Less than an hour after the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved unanimously a measure to take control over all water services in the county, trampling on the jurisdictional prerogatives of its neighbors, the City of Falls Church Public Information Office issued the following set of quotes from the Falls Church Mayor, Vice Mayor and a member of the City’s Public Utilities Commission:

Mayor Nader Baroukh — The City of Falls Church asked that the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors defer action on this ordinance, to allow time to respond to our serious concerns and create a new path. That alternate path is a mutually beneficial outcome that ensures the safety and reliability of the City water system and reflects the value of that system. Instead, the Board chose to rush to enact an ordinance that is anticompetitive and not in the best interests of our County water customers.

Vice Mayor David Snyder — Over the years, the City of Falls Church has taken on significant risk so that Seven Corners, McLean, Merrifield, and Tysons Corner-the economic engine of the County-could develop. The City has provided reliable and safe water at rates that are below the average for the region. Today’s action by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors is a blow to regional cooperation.

Councilman Lawrence Webb, member of the Council’s Public Utilities Commission — It is unfortunate that the County Board rushed to enact this ordinance today. The effect of the new regulations will be to: increase water costs for County residents; create an expensive new County bureaucracy; invite litigation; and force County developers to construct new water mains that overlap the existing system in order to hook-up to Fairfax Water, an enormous unnecessary cost that could stop the exciting Tysons and Merrifield redevelopment effort in its tracks.