Redistricting Fever: And hot dogs for the kids!

Now that they've secured the finest legal team that advertises on the back cover of the Yellow Pages, how is FairfaxCAPS, the awesome, pro-school group that's currently suing Fairfax County schools to force it to re-redistrict elementary school students from Oakton, Vienna, Fox Mill and other decent, non-Bratz-intensive places out of South Lakes High School to somewhere where they won't have to sing the Internationale before getting their chocolate ration for the day, going to pay its bills?

Apparently quality Indian cuisine and Christmas ornaments aren't cutting it, because they've come up with some awesome new plans:

We have a booth at Viva Vienna on May 25th & 26th. Our goal is to reach a broader audience and spread the word about our mission.

Awesome! Will they have Stu Gibson in a dunking booth? But wait -- there's more!

Also, FairfaxCAPS is holding a raffle to support FairfaxCAPS advocacy efforts. We are blessed with generous friends who have donated some big ticket items for the raffle. We are asking members of the community to help support FairfaxCAPS by buying and selling tickets. We will sell tickets at Viva Vienna. In total, the prizes are valued at over $4000. Watch for the next email that will be the short list of prizes available. I promised that I would hold the announcement of the GRAND PRIZE. Shhhhhhh!....think sun, sand and water.

What, is it a spot at Langley High School? (Fun fact, by the way: the mascot at Langley, which was never ever ever in danger of being redistricted anywhere, is the Saxons... or should we say, the Anglo-Saxons?)

But we digress. Then there's this assessment of how FairfaxCAPS is doing:

FairfaxCAPS has received great reviews in newspapers and on online blogs for its efforts. We have some awesome goals for the next year.

Awesome? Where on earth would they have gotten that word?

Meanwhile, in the other anti-Reston: Imagine no religion (it's easy if you live in Columbia)

Those of us who've long followed Columbia, Reston's evil doppelganger to the north, with its awesome, almost-as-mauve planned communities, Satan Wood Drive, and a shopping mall which declared war on Christmas last winter, will hardly be shocked by the latest news from our fellow New Urbanists(tm):

The founders of Columbia were convinced that religion, like everything else in the planned community envisioned as a suburban utopia, should be harmonious and inclusive. So instead of a welter of churches all vying for space within the model township, the founders opted for interfaith centers.

Now, one congregation's plan to place a 16-foot cross on a new building at the town's oldest interfaith center in Wilde Lake Village has stirred an anxious response. Some guardians of local tradition see the cross as a challenge to the core values of Columbia.

"I think it's just wrong," said Robert Tennenbaum, a planner and architect who helped design Wilde Lake. "This is Columbia -- you are talking about a special place."

Too special for Baby Jesus? Apparently so!

The town's interfaith centers were another innovation. Instead of selling building sites to individual religious groups, the Rouse Co., which developed Columbia, made land available at a fraction of its market value to groups of at least two denominations that agreed to work together and build the centers.

Yet the ebb and flow of unity and separation between religions is a pattern woven through the centuries, said James Grubb, a professor of history at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Sometimes entire denominations have moved toward mergers, only to split again.

"The Columbia experiment has done better than most, but after 40 years of ecumenism, I'm not surprised it's fragmenting," he said. "Ecumenism is often followed by identity politics -- people adhering to their differences."

We simply can't imagine that!

Tall Oaks Resurrected: Beef blood and golf clubs, the two great tastes that taste great together

With Tall Oaks awesome new Fresh World grocery store slated to open May 16, Reston residents got a behind-the-scenes look at how the international-themed store will begin a stucco-themed rebirth of the shopping center poorly signposted wasteland.

But first things first: Apparently, the awesome postcard campaign to win over Bloom wasn't a complete success:

Fresh World was selected to fill the space vacated by Giant in November, and Dallon Cheney, KLNB Retail's principal broker, explained why KLNB selected that store serve as the center's anchor rather than another grocery store. Cheney said although the community had requested that Bloom fill the space, the store turned them down. He said KLNB had been in negotiations with Fresh World at the same time.

Cheney said KLNB was very impressed with Fresh World's store in Springfield and they are confident that it will be a good addition to the community. He also said if the Reston store has the same sales as the Springfield location, they would be doing three times the business that Giant was doing and twice what a Bloom store would have done.

In your face, Bloom, with your handheld checkout scanners and your bleach-tainted pork chops and... whatnot! But what of the rest of the shopping center, which currently resembles a scene from the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, only with better parking and more stucco?

He said they have been speaking with many coffee shops and other similar businesses, but so far they have not had any luck. However, he said they plan to revisit many of those businesses after Fresh World opens.

