1 Down, 2 Weeks to Go; Almost 350 Voted So Far

With voting now underway and Election Day just a month off, candidates vying for three seats (out of seven) on the Falls Church City Council held their first face-to-face public encounter of the season last Thursday in the Senior Center room at the Falls Church Community Center that was uncommonly well attended.

This is due to the fact that the Council election is the only seriously contested race on the ballot in the City of Falls Church this fall. The three open seats are being fought over by four candidates, and the two-year-long battle over revisions to the City’s transitional areas zoning rules has heightened the competition.

That issue, per se, having been determined by a 5-2 vote of the whole City Council last week, more or less erased it as an explicit issue for this fall.

But remnants of its frequent acrimony have spilled over to some other issues that the four candidates spoke to at the forum last week.

1st F.C. Council Election Debate Held

The City’s chapter of the League of Women Voters (LWV), principle leaders of which have hardly been silent during the t-zones fight, hosted the event, along with leaders of the Village Preservation and Improvement Society (VPIS).

Key LWV and VPIS members sided with the opposition to the t-zone changes that lost in the Council vote last week, whose candidacy is represented by one of the three candidates running, newcomer Erin Flynn running for the first time. At the event, Flynn touted her Falls Church bonafides by way of references to her husband, former 1990s Meridian High track and tennis play er Charlie Lord.

On the other side of that issue, in favor of more diversity and afford ability in housing in the City, are three candidates, including the only incumbent in the race, the popular Letty Hardi, seeking a third four-year term, and first-time Council candidates Tim Stevens, current chair of the Planning Commission, and Justine Underhill, an active member of the City’s Housing Commission.

While Flynn has the backing of the VPIS, the other three are all backed by the newer civic activist organization, Falls Church Forward.

With the t-zone issue decided for now, it can be expected that another affordable housing issue will soon take center stage early next year, and that will be a potentially-even more controversial issue of incentives for so-called “accessory dwelling units,” also known by more colorful names like “granny flats,” small units allowed in the backyards of existing single family homes in the 200-300 square foot range that can be rented out or used to house family members.

According to the Falls Church Voter Registrar office, already over 340 citizens have cast their ballots either by mail or at the registrar’s office.

There are upcoming candidate forum nights in the next weeks, The Citizens for a Better City will host a forum for the candidates running for the F.C. School Board next Wednesday, Oct. 11 on the Learning Stairs at Meridian High School, mod erated by former School Board chair Erin Gill, at 7 p.m. The three candidates for the three contested seats expected to participate are Jerrod Anderson, Bethany Henderson and Amie Murphy.

Second and third City Council debates will be held in the following week. The first will be provided by the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce at its monthly membership luncheon on Tuesday, Oct. 17, to be held this time under the outdoor awning at the Dominion Beer and Wine in the 900 block of W. Broad at noon. The second will be held Thursday night, Oct. 19, at 7:30 p.m. hosted by the CBC at the American Legion Post 130 at 400 N. Oak Street, with local author Peter Davis as moderator. All four candidates are expected to be at both.

As stated by the CBC Campaign Finance Working Group (CFWG) during the promulgation of the Candidate Integrity Pledge, a Monitoring Committee has been appointed by CBC President, Hal Lippman.

Comprised of Don Foley, Ross Litkenhous, and Hal Lippman, the Committee will use publicly available information compiled by the non profit Virginia Public Access Project (www.VPAP.org) to aggregate all pertinent fundraising and expenditures reported by current City Council and School Board candidates.

The information collected and reviewed will be posted on the CBC website on a monthly basis starting this month (September) and continuing through the final reporting period stipulated by Virginia law. The information will be available to all interested parties, including: candidates, local organizations, local
media, and individuals.