2 Face Off to Fill Vacant Seat on F.C. City Council

Laura Downs and John Murphy will be facing off in a two-way competition in the special election to fill the vacant seat on the Falls Church City Council. The election will be held along with the federal races on Nov. 5, with advance voting beginning in just two weeks on Sept. 20. The special election is being held to fill the seat vacated by the resignation of Council member Caroline Lian last month.

As the clock struck 5 p.m. last Friday, the deadline passed for prospective candidates to file with the Falls Church Voter Registrar’s office, at which point Registrar David Bjerke sent out an email announcing who’d qualified for the ballot. Two other F.C. citizens had filled out initial paperwork, but did not arrive with the required 125 petition signatures by the deadline.

The Downs Vs. Murphy face off reflects the two major contending currents in Falls Church at this point. Downs comes in as a former chair of the Falls Church City Public Schools’ elected board supportive of the recent years’ successes in pairing muscular economic development with full funding of school board budget requests, notably the construction of a new state of the art high school, commensurate with a major cut in real estate taxes. Murphy, a former chair of the City’s Board of Zoning Appeals who served two terms there but resigned that post in 2012, is an officer on the board of the Village Preservation and Improvement Society (VPIS).

As of now, two public debates between the two have been announced, the first Thursday, Sept. 25, hosted by the VPIS and Falls Church chapter of the League of Women Voters, and the second hosted by the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce at its monthly luncheon on Oct. 15.

Of course, this will not be the only race on the Nov. 5 ballot, topped by the U.S. presidential race pitting Democrat Kamala Harris against Republican Donald Trump, with Harris as the heavy favorite to carry Northern Virginia overall.

Touting Harris and other Democrats on the ballot this fall, including Falls Church’s “favorite son” U.S. Rep. Donald S. Beyer Jr., the Falls Church City Democratic Committee held its annual Labor Day ice cream social at Falls Church’s Cherry Hill Park pavilion Monday, and an estimated 80 people showed up, characterized by FCDC chair Jeff Person as the largest turnout ever. Laura Downs was among those in attendance.

Beyer, who spoke at the event, concurred, saying it was “the biggest I’ve ever seen,” lamenting that by the time he spoke, all the ice cream was gone. However, State Del. Marcus Simon shortly after exclaimed that reinforcements had arrived.

Beyer said that the election overall pits “honesty, decency and dignity” against the opposite of those values embodied in the Trump candidacy. The Democrats in races this fall are defined by “joy, freedom and labor, having fun, being happy warriors and joyful in the work being done.”

He noted that support for labor unions is at its highest level in the U.S. since the 1950s, owing in part to President Biden’s open support for labor, including the unprecedented act for a U.S. president of walking a picket line recently, which even invoked the thought of overturning Virginia’s anti-union “right to work” standing, a notion that hasn’t even been publicly verbalized in decades.

Beyer noted the importance of “running up the score” for the Harris ticket in this area, noting that while statewide the race will be close, Falls Church has had the highest voter turnout in all of Virginia consistently for years, and turning out 80 percent for Biden in 2020.

Del. Simon said that “joy, optimism and progress” defines the Democrats, and State Sen. Saddam Salim hailed the pro-union posture of his party.

Falls Church Mayor Letty Hardi introduced Beyer and other elected officials present including F.C. Commissioner of the Revenue Tom Clinton, Arlington-Falls Church Clerk of the District Court Paul Ferguson, former State Sen. Dick Saslaw, F.C. Council members Justine Underhill and David Snyder.
In her statement of candidacy submitted recently, Downs, who was at the Democrats’ ice cream social, focused on her achievements as chair of the School Board for two years, saying that work “provided me with valuable public service experience including working on the city and school budgets with the City Council and general government.

“My husband and I have lived in FCC for 15 years and have loved raising our four boys here and watching our community grow into a vibrant, welcoming ‘little city.’”

Murphy, in his candidate statement, said: “I was born on Marshall Street, spent my childhood at Mary Riley Styles Library where my mom worked for 43 years, and my wife and I watched our two sons thrive in Falls Church City Schools. I know Falls Church City. I love it here, and I choose to stay here to continue to give back to our community.

“So far, I served six years on the Board of Zoning Appeals, including two terms as chair and was a member and Chair of the Zoning Ordinance Advisory Committee.”