This email includes information on the recent July 13th Board of Supervisors meeting, upcoming events, the new direct access ramp to the West Falls Church Metrorail, and notable athletic achievements by Dranesville students. See below for details.

Other updates, meetings and events:

Please share this email with your friends and neighbors, and do not hesitate to contact my office if we can be of assistance; email Dranesville@fairfaxcounty.gov or call 703-356-0551.

Sincerely,

John

At Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting the board heard several presentations:

The Board held public hearings and approved:

Fairfax County Board of Supervisors official meeting summaries, video archive and meeting schedule can be found on the county Web site: www.fairfaxcounty.gov.

As pledged, the county will remove as much carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide from the atmosphere as emitted from its operations. Carbon dioxide accounts for about 80% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions while methane and nitrous oxide collectively make up another 17%, according to the EPA.

To achieve this transformative goal, the Board of Supervisors adopted an updated Operational Energy Strategy on Tuesday. In concert, they issued a formal declaration, dubbed “Carbon Neutral Counties,” that also encourages other local governments to take action to halt climate change.

To become carbon neutral, the county pledged to meet specific targets to reduce energy use, generate or buy green energy and shift its fleet to non-carbon emitting buses and vehicles. These targets include:

The carbon neutrality declaration commits signatories to the following three actions:

For more information, visit the Fairfax County Office of Environmental and Energy Coordination.

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors has appointed a 30-member task force to examine renaming Lee Highway (Route 29) and Lee Jackson Memorial Highway (Route 50).

The task force will meet monthly to discuss whether the highway names should change and come up with a list of potential new names to present to the Board. Their discussions will be assisted by an expert facilitator as they deliberate with community engagement playing a central role in the process. The task force will coordinate also with neighboring jurisdictions considering name changes to the same highways.

Through One Fairfax, the county is committed to advancing racial and social equity to foster a healthy, vibrant and equitable community. The policy, adopted in 2017, requires the county to consider equity when making new policies or delivering programs and services.

Last year, the Board asked the History Commission to create an inventory report of Confederate monuments, street names and places in Fairfax County. The report, completed in December of 2020, explains why some county locations have Confederate associated names and lists 157 locations within the county where they exist. The report did not include federal property, public schools, places of worship, or cemeteries. Lee Highway and Lee Jackson Memorial Highway were the primary Confederate named highways on the list.

The Confederate Task Force meetings will be open to the public. The task force will make a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors, and the Board will make the final decision about changing the names of Lee Highway and Lee Jackson Memorial Highway after extensive community engagement.

To get students fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in time for the start of the 2021-22 school year, parents need to act now.

It takes five weeks to be fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine, the only vaccine currently available for adolescents aged 12 to 17 years of age. With the Fairfax County Public School (FCPS) year beginning Aug. 23, this means that students should get their first dose no later than July 19.

The Pfizer vaccine is a two-dose series administered 21 days apart. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it takes two weeks after the second shot to be considered fully vaccinated.

Although fewer children have been infected with COVID-19 compared to adults, children can still be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, get sick, and spread it to others. To limit the spread of illness, adolescents 12 and older are encouraged to get vaccinated as soon as possible. The COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. The vaccines have been administered to millions of people under the most intensive safety monitoring in history, which includes studies in adolescents. Your child can’t get COVID-19 from the vaccine.

Talk to your child’s health care provider. If you child needs other school-required vaccinations in order to start the new school year, your child may get a COVID-19 vaccine along with other vaccines during the same office visit.

COVID-19 vaccine is available at locations throughout the Fairfax Health District, including private health care providers, pharmacies, grocery stores, urgent care clinics and the Health Department. To schedule a vaccination appointment for your child, go to vaccines.gov for the widest selection of vaccination locations, or visit the Health Department’s website.

Parents who are unable to bring their child to a COVID-19 vaccination clinic during the work day, may send their child with a responsible adult who is over the age of 18 and can give permission for the vaccination on behalf of the parent. Many locations also offer evening and weekend hours. Parents can find locations that suit their schedule at www.vaccines.gov.

For the past six months, a dedicated group of Fairfax County Health Department staff and Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department firefighter/paramedics have been working to bring the COVID-19 vaccine to those who need to be vaccinated but cannot leave their homes. Through this the successful partnership, nearly 600 homebound residents of the Fairfax Health District have been vaccinated.

Planning for this program began in late November, even before a vaccine was approved for use in the United States. Members of the Health Department’s incident management team met with Fire and Rescue leadership to discuss ways in which the two agencies could collaborate to reach individuals who may not be able to travel to vaccination clinics due to underlying medical conditions. As a result, the Medically Fragile Task Force was formed.

Over the weeks that followed, the agencies worked to develop processes including procuring additional coolers that could be taken inside each home, assembling supply kits with everything needed to administer the COVID-19 vaccine and manage any severe allergic reactions, and developing parameters for the number of homes that could be visited in a given day while meeting the requirements for how long a vial can be used after it has been punctured.

A typical day of visits begins around 8 a.m. when Fire and Rescue paramedics arrive at the Health Department pharmacy to pick up the vaccine and supplies. Health Department vaccine coordinators print packets for each team that contains demographic information on the clients that will be vaccinated that day, as well as answers to the CDC pre-screening questionnaire that was completed in advance of the visit. The team checks their equipment and hits the road.

They will visit anywhere from six to 10 homes in a given day. At each home, the team verifies the information on the pre-screening questionnaire, administers the vaccine, and waits for 15 or 30 minutes to ensure that there are no adverse reactions. After the waiting period is over, they get on the road to the next home.

If you are interested in being vaccinated at home due to an underlying medical condition, please call the vaccine call center at 703-324-7404. Call center representatives will work with you on the eligibility for the program and will refer eligible clients for scheduling.

A new ramp-to-ramp connection providing direct access from I-66 East to the West Falls Church Metrorail Station is now open. The new I-66 Eastbound direct access ramp connects two existing ramps – the ramp from I-66 East to Route 7 (Leesburg Pike) and the ramp from Route 7 East to I-66 East – to allow drivers to reach the eastbound I-66 collector-distributor road adjacent to the Metrorail station's parking garage. This project is part of the I-66 Inside the Beltway Eastbound Widening Project.

Construction involved adding an additional lane to the exit ramp from I-66 East and widening the bridge over Route 7 to provide room for drivers to merge with vehicles on the existing ramp. When the ramp opens, drivers exiting I-66 East will choose to stay right to reach Route 7 or stay left to reach the West Falls Church Metrorail Station and Virginia Tech’s Northern Virginia Center. Vehicles from I-66 East currently reach the station by exiting to Route 7 East, turning left at the traffic signal onto Haycock Road, then turning left at the traffic signal onto Falls Church Drive.

The I-66 Eastbound Widening Project is part of VDOT’s larger Transform 66 Program aimed at moving more people along the I-66 corridor more efficiently.

Dranesville District School Board Representative, Elaine Tholen, provides a detailed update on Fairfax County Public Schools, including some exciting news about four FCPS alumni going to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics this summer in her July newsletter, available online here.

DMV Connect will be at the Fairfax County Government Center (12000 Government Center Parkway, Fairfax, VA, 22035) on Wednesday, July 28 and Thursday, July 29, 2021 from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., with a break from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. They will be located in the South Atrium on the 1st Floor near PPD. Appointments are necessary, but they will consider taking walk-ins on a case-by-case basis. Schedule an appointment online here.  

You are invited to a community meeting with Dranesville District Supervisor John Foust and staff from Fairfax County’s Department of Planning and Development to hear about a proposed amendment to the Comprehensive Plan for the property located at 7700 Leesburg Pike.

Thursday, July 29, 2021

7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

The 6.73-acre subject parcel is located on the east side of Leesburg Pike, across from George C. Marshall High School. The site is currently planned for Office Uses, zoned C-2, and developed with a 167,274 square-foot low-rise building that currently serves as medical and professional offices and a nursing college.

On September 15, 2020, the Board of Supervisors authorized the consideration of a Comprehensive Plan amendment to allow residential uses at a density of up to 12-16 dwelling units per acre for single-family attached dwellings (townhomes) on the subject property, and to include the provision of high-quality open space as a priority consideration. This Plan Amendment is being reviewed concurrently with rezoning RZ/FDP 2021-DR-006, which proposes a concept for 104 single-family attached units on the subject site.

Staff will present the proposed amendment, their preliminary recommendations, and participants will have the opportunity to provide feedback and ask questions.

Information for the plan amendment and instructions for joining the community meeting will be available online here.

Contact Ben Wiles in the office of Supervisor Foust at Benjamin.Wiles@fairfaxcounty.gov or (703) 356-0551 if you have any questions or comments.

On Tuesday, August 3, communities across the country will be coming together for National Night Out. This annual event brings neighborhoods and law enforcement together to send the message that we are all working together to prevent crime and keep our communities safe. 

To learn more about National Night Out, click here. If you would like to host an event, please click here to register through our link to ensure we stop by your event. 

Fairfax County is closely monitoring the COVID-19 situation. Residents are strongly encouraged to utilize the resources listed below: