Metro Silver Line = The Big Dig 2: Electric Boogaloo?

After the nuisance lawsuit and the novelty oversized pig have apparently failed to make the endless sea of orange cones with blinking lights in Tysons and along the Toll Road disappear, opponents of Metro's awsome Silver Line E-ticket ride to where the bland things are in Loudoun County have brought out the big guns: the press release.

A group opposed to toll increases on the Dulles Toll Road stated in a new report that the cost to extend Metro to Dulles will cost about the same as Boston's infamous Big Dig.

The Dulles rail project, financed largely by tolls collected on the toll road, could cost $22 billion within the next 40 years for planning, constructing and financing, according to the press release from Reston-based Dulles Corridor Users Group.

In August, DCUG filed a lawsuit in Washington federal court demanding a $200 million refund be paid to taxpayers, as the group claims the toll road has overcharged users to pay for the Dulles rail project. The suit also demands the toll plazas be removed and the road be operated as a free highway, stated DCUG.

Will the Silver Line really become the Big Dig Deux? Actually, as those who have watched development plans for Reston know, planners are considering the exact opposite. Here's one rendering of what might get built over a buried Toll Road:

As one of our regular commenters says:

This shows a drawing of one possible example of development using air rights over the Dulles Toll Road.
I would like to see much more open space than in this drawing.
There are other drawings I have seen of other configurations over the Toll Rd. One looks like a futuristic hanging gardens of Babylon. It doesn't have to look like 1960s Manhattan.
But they would have to hire someone with vision. And not the local bottom feeders who have been putting buildings up in Reston since they built the library.

Which seems like a perfect opportunity to remind everyone that the kickoff meeting about revisions to the Reston Master Plan is this Tuesday.

¿Donda Esta Compare Foods? Tall Oaks Supermarket Yet to Open

After being scheduled to open on Nov. 20, Compare Foods, the awesome new international supermarket that's replacing Giant Bloom Fresh World at the Tall Oaks stucco wasteland shopping center remained shuttered on Sunday afternoon, the parking lot empty as ever, except for one lonely Compare Foods truck.

Meanwhile, one of our awesome commenters has continued the emerging tradition of digging up embarrassing documents about Reston-related personages and businesses by finding this charming chestnut about Compare's parent company:

In a lawsuit brought last year by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Compare Foods in North Carolina, the EEOC claimed the supermarket fired a white, non-Hispanic meat cutter due to its preference for employing Latino workers. Compare Foods has now agreed to settle the action, which alleges national-origin and race discrimination, for $30,000 as well as by agreeing to take certain preventative measures such as distributing a written anti-discrimination policy, providing its employees with Title VII anti-discrimination training, and informing its existing employees of the lawsuit and settlement.

According to the allegations of the Complaint, Compare Foods fired Robert Bruce not because of his job performance, but because of his race (white) and national origin (non-Hispanic), and replaced him with a Hispanic worker.

The settlement also requires Compare Foods to provide a positive letter of reference to any prospective employer of Mr. Bruce, describing him as "a reliable employee who possesses excellent skills as a butcher."

On the plus side, check out this commercial.


Discrimination = bad. "Susie de la Santos" = good. Those are some... well-stocked shelves.

Breaking: Reston Holiday Parade Delights All

An older gent with a beard dispensed holiday cheer during the Reston Holiday Parade in the fake downtown on Friday. Oh, and some covenant-administering elf by the name of Santa Claus followed Bob Simon in the lineup, throwing DRB violation letters to the naughty folk using white landscaping stone in the crowd. (See more pictures from our Facebook BFFs at the Observer here.)

Bob Simon on Redevelopment, Communism, and Longevity: 'One Martini Every Evening'

Reston founder and popular Lake Anne sculpture Bob Simon was recently interviewed by Washingtonian magazine, the same august publication that profiled some filthy hobo "web logger" earlier this year. Seriously, read the whole thing. Along with learning the 95-year-old Simon's secret to longevity (the aforementioned daily martini) and mocking satanic Reston doppelganger Columbia for the same reason we do (its town center is a "huge air-conditioned mall"), the interview confirmed our long-held suspicion that Lake Anne's Heron House was inspired by cutting-edge architecture from Cold War-era Finland, or as it was called at the time, a "chillier East Germany."

Okay, so we made that last quote up. But Simon also shared his vision of the future of Reston. Commenters, break out your repetitive stress injury wristbands and get ready:

At the Wiehle Avenue stop planned for Reston, I’m interested in having them develop over the Dulles Toll Road. If they don’t put the foundations in now for air rights, they’re going to be very difficult to get later. We have some wonderful renderings of what could happen with air rights—office buildings, apartments, gardens.

They say the Washington area could get 2 million more people in the next few years. We’re going to get our share in Reston.

The “village centers” at South Lakes, Hunters Woods, and Tall Oaks could be torn down and proper village centers built with dense residential. That could absorb a lot of the population.

I’ve been working on revitalization for Lake Anne Plaza for more than five years. The market is such that no developer’s going to come along right now. But the plan would bring in a number of residential units—townhouses and apartments—behind the plaza. That’ll make a big difference. It could be all high-rises. It could be a combination of low-rise and high-rise. It could include townhouses. I know two developers who we’ll be hearing from when the market gets a little better.

So does Simon want to turn Reston into, as a popular phrase has been coined, another Manhattan?

I don’t miss New York. We have everything here—music, art, theater, and of course community. If I were really loaded, I still don’t think I’d want to get a palace in New York and chauffeur-driven cars. I like this kind of place.

Simon also talked about Reston's early days, where the promise of people of all races and income levels living together were too much for the 1960s "establishment." Come on, didn't he watch Mad Men or anything?

We sought an investment from General Electric, which had announced that it was going to build 20 “new towns.” We negotiated a deal, and their planners brought their wives here and put holds on houses. Then the decision went to the powers that be at GE, where one of the guys said, “You can’t do that. They’ve got blacks living there.” And the deal was canceled.

I’ve been told for years that the real-estate brokers at the time said we were communists. I recently got confirmation of that. I was at a party with a couple who have lived here for a long time. Before they moved here, they were told, “You don’t want to go to Reston—it’s pinko.”

