Two Weeks Left in Glorious 2021 RA Board Elections, Most of Which are Actually Contested (Updated)

We're halfway through this year's RA Board of Directors election season (or "eln szn," as the kids have almost certainly never said), and we've got ourselves a barnburner! Well, that may be debatable, but at least two of the three open seats are contested this year -- a good thing, particularly given the fact that the RA hasn't exactly had the best track record of late of doing things like, we dunno, running websites and maybe keeping their email passwords secure? So some non-Soviet oversight is likely in order.

But we digress. Four candidates are running for two open at-large seats -- John Farrell, Sarah Selvaraj-D’Souza, Timothy J. Dowling, and Vincent Dory. For the open South Lakes seat, Jennifer Jushchuk is running unopposed. 

Candidate statements are here. If all those words give you a headache, please to be enjoying this YouTube video of the candidates reading their statements:

 

And here's the candidate forum, renvisioned this year as a virtual event which will remind you of every work-related Zoom call you've had over the past year:

   

Our BFFs at Reston Now also have run profiles of some of the candidates.

The Coalition for a Planned Reston (CPR) endorsed two of the at-large candidates, Farrell and Selvaraj-Dsouza, and Jushchuk for the South Lakes seat. Rescue Reston published position statements from all four at-large candidates about preserving Reston's golf courses.

We love to kid on this filthy "web log," but we're grateful that people are actually willing to run for what is truly a thankless job. There's certainly a lot on Reston's plate in the years to come, so good on them.

As for the rest of us, the good news is that as of yesterday, the election hit its required 10 percent quorum and they don't have to start the whole process over again. As of March 18, turnout was at 11 percent for the contested at-large seats and 12.3 percent for the South Lakes one. But that's still a tiny percentage of eligible voters. If we're living in a socialist-style collective, let's vote like one!

Voting closes April 2, so vote early and often.

Update: Sarah Selvaraj-D’Souza and Timothy J. Dowling wound up winning the at-large seats, while Jennifer Jushchuk won the uncontested South Lakes seat.