Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer. Our children have headed back to school and football season has begun. Good luck to all of our students as they launch into the academic year. Thanks to all of our teachers for their dedication to preparing them for their future. Summer […]

Arlington’s roster of venerable old businesses reset last year when the granddaddy of them all, T.A. Sullivan & Son Monuments (founded in 1885), moved from Clarendon to Vienna. I’ve since chatted with proprietors of what may be the oldest shops still serving our county, four paragons of entrepreneurial tenacity. The […]

A quick weekend trip to my husband’s high school class reunion in Palo Alto gave me an opportunity to compare a few issues that have some commonality with Mason District and Fairfax County. Stormwater, tree canopy, and education were foremost but, as we drove through neighborhoods, I yearned for our […]

By Lawrence Webb As students return for another school year in the City of Falls Church I am excited about starting a community conversation about the facility needs of our top rated school system. This year begins with the completion of the Thomas Jefferson Elementary School (TJ) renovation project which […]

Usually, when more people show up for your party than you were expecting, it is a good thing. More tickets to your show, more hits on your YouTube posting, more books sold on Amazon, more is good. But in the case of new enrollment in the Falls Church City Schools, […]

Working musicians in our county have several recording studios in which to play out their dreams, among them the Washington-area stalwart Inner Ear Studios in South Arlington and the Rosslyn-based Get Me Produced. But as of this month, Arlington will host one less refuge for tune perfectors. Birdsong Studios on […]

“You can’t trust my opponent, and here’s why” is the most universal, pervasive theme in politics, not “You can trust me, and here’s why.” If you are paying attention to the political ads in the Virginia Governor’s race, you know what I mean. Negative ads are like drugs of choice […]

Most times, public libraries are fairly benign institutions, treasured by their patrons, lauded as neighborhood amenities, readily accepted as symbols of a progressive and open community. In Fairfax County, a child’s first real identification, other than parents, is a library card, and the responsibility that goes with it. For newcomers […]

As the first School Board candidate to write in this column, I have the enviable benefit of having what I say sound new. I also face the unenviable reality that my words may well be forgotten by November 5. Onward and upward, I guess? What the Board needs to focus […]

It’s going to be a very different fall in the corridors of power in the City of Falls Church, defined by the shift of municipal elections from May to, for the first time this fall, November. November City Council and School Board elections will modify a lot of things that […]