This and That: A Random Traipse Through Reston News

• Hey now, the Reston Community Center just wrapped up the celebrations of its 30th anniversary not just by getting embroiled in a controversial building project, but also by having TV's Mandy Patankin come sing.
  
• Speaking of controversial building projects, an "experienced journalist" has finally weighed in on recent developments involving the $65 million roller rink. The best revelation? The reason that RCC couldn't move the large numbers of people who came to speak at the "community input" session that wasn't a "community input" session into a larger meeting space was, according to RCC executive director Leila Gordon, because those evildoers at the Sierra Club had reserved the bigger room and then didn't even show up to use it! Which leads us to ask: Why does the Sierra Club want to cut down a bunch of trees?
  
• Reston Hospital Center parent HCA has been trying to build a hospital in Loudoun County, but county supervisors there told them they prefer cheap particleboard housing. So now HCA is opening what it calls the "Ashburn Education Center" for all the breeders in the aforementioned particleboard housing. Analysts say this move translates roughly to "suck on it, Inova."
  
• The undercapitalized Reston-based Greater Atlantic Bank has been told by the feds to go sell itself.
  
• The fancy new farmer's market that opened in Reston Town Center last year did poorly because no one knew there was a park amidst all those tall buildings. Now it's in a more central location and doing better.
  
• Reston homebuilder Comstock Homebuilding's CFO, Bruce Labovitz, has struck out for greener pastures.
  
• And who says the commercial real estate market is moribund? The fancy Monument III building in Herndon just sold for $50.6 million. Oh, wait -- it actually was "transferred to the note holder in a deed transfer in lieu of foreclosure." That's the next best thing.