this year, which is to offer a nominating convention to the citizenry where it can choose the best candidates for Council. There was no choice this year. The CBC barely found the four candidates that were nominated by acclamation at its convention, while its looming influence over the whole political process in town deterred anyone else from challenging it. Until, that is, the FCCDC stepped up.

Worse than the intimidation exhibited by the CBC against the FCCDC’s plans that Mike Gardner reports, however, are the reports that CBC bosses worked hard to dissuade prospective school board candidates it did not nominate from running, even though that would have led to no competition in that race, as well. There are many in the CBC who think it’s hunky-dory that there’s no real election this May. We say that anyone who harbors such sentiments should be unelected for that reason, alone, if for no other. The CBC failed in 2006, and it’s time to move to another electoral model in Falls Church .

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