Virginia Department of Health officials say a person with measles may have visited several spots in the Reston and Herndon area last week, possibly exposing people to the illness.

The discovery of the person with measles came after health officials in Loudoun and Fairfax Counties confirmed last month that an infected person may have been contagious while visiting several area locations in the Chantilly and South Riding area between April 23 and May 1.

The second case has been confirmed in a person in close contact with the first case.

The latest exposures occurred between May 11 and May 15 at many locations from Fairfax County to Montgomery County, Md. Health officials said people who have received at least one dose of measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine are at very low risk of being infected with measles from any of these exposures.

Among the Reston-area locations:

• Starbucks, 2407 Centreville Rd., Herndon. Monday, May 12 between 7:10 and 10:20 a.m.
• Nysmith School for the Gifted, 13625 Eds Dr., Herndon. Tuesday, May 13 between 1:30 and 5:30 p.m, and same hours on Wednesday, May 14.
• Life Time Athletic, 1757 Business Center Dr., Reston. Wednesday, May 14 between 8:20 a.m and 12:45 p.m.

For additional locations in surrounding areas, see the Virginia Department of Health website.

Measles is a highly contagious illness that is spread through coughing, sneezing, and contact with secretions from the nose, mouth, and throat of an infected individual, say Virginia Department of Health officials.

Measles symptoms usually appear in two stages. In the first stage, most people have a fever of greater than 101 degrees, runny nose, watery red eyes and a cough. The second stage begins around the third to seventh day when a rash begins to appear on the face and spreads over the entire body. Based on these dates of exposure, anyone infected with the measles virus may develop symptoms as late as June 5.

For people who are not vaccinated and who may have been exposed, the VDH offers this advice.

• Preventive treatment may be available for those who were at the exposure sites on May 15 only. The preventive treatment is particularly important for high risk individuals (e.g., pregnant women, infants under the age of one, and immunosuppressed people). However, this preventive treatment must be administered today, May 21, to be effective. Please call 1-877-275-8343 as soon as possible to be assessed for exposure risk.
• If you have never received MMR vaccine, you may be at risk of measles. Monitor your health and if you notice symptoms of measles (see below), immediately isolate yourself in your home to limit your exposure to others and call your primary health care provider to discuss further care.
• Call ahead before going to the doctor’s office or the emergency room and tell them that you were exposed to measles.

As it considers making changes to high school start times, Fairfax County Public Schools wants to know your opinion.

There will be a series of public meetings on the subject. South Lakes High School will host one from 7 to 9 p.m. on May 27.

If you cannot make a meeting, FCPS still wants to hear from you in an online survey. The survey (and a short presentation) are available here.

After working with sleep experts from Children’s National Medical Center for more than a year, the school board recently picked four scenarios recommended by the doctors that would adjust high school start times to begin after 8 a.m. Several of the plans would also adjust middle- and elementary-school start times as well.

FCPS high schools currently begin at 7:20 a.m., which leaves some teens chronically sleep deprived.

CNMC doctors say teens need eight hours of sleep or more for optimum health. Sleep deprivation leads to shortened attention span, decreased higher level cognitive skills, reduced ability to learn and remember new information, decreased efficiency in completing tasks, lower standardized test scores and decreased school achievement, says CNMC’s Project Smart Sleep website.

The Reston Association Board of Directors has called a special meeting for June 12 to revisit who can get an exemption from using RELAC.

RELAC is the much-maligned cooling system powered by lake water and used by about 300 homes in the Lake Anne area. When it was installed in the mid-1960s, it was touted as quiet and environmentally friendly.

But as time went on, the system was found by many customers to be inefficient and mold producing. Furthermore, prices have risen rapidly the last few years, users say.

Homes that have a RELAC system are bound by deed to use it unless owners can show a reason for a medical exemption.

The RA board has been discussing changes to the RELAC policy since last year. It was slated to be revisited by February.

The issue: who should be able to obtain an exemption? Should a person have to prove a medical issue, and should that issue be called a handicap? What documentation must they show? And should that exemption be updated annually or should it be in place, as it currently is now, as long as the homeowner is in the home?

Those ideas were not received well by many RELAC users, who attended the December RA meeting expressing privacy concerns and taking issue with being designated handicapped. That terminology is put in place because fair housing laws state that accommodations must be made for someone with a handicap, said RA attorney Ken Chadwick.

The RELAC issue has led some Lake Anne-area residents to organize a referendum to free them from RELAC. Washington Plaza Cluster resident John Hunter began the process over the winter.

A previous referendum, in 2005, was defeated 130-100.

“Our goal is to make it so people have a choice,” Hunter says. “If they are happy with RELAC, great. If not happy, then they can get off of it.”

