Falls Church’s newly-elected mayor, Nader Baroukh, issued a letter Tuesday declining an invitation to join a list of prominent Virginians congratulating the Falls Church News-Press on the publication of its 1,000th weekly edition this week.

On the list are both of Virginia’s sitting U.S. senators, a former Virginia governor, two area U.S. Congressmen and three state legislators, as well as six former Falls Church mayors whose service on the F.C. City Council date back to the founding of the News-Press in 1991. In his letter Baroukh said, “As an elected official I should not be in the business of congratulating the media on what it does or does not do.”