On the eve of yet another objectively important but sadly, by the public’s impression, under-appreciated election, we trust that one factor will continue to hold true – namely, that the electorate in the City of Falls Church will deliver the highest voter turnout, as a percentage of total registered voters, in Virginia.

This statistic over time, when combined with other variables, such as the fact the City has the highest household income in the entire U.S. and a higher percentage of persons with college and higher degrees than any jurisdiction in the land, serves to convince us that smart, well-heeled and motivated voters will produce for themselves the best government of all possible governments.

Indeed, in this newspaper’s election watching and reporting in Falls Church going back almost a quarter century, we’ve never experienced inferiority or slack in the City’s elected officials, even though many were at odds with one another and there were some bitter clashes (always making for interesting headlines).

We say this now not because we’re in a generous mood or eager to curry the favor of anyone in particular, but because there periodically arises in the City people who are unhappy with how things are going, and who blame their unhappiness on some dark, indistinct notion of corruption and ill doing in our government. There is a pack of such persons now who, when they began airing out their vague distrusts at a town hall meeting last week, were properly labeled purveyors of “paranoia” by the event’s moderator.

This took on a quasi-comic, quasi-bizarre tone late in this Monday’s City Council meeting when one such unhappy person wound up crossing the forefingers of his two hands and thrusting them at the Council as if he was trying to ward off the furies of evil. Perhaps intended as a joke, it got slightly out of hand.

Why do such things arise? It happens when discontented persons simply can’t find credible arguments against what the City is seeking to do. So they plumb the depths of nefarious innuendo, often as with one candidate on the ballot here locally, attributing to the wrong office at City Hall (the one he is seeking) alleged shortcomings it has nothing to do with.
These sentiments have become the essence of opposition to two ballot items that we strongly endorse, in the spirit of the ongoing tradition of good government in the City: namely, the election of Jody Acosta as the City treasurer and the passage of the Mt. Daniel School bond referendum.

Other persons on the ballot are subject to the much bigger realm of national U.S. Senate and House elections, and we are confident that despite all the big, anonymous dollars that went to fuel opposition to the re-election of Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Warner that he and the Hon. Don Beyer as our 8th District congressman will be handily elected, not only in Falls Church, but throughout their respective realms.