All four incumbents won handily in Tuesday’s City of Falls Church City Council and School Board elections and their success was touted as a “vote of confidence” for the direction they and their colleagues have taken the City in the last four or more years. Accomplishments include applying a voter-approved all-time record $126 million school bond at a record low interest rate offered due to the City’s AAA bond rating, undertaking an all-new state of the art high school and major improvements to the City Hall and library.
Tuesday’s election saw Mayor David Tarter and incumbent Council members Letty Hardi and Phil Duncan re-elected with comfortable margins and Phil Reitinger and school parent activists Laura Downs and Susan Dimock landslide winners for the School Board.
Liveliest were the after-election parties at Clare and Don’s Beach Shack , hosted by Hardi, who won a second term with the highest vote total among all the candidates in both races, at 3,425, and at Liberty Barbecue, hosted by Downs, winning for the first time with the most votes for her race at 3,380.
Most of the Hardi clan was holding forth at Clare & Don’s, joined by victorious candidates Duncan and State Del. Marcus Simon, who won unopposed in his bid for another two years. Vice Mayor Marybeth Connelly made it to both the Hardi and Downs parties, noting that both highest vote tallies were achieved by women. It was F.C. Treasurer Jody Acosta, present at the Hardi party, however, who was the first to declare the “Year of the Woman” in response to the Hardi and Downs wins.
Hardi told the News-Press Tuesday night that she was “very pleased we were able to get our message out” and that “voters like the direction of the City for the last four years.” She added, “Now we need to get back to work.”
Downs told the News-Press that, in particular, she was very happy with all the candidates who won Tuesday.
F.C. Planning Commissioner Tim Stevens, among the celebrants at the Hardi party, said, “We’ve returned a winning team tonight.”