Simon also spoke about what's been lost from Reston's original vision:

The idea of village centers went out. We have things in Reston called village centers, but aside from Lake Anne Plaza, they’re just shopping centers.

We also lost the idea that people of different incomes could live happily next door to each other. Reston still has a remarkable diversity of incomes, but rich and poor are not living next door to each other.

It’s difficult to overcome the culture that we live in. It’s a culture where a state-of-the-art bathroom and kitchen are what one needs, plus enough square footage to show everyone that one could afford it. We’ve gone a couple centuries without understanding community. It’s too bad that it’s so hard to communicate what pleasure one gets from living with one’s fellow human being.

We seriously love this guy.

Planning Meetings on the 'Future of Reston' Begin Dec. 1

It's surprising that a filthy "web log" that focuses so extensively on breathtakingly stupid criminals and mocking arbitrary design regulations would attract serious, impassioned debates about development and the long-term outlook for our favorite beige community. Go to the comments section on any silly post, though, and chances are you'll find a mixture of opinions about redevelopment, ad hominem political arguments, and thinly veiled racist screeds. Well, at least the comments about redevelopment are often well thought out!

As Metro's awesome Silver Line slouches towards Bethlehem Ashburn, Hunter Mill Supervisor Cathy Hudgins is holding a series of those nice "town hall" meetings people seem to enjoy so much to discuss revisions to the Reston Master Plan, which, depending on your perspective, could create a blueprint for mixed-use development around mass transit -- or a dystopian nightmare of high-rise buildings, no open space, and dogs and cats living together:

What will the Reston community be like in 45 years? Will the community be able to retain its amenities and quality of life? What will traffic be like? Where will the future businesses, homes and roadways be located? Will the open spaces remain?

The answer to those questions begin on December 1, 2009.

With the coming of metro, there’s a special county planning process that will affect the way that Reston community will develop over the next 30 to 40 years.

Because you care about our community, you will want to make the time to attend two important meetings, hosted by Fairfax County Supervisor Catherine Hudgins and the county department of planning and zoning.

Kickoff Meeting: Tuesday, December 1, 2009, 7 p.m., at South Lakes High School, 11400 South Lakes Drive, Reston. This meeting, co-hosted by my office and the Department of Planning and Zoning, will cover 1) description of the study approach, 2) description of the study schedule, 3) discussion of the review process for deferred APR items, 4) introduce Task Force, 5) release current conditions report, and 6) discussion of general planning principals for Reston.

Task Force Meeting: Tuesday, December 8, 2009, 7 p.m. at Reston Community Center at Lake Anne, 1609A Washington Plaza, Reston. On the agenda is 1) discussion of task force policies, procedures and ground rules, 2) presentation of special study scope and schedule, and 3) overview of task force responsibilities.

Might not be the worst idea in the world to attend one or both of these meetings. We'd leave the funny signs at home, though.

This Week in Crime: 'Burglarious' Fun, Or Only in Reston Can You Have a Getaway Canoe

A 20-year-old Reston man has been arrested for repeatedly burglarizing the South Lakes Shopping Center ABC Store. His getaway vehicle? A canoe.

Police arrested a man for burglarizing an Alcoholic Beverage Control store, located at 11160-A South Lakes Dr., on Monday, Nov. 16. Officers responded to a burglar alarm at about 3:20 a.m. and discovered the business had been broken into. The police helicopter responded and located the suspect attempting to flee in a canoe. After he reached the shore, officers located him hiding near Turtle Pond Drive and Purple Beech Drive. [The 20-year-old suspect] was arrested and transported to the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center. He was charged with alleged burglary, possession of burglarious tools and grand larceny.

Burglarious? More like hilarious!

Okay, so this is weird enough. But as Paul Harvey used to say, then there's the rest of the story:

Even better, court records show, the man reportedly told police several hours earlier that he heard the burglar “got away on a boat.” So when the store was hit early Monday, police went to Lake Thoreau and found a man with lots of bottles of expensive tequila.
The victimized store was the Virginia ABC store in the South Lakes Shopping Center. According to a search warrant affidavit by Detective Stephen M. Sulzinski, the store was first burglarized on Oct. 27. Surveillance video showed a hooded, masked man using a skateboard to smash open the front door, then removing bottles of Patron tequila, Platinum Seven vodka and Jack Daniels whiskey gift sets, Sulzinski wrote.

Virtually the same thing happened on Monday morning. A hooded masked man used something to smash the glass front door, then filled a backpack with 24 bottles of Patron and some other bottled goodies. But this time, the police had a lead.

Shortly after midnight Monday, two Fairfax officers chatted with [the suspect] in front of a nearby 7-Eleven. According to the affidavit, he was asked about the ABC store burglary and that “the only thing he knows is that the guy got away on a boat” and that “the guy only took a bottle of Jack and a bottle of Patron.”

The officers gave [the suspect] a pair of summonses, for drinking in public and illegal possession of alcohol, and gave him a ride home to Eakins Court where he lives with his mother, Sulzinski wrote.

Three hours later, the ABC store in South Lakes was burglarized by the hooded man. The police helicopter swung into action and headed to Lake Thoreau and spotted a canoe “heading westbound toward Eakins Court,” Sulzinski wrote. Patrol officers went to the shore and after a brief chase, pulled [the suspect] from the canoe.

In the process, the canoe capsized and “spilled most of its contents into Lake Thoreau,” the affidavit states.

Even criminal masterminds get caught every now and then. And for once, it might actually be okay to drink the water from one of the RA's lakes!

Update: Along with digging up embarrassing financial disclosures, this is why we love our commenters:

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Canoe.
Canoe who?
Canoe escape from the helicopter with your stolen booze?

No? Then Thoreau it overboard.

Well played, Le Pigeon. Well played.

RA Assessment Hike Approved, Will Pay CEO's $172,182 Salary

As expected, during its board meeting last Thursday, the Reston Association Board approved the $24 hike in the annual assessment to 515 American dollars (approximately 3 Euros). But there's good news, as the Board will now monkey with the RA budget every year instead of every two years. Get ready for fun!

