Flashback Monday: Cheesecake and Reston's First Commuter Buses

Well then, who is this comely 1970s lass photographed kissing the driver of the first commuter bus service from Reston to exciting points east and inside the Beltway? The only part of her sash that is visible is "Miss G," so we have to surmise she is "Miss 'Great' Falls," deigning to mix with the rabble to the south of her beauty-pageant kingdom, where buses would simply Not Do.

As we all know, the group of active Reston residents who would become the Reston Citizens Association arranged the first commuter bus service to and from Reston back in the 1970s -- a legitimately impressive feat, with "48 buses" using the fancy new off-ramps to the "high-speed Dulles Highway," a decade before it was open to unwashed non-jetsetters. Judging by the "ZZ Reston" sign atop the bus, they also believed in truth in advertising, the end.

Another RA Board Vacancy After Request to Annex Home Fails

At a meeting last night, the RA Board of Directors lost its second member this year after a request to add board member Donna Rostant's home outside of Reston Association boundaries to the warm embrace of the RA failed to receive the two-thirds majority required for passage. Give us some good blockquote, BFFs at Patch:

Reston Association at-large director Donna Rostant left the Board of Directors Thursday when her request for adding her home to the association was denied. Under RA rules, a director must be an RA member, and Rostant moved out of RA boundaries last spring.

The board voted 4-2 Thursday for adding Rostant's home at 11101 Chessington, which is not in the Reston Association. Rostant abstained from the vote. However, under RA by-laws, a two-thirds majority of directors present are needed for passage.

Rostant was elected to the three-year board term in 2012, when she was living in a home that was in Reston Association boundaries.

She and her husband purchased the home on Chessington last spring, and Rostant asked that the home be added to RA, which is allowed under RA by-laws.

A home can be added to RA with the written consent of the homeowner and any holder of a deed of trust and a two-thirds vote of the Board of Directors during a meeting in which a quorum is present.

So much for our dreams of leveraging that rule to annex much of "Great" Falls. And now, following the spring resignation of former board member Cheryl Beamer and the departure of former CEO Milton Matthews, the RA Board finds itself looking for another new board member this year -- a move acting CEO Cate Fulkerton calls "unprecedented."

In the comments of the Patch article, RA Board member Eve Thompson and President Ken Kneuven credited Rostant for her work with the RA. "Donna served with great energy and thoughtfulness and we will all miss her," Thompson said.

Reston: The Video Contest

What, with all the exciting new retail opportunities in our earth-toned community, you, like us, are probably wondering how you can pick up a little extra "scratch," as the kids today certainly no longer say, to get yourself a marginally improved cellular telephone or a sweeeet underbed storage solution, or a baker's dozen of artisanal cupcakes, or what have you. Fortunately, our BFFs at the Reston Association are Here to Help! You see, they're holding a fancy video contest, with $1,000 as the top prize. (For us, that's the equivalent of someone clicking on the "Are You The Baby Daddy?" ad at the top of this filthy "web log" approximately 4.2 million times, so that's real money!)

But we digress. Alls you have to do is create a video "showing why you love to Live, Work, Play or Get Involved in Reston." Our BFFs at the RA posted one (seriously) cool example on the YouTubes featuring a counselor at the (seriously) awesome RA Camps:



That's going to be hard to top, but we came up with a humble entry of our own, inspired by the lively discourse that makes our community what it is. Not to brag or anything, but we spent hours picking just the right shade of DRB Beige for the stucco walls in the background:



We'll be waiting for the check to arrive in the mail, the end.

Reston: The End-Of-Days Action Film

Confidential Restonian Operative "Robert" sent us these photos of the transformer explosion on Sunset Hills Road that briefly transformed Reston into a post-apocalyptic nightmare yesterday morning.

No truth to the rumor that Vin Diesel was standing just off frame of this shot, the end.

Metaphor Alert

This cellular telephone photo taken near the aptly named Parc Reston means… well, it means something.

