By Letty Hardi, Mayor, City of Falls Church, Virginia
It’s been a roller coaster of a week, full of highs and lows.
We were named the Healthiest Community in the US at the beginning of the week – congratulations Falls Church! Our continued strong showing represents decades of thoughtful work by people who made good, forward-thinking decisions along the way. But the accolade also gave me pause that I reflect on this week. It was also a big week for public art. Investing in art and place-making has been important to me – it adds vibrancy in ordinary places/objects like street murals and wrapped utility boxes and acknowledges our history and identity in a growing community. Our police and sheriff departments hosted the city’s first National Night Out event to connect with our community. I’m looking forward to this new annual tradition, especially when getting dunked wins me brownie points with my own tween and teens!
And you’ve probably heard by now that our City Council colleague resigned yesterday. Besides linking to the city’s official statement, the only thing I will add is that I valued Caroline’s service to the community and will miss working with her. As a body, we’ll continue to be focused on the priorities we’ve heard from the community. More to come about the vacant City Council seat soon. And I’ll end where I started: our city is special because of the people who’ve committed their time and energy here. Let’s be kind to each other and lead from a place of positive intent, we’re too small of a city to be otherwise.
What Happened This Week:
(1) Falls Church is the Healthiest Community in the US
We returned to the top spot in the annual US News and World Report Healthiest Communities rankings. There’s tons of data that goes into the formula if you want to dive deeper – the TL;DR is that Falls Church scored best in the areas of health, economy, food/nutrition, and infrastructure, with opportunity to improve in housing, equity, and environment. I was also asked to write an op ed for US News to accompany the rankings. I took the opportunity to write what I’ve been calling my “love letter” to urban planning and how the decisions we’ve made in Falls Church impact so much more than physical health. (And really, I may want to be an urban planner when I grow up.) I had sprinkled in links to various “Easter eggs” and nods, some of which survived the editing process and some of which did not. Let me know what you spot!
Letty’s Thoughts:
While some of these national rankings are a bit click-baity, I think this most recent accolade from US News offers us a good dose of community pride and an affirmation of our priorities and opportunities. There is a lot to be proud of – our sidewalks are often bustling with pedestrians, cafes and outdoor dining are usually filled and lively, the W&OD welcomes all sorts of physical activity. Those are not by accident. For sure, our small size skews some of the data and has afforded us the opportunity to score well in various areas (for example, when we’re only 2.2 square miles big, it makes sense that much of our population is near a park or green space!). And of course our high socioeconomic status, like household income and education, is correlated to strong health outcomes. We are very, very fortunate. Acknowledging our privilege is important and to me, it’s just as important what we do with that privilege. That will continue to shape my priorities and the community I want to leave for the future.
(2) All Things Art
It was a big week for art!
Before our City Council meeting, we unveiled the first of four utility boxes to be wrapped in public art. Since the pilot box at the corner of Little Falls and Park Ave was done in 2020, this has been a fun, small project I’ve wanted us to expand. I love the idea of adding color and creativity, especially by local artists, to ordinary objects that have to be in our streetscape. Hopefully more to come.
In our City Council work session, we also discussed a new welcome sign for the public entrance at City Hall and new art to diversify the portraits inside Council Chambers/courtroom as part of the city’s 75th anniversary celebration. Welcome signage has been long discussed since City Hall was expanded and reopened in 2020. And adding portraits of Freddie Foote, the first African American City Council member, and Carol Delong, the first woman mayor of Falls Church, will be great additions.
Check out the rest of our growing public art collection on a stroll on the Falls Church Art Walk when it dries out this weekend!
And next week, we’ll be approving nearly $50K in grants to non-profit arts, cultural, and history agencies in the city.
(3) Other Stuff
We tackled lots of other business in our work session this week that will have upcoming votes and impacts in the community:
- The Community Center geothermal HVAC upgrade is beginning this winter, with disruptions and changes to the Farmers Market and Community Center that I previously wrote about. We’ll be asked to consider additional $200K for contingency funds due to rising equipment costs in an upcoming budget amendment.
- Bike Master Plan – the master plan update will be coming up for our vote at the end of September. Note that the designs of the three priority routes – the route to the schools’ secondary campus, N. West and S. West – will not be finalized as part of that vote, as staff will continue working with the neighborhood to incorporate traffic calming, pedestrian safety, and parking considerations as noted in the staff report.
- Comp Plan Chapter Update – before you tune me out when reading the words “comp plan”, know that our Comprehensive Plan is one of our most important, long range policy documents that guides the city’s growth and investment. (Letty’s note: comp plan updates are where deeper community engagement is important, but human nature is such that people often only focus on the urgent, near time horizon items immediately impacting them.) The Community Facilities, Public Utilities and Government chapter of the Comp Plan was last updated in 2005, before most of us served on on City Council and the scope is quite broad – from utilities like stormwater and sewer to government services and facilities like library and schools. We had our first discussion this week and the update process will occur over the next 8 months as proposed in the staff report. I’ll dedicate more time in future posts to do it justice, but for now – know that it’s coming and stay engaged if this matters to you.
What’s Coming Up:
Monday, August 12 – City Council Meeting*
City Council Summer Recess – August 13 – September 2
Tuesday, September 3 – City Council Work Session*
Monday, September 9 – City Council Meeting*
*Mondays (except 5th Mondays and holidays) at 7:30 pm. You can access the agenda and livestream here, including recordings of past meetings