At the Nov. 19, 2009 meeting, the board of directors of the Reston Association approved the $13.4 million dollar budget and set the assessment rate at $515 for 2010.  The board also approved a resolution that provides the opportunity to review and revise the second year of the biennial budget cycle.  This will allow the board to address any administrative or policy initiatives that occur during the first year of the budget cycle.  Reston Association operates on a two-year budget cycle.

Sweet! Meanwhile, some of you monsters vigilant commenters have been poking around the RA's "Web site," where it has its tax documents on file (PDF). And guess who makes $172,182 a year, not counting benefits? That's right -- Milton Matthews, RA's CEO. CFO David J. Hopkins makes $135,894, while Larry Butler, the association's director of Parks & Recreation, makes $102,506. That'll buy a lot of pool passes.

We won't even mention that some company got paid $438,000 for "IT support," which presumably includes the RA's awesome "Web site." On the other hand, the RA reported $9.9 million in revenue from "membership dues" and $834 from "vending machines," which sounds funny until you realize that's about $833 more than this filthy "web log" made last year, the end.

Flashback Monday: The Original Nature House

The shiny new earth-friendly Walker Nature Center opened its doors this weekend, fulfilling a pledge in the original Reston master plan by providing a year-round space for programs and events. Bob Simon is thrilled! But let's not forget the original Nature House, a pavilion which was home to countless activities and summer camps and odd Halloween nature walks and whatnot. Here's a picture of the original groundbreaking, which goes to show you that regardless of the era, middle-aged white folk pretending to shovel dirt (or leaves?) in a ceremonial fashion never go out of style, the end.

Photo Pfun: We'll Always Have the Panera

Ain't love grand? Right in the middle of the ice rink at the Reston Town Center, presumably while people celebrating happy hour at Clyde's cheered and jeered, skater Patrick Hallman proposed to his girlfriend, Lydia Putney. According to the Connection, they plan to be wed in December 2011, but in the meantime, they can always relive their once-in-a-lifetime moment while standing in line for a bread soup bowl and some Sun Chips at the Panera.

$24 RA Assessment Increase to Be Decided at RA Meeting Tonight, Spent at Nature Center Unveiling This Weekend

At a board meeting tonight, the Reston Association will decide whether to increase next year's annual assessment by $24 to $515. Given what sounds like a pretty tepid reaction during earlier public hearings, signs point to "yes."

Next year’s proposed rate increase was to be discussed at two recent public hearings on the budget, but Reston Association Chief Financial Officer David Hopkins said only one resident showed up for the meetings.

Awkward!

The increase would be on top of a $16 increase that went into place this year. Blame the declining economy:

Last year’s assessment increase of $16, rather than the $8 increase that had been planned when the biennial budget was laid out in 2007, represented the first time that the association had amended a two-year budget before the second year began.

That increase was due to declining revenue resulting from the economic downturn. Federal subsidies for affordable housing were decreasing, investments were not paying off as expected, more households were qualifying for the association’s reduced rate and an increase in foreclosures was expected to affect the collection of dues.

The good news is that this weekend, you can see one of the things that extra $24 will help pay for if you attend the grand opening of the new Walker Nature Education Center from 1-5 p.m. Saturday. Our Facebook BFFs at the Observer got to go to some fancy elitist "sneak preview," which they used to make a totally rad Facebook photo gallery. It looks like a seriously awesome -- and long anticipated -- facility, but here's our favorite shot:

To the untrained eye, this may look like a basement, but that's actually a fancy earth-friendly geothermal system to heat the place and whatnot. We're assuming you shovel the bald eagle carcasses into the box at the right.

Har, har. We kid because we love... the environment!

Soapstone May Not Be Ready for that New-Fangled "Sidewalk" Technology

Hey, remember that time they were going to put this modern, cutting-edge conveyance called a "side walk" along Soapstone Drive in South Reston? Yeah, that was awesome. But this may have been one of those "too far, too fast" sort of situations -- kind of like jumping from black-and-white television with rabbit ears to HDTV -- so now they're thinking about building a trail instead.

The project will remove about 35 parking spots and will require the county to get both temporary and permanent easements to build the sidewalk on property owned by clusters or other landowners. County planners said they would begin the design phase of the project in a few short weeks and land acquisition, final design and construction would take place between the spring and fall of 2011.

The discussion took a new turn when area residents began discussing possible ways to keep the parking spots. Residents who live in the clusters where the sidewalk is being built said it would be best to keep the parking. John Farrell of Colonial Oaks suggested the clusters on the east side of the road provide an additional 12 feet of land to be used to keep the parking spaces and add a paved trail instead of a concrete sidewalk.

Reston Association Board Member Kathleen Driscoll-McKee said she was concerned many residents would not agree with the idea because it would take out more trees. She said it may also eventually require the RA design review board to be involved in the project.

You lost us at "DRB."

Meanwhile, in the Anti-Reston: Polite Language and Broader Powers for Police

It's been a while since we've checked up on our tolerant neighbor to the west. What's been doin' over in Herndon?

Well, after Herndon was ranked the most obscene city in America last week, leaving Reston in the dust at comparatively pathetic #5, town officials sprung to action. Actually, they just wrote a snide press release, joking about responding to the news in a "polite, mannerly way."

So – are Herndon citizens living dual lives, raising their families and working hard at their careers by day and frantically entering words they didn't learn from their mothers into search engines by night?

Not so fast, says Herndon Mayor Steve DeBenedittis. “Herndon, and in fact the entire Dulles Corridor, is fortunate to be home to leading technology companies, including internet service providers,” he explains. “Therefore, much Web traffic that goes through Herndon likely originates elsewhere in the region. Google Trends, the source of Business Insider’s "research," can only attribute traffic to a region. It can't pinpoint it to an exact location – such as a 4.2 square mile town.”

Adds DeBenedittis, “That probably also explains why our upstanding neighbor to the east, Reston, is also high on this list. I'm sure Reston citizens will echo the sentiments of Herndon citizens by extending an open invitation to all to hop on the toll road and come see us – a community with a rich culture and a proud heritage, where our favorite four-letter word is "home."

