Before we head off into the weekend, let’s take a look back at the biggest stories on Reston Now in recent days.

1. North Italia to Open This Week in Reston Town Center
2. Amid Concerns, Reston Planning and Zoning to Revisit Campus Commons Proposal
3. Report: Amazon Web Services Expands in Herndon
4. Lack of Affordable Housing in New Developments Near Future Herndon Metro Station Sparks Debate
5. Wanted Reston Man Charged with Obstruction of Justice

If you have ideas on stories we should cover, email us at [email protected] or submit an anonymous tip.

Feel free to discuss these topics, your weekend plans or anything else that’s happening locally in the comments below.

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Have thoughts about Reston Now’s coverage of Reston, Herndon and Great Falls? Want to share your opinions about local issues?

Reston Now welcomes letters to the editors and op-eds of specific interest to the Reston, Herndon and Great Falls community.

The key difference is that an op-ed can be an opinion piece about a local issue, while a letter to the editor responds directly to a Reston Now story.

Please email it to [email protected]. You are also welcome to contact us with your idea for feedback before submitting it.

While there is no word limit, we suggest under 1,000 words. Contributions may be edited for length, content and style/grammar.

Reston Now does not publish op-eds relating to a specific candidate running for political office — either from the candidate’s team or opponents.

Thank you to everyone who has submitted op-eds and letters to the editor already.

As we reported last week, two new Town of Herndon council members are exploring ways to beef up the town’s affordable housing policies for new development.

With several new major developments already approved by the town and more than 600 units in the pipeline, no units are set aside as affordable or workforce housing.

Town officials are beginning preliminary conversations to explore how and if the town should beef up its affordable housing policies.

Council members Cesar del Aguila and Pradip Dhakal say that one of the most lucrative options is for the town to seek state-enabling legislative that would gave it the statutory authority to administer an affordable housing program similar to the county’s process.

Others, however, caution that the administrative burden is far too hefty for the town to shoulder, especially since town officials already maintain the town’s existing affordable housing stock.

What policy instruments do you think the town should explore? Let us know in the poll below.

Photo via Town of Herndon

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.

In last week’s column I suggested that the record-breaking for brevity, 90-minute session of the General Assembly came about because of a dysfunctional House of Delegates and a lack of leadership by the Speaker of the House. Further evidence unfolding since I wrote that column strengthens my concern and adds to it the problem that in the Virginia House of Delegates the “fox is guarding the chicken coop.”

The Special Session of the General Assembly that was called by Governor Ralph Northam in response to increasing gun violence should have provided a forum for debate to determine a response by the legislature to keep the people of Virginia safe. Few sessions general or special have attracted as much public attention as this one with hundreds of advocates at the Capitol representing all sides of the issue.

One side got high-level special attention. Ordinary citizens and state-wide and national groups concerned about gun violence attended a rally at the Bell Tower in Capitol Square and spent the rest of the morning visiting legislative offices and milling about the street between the Pocahontas Building where legislative offices are and the State Capitol. The National Rifle Association (NRA) representatives were in the Speaker of the House of Delegates Conference Room picking up their red caps and tee shirts and no doubt getting reassurances that everything was going to be alright.

A website inviting NRA members to the event encouraged their attendance: “Governor Ralph Northam and his gun ban allies are ready to push their extreme anti-gun agenda when the General Assembly convenes its special session tomorrow–July 9th. Your NRA is calling on members and Second Amendment supporters to join in the fight against Gov. Northam’s misguided gun control proposals by coming to Richmond on July 9th to personally urge their elected officials to stand up for our rights and oppose the Northam gun ban agenda.”

The most astonishing part of the announcement came in the details of the event: “WHERE: Pocahontas Building, 6th Floor, House Conference Room.” That just happens to be the Conference Room of the Speaker of the House of Delegates!

On this topic the Speaker effectively relinquished any impartial role of conducting the business of the House and became the host for those opposing common-sense gun safety laws that according to dozens of public opinion polls are supported by an overwhelming majority of Virginians. It brings back memories of the time this same Speaker moved from his position as Speaker to take the floor of the House of Delegates to speak passionately against a women’s right to make decisions about her own reproductive health.

