The Falls Church City Council is keeping the door open to maintaining the same tax rate in the coming fiscal year.
Council members unanimously voted on Monday night to advertise a maximum tax rate of $1.21 per $100 assessed valuation — unchanged from the current rate.
New data on sales tax and meals tax revenues in Falls Church might show the first headwinds of a looming economic storm, leaders say.
Sales-tax revenues in the city were flat in February despite the opening of a Whole Foods supermarket in early February. Revenue from the city’s meals tax also wasn’t as high as officials had anticipated.
Falls Church City Council members appear as divided as ever on how costs for trash collection in single-family neighborhoods should be funded.
At a Monday work session, Council members split almost down the middle on whether to shift to a fee-for-service model or to stick with funding weekly trash services through the city. More specifically, they are still debating whether they can work out details in the few weeks remaining before the city’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget is due for adoption.
Falls Church officials are considering requiring future commercial developers to meet minimum tree-planting requirements.
The number of projects that any change could impact might be small, however.
Falls Church residents are less satisfied with their roads than they used to be, a new survey suggests.
Still, they continue to have a generally positive view of city services and their community’s overall quality of life.
Significant divisions remain as Falls Church City Council members approach final-decision time to enact rules regulating accessory-dwelling units.
“There are so many concerns” still to be worked through, Council member Marybeth Connelly said at a March 10 work session on the topic.
Additional no-turn-on-red traffic restrictions are coming to Falls Church, and even more may be on the way.
Police Chief Shahram Fard told City Council members that the Department of Public Works has approved several of his requests for additional no-turn-on-red restrictions along Broad Street.
Falls Church officials appear willing to hold off, for now, on moving City Council elections to a ranked-choice format.
“It might be better to wait,” city elections director David Bjerke said at a Monday Falls Church Electoral Board meeting.
The Falls Church Volunteer Fire Department is celebrating its 100th anniversary.
The Falls Church City Council passed a resolution supporting the volunteers on Monday. It came just a few days before the specific date — Feb. 27, 1925 — that the fire department was established.
Amid federal budget-slashing efforts, Falls Church officials are keeping a watchful eye on about $50 million in approved grant funds.
So far, “we have not heard any word of adverse actions on those grant projects,” City Manager Wyatt Shields told City Council members Monday night.
It may come down to more school funding or homeowner tax relief as Falls Church city leaders start mulling over budget options for the coming year.
Although the formal presentation of draft city and school-system budgets is more than a month off, city officials now have a better idea of the fiscal condition of the 2.2-square-mile locality.
Legislation to give Falls Church more tools to promote affordable-housing development is moving forward in Richmond.
Two companion bills, if approved by the legislature and signed by the governor, would add Falls Church to the list of Virginia localities allowed to craft a program related to affordable dwelling units through their zoning ordinances.
