A Penny For Your Thoughts: December 7-13, 2023

My first official Board of Supervisors meeting, on January 8, 1996, almost didn’t happen. I had been in office for a whole week, and had prepared for the meeting, reading the dozens, maybe hundreds of pages of the board package with a yellow highlighter at the ready. The package was all on paper, in a large binder; electronic versions were at least a decade away. I selected a special outfit to wear; after all, the meetings are televised and I was like a kid on the first day of school, wanting to look my best. The board meetings were on Mondays then (today they are on Tuesdays) so the weekend was spent getting ready for the meeting.

That weekend also was the occasion of one of the biggest blizzards ever to hit the Washington metropolitan region. Final snow totals across two days measured somewhere between 25 and 30 inches. Roads, even the interstates, were impassable, events were canceled everywhere, but one event that could not be canceled was the board meeting. According to the County Attorney, the Board was required, by law, to meet on the advertised day, in the vernacular, “come hell or high water.” The challenge was getting board members to the Fairfax County Government Center for the in-person meeting; if the main roads were closed because of deep snow, neighborhood streets were in worse shape. The depth of the snow camouflaged the usual curbs and shrubs that demarcated local streets, and buried many smaller vehicles, so it was impossible to determine the road pavement.

The meeting was scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m., but was delayed to the afternoon so that police and fire vehicles could be dispatched to Supervisor’s homes for the trip to the Government Center. We live on a steep hill, which makes snow even more challenging, but a fire department 4-wheel drive vehicle, with a plow blade, appeared at the end of our driveway about noon. Our neighbors were impressed – our little road was plowed (only one lane) by the Fire Department, giving them a head start on clearing driveways and mailboxes. I warned the firefighter not to turn into our driveway, and schussed my way to the street with the board packet firmly in hand.

The 12-mile drive looked like a moonscape: we were almost the only vehicle on the road, even on the Beltway, and the usual landmarks had disappeared under deep snow. My carefully selected outfit was replaced by warm sweatpants, boots, a sweater, and a parka. My ski hat created “hat hair” for my first television appearance! Nine Supervisors made it to the meeting; Supervisor Elaine McConnell was stuck in Florida. The County Executive, County Attorney, a clerk, and the television camera operator were the only other people in the auditorium. The truncated meeting lasted about three hours, and then the fire department vehicle took me home.

That meeting was an inauspicious beginning to my seven terms as Mason District Supervisor. After attending more than 700 Board of Supervisors meetings, my last board meeting is this week. Many have been challenging, but none more so than the efforts expended to attend that first one. Today, of course, board packets are available electronically, the pandemic introduced us to the efficiency of virtual meetings (which state law carefully controls), and a blizzard would be far less problematic to keep the wheels of local government turning.