A majority of Falls Church households are willing to give the city’s new organics disposal program a try.
Slightly more than 70% of city households eligible for the program were opting to get an organics bin from the government, based on preliminary statistics reported by City Manager Wyatt Shields at the Oct. 27 City Council meeting.
Falls Church officials plan to start looking into options for limiting or banning the use of gas-powered leaf blowers within city limits.
Among the issues remaining to be determined, likely early next year, is whether city leaders already have the power to enact a prohibition — or if they must wait for approval from the state government.
The Falls Church City Council is considering a major increase to a pool of funding to support local residents facing short-term financial difficulties.
City staff originally proposed adding $20,000 to $25,100 previously allocated for an assistance fund that provides eligible households with up to $1,000 in support per year.
Some of the city of Falls Church’s budget surplus could fund outreach to Vietnamese-American communities and celebrations of the United States’ 250th birthday.
An additional $35,000 would extend a current pilot outreach program by another six months, while $50,000 would fund patriotic events and activities next year and $12,600 would support pay raises for the city’s Planning Commission.
A recent forum quizzed Falls Church City Council candidates on what local governments can do to blunt ever-increasing costs of child care and preschool services in Northern Virginia.
It was, one incumbent noted, the first time the issue had been raised during a candidate forum in her memory.
The owner of the Falls Church News-Press has started a crowdfunding campaign in an attempt to revive the weekly newspaper’s at-home delivery service.
The newspaper, which has been published continuously since 1991, eliminated free at-home delivery in a cost-cutting move earlier this year. Copies can now be picked up via bulk drops at locations across Falls Church and surrounding areas.
Developers of commercial projects in Falls Church could for the first time be required to meet minimum tree-canopy requirements.
City Council members at an Oct. 6 work session generally were supportive of a staff proposal that would set a minimum 10% canopy for future commercial development.
Falls Church officials are breathing a sigh of relief as meals-tax revenue seems to have bounced back from declines earlier in the year.
“We did have a rebound. We’ll continue watching it,” City Manager Wyatt Shields said at the Oct. 3 meeting of the City Council’s budget and finance committee.
Falls Church city leaders are working to update a government website that they acknowledge has fallen behind the times.
Poor functionality on mobile devices, broken links and outdated information and contacts currently plague the website, according to Joshua Surprenant, who joined the communications staff in April and has been tasked with dissecting the site’s strengths and weaknesses.
Candidates for Falls Church City Council seem to agree it’s time to pause and take stock of a recent spurt of new construction before moving forward on bigger projects.
The city’s skyline has changed dramatically over the past decade with the arrival of several new mixed-use projects. Contenders participating in a Sept. 25 forum said growth has brought both positives and negatives.
Falls Church officials hope that 2026 will be the year they start making decisions about the city’s portion of the 20-acre Gordon Road Triangle.
Much of the city’s portion of the industrial area is occupied by the Robert L. Goff Operations Yard on Gordon Road. It is likely the city would work to find private partners to fund on-site renovations to — and new facilities on — the well-worn facility, rather than try to cover all those costs itself.
Falls Church election officials are getting ready for the start of early voting on Friday and the general election in November.
At a meeting last week, leaders provided updates on plans to send mail-in ballots, select election officers and ensure that voting equipment is good to go.