Hahahahaha! Cussin' aside, the town has been busy on its other favorite front: finding fun new ways to detain illegal immigrants. Under broader powers granted by federal customs officials, Herndon police will now have the right to perform immigration status checks on anyone detained for any reason.

In March 2007, the Herndon Town Council voted to make Herndon the first incorporated town in America to allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to train and empower local officers to enforce federal immigration law.

"It is clear that the Herndon Police Department's application of the authority to enforce federal immigration law under the 287(g) program has been very successful and has made Herndon a much safer place to live and raise a family," said Town Councilman Dennis Husch.

"During the period from January 2008 through June 2009, Herndon Police prepared, and DHS ICE approved, 179 deportation detainers to remove criminal illegal aliens from the Herndon community."

Previously, immigration status checks were limited to people detained for driving under the influence and other serious felonies. Under the new agreement, those restrictions were removed and now anyone being detained will have their immigration status checked.

On the one hand, sweeping federal powers! On the other hand, illegal immigrants! Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck would be so conflicted.

On The YouTubes: We Watch the RA Videos So You Don't Have To

My word, what is Andy Sigle doing standing on a tennis court, getting in the way of the nice people trying to hit balls to each other? Why, it's yet another one of the Reston Association's new-fangled "videos," which uses the cutting edge Internet technology to promote... a magazine, printed on some old-school substrate called "paper."

"Please don't throw it away," Sigle pleads. What, is the freeze frame pictured above a demonstration of the proper way to compost the magazine?

The rest of the video appears to focus on the RA's efforts to indoctrinate children in the dark arts of tennis, apparently to create an army of constituents who will demand an indoor rec center and juicery. To support this emerging army of tennis players, we learn -- in the one thing resembling actual news in this "news" video -- that the USTA is moving its Mid-Atlantic offices to Reston. To which we say huzzah, and look forward to seeing more people in snazzy white shorts perambulating at the Target on rainy Sunday afternoons, the end.

This Week in Crime: Racial Graffiti, Apple Store Thefts, and Beavis and Butthead Visit Langston Hughes

Racially motivated graffiti, a few stolen iPods, and some random firestarting in a middle school locker room. All in all, another typical week in Reston crime.

First, the graffiti:

Police responded to a home in the 2000 block of Durand Drive for a report of graffiti on Saturday, November 7. The victim, a 45-year-old woman, reported that some time between 10 p.m. the night before and 7 a.m. on November 7, someone spray painted racial slurs and profanities on the exterior of her house. An investigation determined the graffiti may have occurred around 3 a.m. The Fairfax County Police Department recognizes the potential harm that bias crimes and incidents can have in a community, and strongly encourages people to report them.

Also, a couple of thugs totally harshed the smug vibe at the Reston Town Center's Apple Store:

Three males entered an Apple computer store, located at 11949 Market Street, on Saturday, November 7 around 1:44 p.m. and stole several laptop computers, an iPhone and an iPod. The suspects fled the store on foot toward a parking garage. They were described as black. One suspect was about 6 feet tall and wore a gray sweater with a green shirt underneath and gray driving hat. The second suspect was described as having medium-length dreadlocks.

This is not to be confused with the last time the Apple store was robbed, back in October. Maybe if they started putting some Zunes in the front windows, they'd be less of a target.

Finally, a couple of Langston Hughes students were charged after setting fires in the middle school's locker room.

Two juveniles are charged with setting multiple fires in the boy's locker room at Langston Hughes Middle School.

Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department investigators say they are charged with burning or destroying personal property less than $200, which is a Class 1 Misdemeanor.

As a Restonian World Exclusive, here are their mug shots:

Flashback Monday: Pointy Building, Square Chairs

No, this isn't an outtake from the set of Logan's Run, but the fancy John Wesley Powell Federal Building, or as it's better known, the USGS Headquarters, which when it opened in 1974, became one of Reston's largest employers -- a distinction which it retains to this day. But it's no ordinary office park -- it used geometry and everything!

[Architect] Walter Netsch’s design applied his trademark Field Theory, a method of rotating square and orthogonal shapes according to rules of Euclidean geometry.

Sounds pretty awesome. But while the building is all pointy and "Euclidean," check out the lobby, where purveyors of geological stuff sat while waiting to show their wares to various federal employees:

Sweet! Those "seating units" look like they combine the ambiance of a bus station waiting area with the comforting sense of being enclosed that was offered by those groovy egg chairs that were all the rage at the same time. All you'd need is a set of old-school stereo headsets ("cans," as the kids called them) and the latest Zep album, and all would be right in the world, the end.

Reston Town Center: Life 'In the Fast Lane'

Well, well, well, this fancy shot of Reston's Fake Downtown is the opening spread of a downstate magazine article about how rockin' Fairfax County is, at least compared to the rest of our sleepy, presumably tobbaccy-intensive state. Of course, we've never seen anyone dressed like this at Reston Town Center, where the typical dress code for a hoppin' Friday night is more likely to be a hoodie and jeans. What, were these two socialites turned away at the velvet rope outside of the Macaroni Grill before heading to the Apple Store for a rockin' evening of trying different, whazzitcalled, "i Pods" while sitting on those spherical, cloth-covered seats?

Newcomers Night: Who Took the Cookie Platter?

Intrepid observer dvdmon made it out of last evening's Reston Newcomers Night unscathed. Here's his account:

Robin Smyers gave out door prizes to all the newcomers - a few Starbucks gift cards, pots of mums, and cool photo book of Reston nature I really wanted, but mostly Champs gift cards valued at "$3-$30" (I feel sorry for those who go there and get a whopping $3 off of their $30 overpriced meal).

There was a fruit platter, cheese platter and cookie platter. I got there a little after Robin started speaking so couldn't eat anything until after the presentation was done, and someone at the RA (maybe Robert Simon who attended and spoke briefly?) made off with the cookie platter before anyone could get to them.

The presentation included a video that was so memorable I can't recall almost any of it. All I remember was that it wasn't one I'd seen on the Reston website or their Youtube channel.

The room was fairly small but packed. Probably a good 40 or so people? They had said that kids were welcome but there were none.

