Fairfax County’s online registration form for COVID-19 vaccine appointments will be offline for 12 hours starting at 7 p.m. today (Wednesday).

The form will be inaccessible until 7 a.m. tomorrow so that the county can conduct scheduled, routine technical maintenance and updates, according to the Fairfax County Health Department.

“We apologize for any inconvenience,” the FCHD says in an alert on the registration page. “This will not affect anyone who already has a scheduled appointment or anyone who is currently on the waitlist to get an appointment.”

Fairfax County staff told the Board of Supervisors yesterday that they are continuing to work on issues with the county’s online vaccine registration system, which has been plagued by technical issues and overwhelming demand.

“We’re actually engaged with the health department looking at making improvements to the overall scheduling and registration system,” Fairfax County Information Technology Director Greg Scott said during the board’s health and human services committee meeting. “We’re working on that right now.”

The county is also working to improve its approach to communications and ensuring that vaccine doses are distributed equitably.

Photo via Fairfax County Health Department

The Herndon Town Council is in the process of reviewing initiatives to actively pursue and discuss.

The council met Tuesday night to discuss members’ proposed strategic initiatives for the town. The initiatives fell in five categories: fiscal, transparency, inclusion, reform and long-term.

Inclusion initiatives include sponsoring or encouraging multicultural festivals and enacting a long-term recruiting effort to have elected officials, appointed officials and senior staff representative of the cultural diversity.

“It’s a strength of our town, our diversity. It’s the beauty of our town,” Vice Mayor Cesar del Aguila said.

The inclusion initiatives also involve creating a greater excellence and vibrancy by developing unique multicultural activities and creating picnic areas from banks of waterways.

“The reason we brought this item here is Herndon itself is a minority majority community right now. And we want to celebrate the diversity we have,” Council member Pradip Dhakal said. P”We have the diversity, but we want to create a kind of unity in that diversity.”

Town manager Bill Ashton concluded from the council’s discussion that the town would pursue the creation of a multicultural board. The board will be a point of discussion after reviewing similar entities in Leesburg and Fairfax to bring a model back to the council.

Transparency initiatives encompassed five items for review. Those included ensuring audio and video recording for all meetings, dedicating resources for Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and making all records available to the public. Another initiative included creating transcripts of town council meetings.

Following a discussion from the council members and Ashton, they agreed to temporarily table creating transcripts of meetings to first review state requirements and the town’s ability to do so.

“On the transcripts, I know there’s also state limitations and requirements as to where we have to store these things,” Mayor Sheila Olem said.

“It’s very easy to say that we’re just going to have exact transcripts, but we also need to get the pricing on these items and whether or not our current availability with where we’re required to store them is going to accept us morphing these things into much larger documents.”

Ashton added that his office would work to provide an analysis of what a closed meeting recording would look like now and when the council eventually returns to gathering in person. He also concluded that his office would review the requirements to improve the FOIA process.

Reform initiatives were broken into three portions: housing, operational and council.

The housing reform issues included a handful of initiatives under the Historic District Review Board (HDRB). Those initiatives are analyzing district definition and regulations, gaining a better understanding of what’s necessary to maintain a historic district status and reforming the historic overlay district.

Another housing reform initiative that was discussed was to gain a greater understanding of the housing price ranges in the town and the tools it has to implement housing policy. This initiative involves reviewing accessory dwelling units, workforce dwelling units, affordable dwelling units, and housing allowances for teachers and first responders.

The final points for housing reform included setting a benchmark of the housing stock in the town against the county and investing in Herndon’s current neighborhoods.

Ashton proposed putting together an informational discussion item for a future work session on the district to then define what reforming the historic overlay district would entail.

“As I’ve often said, you can’t get to where you’re going until you know where you are first, then you set your objective and charge your path,” Ashton said.

The operational reform initiatives included retraining and redeployment of staff, modernizing town staff presentations and examining community development regulations.

“Staff retraining and redeployment, for me, that’s just making sure – I know we do this to an extent – we have a well funded pipeline of development and training or education, certifications, for people on staff to either do lateral moves or upward moves and certainly continue that investment in our people,” del Aguila said.

Another portion of the operational reform is taking into account the timing of traffic lights to improve cross-town flow. Ashton clarified that this issue has been recognized and the town is undertaking two intersection projects this year to help alleviate some of the flow. One of the projects will be at Monroe Street and Elden Street and the other at Center Street and Elden Street.

The final portion of reform regarding the town council comprised of creating voting district, changing how the town council operates, and empowering the council to set its agendas.

After reaching a proposed deadline to end the meeting at 10 p.m., the council tabled discussion on fiscal and long-term initiatives for another 7 p.m. meeting on Feb. 9.

Long-term initiatives set to be discussed include an update on the 2035 Vision. Proposed initiatives also include reviewing funding of capital improvement plans for transportation, long-term regional effort to reduce cut-through commuter traffic, and investing in closing gaps in pedestrian and bicycle routes even when no developer funding exists.

Proposed fiscal initiatives to be discussed include undertaking effective short-term and long-term budgeting to match immediate and long-term needs without excessively inconveniencing town residents. Other initiatives gathered from the council encompassed protecting town staff from layoffs if practicable, utilizing reserves to offset budgetary shortfalls and possibly avoid raising taxes during “this financial crunch for citizens and businesses,” according to a presentation of the council members’ proposed initiatives.

A final fiscal point of discussion is focusing on services such as trash and recycling, road work and repair as well as water and sewer, and police functioning.

Image via Town of Herndon

Fairfax County Public Schools students will start resuming in-person instruction on Feb. 16 under a new timeline unanimously approved by the Fairfax County School Board yesterday.

The board intended to formally vote on the latest proposal from FCPS Superintendent Scott Brabrand during its regular meeting on Thursday (Feb. 4), but enough members stated that they would support the plan during the board’s work session on Tuesday that they ultimately decided to not wait to give their consensus.

“While there’s no guarantee for anything in life regarding a pandemic, I think this is a strong plan with the resources we have to return to some semblance of what school was like before COVID,” Melanie Meren, who represents Hunter Mill District on the school board, said. “Of course, a lot will be different, but I think it’s needed to help people recover their learning loss.”

As with previous Return to School plans, families have a choice between all-virtual learning and a hybrid model with two days of in-person learning and two days of distance learning. All students have been learning virtually since FCPS returned from winter break.

Under the new timeline, students who opt to get some in-person learning will return to school buildings in phases, starting on Feb. 16 with about 8,000 special education and career and technical education students and concluding with third through sixth-grade students on Mar. 16.

This schedule deviates from the one that was implemented in the fall before being suspended in having elementary school students restart in-person learning at the same time or even later than their older peers in middle and high school, whose return will be staggered across Mar. 2 and 9.

Braddock District Representative Megan McLaughlin questioned the two-week gaps between groups of elementary school students, noting that Loudoun County Public Schools plans to have students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade in buildings by Feb. 16.

FCPS officials attributed the extended timeline for elementary schools primarily to staffing issues.

As of Feb. 1, FCPS has filled 74% of the 846 classroom monitor positions that it says are needed to restart in-person learning, but that still leaves 205 vacancies. The biggest gap is in grades three through six, where 94 positions – or 46% — remain vacant.

FCPS Deputy Superintendent Frances Ivey told the school board that, while some may prefer a more aggressive timeline, discussions with elementary school principals indicate that most of them support Brabrand’s proposal.

“There’s an overall positive consensus to the timeline, and recommendations were made based on that feedback,” Ivey said.

Brabrand acknowledged that not all teachers and staff will be fully vaccinated by the time in-person learning restarts, but more than 7,000 FCPS employees had received their first dose by Jan. 25, and nearly 90% of staff members had scheduled an appointment with Inova by Jan. 27.

Inova stopped scheduling first-dose appointments on Jan. 25 due to an anticipated drop in supply levels, but FCPS rescheduled approximately 5,000 appointments that had been canceled over the past weekend, and Brabrand says he is “really confident” that the remainder will be taken care of in the next week or two.

“There really isn’t a perfect Return to School timeline. We’re trying to balance so many competing factors, and that’s what’s been hard,” Brabrand said. “…I am proud of what Inova and the county health department did. They brought us in with open arms and worked through the glitches.”

Even with vaccinations, implementing mitigation protocols like face masks, social distancing, and good hygiene and cleaning practices will be “paramount” to enabling safe in-person learning, according to Brabrand’s presentation.

Individual schools or classes could revert to virtual learning based on COVID-19 transmission levels and staff capacity within those schools, as well as community spread as indicated by the 14-day case rate per 100,000 people and 14-day testing positivity rates.

The inability to create six feet of distance between students on buses will be a challenge, but FCPS officials say they are working with transportation staff to address those concerns, and adequate personal protective equipment will be available for all workers.

“We have certainly enough PPE on hand, and the quality for which we’re purchasing is based on health department guidelines,” FCPS Chief Operating Officer Marty Smith said. “…We certainly wouldn’t want to undercut the safety of our staff or students.”

Now that the school board has settled on a Return to School plan, Brabrand said he is committed to ensuring teachers, staff, administrators, and students get what they need to safely and successfully transition back to in-person learning.

“We’ve got to stay on the data,” Springfield District Representative Laura Jane Cohen said. “We’ve got to be as transparent as humanly possible and a lot more transparent than we have been able to be up to this point. Our staff and families deserve to know what they’re walking into.”

Images via FCPS

Tall Oaks Assisted Living at 2052 North Shore Drive in Reston is looking to add more parking, but the request won’t go before the Fairfax County Planning Commission until late March.

The proposal is to add 29 new parking spots at the 33-year-old assisted living center.

The ask was to go before the Fairfax County Planning Commission next week with a scheduled public hearing. However, the applicant has requested a deferral, planning commission staff confirms. This is to give the assisted living center time to address community concerns and give the planning commission to review any changes.

The commission will acknowledge the deferral and the new date for the proposal to go before the planning commission will be March 24, county staff told Reston Now. Parking has long been an issue at assisted living facility, so says the application first filed in July.

The facility near the intersection of North Shore Dr. and Wiehle Ave. was originally developed with 44 spots. At the time, that was sufficient, but increasing “care needs of residents” in turn increased staffing levels, according to the application.

Throughout the years, when the parking lot was full, visitors and staff would routinely park at the adjacent Tall Oaks Village Center. As tenants fled the shopping center, parking spaces became more plentiful.

Then, in June 2016, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved the redevelopment of the defunct shopping center into a mostly residential development. That is currently under construction after being delayed several times for a variety of reasons.

Due to construction, there’s currently no parking available there for Tall Oaks Assisted Living visitors and staff. The proposal is to increase from 44 parking spots to 73, 10 of which will be tandem parking spots.

The facility has 152 beds and 48 staff. Under strict application of the zoning ordinance, the facility is required to provide 99 parking spots. However, concurrently, the facility is filing a parking reduction request allowing them to be allowed to have 73 spots.

The parking spaces will be developed to not impact the site’s conservation easement and to avoid steep slopes as well as mature vegetation.

Photo via Google Maps

Lincoln at Reston Station, a 260-unit apartment community near the Wiehe-Reston East Metro Station, officially has a new name.

The community, which was recently acquired by Snell Properties, an Arlington-based company, has rebranded itself to Russell at Reston Station.

Peter Colarulli, Vice President of the company, said the name change was inspired by the design of the building, which he says has  “a bold, contemporary, energetic feel with red pops of color.“

 “The name ‘Russell’ taps into the community’s vibe, and we felt the full name ‘Russell at Reston Station’ is clear to the sense of place and catchy with its alliteration.”

The residential community, which is located at 11500 Commerce Park Drive, includes a mix of studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom and three-bedroom plans. Rents range from $2,110 to $2,380.

Snell purchased Russell at Reston Station in December. The building was constructed at the end of 2019 and includes a courtyard with a pool, a clubroom, a fitness center, a pet spa, bike room and a package concierge system.

Image via handout/Fairfax County Government

On Friday, Girl Scouts troops will start selling cookies in-person at least eight locations between Herndon and Reston.

For those looking to stay home, Girl Scouts Nation’s Capital is also offering online cookie sales, which will be delivered through the Girl Scouts Nation’s Capital chapter. Online sales began on Monday.

Here are the locations for Reston and Herndon, according to the Girl Scouts’ cookie finder:

Reston

• Ledo Pizza (2254 Hunter’s Woods Plaza)
• Starbucks (11170 South Lakes Drive)
• Dunkin’ Donuts (2280 Hunter’s Woods Plaza)
• Flippin’ Pizza (11130 South Lakes Drive)
• CVS (11680 Plaza America Drive)
• Starbucks (1857 Fountain Drive)

Herndon 

• Food Lion (3059 Centreville Road)
• Lucia’s Italian Ristorante (2531 John Milton Drive)

Most of the booths will be out on weekends, with some also selling cookies on Fridays. The cookie finder lists dates next to all locations.

All cookie sales end March 14.

“This year we had a decrease [in in-person booths], but of course, Girl Scouts have found a way,” said Tygerian Burke, the marketing and communications manager for Girl Scouts Nation’s Capital.

Buying cookies online works like this:

• Customers can type their zip code into the cookie finder and find local troops selling cookies virtually. Each time the page loads, it will feature a different virtual booth.
• When customers click the link corresponding to the troop of their choice, the link will take them to a page with a description of what the sales will go toward and directions for buying the cookies.
• The cookies can be shipped to the customer’s house or to someone else as a donation.

The Girl Scouts are also having cookies delivered via GrubHub, a promotion that started in the D.C. area on Thursday, Burke said. Drivers can deliver cookies to homes within a 25-minute radius of where a scout or troop is located, which in D.C. traffic, will mean varying distances, she added.

She advised checking social media for Facebook Live promotions of GrubHub deliveries throughout the month-and-a-half of sales.

Burke said some troops within the council are setting up drive-through locations as well as signs with QR codes linking to their personalized virtual booth pages.

Girl Scouts are selling Thin Mints, Samoas, Trefoils, Do-si-dos and Tagalongs — as well as a new cookie called Lemon-Ups — for $5 a box. Two specialty cookies, S’mores and Toffee-tastics, go for $6 a box.

Image via Girl Scouts Nation’s Capital

Fairfax County has made progress in its efforts to vaccinate priority groups for COVID-19, but challenges remain as officials contend with still-limited supplies while attempting to improve communications and outreach, particularly to minority and disadvantaged communities.

According to a presentation delivered to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Tuesday morning, 53,731 of the 58,825 first doses that the Fairfax County Health Department has received since late December have been administered by either the health department or its partners, which include Emergency Medical Services, the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center, pharmacies, and other healthcare providers.

The county health department has also received 25,800 second doses of the Moderna vaccine. 7,875 of those doses have been administered.

With its weekly allocation from Virginia currently limited to 13,600 doses, Fairfax County has scaled back the number of available vaccination sites. The health department is now only providing first doses at the county government center, reserving local health district offices for second doses.

However, the county has also started working with more partners over the past week, including Kaiser, the first private healthcare provider to get the COVID-19 vaccine, and George Mason University’s Mason and Partners (MAP) clinics.

Fairfax County Health Director Dr. Gloria Addo-Ayensu says partnerships like those will be critical to getting the vaccine to more people in Fairfax County, since not everyone can easily travel to the Fairfax County Government Center and other established vaccination sites.

“The ideal thing would be for us to be able to engage clinicians, private providers when we have sufficient vaccine,” Addo-Ayensu said. “…We do know for sure that more vaccine is coming our way, but we just don’t have dates and timelines. All we’re doing right now is building that capacity by engaging with our partners.”

While acknowledging that supply constraints remain the biggest challenge facing the county’s vaccine program, several supervisors shared frustrations that they have heard from constituents who have registered for a vaccination but have no clear sense of when it will actually be their turn to get an appointment. Read More

An empty auto repair building, formerly the home of Herndon Auto Care and Dulles Shell Service Center, will flip into a restaurant later this year.

Pollo Campero, a fast-food restaurant that serves fried, grilled and crunchy chicken, plans to move into the 2,900-square-foot building at 1131 Elden Street. The business is expected to relocate from its current location at 496 Elden Street.

The company is seeking a special exception from the town to redevelop the property into a restaurant with a drive-thru and parking.

The car shop moved from its Elden Street location to a new building just two miles away at 45410 Holiday Drive in Sterling, according to its website.

The front of the building will open up to the parking lot and connects to the town’s sidewalks. A walk-up window to pickup orders is also planned. A drive-thru is located at the back of the site, according to Shaghayegh Osipov, a project manager for the company.

Pollo Campero is excited to join the Elden streetscape and looks forward to working together to bring this new Pollo Campero location to life, he wrote.

In a Jan. 29 memo, town staff noted that the company should reconsider the company’s ‘somewhat festive theme’ in order to ensure the building is inviting. Town staff noted that most of the building’s windows are confined to the front of the building.

The town’s Architectural Review Board is set to discuss the item at a virtual meeting tomorrow night.

Image via Pollo Campero/Town of Herndon

The non-profit Friends of Reston Regional Library is providing about 1,800 free books to local students. The Book Bites project is giving new books to children at four Reston public schools during meal and school supply pick-up, which typically runs from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m on weekdays.

The schools that will receive donations are Dogwood Elementary, Hunters Woods Elementary, Forest Edge Elementary, and South Lakes High School. The first day of distribution took place at Dogwood late last week and is expected to continue until March.

Where are our @DogwoodFairfax 4-6 readers? We’ve got books waiting for you! We’re here til 1230! 🙂📚@dogwoodlibfcps @DogwoodMinds #WeNeedDiverseBooks #bookbites @LindaSuePark @KSekouM pic.twitter.com/JatcHV2AMw

— RestonLibraryFriends ❤️📚 (@LoveBooksReston) January 29, 2021

Eileen Evon, Community Outreach Chair for FRRL, says the idea came to the organization when they realized how many families were in need of partaking in the meal pick-ups.

“Knowing more kids than ever were going to schools to pick up meals got us thinking about what else they might need to feed their brains and hearts and imaginations during this crazy time,” Evon wrote in an email to Reston Now. “We believed we, as Friends of the Library, could and should help.”

With access to libraries still limited, Evon says, this made the need even greater.

Books were sorted, inventoried, and arranged by reading level by more than 25 volunteers. Families are able to take bundles for multiple students within the same household. Books will also be handed out at schools in the coming weeks, when more students are expected to return in-person.

The books chosen for the project are from recommended school reading lists and were based on input from school librarians, reading specialists, and other school staff.

The organization received assistance from the local business Scrawl Books at Reston Town Center, which provided discounts on books. Jersey Mike’s of Reston also donated 1,000 new paper bags for the book bundles.

FRRL says the total cost of the books being distributed is nearly $15,000. Funds for the project came from sales of donated books as well as cash donations.

In normal times, FRRL raises money (often with book sales) to assist Reston libraries in filling funding gaps. Their mission is to make the local library system the “can be the best it can be” by providing technology, collection materials, programming, and books for free or discounted costs to the community, according to its website.

Evon says that while giving away free books looks easy, it requires a lot of work.

“It seems like a simple idea: ‘let’s give away a bunch of free, brand-new books to kids who rarely get them.’ But it actually has required months of planning and creative thinking,” she says. “The schools have so much going on right now, and they have had to adapt constantly. We’ve been delighted to partner with them so our volunteers can come to their schools to distribute these books to their families.”

Photo courtesy of Friends of Reston Regional Library

A driver who hit and injured a pedestrian in the 300 block of Elden Street last month has not been cited for any wrongdoing, according to the Herndon Police Department.

After an investigation into the incident, which happened on Jan. 16, police concluded the driver struck the pedestrian but was not at fault. HPD did not release any other information about the investigation.

The pedestrian was taken to the hospital and was in critical condition.

An HPD spokesperson later told Reston Now that the pedestrian sustained injuries that were not life-threatening. The driver remained on the scene at the time of the incident. No charges were filed against the driver.

The Autumnwood courts will soon have better lighting.

Reston Association has kicked off a lighting project that will bring upgraded LED lights and automated lighting controls to the tennis and pickleball courts.

The project will cost $80,000, according to Mike Leone, RA’s spokesman.

The project is expected to begin today, according to a statement by Reston Association. The tennis facility will be closed until Feb. 15. But pickleball activities can continue on Lake Newport during construction at Autumnwood.

Later this spring, two of the tennis courts will be converted into four pickleball courts.

Once construction is completed and the Autumnwood courts reopen, Lake Newport’s courts will return to tennis only.

Lighting upgrades are also planned at the Hook Road tennis facility. That work is expected to begin in March, depending on the weather, Leone said.

Photo via Reston Association

The 2021 Reston Association Board of Director elections are here.

Every spring, the Reston Association elects three new members to their Board of Directors. Five candidates are certified this year for three spots, including four for the two at-large spots and one for the South Lakes District. All new members will serve a three-year term.

Ballots close April 2 for drop-off and online submission. Results will be announced April 13.

The candidates are:

At-Large (two seats available)

John Farrell 

A Reston resident since 1984 who is firmly the president of the Colonial Oaks Cluster, he wants facility improvements to be funded by new developers into the area.

Sarah Selvaraj-D’Souza

An incumbent at-large representative, she is promoting transparency and smart money management. She founded RESTONSTRONG last year and held peaceful demonstrations.

Timothy J. Dowling

A retired attorney who served as the chief counsel on the Community Rights Counsel. A long-time resident, his priorities would be fiscal oversight, protecting opening spaces, and preserving Reston’s natural resources.

Vincent Dory

A programmer, he’s committed to solving all the technological questions and issues that may come up on the board. His primary concern is to preserve and protect the core principles of Reston’s unique design.

South Lakes District (one seat available)

Jennifer Jushchuk

A Reston resident since 2014, priorities include fiscal responsibility, communication, collaboration, and advocacy.

Further information about the candidates and their priorities can be found here.

Photo via Reston Association/Facebook.

The novel coronavirus has now killed 802 people in the Fairfax Health District, which includes Fairfax County and the Cities of Fairfax and Falls Church.

While the number of new cases and hospitalizations appear to be trending downward, Fairfax County has still been averaging 365 COVID-19 cases, eight hospitalizations, and 4.5 deaths per day over the past seven days, according to the Virginia Department of Health’s data.

With 237 new cases today (Monday), the Fairfax Health District has recorded a total of 60,436 COVID-19 cases, and 3,317 people have been hospitalized due to the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

After a hectic week of mass appointment cancellations and revamped protocols, state and local officials in Virginia hope that an anticipated increase in vaccine supplies, clearer guidance to health providers, and the pending launch of a centralized registration system will result in a more efficient and less confusing COVID-19 vaccination program.

According to a presentation that Fairfax County Health Director Dr. Gloria Addo-Ayensu is scheduled to deliver to county supervisors tomorrow (Tuesday), Virginia is currently receiving about 105,000 doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines per week. The Fairfax Health District has a weekly allocation of 13,600 doses.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced last week that the federal government is expected to increase its allocation of vaccine to the Commonwealth by 16%. He also told local health districts to split their supplies evenly between older adults and the other eligible populations, including essential workers and people with high-risk medical conditions.

Fairfax County continues to lead Virginia’s vaccination efforts, administering 95,935 total doses and fully vaccinating 15,864 people as of today. However, that is only a fraction of the 223,625 doses that the Fairfax Health District has received, according to a new VDH dashboard.

As of Jan. 28, the county had a waitlist of 168,422 people who have pre-registered for an appointment through the Fairfax County Health Department, which has been administering the vaccine to older adults, healthcare workers, long-term care facility employees, and people with underlying medical conditions.

Essential workers, including teachers and first responders, have been getting vaccinated through special clinics from Inova Health Systems, which has reported administering about 75,000 doses. Last week, the nonprofit ceased giving new appointments for people looking to receive their first dose, though Fairfax County Public Schools was able to reschedule appointments for its staff that had been canceled.

Overall, Virginia has received 1.3 million vaccine doses, administered 843,230 doses, and fully vaccinated 124,407 people. The pace of vaccinations has been picking up, with the Commonwealth now averaging 33,675 doses a day, but remains short of Northam’s goal of 50,000 per day.

Images via CDC on Unsplash, VDH, Fairfax County Health Department