(Updated 3/29) This May, bicyclists will get a chance to pedal around Hunter Mill District with Fairfax County Supervisor Walter Alcorn.

Fairfax County is planning its inaugural “Tour de Hunter Mill” for May 15 starting at 8:30 a.m. Alcorn will host the scenic bicycle tour of the district that he represents.

“This will allow people to explore parts of Hunter Mill District that they haven’t before,” Alcorn said on a call with reporters talking about the event.

After starting at Reston Community Center, the ridealong will take bikers along the Washington & Old Dominion Trail to the Vienna Metro station before following quiet trails to the Spring Hill Metro station. Then, the route will circle back to Reston Community Center.

All in all, this “long” route encompasses about 20 miles. There’s also an option to board the Metro at Spring Hill to come back to Reston, which shaves about six miles and 475 feet of climbing from the trip.

Families or more inexperienced riders can also take a route that’s less than five miles through the Reston Association’s pathway system.

The tour costs $25 per adult, but the price includes a pair of “Tour de Hunter Mill” socks and a $5 donation to Fairfax Alliance for Better Bicycling.

Safety and health protocols will be followed, adhering to Virginia Department of Health’s current guidelines. Riders will be capped at 150 people and must stay at least six feet apart. Ride marshals and Fairfax County police will follow along as well.

The event will take place rain or shine.

Photo Courtesy of Fairfax County

Matt Lang, a veteran and security consultant who lives in Reston, is the first Republican candidate to challenge Del. Ken Plum (D-36) for his seat in the state House in a decade.

Lang, 45, will face the Democratic primary election winner in the general election. The Democratic primary is a faceoff of Mary Barthelson, 27, against incumbent Del. Ken Plum. Plum has been in this office since 1982 and also held the seat from 1978-80. The last Republican challenger for HD 36 was Hugh Cannon in 2011.

“I think a lot of people believe that Northern Virginia is one of those places where it’s going to be a Democratic or blue area the rest of eternity,” Lang said. “I don’t feel that’s 100 percent true. I feel there’s a lot of people out here with conservative values and Republican-minded thinking that just aren’t being listened to. I believe that’s a shame. I want to reach out to them, but I also want to reach out to everybody as well.”

Lang has lived in Reston for the last four years and has resided in Fairfax County since 1998 after being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps. The husband and father of three retired from the Navy Reserve at the beginning of this year after 22 total years of military service.

His military service and experience with law enforcement drives one of the primary issues he vows to take on if elected.

Lang acknowledges the “evolving field and practice” of law enforcement and the reality it will always change. However, he believes there are alternatives to calls to reallocate funds or defund police.

“I would like to see a more professionalization of the police. More training. More opportunities for them. Better recruitment,” Lang said. “We need to make the field something people want to work in and are compensated for doing such. Just like any other job, if you want quality, you pay.”

Among the issues Lang is bringing to the forefront is providing greater support to military veterans. Specifically, he cites his personal experience of getting out of active duty at 22 and being confronted with a lack of resources available to individuals like him.

“Not every veteran who goes into the military comes out with a marketable skill upon discharge. Some do, some don’t,” Lang said.

“I’d like to find some better programs, develop some policies and programs to get these guys transitioning out of the military better marketable skills, apprenticeship programs, recruitment into different businesses, especially within the state.”

A third issue Lang hopes to address is providing greater educational opportunities and advocating for additional benefits and pay for teachers and support staff.

He feels that parents don’t have enough say in their children’s education and is proposing an alternative option of providing a school choice or voucher system.

“I’d like to be able see us have a little more say in how our kids are educated,” Lang said. “I’d like to see a little more school-choice, voucher system put into play. Almost every other state in the country does such. Virginia is one the last ones lagging behind, and I think it’s time for us to catch up.”

He hopes to “find common ground” and opportunities to reach across the aisle to find solutions.

If elected, Lang said the first thing he will do is reach out across the aisle to try and come to a general consensus to pull people together.

“First thing I’m going to do is bring a little of the civility back,” Lang said. “I’ve seen too many delegates get down to Richmond and the first thing they do is come right out of the gate like a raging bull, changing things overnight. Just like a pendulum, you swing it too far to the left or right, it’s going to swing back the other way, it’s going to knock a lot of things out of the way.”

Photo courtesy Matt Lang

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors has approved the plan to bring a Sheetz to Herndon, the first of its kind in the county.

