The community is invited to attend a candlelight vigil on Friday to honor the life and legacy of Reston founder Robert E. Simon, who died on Monday at age 1o1.

This will be an informal gathering, with a more organized memorial service to be held at a later date, a spokeswoman said.

The vigil, organized by Around Reston magazine, begins at 6:45 p.m. at Lake Anne Plaza. The first 300 visitors will be given candles, says Around Reston.

“We believe this respectful, grassroots gathering offers the Reston community an opportunity to come together to celebrate Bob Simon’s life,” Around Reston said on its Facebook page.

The gathering will be led by Pastor Tim Ward of Restoration United Methodist Church. It will include several speakers from the Reston community.

Overflow parking is available at United Christian Parish on North Shore Drive. 

Other Simon memorial news:

In lieu of flowers, Simon’s family has requested that memorial donations be made to Cornerstones. Read a message from Cornerstones CEO Kerrie Wilson on the nonprofit’s website. Said Wilson:

“Every organization has a founder’s story. In Reston the story goes that Robert E. Simon envisioned a place where people were welcomed and welcoming, and the assets that sustain and enrich a person throughout his life were available from the beginning in a new town in which “community” would flourish.

From fulfilling jobs and a wide range of housing types at prices to meet each family’s need over a lifetime, to accessible cultural and recreational experiences to enjoy with good friends or on one’s own, Robert E. Simon envisioned a vibrant, living place that attended to and feeds the soul. While his plans were never fully or perfectly implemented to scale, the blueprints are safe in our hands.”

The Reston Historic Trust is organizing an online archive of tributes to Simon — from news articles to personal remembrances. Access the archive on the museum’s website to contribute.

Community member Will Marlow has also started Celebrating Bob, an archive where people can upload photos and memories of Simon.

Photo by Heather Mongilio 

Reston Town Center is getting a salon for men only.

Joe Grooming, a McLean-based company that makes its own line of men’s products such as shampoo, conditioners, skin care, shaving products and hair gel, plans to open its first brick-and-mortar store at 11944 Market Street.

That address was formerly home to PR at Partners hair salon, which closed last Sunday in order to move to a new location on Democracy Street at Reston Town Center.

Joe Grooming says the Reston location will be “an innovative concept in the men’s professional grooming industry.”

In addition to products, the storefront will also offer haircuts, hot shaves and beard grooming.

Joe Grooming says all of its products are made in America and packaged with eco-friendly materials. The company also supports a Get One, Give One model in which it supports local organizations such as Cornerstones and Northern Virginia Family Service with each purchase.

No opening date has been announced.

That stretch of Market Street is undergoing a bit of a beauty boom. Bluemercury, a high-end beauty products store and salon, is slated to open this fall at 11918 Market Street. Sephora, a similar store for makeup and skin care, is also located on Market Street.

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a $46.91 million carryover from the 2015 county budget.

A carryover is the process by which certain unspent or unencumbered funds for commitments to pay for goods and services at the end of one fiscal year are re-appropriated to the next fiscal year, the county says. FY 2015 ended on June 30.

County executive Ed Long made as series of recommendations on how to allocate the money. After a public hearing Tuesday, the supervisors approved those recommendations.

Among them:

• $13.10 million to fund Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) for infrastructure replacement and improvements (school building renovations, new facilities, HVAC upgrades, etc. This amount will also be included in the proposed FY 2017 budget planning. Schools superintendent Karen Garza is predicting a budget gap of about $80 million for the schools in their upcoming fiscal year.
• $5.53 million is being allocated to the county’s infrastructure reserve fund.
• $3.86 million to fund Board of Supervisors’ priorities, including the purchase of second mobile crisis unit, reduction of  waiting lists for School Age Child Care (SACC) programs, human services’ prevention efforts, the resident curator program, emergency system requirements related to aging infrastructure, preliminary design for a community athletic field in the Hybla Valley area and Fire and Rescue programs related to health and injury prevention.
• $2 million in contributions to the World Police & Fire Games. The carryover review also included $1 million appropriated by the commonwealth of Virginia to support the 2015 games. Fairfax officials estimated the games, held in late June and early July brought in $83 million in economic benefits for the county.
• $1.5 million to fund FCPS high school turf fields. This is the third and final county contribution to install turf fields at county schools. Funding is being matched by FCPS.
• $.65 million for Laurel Hill Adaptive Reuse project. This funding was approved by the Board of Supervisors in July 2014.
• $.17 million to fund a six-month transition period for the closing of the Annandale Adult Day Health Care Center.
• $17.81 million is being allocated for the county’s financial reserves to support the Triple AAA bond rating based on the board’s reserve policy. All adjustments included in carryover have been accompanied with contributions to the reserves, bringing total reserve adjustments to $18.53 million, the county says.
• $5.96 million is available for the Board of Supervisors to allocate for future non-recurring priorities.

