For millennia, bamboo has been the stuff of poetry, paintings, and pandas. Building materials, textiles, human food, and household décor all are common uses for bamboo. It also is popular for landscape barriers along property lines, and that’s the rub.

Our struggling Metro this March announced a post-pandemic plan to recover its needed ridership.

The combination of the reveal of Falls Church City Manager Wyatt Shields’ proposed FY23 budget with its recommended 8.5 cent reduction in the real estate tax rate and the solid vote of final approval for Founders Row 2, the latest large scale mixed use project to get the green light in the Little City, marked this Monday’s meeting of the Falls Church City Council as perhaps one of the most consequential in many a moon.

One of the scariest words in the English language is “dementia,” a word derived from the Latin dementare, meaning to make mad or insane. The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease, affecting almost two-thirds of those diagnosed, and the two terms often are used interchangeably. However, dementia is an umbrella term that describes about 100 diseases that trigger a progressive loss of brain function. Sadly, although research is being done, and some medications are available that can alleviate symptoms for some individuals, there is no cure for dementia, and no effective treatment or cure on a large scale.

It was partly the pandemic and partly aging membership that ended one of our most influential women’s groups.

The General Assembly adjourned last week having failed to accomplish the most important task of our 60-day legislative session. We left Richmond without passing a biennial budget.

When I first met Roxanne more than 20 years ago, she was a saleswoman at a local car dealership, then an untraditional occupation for a woman. She handled my vehicle purchase, and we kept in touch as she moved to other roles, continuing to call Mason District “home.”

In celebration of Women’s History Month, the Falls Church Women’s History Group is pleased to announce the 2022 Women’s History Walk Grand Marshals. The 5th Annual Falls Church Women’s History Walk will take place on Sunday, May 1, 2022, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., honoring women whose civic engagement and dedication helped establish Falls Church as a vibrant, responsive, and well-loved community. The collective contributions of this year’s honorees have enriched the lives and experiences of not only Falls Church residents, but people in surrounding jurisdictions and even across the country. Our 2022 Grand Marshals are:

A collision is coming, with racial overtones, over the county’s long-in-preparation initiative on missing middle housing. That effort to loosen zoning to permit more duplexes and other less-pricey multi-family structures will figure even sooner as planners finalize plans for reimagining Langston Blvd.

Holy Batman! The double digit jump in the City of Falls Church’s real estate assessments announced yesterday is the biggest in over a decade, since before the Great Recession hit in 2008 and some on the City Council reached by the News-Press yesterday are ecstatic that the new revenues this will generate will insure that the City continues its commitment to nationally-renowned quality education and quality of life services for its citizens that will improve things in many important ways in the coming year.