Hunter, who has lived in his home about four years, used the medical exemption to get off of RELAC. He said the system could not reach the third floor of his townhome, where it was routinely 80 degrees in summer. He said he installed an electric heat pump at a cost of more than $6,000. He will still have to put the RELAC coil back in place when he sells the house, he said.

To get a change in the covenants, interested RELAC users would have to petition the RA Board of Directors. The board would then pay for a referendum of all RELAC customers. The vote would have to be a two-thirds majority in order for the board to consider the change.

Chick-Fil-A’s Military Night Tonight — All 43 Chick-Fil-A locations in the DC area — including the one on Sunset Hills Road in Reston — will hold a Military Appreciation Night Wednesday to honor the region’s active and veteran military and their families. From 4 to 7 p.m., all dine-in customers with a valid military ID will receive a free meal.

McDonnells To Stand Trial in July — Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen will go on trial together in July after a judge tossed out a motion to dismiss most of the charges against the couple. The McDonnells were charged in January in a 14-count indictment with accepting more than $165,000 from businessman Jonnie Williams.

Krispy Kreme Coming Here? — Krispy Kreme Doughnuts are looking for as many as 20 new store locations in Northern Virginia and Maryland.  The chain currently has four in the Washington, D.C., area. [Washington Business Journal]

Fairfax Aims To Be Bike Friendly — Biking is on the rise in the county, and the county has big plans to make things easier for cyclists. [Fairfax Times]

The Reston area is about to get another Thai food choice.

LaOng Thai has signed a lease to open at the former Five Guys space at Fox Mill.

The Five Guys in that location closed about a year ago.

This will be the first location for the locally owned Thai restaurant. The owners are currently renovating the space and no opening date has been set.

Lake Anne Plaza’s bricks will be turned into a fresco gallery June 7-8 as it hosts its first Chalk on The Water festival.

Chalk on the Water is a two-day street-painting festival where participants can create street art. Lake Anne has partnered with Murals of Baltimore for the event.

Murals of Baltimore, led by artist Michael William Kirby, specialized in all forms of mural painting and public art such as fresco, marouflage, keim, plastering, decorative, faux, mosaics, sculpture, and street painting known as “chalk art.”

Lake Anne is teaming with Initiative for Public Art-Reston (IPAR) to bring this public art event to the plaza. Funds raised from the festival will be donated to IPAR.

Here’s how it works:

Festival-goers can purchase a plot of brick space on the plaza and paint to their hearts delight whatever flows from their imagination. Cost for spaces are $5 for children, $10 for adults, and $15 for professional artist.

Participants can register at www.chalkonthewater.com. Only 100 spaces/plots are available. There will be cash prizes:

• Elementary (First Place $50; Second Place $25; Third Place $10)
• Middle and High School (First Place $150; Second Place $75; Third Place $25)
• Professional Artist (First Place $1,000; Second Place $350; Third Place $200)

Want to learn ahead of time how to draw chalk art masterpieces? Lake Anne will host a free workshop on Saturday, May 31 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. on the plaza.

The festival will also include food, entertainment, local vendors, an array of children’s activities.

To close out the family fun weekend, Up, the second movie in the free Lake Anne Summer Film Festival, will be shown Sunday, June 8 at sundown.

Prior to the movie, viewers can get a preview of IPAR’s 15-minute short film titled Fun, Beauty, Fantasy: Reston’s Public Art (2012).

Summer is nearly here. Time to grab your your beach chairs and head for the Reston Town Center pavilion, where free concerts on the town will take place Saturdays this summer.

Shows begin at 7:30 p.m., rain or shine.

Here is the lineup:

• June 7 — Hard Day’s Night (Beatles Tribute)
• June 14 — Taste of Reston musical performances
• June 21 — Big Joe and the Dynaflows (New Orleans-style swing, jump blues)
• June 28 — Jambulay with the Panmasters Steel Orchestra (Soul, funk, horn-fueled pop)
• July 5 — Chuck Redd and Friends (Jazz night featuring Sharón Clark,  Nicki Parrott & Adrian Cunningham) Concert format with no dance floor.
• July 12 — Jackass Flats (Bluegrass, country)
• July 19 — Deanna Bogart Band with Bruce Ewan (Boogie-woogie, jump blues)
• July 26 — Incendio (Spanish guitar, flamenco, Latin fusion)
• August 2 — Jeffery Broussard & the Creole Cowbots (Louisiana zydeco, high-energy blues)
• August 9 — Baaba Seth (funk, world fusion)
• August 16 — The Real Geniuses (hits from the 50s to today)
• August 23 — Airmen of Note (U.S. Air Force Band, big band jazz) Concert format with no dance floor
• August 30 — David Akers & The American Soul Shakers (Motown, rhythm & blues)

Reston artist Cindy Grisdela hoped that her weekend at the Northern Virginia Fine Art Festival would result in sales of her brightly colored art quilts.

