As the Falls Church City Council comes down to its final two weeks before a May 12 vote that will set the real estate tax rate for the coming fiscal year, there is little doubt that a great deal of uncertainty looms over this region. We face, with the draconian cuts in the federal workforce and federal consultants, an impact that, actually, is impossible to predict right now.

What we know for sure is that discretionary dollars are already being pulled back as this region, perhaps the most vulnerable in the U.S. in the face of all this, with suddenly frugality winning over generosity in countless personal and corporate decisions on when to open the pocket book and when not to. It can be assured that the area’s resources will be taxed to the max as the longer term impacts of layoffs and joblessness begin to sink in.

Falls Church may consider itself in a relatively strong position, given its focus on economic development the last two decades, but this is little solace given how bad it might get overall. 

At the News-Press, we are here to help. Our chief presented a draft resolution to the City Council this week offering to exchange an advance on an authorization already secured to enable this paper to expand its distribution around the City in hopes of driving important dollars to the City’s now emerging nexus of fine restaurants.

We are already set up to achieve this goal. But there was no immediate reply from the Council this week.

Here is the text of the draft resolution:  

WHERAS the small businesses and especially restaurants in the City of Falls Church are faced with a special challenge in this period given the extraordinary layoffs of federal employees and contractors that have been undertaken by the new federal administration the last 100 days, and

WHEREAS Falls Church enjoys a unique advantage for addressing this looming crisis in the form of a popular and widely-distributed weekly newspaper, the Falls Church News-Press, now in its 34th year of consecutive weekly publication with over 140 conveniently located distribution sites in the City alone, and

WHEREAS a recent survey by the Falls Church City government about where residents get their information about goings on in the City, the Falls Church News-Press was by far the preferred source, and

WHEREAS the Falls Church News-Press has promised that with a sufficient but not major funding boost it is prepared to double or triple its current circulation to zip codes around the City that the George Mason University Center for Regional Analysis has determined to have $14 billion in annual disposable income, therefore

BE IT RESOLVED that the City Council instructs the City Manager to immediately release $50,000 of $100,000 earlier authorized to the News-Press as payment in advance for advertising to augment its expanded distribution with the launch of a new Page 1 campaign, “Dine Along Falls Church’s World Famous Restaurant Row.’