As far as the makeup of the crowd, there were lots of couples, many newly married, at least one expecting. Robin Smyers actually had everyone say there name, where they had moved from, and where they moved to in Reston. I don't know Reston well enough but there were a few people who'd moved to the same cluster. But a huge chunk of the people (myself included) actually moved from Vienna. Wasn't expecting that at all! I thought we were going to be very unusual in that respect. A few folks were from other countries, a few had moved to Reston a year or two ago but came to this either because they didn't hear of Newcomer's night before this one or in one case because they were still learning English and wanted to come again now that they understood the language better. So I'm definitely coming back next year WITH my wife to see if we can get better swag!

Seems like a few folks were out of jobs despite just having moved and were asking the group to let them know if they knew of openings - not a good sign for the economy, huh?

The two things they seemed to be emphasizing a lot during the presentation were the new Nature Center and the Reston.Org website.

They showed off the new Reston magazine "prototype." It had actual pages of content.

You had us at "Champs gift cards."

Breaking: Arrests Made in Serial Jewelry Thefts

Fairfax County Police, working with the U.S. Marshall Service, have arrested three people in connection with the ongoing series of jewelry thefts that have largely targeted Indian families in Reston and throughout the county.

U.S. Marshalls working with the police burglary task force spotted a sport utility vehicle with two men and a woman inside who fit the description of suspects in the burglaries. They stopped the vehicle at Moore Road and Clifton Road about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, November 10, 2009.

Subsequent investigation by members of the burglary task force led to nine felony charges against Francisco Gray, 39, of Nassau County, New York; Dagoberto Soto-Ramirez, 27, and his wife, Melinda Soto, 33, both of Queens, New York.

Each is charged with four counts of burglary; four counts of grand larceny; and one count of conspiracy to commit burglary. They are being held without bond in the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center.

Fairfax County police executed a search warrant and searched the sport utility vehicle the three suspects were in when they were stopped. Investigators found a lap top computer, a GPS unit, and a police scanner tuned to Fairfax County police radio channels.

The arrests mark the beginning of a new phase in the investigation that is expected to include multiple jurisdictions in at least two states.

A multi-state burglary ring? That's a heck of a lot more exciting than the usual criminal fare around here.

Update: The Post has more, including this exciting account of the pursuit and arrest:

According to an affidavit filed by Fairfax police Detective T.J. Harrington, Deputy U.S. Marshal Edgar Cline was working on the investigation and spotted a blue Ford Escape on Wednesday night on Cavalier Woods Lane, just south of Lee Highway. The Escape was being driven by a Hispanic male and a Hispanic female was in the passenger seat, Harrington wrote. Cline began pursuing it.

The Escape made several U-turns, apparently trying to evade Cline, according to Harrington, but the marshal pulled the Escape over on Moore Road near Clifton Road.

In multiple cases, neighbors of the burglary victims had reported the woman with the pink- or red-tinted hair had knocked on their door, and that they also had seen the man in the blue work uniform nearby. On Oct. 29, a neighbor told police that a man in the blue uniform knocked on her door and asked if Ahmad Khan was home. The resident told the man he had the wrong address, and he left.

On the clipboard inside the Escape stopped Wednesday night was an invoice, dated Oct. 7, for "Ahmad Khan."

South Koreans Visit Reston, Sewage Plant

Remember that time people from a distant, faraway land with vastly different customs came to visit Reston to get a sense of how to develop their own "new town," complete with fancy midscale retail options on the ground level of office buildings? Well, after the folks from Tennessee left, others are now following in their footsteps, including a delegation from Ansan, South Korea.

Ansan’s own "new town" of Banwol-Sihwa is being considered by the Korean government to become one of several "mini-clusters" for innovative technology, so the council visited Reston to learn about its planning and amenities.

With the assistance of a translator, Supervisor Cathy Hudgins (D-Hunter Mill) told the delegation that many of the ideas that had formed Reston had come to shape the progress of the county. "The planning and zoning of Reston has served as a model for Fairfax County," she said, noting that mixed-use zoning and diversity in housing were now part of the county’s governance. Reston also pioneered the emphasis on environmental stewardship, trails and parks that the county now embraces, Hudgins said.

Reston founder Bob Simon suggested that planners develop a program for what they wanted to accomplish and how life in the community could be made interesting and beautiful before laying out a physical plan. He said amenities and public art should be added at the same time as buildings and infrastructure.

On the subject of public art, Simon also recommended that such works should be communicative. "A lot of modern art here doesn’t communicate very well," he said, noting that he had requested sculptures that children could play on in Reston. To illustrate the importance of imagination to the planning process, he showed the council the boat-like sculpture at the far end of Washington Plaza, recalling the time he had seen young children playing in the piece of art when one pointed skyward and called out, "Shark!"

Of course, Reston plopped funky mod townhouses in the middle of the countryside in the anything-goes late '60s, so those could very well have been adults seeing sharks in the sky.

So how did the delegation like Reston? We're not sure, but judging by the rest of their itinerary, we're really, really hoping it was the favorite part of their trip.

This was the only U.S. city on the council’s tour, although the group also visited a water treatment facility in Baltimore and went to New Jersey to learn about energy initiatives.

Don't Forget: Reston Newcomers Night

Reston's Newcomers Night is this evening, from 7-9 p.m. at Reston Association Headquarters. Who wouldn't want to meet your neighbors, like the ones who post on this filthy "web log"? Newcomers to our fair planned real estate development, be sure to attend, or face the wrath of the DRB's army of flying dirigibles.

Sprint Layoffs, Homebuilding Booms, and Historic Hunter Mill: A Random Jaunt Through Reston News

• Remember that time Sprint Nextel moved its headquarters from Reston to Kansas City, then laid off a whole bunch of people, and if you were one of the remaining people still working at a switchboard or maybe injecting static into people's cellphone calls, you thought you were safe? As many of 2,500 of you might have to think again.
  
  
• Reston-based Northrop Grumman won a $46 million contract from the Department of Homeland Security involving something to do with immigration and customs enforcement. How strapping bombs to dolphins fits into that, we're not sure, but there must be a way.
  
  
• Reston homebuilder Comstock returned to profitability in the third quarter, meaning the national economy is fixed forever and we can all go back to buying particleboard housing in ever-distant exurbs and going to Target to furnish them. Hooray!
  