Cheney said they have also been attempting to negotiate with banks, a yoga studio and a golf store, and prospects are good for the golf store. "We're feeling very optimistic," he said.

Yep... we just picked up a quart of pork blood and a new set of tees. Now watch this drive!

Reston's Vibrant Economy, Part 20: What's a million measly customers?

Sprint Nextel-N-Bob's Kansas-Style BBQ continues its downward slide into awesome right-sizedness, losing more than a million customers and $505 million as it whiled away the first three months of the year, forwarding each other repetitive Footloose-themed blog posts about its awesome headquarters relocation to Kansas and apparently letting more than a half billion dollar bills flutter away in a gentle spring breeze after someone accidentally left a window open or something.

We may not be sophisticated daytraders, but generally we know it's probably time to panic when analysts say things like this:

"This is a nightmare game of whack-a-mole where new problems keep popping up faster that you can address," said Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett.

But everything's gonna be fine, because they have, as they say in the movies, a plan:

Sprint, which acquired Reston-based Nextel Communications for $36 billion two years ago, may sell Nextel for a fraction of that price, according to one Wall Street analyst.

So here's the plan:

1. Buy failing telecom provider for $36 billion; watch its market value crater and sell for a pittance at the absolute bottom of the market
2. ???
3. Profit!!!

Another half-billion here, another million lost customers there, and they'll get Step 2 figured out.

Conceal-carry enthusiasts demonstrate their fundamental belief in gun rights, loaded potato skins

Picture a rocking Saturday night at Champps Americana in Plaza America, with a reasonably priced macrobrew in one hand, a fork groaning under the weight of a fried mozzarella strip in the other, and a handgun in your holster.

The patrons at Champps, an upscale restaurant and bar chain, were eating ribs and drinking beer on a recent Saturday when customer Bruce Jackson stood up and made an announcement: He was armed, and so were dozens of other patrons.

The armed customers stood up in unison, showing off holstered pistols and revolvers. Jackson said a word or two about the rights of gun owners to carry firearms in Virginia, then thanked everyone for their attention and sat down.

And the diners returned to their burgers and Budweisers.

All because of a Virginia law allowing gun owners to carry firearms in bars and restaurants that serve alcohol -- so long as the weapons are displayed openly. The General Assembly passed a law this year allowing gun owners to conceal their guns on their Friendly's runs, but the openly communistic Tim Kaine took time from his busy schedule of canoodling with BFF Margaret Peters to ensure the future of the awesome Silver Line to veto it. But enough of that boring politics stuff! How did fellow Restonians react to the announcement that their fellow patrons were packing heat?

At Champps, several patrons failed to notice that so many customers were armed, even though dozens of gun-toting men and women had walked right past them.

Tomas Nolasco of Reston said he hadn’t noticed the guns and didn’t care as long as they weren’t drinking. (They weren’t.) His wife was a little more concerned.

“There are families in here, children in here,” Cathy Nolasco said. “It bothers me.”

Brendan Fitzgerald of Reston and his friends noticed the guns immediately. They were curious but unconcerned.

“I’m just laughing because it’s totally unnecessary in my opinion,” Fitzgerald said, pointing to one individual who not only was armed but also had several clips of ammunition attached to his belt.

“This is Reston, not Southeast,” said his friend Nathan Dicken.

Just don't tell these folks that.

Fowl Play, or why does the RA hate cute furry feathered critters?

First, the Reston Association came for the gophers. Now they're doing something that, quite frankly, sounds like it might violate indecency statutes with the geese -- some perverted practice called "goose egg addling."

Addling is a term used for rubbing oil on eggs in an effort to keep them from hatching. It is widely done as a form of humane population control for resident Canada geese.

Geez, a pagan/phallic May pole ceremony here, a good old-fashioned goose addling there, and all of the sudden, Reston is starting to look like Berkeley, ca. 1969! You'd think the open-minded folk who first came to Reston during that storied decade would be all over that, but apparently not.

Dave Janiga of the Wildlife Rescue League said last week that he has fielded some phone calls from Reston residents who say they are concerned that the procedure is being done too late in the development cycle, and others who have witnessed Reston staff remove entire nests.

“My concern is that some people who live on Lake Audubon have seen nests that sit for long periods of time with eggs in them before they are attended to, and some told me they are seeing entire nests being removed by Reston Association staff. I am concerned that some of those eggs have developing geese in them and that they are removing the entire nests and destroying them from time to time,” he said.

What's good for the goose is... oh, never mind.