Flashback Monday: Some Post Mid-Century Flair for Reston, Courtesy of the Uplands

In recent years, 'flair' has become a punchline associated with the midscale chain restaurants we Restonians hold so dear, but there was a time, as the increasingly frayed button-down establishment 1960s looked to the freewheelin' 70s with equal parts of excitement and trepidation, that it meant something. And not just an opportunity for graphic designers to practice their calligraphy skills, Silly Rabbit. Instead, "flair" meant this:

Sweeeeeeeet. "Bold contemporary homes as new as tomorrow," indeed. Actually, with the possible exception of the carport, this and the other Uplands homes still look better than the Tyvek and particleboard contraptions that pass for "new construction" today. We've seen examples of the interior flair within these homes, although the Uplands is also the location of the apocryphal, never-conclusively-documented-but-too-good-to-be-false story about the basketball backboard required to be repainted the same color as the house by a vengeful DRB. And in the heady days before the successor to Reston's favorite president started wearing WIN buttons to get control of spiraling inflation, there was this:

Even after spending $900 for a fancy cedar shake roof, that would still leave you with a few "Benjamins," as the kids today no longer say, to splurge on some flair, or at least a pretty sweet shag carpet with all the shades of browns and yellows of an earth-toned rainbow, the end.

Consume (and Dance), Sheeple! New iPhone Draws Lines, While Bacchanalia Held to Celebrate Arrival of Other Plastic Consumer Items (Updated)

With fall comes the changing of the leaves, crisp cool mornings, and people waiting in line in front of a retail establishment in a ersatz simulacrum of a downtown gritty urban core, holding out futile hope that the latest incrementally improved mass consumer good, now available in a multitude of colors to provide the illusion of "personal choice" and an affirmation of the "self," as semioticians would strategically add finger quote marks as they say the word, will bring meaning to their lives an additional megapixel or two to their selfies and artisanally filtered photos of their midscale chain meals in said simulacrum.

Sometimes it gets to be too much. Isn't there a place where we can toss our cares to the wind, forget about our hypercompetitive materialistic culture, and just go dancing? Luckily for us, the answer was just across the street from the Reston Town Center, at least for one night only:

Wait, what's that in the background?

There are no words.

Update: Confidential Restonian Operative "Biker Sherlock" shares the following shocking photos from the Container Store grand opening:

Did you realize that we Restonians not only line up for iThings but Containers as well?

Note the two drive by shots from this morning. Drive by shots since there is no way Biker can be caught dead walking around this display of bourgeois pageantry.

Also note the overjoyed expression on Ms. Container's face. Perhaps she is already mourning the soon to be departing Macaroni grill…

Reston consumers, after more than half of a year of darkness, we have our new temple, complete with high priestess, the end.

Shocker: Initial Lake Anne Plans Look Halfway Decent

Folks got their first glimpse of the proposed redevelopment of Crescent Apartments and its surroundings this week, and damned if it didn't look halfway decent.

In a shocking departure from other plans of late, these initial drawings from developer Republic Land Development mirror and respect the existing architecture in interesting ways -- note the inverted parallels (a fancy architectural term we just made up) of the plaza's original "J" building and Heron House extending back from the lake towards Baron Cameron, and the way the remaining residential buildings follow the form of the current Crescent Apartments, mixing midrise apartments with townhouse-y sorts of things to avoid a monolithic mass with inaccessible interior spaces that resemble an emoticon from the air. No wavy, above-ground parking garages, no canyonlike "civic plazas," and above all, no fanciful concrete bollards.

Sounds like there's quite a bit to like. Give us some good blockquote, BFFs at Patch:

* A half-circle design for Crescent itself as well as additional retail in what now is the Lake Anne Plaza parking lot, complementing Lake Anne's existing horseshoe design.

* Straightening out Village Drive so one turns into a grand entrance - "a front door" - to Lake Anne - where the lake and plaza is readily visible and inviting. Developers envision a boutique grocery store along Baron Cameron near the entrance to Lake Anne.

* Mid-rise affordable housing that will replace the 181 units of affordable housing at Crescent. There may be more than 1,000 housing units eventually between Crescent and other residential to be built at Lake Anne. Other housing will be townhouses, mid rise and one 15-story high rise, as well as an active seniors community.

* Community amenities to be built at Lake Anne include an amphitheater and an outdoor movie screening area.