Instead, she wrapped up the weekend by filing a police report.

Some time between the show’s 8 p.m. closing on Saturday and the morning opening on Sunday, six works were stolen from Grisdela’s booth on Market Street at the Reston Town Center festival. The pieces ranged in value from $125 to $1,675, she said.

“I just would like the work back,” said Grisdela. “It means a lot to me.”

It also means a lot to her bottom line. Artists are in the midst of festival season. Grisdela said she has commitments for other festivals and will have to go with much less inventory.

“I am a fiber artist,” she said. “My process takes a long time. I just can’t make more work [in time].”

Grisdela describes the works on her blog:

When I last saw them as I closed up my tent last Saturday night, all of the pieces were mounted on artist’s canvas painted black. Geranium, below left, is 16″ w x 12″ h. Song of the Heart, below right, is 20″ h x 20″ w. City Streets, at the bottom of the page, is two panels from a triptych and each panel is 20″ h x 20″ w. They are all signed on the back of the canvas and my name, Cindy Grisdela, is free motion stitched onto the front of each piece.

The two other pieces were smaller. Peacock Drive is 12″ x 12″ in pastel colors. It has an improvisational stripe including two small house shapes running horizontally, an upper blue border and a lower green one. Tropicana is 8″ x 8″ with an orange-red central block and blue borders.

Grisdela has notified festival organizers and the Fairfax County Police.

Festival organizers strongly recommend that artists take their works home with them at night, says Greater Reston Arts Center (GRACE) Executive Director Holly McCullough. The booths zip up but they do not lock. GRACE pays for FCPD officers to do security overnight by the pavilion and to rove among the 200 booths around the town center.

McCullough said GRACE does not have liability for theft as it would be impossible for the nonprofit to obtain an insurance policy large enough to cover the value of all the works. Artists are encouraged to carry festival insurance, she said.

“This is an extremely distressing incident,” said McCullough. “Theft is not something that is common at the festival.”

Grisdela, who has been on the festival circuit for three years, said most artists do not remove everything from the booths.

“It is just not feasible to take them out and bring them back,” she said. “You risk damaging the work every day. The only people I know who do that are jewelers with small, portable works.”

There has been theft at the festival before. Ten years ago, someone walked off with a life-sized statue of a woman in the middle of the afternoon. The piece was valued at $38,000. It was found two months later in a Herndon man’s home.

Also on Saturday, someone walked away from an artist’s booth with a handmade bowl, said McCullough.

If you have any info on the stolen quilts, contact Grisdela at [email protected]

Photo: “Song of the Heart,” by Cindy Grisdela; “Geranium,” by Cindy Grisdela

This spring, Reston Now asked readers to nominate and vote on their favorite Reston businesses in a variety of categories for the inaugural Best Reston Business Awards.

Reston Now readers responded in a big way, casting more than 6,600 votes across 15 categories.

The results are in, and here are the award winners as chosen by your votes:

• Best Gym, Trainer or Fitness Business: Lifetime Athletic
• Best Reston Real Estate Agent: Eve Thompson
• Best Outdoor Dining: Kalypso’s
• Best New Business: FLOW Blow Dry Bar
• Best Pet Care: Villaridge Pet Sitters
• Best Burgers: The Counter
• Best Overall Restaurant: PassionFish
• Best Kids’ Store: Small Change Consignments
• Best Doctor: Dr. Nathan Tran
• Best Ice Cream, Bakery or Sweets: Pintango Gelato
• Best Happy Hour: Jackson’s
• Best Salon or Spa: KLS Studios
• Best Pizza: Paisano’s
• Best Bank: Navy Federal Credit Union
• Best Architect, Remodeler or Decorator: Cindy Beyer Design

After the jump, the full results in each category.

Read More

Roll On, Potomac — Last week’s significant rainstorms made for high waters on the Potomac. The river has been particularly dramatic and raging at Great Falls National Park. [Washington Post]

Bike To Help Others — Students at Hunters Woods Elementary are holding a bike/walkathon June 1 that will raise money for food baskets for seniors in need via Herndon-Reston FISH. [Hunters Woods Elementary]

Trail Repairs, Detours — Repairs are ongoing on the Fairfax County Parkway Bike Trail that goes through Reston. Watch out for crews and detours. [Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling Blog]

To Protect and Serve — On Saturday, the Fairfax County Police Department graduated a class of 36 from this spring’s Citizens Police Academy. The class is open to residents of Fairfax County. Participants gain a better understanding and appreciation for the police department through a combination of lectures, tours and hands-on activities. The next session begins in September. [Fairfax County]

Kudos, Herndon High Musicians — Two musicians from Herndon High’s music program earned high marks in the Fairfax County Band Directors Association Solo Competition. [FCPS]

Thousands of art patrons — or at least art spectators — flocked to Reston Town Center over the weekend to take in the 23rd Annual Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival.