The reserve allocation will be taken into consideration when the county executive makes the annual budget forecast for FY 2017 to to a joint meeting of the Board of Supervisors and the School Board in November.

For more budget information, visit Fairfax County’s website.

When I first met Robert E. Simon, who died Monday at age 101, I was quite intimidated.

I had lived in Reston for 13 years by that time, and of course had heard the legend of Mr. Simon. With his Pete Seeger-style fisherman’s cap and his white goatee, he was a popular yet nearly mythical figure around town.

I had just left my longtime newspaper job and gone to work for AOL, which was starting a network of hyperlocal news sites. As the founder of Reston Patch, it was on me to know all things Reston. Starting with Mr. Simon.

We met at the Lake Anne Coffee House that day in spring 2010. I brought my friend Justine with me because I was kind of scared. We talked about all those things Reston — what he liked, what he didn’t like, whether it turned out the way he planned. He admonished me when I called the Reston Association trail crossings tunnels.

“They are underpasses!” he said, thumping his cane on the ground.

OK, underpasses it is. I never made that mistake again.

Over the years, I came to consider Mr. Simon — I still called him Mr. Simon even though he would constantly correct me and say “Please call me Bob” — a friend and the most interesting man in Reston. Maybe Virginia. I’m not going to say in the world. I don’t know everyone in the world.

After watching my parents — young enough to be Bob Simon’s children — slowly die over the last few years, I came to think Simon just might outlive us all. When we first met in 2010, he said one of his regrets was he would not live to see Metro come to Reston. Even with a whole bunch of Silver Line delays, he rode it the first day — and danced on the Reston Station Plaza.

I would sometimes see Bob out several times a week — a Reston Association meeting one night; a reception the next; speaking before the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors one day; then holding court at one his favorite Lake Anne restaurants.

Much like how they used to ID another legend, Joe DiMaggio, as “the greatest living baseball player,” at events in DiMaggio’s later years, Simon was always given a shoutout. He seemed to love the role as elder statesman. He would stand and wave when introduced, perhaps doffing his fisherman’s cap. Always with a big smile.

He started using a walker about a year ago. But his mind was as sharp as ever. In June, he stood up and told the RA Board to, let’s use a euphemism, grow a pair.

Said Simon:

“For the past several years, Reston has been run by the NIMBYs (“Not In My Backyard”),” Simon said, recalling issues such as a tennis facility at Lake Newport and the more recent bocce court proposed for a pocket park off of South Lakes Drive.

“This is why I am here — to strengthen your resolve, all the way up to the [Fairfax County] Board of Supervisors. A lot of attention is paid to the naysayers. It is a bloody fact when an issue comes up, people in favor stay home and NIMBYS come out to holler. A good NIMBY knows first thing you holler is traffic. It takes sophisticated analysis to know whether it will affect traffic. But that is what they use to terrify the board.”

He called me in early July to set up lunch to make sure I got things right when I wrote about Reston’s history. He penned our lunch date down in his red book. Everything went in the red book.

I met him promptly at noon — we went to the friendly hug hello years ago — in the lobby of Heron House and strolled across Lake Anne Plaza to Cafe Montmartre, one of his hangouts.

“How did you get into this business?” Bob asked me. “How do you make money at Reston Now? How many readers do you have?”

Bob ordered a gin Bloody Mary. It’s noon on a Tuesday and I am not a big drinker, but one does as Mr. Simon does. Make mine with vodka. Read More

Reston founder Robert E. Simon Jr., whose idea of a “new town” community in the Virginia countryside evolved into one of the Washington area’s premier residential and business centers, died peacefully at his home in Reston Monday. He was 101.

