RA declares war on trailers, boats, motor homes and other staples of Americana

For everyone who naively thought it was their God-given right as an American (and a Reston resident, which is the Next Best Thing) to park their 18-wheeler, family motor home, boat trailer or other slice of wheeled, gas-guzzling Americana on the mean streets of Reston (or at least Soapstone Drive), the RA has just one thing to say for you: It's on.

The Reston Association Board of Directors passed a resolution at its May meeting on Thursday, May 22, to send a letter to Fairfax County Supervisor Catherine Hudgins (D-Hunter Mill) requesting an establishment of a Large Area Community Parking District (CPD) in Reston.

The district would restrict certain vehicles from parking on public streets in residential areas. The restricted vehicles include boat trailers, boats, motor homes and trailers or semi-trailers — even when attached to a vehicle. Vehicles parked up to 48 hours for the purposes of loading, unloading or preparing for a trip are exempt from the restrictions.

Because what Reston really needs is more signage! Seriously, this will be a relief to folks who live along Soapstone Drive or Ridge Heights Road, whose pristine vistas of the 7-11 and/or the Home Depot have been obscured by such unsightly conveyances. Plus, it's annoying and unsafe for Reston's high percentage of small, fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles and Smart Cars.

Now if we can just get rid of the spastically dancing open house sign, the mean streets of Reston will be safe once more.

Fowl Play, or why does the RA hate cute furry feathered critters?

First, the Reston Association came for the gophers. Now they're doing something that, quite frankly, sounds like it might violate indecency statutes with the geese -- some perverted practice called "goose egg addling."

Addling is a term used for rubbing oil on eggs in an effort to keep them from hatching. It is widely done as a form of humane population control for resident Canada geese.

Geez, a pagan/phallic May pole ceremony here, a good old-fashioned goose addling there, and all of the sudden, Reston is starting to look like Berkeley, ca. 1969! You'd think the open-minded folk who first came to Reston during that storied decade would be all over that, but apparently not.

Dave Janiga of the Wildlife Rescue League said last week that he has fielded some phone calls from Reston residents who say they are concerned that the procedure is being done too late in the development cycle, and others who have witnessed Reston staff remove entire nests.

“My concern is that some people who live on Lake Audubon have seen nests that sit for long periods of time with eggs in them before they are attended to, and some told me they are seeing entire nests being removed by Reston Association staff. I am concerned that some of those eggs have developing geese in them and that they are removing the entire nests and destroying them from time to time,” he said.

What's good for the goose is... oh, never mind.

Your RA: As much turnover as an urban fast-food restaurant

When we dug up a yellowing, week-old copy of the freebee newspaper and wrote about the new members of the RA board, little did we know we were just scratching the surface!

The Reston Association's Board of Directors underwent numerous leadership changes last week. Cheryl Beamer, Richard Chew and Timothy McMahon were elected to serve on the Board of Directors April 15; the board appointed new officers April 16; and Jenn Blackwell, who had served as president for three years, resigned from her position as an at-large director April 18.

Robin Smyers, who was the board's vice president and is the district director for Lake Anne and Tall Oaks, was elected president. At-large Director Mark Watts was elected as vice president, South Lakes district Director Kathleen Driscoll McKee was elected secretary and John Higgins was re-elected as treasurer.

Yeah, but other than that, did we miss anything important?

Blackwell, who served on the board for two terms, was selected to serve as the assistant United States attorney for Michigan and is relocating to the Ann Arbor area. "It was the hardest decision I have ever made in my life," Blackwell said. Ever since she was in law school she wanted to work as a criminal prosecutor on behalf of the U.S. government, she said. "When it was offered to me, I really had to wrestle with the decision of leaving Reston," she said.

Smyers said she hopes to get started on a number of projects this year, including deciding whether to move forward on an indoor recreational facility, breaking ground on the nature house and seeking out a potential new headquarters for RA. She also said she hopes to improve communication between the tenants and renters of RA properties rather than communicating only with the owners of the properties.

Oh. We thought the awesome indoor tennis facility, long cited as a key hot-button issue among Reston voters, was a done deal. Go figure: Instead of God and guns, our politicians message us about tennis and taupe.

Meet the New Boss: As Mauve as the Old Boss

Catching up on a few nail-biters in recent weeks:

• In an election almost as exciting as last week's Pennsylvania primary, except that it was conducted by mail and didn't include a debate peppered with questions about loving the flag or has-been comedian Sinbad, Reston residents decided to vote for change... and experience!
  

  Residents voted to re-elect Cheryl Beamer to the Reston Association's Board of Directors as Hunters Woods-Dogwood district director and selected Richard Chew to serve as one of the board's at-large directors, RA announced during the annual member's meeting Tuesday. Beamer defeated John Bowman by 132 votes and Chew received 539 votes more than Barbara Zicari. Beamer and Chew each will serve a three-year term.

  Huzzah! So, what exciting issues will the new/old board tackle? Controlling the growth of RA dues? The ongoing challenge of maintaining meaningful design covenants in an aging community when such modern innovations as aluminum wiring, hollow, uninsulated metal doors and single-pane windows are laughably outdated? Who on the board does -- and doesn't -- wear an RA pin in their lapel?

  Chief Executive Officer Milton Matthews and Blackwell both said they are looking forward to creating an indoor tennis and recreation facility in the next year. Matthews said it is his top priority and he thought an indoor facility would serve residents well during the winter.

  Sorry we asked.
  
  
• The Reston Community Center has a new director, too, with that whole experience/change thing happening to boot.

  Leila Gordon began working at Reston Community Center in 1983, hired to supervise arts education offerings and working part time as a customer service representative. Twenty-five years later, she is running RCC, having been selected as the center’s executive director. Gordon, 53, spent 24 of her 25 years at RCC as the Performing Arts Director. Now she is the center’s third executive director since 2005. She has committed to a five-year contract with the RCC.

  That five-year contract is a good thing, because the RCC is closing its Hunters Woods facility for renovations this summer, and we all know how quickly contractors work! Who wants to guess whether the shiny new indoor tennis facility or the renovated RCC winds up opening first?
  
  
• The Herndon-Reston FISH Bargain Loft has a new manager, Chris Hartmus. We're sure Chris is a decent person, so we just thought we'd throw this in so no one felt left out.
  

Caddyshack 2: Why Does the RA Hate Gophers?

Ah, Reston's gardening plots. Perhaps the finest example of the planned community's communal, Earth-friendly spirit. Except maybe for the pesticides and the gopher assassinations.

Of the four garden locations, the site at Lake Anne is the only one that is not completely organic, Greenberg said. Gardeners at all other plots are forbidden from using any pesticides or fertilizers containing chemicals.

First, we learned that the RA is condoning the napalming of tree stands, now this? Which makes us wonder: What kind of hell-spawn pests are menacing the good people of Reston's beloved tomatoes and carrots and whatnot?

She said sometimes moles, groundhogs and other animals get into the plots, so RA has been looking at adding a nesting area for red-shouldered hawks.

We have a simpler and more effective suggestion:

Just Call it No Oaks

Hey, guess what? Just four months after Giant vacated Tall Oaks Shopping Center Stucco Wasteland, the center may be on the verge of announcing an awesome new anchor tenant. Here's the thing, though: It probably won't be Bloom, it might not even be a grocery store, and it'll likely require a few teensy tiny site modifications to make the shopping center more visible from Wiehle Avenue, like cutting down a whole slew of trees.

KLNB Retail's Julie Cyphers, who oversees the leasing of Tall Oaks, said she “anticipates there being [an announcement] soon,” but would not elaborate because nothing has been signed.

With that store filled, Cyphers said she is optimistic about the remaining vacancies in the shopping center, which combined with the Giant space total 49,366 square feet of empty space, double the amount of occupied 24,634 square feet.

“We're talking to a number of folks,” she said about the center's other vacancies. “I feel like we'll probably pick up speed once the anchor store is in.”

After courting Bloom with an awesome postcard campaign and meetings with RA officials, it looks less likely that the awesome, less NASCAR-intensive Food Lion variant, is a viable option.

“There are some hurdles with Bloom,” said [RA CEO Milton Matthews]. “They would possibly want changes to the interior and exterior.”

Furthermore, Bloom's negotiations for new locations typically last a year, Matthews said.

“We don't want to wait a full year,” he said.

Yeah, that would be a bummer. Of course, those issues might be the same for any grocery store, and we all want easy access to leaky jugs of 2% milk and hilarious seasonal novelties, right?

Tara Coonin said she hopes above all else that any new tenant in Giant's old space would indeed be a grocery store.

“As long as it's a grocery store, we don't care. That's just my worst nightmare because that space would be perfect for a large gym,” she said.

We certainly don't want Tall Oaks' massive, empty parking lot filled with 'roid rage-fueled pickups, do we? So that brings us back to those, um, tall oaks:

Coonin said negotiations with Bloom raised this concern as well, with Bloom concerned that the center simply wasn't visible enough.

Part of the solution may be removing some of the trees behind the stores on Wiehle Avenue, a move that the RA would likely support.

“The association owns a lot of easements, we're committed to them getting more visibility to the stores in there,” Matthews said.

The RA actually supporting the wholesale removal of trees? Check the sky for flying pigs. And bring on the Agent Orange!

Welcome to Lakeport! Just watch where you park

Congratulations to Lakeport Cluster for being named the RA's 2007 cluster of the year (PDF). Sweet! Fortunately, the cluster has its own Web site, so we didn't have to leave the house to do a little of what those stuffy, old-media dead tree folks might snidely call "reporting" on what makes this little slice of Reston so special.

What do the residents of Lakeport want us to know about their neighborhood? According to the notice front and center on their site, where not to park:

Some time ago the Lakeport Board of Directors suspended the enforcement of our parking regulations due to problems with the towing company. Since that time, adherence to the Lakeport parking regulations, which are outlined in the Lakeport Handbook, has become lax.

All residents should be aware that, effective immediately, parking regulations will be enforced and those automobiles parked in violation of the Handbook guidelines will be subject to towing.

Flyers will be placed under the windshield wipers of all vehicles parked on common property so that everyone will be aware of the resumption of enforcement of our parking regulations by towing.

Awesome! Not only do they have snide fliers, but they have their own handbook (PDF), which includes helpful tips like this:

Signs and attention-attracting paraphernalia detract from the overall appearance of the Cluster. The Cluster Association regulates the type and design of signs permitted in the Cluster.
• All permanent signs must have Cluster Association and Reston Design Review Board approval – and approval is not likely.

So much for that blinking "over 30 million Web pages served" sign we were planning on putting on the roof. This goes on for a few more pages, so we'll skip past the detailed description of trash protocol, which points out that trash cans are "ugly."

Fortunately, Lakeport isn't just resting on the laurels of decades of standards regulating everything from decks to house numbers. They're taking a bold step into the 21st century with a new draft siding and trim standard (yet another freaking PDF). Among other things, it says:

Finished channel-design overlapped cedar boards with horizontal orientation and a 4.75”exposure (repeat) -Phase 2 (all other units): rough-sawn bevel-design overlapped cedar boards with horizontal orientation and a 6”exposure (repeat) -Alternative for Phase 1 or Phase 2 units (applicable ONLY if ALL4 to7 contiguous units in a row submit their DRB applications at the same time and replace ALL cedar siding on a DRB-approved schedule): Overlapped HardiePlank in the Cedarmill pattern (a manufactured fiber-cement siding) with horizontal orientation and a 6”exposure(repeat).

That clears everything up. For this, and many other reasons, we're sure, Lakeport decidedly deserves its honor from the Reston Association (filed in triplicate, on recycled paper only please).

Democracy in action

The four candidates for the RA board squared off for the first time earlier this week, and the heated debate was blistering, full of catchy jibes like "Change you can Xerox" and "Yes we can."

Actually, not so much. Instead, folks talked about newcomer nights and indoor tennis facilities.

Four candidates are running for two seats; Cheryl Beamer is running for reelection against John Bowman for the Hunters Woods/Dogwood position and Richard Chew is running against Barbara Zicari for the At-Large seat being vacated by Bill Keefe.

So who's for hope, and who's for change? We're not sure, but there was some interesting discussion about transparency.

Two questions asked at Monday night’s forum for Reston Association (RA) Board candidates related to the board’s work behind closed doors.
Forum moderator Robert Goudie, member of the forum organizer Alliance of Reston Clusters and Homeowners (ARCH), asked when the candidates felt it was appropriate for the board to hold executive sessions.

"It sends the wrong message to the members," said Richard Chew, candidate for an At-large representative. Chew’s opponent Barbara Zicari said she did not think the executive sessions are held with ill intent. All board members are dedicated volunteers and if she is elected she would be "most interested in being honest with people I am representing."

John Bowman, challenger for the Hunters Woods/Dogwood seat, said a specific reason should be given when an executive session is called. He said he understood that certain issues need discussions behind closed doors, but that the directors should also go on record with their opinions about what was discussed when they reassemble for the vote, which has to be conducted in an open session. "We just need to be careful how we send the message," said Bowman.

"The RA shoots itself in the foot when it appears to be hiding something and it isn’t," said Cheryl Beamer, the Hunters Woods/Dogwood incumbent. For example, she said, she could not understand why discussions about RA headquarters do not take place in the open session.

There was also some talk about something having to do with the Nature Center and staffing and... oh, where are the sound bite-worthy jibes?

While the general perception was that RA is performing its job well, the forum suggested communication with members could be improved. Bowman said there is a perception in the community that there is a need for more open governance from RA.

"A casual [RA] member who wants to learn more about how we arrived at a decision will find a daunting challenge" in an attempt to find supporting documents and history of an issue or a decision, said Bowman. He called the lack of readily available supporting documents for members who are not actively involved in the decision-making process "passive disenfranchisement." He said the Association should be proactive in communicating its decisions and intentions to the members.

Robin Smyers, the RA vice president, asked the candidates how they would seek to improve RA’s communications. Bowman said he is a big believer in technology, which could help members find relevant artifact documents for decisions that took place two years ago, or even a month ago.

Is he talking about the Internets? That's pretty cutting edge, especially with the Sprints and the AOLs and whatnot all fleeing. Who's going to help set up that series of tubes for us simple folks so we can read 20-page impact studies from the comfort of our mauve-colored homes?

Anyhoo, two more forums will be held on Wednesday, March 12 at 7 p.m. at RA headquarters at Isaac Newton Square and on Wednesday, March 19 at 7 p.m. at the Reston Community Center at Hunters Woods.

That gives folks another week to click on the banner ads

The Reston Association pushes back the deadline to pay the annual assessment fee to March 7. It's an accommodation to make up for the fact that its awesome online transaction system was down for some period of time. So long as it's up and running at 4:59pm March 7, we're set!

A Not-So-Super Tuesday in the Works

Four Reston residents will vie for two open seats on the Reston Association board of directors.

Cheryl Beamer, who won in last year’s election to fill the seat left vacant with the death of Barbara Aaron, and John Bowman will vie for the Hunters Woods/Dogwood representative. Barbara Zicari and Richard Chew have announced candidacy for the At-Large seat.

Ballots get mailed out in early March and are due April 4.

Res-TOWN: No longer the belle of the ball

That awesome plan to make Reston an honest-to-goodness town, complete with fortified border crossings and a mayor required to wear a mauve stole at all public events? Not so popular these days.

The majority of responses to a request from Reston representatives Delegate Ken Plum and Senator Janet Howell regarding the RCA's proposed town charter are in, and they range from vehemently opposed to unclear.

Well, at least there's some diversity of opinion there, right?

The RA told the state officials it hadn't been asked to participate in discussions thus far, and that it didn't have enough information to make a stand on the proposed town charter, either pro or con. That's not the scary part -- the scary part is that was the best response of the lot. Fairfax County's executive basically called the RCA, the group supporting the town proposal, a bunch of crazy "radicals," and the Reston Town Center Association, which as we all know, hates America, also hates the whole town idea almost as much.

So where does that leave things?

Frank Lynch said he regretted the community discussion had veered toward the confrontational.

“I thought the executive's response was quite honestly condescending and I found it offensive,” he said. “But I don't know what we're doing.”

Not to worry -- you've just got to think positive!

"So you're telling me there's a chance...."

Ka-ching!

With little fanfare or discussion, the Reston Association approved its budget for the upcoming year, including an increase in assessment fees from $437 to $475 in 2008 and $483 in 2009.

At-Large Director Joe Leighton was the sole vote against approving the budget, based on what he said was an unacceptable increase of the assessment rates.

An unusual number of people turned up to the meeting. You'd think they were there because of the 9 percent increase in assessments, right? Think again.

The board heard a greater number of members speak than usual, with a large majority of them, 11, appearing before the board to champion an indoor tennis facility.

The board has included two referendums in the budget, one of which will address an indoor recreational facility, though it is not specified to include tennis. The board will decide what type of facility will be presented on the referendum in the winter of 2008.

Jerry Katz, a resident of Reston for 27 years, urged the board to begin work on a referendum as soon as possible.

“It's even a joke now amongst tennis players. You mention indoor tennis and they roll their eyes,” he said.

Oh, goody! Another possible referendum! If we're really lucky, we might start giving California a run for its money!

The cost of mauve-colored beauty

The Reston Association's homeowner assessments are going up again, to a proposed level of $475 next year and $483 in 2009 from the current $437 assessment.

Why the increase? Apparently, for the R&R fund, which sounds like fun -- but, this being Reston, doesn't actually involve kegs and luau parties. Instead, it's all about bailing wire and chewing gum:

The increased assessments are being considered to build up RA's Repair and Replacement Fund, which had a balance of $4.2 million as of Aug. 31. The proposed assessments would add $200,000 to the fund over the next two years.

As it stands now, the R and R fund balance is not enough to handle projects that the RA will have to undertake in the coming years. “Looking forward, our facilities are getting older, and we know we're going to be drawing from that fund. Right now we don't have sufficient dollars,” Matthews said.

Among the projects on the table: Dredging Lake Audobon (dibs on whatever they find at the bottom!) and renovations to the Shadowood pool, which, it turns out, is Reston's least-visited pool.