The City of Falls Church has initiated a public relations offensive in the wake of a spate of lawsuits seeking refunds for its water fees. Today, the City placed a major document on its website spelling out the advantages and services provided by the Falls Church Water System to its over 120,000 customers, including the fact that the City has the fourth-lowest water rate among 17 jurisdictions in the region. City Manager Wyatt Shields amplified the offensive with a 30-minute interview on Falls Church News-Press Live, carried live on Falls Church Cable TV tonight.

Shields noted that despite the City’s legal difficulties stemming from a ruling by a Fairfax County Circuit Court judge that it could not take a reasonable “return on investment” for the operations of its water system, that the City has not lost a single customer in its traditional area of service in Fairfax County, and that its system’s advantage of an established infrastructure means that it can offer water “hook up” fees to new large scale developments in the County at rates as much as $2 million less than the county’s water system charges.