Simon was an active figure in Reston even as he passed the century mark in the spring of 2014. He could be seen taking a daily walk around Lake Anne Plaza and attending various Reston community meetings and social events. He said the secret to his longevity was a daily nap and a daily gin martini.

If you said “How are you, Bob?” as a greeting, he would answer emphatically “I am healthy! And you?”

Robert E. Simon was born April 10, 1914 in New York City, the youngest of four children and the only boy. He attended Horace Mann School in Manhattan and in Riverdale, N.Y. and later Harvard University. He served in World War II, attending officer’s candidate school, learning to strip jeeps and procuring recreational equipment for army bases. He spent time in Paris and Belgium during his service.

“It was one of the happiest times of my life,” Simon told Reston Now in July. “I had enormous amounts of responsibility but didn’t have to make decisions.”

After the death of this father in the 1930s, Simon joined the family real estate business, which counted Carnegie Hall among its New York holdings. With $12.8 million in proceeds of that sale, Simon purchased 6,750 acres of farmland in Western Fairfax County in 1961.

What was eventually built was Reston, drawing from Simon’s initials, RES.

“The project was really out of my area, but it seemed such a marvelous opportunity,” Simon said in a 1966 speech. “The location was perfect. The foundations were just being laid for the magnificent Dulles Airport terminal building and construction crews were scratching away at the runways. An airport like that in what seems like a desert will cause the desert to flower. And Dulles Airport was being put into Fairfax County, then the single, fastest-growing county in the United States. It was an irresistible challenge, so I didn’t resist.”

Simon envisioned the new town as a planned community where one can work, live and play without having to travel great distances. He hired the design firm of Conklin + Rossant to plan the community with these principles in mind:

That the widest choice of opportunities be made available for the full use of leisure time. This means that the New Town should provide a wide range of cultural and recreational facilities as well as an environment for privacy.

That it be possible for anyone to remain in a single neighborhood throughout his life, uprooting being neither inevitable nor always desirable. By providing the fullest range of housing styles and prices — from high-rise efficiencies to six-bedroom townhouses and detached houses — housing needs can be met at a variety of income levels and at different stages of family life. This kind of mixture permits residents to remain rooted in the community if they so choose — as their particular housing needs change. As a by-product, this also results in the heterogeneity that spells a lively and varied community.

That the importance and dignity of each individual be the focal point for all planning, and take precedence for large-scale concepts.

That the people be able to live and work in the same community.

That commercial, cultural and recreational facilities be made available to the residents from the outset of the development — not years later.

That beauty — structural and natural — is a necessity of the good life and should be fostered.

Since Reston is being developed from private enterprise, in order to be completed as conceived it must also, of course, be a financial success.

By 1964, Simon’s vision of an Italian style piazza with Scandinavian style design took shape at Lake Anne Village Center. Soon after, single-family homes near Hunters Woods Village Center were for sale.  Families with the pioneer spirit – after all, the future Reston Parkway was still an unpaved road — moved into the new homes.

Simon’s vision of an inclusive place — in the American South no less — was radical for its time.

“In 1964, when Reston opened, discrimination was rampant and legal,” Sen. Tim Kaine said at Simon’s 100th birthday celebration. “It wasn’t until 1968 that the federal Fair Housing Act was passed. It wasn’t until 1971 that the Virginia General Assembly passed the South’s first fair housing law. Bob [Simon] was a real visionary.

“When we look at Virginia history since World War II, Bob should be one of the five or six individuals [we talk about]. Bob took a state that was facing backward and turned it facing forward.”

The contemporary designs and innovative vision were not an easy sell for some Northern Virginia homebuyers, though. Eventually, the project ran into financial trouble. Gulf Oil took over the Reston project and by 1967, Simon was out of a job and returned to New York.

“A Gulf consultant took one look at my desk and my chair and said ‘we are going to want to see you hanging by your fingernails,’ ” Simon recalled. Read More

Reston Association has selected a panel to serve as the Tetra working group as it looks towards future uses for the 3.47-acre property in North Reston.