Meanwhile, in the Anti-Reston: Residents vote to preserve the sanctity of Big Gulps

In our tolerant neighbor to the west, Herndon residents re-elected virtually everyone involved in shutting down the day labor center, rewarding the town council for protecting their most precious bodily fluids, the 72-oz. Dr. Pibb Super Big Gulps from the Elden St. 7-11, and solving the nation's immigration problems forever and giving Lou Dobbs valuable talking points for his anti-immigrant screeds, which a grateful nation enjoys nightly.

Herndon voters reaffirmed their support yesterday for a mayor and Town Council that garnered national attention for closing down a job center for day laborers, saying it had become a magnet for illegal immigrants.

Voters reelected Mayor Stephen J. DeBenedittis and most of the incumbents on the six-member council, who were elected in 2006 amid outrage over the taxpayer-subsidized center. Council member J. Harlon Reece, who had initially supported the center and stepped down to challenge DeBenedittis, was succeeded by Richard F. Downer.

"Two years ago, people said that it was a fluke that we got in the way that we did," Vice Mayor Dennis D. Husch said. "This year, we had the exact same results. . . . I'm pleased the previous election was validated."

And how!

Metro Silver Line: No Money, No Tunnel, No Problem!

Now that Metro's awesome silver-plated, smoke-filled ride to Reston, Dulles and beyond is absolutely, positively going to happen (unless it doesn't), how are the Under, Not Over folks taking the recent turn of events?

Just swimmingly!

TysonsTunnel.org, the vocal grass-roots organization that has fought to place the proposed Metrorail stations at Tysons Corner underground, is out of money and has lost the support of its primary backer, the developer WestGroup.

Yet the organization will hold a rally May 19 to revive the debate and try to raise money, organizers said.

"TysonsTunnel and its tens of thousands of supporters will not throw in the towel," said the organization's founder, Scott Monett. "Northern Virginians who support TysonsTunnel want the commonwealth to fully explain why competitive bidding is unnecessary. We urge all TysonsTunnel supporters to come out May 19 to show that the fight still isn't over."

Remember how this group is supposedly a huge spontaneous grassroots effort by the tens of people who live in Tysons and consider themselves a part of its vibrant, Olive Garden-intensive lifestyle, as opposed to renting an apartment there for six months or so before fleeing from its soulless, life-destroying core? Well, the group's prime mover -- and it will shock you to learn it's a developer! -- threw in the towel a while back.

Without WestGroup, the future of TysonsTunnel.org is uncertain. The group has spent more than $3 million on marketing and advocacy -- most of it from WestGroup -- and collected more than 10,000 signatures in favor of a tunnel.

Which works out to $300 per signature. Hell, if some grassroots organizer developer wants to send us a check for $300, we'll go to the Bed Bath 'N' Beyond parking lot with an old spoon and start digging the frigging tunnel ourselves.

This Week in Crime: Like 'To Catch a Predator,' Only With More Earth Tones

In unrelated cases, two Reston residents have been involved in some pretty unsavory behavior.

A Reston man has pleaded guilty to charges related to his courtship of a 14-year-old girl who turned out to be Woodstock police officer Derek Good.

Matthew Chilton, 25, pleaded guilty in Shenandoah County Circuit Court on Wednesday to charges of using a computer to commit sex offenses, carnal knowledge of a 14-year-old without force and taking indecent liberties with a child under 15, according to online court records. He will return to court for sentencing June 18.

Chilton was arrested last year following a series of chats he had with Good in a Yahoo chat room.

The officer was portraying a 14-year-old girl from Woodstock as part of a covert operation to identify and apprehend child predators online, a criminal complaint states.

Chilton contacted Good and asked the officer to view his webcam.

After accepting, Good observed what appeared to be a white male masturbating, the complaint states. The chat turned sexual in nature after Good said he was a 14-year-old girl and Chilton admitted he was 24 and from Reston, it states.

"I'm from Reston." Quite a pickup line, there.

Meanwhile, another Reston resident was charged with not reporting an inappropriate cell phone photo of an underage girl.

Freedom High School Assistant Principal Ting-Yi Oei was charged with a misdemeanor by the Sheriff’s Office and placed on paid administrative leave by Loudoun County Public Schools for not following state laws requiring notification.

Oei, a 59-year-old Reston educator who joined the school in 2005, obtained the photo from a student at the South Riding school on March 14 and did not report the incident to the girl’s parents. Deputies learned of the incident about three weeks later from another source, according to a Loudoun County sheriff’s statement.

Someone call Dateline NBC.

Metro's Silver Line: Ask a silly question....

