Veteran Falls Church City Council member and Northern Virginia Transportation Commission leader David Snyder announced this week that because of the control of Donald Trump over the Republican Party, with which he has been associated his entire adult life, he no longer wishes to be associated with it.

“I believe that the Republican party so dominated by Donald Trump is inconsistent with my values and I do not wish to be associated with such a party,” Snyder wrote this week in a Letter to the Editor published in full elsewhere in this edition. “Today’s Donald Trump-headed Republican Party bears no resemblance to the progressive Republican party my family had been associated with for three or more generations,” he wrote.

Snyder has been on the Falls Church City Council since 1994, elected to new four year terms since. He will be facing re-election next year. He has always been identified with the Republican Party, and while winning every local election to the City Council since then, he failed to win when in 2001 he sought election to the State Assembly.

Snyder was appointed to the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission in 1994, serving as the F.C. Council’s representative. He served as NVTC’s chair in 2000, 2007 and 2015. For 2023, he is serving as the secretary-treasurer.

He received the D.C. Metro region Council of Government’s Scull Award for regional leadership in 2010. He has not yet announced whether or not he will seek another term on the F.C. City Council next year.