by Beverly Crawford
Dranesville District, one of nine magisterial districts in Fairfax County, has enjoyed stability for the past eight years during which
Stuart Mendelsohn of Great Falls, a Republican, has occupied the supervisor’s office.
Dranesville encompasses three communities: McLean, Great Falls and Herndon. All are governed as communities of Fairfax County.
In Dranesville, Herndon is the eldest and also the only one of the three communities with a municipal structure of its own: a town council. It meets twice a month and in alternate weeks has a work session to delve into the details of proposed development.
Although McLean has a “small tax district” that funds the community center and its programs, Great Falls is administered only by Fairfax County government.
In McLean and Great Falls, citizens’ associations serve by volunteer reviewing land-use proposals that would change the landscape in their communities.
The nature of volunteer services is that it ebbs and flows with the individuals who are available, and have the interest, to devote hours of their personal time to “vet out” land-use proposals that will affect their neighbors.
Both the McLean Citizens Association, established in 1914, and the Great Falls Citizens Association, which originated in the 1970s, maintain committees to review planning and zoning proposals, the effects of development on roads and transportation, and, in McLean, education.
Both groups nurture strong interactive relationships with the Dranesville supervisor’s office, keeping close contact and providing input from citizens when proposals would affect them.
IN NOVEMBER, change will certainly come. Mendelsohn, 50, announced one year ago that he would not seek a third consecutive four-year term.
That opened the Dranesville District seat to all comers, and five candidates competed for nominations in party-based canvasses or caucuses.
After three were eliminated, two Democrats and one Republican, the race came down to a contest between Joan DuBois, a Republican, and John Foust, a Democrat.
Both have been active in civic and citizen groups, and both are respected within their political parties.
But both are from McLean, ending an administration familiar with Dranesville’s outer reaches.
Mendelsohn, the first Dranesville supervisor from outside McLean since dairy farmer Mark Turner held that office in the 1940s, has helped bridge the divide among the three distinctly different characters of his district: economically-diverse Herndon, low-density Great Falls, and politically-sophisticated McLean, home of the Central Intelligence Agency and many of the politicos who work in Washington.
If the past is prologue to the future, it could be a long time before another Dranesville supervisor from Great Falls takes office. And Herndon, preoccupied with the budget, government and taxation of a town, has not in recent times fielded a candidate for supervisor.
On Nov. 4, Dranesville District is certain to select a new leader, and he or she is certain to reside in McLean.
After that, the future of an increasingly desirable area is more uncertain, as long-time residents look to newcomers to help make choices about just how urban the area will become.