  
• Because we're in the pre-Christmas lull of feel-good seasonal news stories, please to be enjoying this story about Reston orthodontist Stephan Tisseront buying back kids' extra Halloween candy for $2 a pound. Not bad! Some of the candy will be shipped to troops overseas, with the exception of the Necco wafers, which will be loaded onto Predator drones and dropped on strategic targets in Afghanistan.
  
  
• The Hunter Mill Coat Closet opens this weekend. Last year, the nonprofit organization distributed more than 5,000 coats to the needy, and more are needed for this year.
  
  
• Hooray, Hunter Mill Road is getting historic signage explaining how it's been used as a shortcut since the Civil War. Signs will mark the site of historic skirmishes, speed traps and bottlenecks, the end.

Reston Photo Pfun: Clone Armies and Copied Slogans

So hey, check out this slick "post card" we received from a uniformed federal agent at Restonian World HQ, alerting us about the upcoming Reston: The Magazine. It's all very exciting, but hopefully there will be an article in the first issue explaining how the RA managed to clone Bob Simon. Perhaps they borrowed the DNA sequence the Reston Museum used to create this shocking triumph of earth-toned science.

Meanwhile, let's look at what's doing in "Fairfax County's downtown," beautiful Tysons Corner. As one of our commenters pointed out, there's something oddly familiar about the slogan on their filthy "web site," which, other than the conspicuous lack of photos of Crystal Koons, paints a rosy picture of the future of our favorite collection of crappy office parks and car dealerships.

Plagiarism -- it's gonna wow ya!

@#$%!ng Reston and #%!ng Herndon: America's Most Obscene Cities

This will likely shock no one who's read some of the recent comments on this filthy "web log," but Reston and Herndon both made the list of the 10 most obscene cities in the U.S. Just another feather in our caps, along with being a great place for old nerds and political junkies.

Sadly, this newest honor doesn't mean they're putting up a burlesque joint in Brown's Chapel Park or opening an X-rated video store on Elden Street. Instead, The Business Insider did some Google-fu to determine which cities were home to the most obscene search terms. They claimed they were doing this because such statistics can play a role in obscenity trials, but we all know they really started typing cuss words into a search engine for the same reason scientists strap missiles to dolphins -- because it's fun.

Anyhoo! Reston ranked #5 nationwide. Here's what they had to say:

This sleepy suburb of Washington D.C. loves to Google dirty words, placing in the top ten for six of seven words -- but often in the middle of the pack.

Judging by our own traffic logs, people also like to Google the word "mauve" a lot.

Yay! Bad words! #5 isn't bad, but it doesn't hold a candle to our tolerant and foul-mouthed neighbor to the west. That's right -- Herndon is the most freakin' obscene city in the country, and by extension the free world!

D.C. suburb Herndon is in the heart of the area's tech corridor and right next to Dulles Airport. It's also the top-ranking obscene Googler for three of our seven terms, including the F-bomb.

Sweet! Who doesn't love the F-bomb, after all?

(Hat tip to the Observer's Twitters for catching this.)

A Thanksgiving Miracle: Compare Foods to Open at Tall Oaks on Nov. 20

Hey, remember that time Giant closed its grocery store at Tall Oaks Shopping Center right around Thanksgiving 2007, and then after bleach-intensive Food Lion spinoff Bloom passed, a place called Fresh World sold live eels and seaweed and whatnot until it, too, went out of business earlier this year?

Well, we've received word that the new international grocery store slated to take its place, Compare Foods, will open its doors on Nov. 20, just in time for Thanksgiving! We went by Tall Oaks the other day, and work is proceeding apace on the interior of the store, though the only posted signs outside were all in Spanish, so we couldn't figure them out. But hey -- hopefully we'll have a new source for seaweed and hot peppers just in time for our annual turkey day dinner after all!

New Restaurants Popping Up Like an Earth-Toned Wack-a-Mole Game in Lake Anne Village Center

It's been more than a year since the microwave tapas joint in the Lake Anne Village Center that replaced the Italian restaurant that went under after replacing the other Italian restaurant that went under went under. Now there are new signs of life, with one new eatery open and two others possibly following soon.

Roti Grill, a kebob house, opened its doors on Saturday, offering freshly prepared food in the Pakistani Punjab tradition, as well as some more Americanized meals, such as the charga chicken, a rotisserie chicken with tandoori spices. "It’s not fast food, but it’s food fast," said owner Naveed Ahmad, noting that it was a casual dining spot where a meal could be had for $10.

Meanwhile, work is being done in a unit next to the Reston Museum, where a sign reading, "sushi" now hangs in the window. And "for sale" signs are still displayed in the windows of the space formerly occupied by the Tavern on the Lake, but on Oct. 9, the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control posted notice that a group called American Restaurant and Lounge Concepts Inc. had applied for a liquor license for the location.

"Lounge Concepts" sounds like something out of a '70s stag film, but we'll take it. Roti Grill takes the place of a decent Moroccan joint that went under earlier this year. And we can only hope the "sushi" place serves raw fish straight out of Lake Anne. Who's hungry?

Alphabet Soup: FBI Not Involved in Ongoing Jewelry Burglaries, But DOJ Might Be

Earlier suggestions to the contrary, the FBI has not gotten involved in the ongoing series of daytime burglaries targeting Indian families. But a shadowy figure from the Department of Justice attended last week's community meeting where Fairfax County Police Chief David M. Rohrer discussed the response to the thefts.

Despite potential national security concerns, Rohrer told the meeting attendees that the FBI was "not being brought in" since "burglaries are considered local crimes."

Nonetheless, a U.S. Department of Justice representative — who would not allow himself to be interviewed or photographed — attended Thursday's meeting. Knight Sor, of the Justice Department's Community Relations Service, spoke individually with victims and briefly addressed all the attendees, mentioning that the CRS division deals specifically with "hate crimes."

According to its Web site, CRS is the Justice Department's "peacemaker" for community conflicts and tensions arising from differences of race, color and national origin. Created by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, CRS is a federal agency that assists state and local units of government, private and public organizations, and community groups with preventing and resolving racial and ethnic tensions, incidents, and civil disorders, and in restoring racial stability and harmony.