The festival, which had the good fortune to have perfect weather this year, brings together more than 200 artists from across the country for a juried show.

Visitors also enjoyed street performers, live music and a kids tent that incorporated science and engineering with art.

The Silver Line will be considered at operational readiness by May 27, Metro General Manager Richard Sarles said on Monday.

That date — which may change by a few days on either end — will mean Metro has taken control of the project from the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. It will also mark the beginning of a 90-day testing and training window for Metro, meaning the rail extension from East Falls Church to Reston’s Wiehle Avenue is expected to open by the end of August.

However, Sarles would not speculate on an exact opening date — or even an exact opening month.

“We will be good to go when all the work is done,” he said on Metro’s weekly call with reporters. “When [MWAA contractor] Bechtel’s work is done, when the Tri-State Oversight Committee and the FTA [Federal Transit Administration] have done their inspections and when we say we are good to go.”

Sarles said the 90 days is a maximum, and there is a chance Metro will not need the whole time period.

“We are going to assume 90 days or we will improve on 90 says,” he said.

The opening of the Silver Line’s Phase 1 is more than six months behind schedule.

Sarles said that the vast majority of issues found in late April, when Metro agreed to allow MWAA (and its contractor) more time to fix outstanding issues, such as faulty station speakers, loss of speed readouts and glitches in tracking software.

Sarles said “less than a handful of items” remain to be fixed. Among them: final speaker improvements, fixes to a track gauge and installation of a protective guard on for an escalator. A bobbing track issue discovered last week has been found to be a component issue and will be fixed today, said Sarles.

Operational readiness will happen at a specific time and date, said Sarles.

Once Metro takes control, it will be able to conduct inspections, testing and emergency drills. Training will include a large simulated emergency drill featuring law enforcement officials.

Photo: Metro file

As Memorial Day approaches, it is nearly time for Reston Association members to check out the many outdoor pool choices they have each summer.

It’s also time to pay for pool passes. A common comment on RA stories posted on Reston Now is why members must pay for pool passes.

Current RA annual assessments are $634, which entitles members to use all 15 pools, dozens of tennis courts and other RA amenities.

But after writing the big check, families must then pay for pool passes. At $25 each for adults and $10 for members under 18, that’s $70 for a typical family of four.

Pass fees rose from $20 to $25 in 2013, which will result in an additional $75,000 for RA this year and will an additional $75,000 in 2015, RA budget numbers show.

Reston Association sold 14,618 adult member pool passes in 2013. That’s income of $365,450 for RA’s $13 million budget. There were also more than 7,000 children’s passes sold, as well non-resident passes and tennis-only passes.

RA’s budget shows guest passes generated $7,000 for the association and non-resident memberships brought in $40,000.

The pools are expected to bring in $905,000 in 2014, says Larry Butler, RA’s Senior Director of Parks, Recreation and Community Resources. But the pools are projected to cost $1.66 million this year as well.

So while the pool passes bring in money, pool operations are not a money maker for RA says CEO Cate Fulkerson.

“The additional cost to obtain the passes is intended to help offset the cost of operating the pools and tennis courts,” Fulkerson said. “All of the fees collected for the member recreation passes go directly to the pool operations.  Alternately, fees collected for non-member tennis only passes go to help off-set tennis court maintenance. “

RA is looking at ways to save money in this area, Fulkerson said. The association is examining better ways to issue passes rather than to print new plastic passes each year.

“We want to move away from issuing passes annually,” said Fulkerson. “We would prefer some type of ‘on-site’ code for users to access our pool and tennis facilities.  We hope to launch a pilot program in 2015, with full roll-out in 2016 and 2017.”

Do you think there should be an extra fee for pool passes? Tell us in the comments.

Photo: Hunters Woods Pool/Credit: Reston Association 

Looking for a new home? Start with these Reston open houses this weekend.

1511 Inlet Court
3 BR, 2.5 BA TH
$525,000
Open Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m.

2005 Winged Foot Court
3 BR, 2.5 BA TH
$439,000
Open Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m.

11228 Chestnut Grove Square
4 BR, 2.5 BA Condo
$415,500
Open Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m.

12018 Chancery Station Circle
3 BR, 3.5 BA TH
$969,000
Open Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m.

12200 Chancery Station Circle
2 BR, 2 FB, 2 HB TH
$929,900
Open Saturday, 1 to 4 p.m.

2438 Ridgehampton Court
2 BR, 1 FB, 2 HB TH
$329,900
Open Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m.

2214 Springwood Drive
2 BR, 2 FB Condo
$274,900
Open Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m.

1577 Church Hill Place
2 BR, 2 BA Condo
$324,900
Open Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m.

For more open houses and complete real estate info, visit Reston Now’s Real Estate Section.