The announcement included some red meat to encourage participation: “Our members are concerned that Gov. Northam’s special session is a political stunt aimed at distracting from his scandals…”

With the cooperation of the Speaker of the House of Delegates we clearly have the fox guarding the chicken coop in Virginia.

This op-ed was submitted by Connie Hartke, president of Rescue Reston. It does not reflect the opinions of Reston Now. We publish article and opinion contributions of specific interest to the Reston community. Contributions may be edited for length or content. 

You’ve probably seen this yourself:  communities that once were charming and lovely but are now car-clogged concrete canyons.  Rescue Reston and other like-minded yellow-shirted citizens associations in Reston are dedicated to preserving the charm of Reston and preventing over-development.  Rescue Reston focuses specifically on preserving Reston’s two planned open spaces, which are the two 160+ acre golf courses–Reston National and Hidden Creek.

Open space matters.  It’s good for us.  It not only enhances our physical health but our mood, creativity, and memory.  Scientific studies show this.  You cannot get these same health benefits from walking in busy, dense spots such as Reston Town Center or in the Village Centers.  Fairfax County says in its Economic Success Plan that it wants to encourage health benefits like these through a “Health in All Policies” approach.

Preserving Reston National and Hidden Creek is not all about promoting golf, though that is a worthwhile endeavor in keeping with Reston’s promotion of healthy living through sports.  It’s about preserving Reston’s deliberate plan for everyone to benefit from the Reston Association paths that were designed–from Reston’s founding in 1964–to go along and through the golf courses.

The vast majority of people who benefit from Reston National and Hidden Creek are not the golfers themselves but the hundreds of walkers, joggers, bicyclists, kids in strollers, and elderly and disabled people with canes or wheelchairs who enjoy these open spaces via the RA paths every single day.   Everyone in Reston–from the youngest to the oldest among us–has access to the benefits of this open space.

The out-of-state outfit that owns Hidden Creek, Wheelock Communities, is talking about redeveloping this land into housing and turning some of it into a park.  Don’t be deceived.  The so-called “grand park” that Wheelock is promoting would result in a loss of the majority of this beautiful and rare open space.  What Wheelock is offering as a so-called park is only that part of its property that is not suitable for housing.  The latest proposal says a large chunk would be marshland.

As density increases–as planned–at the Metro stations and the Transit Station Areas, the Restonians living or working in those high-density areas will need and want the vistas of the golf course open space that they have access to now.  It is short-sighted and, frankly, greedy for out-of-area developers to try to take these planned open spaces away from Restonians just when we need it most.

Yet we Restonians were promised that this open space would be preserved for the long term.  The latest Reston Master Plan(completed in 2015) that guides our community’s development for the next thirty to forty years commits to keeping this open space.  Violating that 30-to-40-year open-space pledge after only four or five years would truly be a violation of the plan for generations to come.

Unlike most of Fairfax County, Reston has always been a planned community.  Restonians know and abide by planned-community rules that affect things as small as whether we can change the color of our shutters or put in a bay window.  And yet, despite the respect that we residents have always shown to planned-community principles, real estate developers who are brand new to our community want to violate the plan and change the character of our community forever by robbing it of its planned, promised, and dwindling open space.

Remember:  once the open space is gone, it is gone forever.   Preserve the open space at Reston National and Hidden Creek.  All of it.

Photo by Paul Hartke

Before we head off into the weekend, let’s take a look back at the biggest stories on Reston Now this week.

1. State Fined Reston Association for Child Labor Law Violations Last Year
2. Roots Music Festival and More this Weekend in Reston
3. Reston Under Severe Thunderstorm Warning
4. Police Cruiser Hits Pedestrian in Reston
5. Police Make Arrest in Harris Teeter Abduction Case

If you have ideas on stories we should cover, email us at [email protected] or submit an anonymous tip.

If you would like us to follow-up with you about your tip, please include your contact information. In recent days, we have received tips with incomplete phone numbers and email addresses.

Feel free to discuss these topics, your weekend plans or anything else that’s happening locally in the comments below.

Photo via FCPD

Calling all local photographers: Reston Now is looking for your photos of Reston, Herndon and Great Falls.

Whether you’re a photography pro or just love snapping pictures with your smartphone, we are always looking to include seasonal photos in our Morning Notes on weekdays or reshare pictures on our social media accounts.