Sor's presence accented the underlying sentiment of many residents, who feel their ethnicity makes them vulnerable. "I have been a 10-year resident of Fairfax County, which has always been a safe community but now there is doubt," said Ajay Laheri, of the Fair Lakes area, addressing the group. "I feel targeted."

One question raised by meeting attendees: is the stolen gold being used to fund a terrorist organization? Probably not, but who knows?

Perpetrators have stolen gold, jewelry, family heirlooms, passports and other personal documents, so far exclusively targeting Indian and Middle Eastern homeowners across Northern Virginia. Break-ins have become more brazen and frequent over the last month.

Cindy McAllister, commander of the county's Sully District police station, assured everyone that "we'll throw all the resources we need at this until it is solved," but also said that "we're not dealing with someone just out for a little gold," after being asked by Elanchezhian Sivagan Anam if the culprits were attempting to fund a terrorist organization with all the stolen gold.

More than 200 residents listened as Fairfax Police Chief David M. Rohrer insisted that the string of burglaries was being taken very seriously. "I understand your anger and angst," Rohrer told the crowd. "I have to disavow the notion that we are taking this any less seriously than any other robberies .... Justice is colorblind in Fairfax County."

On the Twitters: Career Crises, Scam-o-ramas, and Looking for Love in All The Wrong Places

The Twitters is so much more than random people babbling inanities in 160-character bursts on their fancy Internet telephones. It's random people babbling inanities about our favorite planned real estate development in 160-character bursts on their fancy Internet telephones! Without further ado, here's the awesome from the past week:

Someone had a career crisis.

Nothing scamtastic at all here, folks. Just move along.

Well, maybe if you had shown your candidate what a mojito was, maybe he would have pulled it off.

No argument here.

Someone didn't get the message about the dress code.

Someone else is looking for love in all the wrong places.

We think someone's being just a teensy bit sarcastic.

Nah, that would never work.

Tysons Redevelopment and Toll Road Hikes: Now the Price is Really Gonna Wow Ya!

Hey, remember that time they were going to transform craptacular Tysons Corner, with its beautiful, urban-chic array of awful-looking office buildings and car lots into a sparkling new downtown, only they realized it would cost $15 billion and change to do so?

Yeah, that was awesome. Well, it turns out that number was totally off track, as it included the costs of such worthless projects as extending Metro out to some backwater called "Res-ton." Depending on who you ask, the real cost of urbanizing Tysons might be a mere $1.5 billion. Or maybe it's $2.7 billion, which when amortized over the 40-year span of the "plan," comes out to mere pennies a day, like that life insurance they hawk during daytime TV! Or maybe developers will pay for everything, forever, including the giant, gilded 60-foot-tall statue of Crystal Koons that will loom over the new urban enclave. It's gonna wow ya!

Taking a trip on the awesome Dulles Toll Road will also wow ya after Jan. 1, when tolls will increase to $1 at the main plaza and 75 cents at each off-ramp, as expected.

AAA Mid-Atlantic criticized the vote, calling the increases "patently unfair" for motorists in Loudoun County and for workers with low-paying jobs.

"We continue to be very concerned about the funding mechanism for the construction of rail to Dulles International Airport," Mahlon G. Anderson, the organization's director of public and government affairs, said in a statement. "The burden for funding is falling on the shoulders of a very small number of motorists."

Board members have shown no sign of wavering. After Wednesday's vote, H.R. Crawford, the chairman, said most people see the increases as modest. These people are practical and understand that the board needs the toll revenue to build the Metro line, he said.

"We had three meetings; there were no more than 35 people at every meeting," Crawford said. "There was no great outpouring of opposition."

But what about the novelty oversized pig?

Layoffs, Swine Flu, and a Mystery Bomb Scare: A Random Jig Through Reston News

• Fellow "web logger" Robin Smyers, who just happens to be RA President, has written another "blog post," this one about Newcomers Night on Nov. 12 and the dedication of the fancy new green Nature House on Nov. 21. Unlike this blogger, however, there was nary one use of the word "awesome" in her post.
  
  
• Reston-based ComScore, which uses high-tech abacuses to count "Web traffic" and whatnot, is cutting its workforce by 50 jobs, or about 8 percent of its total staff, all part of a "realignment of resources." It also acquired a Latin American company called Certifica. But that's okay, as they're hiring in China, and all you have to do is go to the Reston Town Center to get one of their fancy jobs. (You'll probably have to wait until they have another job fair, though.)
  
  
• Fairfax County's holding another mass H1N1 vaccination clinic at the county's government center this Saturday. Meanwhile, schools in Reston and Herndon -- and those across Fairfax County -- are seeing 6-7 percent absentee rates, about double the usual amount. PANIC
  
  
• There was a lot of talk about this on the Twitters, the lazy blogger's friend, but still no official word about the alleged bomb scare that shut down part of Sunrise Valley last Friday. Here's one eyewitness account:

  On Friday, October 30th, 2009, there was a Police cordon of the area around Sunrise Valley Drive, and Glade Drive. I found out through a source that there was a "Bomb Incident" with a truck at the very intersection mentioned. All of Sunrise Valley Drive was blocked off, and the Police Mobile Command Unit was set-up. Since the area is around government offices, I have no doubt that the FBI could have also very well been involved. This was around lunch hour, and there is no doubt that anyone passing by saw this activity. I know of a few people who in fact did see it in person, but the odd thing is, there is no mention of it in the news as of yet. Given the fact that school buses were re-routed and certain school officials were notified, I am amazed at how this story was never picked up.

  Anyone know anything? This isn't the sort of thing the police like to send out press releases about.
  
  
• Nonprofit thrift store The Closet is celebrating its 35th anniversary, and its founders were recently honored. Good on them.
  
  
• It's been a good week for state Del. Ken Plum (D-Mauve). Not only did he win his first contested election in a decade, but he got a fancy adult and community education center in Springfield named after him.
  
