For the 33 years that this newspaper has been active in Falls Church, closing in now on 1,600 consecutive weekly editions, it is safe to say there has never been even a nearly complete uniformity of opinions on almost any matter of concern to the public: surprisingly so, despite the high rate of turnover of the City’s population in that time, its steady growth from about 9,200 to now closing in on 15,000. It would be fascinating to see a graph that compares the length of time of a citizen’s stay here and stances on key issues of land use, taxes and education, for example.

What differentiates this particular juncture from others over the last three decades is the level of accomplishment and steady leadership the City now enjoys.

Many a storm, great and noisy or otherwise, has been weathered by the solid commitments to good governance and reasonable policy and decision making of the preponderance of the population and its chosen leadership. Has this newspaper always been in agreement with said public? Hardly. But we’ve strived to never allow any mere contrariness to cause us to oppose any generally recognized wise course of action. We take pride in our track record to identify and give valid reporting and arguments in favor of the best choices as we’ve seen them over time. In this troubled period in our nation’s history, it is far more common for people to take sides sometimes seemingly only for sport, and then to see those sides become more and more stubborn, extreme and uncivil. 

This month in Falls Church we saw the aftermath of what became for some a very bitter fight over modifications to the City’s transitional zones ordinance aimed at allowing a bit more flexibility for types of housing here. This comes as a new election of City Council members approaches. For some, bitter feelings over the t-zone issue may translate into an anti-establishment (if you will) sentiment applied to the election. We caution citizens not to have one matter carry over into another, or others, not related to it.

We cannot imagine how anyone right now could be critical of the quality of our local government. On balance citizens of our Little City, from the standpoint of relevant services they are receiving, are having it pretty good. It is simply not right to go around looking for faults where they don’t exist. Empty storefronts or office vacancies, for example? There are way fewer on average here now than in Falls Church’s neighboring jurisdictions.

These issues  haven’t stopped the unprecedented growth in revenues that the City is deriving from truly marvelous decisions that were made in the last decade on matters of development and services, in particular. Just look around. The revenues from development here paid for a new state-of-the-art high school, renovated City Hall and library and pending major transit and transportation infrastructure while the tax rate is coming down at an unprecedented rate.