* Additional retail and residential above in what now is the parking lot for Lake Anne Plaza. Retail parking will be below ground. The plans include about 50,000 square feet of office space.

* Public trails will connect Crescent with Lake Anne Plaza and other nearby areas to minimize need for cars. They would also like to connect Lake Anne and Reston Town Center with a bike sharing operation.

Of course, these aren't even the official preliminary plans, and the approval process alone could take a full year. And it could take up to a decade for all this to be built, and what gets proposed isn't always what winds up actually getting built (*cough cough Fair Lakes*). God knows what 1,000-plus new units will do to traffic in the area. And, while it's not exactly the original Penn Station, the days appear to be numbered for the iconic gas station across from the plaza.

Our BFFs at Patch have lots more architectural rendering hawtness, if you're into such things. We did notice one odd thing in this otherwise placid rendering of the new apartments:

See those specks at the upper right?

Looks like the Future DRB gets its drones after all, the end.

Shocker: Another Reston Found, This Time In Florida

If this photo seems a bit "off," as though its builders didn't use quite the correct DRB-approved shade of Hunter Green or Helvetica Neue font, there's a reason. Our dedicated Restonian archeological team has unearthed proof of yet another Reston -- one not to be confused with our already well-documented doppelgangers in England, Scotland, Ireland, Maryland, and Canada, or even our former sister city in Kenya. No, this Reston is in the heart of the Florida panhandle, somewhere north of Tallahassee in the region that's brought pandering country music back to the radio. Here's how the good folk of Reston, Florida, describe their community:

Reston is a safe, peaceful community in Gadsden County, Florida. We live by Havana, known for its antique shops, restaurants and friendly atmosphere.

Havana? That seems to fit more with our Reston's political leanings than what we'd expect from a panhandle community, but that's just us. Are there any similarities between us and our southern cousin, Google Maps machine?

Man-made lake? Check.

Clear-cut for utilities? Check.

But the most important similarity, the one that allows Reston, Florida, to truly wear the mantle of its northern namesake?

Silly rabbit, of course they have an HOA, the end.

3-4-5-4-U or Bust: RCC Preference Poll Heats Up With Slate of Anti-Rec Center Candidates

Usually, the Reston Community Center Board of Directors "preference poll" isn't exactly what those of us inside-the-Beltway politico types like to call a "barn burner." It's technically not even a real election, since Fairfax Supt. Cathy Hudgins appoints the board members, using the results of the poll as guidance. The biggest controversy in recent years involved the use of a canoe as a prop during a candidates forum.

But thanks to the recent revival of plans to build a rec center at Baron Cameron Park, things have heated up for this fall's preference poll. A total of six candidates -- two incumbents and four newcomers -- are running for three seats, and the rec center, which is currently on hold, has become a key issue.

And now, we're seeing some actual campaigning. Confidential Restonian Operative "R2D2" passed along an unsigned three-page letter left at his doorstep at an undisclosed Reston location. First, you can tell that this isn't a real election because the letter is, in fact, three pages long, with no pictures and lots of words and paragraphs and reasonably complex lines of thinking -- all total no-nos for professional campaign literature. The closest to a slogan they came up with is 3-4-5-4-U (3 for Special Tax District #5 for You). It's not quite "Hope and Change," but hey, it's Reston.

The three candidates on this acronym-laden slate are John Mendonca, Sridhar Ganesan, and Tammi Petrine. The unsigned letter argues that the RCC funding model "is the wrong funding model" for any new project, given that renovations to other county facilities are being funded out of general tax dollars, that Baron Cameron is the wrong location, and "need to do it now" is not a smart approach, particularly given the number of developers that could provide sweet sweet cash money in the form of proffers for new facilities. They write:

To date, no viable financial model for a new recreation center has been presented to the people of Reston that does not involve raising fees and/or taxes considerably, turning the center into a regional facility to support operating costs, or renting the center out to the extent that it is not available for our use. If action is not taken now to withdraw this proposal, we will have the full burden of a new recreation center falling on our shoulders now and forever.

The full text of the letter is below, assuming you can squint and read really small text.

Uniformed federal agents should be distributing ballots starting today; a candidates forum is scheduled for 7pm Sept. 18 at RCC. Voting ends Oct. 5.