  
• Ann Rodriguez, president of the Arts Council of Fairfax County and a longtime Reston resident, passed away last week after a battle with cancer. She was one of the founders of the group that would become the Greater Reston Chamber of Commerce, was former vice chair of the Greater Reston Arts Center board of directors, served as interim executive director of GRACE and as a trustee of Reston Hospital. Rodriguez also hosted health education and business focused shows on Comcast. A public memorial will be held from 11:30-2 on Dec. 2 at the Reston Community Center's Hunter Woods facility. Nothing funny here, but at times it's worth highlighting how one person can make such a sustained distance in a community over time.
  
  

Some Politics Are Local: French Fry Enthusiasts, Mojitos, and Neighborhood Watch Big Winners of Election '09

Rhyming signs and vaguely menacing attack ads weren't enough to propel Republican challenger Hugh "Mac" Cannon over incumbent state delegate Ken Plum (D-Mauve). With something like 93 percent of the vote in, Plum won reelection by nearly a 60-40 percent margin. The state legislature's loss is the neighborhood watch's gain.

Fairfax County School construction bonds also appeared to be sailing to easy approval, meaning there will be plenty of fancy buildings to not have all-day kindergarten and language immersion in.

Also, that one southern dude with the funny name lost the governor's race to the guy from Fairfax County who apparently wants women to cover their arms and ankles with shawls when out in public. While Deeds, embarrassingly, appeared to have lost Fairfax County, he swept the Reston precincts by considerable, if predictable, margins. Let the pundits analyze the race to death; we know it all came down to Mojitogate, which happened right in our own fake downtown.

No word yet on the most anticipated statistic of the night, though -- the number of people who got free cheesy fries as their reward for contributing to democracy.

Some Politics are Local: Shock the Vote, Plus Free Cheesy Fries!

Is this a gathering of Tea Party devotees or ACORN thugs hanging out menacingly in front of this Reston polling place? We're not sure, but this "telephone photo" sent in by an anonymous operative shows the scene of chaos at the polls today, as throngs of people gathered to vote for, whazzit, the neighborhood watch guy with the scary ads or the dude with the name that sounds like a fruit, plus for some "governor" dude whose powers dwarf that of our own unelected DRB. One bit of good news, though, courtesy of the lazy blogger's friend, the Twitters:

FREE Parmesan Fries at The Counter in Reston all day if you wear your "I voted" sticker.

Awesome! Promoting democracy, one strand of polysaturated fat-soaked potato at the time.

Some Politics are Local: Cannon's Willie Horton Moment

Well played, Hugh "Mac" Cannon. After failing to win a single endorsement and unsuccessfully trying to drag the Reston Association into your campaign to unseat Del. Ken Plum (D-Mauve), you resort to the usual bag of sleazy campaign tricks. You only forgot to mention your awesome crime-fighting powers as the head of a neighborhood watch.

Crime and Punishment for the Twin Scourges of Humanity: MS-13 Gang-Bangers, Tax Planners

With several MS-13 members sentenced for their part in a shooting off Glade Drive last October and a Reston executive agreeing to plead guilty as part of a conspiracy to defraud the IRS by $240 million, we can safely say that criminal activity in Reston runs the gamut. It's like we're living in a Tom Wolfe novel, only without the delightful Tom Hanks and Wil Smith!

First, the MS-13 sentencing, which stems from last October's shooting of two men sitting outside an apartment building on Freetown Court in South Reston. The whole incident had something to do with a beef between MS-13 and the 18th Street gang, two rival gangs which apparently hew to codes as rigid and unyeiling as the DRB's.

A member of the Mara Salvatrucha street gang was sentenced to 80 years in prison and another received a 55-year term Friday for their roles in attempting to murder rival gang members in Reston.

The 80-year sentence was handed down in U.S. District Court in Alexandria to Dennis L. Gil Bernardez, 33, of Landover. He was the gunman in a series of gang-related shootings last October in a Reston park.

Jose M. Aguilar Orantes, 18, of Reston, was sentenced to 55 years for providing the firearm.

A third member of the gang also known as MS-13, Carlos B. Guzman Cruz, 25, of Richmond, was sentenced to 144 months in prison for disposing of the gun.

"This case should send a clear signal that MS-13 -- despite its strict rules against cooperating with law enforcement -- can be investigated and that would-be murderers can be brought to justice,'' said Neil H. MacBride, the U.S. attorney in Alexandria.

Meanwhile, Michael Parker, chief operating officer of Reston-based investment company TransCapital, was charged with conspiracy to defraud the IRS through some fancy tax shelter with the highly credible-sounding name of SLOTS. Gambling metaphors always work well when (allegedly) trying to circumvent tax law, right? Anyhoo, Parker has agreed to plead guilty, according to court documents.

Three local businessmen have been indicted on a charge of conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service of more than $240 million.

According to the indictment filed in federal court on Oct. 22, two of the men allegedly attempted to defraud the IRS by making several "false and misleading statements" concerning a corporate tax shelter that was implemented by them.

Daryl J. Haynor, a partner in KPMG's federal tax practice for the mid-Atlantic Area, based in Tysons Corner; and Jon Flask, a Vienna-based attorney, are both named in the suit.

"Mr. Haynor has been placed on administrative leave pending a review of the situation," said George Ledwith, a spokesman for KPMG, on Monday.

A third party, Michael Parker, who was the chief operating officer of Reston-based investment company TransCapital, has also been charged with conspiracy to defraud the IRS.

According to court documents, Parker has agreed to plead guilty to his conspiracy count.

According to the federal indictment, Flask, Haynor and Parker implemented and marketed a tax shelter named "Sale Leaseback of Tenant Improvements Strategy (SLOTS)," from 1998 through 2006.

The shelter enabled various U.S. corporations to claim tax deductions totaling more than $240 million on corporate income tax returns.

The indictment alleges that Flask, along with Haynor and Parker, misled and deceived the IRS by misrepresenting facts concerning the SLOTS tax shelter during IRS audits of companies claiming tax losses generated by the shelter in the years 2002 through 2004.

If convicted, Haynor and Flask each face up to eight years in prison and a $500,000 fine. Parker faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

No word on whether that would be in a cushy minimum-security prison with therapeutic tennis and archery and whatnot... or the kind of prison the MS-13 folks are almost certainly going to: