January, 2002
• Fairfax County School Board members tour the Andrew Chapel and Hickory Run sites that have been proposed for a new elementary school.
• The Virginia General Assembly fails to act on local bills that would protect the skies from outdoor lighting “trespass” and preserve more trees during residential development.
• A proposal for affordable housing on Westmoreland Street is deferred.
February, 2001
• The planning Commission hears 24 nominations for amendments to the Comprehensive Plan in Dranesville District.
• The Fairfax County School Board selects Andrew Chapel as the site for a new elementary school to relieve overcrowding at Spring Hill, Great Falls, and Forestville Elementary Schools.
• Temple Rodef Shalom seeks zoning approval for additional parking at its site in east McLean.
• Martha Ulfelder Seeley died Feb. 20 at her home in McLean. She was one of the founding partners of West*Group, which developed her family farm, Maplewood, into the West*Gate and West*Park oofice parks at Tysons Corner.
• Fairfax County Executive Tony Griffin gets a pay raise to $180,282 with a $5,000 performance bonus and another $3,500 in deferred compensation.
• Fairfax County is named one of the best-managed jurisdictions in the country by “Governing” magazine and the Government Performance Project.
• Property tax assessments in Dranesville District rise by double digits for the third year in a row. The county’s budget expands by 4.95 percent. County employees get pay raises averaging 5.1 percent; police and schoolteachers get 4.6 percent raises.
• With a shortfall predicted for Fairfax County’s new budget for FY 2003, the trash parkouts at Cooper Middle and Great Falls Elementary School are threatened with elimination.
• Former Va. Sen. Clive DuVal 2d dies at the age of 89 at Salona, his historic home in McLean
March, 2002
• The Great Falls Volunteer Fire Department reveals an architectural rendering showing its proposed new fire station, and fundraising begins.
• The McLean Citizens Association votes to oppose a car wash at a gas station at the intersection of Old Dominion Drive and Spring Hill Road in McLean.
• The Great Falls Ecumenical Council holds its first prayer breakfast at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church.
• The McLean Citizens Foundations writes a $35,000 check as a “challenge grant” for a new bandstand and gazebo at McLean Central Park.
• Progress on the revitalization of downtown McLean is reviewed at a town meeting.
• Adele Lebowitz, who donated Clemyjontri Park to the Fairfax County Park Authority, is named Citizen of the Year by the McLean Citizens Association.
• A new streetscape project is unveiled for downtown McLean as two groups of citizens disagree publicly about whether to close Lowell Avenue at Civic Place.
• Edward Chen is arrested and charged with the 1995 murders of his parents and older brother.
April, 2002
• School construction gets under way at the Andrew Chapel School site.
• Republican Dave Hunt, 36, announces he is running for Va. Sen. Janet Howell’s 32nd District seat in the General Assembly. She is a Democrat.
• On April 4, 2002, McLean Youth Soccer Chairman Ted Kinghorn writes to Dranesville District Supervisor Stuart Mendelsohn to request approval of the installation lights and artificial turf on a soccer field at Lewinsville Park.
May, 2002,
• A new traffic signal is installed at Route 7 and Utterback Store Road in Great Falls.
• A marker is installed to mark Odrick’s Corner, an historic black community at the intersection of Lewinsville Road and Spring Hill Road in McLean.
• Several PTAs begin to discuss boundaries for a new elementary school in McLean and Great Falls.
• Waterford Development raises the bar for cash proffers by promising $1 million to improve its residential development to be called “The Palladium at Civic Place” in McLean.
• Parkouts survive, but the fee increases from $195 to $225 a year.
• McLean High School’s women’s crew wins first place in the Virginia Scholastic Rowing Association championship.
June, 2002
• After 22 years, Dave Kulp retires as principal of Forestville Elementary School.
• Graeme Baker, 7, a second-grader at Spring Hill School, dies tragically in a drowning accident in McLean.