RA closed in July on its $2.65-million purchase of the former Reston Visitors Center. RA members narrowly approved the purchase in a referendum in May. The referendum capped a busy few months of community discussion, debate and opposition to the purchase.

The acquisition gives the association 98 acres of contiguous space at Brown’s Chapel Park and Lake Newport Tennis. During community meetings, RA said it expects to use the space for events and rentals, after-camp care, a conference center, among other suggestions. It also forecasts earning revenue of more than $100,000 annually in rentals for events and groups.

RA also plans a park at the site, which sits on the shore of Lake Newport.

Renovations have begun on the 32-year-old building, and RA CEO Cate Fulkerson says the association hopes to put it to use by Spring 2016. Lauer Commercial (formerly Tetra Partners), owners of the building since 2003, is renting the space as offices through the end of 2015.

Fulkerson said previously there will be no impact to the RA assessments until “2018 at the earliest.”

RA hopes the working group will have a plan for the building by December. RA’s Board will vote on the working group membership at its meeting on Thursday.

RA members appointed to the working group:

• Laura Creilly (Surrounding Neighborhood Representative)
• Nicola Caul Shelley (Surrounding Neighborhood Representative)
• Karen Loesch (Surrounding Neighborhood Representative)
• Rebecca Smith-Zakowicz (North Point District Representative)
• Art Murphy (North Point District Representative)
• Angela Loving (North Point District Representative)
• Sterling Wheeler (Lake Anne/Tall Oaks District Representative)
• Lloyd Kinzer (Hunters Woods District Representative)
• Simon Rakoff (South Lakes District Representative)
• Linda Singer (55+ Advisory Committee Representative)
• Danielle Wilson (Environmental Advisory Committee Representative)
• David Nielsen (Parks & Recreation Advisory Committee Representative)
• Carol Nahorniak (Community Engagement Advisory Committee Representative)
• Anne Delaney (IPAR Representative)

(Updated at 7:10 p.m.) Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a former Republican presidential candidate, will headline the The Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC) and Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) Presidential Series Breakfast in Reston this week.

Walker will speak on his proposed technology policies and discuss how he will work with the technology sector in his presidency.

NVTC and CEA said they have extended invitations to other potential Democrat and Republican presidential candidates to address the region’s technology community as part of the Presidential Series. More events will be announced as candidates and dates are confirmed.

The event is Friday, Sept. 25, 8 to 9:15 a.m. (registration and networking begin at 7 a.m.) at the Hyatt Regency Reston, 1800 Presidents Street.

To register and purchase tickets, visit the NVTC website.

Walker is currently polling at about 2 percent, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News Poll. That puts him near the bottom of the field of Republican candidates. Prior to the first Republican debate, in August, Walker had been at about 10 percent.

Years from now, the 49-acre area from Baron Cameron Avenue to Reston Town Center could be a vibrant mix of residences, community spaces and services, including a new public library and recreation center.

But first, the parcel needs to be reorganized, rezoned and re-imagined.

Fairfax County on Saturday held the second of what will likely be many community engagement and information sessions about Reston Town Center North.

A land swap between the county and Inova is in its final stages of approval and a Request for Proposals (RFP) has been put out to developers for the first phase of redevelopment, which would include the Reston Regional Library and the Embry Rucker Community Shelter.

County officials said the first round of RFP was mainly a call for developers to see who had the finances to take on redevelopment. An RFP later this year will call for specific plans.

Hunter Mill Supervisor Cathy Hudgins said the goal right now is to get community input about what the needs will be for Reston in the decades to come.

“How can we keep that vision alive in Reston?” she said. “I look at that swath of land as an asset that has been given to us. We have been able to acquire it and put it to use. What our are needs in the future? If we look at it as an extension of Reston Town Center, what do we do there?”

Saturday’s presentation included information from the Fairfax County Department of Neighborhood and Community Services, which offered a look at Reston’s number of people living in poverty (5 percent); in need of affordable housing (35 percent of renters spend more than 30 percent of monthly income on rent); and in need of county services.

They underscored the need to include a new human services facility to replace the current one in the Town Center North area.

