Dear Neighbor / Friend,
It would be even more a “village newsletter” if we had more articles or joyous announcements from you. We can give you by-name credit or you can remain anonymous if that be your druthers. Contractor recommendations are always welcome.
Rolling Road Widening Project – Many of the Rolling Road homeowners are now in the property acquisition phase of the widening project. I saw that many, if not all of you on RR have the marker stakes planted in your yard to show the line of acquisition, the new easement (curb to about a foot from the house side of the sidewalk) and the temporary construction easement.
By now most should have received Virginia’s first offer and are wondering if it is their best offer. Know what your property’s assessed value is (mine came in the mail just yesterday) and the additional costs associated with your trees, shrubs or whatever else that will have to be moved, removed and ideally replaced.
You should now see the need for information sharing with your neighbors that can be done face to face or by using legal representation with an eminent domain law firm. We mentioned two before who invested their time to help us get ready:
- Mike Coughlin, 703/680-4664 from law firm Walsh, Colucci, Lubeley & Walsh PC
- Mr. Kevin DeTurris, 703/293-7235 of Blankingship & Keith
Their fees are typically a portion (1/3) of whatever else they can wrangle out of VDOT on your behalf. For example, if VDOT’s first offer is $10.00, but your legal representative causes them to raise that to $22.00, their fee is $4.00. If they don’t get a better, they receive nothing.
COVID-19 – County announced that some Giant Pharmacies will participate with vaccinations under the county plan. So, if you are registered and waiting on the county list, they may direct you to a Giant Pharmacy for the vaccination. We do not simply show up at Giant expecting to be vaccinated. CVS is working outside county’s plan, but understand they are fully booked for the foreseeable future.
I did read this morning that all the precautionary steps we take for Covid-19 have drastically reduced the incidence of flu and pneumonia.
Plastic Lawn & Leaf Bags are Now Banned – As expected, County’s Board of Supervisors (BOS) voted to ban the use of plastic bags for yard waste. That ban also includes the eco-friendly, biodegradable and compostable bags. The adopted directive is:
“Yard waste shall be set out in paper yard waste bags, reusable containers, other approved storage devices, or bundled with string as instructed by the collection provider, and shall not weigh more than fifty pounds. Yard waste shall not be placed in plastic bags.”
Thanks to those who provided input to our letter to the BOS in which we encouraged that viable alternatives be in place before the ban. They have had a year now to work on the alternatives to include vacuum/shredder trucks and reliable & on-schedule collection by our commercial haulers allowing us to use trash and recycling totes also for yard debris. County responded saying they can’t mandate commercial haulers equip their trucks with vacuum shredders. Many of you know of the ongoing issues with have trying to keep to a reliable pickup schedule. So – it’s paper bags or reusable containers.
FYI – Wednesdays separate collection of yard waste starts next Wednesday, 3 March 2021. Separate yard debris collections typically run until Wednesday before Christmas Eve (12/22/2021 this year). Last year, I also filled the recycle tote and that worked well only when Republic picked up. If they failed then I had to transfer from the tote back to a bag so as to make the next recycle pick up.
County’s FY22 Budget Proposal - Also at the Tuesday meeting, the county executive submitted the FY22 $4.5 billion proposed budget.
1. The Real Estate Tax rate is proposed to decrease by $0.01. But, with real estate assessments on the rise, this may still mean a tax increase depending on your property assessed value. In fact, my 8131 Edmonton Court property taxes will raise by $350.00 even with a tax levy decrease! Death and Taxes!
2. In the proposal FCPS will receive $2.16 billion from county for the School Operating Fund, which is an increase of $14.13 million from last year’s transfer.
Featured Advertiser, Village West Swimming Pool – Each week, we’d like to include one or two of the advertisers who helped finance our 2021 Community Directory. We all should know that the Village West Pool helps sell or rent our homes and certainly helps us become more of a community by hosting or co-hosting social events during “normal” years. They open their doors to us (pool members and non-members alike) for a Memorial Day Picnic and Pool Party, an Ice Cream Social nearer to Labor Day and other social events during the swimming season. They are home to the Vikings Swim Team that gives our children a chance to compete. And the cell phone tower that the pool board of directors were able to land allows us to use our cell phones in every room in our homes. We need the pool and the pool needs us – to join and pay the very reasonable membership fees.
Calendar (Refer to the calendar in your community directory or see details in archived editions of the enews at our website www.westspringfieldvillage.org):
- 3 March – 1st day of separate Wednesday collections of yard waste
- 13 March from 2 – 5:00 PM Virtual Teen Job Fair
- 14 March - Daylight Savings Time Begins
- 20 March from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM – Virtual Teen Job Fair
- 8 May from 7:00 AM to 11:00 AM, Document Shredding at the Rolling Valley Park & Ride, 9220 Old Keene Mill Road in Burke.
Enjoy the weather; stay healthy!
John Cooley, CAWSV