• For the first time, a few McLean citizens on June 5 learn of a proposal for artificial turf at Lewinsville Park as a shared arrangement between McLean Youth Soccer and Marymount University. A public hearing is held at Spring Hill School on June 27.
• Longtime McLean resident Mary Trueax, 85, a member of the McLean Historical Society, dies of cancer on June 22.
July 2002
• The Exxon station in downtown McLean proposes a car wash.
• The first concert is held on July 14, Bastille Day, in the newly-completed gazebo at McLean Central Park.
• Stuart Mendelsohn (R), of Great Falls, announces on July 22 that he won’t seek re-election for a third term as Dranesville District supervisor.
• Margie Vanderhye of McLean is named as one of two women to serve on the new Northern Virginia Transportation Authority. The other is Board of Supervisors Chairman, Kate Hanley.
August 2002
• A G/T Center is proposed for the new elementary school at Andrew Chapel.
• At back to school nights in McLean and Great Falls, parents discuss the prospects for new boundaries for elementary schools.
• Longfellow Middle School gets new modular classrooms.
• The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approves a car wash for the Exxon station in McLean.
September, 2002
• Hundreds gather in Great Falls to remember the communty’s six residents who died in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 9, 2001.
• The Potawmack Canal at Great Falls celebrates its 200th anniversary.
• “Ain’t pork grand?” asks a sign that goes up in the parking lot at Great Falls Shopping Center. Eight days later, it comes down after citizens protest to the owner of the shopping center.
October, 2002
• School officials hold the first of three boundary meetings for parents in McLean and Great Falls.
• Campaigning heats up in support of a half-cent sales tax referendum.
• Madison High School student Chris Haden, 16, dies in an alcohol-related crash in Reston.
• Hundreds of outdoor activities are canceled when a sniper attacks randomly in the metropolitan area. On Monday, Oct. 14, the sniper kills a woman at Bailey’s Crossroads in Fairfax County.
November 2002
• McLean Youth Soccer posts signs that prohibit trespassing at a public field at Lewinsville Road and Spring Hill Road in McLean.
• Observatory Park opens at The Turner Farm in Great Falls, and more than 1,000 people visit there to watch the Leonid meteor showers over night on Nov. 18.
• Sandra Furick is named principal at the new elementary school at Andrew Chapel.
• Mir Aimal Kasi, an ethnic Pashtun from Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, is executed Nov. 14 after his conviction for shooting to death two CIA employees on Jan. 25, 1993. Frank Darling and Lansing Bennet died after Kasi shot them as they waited to turn from Dolley Madison Boulevard into the CIA compound in McLean.
• On Nov. 5, Fairfax County’s planning staff recommends approval of West*Group’s proposed rezoning from commercial to residential for 13.5 acres at Tysons Corner. Citizens protest that West*Group’s proffers, which include $1 million for a homeless shelter, are “inadequate.”
December, 2002
• Joan DuBois, Dranesville Planning Commissioner, and John Foust, president of the McLean Citizens Association, each file papers of campaign organization; both will run for Dranesville District Supervisor in 2003. DuBois, 61, is a Republican. Foust, 51, is a Democrat. Foust steps down as MCA president but DuBois retains her position.
• On Dec. 4, FCPS officials present the fourth and final proposal for new boundaries for an elementary with a G/T center at the Andrew Chapel site.
• On Dec. 9, Edward Chen enters guilty pleas on three counts of first degree murder, admitting the shot his parents and older brother in 1995 and left their bodies in their Great Falls home for four years. He is sentenced to 36 years in prison.
• At the Dec. 9, 2002, meeting of the Board of Supervisors, Providence District Supervisor Gerry Connolly and Dranesville District Supervisor Stuart Mendelsohn exchange barbs over West*Group’s rezoning application. It is deferred to Jan. 6, 2003.
• Dec. 11: the Fairfax County Park Authority approves the MYS proposal for artificial turf at Lewinsville Park. Marymount University will pay half the cost and hold soccer and lacrosse games there beginning in 2003.