Andrew Miller, Project Coordinator of the Public-Private Partnerships Branch of the Fairfax County Department of Public Works and Environmental Services, said development will likely take more than 10 years.

The goal now is to realign the land — some owned by the county (eventual blocks 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 in the graphic above) and the rest (eventual blocks 2, 4, and 6) by Inova. Then there will be rezoning for the individual parcels when it is decided what to do with the land.

“We need to hear from the citizens what services are needed,” he said.

Citizens attending the meeting spoke up about adding a nursing home to replace Cameron Glen, which closed in 2014 and ensuring the library gets proper attention. They also met in small groups to offer feedback on what the area needs.

Some key points made by Miller:

Density will stay about the same (FAR .9), with higher density allowed in the parcels closest to the Reston Town Center. Read More

Fairfax County Police are looking for a man on a bicycle who touched a pedestrian as she was walking near Reston Town Center on Thursday.

The victim told police she was walking on Crescent Park Drive near Town Center Drive, around 1:13 p.m.when she was approached from behind by a man riding a bicycle. The suspect inappropriately touched the victim and fled.

The suspect was described as a Hispanic male, 30 years of age, approximately 180-200 pounds, wearing jeans and sunglasses.

Officers from the Reston District Station also report two burglaries on Thursday.

One was in the 11700 block of Decade Court. A resident reported someone entered the home and took property. A 2013 Honda Civic was also reported stolen.

The other was in the 11400 block of Washington Plaza at Lake Anne. A resident reported someone entered the residence and took property.

In other crime news:

LARCENIES

11400 block of Ridge Heights Road, bicycle from school.

STOLEN VEHICLES

2000 block of Royal Fern, 2004 Honda Accord.

11400 block of Washington Plaza, 1967 Dodge Dart.

Workers were still busy on Friday with finishing touches, but Aslin Beer Company says it will be ready to pour its first beers Saturday at 11 a.m.

Herndon’s first nanobrewery is located at 257 Sunset Park Drive.

Co-owners are Andrew Kelley, a management consultant who lives in Clarendon; his brother-in-law Kai Leszkowicz, a Fairfax County employee who lives in Herndon; and Richard Thompson, who will run the day-to-day operation.

Kelley and Leszkowicz have been home brewing for several years. Read more in this previous Reston Now story.

Aslin will start out serving six beers on tap, said Kelley: an IPA, Double IPA, Imperial Stout, Lime Kolsch, Rye Ale, Saison, Black IPA.

Aslin plans to offer food from Day 1 from nearby restaurants A Taste of the World (Asian wings, empanadas and a take on chicken and waffles) and The Wiener’s Circle (brats and hot dogs), said Kelley.

Beer will run from $5-7  a pint. Food will be $5-8 per small plate.

Look for a mug club (with handmade mugs from Potter’s Fire) coming soon, as well as movie nights and game nights in the space, which will have 28 seats.

Here are Aslin’s hours: 3 to 9 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays; 3 to 10 p.m. Fridays; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturdays; noon to 6 p.m. on Sundays. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays.

Richard Titus, one of five candidates running for three seats on the Reston Community Center Board of Governors, has withdrawn from the 2015 Preference Poll.

“I don’t conclude that serving if elected would be the best use of my time,” he said in an email to RCC Executive Director Lelia Gordon.

The four remaining candidates (incumbents Bill Bouie, Lisa Sechrest-Ehrhardt, Gerald Zavala and newcomer Karol Anderson,) participated in a forum at RCC Hunters Woods on Thursday. Read more about them in their candidates statements.

Titus’ name cannot be removed from the online ballot since voting has already begun. The online ballot has therefore been updated to indicate “withdrawn.”

Preference Poll voting continues through Friday, Oct. 2 at 5:00 p.m. for walk-in and online ballots; Mail-in ballots must be received by the counting agent no later than 5 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 1.

Board appointments are made by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors after participants have made their preferences known in the annual poll.

There will be a celebration of life Sunday for longtime Herndon High Latin teacher Christine Sleeper, who died earlier this year in New Hampsire at age 98.

Sleeper would have turned 99 on on Sunday (Sept. 20). The celebration will be held at Herndon High School, 700 Bennett Street, at 1 p.m. Sleeper taught at Herndon High from 1970 to 2000.