Did the federal government's shocking reversal on Metro's awesome Silver Line last week, after declaring the project all but dead back in January and badmouthing anyone even tangentially involved in backing the project except maybe for Earl, the guy who set up all the traffic cones with little flashing lights on top of them in Tysons, have anything to do with politics?

Yes.

This concludes today's installment of Ask a Silly Question About Metro's Silver Line. Next week, we'll tackle another stumper: If you smell smoke on the Metro, are the tracks on fire?

Meanwhile, in the Anti-Reston: Town Elections Show Shocking Diversity of Opinions (About Diversity)

Tuesday's Herndon Town Council elections aren't about such silly concepts as "hope" and "change." They're about preserving unfettered access to Super Big Gulps at the Elden Street 7-11.

Ky Truong looked out the window of the Herndon Shell station he manages at what he calls "a lot of problems": clusters of immigrant day laborers, who he says have been trampling his flower beds and bothering customers since September, when the town shuttered its controversial day-laborer hiring center. Truong wants it reopened.

But on the eve of Tuesday's municipal elections, the chance of that happening looks close to nil. Asked at a recent political forum if they would consider reopening the site if Fairfax County provided funding, 12 of 13 candidates for Town Council said no. The other said "absolutely not."

Yes, two years after the day labor center first started getting the attention of right-wing talk radio, ultimately prompting a vast uprising of irate 7-11 patrons that shuttered it, thereby solving the nation's immigration problems forever and giving some deep thinkers a place to hang their hats, people are still thinking about little else in our accepting neighbor to the west.

But day labor remains a divisive force that could influence the election. Council members who opposed the center boast of fulfilled promises and have raised doubts about challengers' pledges not to reopen it. Challengers talk of "reuniting" the town. Letters to local newspapers and online postings are consumed with the topic. If anything, some observers say, the issue has receded only because three years of debate has drawn deep, indelible battle lines.

All of the sudden, obsessing about indoor tennis courts doesn't seem so stupid after all.

This week on a very, very special 'Reston Heights': Pagan rituals mark opening of hotel, gates of hell

The first part of the awesome Reston Heights development, a high-end Westin Hotel, opened on May 1 with some sort of weirdly phallic celebration:

An elaborate maypole dance and ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled today for a Westin hotel in Reston.

A bit pagan for Reston, but maybe that's what prompted the Feds to mysteriously change their minds about Metro's awesome silver line!

John Schlichting, managing director of development for the JBG Cos., a Chevy Chase-based real estate firm that has made vast investments in properties along the proposed Metro line in Tysons and Reston, said in January that the rail project has such national importance that he refused to entertain the notion that it could die.

"We're not surprised at all," Schlichting said yesterday. "We're very happy about it, I'll tell you that." He said he did not know what had swung the balance. Schlichting also declined to say precisely how much his company has invested in the area but said it is "in the hundreds of millions."

"We've assembled that 35 acres over the last eight years," he said, referring to the Reston Heights development, where the hotel is opening. "All along, it's been in anticipation of rail coming to Dulles."

We love it when a plan comes together. So tell us more of this awesome hotel:

The 191-room luxury hotel is at 11750 Sunrise Valley Drive. It is owned by an affiliate of The JBG Cos. and is managed by Crestline Hotels & Resorts Inc.

Envisioned as an urban retreat “designed to renew, refresh and rejuvenate visitors to Reston,” the hotel will be the focal point of the Reston Heights area, which will ultimately include high-end retail, restaurants, residential and office space in a planned park-like setting.

The opening launches the 35-acre Reston Heights planned community, which is designed to serve as a “decidedly upscale” center.

"While many people primarily associate Reston with Reston Town Center, there is so much more to our town, and we are thrilled to play a major role in bringing new opportunities to the community," said David Catalon, Westin Reston Heights director of Sales and Marketing.

Or, with its pagan rituals, inadvertently open the gates of hell. Same diff.

Metro Silver Line: Better keep clapping!

Turns out yesterday's exciting reversal of fortunes for Metro's awesome E-ticket ride to Reston, Dulles, and beyond has, shall we say, a few strings attached.

To receive the entire $900 million, project officials must not allow the cost to escalate further, and they must demonstrate that its schedule, including an optimistic Phase I completion date of 2012, can be met. Toughest of all is a demand that the Metro system's $489 million in unfunded capital repairs be addressed before it takes on operation of a new 23-mile line.

Oh, come on. A power outage here, a track fire there, a pants-optional train or two, and suddenly people are worried that Metro is falling apart and can't handle the extra capacity? Just keep clapping!