To send us your photos, email us at [email protected], tag us in your photo on social media or join our Reston Now Flickr page.

You will always receive credit for the photo — either with your username or actual name.

Thank you to photographers who have already sent us photos.

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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.

The House of Delegates broke all records for brevity last week when it adjourned 90 minutes after convening. It was not because the 100-member body had become so efficient that it got all its work done; to the contrary it demonstrated how dysfunctional the body has become over the last several decades.

Brought together at the call of the Governor as he is constitutionally authorized to do, the House and the State Senate were asked to enact legislation in response to the gun violence that takes the lives of more than 1,000 citizens of our state each year including the most recent tragic mass murders of a dozen people in a Virginia Beach municipal building. The Republican majorities in both houses instead chose, on a partisan vote, to adjourn the Special Session before legislation on gun safety could even be discussed. Tellingly, the Special Session is adjourned until November 18 which happens to also be past the date of the next election.

The charade of sending the eight bills the Governor had recommended, along with the two dozen or so others that had been introduced, to the Crime Commission for study is laughable. All these bills had been introduced before and defeated in small subcommittees. There is little more that can be said about these bills other than they become more popular with the public as gun violence increases. The bill I introduced on universal background checks has been thoroughly examined over many years and in public opinion has an approval rate among voters hovering around 90 percent.

The argument that there was not time to hear the bills doesn’t ring true when you consider that a regular session of the General Assembly earlier this year considered more than 2,500 bills and resolutions in about a month and a half. All the weaving and bobbing and flimsy excuses are intended to cover up that the House of Delegates and the State Senate under present leadership have become dysfunctional.

The rules under which the Special Session was to be conducted were kept from the members and the public until the session convened even though the leadership had known the date for weeks from the Governor’s call for the session. Even more the sinister plan to do nothing by adjourning both houses came as a surprise to everyone but the smallest number of members in the Republican leadership.

One of the biggest problems in the House with its organization and operation is that the Speaker serves not as Speaker of the House but as head of the Republican majority. As a result there is no neutral arbiter to convene and conduct the business of the House. When I talked with the Right Honourable John Bercow M.P. of the British House of Commons a couple of months ago he spoke of his role as a neutral person who ensures that the House operates fairly. There is no pretense in the Virginia House that the Speaker is anything other than head of the majority party and operates the House not in fairness or impartiality but to the advantage of the majority even if that majority is secured by only one or two votes.

The House is dysfunctional as it currently operates and needs reform in the role of the Speaker.

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Before we head off into the weekend, let’s take a look back at the biggest stories on Reston Now this week.

1. UPDATED: Flooding Reported Multiple Roads in Reston
2. Reston Couple Killed in Jet Skiing Accident
3. Boston Market in North Point Village Center is Closed
4. No Major Flood Damage Reported at Reston North Park & Ride
5. New Dessert Shop Opens at Lake Anne Plaza

If you have ideas on stories we should cover, email us at [email protected] or submit an anonymous tip.

If you would like us to follow-up with you about your tip, please include your contact information. In recent days, we have received tips with incomplete phone numbers and email addresses.

Feel free to discuss these topics, your weekend plans or anything else that’s happening locally in the comments below.

Photo by Laura Crielly

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.

The threats to our democratic-republican form of government are more numerous than weeks of this column could enumerate. While I will not mention the more obvious ones brought on by the current administration in Washington, I do want to focus on two that have come about in the recent past — one just last week. They impact all levels of government and come about not from the executive branch of government or the dysfunctional Congress but rather from the judicial branch and its highest level, the Supreme Court! While I have always viewed the Supreme Court as a safety backstop that would save our republic from harm by the Congress or the president, in recent years it is the Court that has become one of the real threats to democratic governance.

One of the biggest inhibitors of advancement on progressive issues in Virginia has been the unrestrained ability of the members of the party in power at the time of the decennial census to choose the voters they want to represent for the next decade by gerrymandering district boundaries. For some of us there has been a struggle to put in place a non-partisan method of drawing district lines. With the great organization OneVirginia2021’s efforts there has been real progress towards meeting that goal. A Constitutional amendment passed the last session of the General Assembly that would establish what is described as a non-partisan and transparent process for redistricting. It must pass the 2020 session without change in order to be sent to the voters in a referendum before becoming part of the state constitution.