A native of New Hampshire, Sleeper was a graduate of the University of New Hampshire and Radcliffe College. According to an obituary, she also earned her pilot license at age 25 in 1941.

Sleeper was an air traffic controller at Boston’s Logan Airport in 1944 and volunteered for the Red Cross and served in Europe during the end of World War II. She married Col. Raymond S. Sleeper of Laconia, NH, in 1946 and raised six children while moving every few years to a new Air Force base.

Sleeper taught at several places before settling in Herndon.

“Christine never stopped learning while she travelled the world-she took her Latin students and herself, alone, to dozens of countries across the entire planet,” said the death notice written by her family. “Her children, her students, and her teaching colleagues remember Christine as creative, energetic, willing to help anyone learn, and always prepared to Carpe Diem!”

Sleeper had this to say about teaching, according to a book her family organized on her long life:

“Mine has been a lifelong love affair with Latin. It is a vibrant, multifaceted subject. When you teach Latin, you teach about life — about philosophy, mythology, language and derivatives. You learn about ancient times and ancient thought. If you know how things were before, you know what’s good about today. If you’ve had Latin, you’re a better writer; a better speaker, and a better person.”

Sleeper was a founder of the National Latin Exam in 1976. She also was Virginia’s Distinguished Foreign Language Teacher of the Year in 1980.

Christine Sleeper/Family photo

Reston Association’s Board of Directors is looking into altering outdoor pool schedules — including the possibility of closing up to four of them.

In a 2016 budget work session on Wednesday, Deputy Director for Recreation Laura Kowalski presented several cost-savings options to the board.

The board opted to move forward with two of them: to change seven pools to weekends-only from Memorial Day until the last day of school in June, and to change the number of pools open from mid-August to Labor Day from eight to four.

Reston Association has 15 outdoor pools that cost about $1.6 million annually to administer and staff. They also take in upwards of $800,000 in revenue, according to RA documents.

Changing to the weekends-only schedule early in the season would save about $10,000 annually, RA estimates. Reducing the number of pools open in late August would save about $14,000.

RA’s Board will vote on the final budget and set next year’s assessment in November.

The board opted to leave early morning and late evening swim hours at North Shore and Lake Thoreau pools in place, as well as keep North Shore and Ridge Heights open before Memorial Day and past Labor Day. It also will keep offering free sunscreen.

“I think having a longer pool season adds to the value of the pool pass,” said Larry Butler, RA’s Senior Director of Parks, Recreation and Community Resources.

A suggestion put to the board was shutting down the least-used pool in each district: Shadowood in Hunters Woods/Dogwood; Tall Oaks in Lake Anne/Tall Oaks; Autumnwood in North Point; and Newbridge in South Lakes.

Autumnwood has had an average of 10,165 visitors per summer over the last five years; Shadowood, 3,542; Newbridge, 4,211; and Tall Oaks, 4,587.

Closing each pool would save RA from $47,116 to $59,849 per pool annually, but that would only result in a savings of less than $3 on annual assessments, RA estimates show.

Butler explained it is not that easy to close a pool. When the former Lake Anne Pool was turned into a park over a decade ago, there was much discussion with Fairfax County, as well as large expense, said Butler.

“You have to get determination for zoning,” said Butler. “When Lake Anne [Pool] closed, the development plan specified ‘pool/tennis.’ The county said you had to replace it with something equivalent. You can’t just close it, bulldoze it and walk away.”

Butler said it cost RA about $700,000 to repurpose Lake Anne Pool into a park. He added that $40,000 was in demolition costs alone.

Board members said closing pools is a tough subject that is worthy of more discussion, but not as a means of keeping assessments down. They said it should be part of a future bigger discussion on facilities and long-range planning.

“Some pools are just not getting utilized and it is costing us,” said At-Large member Michael Sanio. “We have to look at what the opportunities are for savings.”

Some of the other suggestions: Save Tall Oaks for a joint investment opportunity when the Jefferson Apartment Group redevelops the nearby Tall Oaks Village Center; encourage pool rentals to groups and corporations to increase revenue; and consolidating staffing, operations and schedules among pools located close together.