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,

We’re 10 days out from the election and tomorrow is the first day of weekend early voting! Have you voted, or do you have a plan?

Even though we had a week off, there’s plenty to catch up on. We returned from the annual Virginia Municipal League conference with an award for communication and outreach on the East End Small Area Plan. The theme of outreach has been top of mind for me. Besides writing these weekly-ish posts – as our city grows, it requires more deliberate effort to listen to a cross-section of perspectives. It started when I door-knocked every neighborhood when I first ran for office and since then, I’ve prioritized visiting multifamily buildings (shout out to the Spectrum residents for the great hospitality last week!), attending neighborhood meetings, hearing from students and businesses, and keeping up with office hours that rotate to different parts of the city. I’ll be at Founders Row this week so if you’re a resident – come say hello. Please reach out if you’d like me to attend an upcoming gathering in your building or neighborhood.

This week, I’ll share an update $5M surplus I wrote about last month, economic development news, and a few good reads. We’ll be voting on the budget amendment next week with a final vote on November 12 – so it’s not too late for your input.

Questions/comments are welcome! I try to respond to everyone with a real email, although with increasing volumes and busy fall schedules, I appreciate your patience in getting a response.

Best,
Letty

PS – ICYMI: AARP ranked Falls Church the most livable small city for seniors in Virginia (and #6 in the US). My hot take: more livable for seniors means more livable for everyone!

What Happened This Week:

(1) What are we doing with the $5M surplus?

The staff report has all the detail but here are the highlights:

• After putting almost $1M into the rainy day fund, we’re left with $5.1M for potential allocation. Because this is one-time money – it’s best financial practice to only allocate to one-time uses or to put into reserves. While a surplus indicates strong revenues, lower expenses, or both – I previously wrote about why I’d rather not have surpluses!
• Staff recommended $1.7M in uses and putting $3.5M into reserves:
  • $450K revenue share with the schools
  • $400K for two electric school buses (they cost about $400K each and we’ll be applying for a matching EPA grant as well as future federal tax credit of $40K per bus)
  • $720K for short falls for projects already underway – Community Center geothermal HVAC, Lincoln roadbed reconstruction, Annandale & S. Maple roundabout
• Not on the staff recommendation, but we discussed deploying additional funds to get Fellows Park constructed ($1.7M) and to advance to the design phase and discussion with neighborhoods for the bike routes to the secondary campus and N and S West ($300K) which would put less money – $1.5M – into reserves.
• We spent a lot of time discussing our reserves picture (below). For long time readers, you’ll remember we spent a lot of time on this in the 2017 era – we deliberately built up large capital reserves because of the huge bond and debt obligation of the city for the new high school. Holding high reserves helped assure ratings agencies we were well prepared for the large debt. Currently we have about $50M in total reserves with a planned drawdown for various capital projects as laid out in the rolling Capital Improvements Program (CIP) that we adopted in the last budget cycle.
• The proposed uses for the surplus will be up for a vote next Monday, with a final vote scheduled on November 12.

(2) Economic Development Updates

From the Economic Development Committee (this is a committee of City Council members, different than the Economic Development Authority – which is city board with volunteer residents and business owners) meeting – we heard updates on ground floor tenants announced at West Falls, Founders Row 2 (now called Modera Falls Church), Founders Row 1, and a proposal for a small commercial building at Broad/Spring that will be in front of the Planning Commission.

(3) A Few Good Reads

WaPo had a compelling case for townhomes last week for affordability, environmentalism, and more reasons. (As you have likely seen, following the updates to the Transition Zones in 2023 – two projects on Park Ave have gotten approved and underway, resulting in about 30 townhomes – which will be the first townhomes built in the city in about 20 years.)

Kudos to the Meridian Lasso for a great discussion with me in September. One of the best and most prepared journalists I’ve met! That interview ran in the Lasso’s latest edition.

(4) In the Community

It’s packed! Between the VML conference, my office hours, a visit to the Spectrum, the first annual community symposium on aging at the Kensington, a meeting with a local Brownie troop (their requests: more Sweetfrogs and sidewalks!), fall is in full swing.

We capped it off with a joint dinner with our Arlington and Alexandria counterparts. Our jurisdictions share many of the same values and priorities, and coordination across the region is especially invaluable when we’re small. I’m grateful to be serving the community with such a dedicated group of leaders, some of whom will be retiring after many years of service.

What’s Coming Up:

Monday, October 28 – City Council Meeting*

Monday, November 4 – City Council Work Session*

Wednesday, November 6 – Ask the Council Office Hours (9 am, City Hall)

Tuesday, November 12 – City Council Meeting

Monday, November 18 – City Council Work Session*

*Mondays (except 5th Mondays and holidays) at 7:30 pm. You can access the agenda and livestream here, including recordings of past meetings

Letty’s Office Hours:

Thursday, November 14 – Letty’s Office Hours (9-10 am, The Happy Tart)