You Had One Job, RA: Lifeguard Shortage Could Lead to Hellish, Dystopian Future Of Slightly Fewer Pools, Golf Courses, Other Nice Things We Can No Longer Have

Despite the funky architecture in the background, not an actual RA pool.

Over the unofficial first weekend of summer, several Reston Association pools either didn't open or were forced to close. Not to worry, because Memorial Day weekend isn't traditionally a big time for pool-going, but somehow people who pay $693 in annual dues and another $28 for pool passes noticed. What a bunch of whiners! Give us some apologetic blockquote, BFFs at the RA:

Most of the closings were related to a shortage of lifeguards to staff all of RA’s 15 outdoor pools. Some lifeguards called in sick. Additional problems were related to equipment failures and vandalism.

“We apologize for the inconvenience caused by the closing of some pools last weekend,” said the association’s CEO, Hank Lynch. “Like many community and recreational associations in our area, RA is trying to meet the challenge of hiring staff for various summertime positions. With the unanticipated shortage of lifeguards creating a potential safety issue, we felt the most prudent thing to do was to close some pools and invite folks, through our social media channels, to visit one of our several other pools that remained open through the weekend.”

Luckily, it's a week later, so those wacky sitcom mixups have all been addressed. Right?

Oh, wait. By our count, nearly half of RA pools -- 7 of 15 -- will be closed either Saturday or Sunday. Two -- Golf Course Island and Shadowood -- will be closed both days. The RA is working to hire more lifeguards -- they held a job fair on Thursday and have another one scheduled for June 13. According to our BFFs at Reston Now, they've only received 156 applications for 200 full-time lifeguard positions to date, so you can see the isssue. You can apply for a job yourself if you want! Give us some blockquote about those entitled Kids Today, what with their avocado toasts and Tide Pods and whatnot:

“There are many competing opportunities for summer employment in this area to include summer internships, family schedules and vacations, restaurants, other services and with growth in the area other summer jobs are available at a higher salary. Ten years ago, this was not the case, a lifeguarding job was sought out with our roster filled and substitutes waiting for an opportunity for a full time role,” Mike Leone, RA’s director of communications, marketing and member services wrote in a statement to Reston Now.

It's almost as if this long-evolving issue could have been anticipated before Memorial Day. Almost.

Complaining about not being able to go to the nearest swimming pool when there are 14 others you have access to within a short walk or drive is, of course, a First World Planned Community Problem. The problem is that, after past battles to close less-attended pools (looking at you, Tall Oaks), this provides ammunition to "rightsize" more than just a couple of the smallest pools, just like we're hearing arguments, for obviously different reasons, about rightsizing our way out of golf courses that Those Kids Today can't look up from their Snapchats long enough to play a full round at. And yes, you can make the argument that Reston might not need two full-size golf courses (though it definitely needs the open space), or that it doesn't need 15 pools, some of which are small and dated. But at some point, we run the risk of rightsizing our way out of the kinds of amenities that made people want to come to Reston in the first place, and not all the cornhole boards and fire pits in the world will take their place, thanks for coming to our Ted Talk, the end.

In Hunter Mill Supervisor Race, Bad Looks Abound

We weren't the only ones who were a little surprised that Comstock employee Maggie Parker, who is running for the June 11 primary that will effectively decide who replaces retiring Hunter Mill representative Cathy Hudgins on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, was allowed to plaster building-sized posters of herself, who as we may have mentioned is a Comstock employee, all over Comstock property at and near the Wiehle-Reston East Metro station.

What makes it weirder is that Comstock has barred in-person campaigning on its property -- a little dicey given its public-private provenance -- but to be expected in today's climate of "public spaces" that are public in retail name only. Parker, a Comstock employee, told our BFFs at Reston Now that she is "challenging" her management to allow campaigning for one day, and that the giant signs are all fine because they're on "private property."

We'll take her at her word. But if you're an employee of a developer running in a race that, to the extent people are paying attention, is all about the growing backlash to rapid-scale development, plastering your name all over said rapid-scale development seems like... a bad look.

Of course, Parker isn't alone in bad looks. Fellow candidate Walter Alcorn, who won the coveted-in-1987 old-timey Washington Post "news paper" endorsement for, in part, his experience as a planning commissioner and making Tysons walkable (we paraphrase, but just barely), got a little unwanted attention of his own when he returned a couple of donations from the leaders of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a "right-wing, pro-business group."

Again, we'll take him at his word, but the "won't take money from Hunter Mill developers" tagline on his fancy mailers seems... kinda it-depends-on-what-your-definition-of-is-is specific.

So far as we know, Alcorn, Parker, and all the other candidates running for Hudgins' seat --- Laurie Dodd, Shyamali Hauth and Parker Messick -- are fine! They've issued statements opposing efforts to develop Reston's two golf courses, and have said reassuring things in forums and in Q&As. You can even watch them on YouTube! And we're not reflexively anti-development, so we're not immediately suspicious of anyone who isn't talking about returning Reston to its two-lane, nudist colony days.

But it's funny. Over the years, every time one of the commenters on this filthy "web log" would accuse Hudgins of being in developers' pockets -- which happened a lot -- we'd roll our eyes. It's a county board seat, after all, not Tammany Hall! But Alcorn has apparently raised over $71,000, and Parker's giant signs can't be cheap! Stuff like this is enough to make us lose our wide-eyed optimistic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Fair Oaks view of local politics. It's almost as if money, if not talks, at least pays for giant billboards and enough mailers to fell all of Reston's remaining trees for their printing.

But we digress. Parker also told Reston Now that Comstock is willing to sell advertising space to any candidate. We'll just wait to see how much they'll charge us to put a giant 20-by-30-foot version of this fancy poster on the Reston Station parallelogram; we're sure neither the Hunter Mill candidates nor the anchor tenant would mind, the end.

Reston on the Teevee: Relive Carefree, Slightly Less Airborne Pathogen-Free Summer of '89 in Feel-Good Movie of the Year

Three decades after a minor mishap in our plastic fantastic planned community put Reston on the infectious disease map -- literally -- we can all relive the carefree, go-lucky days of 1989 with a movie debuting on the National Geographic channel on Memorial Day.

The fancy trailer for The Hot Zone -- based on the Richard Preston book of the same name -- features more clips of hand-washing and zipped-up biohazard suits than exterior shots of whatever Hollywood thinks Issac Newton Square looks like, but this is the one shot that (we think) gets at the real-world fun of housing a facility full of infectious, dying crab-eating macaques next to a daycare center.

LOL, and be sure to grab the disinfectant spray popcorn before tuning this in on Monday! We're pretty sure the movie won't capture the drab banality of the actual building, which has since been torn down and replaced with yet another daycare center (no truth to the rumor that its mascot is the Fightin' Ebolas). The movie's star -- Ebola Reston, not Julianna Margulies -- has made a few cameo appearances in the years since, most recently in the Philippines. And for added fun that could only happen in the Year of Our Lord 2019, the comments on the YouTube page housing the movie trailer have devolved into a series of anti-vaxxer rants, the end.

Caddyshackpocalypse Now: Reston National Golf Course Sold by Would-Be Developer to Other Would-Be Developers, So Here We Go Again (Updated)

Over the weekend, word got out that Northwestern Mutual has sold an attractive parcel of by-right developable property Reston National Golf Course to two Baltimore developers, who said there's nothing to fear, the golfers are just gonna keep on golfin' (at least for now). Give us some good boilerplate blockquote, BFFs at the Washington Business Journal:

“Billy Casper Golf has been retained to continue managing the golf course with no set plans for the property beyond that at this time,” Marc Weller, founding partner of Weller Development, said in a statement. “Both Weller Development and War Horse are focused on building relationships and working with the communities we serve and we look forward to being part of the Reston community for years to come.”

Of course, "terms were not disclosed," which is key to understanding the developers' intentions. (Update: Sources told the Washington Business Journal on Monday that the sale price is $23.75 million). Remember that as it's tried to unload the property for years, Northwestern Mutual's selling agents have argued that the property, if developed, "could easily be worth more than $200 million" and priced it accordingly.

Rescue Reston cofounder John Pinkman said yesterday that "several golf centric corps wanted to buy the course at or close to selling price. NWM wouldn’t even talk to them. There is no chance that this housing developer has any intention on keeping the course." On social media, Rescue Reston said:

“You bought a golf course and you own a golf course. Period.”

But who knows? Maybe these two developers are really closet golf fans, and just wanted a quiet spot far from the bustle of Baltimore to squeeze in a quick round between deals. Let's check out their fancy "web pages" to see if they have photos of lovingly maintained green space and happy golfers and bunnies and whatnot. Here's what's on the front page of the peaceful-sounding "War Horse" website:

That's a weird-looking sand trap. Who knows, maybe the 18th hole is next to the rooftop swimming pool. And then there's the "human-centric" Weller Development homepage:

Human-centric ant farms, by the looks of it.

But let's look on the bright side. The courts and Fairfax County have both affirmed the idea that the property should remain open space, although all that really means is that the developers would have to go through the normal, often developer-friendly, rezoning process with the county. And since they're more local than a freaking insurance company, there's a good chance they'll propose something nicer than wall-to-wall condos... like say a "grand park". Yeah, that's the ticket!

All this makes the upcoming primary for Catherine Hudgins' soon-to-be-vacated seat on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors all the more important. The Reston Association, groups like Rescue Reston, and the county all did a good job facing down Northwestern Mutual and its seemingly infinite resources. Hopefully they'll be able to do so again.

Update: Rescue Reston's official statement.

Imitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: Reston's Canadian Doppelgänger Digs Hole, Awaits Skyrocketing Property Values

We've written before about our Canadian doppelgänger, the bustling, if sometimes waterlogged, village of Reston, Manitoba (we're informed that Manitoba is what our neighbors to the north call a "province," which is basically a state with fewer people and more moose).

But we digress. Longtime readers may remember that our neighbors to the north wanted to up the population somewhere beyond the 600 souls who now call Reston, MB, home (but presumably below the six-figure population coming our way), so they offered lots of desirable Reston property for $10 CDN (which translates to roughly $0.02 USD, plus a pocket square of flannel or a muskrat pellet).

We're not sure exactly how that turned out, but we noticed that Reston's town fathers are borrowing another page from our New Town development handbook. No, silly rabbits, they're not charging for parking downtown, they're actually digging a hole and putting water in it. On purpose! Check out the Twitters, as the kids probably never said:

This past week we were in Reston, Manitoba installing an aeration system in their new man made lake. pic.twitter.com/XkYdWvlblh

— Clean Water Pro (@CleanWaterProMB) May 7, 2019

Sweet! We love manmade lakes, and air, and fizzy bubbles. And since our own fancy fountain at Lake Anne is currently not working, maybe we should give these folks a call. But let's check out that lake:

Looks pretty nice right now, but we wonder what it might look like in the winter early September:

We're going to try and scrape $10 CDN together stat, the end.