Former Falls Church Mayor and current City Council member Robin Gardner was present for the first F.C. City Council meeting tonight since the arrest of her husband, Michael, on child sex abuse charges in June. Gardner was absent from the Council’s meetings in July as her husband was arraigned and formally charged with three counts of felony child sexual abuse by a grand jury and set for a mid-October trial.

Gardner made no public comments at the outset of tonight’s meeting, which went immediately into a closed session for what was expected to be another lengthy discussion of Falls Church’s legal options pertaining to its embattled water system.

The Council was slated to return to an open meeting later tonight.