Blog posts are the personal views of Letty Hardi and not official statements or records on behalf of the Falls Church City Council

Dear Friends,

Thank you for the kind notes last week and welcome to all the new readers! This will be my last post for a few weeks as we head into our summer recess. City Council meetings will resume on September 3.

We will be holding a special election on November 5, 2024* to fill the vacant City Council seat. We heard from the court yesterday afternoon approving our petition. Note that the paperwork deadline has been extended to August 30. More information is available here. Given the compressed timeline, if you are interested – please reach out. I’m happy to answer questions or share my learnings as a former newbie candidate with no political experience! While elections take a lot of the community’s attention, we will remain focused on the community’s priorities we adopted this spring.

Read on for quick updates on an eminent domain case (something we never take lightly) and the Smart Cities pilot we unveiled this week. Both are examples of our continued commitment to modernize infrastructure and improve safety and accessibility.

To all the kiddos heading back to school next week, have a great school year! And congrats to fellow parents for making it through the summer.

Best,
Letty

*PS – let’s learn from the past: while I was weighing the options in front of us for the vacancy, I researched the 2010-2011 era when Falls Church moved local elections from May to November, then reversed, then finally approved in referendum to move to November elections as we know them today. Reading the old arguments and seeing the much higher turnout since 2013 has reinforced my belief that any option with an off-month election is bad for democracy. Kudos to those who pushed for this move 15 years ago! (Others agree: Richmond passed a 2021 law mandating all localities move to November elections. And Governing Magazine noted that stand-alone municipal elections typically “aren’t representative of the electorate as a whole, dominated by whiter, more-affluent and older voters.”) While I share some of my colleagues’ concern that the compressed deadline at the end of summer impacts the likely candidates who could run, I am reassured that high turnout in November will mean more people get to weigh in and candidates will have to broaden their appeal.

What Happened This Week:

(1) 412 W. Broad St – sidewalk obstruction & condemnation

A long-discussed issue is the lack of an accessible sidewalk in the 400 block of Broad St. The existing sidewalk is too narrow at that location for safe passage by pedestrians and is effectively un-passable for persons using wheeled devices.

We last publicly discussed this issue in December 2023 when we authorized and directed the City Manager and City Attorney to take all steps necessary and prudent to complete the sidewalk expansion. This week, the issue was in front of us again after negotiations failed to come to a reasonable agreement between the city and the property owner. After hearing the public testimony from the property owner and businesses, we extended the deadline for everyone to reach an agreement until our September 9 meeting.

Letty’s Thoughts: The use of eminent domain is something we never take lightly. In my 8 years on City Council, I’ve only voted for it once in 2018 (for the acquisition of the 2 acre property on S. Oak, now Fellows Park). In this case, having personally experienced and observed countless issues with that stretch of sidewalk – we’ve let this go on too long. I hope with a deadline set very publicly, we can now come to a fair agreement, outside of condemnation proceedings, where the city can proceed with a sidewalk expansion that balances accessibility for all users of the street with the business owners’ interests. Stay tuned.

(2) Smart Cities Pilot

Using a $10M state grant and in partnership with Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) and VDOT, the city is piloting a city-wide Smart Cities program, beginning with our intersections. Over the next year, our intersections will be upgraded with new signal control boxes that will ultimately improve safety (imagine intersections that can detect pedestrians) and traffic congestion and flow (signal timings that enable lights to be synchronized and adjusted during peak travel times, such as rush hour, and prioritizing transit vehicles). In the long term, we also hope to deploy smart parking and adaptive lighting that change depending on real time environmental conditions, which also helps improve operations and decrease costs and energy usage. Exciting stuff!

What’s Coming Up:

City Council Summer Recess – August 13 – September 2

Tuesday, September 3 – City Council Work Session*

Monday, September 9 – City Council Meeting*

Monday, September 16 – City Council Work Session*

Monday, September 23 – 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