Contain Yourself: Shrine to Reston's Lost Literacy Opens Sept. 21 (Updated)

Not since the heady days of Studio 54 has an invite been so sought after, and who wouldn't want to sip perfectly chilled champagne and dance whilst enjoying the intoxicating aroma of offgassing plastic storage solutions? Sadly, as Responsible Journalists Linkalists, we can't share the "deets," as the kids today no longer say, about this exclusive preview party… or the even more exclusive special "web logger" preview we were personally invited to, because we are awesome come up somewhere on the first page of a Google search of "Reston blogs."

But we digress. For the rest of you unwashed proles, the Un-Bookstore opens on Saturday, Sept. 21. Nicely, a percentage of sales from the grand opening will go to Cornerstones, which is the new name for Reston Interfaith. And since Reston still no longer has its own bookstore, and the nearby library is, shall we say, facing some unpleasantness, we'll be there, looking for dumpster-sized containers for their castoffs, the end.

Update: At great personal risk, Confidential Restonian Operative "Ed" shares this cellular telephone photo snapped from inside the adjoining Starbucks, proving that we'll continue to have unfettered access to caffeinated products whilst shopping for knife cozies, or whatever plastic items one would expect to find in the kitchen container aisle, the end.

Bookpocalypse Later: Fairfax Library Plans Postponed, Not Yet Tossed in Dumpster Like So Many Unused Books

It took the spectacle of as many as a quarter-million library books being tossed into dumpsters making national headlines for it to happen, but the county's fun plans to use the Reston library as a guinea pig for its plans to downscale and downgrade library staff have been put on hold.

At a Fairfax County Board of Supervisors meeting to discuss the outcry over proposed changes to the county library system, the vice-chair of the Fairfax library Board of Trustees said Tuesday night that “the entire matter of these changes will be put on hold” until the library board can get more input from library staff and customers.

The plans, which involve eliminating the requirement that library staff have masters' degrees, cutting children and reference positions, and reducing overall headcount, were to be tested in Reston and Burke. Taken to the extreme, they could create a situation familiar to those who have read fished a discarded copy of Catch-22 out of a dumpster:

Legally, in the state of Virginia, if you do not have a MLIS degree, you can not call yourself a librarian. So, Fairfax County Public Library could become a library system without librarians.

Of course, all it takes is a sassy barista to run an Internet cafe, so it's all good.

The Reston Citizens Association issued a statement saying it opposed the plan. But it took a county supervisor fishing around in a dumpster to draw broader attention to the proposed changes.

Hearing complaints that the Fairfax County Public Library was throwing away tons of books, County Supervisor Linda Q. Smyth (D-Providence) decided to peer into a Dumpster.

Twice, she found stacks and stacks of high-quality books, bought by the taxpayers, piled in the trash. The second time, she filled a box.

“If I didn’t pick up some of these books,” Smyth said, “no one would believe it.”

A petition opposing the changes continues to circulate, a public hearing scheduled for tonight is expected to draw a crowd, and library director Sam Clay has come under fire for the changes. But, to be fair, it's the county supervisors who, when they're not busy crawling around in dumpsters, have cut the library budget repeatedly in recent years.

Clay, who has been head of the Fairfax library system for 31 years, defended his plan as necessary to deal with declining budgets and to remake libraries in the digital age. The strategic plan lists the first part of its “future direction” as transitioning from “a print environment to a digital environment.”

“We’ve got to turn that around. . . . We’ve got to get the library in the community, to bring people to the table,” Clay said. “I want to be the table.”

Right now, he's too busy being pushed under that table by the same people who've cut his budget, the end.

On the YouTubes: RA Bans E-Cigarettes

According to the folks on the teevee Action McNews, Reston is the first DC-area locality to ban e-cigarettes, which, yuck, really, but still, freedom crushed, why can't I paint my house yellow, etc., etc. Here's a Reston Association spokesperson explaining last week's decision by the RA Board of Directors, saying people were grossed out by the use of the "e-cigs," as the teevee Action McNews folks call them, at Reston pools and adding that the RA got a grant from the Virginia Department of Health to put up signs to "talk about our no-smoking policy." Yeah, we've seen those, the end.

Flashback Monday: LBJ's Great (Earth-Toned) Society

V. v. exciting news for fans of our 36th president and earth-toned planned real estate developments. Our favorite correspondent, the Peasant From Less Sought-After South Reston, has come up with the find of the century: the lost-to-history greetings that Lyndon B. Johnson sent to Reston on the occasion of its dedication, by way of modern telegram "night mail":

Exciting historical research in the Fairfax County archives has led to the discovery of yet another earth-toned secret hidden for the ages: the message LBJ sent Reston some two score and seven years ago.
 

"A Brief History of Reston, Virginia", a pamphlet first published in 1970 by our corporate overlord Engulf + Devour, er, Gulf Reston, notes that at the official dedication of our little slice of paradise on May 21, 1966, "in a telegram from the President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson sent greetings." Perusing reporting on this event by the pre-Bezos era Washington Post, the Peasant discovers that attendees at the ceremony included not only our very own patriarch Robert E. (Simon, not Lee), but also Virginia Governor Mills Godwin and the Secretaries of the Interior and HUD, Stewart Udall and Robert Weaver, respectively.  No mention in the Post, however, of any LBJ telegram. Hmmmmmm......
 

This, of course, piques our interest. What might LBJ have said -- perhaps, like that immortal advice about plastic given to Benjamin Braddock in "The Graduate", he sagely counseled the New Towners, "I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Russet."
 

So, in the legendary investigative spirit of such Fourth Estate icons as Woodward & Bernstein, or at the very least Janet Cooke, the Peasant makes first contact with the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin to inquire about the telegram.  To his pleasant surprise, an extremely nice and extremely helpful archivist from the Library, one Mr. McNerney, begins to search for said message -- and in the ensuing days can find nothing.  Given that there is a specific date and event to which this telegram is connected, Mr. McNerney is extremely surprised that no trace of it can be found.
 

We begin to speculate about the possibilities.  Perhaps the telegram is in the recently declassified Area 51, where Sheriff Joe Arpaio keeps all those really illegal aliens?  But no, after further contemplation, our working thesis is that the missing telegram is somewhere much more mundane: lost for the ages in the roomier slacks of legend that LBJ ordered from the Haggar The Horrible Pants Company.  We suspect that, in his excitement about Reston, the President inadvertently stuffed the original message deep down into his cavernous trousers, and several years later Lady Bird donated said trousers to a local thrift shop.  So, yes, per The X-Files, the truth is indeed out there somewhere -- but could that "somewhere" be The Closet in Herndon, and could a landscaper named Pepe unknowingly be walking around with an invaluable historic document squirreled away in his oversized pantalones?  If so, we can only pray that the telegram at least went into LBJ's Haggar trousers that were, and we quote the POTUS verbatim here, "light brown, kind of an almost powder color like a powder on a lady's face," and not, God forbid, into his non-earth-toned blue or black trousers.
 
Just as we fear that all hope is lost, Mr. McNerney saves the day and comes through with a copy of LBJ's message -- a letter, not a telegram, as it turns out.  In it, the President notes that, "In this age of ever-mounting urban growth, with its inexorable pressures of overpopulation, the birth of a new town such as Reston is a living influence which invigorates our concepts of urban planning."  Reston: officially and certifiably awesome!
 
In conclusion, gazing at our evil satanic twin in Howard County, there is but one thing left to be said.  Eat your heart out, Columbia.  Eat your heart out.  

Another shocking find from the LBJ library? Bob Simon's letter back to LBJ:

Who knows, maybe they became totally BFF pen pals, sending each other urban planning tips and Bobby Sherman 45s, the end.

Meanwhile, in the Anti-Reston: Down on the Farm

It's been a while since we checked in with our friendly neighbors to the west. What's been doing? Oh, just reckoning whether farm animals make for good pets in suburban neighborhoods, is all:

The Town of Herndon is reviewing its regulations for keeping goats and chickens in backyards at the request of some town residents.

The current rules regarding livestock are somewhat patchwork, existing both in the town code and its zoning ordinance. Goats are currently not allowed, and there is a one-chicken limit. Pet pigs were granted a reprieve in 2007, at the request of a resident who had a pet pig.

We're guessing all such things are strictly verboten by the Reston Association, so Advantage: Herndon, at least if'n you like your livestock close (and your dinner closer).

Given some recent unpleasantness in town that drew national attention, we're wondering if our neighbor is developing a bit of a "prepper" attitude, ready to "live off the land" if the UN, in cahoots with the Obama administration and those liberals at NPR, goes ahead and parachutes in European road crews intent on building traffic circles or something. But no, it's all at the behest of a nice lady who keeps hens and goats whose milk helps treat her rheumatoid arthritis. So it's all good, as the kids no longer say.

There's still the question of whether such animals are appropriate for suburban neighborhoods, though we'd wager that this Herndon structure, currently on the market due to foreclosure, certainly seems barn-like enough to fit the bill. Heck, we'd wager it even has a cement pond, the end.

Reston: Demographics Are Destiny (and Density)

Confidential Restonian Operative "Joel" passed along this fancy website which maps demographics based on U.S. Census Data. Each dot represents a person from the 2010 Census; blue is white, green is black, orange is Hispanic (which strikes us as just a teensy bit racist), and red is Asian. To our eyes, we see a lot of blues and greens living in close proximity, as was The Reston Dream, with greater concentrations of yellows and reds bunched together.

But let's zoom out a bit and look at our neighbors:

Wow. Herndon (at the left) and "Great" Falls (upper right) are definitely two extremes.

Back-to-School Fun: Expensive Playground Areas Vandalized and an Explosive Pop Machine

Oh, it's always so exciting to see the Action McNews tevee news van in town, getting some b-roll footage of adorable kids getting off the bus on the first day of school, and… wait, what's this?



What exactly is an "obscene version of the Seahawks name?" (Hint: Probably not the Saxons.) Missing from this gripping Action McNews coverage is the fact that cross-town rival Herndon High School's equally obscenely expensive turf fields were also vandalized, and Confidential Restonian Operatives tell us that Han shot first the Herndon vandalism happened first.

Could this be the misguided result of the wacky school rivalry that cleaves Reston across Baron Cameron Avenue? Yesterday, both the HHS and SLHS principals issued a statement saying no, and if it is, knock it off already.

South Lakes High School Principal Kim Retzer and Herndon High School Principal William Bates told students at both schools on Tuesday that recent graffiti painted at both schools "were not just innocent pranks."

The administrators say they are working with law enforcement to find the perpetrators and hold them accountable.

It is not yet clear whether one perpetrator hit both schools or one school was defaced and then the other was defaced in retaliation.

"The individuals committing these crimes do not represent our schools or the rich competitive tradition we have between our students, staffs, and communities," the principals said in a joint email to the school communities. "They are instead using our schools’ names in the most cowardly manner possible."

Anyone with information about either incident is asked to call Fairfax police or Crime Solvers.

And as if that wasn't enough drama for the first day of school, there was this:

This is why we can't have nice things.

Anarchy in the R.A. (If You Get the Reference, Welcome to Your 40s)

When Confidential Restonian Operative "Biker Sherlock" sent us this cellular telephone photo of one of our glorious collective trash cans, our eyes went first to the fun no smoking sign and the hastily changed arbitrary distance mandated between cigarettes and various other objects. But look more closely at the neighborhood watch sign:

Sherlock writes:

Much like you, I thought we were comfortably biding our time in our crunchy granola community of retired librarians and ex hall monitors with the occasional course correction by the almighty RA. Nothing seems further from the truth as I came across shocking evidence of anarchy alive and well in Reston! Witness the attached images which were found on the trails just off of Purple Beech. 

Clearly the kids are taking a page from NWA's cult mantra "F&#% Da Police".  There is hope yet!

(Note the mention of "trust, respect and communication are essential to a healthy community" - sending anonymous letters about our neighbor's red mulch qualifies for this right?)

The website on the sticker does point to a known anarchist collective, and now that we've followed the link on our Atari 800, because "journalism" linkalism, we're fairly sure that we're on some kind of list.

Update: "Johnny Rotten Wood Siding" nails it.