Because of the delays this year, the contract will have to be renegotiated, probably at a slightly higher cost, several officials said. And the scheduled 2012 completion date for Phase I, which would extend the new Silver Line from the East Falls Church Metro station in Arlington to Wiehle Avenue in Reston, probably would be moved back at least a year. The second phase, expected to be done in 2015, would extend beyond the airport into Loudoun.

Just keep clapping!

One issue that appears to be permanently resolved is the question of whether a tunnel would replace the project's elevated alignment through Tysons Corner. Tunnel backers had hoped that federal rejection of the project would allow state officials to start over and design a rail line with the tunnel, because it would look better and help promote urban redevelopment in Tysons. But with the project officially in final design, those hopes appear to be over.

Oh, right. The developers grassroots group that has loudly demanded the entire project be blown up unless a tunnel tiled with mosaics depicting the ghostly face of Crystal Koons is built is definitely not clapping.

Following is a statement by TysonsTunnel President Scott A. Monett regarding today’s announcement that the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) will approve $900 million of federal funding for the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project:

“Tysons Tunnel and its tens of thousands of supporters in Northern Virginia are extremely disappointed about today’s Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project news. Despite this development we still strongly believe it to be in the best interests of Northern Virginia taxpayers that the state competitively bid the Dulles rail project and that it study a tunnel for Tysons Corner. Taking this common-sense approach would assure the residents of this region that they are not overpaying for Metro service to Dulles International Airport.

“The FTA’s stunning and unexpected reversal leaves many unanswered questions regarding what changes have been made to the Dulles rail project to make it eligible for nearly a billion dollars of federal funding."

TysonsTunnel will take time over the coming days to assess today’s developments and the overall situation. We will determine our next steps to affect competitive bidding for this multi-billion dollar public transportation project.

Well, thanks very much, Mr. Buzzkill. Maybe they can revive their awesome nuisance lawsuit, like other selfless civic-minded groups in the region, and we can all sit in traffic for another 40 years.

So maybe that smell wasn't the algae in Lake Anne

Finally, a nuisance lawsuit we can actually get behind.

Lake Anne of Reston Condominium Association filed a negligence lawsuit against Dominion Virginia Power in late February. The case is a result of "Dominion's negligent destruction of one of the Association's waste lines," according to the lawsuit, and LARCA is seeking a full reimbursement of the costs incurred to repair the line. LARCA President Rick Thompson said the dispute "wasn't easily settled so we had to get counsel involved."

In early January 2007, an underground electrical cable on LARCA's property stopped working, resulting in power outages, and Dominion was called to investigate the issue, the lawsuit states. Dominion hired D.A. Foster to make the repairs, "including boring into the ground and the replacement of one of the underground cables and a transformer." The work was completed in January 2007 and shortly after the owner of one of Lake Anne's commercial properties contacted LARCA to report a sewage backup on the property.

We deal with a lot of crap on this site, but this is a first.

Metro Silver Line: All that clapping worked!

After basically being left for dead, much like a Metrorail car in an Orange Line tunnel during a track fire, Metro's awesome Silver Line extension through the wonders of Tysons Tegucigalpa, Reston, Dulles and the foreclosed particleboard housing beyond Loudoun County has made a stunning comeback.

Federal transportation officials are planning to approve the proposed 23-mile extension of Metrorail to Dulles International Airport in a letter to Congress today, the officials told local and state authorities yesterday.

Several officials with knowledge of the decision said the $5 billion project had finally met the Federal Transit Administration's standards for cost efficiency, construction and expected ridership. The approval would reverse an opinion from the FTA issued in January that said rail to Dulles did not meet the criteria.

"This is a critical step," one of the officials said. "Two months ago, everybody was writing the project's obituary. Now, thanks to everybody putting their swords away and making this thing work, the project is moving forward again."

Oh, yeah... right. Remember all that hilarious infighting after the initial decision was made, before Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine and U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters became BFFs?

Angry exchanges among local and federal officials included an accusation from the FTA that Virginia and the airports authority had ignored signs that the project had been in trouble for months. Project boosters accused the FTA of seeking to kill the Dulles rail project because of the Bush administration's preference for private investment in public infrastructure. Rumors circulated that the FTA sought to force Virginia to sell the Dulles Toll Road to private entities to finance the rail line, and the FTA continued to say that the project's cost was unacceptably high and expected ridership too low.

Officials with knowledge of the federal decision said Peters was behind the reversal despite objections from the FTA staff, which she oversees. Several sources said they might never know what caused federal regulators to ease up after coming down so hard on the project.

Maybe they just saw all the orange cones strewn across Tysons Tegucigalpa and decided what the hey.