Fairfax County to become a city? (Burke, Reston: calculation, live, stats)

[normie]

i'm with you alicia, there's too many things called fairfax already. if they want to create a new city, they should probably call it nova city. or if they want to keep that 'english' feeling, they could call it avon. (nova backwards.)

or they could just be honest and call it taxville

[Stephen 81]

They may just call it something like Potomac. The city of Chesapeake's name kind of came out of nowhere when the city of South Norfolk merged with Norfolk County (the city of Norfolk being separate from both of those). I'm not even sure if the city of Chesapeake is ON the Chesapeake!

I like the name Avon, though. We can rename all of the current towns in Fairfax County so that they have -on-Avon at the end, for that added ring of elitism.

[torpor]

New Fairfax?

[GreenGene]

Originally Posted by torpor

New Fairfax?

Meet the New Fairfax, same as the old Fairfax?

(apologies to The Who)

[car54]

Originally Posted by Alicia Bradley

Curiously, the Fairfax Co. Supervisors' story seems to vacillate back and forth from "Someone needs to get up here from the Virginia Department of Transportation and mow our medians!" (i.e., the commonwealth literally will not let them do so) to "The state is not giving us enough money to mow them!" (i.e., ok, ok, the county could technically mow the medians, they'd just need more money). So, which is it? Fairfax City, interestingly, has both well-maintained medians and lower property taxes than the county. If I had more time, I'd dearly love to research this median situation thoroughly, which would include going on a "median tour" of other counties (and independent cities!) in Virginia, as well as investigating how county-level jurisdictions outside of VA deal with this situation. I think there's more to this story than the Fairfax County supervisors want us to know.

Last year, the Fairfax County Sheriff bought a bunch of mowers and put jail inmates to work mowing medians. I haven't seen them this year...

[Alicia Bradley]

Originally Posted by car54

Last year, the Fairfax County Sheriff bought a bunch of mowers and put jail inmates to work mowing medians. I haven't seen them this year...

Yeah, I saw something like that mentioned in an article about the weedy median situation.. I actually think it's a really good idea, along with "Adopt-A-Highway"-type programs (like they have in Missouri, for instance). I haven't seen an answer to why they're not doing it anymore, though.

[Alicia Bradley]

The name suggestions are hilarious! I could imagine this (or a similar) thread being stickied if Fairfax Co. were actually able to go through with this.

[leighland]

Originally Posted by Alicia Bradley

Wouldn't the name situation get a little confusing, though? I guess they could do something like "Big Fairfax City" and "Little Fairfax City." (Only kidding, of course - just discussing this topic makes my skin crawl.)

Similar to LA's City of Industry, they could properly name Fairfax City to "City of Fairfax". I think the name issue is very minor in the issue

[ScranBarre]

With all due respect while many of the medians here are an embarrassing BLIGHT due to how unkempt they are, I find it preposterous and irrational to imply that Fairfax County wants to incorporate itself as a city for that reason alone. Obviously there are much more poignant reasons for doing so than aesthetics. I think Stephen nailed the issue right on the head. Overall we tend to be a very affluent bunch in Fairfax County, and yet we contribute much more in tax revenues to Richmond than what is returned to us in order to help "shore up" the rest of the Commonwealth. I don't agree with that one bit.

Perhaps if this happens I can finally get my long-anticipated sidewalks in Reston?!

[Alicia Bradley]

Interesting 2007 WaPo article on weedy medians:

Fairfax Officials Are Waist-Deep in Complaints - washingtonpost.com

However, I'm not going to bother to continue questioning how Fairfax Co. budgets its tax revenues and whether the supervisors' gripe is legit, since fairly soon I'll be moving to a new jurisdiction with mowed medians.. yay!

Just out of curiosity, for those of you who favor Ffx. Co. incorporating - would you actually prefer that to just, say, Reston (or whatever 'census-designated place' or 'unincorporated suburb' within Ffx. Co. you live in) doing so? And, if so, why?