First reported in February 2020, the 6,007 square-foot Sheetz will be built at 13850 McLearen Road.

But the approval at Tuesday’s (March 23) County Board meeting comes even though there were stated misgivings about the company’s refusal to go through the LEED-certification process.

Despite the county requesting that Sheetz commit to LEED-certification or an equivalent program, the company declined.

The reason, as a company spokesperson stated during the meeting, was that verification was a “very time consuming and burdensome process.” The company did promise to adhere to other green building commitments.

This reasoning didn’t sit well with a number of supervisors, noting that it set a bad precedent for others looking to get approval to build in the county.

The county, as well as neighboring jurisdictions, have prioritized LEED-certification as a means of meeting long-term goals of cutting carbon emissions.

Supervisor James Walkinshaw also noted that building another gas station in Fairfax County “perpetuates our addiction to fossil fuels” and will be a decision we regret with “what all the world knows about the climate crisis.”

However, a majority of the County Board still approved the building of a Sheetz food store, gas station, and restaurant with a drive-through.

In total, 8 supervisors voted yea, one nay (Supervisor Walkinshaw), and one abstained (Supervisor Storck).

The company representative at the meeting noted this will be the first Sheetz location in Fairfax County.

With the approval, Reston Now has reached out to Sheetz about a timeline for construction and an estimated opening date. We have yet to hear back as of publication.

The Sheetz will occupy a roughly 2.7-acre parcel of land that will soon be vacant after the demolition of a two-story office building and surface parking lot. That building was constructed in 1977.

The Sheetz will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There will be 49 car parking spots, five of which will be reserved as electric vehicle charging stations.

The building is set to be constructed with materials including brick veneer facade with cast stone masonry.

County staff asked for high quality landscaping” so the development is “attractive” in its “highly visible site” along McLearen Road.

Photo via handout/Fairfax County Planning Commission

Wind Advisory In Effect Today — The National Weather Service has issued a wind advisory from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. today. Gusty windows could blow around unsecured objects and some power outages may be expected. [NWS]

Work on Lake Anne Garden Plot Begins — Reston Association is installing a 10-foot black vinyl fence around the perimeter of the garden. The project is expected to be completed within two weeks. [RA]

Fairfax County Jobless Rates Dip — The county’s unemployment rate fell nearly half a half-percent from December to January as part of an ongoing but slow trend toward recovery. [Sun Gazette]

Brabrand to Host Town Hall — Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Scott Brabrand will host a virtual town hall meeting from 6-7 p.m. on Monday, April 12. He plans to discuss Gov. Ralph Northam’s latest guidance of graduations and other school events. [FCPS]

Photo via vantagehill/Flickr

Courtney Park-Jamborsky remembers vividly the last time she saw her stepfather Michael Delaney last year.

It was May 9 and she was dropping the 75-year-old Reston resident off at the emergency room at Reston Hospital Center. Delaney had fallen earlier in the day at his Reston home. While he had only a small cut, he suffered from dementia so Park-Jamborsky knew to be cautious.

Due to strict COVID-19 protocols, she could not enter the emergency room with him. So, she hand-wrote a note with his medical history, social security number, and her contact information.

“I stood at the sliding emergency room door at the hospital, and he stood there with me,” she tells Reston Now. “I felt like I was letting a five-year-old walk through that door without someone helping him. But I had confidence that [Reston Hospital] knew what they were doing. I never thought in a million years that he would disappear.”

As the one-year mark of Delaney’s disappearance approaches, neither his family nor Fairfax County Police Department is any closer to finding him after he walked out of Reston Hospital Center last May.

“Michael Delaney is still reported missing,” FCPD wrote in a statement to Reston Now. “In the days following his reported missing, we exhausted numerous resources to find him to include our helicopter, K9, Search and Rescue Team as well as assistance from numerous volunteer organizations. Our detectives would ask anyone with information about his current whereabouts to please call, 703-691-2131.”

Delaney wasn’t initially supposed to be at the hospital for long, perhaps only a few hours. Due to this, Park-Jamborsky didn’t let him bring his phone.

“It was right at the beginning of COVID, so we thought anything that was touched, you could get COVID from… so I thought I couldn’t let him take his phone into the hospital,” she says.

However, when Park-Jamborsky called the hospital later, they told him that he was being kept overnight so he could have an MRI the next morning due to the possibility of a stroke.

She called back the next morning, May 10 which was Mother’s Day, and they told her they were still waiting for the MRI to take place. Really wanting to pick him up for the holiday, she called again later that afternoon only to be told they were now waiting for the MRI results.

Then, she says she received a call at around 9:30 p.m. on Sunday night.

“The nurse called… she said ‘We can’t find Michael,'” says Park-Jamborsky. “She said ‘Well, I was walking with him on the floor and I turned to get something and he was gone.'”

On May 11, the Fairfax County Police Department put out an alert about Delaney, saying that he was last seen the day before (May 10) at 9:02 p.m. in the 1800 block of Town Center Parkway.

Surveillance video showed him exiting Reston Hospital.

#Missing: 75yo Michael Delaney last seen 5/10 @ 9:02 pm in the 1800 blk of Town Center Pkwy, Reston. He is 6’3”, 170lbs, blu eyes/gray hair. Wearing blk jacket, yellow hospital gown & jeans. Endangered due to mental and/or physical health concerns. Call 703-691-2131 w/info. #FCPD pic.twitter.com/nFYwoEey5U

— Fairfax County Police (@FairfaxCountyPD) May 11, 2020

“The next morning… someone called [from the hospital], and asked ‘Did we find Michael?’ And I said ‘no, we have not.’ And they said, ‘We’re very concerned.’ That was the last time I spoke to anyone at the hospital.”

Park-Jamborsky reiterated that she has not had any contact with Reston Hospital since that day. When asked if the hospital could have done more to prevent this from happening, Park-Jamborsky says yes.

Reston Now reached out to the hospital to ask about what happened the night Delaney went missing. Additionally, we asked a series of questions about protocols, particularly around preventing situations like this from happening with patients like Delaney.

They answered with the below statement:

“On the night of May 10, 2020, a Reston Hospital Center care team member observed that 75-year old, Michael Delaney, was not in his patient room. We immediately began a facility search and notified the Fairfax County Police Department. He was not found on the hospital campus.

Since his departure from the facility, Reston Hospital Center has coordinated with the Fairfax County Police to support their missing person investigation. This is an ongoing investigation and we defer to the Fairfax County Police Department for additional comment.

We urge anyone with information about Mr. Delaney’s whereabouts to contact the Fairfax County Police at 703-691-2131. We hope Mr. Delaney is found safely. Our thoughts continue to be with him and his family.”

For days after, FCPD, community groups, friends, and family combed the area while alerts were plastered on social media platforms. On May 14, FCPD announced its was suspending the search, though the department conducted at least one more helicopter-assisted search prior to the end of the month.

Delaney was still not found.

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This is an opinion column by Del. Ken Plum (D), who represents Reston in Virginia’s House of Delegates. It does not reflect the opinion of Reston Now.

As a child of frugal parents who grew up during the Great Depression, I was always taught as long as I did not waste food or material things that I would never be without. “Waste not, want not” was an oft-heard slogan around our house. I carried my lunch to school in a brown paper bag that was recycled from our grocery store purchases, and my peanut butter and jelly sandwich was wrapped in wax paper. After lunch I would fold up the wax paper inside the bag and carry it home in my back pocket for use the next day. I could generally go an entire week without the need for another bag or more wax paper.

Needless to say, I feel a high level of discomfort with our current throw-away society. Not only do we consume ever-increasing levels of natural resources, but we create mountains of waste and the resulting degradation of our environment. Nowhere is the problem more evident than with plastic products. My paper bag and wax paper have been replaced with plastic bags for chips, a plastic container for fruit or dessert, a plastic sandwich wrapper and a drink in a plastic bottle. The manufacturer’s ability to find new uses and the public’s willingness to accept them seem unlimited

A two-year research project by the Pew Charitable Trusts and SYSTEMIQ, Ltd., a London-based environmental think tank, estimates that by 2040 the amount of plastic trash that flows into the oceans every year will triple to 29 million metric tons. Its report “Breaking the Plastic Wave” lists challenging actions that need to be taken to reverse this dangerous threat to our environment. (www.pewtrusts.org, July 2020). The Report was peer reviewed and presented in the journal Science (science.sciencemag.org, July 2020).

The report calls for a wholesale remaking of the global plastics industry by shifting to a circular economy that reuses and recycles plastics. It discusses ten critical findings “showing that a path forward to a low plastic pollution future already exists–now we have to make the choice to walk this path.” The Virginia General Assembly took two steps on the pathway to reduce plastic pollution.

A bill on which I was a co-patron passed and which the Governor has now signed into law prohibits the use of expanded polystyrene food containers, the white foam containers that break into endless number of pieces and litter our beaches and roadsides. The legislature also passed a bill designating advanced recycling as a manufacturing process that must follow all federal and state environmental regulations and laws and a budget amendment I introduced to require the Department of Environmental Quality to monitor the newly-emerging industry. Governor Northam recently signed a new executive order that will decrease plastic pollution and reduce the amount of solid waste going to landfills by phasing out single-use plastics at state agencies.

Clearly the General Assembly must take more aggressive actions in the future to reduce the use of plastics, provide for their reuse or recycling, and recognize that multiple strategies must be taken if the challenges that the Pew study identified are to be addressed. Citizens can join in taking voluntary actions to make choices in the marketplace of alternatives to plastics. Returning to a paper lunch bag or reusable container is a good idea, but the reuse of wax paper is not recommended!

Dense Fog Advisory in Effect — The advisory is one effect through 11 a.m. today. Drivers should slow down, use headlights and leave plenty of distance between vehicles. [National Weather Service]

County Reiterates Need for Testing — The county is encouraging residents to get tested in order to perform case investigations and identify close contacts — a move that prevents the spread of COVID-19. A new strain is circulating in the United States that could be 50 percent more contagious. [Fairfax County Government]

Red Cross Blood Drives Coming to Reston Soon –The American Red Cross is hosting several blood drives in the area, including one on April 2 at the YMCA in Reston. A second blood drive is planned on April 5 at Herndon Ward LDS. [Reston Patch]

County Launches Parks Storytelling Project — ‘The Park Authority’s Healthy Strides program is launching a new storytelling project called “I Love Parks” — the theme of the annual 5K/10K/Kids Dash scheduled for Saturday, May 1, 2021. Share how parks have affected your life over this past year of pandemic shutdowns by submitting a photo and your story. Your experience could become part of a slideshow that will be showcased on the Park Authority’s website and on social media.’ [Fairfax County Government]

Photo via vantagehill/Flickr

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted yesterday (Tuesday) to approve changes to the county’s zoning ordinance intended to make the codes easier to navigate and understand.

The 7-3 vote — with Supervisors Walter Alcorn, Daniel Storck, and Pat Herrity dissenting — serves as the culmination of a four-year Zoning Ordinance Modernization Project, or zMOD, that began in 2017 to update zoning laws codified in 1978.

Although the updates to the document were sweeping in scope, three proposed changes drew a great deal of public attention and comment. These included proposals to loosen restrictions on accessory living units and home-based businesses and revise size and height regulations for flags and flag poles.

“There are…very few issues receiving much attention,” Dranesville District Supervisor John Foust said. “I believe that demonstrates that, given everything that we’ve done, it was a fair and transparent process.”

Storck, who represents the Mount Vernon District, said he supports many aspects of the 614-page draft, but a few areas surrounding the accessory living units and the home-based businesses, including the permit process and enforcement, give him pause.

He worries that some of the proposed changes to require only administrative permits could lead to a lack of engagement and that enforcement, which he calls “the bread and butter of public confidence,” is not going to be swift or strong enough to stop zoning violations.

Approved changes to the regulations for accessory living units include allowing interior units with an administrative permit and removing the requirement that only those 55 and older or disabled people can live in them. However, the owner must live in the main home, can only operate one ALU in which up to two people can reside, and must provide a parking spot.

To operate a home-based business, people will need to get special exception permits to have customers visit between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m., unless they provide instruction to fewer than eight students a day and up to four at a time.

Acceptable businesses include retail — as long as sales and delivery occur online or offsite — as well as exercise classes, repair services for small household items, hair salons, and clothing tailors. People can also operate an office or as a music, photography, or art studio out of their home.

Residents can have up to three flags, and flag poles can be up to 25 feet tall when in front of a single-family home or up to 60 feet tall on other lots. Property owners can apply for a special permit to extend the height of a pole.

The board opted not to adopt any regulations limiting the size of flags.

In voting for the final draft of the plan, Providence District Supervisor Dalia Palchik said the document represents a compromise that goes “further than some would like to go, but not as far as others would like.”

The supervisors highlighted the Herculean effort that went into overhauling codes for a county as large as Fairfax and taking into account community input. Foust said that the most recent draft, which was subject to a public hearing on March 9, “includes revisions that significantly improve the initial package that we considered.”

Board of Supervisors Vice Chair Penelope Gross said that home-based businesses and accessory living units are both “already here,” so the changes help clarify what is allowed and set guardrails to preserve neighborhoods and allow people to work from home.

“I know there’s a lot of speculation about what will happen. Speculation is usually just that: speculation,” she said. “It sometimes is fear.”

Palchik said she does not discount the people who expressed legitimate concerns, but she argued that many of those have been addressed during the zMOD process. She aargued that many of the changes are similar to, if not “much more modest” than policies that are already in place elsewhere in the D.C. area, including in Montgomery County, D.C., Arlington, Loudoun County, and the City of Alexandria.

“While there are many changes to the zoning ordinance, I do believe it’s critical in seeing that our housing market is under pressure and costs of living continue to rise, especially for those who struggle to live here,” she said. “While accessory living units do not fix all of these problems, the added flexibility for our most vulnerable residents and additional options for those who want to remain in their homes can be part of the solution.”

Photo via Fairfax County

Construction is progressing on the $86 million Lake Anne Fellowship House redevelopment at 11444 North Shore Drive with a completion date projected for the summer of 2022.

The property, which is to be called “Lake Anne House,” is framed up to the fifth floor of what will be an eight-story building. Mechanical, electric, and plumbing is also underway. The roof is scheduled to be put on by this June.

Christy Zeitz, the CEO of Fellowship Square Foundation, a non-profit that provides affordable housing to seniors, says that completion is still expected by next summer. That’s despite the fact that construction moved in a  “deliberate” manner during COVID-19.

The construction of the new, modernized Lake Anne House is progressing as scheduled and we are on track for a summer 2022 completion. Our construction partners have been deliberate in their safety protocols to ensure the safety of their teams and workers while also ensuring that the project moves forward so that our residents will be able to move into the new building next year.

Our residents are very excited — as the new Lake Anne House will be more space efficient, energy efficient, and will provide enhanced amenities such as an onsite wellness clinic, fitness center and more while, importantly, still assuring that rent is never more than 30% of a resident’s income.

A time-lapse video from February shows construction over the last month.

Currently, residents live in facilities that are adjacent to the new development and were built in the early 1970s, which was prior to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Accessibility has continued to be a challenge for residents at those facilities.

Once the project is completed, residents will move into the new building. A timeline notes that should begin by spring/summer 2022, though it depends on building completion.

Once move-in is completed, the old facilities will be demolished and the land sold will be sold for future townhomes.

The project was first approached more than seven years ago, in 2013, and approved by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in 2018. Groundbreaking was in October 2020.

The new building is part of an $86 million redevelopment project aimed at serving low-income senior residents.

Lake Anne House is expected to have 240 affordable apartments for seniors whose income is at or below 60% of AMI (area median income) for at least the past 30 years.

Local police are investigating burglaries at three Herndon businesses that happened on March 15.

Two burglars smashed the front doors and windows of businesses on the 700 block of Grant Street with rocks and stole cash registers. A third suspect waited in the car, according to the Herndon Police Department.

Information about the incident was released on Tuesday. A spokesperson for HPD declined to release the names of the targeted businesses.

“We aren’t releasing the business names right now, for privacy reasons and because of the ongoing investigation,” the spokesperson told Reston Now in a statement.

Police believe the burglars attempted to target another business but ultimately failed.

Fairfax County police are working to address recent crimes in the Reston District.

Reston District Station Captain Thea Pirnat and several officers discussed a number of questions and concerns during a virtual community forum on Tuesday.

The discussion revolved around concerns stemming from recent crimes including three homicides within the district and burglaries at the Hunters Woods Village Center last week. The officers also discussed the general police response to these crimes as well as investigative efforts for reports of shots fired.

Pirnat said the four burglarized businesses at the Hunters Woods Village Center last week were a series of “smash and grabs.” She said a stolen vehicle was used in the burglaries to try to steal cash. It is an ongoing investigation.

“That is not believed to be related to the homicides,” Pirnat said.

“We do actually have some really good investigative leads. They actually targeted Fairfax city first, and then later were involved in a pursuit down in Loudon.”

She added there is a trend in the region and other jurisdictions where a vehicle is stolen and used in thefts. Establishments with ATMs are targeted.

Lieutenant Marisa Kuhar, an assistant commander of FCPD’s Major Crimes Bureau, said police believe there is currently no connection between the three homicide victims.

She added police believe the first two homicide victims were targeted and that they are “leaning that way” for the third as well based on the number of rounds fired. Kuhar said they would explore the possibility of potential connections to gangs as a part of their investigation.

Pirnat shared data about calls for service about gunshots. The data show calls in the Reston District have increased over the last three years with 130 in 2018, 157 in 2019 and 185 in 2020. However, she clarified these calls relate to a caller’s belief they heard a gunshot and are not necessarily confirmed cases a firearm was fired.

She further outlined the department’s efforts to investigate calls about gunshots.

According to Pirnat, cases in which shots are heard are written and reports are sent to the department’s criminal investigative section (CIS) for information purposes. If shell casings or damage is found, it is written as “unlawful discharge” and actively investigated by CIS.

All cases are tracked to include firearm caliber to help identify potential trends. Additionally, all shootings with sustained damage require a consult with a CIS detective. If a house is damaged, then it’s a call-out for a detective.

Finally, if a person is shot or targeted, a consult with Major Crimes must take place.

She also said police presence has increased in and around the Hunters Woods area to increase visibility and deter potential crime. That includes the addition of a police cruiser last month that is driving through the area with a non-flashing light bar.

“We’re trying to be visible. We want to detect and deter crime,” Pirnat said. “We want people to get used to seeing us and trust us, and we’re trying to take a more graceful approach, if you will, and have these conversations.”

The increased presence also includes splitting the bike patrol team into two units and increasing the presence of the neighborhood patrol unit officers.

Sergeant Joe Woloszyn, the unit patrol supervisor in Reston, added the bike team is riding the bikes in addition to patrolling the area and walkways on foot. He said that the walkways seem safe to him during the daytime, but added that calls for suspicious people typically come out during the darker hours.

Woloszyn said they “see a lot of” calls about marijuana being smoked on the trails. Second Lieutenant Anthony Stancampiano, a patrol supervisor in Reston, clarified that the police will still respond to calls about marijuana, but since it was decriminalized in Virginia “it really does limit” the ability for officers to enforce other than asking individual for their ID and charging them with a summons to court.

Photo via the Fairfax County Government website

New electric vehicle charging stations are coming to Target in Reston this summer.

While the stations have been installed, they won’t go live until the summer. Four 150 kilowatt-hour chargers are planned at Target, which is located at 12197 Sunset Hills Road.

The stations are powered by Electrify America, a Reston-based company that promotes zero-emission vehicle adoption through an a fast and convenient charging network across the country.

The company, which was founded in 2016, currently does not have plans for additional stations in Reston and Herndon, a company spokesperson told Reston Now. But other locations are planned in Northern Virginia.

So far, the company has built more than 570 charging stations with around 2,500 individual chargers. Last year, Electrify America also completed two cross-country routes.

Roughly 800 total stations with about 3,500 chargers that are specifically designed for quick charging are planned by the end of this year.

The expansion at Target is part of a nationwide push to expand electric vehicle charging option. In 2018, Target announced that it plans to add the stations to 600 parking spaces at more than 100 sites across more than 20 states.

“Accelerating our efforts to install new charging stations at Target stores across the country is one way we’re building on our commitment to investing in solutions that leave our communities better for future families,” said John Leisen, vice president of property management at Target.  

Photo via Matt Bianco

Virginia to Further Ease COVID-19 Restrictions in April — “As COVID-19 vaccinations continue to rise in Virginia, certain sports and entertainment venues may begin to operate with additional capacity and indoor and outdoor gathering limits will increase starting Thursday, April 1…More than two million Virginians, or approximately one in four people, have now received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.” [Gov. Ralph Northam]

Fairfax County Board Adopts Resolution Condemning Anti-Asian Racism — The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously yesterday to adopt a resolution condemning “all bigotry, harassment, and hate violence directed at Asian Americans in our community.”  [Chairman Jeff McKay]

Access to DC Cherry Blossoms Limited — The National Park Service will limit pedestrian and vehicle access to the Tidal Basin, East Potomac Park and West Potomac Park during the peak of the bloom period. [Patch]

Photo via vantagehill/Flickr