In the meantime lawsuits were successful in federal courts to have the Virginia Congressional and House of Delegates districts redrawn to eliminate discrimination based on race. The Supreme Court refused to review the new House of Delegates districts drawn by a lower federal court on a technicality that the current members bringing the suit did not have standing.

Of great concern, however, is the Supreme Court decision last week saying in effect that federal courts do not have the power to redraw politically gerrymandered district lines. The outcome could be more devastating to a republican form of government as the dominant party would be left free to establish itself in power without a way to challenge it.

The Supreme Court has historically sidestepped cases in the past that would have brought them into resolving partisan redistricting. I am fearful that the Court’s decision will result in rampant gerrymandering of legislative districts creating unparalleled control of legislatures. This unfortunate decision by the Supreme Court may have been exceeded in its partisan implications only by Citizens United that many people feel may have been the Court’s greatest mistake by bringing uncontrolled corporate influence into elections.

As usual the checks, although extremely limited to these kinds of bad decisions, continue to be voting the very best people into elective office.

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Before we head off into the weekend, let’s take a look back at the biggest stories on Reston Now this week.

1. Body Found Near Hunters Woods Shopping Plaza
2. Local Real Estate Developer Involved in Herndon Project to Serve Six-Year Sentence
3. Señor Ramon Taqueria Opens on Baron Cameron Avenue
4. Local VA Delays Expected Opening Day at Lake Anne Plaza
5. Ideas Floated for New Performing Arts Center at Reston Gateway

If you have ideas on stories we should cover, email us at [email protected] or submit an anonymous tip.

If you would like us to follow-up with you about your tip, please include your contact information. In recent days, we have received tips with incomplete phone numbers and email addresses.

Feel free to discuss these topics, your weekend plans or anything else that’s happening locally in the comments below.

Photo via Señor Ramon Taqueria/Facebook

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.

From my earliest years of study of history, I was always fascinated with the story of Ancient Greece. A goal that I had for decades was realized recently as Jane and I vacationed for nearly two weeks in Greece. We were not disappointed as we stood on the soil and envisioned from the ruins the glory that must have been Greece.

Greece is one of the oldest civilizations in the world, and this column will use some broad generalizations to condense that history and create a context for the influence of Greek culture on world history. Linking the ancient classical Greek period and the Hellenic periods together, the Ancient Greek civilization extended from about 800 BC and lasted until about 400 AD. During this classical or golden age of Greece, the incredible accomplishments of the Greeks were recorded forever in history.

As an online entry describes it, “Ancient Greece is considered by most historians to be the foundational culture of Western Civilization. Greek culture was a powerful influence in the Roman Empire which carried a version of it to many parts of Europe. Ancient Greek civilization has been immensely influential on the language, politics, educational systems, philosophy, art and architecture of the modern world, particularly during the Renaissance in Western Europe and again during various neo-classical revivals in the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe and the Americas.”

Historians agree that Greek intellectual achievements have been unparalleled in the history of the Western world whether you are talking about philosophy, literature, mathematics, science, art, architecture, or mythology. Greek intellectual leaders like Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle continue to influence the way we think about the way we govern, what we value, and what our ideals are. Their architectural achievements continue to be admired even as most of their most successful structures are in ruin as much from war and destruction as from the passage of time.

While the Parthenon is but a shell of its original magnificence with the pillage, destruction, and weathering it has endured, its significance cannot be overstated as to what happened within its walls. I had seen some of the incredible sculpture that had graced the building in the British Museum as it had been stolen from the edifice by the British in its occupation of the country. The new Archaeological Museum at the Acropolis is ultra-modern and contains dozens of sculptures from the Golden Age and would be a most suitable place for the British to return the art they made off with during their occupation.

Making your way up the steep steps of the Acropolis is a long distance and a long time from Ancient Greece to today that encompasses many conquests, occupations and failures. I am glad that we went to see the remains on the Acropolis and the site where the first Olympians trained and competed. As beautiful as the country and the waters that nearly surround it are, the country is not a major power. In recent times it has been rescued by its neighbors.

Great civilizations have not endured forever even as their influence may still be present. Are we living in a time when our own glory might at some future date be described in the past tense?

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